Most of what remained of their bodies didn’t leave, either. Those went through the hatch in the center of the circular room—and into the pit of writhing beasts below. To their scales and claws and merciless hunger. The beasts did not feed often; they could receive a body every ten years and make it last, going into hibernation between meals.
The trickling blood of the two Autumn Court males through the black stone floor’s grate woke them.
Their snarls and hisses, their snapping tails and scraping claws should have incentivized the males chained to the chairs to talk.
Azriel leaned against the wall by the lone door, Truth-Teller bloody in his hand. Cassian, a step beside him, and Feyre, on Az’s other side, watched as Rhys and Amren approached the two males.
“Are you feeling more inclined to explain yourselves?” Rhys said, hands sliding into his pockets.
Only the knowledge that Nesta slept safely in a bedroom in Rhys’s palace above this mountain, warded by his High Lord’s power, allowed Cassian to remain in this room. The Mask, covered with a black velvet cloth, lay on a table in another room of the palace, equally warded and bespelled. Azriel had winnowed them away from the bog moments after Nesta had passed out, and had brought them to Rhys’s residence atop the Hewn City. Cassian knew, when Rhys had vanished a heartbeat later, that he’d gone to the bog for the Autumn Court soldiers, and would bring them here.
Nesta had been unconscious ever since.
The two males were similar-looking, in the way that people from individual courts tended to share characteristics: the Autumn Court skewed toward hair of varying shades of red, brown or gold eyes—sometimes green, and mostly pale skin. The male on the left had auburn hair that was browner; the hair of the one on the right shone like bright copper. Both remained vacant-faced.
“They must be under some sort of an enchantment,” Amren observed, circling the males. “Their only drive seems to be to harm without reason, without context.”
“Why did you attack members of my court in the Bog of Oorid?” Rhys asked with that same mild calm that so many had heard right before being ripped to bloody ribbons.
Rhys had agreed that the soldiers who attacked were likely the Autumn Court soldiers who had gone missing, but how they had ended up in the Bog of Oorid … Well, that was what they intended to uncover. Rhys had tried to get into their heads, but found nothing but fog and mist.
The males only stared toward Cassian, toward Azriel, and bristled with violence.
Feyre observed from the wall, “They’re like rabid dogs, lost to sanity.”
“They fought like them, too,” Cassian said. “No intelligence—just a desire to kill.”
Rhys extended a hand toward the one with the brownish hair, the male bleeding from places Azriel knew would hurt but not kill. Az knew where to slice up a male without letting him bleed out. Knew how to make this last for days.
“If they’re under a spell from Briallyn or Koschei,” Feyre asked, “then is it right to harm them like this?”
The question echoed through the chamber, over the snarling of the hungry beasts.
Rhys said after a moment, “No. It isn’t.”
Amren said to Feyre, “The fog around their minds and the fact that they endured Azriel’s ministrations without showing an understanding of anything beyond basic pain at least confirms our suspicions.”
“If that’s how you wish to justify it,” Feyre said a tad coldly, “then fine.”
All of them, Feyre included, had been tortured at one point or another.
Feyre turned to Rhys. “We need to ask Helion to visit. Not for the—you know,” she said, glancing to the two soldiers, who might very well still be aware of everything, even trapped within their heads, “but to break the spell upon them.”
“Yes,” Rhys said, eyes shining with something like guilt and shame. Some silent conversation passed between him and his mate, and Cassian knew Rhys was asking about the torture—apologizing for making Feyre witness even the ten minutes Azriel had worked.
But Feyre, Cassian knew, had been aware of what she’d see before entering. And well aware that these ten minutes had only been the opening movements in a symphony of pain that Azriel could conduct with brutal efficiency.
Feyre’s face softened after a moment, and she offered Rhys a slight smile that made his eyes brighten. Rhys declared, “They stay here, under guard. I’ll contact Helion immediately.”
Cassian asked, “And Eris? When do we tell him we found his soldiers? Or what we did to most of them?”
“You acted in self-defense,” Feyre said, arms crossing. “As far as I’m concerned, whoever was controlling the soldiers is to blame for their deaths, not you.”
Amren added, “We’ll tell Eris once we verify everything. There’s still a possibility that he’s somehow behind this.”
Feyre nodded her approval, but her mouth tightened. “These two males have families who are surely worried about them. We should be as quick as possible.”
Cassian shut out the thought of all the males whom he hadn’t left standing—who all had worried families as well. Every death had a weight, sent a ripple into the world, into time. It was too easy to forget that. He glanced to Az, but his brother’s face was stone-cold. If Az regretted what they’d done, he revealed no hint of it. Cassian tucked in his wings. “We’ll be as fast as we can.”
They left the males in the room, blood still trickling down to the writhing beasts.
Up they walked, out of the dungeons of the Hewn City, out of the wretched place itself, until they stood amongst the moonstone pillars of the beautiful palace above it. Rhys aimed for the room with the Mask. He opened the door and went stiff.
Nesta sat at the table, staring at the cloth-covered Mask.
“How did you get in here?” Rhys asked, night swirling at his fingertips. Cassian knew his brother had made the wards on the door impenetrable. Or they should have been.
“The door was open,” Nesta said numbly, and scanned their faces as if looking for someone. Cassian stepped into the room, and her eyes settled on him.
He offered her a grim smile.
“The Mask opened the door for you?” Amren demanded.
“I found myself beckoned here,” Nesta said, even as she looked Cassian over.
Checking for injuries, he realized. She was looking to see if he was harmed. As if he were the one with a brutalized mouth, neck marked by claws, calves and shins lacerated. Her wounds had stopped bleeding, already scabbing, but—Cauldron damn him, he couldn’t stand the sight of one bruise on her.
“Does it speak to you?” Feyre asked, angling her head.
Cassian had told them everything—as far as he’d been able to gather. Nesta had been attacked by a kelpie, dragged under the water, and had somehow found the Mask. Summoned the dead of Oorid to her to slay the kelpie. And emerged triumphant.
“Only a desperate fool would don that Mask,” Amren said, keeping well away from the table. Whether it was to put distance between herself and Nesta or to avoid the Mask, he had no idea. “You’re lucky to have been able to pry it from your face. Most of those who have worn it could never remove it. In order to sever it, they had to be beheaded. It’s the cost of the power: you can raise an army of the dead to conquer the world, but you can never be free of the Mask.”