Feyre commanded the crowd, her voice like thunder at midnight, “Dance.”
People paired off and fell seamlessly into the music. Keir went with them this time.
“Before you join the merriment, Eris,” Rhys drawled, a long black box appearing in his hands, “I’d like to present you with your Solstice gift.”
Cassian kept his face blank. Rhys had gotten the bastard a gift?
Rhys floated the box over to Eris on a night-kissed wind. Let enough of that wind remain, wrapping behind Eris, for Cassian to know it blocked him from sight. From Keir’s sight, specifically.
Eris lifted his brows, flipping open the carved lid. He stiffened, voice going low. “What is this?”
“A present,” Rhys said, and Cassian caught a glimpse of a familiar hilt in the box.
The dagger Nesta had Made. Cassian refrained from whirling on Rhys and Feyre, demanding to know what the hell they were thinking.
Eris sucked in a breath. Feyre said, “You can sense its power.”
“There’s flame in it,” Eris said, not touching the dagger. As if his own magic warned him. He shut the lid, face slightly pale. “Why give this to me?”
“You’re our ally,” Feyre said, a hand resting on her belly. “You face enemies that exist outside of the usual rules of magic. It seemed only fair to give you a weapon that operates outside those rules, too.”
“This is truly Made, then.”
Cassian braced himself for the truth, the damning, dangerous truth to be revealed about Nesta. But Rhys said, “From my personal collection. A family heirloom.”
“You possessed a Made item and kept it hidden all these years? During the war?”
“Don’t take our generosity for granted,” Feyre warned Eris quietly.
Eris stilled, but nodded. He extended the box back to Rhys. “I’ll leave it in your keeping while I dance, then.” He added with what Cassian could have sworn was sincerity, “Thank you.”
Feyre nodded as Rhys took the box and set it beside his throne. “Use it well.” She smiled softly at Eris. “Ordinarily I would ask you to dance, but my condition has left me unwell enough that I worry about what so much spinning would do to my stomach.” It was the truth. Feyre had bolted from dinner three nights ago to find the nearest toilet. Now she made a show of looking between her two sisters. Elain gave a passable impression of appearing interested. Nesta just looked bored. Like they hadn’t just given away the dagger she’d Made.
Perhaps it was because Nesta’s eyes had drifted toward the dancing, shimmering throng. As if she couldn’t help herself when the music swelled. She seemed to be half-listening. Maybe music meant more to her than the dagger—more than magic and power.
Feyre noted the direction of Nesta’s stare. “My oldest sister shall take my place.”
Nesta barely glanced to Eris, who pulled his assessing gaze from Elain to stare at the eldest Archeron sister with a mix of wariness and intent that set Cassian’s jaw grinding. Or it would have been grinding, if he hadn’t mastered himself in time to keep his face blank as Nesta began walking toward Eris.
Eris offered an arm, and Nesta took it, her face neutral, her chin high, each step gliding. They halted at the edge of the dance floor, pulling apart to face each other.
Others watched from the sidelines as the dance finished and the introductory strains of the next began, a harp strumming high and sweet. Eris extended a hand, a half smile on his mouth.
As if those harp strings wrapped around Nesta’s arm, she raised it, and placed her hand in his precisely as the last, swift pluck of the harp sounded.
Percussion and horns blasted; low stringed instruments started a rushing stroke of music. A summons to the dance in a countdown to movement. Cassian reminded himself to breathe as Eris slid his broad hand over Nesta’s waist, tucking her in close. She lifted her chin, looking up into his face as a deep-bellied drum thumped.
And as the violins began their sweeping song, a beckoning back-and-forth, Nesta moved as if her very breath were timed to the music. Eris went with her, and it was clear that he knew the dance’s nuances and exact notes, but Nesta …
She gathered her skirts in her other hand, and as Eris led her into the waltz’s opening movements, her body went loose and taut in so many different places Cassian didn’t know where to look: she was bent and shaped and directed by the sound.
Even Eris’s eyes widened at it—the sheer skill and grace, each movement of her body precisely tuned to each note and flutter of music, from her fingertips to the extension of her neck as she turned, the arch of her back into a held note. Cassian dared a glance at Feyre and Rhys and found even their normally composed faces had gone a bit slack.
By the time Nesta and Eris finished their first rotation through the dance floor, Cassian had the growing feeling that Elain had rather undersold her sister’s abilities.
The music burned through Nesta.
Had there ever been such a perfect, half-wild sound in the world? Mor’s memories on the Veritas were nothing compared to this, hearing it performed live, dancing through it. It flowed and swam around her, filling her blood, and if she could have done so, she would have melted into the melody, become the rolling drums, the soaring violins, the clashing cymbals with the counter-beat, the horns and reeds with their high-arcing song.
There wasn’t enough space inside her for the sound, for all it made her feel—not enough space in her mind, her heart, her body; and all she could do to honor it, worship it, was dance.
Eris, to his credit, kept up.
She held his eyes throughout each step, let him feel her supple body, how pliant it was as she arched into a cluster of notes. His hand tightened on her, fingers digging into the groove of her spine, and she let a small smile rise to her red-painted lips.
She had never worn such a color on her mouth. It looked like sin personified. But Mor had done it, along with the swoop of liquid kohl over her upper eyelids. And when Nesta had looked in the mirror at last, she hadn’t seen herself staring back.
She’d seen a Queen of the Night. As merciless and cold and beautiful as the god Lanthys had wanted to make her. Death’s Consort.
Death herself.
Eris released her waist to spin her, and it was no effort to time her rotation to the flutter of notes, her gaze locking back to his exactly as the music returned to the melody. Flame simmered in his eyes, and he spun her again—not a prescribed move in the dance, but she followed through, snapping her head around to meet his gaze once more, her skirts twirling.
His lips curled with approval, his test passed.
Nesta smirked back at him, letting her eyes glitter. Make him crawl, Mor had said. And she would.
But first she would dance.
Cassian knew the waltz. Had watched and danced it for centuries. Knew its last half minute was a swift frenzy of notes and rising, grand sound. Knew most dancers would keep waltzing through it, but the brave ones, the skilled ones would do the twelve spins, the female blindly turning with one arm above her head, rotated again and again and again by her partner as they moved across the dance floor. To spin was to risk looking the fool at best, to eat marble at worst.
Nesta went for it.
And Eris went with her, eyes blazing with feral delight.
The music stomped into its crashing finale, drums striking, violins whirring, and the entire room straightened, eyes upon Nesta.