A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses 3)

Beron only said, “No, you will not. Though I’m sure your brothers will be sorry to hear it.”

Indeed, the others seemed rather put-out that their first barrier to the throne wasn’t about to risk his life in testing Nuan’s solution.

Rhys said simply, “Then don’t take it. I will. My entire court will, as will my armies.” He gave a thankful nod to Nuan.

Thesan did the same—in thanks and dismissal—and the master tinkerer bowed once more and left.

“At least you have armies to give it to,” Tamlin said mildly, breaking his roiling silence. A smile at me. “Though perhaps that was part of the plan. Disable my force while your own swept in. Or was it just to see my people suffer?”

A headache was beginning to pound at my right temple.

Those claws poked through his knuckles again. “Surely you knew that when you turned my forces on me, it would leave my people defenseless against Hybern.”

I said nothing. Even as I blocked the images from my mind.

“You primed my court to fall,” Tamlin said with venomous quiet. “And it did. Those villages you wanted so badly to help rebuild? They’re nothing more than cinders now.”

I shut out that, too. He’d said they’d remain untouched, that Hybern had promised—

“And while you’ve been making antidotes and casting yourselves as saviors, I’ve been piecing together my forces—regaining their trust, their numbers. Trying to gather my people in the East—where Hybern has not yet marched.”

Nesta said drily, “So you won’t be taking the antidote, then.”

Tamlin ignored her, even as his claws sank into the arm of his chair. But I believed him—that he’d moved as many of his people as he could to the eastern edge of the territory. He’d said as much long before I’d returned home.

Thesan cleared his throat and said to Helion, “You said you had two suggestions based on the information you analyzed.”

Helion shrugged, the sun catching in the embroidered gold thread of his tunic. “Indeed, though it seems Tamlin is already ahead of me. The Spring Court must be evacuated.” His amber eyes darted between Tarquin and Beron. “Surely your northern neighbors will welcome them.”

Beron’s lip curled. “We do not have the resources for such a thing.”

“Right,” Viviane said, “because everyone’s too busy polishing every jewel in that trove of yours.”

Beron threw her a glare that had Kallias tensing. “Wives were invited as a courtesy, not as consultants.”

Viviane’s sapphire eyes flared as if struck by lightning. “If this war goes poorly, we’ll be bleeding out right alongside you, so I think we damn well get a say in things.”

“Hybern will do far worse things than kill you,” Beron counted coolly. “A young, pretty thing like you especially.”

Kallias’s snarl rippled the water in the reflection pool, echoed by Mor’s own growl.

Beron smiled a bit. “Only three of us were present for the last war.” A nod to Rhys and Helion, whose face darkened. “One does not easily forget what Hybern and the Loyalists did to captured females in their war-camps. What they reserved for High Fae females who either fought for the humans or had families who did.” He put a heavy hand on his wife’s too-thin arm. “Her two sisters bought her time to run when Hybern’s forces ambushed their lands. The two ladies did not walk out of that war-camp again.”

Helion was watching Beron closely, his stare simmering with reproach.

The Lady of the Autumn Court kept her focus on the reflection pool. Any trace of color drained from her face. Dagdan and Brannagh flashed through my mind—along with the corpses of those humans. What they’d done to them before and after they’d died.

“We will take your people,” Tarquin cut in quietly to Tamlin. “Regardless of your involvement with Hybern … your people are innocent. There is plenty of room in my territory. We will take all of them, if need be.”

A curt nod was Tamlin’s only acknowledgment and gratitude.

Beron said, “So the Seasonal Courts are to become the charnel houses and hostels, while the Solar Courts remain pristine here in the North?”

“Hybern has focused its efforts on the southern half,” Rhys said. “To be close to the wall—and human lands.”

At this, Nesta and I exchanged looks.

Rhys went on, “Why bother to go through the northern climes—through faerie territories on the continent, when you could claim the South and use it to go directly to the human lands of the continent?”

Thesan asked, “And you believe the human armies there will bow to Hybern?”

“Its queens sold us out,” Nesta said. She lifted her chin, poised as any emissary. “For the gift of immortality, the human queens will allow Hybern in to sweep away any resistance. They might very well hand over control of their armies to him.” Nesta looked to me, to Rhys. “Where do the humans on our island go? We cannot evacuate them to the continent, and with the wall intact … Many might rather risk waiting than cross over the wall anyway.”

“The fate of the humans below the wall,” Beron cut in, “is none of our concern. Especially in a spit of land with no queen, no army.”

“It is my concern,” I said, and the voice that came out of me was not Feyre the huntress or Feyre the Cursebreaker, but Feyre the High Lady. “Humans are nearly defenseless against our kind.”

“So go waste your own soldiers defending them,” Beron said. “I will not send my own forces to protect chattel.”

My blood heated, and I took a breath to cool it, to cool the magic crackling at the insult. It did nothing. If it was this impossible to get all of them to ally against Hybern …

“You’re a coward,” I breathed to the High Lord of Autumn. Even Rhys tensed.

Beron just said, “The same could be claimed of you.”

My stomach churned. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

“No, but perhaps to that girl’s family—but they’re dead, too, aren’t they? Butchered and burned to death in their own beds. Funny, that you should now seek to defend humans when you were all too happy to offer them up to save yourself.”

My palms heated, as if twin suns built and swirled beneath them. Easy, Rhys purred. He’s a cranky old bastard.

But I could barely hear the words behind the tangle of images: Clare’s mutilated body nailed to the wall; the cinders of the Beddors’ house staining the snow like wisps of shadow; the smile of the Attor as it hauled me through those stone halls Under the Mountain—

“As my lady said,” Rhys drawled, “she does not need to explain herself to you.”

Beron leaned back in his chair. “Then I suppose I don’t need to explain my motivations, either.”

Rhys lifted a brow. “Your staggering generosity aside, will you be joining our forces?”

“I have not yet decided.”

Eris went so far as to give his father a look bordering on reproach. From genuine alarm or for what that refusal might mean for our own covert alliance, I couldn’t tell.

“Armies take time to raise,” Cassian said. “You don’t have the luxury of sitting on your ass. You need to rally your soldiers now.”

Beron only sneered. “I don’t take orders from the bastards of lesser fae whores.”

My heartbeat was so wild I could hear it in every corner of my body, feel it pounding in my arms, my gut. But it was nothing compared to the wrath on Cassian’s face—or the icy rage on Azriel’s and Rhys’s. And the disgust on Mor’s.

“That bastard,” Nesta said with utter coolness, though her eyes began to burn, “may wind up being the only person standing in the way of Hybern’s forces and your people.”

She didn’t so much as look at Cassian as she said it. But he stared at her—as if he’d never seen her before.

This argument was pointless. And I didn’t care who they were or who I was as I said to Beron, “Get out if you’re not going to be helpful.”

At his side, Eris had the wits to a

ctually look worried. But Beron continued to ignore his son’s pointed stare and hissed at me, “Did you know that while your mate was warming Amarantha’s bed, most of our people were locked beneath that mountain?”

I didn’t deign responding.

“Did you know that while he had his head between her legs, most of us were fighting to keep our families from becoming the nightly entertainment?”

I tried to shut out the images. The blinding fury at what had been done, what he’d done to keep Amarantha distracted—the secrets he still kept from shame or disinterest in sharing, I didn’t know. Cassian was now trembling two seats down—with restraint. And Rhys said nothing.

Tarquin murmured, “That’s enough, Beron.”

Tarquin, who had guessed at Rhysand’s sacrifice, his motives.

Beron ignored him. “And now Rhysand wants to play hero. Amarantha’s Whore becomes Hybern’s Destroyer. But if it goes badly …” A cruel, cold smile. “Will he get on his knees for Hybern? Or just spread his—”

I stopped hearing the words. Stopped hearing anything other than my heart, my breathing.

Fire exploded out of me.

Raging, white-hot flame that blasted into Beron like a lance.

CHAPTER

46

Beron shielded barely fast enough to block me, but the wake singed Eris’s arm—right through the cloth. And the pale, lovely arm of Lucien’s mother.

The others shouted, shooting to their feet, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t hear anything but Eris’s words, see those moments Under the Mountain, see that nightmare of Amarantha leading Rhys down the hall, what Rhys had endured—

Feyre.