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

When my court, my family, winnowed back to Velaris.

Sunlight still leaked in through the windows of the town house. The scent of citrus and the sea and baked bread still filled every room.

And distantly … Children were still laughing in the streets.

Home. Home was the same—home was untouched.

I squeezed Rhys’s hand so tightly I thought he’d complain, but he only squeezed right back.

And even though we had all bathed, as we stood there … there was a grime to us. Like the blood hadn’t entirely washed off.

And I realized that home was indeed the same, but we … perhaps we were not.

Amren muttered, “I suppose I shall have to eat real food now.”

“A monumental sacrifice,” Cassian quipped.

She gave him a vulgar gesture, but her eyes narrowed at the sight of his still-bandaged wings. Her eyes—normal silver eyes—slid to Nesta, holding herself by the stair rail, as if she’d retreat to her room.

My sister had barely spoken, barely eaten these past few days. Had not visited Cassian in his healing bed. Still had not talked to me about what had happened.

Amren said to her, “I’m surprised you didn’t take the king’s head back to have stuffed and hung on your wall.”

Nesta’s eyes shot to her.

Mor clicked her tongue. “Some would consider that joke to be in bad taste, Amren.”

“I saved your asses. I’m entitled to say what I want.”

And with that Amren stalked out of the house and into the city streets.

“The new Amren is even crankier than the old one,” Elain said softly.

I burst out laughing. The others joined me, and even Elain smiled—broadly.

All but Nesta, who stared at nothing.

When the Cauldron had broken … I didn’t know if it had broken that power in her, too. Severed its bond. Or if it still lived, somewhere within her.

“Come on,” Mor said, slinging her arm around Azriel’s shoulders, then one carefully around Cassian’s and leading them toward the sitting room. “We need a drink.”

“We’re opening the fancy bottles,” Cassian called over his shoulder to Rhys, still limping on that barely healed leg.

My mate sketched a subservient bow. “Save a bit for me, at least.”

Rhys glanced at my sisters, then winked at me. The shadows of battle still lingered, but that wink … I was still shaky with terror that it wasn’t real. That it was all some fever dream inside the Cauldron.

It is real, he purred into my mind. I’ll prove it to you later. For hours.

I snorted, and watched as he made an excuse to no one in particular about finding food and sauntered down the hall, hands in his pockets.

Alone in the foyer with my sisters, Elain still smiling a bit, Nesta stone-faced, I took a breath.

Lucien had remained behind to help with any of the human wounded still needing Fae healing, but had promised to come here when he finished. And as for Tamlin …

I had not spoken to him. Had barely seen him after he’d told me to be happy, and given me back my mate. He’d left the meeting before I could say anything.

So I gave Lucien a note to hand to him if he saw him. Which I knew—I knew he would. There was a stop that Lucien had to make before he came here, he’d said. I knew where he meant.

My note to Tamlin was short. It conveyed everything I needed to say.

Thank you.

I hope you find happiness, too.

And I did. Not just for what he’d done for Rhys, but … Even for an immortal, there was not enough time in life to waste it on hatred. On feeling it and putting it into the world.

So I wished him well—I truly did, and hoped that one day … One day, perhaps he would face those insidious fears, that destructive rage rotting away inside him.

“So,” I said to my sisters. “What now?”

Nesta just turned and went up the stairs, each step slow and stiff. She shut her door with a decisive click once she got to her bedroom.

“With Father,” Elain whispered, still staring up those steps, “I don’t think Nesta—”

“I know,” I murmured. “I think Nesta needs to sort through … a lot of it.”

Too much of it.

Elain faced me. “Do we help her?”

I fiddled with the end of my braid. “Yes—but not today. Not tomorrow.” I loosed a breath. “When—when she’s ready.” When we were ready, too.

Elain nodded, smiling up at me, and it was tentative joy—and life that shone in her eyes. A promise of the future, gleaming and sweet.

I led her into the sitting room, where Cassian had a bottle of amber-colored liquor in each hand, Azriel was already rubbing his temples, and Mor was grabbing fine-cut crystal glasses off a shelf.

“What now?” Elain mused, at last answering my question from moments ago as her attention drifted to the windows facing the sunny street. That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.”

My throat was too tight to immediately reply, so I just kissed my sister’s cheek before I said, “Yes—I think it does.”

CHAPTER

81

Rhysand

Even from the kitchen, I could hear all of them. The lapping of what was surely the oldest bottle of liquor I owned, then the clink of those equally ancient crystal glasses against each other.

Then the laughter. The deep rumble—that was Azriel. Laughing at whatever Mor had said that prompted her into a fit of it as well, the sound cackling and merry.

And then another laugh—silvery and bright. More beautiful than any music played at one of Velaris’s countless halls and theaters.

I stood at the kitchen window, staring at the garden in full summer splendor, not quite seeing the blooms Elain Archeron had tended these weeks. Just staring—and listening to that beautiful laugh. My mate’s laugh.

I rubbed a hand over my chest at that sound—the joy in it.

Their conversation flitted past, falling back into old rhythms and yet … Close. We had all come so close to not seeing it again. This place. Each other. And I knew that the laughter … it was in part because of that, too. In defiance and gratitude.

“You coming to drink, or are you just going to stare at the flowers all day?” Cassian’s voice cut through the melody of sounds.

I turned, finding him and Azriel in the kitchen doorway, each with a drink in hand. A s

econd lay in Azriel’s other scarred hand—he floated it over to me on a blue-tinged breeze.

I clasped the cool, heavy crystal tumbler. “Sneaking up on your High Lord is ill-advised,” I told them, drinking deeply. The liquor burned its way down my throat, warming my stomach.

“It’s good to keep you on edge in your old age,” Cassian said, drinking himself. He leaned against the doorway. “Why are you hiding in here?”

Azriel shot him a look, but I snorted, taking another sip. “You really did open the fancy bottles.”

They waited. But Feyre’s laugh sounded again, followed by Elain’s and Mor’s. And when I dragged my gaze back to my brothers, I saw the understanding on their faces.

“It’s real,” Azriel said softly.

Neither laughed or commented on the burning in my eyes. I took another drink to wash away the tightness in my throat, and approached them. “Let’s not do this again for another five hundred years,” I said a bit hoarsely, and clinked my glass against theirs.

Azriel cracked a smile as Cassian lifted a brow. “And what are we going to do until then?”

Beyond brokering peace, beyond those queens who were sure to be a problem, beyond healing our fractured world …

Mor called for us, demanding we bring them a spread of food. An impressive one, she added. With extra bread.

I smiled. Smiled wider as Feyre’s laugh sounded again—as I felt it down the bond, sparkling brighter than the entirety of Starfall.

“Until then,” I said to my brothers, slinging my arms around their shoulders and leading them back to the sitting room. I looked ahead, toward that laugh, that light—and that vision of the future Feyre had shown me, more beautiful than anything I could have ever wished for—anything I had wished for, on those long-ago, solitary nights with only the stars for company. A dream still unanswered—but not forever. “Until then, we enjoy every heartbeat of it.”