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

Keir ignored me as well. As I’m sure he ignored most women in his life.

“You have been keeping secrets, High Lord,” Keir said with a hateful smile, interlacing his hands and resting them on the mauled table. Right atop the nearest deep gouge. “I always wondered—where all of you went when you weren’t here. Hybern answered the question at last—thanks to that attack on … what is its name? Velaris. Yes. On Velaris. The City of Starlight.”

Mor went utterly still.

“I want access to the city,” Keir said. “For me, and my court.”

“No,” Mor said. The word echoed off the pillars, the glass, the rock.

I was inclined to agree. The thought of these people, of Keir, in Velaris … Tainting it with their presence, their hatred and small-mindedness, their disdain and cruelty …

Rhys did not refuse. Did not shoot down the suggestion.

You can’t be serious.

Rhys only watched Keir as he answered down the bond, I anticipated this—and I took precautions.

I contemplated it. The meeting with the Palace governors … That was tied to this?

Yes.

Rhysand said to Keir, “There would be conditions.”

Mor opened her mouth, but Azriel laid a scarred hand atop hers.

She snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned—burned as he had been.

Azriel’s mask of cold didn’t so much as waver at the rejection. Though Eris chuckled softly. Enough to make Azriel’s hazel eyes glaze with rage as he settled them upon the High Lord’s son. Eris only inclined his head to the shadowsinger.

“I want unrestricted access,” Keir said to Rhys.

“You will not get it,” Rhys said. “There will be limited stays, limited numbers allowed in. To be decided later.”

Mor turned pleading eyes to Rhys. Her city—the place that she loved so much—

I could almost hear it. The crack I knew was about to sound amongst our own circle.

Keir looked to Mor at last—noted the despair and anger. And smiled.

He had no real desire to get out of here.

Only a desire to take something he’d undoubtedly gleaned that his daughter cherished.

I could have gladly shredded through his throat as Keir said, “Done.”

Rhys didn’t so much as smile. Mor was only staring and staring at him, that beseeching expression crumpling her face.

“There is one more thing,” I added, squaring my shoulders. “One more request.”

Keir deigned to acknowledge me. “Oh?”

“I have need of the Ouroboros mirror,” I said, willing ice into my veins. “Immediately.”

Interest and surprise flared in Keir’s brown eyes. Mor’s eyes.

“Who told you that I have it?” he asked quietly.

“Does it matter? I want it.”

“Do you even know what the Ouroboros is?”

“Consider your tone, Keir,” Rhys warned.

Keir leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table. “The mirror …” He laughed under his breath. “Consider it my mating present.” He added with sweet venom, “If you can take it.”

Not a threat to face him, but— “What do you mean?”

Keir rose to his feet, smirking like a cat with a canary in its mouth. “To take the Ouroboros, to claim it, you must first look into it.” He headed for the doors, not waiting to be dismissed. “And everyone who has attempted to do so has either gone mad or been broken beyond repair. Even a High Lord or two, if legend is true.” A shrug. “So it is yours, if you dare to face it.” Keir paused at the threshold as the doors opened on a phantom wind. He said to Rhys, perhaps the closest he’d come to asking for permission to leave, “Lord Thanatos is having … difficulties with his daughter again. He requires my assistance.” Rhys only waved a hand, as if he hadn’t just yielded our city to the male. Keir jerked his chin at Eris. “I will wish to speak with you—soon.”

Once he was done gloating over his victory tonight. What we’d given.

And lost.

If the Ouroboros could not be retrieved, at least without such terrible risk … I shut out the thought, sealing it away for later, as Keir left. Leaving us alone with Eris.

The heir of Autumn just sipped his wine.

And I had the terrible sense that Mor had gone somewhere far, far away as Eris set down his goblet and said, “You look well, Mor.”

“You don’t speak to her,” Azriel said softly.

Eris gave a bitter smile. “I see you’re still holding a grudge.”

“This arrangement, Eris,” Rhys said, “relies solely upon you keeping your mouth shut.”

Eris huffed a laugh. “And haven’t I done an excellent job? Not even my father suspected when I left tonight.”

I glanced between my mate and Eris. “How did this come about?”

Eris looked me over. The crown and dress. “You didn’t think that I knew your shadowsinger would come sniffing around to see if I’d told my father about your … powers? Especially after my brothers so mysteriously forgot about them, too. I knew it was a matter of time before one of you arrived to take care of my memory as well.” Eris tapped the side of his head with a long finger. “Too bad for you, I learned a thing or two about daemati. Too bad for my brothers that I never bothered to teach them.”

My chest tightened. Rhys.

To keep me safe from Beron’s wrath, to keep this potential alliance with the High Lords from falling apart before it began … Rhys.

It was an effort to keep my eyes from burning.

A gentle caress down the bond was his only answer.

“Of course I didn’t tell my father,” Eris went on, drinking from his wine again. “Why waste that sort of information on the bastard? His answer would be to hunt you down and kill you—not realizing how much shit we’re in with Hybern and that you might be the key to stopping it.”

“So he plans to join us, then,” Rhys said.

“Not if he learns about your little secret.” Eris smirked.

Mor blinked—as if realizing that Rhys’s contact with Eris, his invitation here … The glance she gave me, clear and settled, told me enough. Hurt and anger still swirled, but understanding, too.

“So what’s the asking price, Eris?” Mor demanded, leaning her bare arms on the dark glass. “Another little bride for you to torture?”

Something flickered in Eris’s eyes. “I don’t know who fed you those lies to begin with, Morrigan,” he said with vicious calm. “Likely the bastards you surround yourself with.” A sneer at Azriel.

Mor snarled, rattling the glasses. “You never gave any evidence to the contrary. Certainly not when you left me in those woods.”

“There were forces at work that you have never considered,” Eris said coldly. “And I am not going to waste my breath explaining them to you. Believe what you want about me.”

“You hunted me down like an animal,” I cut in. “I think we’ll choose to believe the worst.”

Eris’s pale face flushed. “I was given an order. And sent to do it with two of my … brothers.”

“And what of the brother you hunted down alongside me? The one whose lover you helped to execute before his eyes?”

Eris laid a hand flat on the table. “You know nothing about what happened that day. Nothing.”

Silence.

“Indulge me,” was all I said.

Eris stared me down. I stared right back.

“How do you think he made it to the Spring border,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t there—when they did it. Ask him. I refused. It was the first and only time I have denied my father anything. He punished me. And by the time I got free … They were going to kill him, too. I made sure they didn’t. Made sure Tamlin got word—anonymously—to get the hell over to his own border.”

Where two of Eris’s brothers had been killed. By Lucien and Tamlin.

Eris picked at a stray thread on his jacket. “Not all of us were so lucky in our friends and famil

y as you, Rhysand.”

Rhys’s face was a mask of boredom. “It would seem so.”

And none of this entirely erased what he’d done, but … “What is the asking price,” I repeated.

“The same thing I told Azriel when I found him snooping through my father’s woods yesterday.”

Hurt flared in Mor’s eyes as she whipped her head toward the shadowsinger. But Azriel didn’t so much as acknowledge her as he announced, “When the time comes … we are to support Eris’s bid to take the throne.”