A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses 4)

“So we use the sword,” Cassian said, “and figure it out.”

“No,” Amren countered sharply. “I wouldn’t dare draw these blades. Especially not the great sword. I can feel power clustering there. Did she work on that one longest?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is to be treated as an object of the Dread Trove. A new Trove.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Amren’s brows flattened. “The Dread Trove was forged by the Cauldron. Nesta possesses the Cauldron’s powers. So anything she crafts and imbues with her power becomes a new Trove. At this point, I wouldn’t so much as eat a piece of bread if she’d toasted it.”

They all stared at the three blades atop the desk.

Azriel said, “People will kill for this power. Either kill her to stop it, or kill us to capture her.”

“Nesta forged a new Trove,” Cassian said, reining in his rage at the truth of Azriel’s words. “She could create anything.” He nodded to Rhys. “She could fill our arsenals with weapons that would win us any war.” Briallyn, Koschei, and Beron wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Which is why Nesta must not learn about it,” Amren said.

Cassian demanded, “What?”

Amren’s gray eyes held steady. “She cannot know.”

Rhys said, “That seems like a risk. What if, unaware, she creates more?”

“What if, in one of her moods,” Amren challenged, “Nesta creates what she pleases just to spite us?”

“She’d never do that,” Cassian said hotly. He pointed at her. “You fucking know it, too.”

“Nesta would create not a Dread Trove,” Amren said, unfazed by his snarling, “but a Trove of Nightmares.”

“I can’t lie to her,” Cassian said, looking to Rhys. “I can’t.”

“You don’t need to lie,” Amren answered. “Simply don’t volunteer the information.”

He appealed to Rhys, “You’re all right with this? Because I’m sure as hell not.”

“Amren’s order holds,” Rhys said, and for a heartbeat, Cassian hated him. Hated the mistrust and wariness he beheld on Rhys’s face.

“I’d be careful when you’re fucking her,” Amren added, lips curling in a sneer. “Who knows what she might transform you into when her emotions are high?”

“That’s enough,” Azriel said, and Cassian turned grateful eyes to his brother. Az continued, “I’m with Cassian on this. It’s not right to keep the knowledge from Nesta.”

Rhys considered, then gazed long and hard at Cassian. Cassian weathered the look, kept his back straight and face grave. Rhys said at last, “When Feyre returns from her studio, I’ll ask her. She’ll be the deciding vote.”

It was a compromise, and even Amren could agree with that. Cassian nodded, uneasy but willing to let the decision lie in Feyre’s hands.

Amren nestled back into her chair. “That sword shall be known by history.” Her eyes darkened as she looked at the great sword, her words echoing. “It remains to be seen whether it shall be known for good or evil.”

Cassian shook off the shiver that slithered down his spine, as if fate itself heard her words and shuddered. He threw her a grin. “You do love to be dramatic, don’t you?”

Amren scowled, then rose. “I’m going back to bed.” She pointed at Rhysand. “Put those weapons somewhere no one will find them. And Mother damn you if you dare unsheathe one.”

Rhys waved her off, bored and tired. “Of course.”

“I mean it, boy,” Amren said. “Do not unsheathe those blades.” She surveyed all three of them before she left. “Any of you.”

For a moment, only the ticking grandfather clock made a sound.

Rhys looked toward it. Then he said, eyes distant, “I can’t find anything to help Feyre with the baby—with the labor.”

Cassian’s chest tightened. “Drakon and Miryam?”

Rhys shook his head. “The Seraphim’s wings are as flexible and rounded as the Illyrians’ are bony. That’s what will kill Feyre. Miryam’s children were able to pass through her birth canal because their wings bent easily—and nearly every one of her human people who’s mixed with Drakon’s has had similar success.” Rhys’s throat bobbed. His next words cracked Cassian’s heart. “I didn’t realize how much hope I’d been holding on to until I saw the pity and fear in their faces. Until Drakon had to embrace me to keep me from falling apart.”

Cassian crossed to his brother in a few steps. He clasped Rhys’s shoulder, leaning against the edge of the desk. “We’ll keep looking. What about Thesan?”

Rhys loosened the uppermost buttons on his black jacket, revealing a hint of the tattooed chest beneath. “The Dawn Court had nothing of use. The Peregryns are similar to the Seraphim—they’re related, though distantly. Their healers know how to get a breech baby with wings to turn, how to get it out of the mother, but again: their wings are flexible.”

Azriel appeared on Rhys’s other side, a hand on his shoulder as well.

The clock ticked on, a brutal reminder of every second racing toward sure doom. What they needed, Cassian realized with each tick of that clock, was a miracle.

Azriel asked, “And Feyre still doesn’t know?”

“No. She knows the labor will be difficult, but I haven’t told her yet that it might very well claim her life.” Rhys spoke into their minds, as if he couldn’t say it aloud, I haven’t told her that the nightmares that now send me lurching from sleep aren’t ones of the past, but of the future.

Cassian squeezed Rhys’s shoulder. “Why won’t you tell her?”

Rhys’s throat worked. “Because I can’t bring myself to give her that fear. To take away one bit of the joy in her eyes every time she puts a hand on her belly.” His voice shook. “It is fucking eating me alive, this terror. I keep myself busy, but … there is no one to bargain with for her life, no amount of wealth to buy it, nothing that I can do to save her.”

“Helion?” Azriel asked, eyes pained.

“I told him before he left yesterday. Pulled him aside when Feyre had winnowed home, and begged him on my knees to find something in his thousand libraries to save her. He said every head librarian and researcher who can be spared will be put on it. Somewhere in history, someone must have studied this. Found a way to deliver a baby with wings to a mother whose body was not equipped for it.”

“We’ll hold on to our hope, then,” Cassian said. Rhys shuddered, hanging his head, his silken black hair obscuring his eyes.

Cassian lifted his stare to Azriel, whose face conveyed everything: hope wouldn’t keep Feyre alive.

Cassian swallowed hard, and shifted his gaze to the three blades on the desk.

Their hilts were ordinary—as might be expected from a blacksmith in a small village. He made fine weapons, yes, but not artistic masterpieces. The great sword’s hilt was a simple cross guard, the pommel a rounded bit of metal.

Gwydion, the last of the magic swords, had been dark as night and as beautiful.

How many games had Cassian played as a child with Rhys and Azriel, where a long stick had been a stand-in for Gwydion? How many adventures had they imagined, sharing that mythical sword between them as they slew wyrms and rescued damsels?