Azriel asked, “You made a bargain to die together?”
“Fools,” Amren hissed. “Romantic, idealistic fools.” Rhys turned bleak eyes to her.
Cassian couldn’t get a breath down. Az stood still as a statue.
“If Rhys dies,” Feyre said thickly, fear bright in her own eyes, “I die.” Her fingers grazed her swollen belly. The babe would die, too.
“And if you die, Feyre,” Azriel said softly, “then Rhys dies.”
The words rang hollow and cold like a death knell. If Feyre didn’t survive the labor …
Cassian’s knees threatened to buckle. Rhy’s face was tight with pleading and pain. “I never thought it’d turn out like this,” Rhys said quietly.
Amren massaged her temples again. “We can discuss the idiocy of this bargain later.” Feyre glared at her, and Amren glared right back before saying to Cassian, “You and Azriel need to retrieve Eris.”
“Why not you?”
Feyre pinched the bridge of her nose. “Because Amren is …”
“Powerless,” Amren snarled. “You can say it, girl.”
Feyre winced. “Mor left for Vallahan this morning and is out of our daemati magic’s range. Az can’t go in alone. We need you, Cassian.”
Cassian stilled. They just waited.
For Nesta to participate in the Blood Rite, to risk every horror and misery while he went off to save fucking Eris … “Let him die.”
“As tempting as that is,” Feyre said, “he poses a great danger to us in Briallyn’s hands. If he’s under the Crown’s influence, he’ll reveal everything he knows.” She asked Cassian, “What does he know about us, exactly?”
“Too much.” Cassian cleared his throat. Through their own bickering, through his need to goad Eris, he’d revealed too much. “He was worried about what we’d do with Nesta as a Night Court power, and with all three objects of the Dread Trove at our disposal. He thought the Night Court might turn around and attempt some sort of power grab.”
Feyre said hopefully, “Maybe the Made dagger we gave him will grant him immunity from the Crown. If he’s carrying the dagger, if they haven’t unarmed him, it might shield him against another Made object.”
“But we don’t know that,” Rhys countered. “And he’ll still be in Briallyn’s clutches. She might be able to sense the dagger herself—and it might respond to her.”
Az added darkly, “And there are plenty of other methods to get him to talk.”
Amren cut in, “You need to go now.” She turned to Feyre and Rhys. “We will return to Velaris and have a nice, long talk about this bargain of yours.”
Cassian didn’t bother to read Feyre’s and Rhys’s expressions as he gazed toward the small window, the wilderness beyond. As if he could see Nesta there.
He summoned his armor, the intricate scales and plates clamping with reassuring familiarity over his body. “I trained Nesta well. Trained them all well,” he said, his throat working. He added into the silence as Az tapped his Siphons and his own armor appeared, “If anyone can survive the Blood Rite, it’s them.”
If they could find each other.
Nesta broke into a flat-out sprint toward the tree with the knife, the male launching into movement only a heartbeat afterward.
He tripped over the scattered bodies, but Nesta kept her knees up. A mirror of every footwork exercise they’d done with the ladder on the ground, as if those bodies were the rope rungs to avoid. Muscle memory kicked in; she barely glanced at the tangle of limbs as she aimed for the tree. But the male had found his footing and closed in fast.
Someone had to have planted the weapon, either under the cover of darkness last night or weeks ago. The Blood Rite was savage enough without true weapons—only the weapons they made—but with actual steel thrown in …
The male had a good six inches and a hundred pounds on her. In physical combat, he’d possess every advantage. But if she could get that knife—
Nesta broke free of the bodies, legs flying as she ran the last few feet to the tree trunk with her hand outstretched. She brushed the knife’s handle—
The male barreled into her with all the force of a full-grown Illyrian warrior.
The breath whooshed out of her at the impact as they went down—and over the hill’s edge on the other side of the tree.
They tumbled toward the streambed a hundred feet below, flipping as they careened down the side of the hill. Rocks and leaves cracked and scratched against her, wings snapped above and below her, her hair lashed her face as her hands grappled—
Nesta slammed into the streambed so hard her spine groaned, the male landing atop her, sending every remaining scrap of breath exploding from her lungs.
His wings twitched. But he did not move.
Nesta opened her eyes to find herself staring into his unseeing gaze. To find her hand clenching the dagger she’d buried in his throat soaked in warm blood.
Grunting, Nesta rolled him off. Left the dagger sticking out of his throat, blood still leaking from the wound. The knife had pierced all the way through to the nape of his neck.
Nesta spat a mouthful of blood onto the dry stones. Her nightgown was covered in blood and dirt, her skin raw and stinging. But she was alive. And the male was not.
Nesta allowed herself to inhale slowly through her nose for a count of six. She held the breath, then slowly loosed it. Did the breathing exercise twice more. Assessed the state of her body, from her pounding head to her torn feet. Breathed again.
When her mind had stilled, Nesta pulled the knife from the male’s throat. Then stripped off his clothes, item by item, including his boots. She dressed herself with cold efficiency, shucking off the bloody nightgown and dropping it onto the male’s face in a mockery of a funeral shroud, then tucked the knife into the belt she cinched as tight as it would go. The clothes hung off her, and the too-big boots might be a liability, but it was better than the nightgown.
And then she went to find her friends.
CHAPTER
65
Nesta scaled the other side of the valley to find the land beyond empty of warriors. Behind her, across the small ravine, the others still slept. No sign of Emerie or Gwyn amongst them. No sign of where they might be, either.
Cassian had told her while lying in bed one night, sweaty and spent, that there were three dumping grounds for the Rite—one in the north, one in the west, and one in the south. Her friends had to be in the others, either together or one in each. They’d be terrified when they awoke.
Gwyn—
Nesta refused to consider it as she hurried through the pines, putting distance between herself and the sleeping warriors before she found a towering tree. She climbed, sap quickly coating her fingers, and when she cleared the canopy …
Ramiel might as well have been across an ocean. It loomed straight ahead, with two mountains and a sea of forest and the gods knew what else between her and its barren slopes. It looked identical to Feyre’s painting. She peered at the sun, then at the trunk below her, searching for moss. There—just below her left foot.
Ramiel was east. So she’d been dumped in the west, and the others …
She had to pick either north or south. Or would she be better off heading for the mountain and hoping she found them along the way?