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

He waited until she exhaled before he lifted her leg higher. The tightness in her thigh was considerable enough that she stopped thinking about his callused, warm hands against her bare ankle, about how he knelt between her legs, so close she turned her head away to stare at the red rock of the wall.

“Again,” he told her, and she exhaled, winning another inch. “Again. Cauldron, your hamstrings are tight enough to snap.”

Nesta obeyed, and he kept stretching her leg upward, gaining inch after inch.

“The soreness does get easier,” Cassian said after a moment, as if he weren’t holding her leg flush to his chest. “Though I have plenty of days when I can barely walk at the end. And after a battle? I need a week to recover from that alone.”

“I know.” His eyes found hers, and she clarified, “I mean—I saw you. In the war.”

Saw him hauled in unconscious, his guts hanging out. Saw him in the sky, death racing at him until she screamed for him, saved him. Saw him on the ground, broken and bleeding, the King of Hybern about to kill them both—

Cassian’s face gentled. As if he knew what memories pelted her. “I’m a soldier, Nesta. It’s part of my duties. Part of who I am.”

She looked back toward the wall, and he lowered her leg before starting on the other. The tightness in that hamstring was unbearable.

“The more stretching you do,” he explained when she squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, “the more mobility you’ll gain.” He nodded toward the rope ladder laid out on the floor of the training ring, where he’d had her run it up and down, knees to chest, keeping within each of the boxes, for five minutes straight. “You’re nimble on your feet.”

“I took dancing lessons as a girl.”

“Really?”

“We weren’t always poor. Until I was fourteen, my father was as rich as a king. They called him the Prince of Merchants.”

He gave her a tentative smile. “And you were his princess?”

Ice cracked through her. “No. Elain was his princess. Even Feyre was more his princess than I ever was.”

“And what were you?”

“I was my mother’s creature.” She said it with such cold it nearly froze her tongue.

Cassian said carefully, “What was she like?”

“A worse version of me.”

His brows twitched together. “I …”

She didn’t want to have this conversation. Even the sunlight failed to warm her. She pulled her leg from his hands and sat up, needing the distance between them.

And because it looked like he’d speak again, Nesta said the only thing she could think of. “What happened to the priestesses in Sangravah two years ago?”

He went wholly still.

It was terrifying. The stillness of a male ready to kill, to defend, to bloody himself. But his voice was terribly calm as he asked, “Why?”

“What happened?”

His mouth tightened, and he swallowed once before he said, “Hybern was looking for the Cauldron back then—for the pieces of its feet. One was hidden at the temple in Sangravah, its power used to fuel its priestesses’ gifts for millennia. Hybern found out, and sent a unit of their deadliest and cruelest warriors to retrieve it.” Cold rage filled his face. “They slaughtered most of the priestesses for sport. And raped any they found to their liking.”

Horror, icy and deep, sluiced through her. Gwyn had—

“You met one of them,” he asked, “in the library?”

She nodded, unable to find the words.

He closed his eyes, as if reeling his rage back into himself. “I heard that Mor had brought one in. Azriel was the one who made it out there first, and he killed any of the Hybern soldiers left, but by that point …” He shuddered. “I don’t know what became of the other survivors. But I’m glad one wound up here. Safe, I mean. With people who understand, and wish to help.”

“So am I,” Nesta said quietly.

She rose on surprisingly loose legs and blinked down at them. “They don’t hurt as much.”

“Stretching,” Cassian said, as if that were answer enough. “Never forget the stretching.”

The Spring Court made Cassian itch. It had little to do with the bastard who ruled it, he’d realized, but rather the fact that the lands lay in perpetual spring. Which meant plumes of pollen drifting by, setting his nose to running and skin to itching, until he was certain that at least a dozen insects were slithering all over him.

“Stop scratching,” Rhys said without looking at him as they strode through a blooming apple orchard. No wings to be seen today.

Cassian lowered his hand from his chest. “I can’t help it if this place makes my skin crawl.”

Rhys snorted, gesturing to one of the blossoming trees above them, petals falling thick as snow. “The feared general, felled by seasonal allergies.”

Cassian gave an unnecessarily loud sniffle, earning a full chuckle from Rhys. Good. When he’d met his brother half an hour ago, Rhys’s eyes had been distant, his face solemn.

Rhys halted in the middle of the orchard, located to the north of Tamlin’s once-lovely estate.

The afternoon sun warmed Cassian’s head, and if his entire body weren’t itching so damned much, he might have lain on the velvety grass and sunned his wings. “I’d peel my skin off right now, if it’d stop the itching.”

“There’s a sight I’d like to see,” a voice said behind them, and Cassian didn’t bother to look pleasant as they found Eris standing at the base of a tree five feet away. Amid the pink and white blossoms, the cold-faced Autumn Court heir looked truly faerie—as if he’d stepped out of the tree, and his one and only master was the earth itself.

“Eris,” Rhys purred, sliding his hands into his pockets. “A pleasure.”

Eris nodded at Rhys, red hair dappled in the sunlight leaking through the blossom-heavy branches. “I only have a few minutes.”

“You asked for this meeting,” Cassian said, crossing his arms. “So out with it.”

Eris shot him a look laced with distaste. “I’m sure you’ve reported my offer to Rhysand.”

“He did,” Rhys said, dark hair ruffled by a soft, sighing breeze. As if even the wind itself loved to touch him. “I didn’t appreciate the threats.”

Eris shrugged. “I merely wanted to make myself clear.”

“Spit it out, Eris,” Cassian said. One more minute here, and the itching would drive him mad.

He wished anyone else could have come in his stead. But he’d been appointed by Rhys to deal with the bastard. General to general. Eris had asked for the meeting this morning, naming this location as neutral ground. Thankfully, its lord had no interest in patrolling who entered these lands.

Eris kept his eyes on Rhys. “I assume your shadowsinger is off doing what he does best.”

Rhys said nothing, revealed nothing. Cassian followed his lead.

Eris went on with a shrug, “We are wasting our time, gathering information rather than acting.” His amber eyes gleamed in the shade of the apple tree. “Regardless of the death-lord pulling their strings, if the human queens intend to be a thorn in our sides, we could simply deal with them now. All of them. My father would be forced to abandon his plans. And I’m sure you could invent some reason that has nothing to do with me or what I’ve told you to excuse their … removal.”