She told herself she was concerned for Azriel, too. Told herself she cared about the shadowsinger’s fate as much as Cassian’s. But it was Cassian’s dead face that she couldn’t bear to imagine.

Nesta didn’t let herself reconsider as she again laid herself out on the branch, wrapping her arms around it as she blindly lowered her leg, seeking the branch just beneath—

There. Her foot found purchase, but she didn’t let it bear her full weight. Still clinging to the branch, fingernails digging into the dead wood hard enough that splinters sliced beneath them, she lowered herself onto the one below. Panting, she knelt again, and once more lowered her foot, finding another branch. But it was too far. Grunting, she brought her leg back up and carefully placed her hands on either side of her knees, focusing upon her balance, just as Cassian had taught her, thinking through every motion of her body, her feet, her breathing.

Fingertips screaming at the splinters piercing the sensitive flesh beneath her nails, she dropped her legs until they hit the branch below. The branch under it was closer but thinner—wobblier. She had to lay herself flat on it to keep from teetering off.

Branch by branch, Nesta descended until her boots sank into the mossy ground, and the tree loomed like a giant above her.

The bog stretched all around, miles of black water and dead trees and grass.

She’d have to wade through the water to reach him. Nesta focused on her breathing—or tried to. Each inhale remained shallow, sharp.

Cassian could be hurt and dying. To sit idle wasn’t an option.

She scanned the shoreline five feet ahead for any hint of shallower water to wade through to the nearest mossy island, covered in flesh-shredding thorns, but the water was so black it was impossible to determine if it was shallow or if it dropped to a bottomless pit.

Nesta focused on her breathing again. She knew how to swim. Her mother had made sure of it, thanks to a cousin who had drowned in childhood. Murdered by faeries, her mother had claimed. I saw her dragged into the river.

Had it been a kelpie? Or her mother’s own fears warped into something monstrous?

Nesta made herself approach the edge of the black water.

Run, a small voice whispered. Run and run, and do not look back.

The voice was female, gentle. Wise and serene.

Run.

She couldn’t. If she were to run, it would be toward him, not away.

Nesta stepped to the water’s edge, where grass disappeared into blackness.

Her face stared back at her from the stillness. Pale and wide-eyed with terror.

Run. Was that voice merely all that remained of her human instincts, or something more? She gazed at her reflection as if it would tell her.

Something rustled in the thorns of the island, and she snapped up her head, heart thundering as she scanned for that familiar male face and wings. But there was no sign of Cassian. And whatever was in that bramble … She should find another island to head for.

Nesta surveyed her reflection again.

And found a pair of night-dark eyes looking back through it.

CHAPTER

34

Nesta stumbled away so fast she landed on her backside, the mossy ground cushioning the impact. A face broke through the black water where her reflection had been.

It was whiter than bone and humanoid. Male. Bit by bit, inch by inch, the head rose above the black water, obsidian hair drifting in the water around the creature, so silken it might as well have been the surface.

His black eyes were enormous—no whites to be seen—his cheekbones so sharp they could have sliced the air. His nose was narrow and long, like a blade, and water dripped from its tip over a mouth … a mouth …

It was too large, that mouth. Sensuous lips, but too wide.

Then his arms slid from the water.

In stiff, jolting movements they jerked onto the moss, white and thin, ending in fingers as long as her forearm. Fingers that dug into the grass, revealing four joints and dagger-sharp nails. They cracked and popped as he stretched and dug them into the grass, grappling for purchase.

Nesta’s breath sawed out of her, terror a roaring in her mind as she crawled backward.

He heaved himself out of the water, revealing a bony torso, his black hair dragging behind him like a net.

She lurched back again as he slowly lifted his head.

That too-wide mouth parted. Twin rows of rotted teeth, jagged as shards of glass, filled his mouth as he smiled.

Her bladder loosened, her lap becoming wet and warm.

He scented it, saw it, and that mouth widened further, fingers twitching as they hauled more and more of him from the water. His narrow, bare hips—

He pushed himself onto his arms as he slid a long, white leg from the blackness. Another. And then he knelt on all fours, smiling at her.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare into that white face, the black eyes as dark as the bog, the twitching, too-long fingers and that mouth, those eel’s teeth—

He spoke then, and it was not a language she recognized. His voice rasped, deep and hoarse, full of terrible hunger and cruel amusement.

The gentle female voice in her head pleaded, Run, run, run.

His head cocked, sodden black hair sloshing with the movement, full of what seemed to be bog weeds. As if he’d heard that female voice, too. He spoke again, and it was like rock grating on rock—his tone more demanding.

Kelpie. This was a kelpie, and he would kill her.

Run, the voice shouted. Run!

Nesta’s legs had become distant, numb. She couldn’t remember how to use them.

The kelpie’s head twitched, fingers convulsing in the grass. His smile grew again. So wide she spied the long, black tongue writhing in his mouth, as if he could already taste her flesh.

Nesta couldn’t recall how to scream as he lunged for her.

Couldn’t do anything at all as those long fingers wrapped around her legs, claws ripping through her skin, and yanked her toward him.

Pain ripped Nesta from her stupor, and she fought, fingers grabbing at the grass. It came free in clumps, as if it had no roots at all. As if the bog would do nothing to help her.

The kelpie towed her along as he slithered back into the frigid water.

And dragged her under the surface.

The two soldiers were on their knees.

Their light leather armor bore Eris’s insignia of two baying hounds on the breast. It didn’t confirm anything. They might have been ordered here by Eris, or Beron, or both of them. Until Azriel or Rhys could get answers out of them, Cassian wouldn’t waste time theorizing. Not that the soldiers offered any explanations.

Their faces were vacant. Not a trace of fear in them, or in their scents.

Azriel panted, wing bleeding freely from where he’d ripped away the ash arrow. Cassian, covered in blood that was not his own, assessed the two surviving soldiers, their fallen companions around them. Many in pieces.

“Bind them,” Cassian said to Azriel, who had already healed enough to summon his Siphons’ power. Blue light speared from his brother, wrapping around the two males’ wrists, their ankles, their mouths—and then chained them together.

Cassian had dealt with enough assassins and prisoners to know keeping two prisoners alive would allow him to confirm information, to play them off each other.

The soldiers had fought viciously with sword and flame, yet they hadn’t spoken to their opponents or to one another. These two seemed as unfocused and blank as their comrades.

Tags: Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses
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