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

Rhys sighed. “Please don’t make me regret bringing you here, Helion.”

Helion’s golden eyes lit. “Where would the fun be if I didn’t?”

Feyre linked her arm through his. “I missed you, my friend.”

Helion patted her hand. “I’ll deny it to the grave if you tell anyone, but I missed you too, Cursebreaker.”

“I like this palace much more than the one beneath,” Helion said an hour later, surveying the moonstone pillars and gauzy curtains blowing in a mild breeze that belied the snow-crusted mountain range around them. Beyond the palace’s shields, Cassian knew that breeze became a howling, bitter wind that could flay the flesh from one’s bones.

Helion flung himself into a low-lying chair before one of the endless views, sighing. “All right. Do you want my assessment now that we’re out of the Hewn City?”

Feyre slid into the seat beside his, but Cassian, Rhys, and Az remained standing, the shadowsinger leaning against a pillar, half-hidden from sight. Feyre asked, “Are the soldiers enchanted?”

Helion had spoken to and briefly touched the hands of the two Autumn Court soldiers chained in that room, kept alive and fed by Rhys’s magic. Helion’s face had tensed when he’d touched their hands—and he’d then murmured that he’d seen enough.

Nothing in the Hewn City had seemed to disturb him until that moment. Not the towering black pillars and their carvings, not the wicked people who occupied it, not the utter darkness of the place. If it reminded Helion of his time Under the Mountain, he did not let on. Amarantha had modeled her court there after this one, apparently—a sorry replica, Rhys had said.

“Enchanted isn’t the right word,” Helion said, frowning. “Their bodies and actions are indeed not their own, but no spell lies upon them. I can feel spells—like threads. Ones that can enchant feel like bindings around an individual. I sensed none of that.”

“So what ails them?” Rhys asked.

“I don’t know,” Helion admitted with unusual gravity. “Rather than a thread, it was more like a mist. A fog, exactly as you described it, Rhysand. There was nothing to grasp on to, nothing tangible to break, yet it was there.”

Rhys asked, “Does it feel less like a spell and more like … an influence?”

Shit. Shit.

Helion rubbed his jaw. “I can’t explain how, but it’s as if this fog around their mind sways them.” He noted their expressions. “What is it?”

Feyre’s mouth tightened. “The Crown—part of the Dread Trove.”

And then it all came out, Queen Briallyn and her hunt for the Trove, Koschei’s involvement, the Mask that Nesta had retrieved. Only Eris’s secrets regarding the depths of Beron’s treachery remained unspoken. When Feyre finished, Helion shook his head slowly. “I thought we’d at least have a break from trying to avoid disasters like this.”

“Just the Harp remains at large, then,” Azriel said. He remained leaning against the pillar, swathed in shadows. “If Briallyn has the Crown, it’s possible she’s had it for a while—and it’s why the other queens fled to their own territories. Maybe they thought she’d use it on them, and ran. Maybe she even found it here during the war, while we were all distracted with fighting Hybern, and used it to pull her forces back, to bide her time. It could be what brought her to Koschei’s attention—that it’s what he wants from her.”

“I can buy that,” Feyre said, “but why use it on Eris’s soldiers to attack our people in Oorid? What’s the motive?”

“Perhaps it was to let us know she’s aware that we know of her plans,” Rhys suggested.

“But how did she know we’d be in the bog?” Cassian asked. “Those soldiers didn’t have the power to winnow—they would have had to travel on foot for weeks before they got there.”

“They’ve been missing for more than a month,” Feyre pointed out.

Helion said, “Remember that Briallyn is Made, too. She might not be able to scry for the Cauldron, but she can scry for the Dread Trove as well as Nesta Archeron can. She could have learned the Mask was in Oorid, but did not dare to venture into its darkness. It’s possible that she planted the soldiers to take the Mask from you once you found it.”

“Or trick us into killing them, thus making an enemy of the Autumn Court,” Cassian said.

“But Briallyn has to be stupid,” Feyre said, “if she thinks those soldiers would be enough to overpower any of us.”

Helion nodded to Feyre. “You said the Mask is here now? May I see it?”

“We need your help with it, actually,” Feyre said. “Rhys warded and locked the room where the Mask lies, but it opened the locks to let my sister in, likely because she’s Made. And if she can get in, it’s possible Briallyn could as well.” Feyre slid her tattooed hands into her pockets. “Can you show Nesta how to ward it herself? Something perhaps with a bit more … oomph?”

“Oomph?” Rhys asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Oomph,” Feyre said, throwing him a glare. “We can’t all be silver-tongued like you.”

Rhys winked. “Good thing you benefit from it, Feyre darling.”

Cassian chose to ignore the innuendo, and the flicker of arousal from both of them. Helion, however, snickered.

Azriel cleared his throat. “Nesta’s waiting.”

“She’s here?” Helion practically shimmered with golden light.

“Yes,” Feyre said simply, rising from the chair. Cassian didn’t miss the sultry look his High Lady gave Rhys as she passed by, aiming for the rooms at the northern end of the palace. And he didn’t miss the deep laugh Rhys gave her in return, full of sensual promise.

He couldn’t help the pang in his chest at the casual intimacy, the blatant affection and love. A far cry from just sex.

Helion trailed, commenting on the palace’s beauty. Cassian blocked him out, too busy mulling over how Nesta hadn’t so much as bothered to object when he’d left her bed. And hadn’t so much as approached him for more since.

He’d held himself back, especially since she seemed to drive herself into the ground during practice, working out whatever she needed to in her heart, her mind. But he hadn’t been able to stop remembering it—the sex, and that image of her, her backside still upraised as she lay on the bed, her beautiful sex swollen and gleaming, wet with his seed.

“What are you thinking about?” Helion drawled as they approached a shut wooden door.

Cassian straightened. He hadn’t realized his thoughts had dragged such a scent from him. He grinned. “Your mother.”

Helion chuckled. “I always forget how much I like you.”

“Happy to remind you.” Cassian winked.

Feyre reached the door, knocked, and then there she was—Nesta.

She sat at the table where the Mask rested, a book open before her. From the speed with which she shut the volume, Cassian knew she’d been reading one of the romances she, Emerie, and Gwyn traded amongst them.

Cassian found himself tensing as Helion stepped into the room, and Nesta rose. She’d worn a dark blue dress today—the first time in a month he’d seen her in one. No longer did it hang off her. She’d packed on enough weight that the bodice was again formfitting, and those lush breasts swelled gracefully above the scooped neckline.