A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
Don’t they know by now that they can find you down here?
Of course. But I never go to the same spot twice in a row, so it usually takes them so long to find me that they don’t bother. Plus, they know that if I’m here, it’s because I want to be alone.
Poor baby High Lord, I crooned. Having to run away to find solitude perfect for brooding.
Rhys pinched my behind, and I clamped down on my lip to keep from yelping.
I could have sworn Clotho’s shoulders shook with laughter.
But before I could bite off Rhys’s head for the rippling pain my aching back muscles felt in the wake of the sudden movement, Clotho led us into a reading area about three levels down, the massive worktable laden with fat, ancient books bound in various dark leathers.
A neat stack of paper was set to one side, along with an assortment of pens, and the reading lamps were at full glow, merry and sparkling in the gloom. A silver tea service gleamed on a low-lying table between the two leather couches before the grumbling fireplace, steam curling from the arched spout of the kettle. Biscuits and little sandwiches filled the platter beside it, along with a fat pile of napkins that subtly hinted we use them before touching the books.
“Thank you,” Rhys told the priestess, who only pulled a book off the pile she’d undoubtedly gathered and opened it to a marked page. The ancient velvet ribbon was the color of old blood—but it was her hand that struck me as it met the golden light of the lamps.
Her fingers were crooked. Bent and twisted at such angles I would have thought her born with them were it not for the scarring.
For a heartbeat, I was in a spring wood. For a heartbeat, I heard the crunch of stone on flesh and bone as I made another priestess smash her hand. Over and over.
Rhys put a hand on my lower back. The effort it must have taken Clotho to move everything into place with those gnarled hands …
But she looked toward another book—or at least her head turned that way—and it slid over to her.
Magic. Right.
She gestured with a finger that was bent in two different directions to the page she’d selected, then to the book.
“I’ll look,” Rhys said, then inclined his head. “We’ll give a shout if we need anything.”
Clotho bowed her head again and began striding away, careful and silent.
“Thank you,” I said to her.
The priestess paused, looking back, and bowed her head, hood swaying.
Within seconds, she was gone.
I stared after her, even as Rhys slid into one of the two chairs before the piles of books.
“A long time ago, Clotho was hurt very badly by a group of males,” Rhys said quietly.
I didn’t need details to know what that had entailed. The edge in Rhys’s voice implied enough.
“They cut out her tongue so she couldn’t tell anyone who had hurt her. And smashed her hands so she couldn’t write it.” Every word was more clipped than the last, and darkness snarled through the small space.
My stomach turned. “Why not kill her?”
“Because it was more entertaining for them that way. That is, until Mor found her. And brought her to me.”
When he’d undoubtedly looked into her mind and seen their faces.
“I let Mor hunt them.” His wings tucked in tightly. “And when she finished, she stayed down here for a month. Helping Clotho heal as best as could be expected, but also … wiping away the stain of them.” Mor’s trauma had been different, but … I understood why she’d done it, wanted to be here. I wondered if it had granted her any measure of closure.
“Cassian and Azriel were healed completely after Hybern. Nothing could be done for Clotho?”
“The males were … healing her as they hurt her. Making the injuries permanent. When Mor found her, the damage had been set. They hadn’t finished her hands, so we were able to salvage them, give her some use, but … To heal her, the wounds would have needed to be ripped open again. I offered to take the pain away while it was done, but … She could not endure it—what having the wounds open again would trigger in her mind. Her heart. She has lived down here since then—with others like her. Her magic helps with her mobility.”
I knew we should begin working, but I asked, “Are … all the priestesses in this library like her?”
“Yes.”
The word held centuries of rage and pain.
“I made this library into a refuge for them. Some come to heal, work as acolytes, and then leave; some take the oaths to the Cauldron and Mother to become priestesses and remain here forever. But it belongs to them whether they stay a week or a lifetime. Outsiders are allowed to use the library for research, but only if the priestesses approve. And only if they take binding oaths to do no harm while they visit. This library belongs to them.”
“Who was here before them?”
“A few cranky old scholars, who cursed me soundly when I relocated them to other libraries in the city. They still get access, but when and where is always approved by the priestesses.”
Choice. It had always been about my choice with him. And for others as well. Long before he’d ever learned the hard way about it. The question must have been in my eyes because Rhys added, “I came here a great deal in those weeks after Under the Mountain.”
My throat tightened as I leaned in to brush a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for sharing this place with me.”
“It belongs to you, too, now.” And I knew he meant not just in terms of us being mates, but … in the ways it belonged to the other females here. Who had endured and survived.
I gave him a half smile. “I suppose it’s a miracle that I can even stand to be underground.”
But his features remained solemn, contemplative. “It is.” He added softly, “I’m very proud of you.”
My eyes burned, and I blinked as I faced the books. “And I suppose,” I said with an effort at lightness, “that it’s a miracle I can actually read these things.”
Rhys’s answering smile was lovely—and just a bit wicked. “I believe my little lessons helped.”
“Yes, ‘Rhys is the greatest lover a female can hope for’ is undoubtedly how I learned to read.”
“I was only trying to tell you what you now know.”
My blood heated a bit. “Hmmm,” was all I said, pulling a book toward me.
“I’ll take that hmmm as a challenge.” His hand slid down my thigh, then cupped my knee, his thumb brushing along its side. Even through my leathers, the heat of him seeped to my very bones. “Maybe I’ll haul you between the stacks and see how quiet you can be.”
“Hmmm.” I flipped through the pages, not seeing any of the text.
His hand began a lethal, taunting exploration up my thigh, his fingers grazing along the sensitive inside. Higher, higher. He leaned in to drag a book toward himself, but whispered in my ear, “Or maybe I’ll spread you out on this desk and lick you until you scream loud enough to wake whatever is at the bottom of the library.”
I whipped my head toward him. His eyes were glazed—almost sleepy.
“I was fully committed to that plan,” I said, even as his hand stopped very, very close to the apex of my thighs, “until you brought in that thing down below.”
A feline smile. He held my stare as his tongue brushed his bottom lip.
My breasts tightened beneath my shirt, and his gaze dropped—watching. “I would have thought,” he mused, “that our bout this morning would be enough to tide you over until tonight.” His hand slid between my legs, brazenly cupping me, his thumb pushing down on an aching spot. A low groan slipped from me, and my cheeks heated in its wake. “Apparently, I didn’t do a good enough job sating you, if you’re so easily riled after a few hours.”
“Prick,” I breathed, but the word was ragged. His thumb pressed down harder, circling roughly.
Rhys leaned in again, kissing my neck—that place right under my ear—and said against my skin, “Let’s see what names you call me when my head
And then he was gone.
He’d winnowed away, half the books with him. I started, my body foreign and cold, dizzy and disoriented.
Where the hell are you? I scanned around me, and found nothing but shadow and merry flame and books.
Two levels below.
And why are you two levels below? I shoved out of my chair, back aching in protest as I stormed for the walkway and rail beyond, then peered down into the gloom.
Sure enough, in a reading area two levels below, I could spy his dark hair and wings—could spy him leaning back in his chair before an identical desk, an ankle crossed over a knee. Smirking up at me. Because I can’t work with you distracting me.
I scowled at him. I’m distracting you?
If you’re sitting next to me, the last thing on my mind is reading dusty old books. Especially when you’re in all that tight leather.
Pig.
His chuckle echoed up through the library amid the fluttering papers and scratching pens of the priestesses working throughout.
How can you winnow inside the House? I thought there were wards against it.
The library makes its own rules, apparently.
I snorted.
Two hours of work, he promised me, turning back to the table and flaring his wings—a veritable screen to block my view of him. And his view of me. Then we can play.
I gave him a vulgar gesture.
I saw that.
I did it again, and his laugh floated to me as I faced the books stacked before me and began to read.
We found a myriad of information about the wall and its forming. When we compared our notes two hours later, many of the texts were conflicting, all of them claiming absolute authority on the subject. But there were a few similar details that Rhys had not known.
He had been healing at the cabin in the mountains when they’d formed the wall, when they’d signed that Treaty. The details that emerged had been murky at best, but the various texts Clotho had dug up on the wall’s formation and rules agreed on one thing: it had never been made to last.
No, initially, the wall had been a temporary solution—to cleave human and faerie until peace settled long enough for them to later reconvene. And decide how they were to live together—as one people.
But the wall had remained. Humans had grown old and died, and their children had forgotten the promises of their parents, their grandparents, their ancestors. And the High Fae who survived … it was a new world, without slaves. Lesser faeries stepped in to replace the missing free labor; territory boundaries had been redrawn to accommodate those displaced. Such a great shift in the world in those initial centuries, so many working to move past war, to heal, that the wall … the wall became permanent. The wall became legend.
“Even if all seven courts ally,” I said as we plucked grapes from a silver bowl in a quiet sitting room in the House of Wind, having left the dim library for some much-needed sunshine, “even if Keir and the Court of Nightmares join, too … Will we stand a chance in this war?”
Rhys leaned back in the embroidered chair before the floor-to-ceiling window. Velaris was a glittering sprawl below and beyond—serene and lovely, even with the scars of battle now peppering it. “Army against army, the possibility of victory is slim.” Blunt, honest words.
I shifted in my own identical chair on the other side of the low-lying table between us. “Could you … If you and the King of Hybern went head to head …”
“Would I win?” Rhys lifted a brow, and studied the city. “I don’t know. He’s been smart about keeping the extent of his power hidden. But he had to resort to trickery and threats to beat us that day in Hybern. He has thousands of years of knowledge and training. If he and I fought … I doubt he will let it come to that. He stands a better chance at sure victory by overwhelming us with numbers, in stretching us thin. If we fought one-on-one, if he’d even accept an open challenge from me … the damage would be catastrophic. And that’s without him wielding the Cauldron.”
My heart stumbled. Rhys went on, “I’m willing to take the brunt of it, if it means the others will at least stand with us against him.”
I clenched the tufted arms of the chair.
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“It might be the only choice.”
“I don’t accept that as an option.”
He blinked at me. “Prythian might need me as an option.” Because with that power of his … He’d take on the king and his entire army. Burn himself out until he was—
“I need you. As an option. In my future.”
Silence. And even with the sun warming my feet, a terrible cold spread through me.
His throat bobbed. “If it means giving you a future, then I’m willing to do—”
“You will do no such thing.” I panted through my bared teeth, leaning forward in my chair.
Rhys only watched me, eyes shadowed. “How can you ask me not to give everything I have to ensure that you, that my family and people, survive?”
“You’ve given enough.”
“Not enough. Not yet.”
It was hard to breathe, to see past the burning in my eyes. “Why? Where does this come from, Rhys?”
For once, he didn’t answer.
And there was something brittle enough in his expression, some long unhealed wound that glimmered there, that I sighed, rubbed my face, and then said, “Just—work with me. With all of us. Together. This isn’t your burden alone.”
He plucked another grape from its stem, chewed. His lips tilted in a faint smile. “So what do you propose, then?”
I could still see that vulnerability in his eyes, still feel it in that bond between us, but I angled my head. I sorted through all I knew, all that had happened. Considered the books I’d read in the library below. A library that housed—
“Amren warned us to never put the two halves of the Book together,” I mused. “But we—I did. She said that older things might be … awoken by it. Might come sniffing.”
Rhys crossed an ankle over a knee.
“Hybern might have the numbers,” I said, “but what if we had the monsters? You said Hybern will see an alliance with all the courts coming—but perhaps not one with things wholly unconnected.” I leaned forward. “And I’m not talking about the monsters roaming across the world. I am talking about one in particular—who has nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
One that I would do everything in my power to use, rather than let Rhys face the brunt of this alone.
His brows rose. “Oh?”
“The Bone Carver,” I clarified. “He and Amren have both been looking for a way back to their own worlds.” The Carver had been insistent, relentless, in asking me that day in the Prison about where I had gone during death. I could have sworn Rhys’s golden-brown skin paled, but I added, “I wonder if it’s time to ask him what he’d give to go back home.”
CHAPTER
21
The aching muscles along my back, core, and thighs had gone into complete revolt by the time Rhys and I parted ways, my mate heading off to track down Cassian—who would be my escort tomorrow morning to the Prison. If both of us had gone, it would perhaps look too … desperate, too vital. But if the High Lady and her general went to visit the Carver to pose some hypothetical questions …
It would still show our hand, but perhaps not quite how badly we needed any extra bit of assistance. And Cassian, unsurprisingly, knew more about the Carver than anyone thanks to some morbid fascination with all of the Prison’s inmates. Especially since he was responsible for jailing some of them.
But while Rhys sought out Cassian, I had a task of my own.
I was wincing and hissing as I strode through the murky red halls of the House to find my sister and Amren. To see which of them was still standing after their first lesson. Among other things.
I found them in a quiet, forgotten workroom, coldly watching the other.
Books lay scattered on
“Sorry to interrupt your staring contest,” I said, lingering in the doorway. I rubbed at a spot low in my back. “I wanted to see how the first lesson was going.”
“Fine.” Amren didn’t take her eyes off my sister, a faint smile playing about her red mouth.
I studied Nesta, who gazed at Amren, utterly stone-faced.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting,” Amren said.
“For what?”
“For busybodies to leave us alone.”
I straightened, clearing my throat. “Is this part of her training?”
Amren turned her head to me with exaggerated slowness, her chin-length, razor-straight hair shifting with the movement. “Rhys has his own method of training you. I have mine.” Her white teeth flashed with every word. “We visit the Court of Nightmares tomorrow night—she needs some basic training before we do.”
“Like what?”
Amren sighed at the ceiling. “Shielding herself. From prying minds and powers.”
I blinked. I should have thought of that. That if Nesta were to join us, be at the Hewn City … she would need some defenses beyond what we could offer her.
Nesta at last looked to me, her face as cold as ever.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
Amren clicked her tongue. “She’s fine. Stubborn as an ass, but as you’re related, I’m not surprised.”
I scowled. “How am I supposed to know what your methods are? For all I know, you picked up some terrible techniques in that Prison.”
Careful. So, so careful.
Amren hissed, “That place taught me plenty of things, but certainly not this.”
I angled my head, the portrait of curiosity. “Did you ever interact with the others?”
The fewer people who knew about my trip tomorrow to see the Carver, the safer it was—the less chance of Hybern catching wind of it. Not for any fear of betrayal, but … there was always risk.
Azriel, now off hunting for information on the Autumn Court, would be told when he returned tonight. Mor … I’d tell her eventually. But Amren … Rhys and I had decided to wait to tell Amren. The last time we’d gone to the Prison, she’d been … testy. Telling her we planned to unleash one of her fellow inmates? Perhaps not the best thing to mention while we waited for her to find a way to heal that wall—and train my sister.