The lake gleamed like a silver mirror in the moonlight, so bright it could have been dusk.

His stomach grumbled with hunger, but as the moon drifted higher, he pressed a kiss to her head. “Get up.”

She stirred against him, but obeyed. He groaned, legs stiff from sitting for so long, and rose with her. Her arms wrapped around herself. As if she’d retreat behind that steel wall within her mind, her heart.

Cassian drew the Illyrian blade from down his back.

It gleamed with moonlight as he extended it to her hilt-first. “Take it.”

Blinking, eyes still puffy with tears, she did. The blade dipped as she wrapped her hands around it, as if she didn’t expect its weight after so long with the wooden practice swords.

Cassian stepped back. Then said, “Show me the eight-pointed star.”

She studied the blade, then swallowed. Her features were open, fearful but so trusting that he nearly went to his knees. He nodded toward the blade. “Show me, Nesta.”

Whatever she sought in his face, she found it. She widened her stance, bracing her feet on the stones. Cassian held his breath as she took up the first position.

Nesta lifted the sword and executed a perfect arcing slash. Her weight shifted to her legs just as she flipped the blade, leading with the hilt, and brought up her arm against an invisible blow. Another shift and the sword swept down, a brutal slash that would have sliced an opponent in half.

Each slice was perfect. Like that eight-pointed star was stamped on her very heart.

The sword was an extension of her arm, a part of her as much as her hair or breath. Every movement bloomed with purpose and precision. In the moonlight, before the silvered lake, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Nesta finished the eighth maneuver, and returned the sword to center.

The light in her eyes shone brighter than the moon overhead.

Such light, and clarity, that he could only whisper, “Again.”

With a soft smile that Cassian had never seen before, standing on the moon-washed shores of the lake, Nesta began.

PART THREE

VALKYRIE

CHAPTER

51

“So you mean to tell me,” Emerie muttered from the side of her mouth as they stood in the training ring two days later, “that you got into a fight with your family, disappeared for a week with Cassian, and came back able to use an actual sword, but I’m supposed to believe you when you say nothing happened?”

Gwyn snickered, her attention fixed on tying a length of white silk ribbon to a wood beam jutting from the side of the pit. Neither the ribbon nor the beam had been there a week ago, and Nesta had no idea how they’d even anchored the wood into the stone, but there it was.

The crisp morning wind ruffled Nesta’s hair. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Tell me you at least had a week’s worth of sex,” Emerie muttered.

Nesta choked on a laugh as Cassian stiffened across the ring—but he didn’t turn. “There might have been some.” After that night beside the lake, she and Cassian had lingered there for two entire days, either training with his sword or fucking like animals on the shore, in the water, bent over a boulder as she moaned his name so loudly it echoed off the peaks around them. He’d taken her over and over, and she’d clawed at him and torn his skin every time, as if she could climb into him and fuse their souls.

They’d returned last night, and she’d been too tired to venture to his room. She assumed he’d been called to the river house, because he hadn’t been at dinner, nor had he sought her out.

She wasn’t ready to see Feyre, though. For all she’d confessed to Cassian, that step … She’d face it soon.

“Done,” Gwyn declared, the white ribbon fluttering in the wind where it hung from the beam. Behind them, a few of the priestesses working with Azriel had turned to see what the ribbon business was about. The shadowsinger crossed his arms, angling his head, but remained in his half of the ring.

Cassian, however, approached Gwyn’s handiwork and ran the white silk between two fingers. Nesta couldn’t stop her blush.

He’d done that by the lake: after he’d fucked her with his fingers, he’d held her gaze while he rubbed them together, testing the slide of her wetness against his skin the same way he was touching that ribbon. From the way his hazel eyes darkened, she knew he was recalling the same.

But Cassian cleared his throat. “Explain,” he ordered Gwyn.

Gwyn squared her shoulders. “This is the Valkyrie test for whether your training is complete and you’re ready for battle: cut the ribbon in half.”

Emerie snorted. “What?”

But Cassian made a contemplative noise, gesturing to the other half of the ring. “Az told me you also started preliminary work with the steel blades while we were gone.” He nodded to Gwyn and Emerie, the former glancing toward Azriel, who watched in silence. “So show me what you learned. Cut the ribbon in two.”

“We slice the ribbon in two,” Emerie asked Gwyn warily, “and our training is complete?”

Gwyn again glanced to Azriel, who drifted closer. She said, “I’m not entirely sure.”

Cassian released the ribbon. “A warrior’s training is never complete, but if you’re able to slice this ribbon in two—with one cut—then I’d say you can hold your own against most enemies. Even if you’ve only been training for a little while.” At their silence, he looked between them. “Who’s first?”

Again, the three of them swapped glances. Nesta frowned. Whoever went first would get the brunt of the humiliation. Gwyn shook her head. No way in hell.

Emerie’s mouth popped open. “Why me?” she demanded.

“What?” Cassian asked, and Nesta realized they hadn’t been speaking.

“You’re oldest,” Gwyn said, nudging Emerie toward the ribbon.

Emerie groused, but stepped up to the dangling ribbon, grudgingly taking the sword Cassian extended. Azriel murmured over a shoulder to the priestesses under his charge as they watched. They instantly began moving again. But Azriel’s attention remained on the ribbon.

“Should we bet?” Gwyn asked Nesta.

“Shut up,” Emerie hissed, though amusement lit her eyes.

Nesta smirked. “Go ahead, Emerie.”

Cursing under her breath, wings tucking in tight, Emerie lifted the blade in near-perfect form and sliced at the ribbon.

The white silk fluttered and bent around the blade. And absolutely did not slice in two.

“Let’s all admit we knew that would happen,” Emerie said, teeth bared as she slashed the sword again. The ribbon danced harmlessly away.

Cassian clapped her shoulder. “Looks like I’ll see you at training tomorrow.”

“Asshole,” Nesta muttered.

Cassian laughed and took the sword from Emerie, and—in the same breath—spun, swiping low and even.

The bottom half of the ribbon fluttered to the ground. A perfect slice.

He grinned. “At least I can cut the ribbon.”

Nesta didn’t forget that parting shot. Not as they finished training for the day, and certainly not when she dragged Cassian down the stairs, straight to his bedroom, need bellowing in her veins.