A Court of Wings and Ruin

“Is that how you justified stealing from me?”

My heart stumbled a beat.

Rhysand said from behind me, no doubt having winnowed in, “My mate and I had our reasons, Tarquin.”

My knees nearly buckled at the evenness in his voice, at the blood-speckled face that still revealed no sign of great injury, at the dark armor—the twin to Azriel’s and Cassian’s—that had held intact despite a few deep scratches I could barely stand to note. Cassian and Azriel?

Fine. Overseeing the Illyrian injured and setting up camp in the hills.

Tarquin glanced between us. “Mate.”

“Wasn’t it obvious?” Rhysand asked with a wink. But there was an edge in his eyes—sharp and haunted.

My chest tightened. Did the king leave some sort of trap to—

He slid a hand against my back. No. No—I’m all right. Pissed I didn’t see that he was an illusion, but … Fine.

Tarquin’s face didn’t so much as shift from that cold wrath. “When you went into the Spring Court and deceived Tamlin as well about your true nature, when you destroyed his territory … You left the door open for Hybern. They docked in his harbors.” No doubt to wait for the wall to collapse and then sail south. Tarquin snarled, “It was an easy trip to my doorstep. You did this.”

I could have sworn I felt Rhys flinch through the bond. But my mate said calmly, “We did nothing. Hybern chooses its actions, not us.” He jerked his chin toward Tarquin. “My force shall remain camped in the hills until you’ve deemed the city secure. Then we will go.”

“And do you plan to steal anything else before you do?”

Rhys went utterly still. Debating, I realized, whether to apologize. Explain.

I spared him from the choice. “Tend to your wounded, Tarquin.”

“Don’t give me orders.”

The face of the former Summer Court admiral—the prince who had commanded the fleet in the harbor until the title was thrust upon him. I took in the weariness fogging his eyes, the anger and grief.

People had died. Many people. The city he had fought so hard to rebuild, the people who had tried to fight past the scars of Amarantha …

“We are at your disposal,” I said to him, and walked out.

Mor kept close, and we emerged into the hall to find a cluster of his advisers and soldiers watching us carefully. Behind us, Rhys said to Tarquin, “I didn’t have a choice. I did it to try to avoid this, Tarquin. To stop Hybern before he got this far.” His voice was strained.

Tarquin only said, “Get out. And take your army with you. We can hold the bay now that they don’t have surprise on their side.”

Silence. Mor and I lingered just outside the open doors, not turning back, but both of us listening. Listening as Rhysand said, “I saw enough of Hybern in the War to tell you this attack is just a fraction of what the king plans to unleash.” A pause. “Come to the meeting, Tarquin. We need you—Prythian needs you.”

Another beat of quiet. Then Tarquin said, “Get out.”

“Feyre’s offer holds: we are at your disposal.”

“Take your mate and leave. And I’d suggest warning her not to give High Lords orders.”

I stiffened, about to whirl around, when Rhys said, “She is High Lady of the Night Court. She may do as she wishes.”

The wall of Fae standing before us withdrew slightly. Now studying me, some gaping. A murmur rippled through them. Tarquin let out a low, bitter laugh. “You do love to spit on tradition.”

Rhys didn’t say anything more, his strolling footsteps sounding over the tiled floor until his hand warmed my shoulder. I looked up at him, aware of all who gawked at us. At me.

Rhys pressed a kiss to my sweaty, blood-crusted temple and we vanished.

CHAPTER

39

The Illyrian camp remained in the hills above Adriata.

Mostly because there were so many injured that we couldn’t move them until they’d healed enough to survive it.

Wings shredded, guts dangling out, faces mauled …

I don’t know how my friends were still standing as they tended to the wounded as much as they could. I barely saw Azriel, who had set up a tent to organize the information pouring in from his scouts: the Hybern fleet had retreated. Not to the Spring Court, but across the sea. No sign of any other forces waiting to strike. No whisper of Tamlin or Jurian.

Cassian, though … He limped through the injured laid out on the rocky, dry ground, offering kernels of praise or comfort to the soldiers who had not yet been tended. With the Siphons, he could do quick battlefield patching, but … nothing extensive. Nothing intricate.

His face, whenever we crossed paths as I fetched supplies for the healers working without rest, was grave. Gaunt. He still wore his armor, and though he’d rinsed the blood from his skin, it clung near the neck of his breastplate. The dullness in his hazel eyes was the same as that glazing my own. And Mor’s.

But Rhys … His eyes were clear. Alert. His expression grim, but … It was to him the soldiers looked. And he was everything he should be: a High Lord confident in his victory, whose forces had smashed through the Hybern fleet and saved a city of innocents. The toll it had taken on his own soldiers was difficult, but a worthy cost for victory. He strolled through the camp—overseeing the wounded, the information Azriel handed him, checking in with his commanders—still in his Illyrian armor. But wings gone. They’d vanished before he’d appeared in Tarquin’s chamber.

The sun set, leaving a blanket of darkness over the city lying below. So much darker than I’d last beheld it, alive and glittering with light. But this new darkness … We had seen it in Velaris after the attack—we now knew it too well.

Faelights bobbed over our camp, gilding the talons of all those Illyrian wings as they worked or lay injured. I knew many looked to me—their High Lady.

But I could not muster Rhys’s ease. His quiet triumph.

So I kept fetching bowls of fresh water, kept hauling away the bloodied ones. Helped pin down screaming soldiers until my teeth clacked against each other with the force of their thrashing.

I sat down only when my legs could no longer keep me upright, upon an overturned bucket outside the healers’ tent. Just a few minutes—I’d sit for just a few minutes.

I awoke inside another tent, laid upon a pile of furs, the faelight dim and soft.

Rhys sat beside me, legs crossed, his hair in unusual disarray. Streaked with blood—as if it had coated his hands when he dragged them through it.

“How long was I out?” My words were a rasp.

He lifted his head from where he’d been studying some array of papers spread on the fur before him. “Three hours. Dawn is still far off—you should sleep.”

But I propped myself on my elbows. “You’re not.”

He shrugged, sipping from the water goblet set beside him. “I’m not the one who fell face-first off a bucket into the mud.” His wry smile faded. “How are you feeling?”

I almost said Fine, but … “I’m still figuring out what to feel.”

A careful nod. “Open war is like that … It takes a while to decide how to deal with everything that it brings. The costs.”

I sat up fully, scanning the papers he’d laid out. Casualty lists. Only a hundred or so names on them, but … “Did you know them—the ones who died?”

His violet eyes shuttered. “A few. Tarquin lost many more than we did.”

“Who tells their families?”

“Cassian. He’ll send out lists once dawn arrives—when we see who survives the night. He’ll visit their families if he knew them.”

I remembered that Rhys had once told me he’d scanned casualty lists for his friends in the War—the dread they’d all felt, waiting to see if a familiar name was on them.

So many shadows clouded those violet eyes. I laid a hand on his own. He studied my fingers on his, the arcs of dirt beneath my fingernails.

“The king only came today,” he said at last, “to ta

unt me. The library attack, this battle … It was a way to toy with me. Us.”

I touched his jaw. Cold—his skin was cold, despite the warm summer night pressing on us. “You are not going to die in this war, Rhysand.”

His attention snapped to me.

I cupped his face in both hands now. “Don’t you listen to a word he says. He knows—”

“He knows about us. Our histories.”

And that scared Rhys to death.

“He knew the library … He picked it for what it meant to me, not just to take Nesta.”

“So we learn where to hit him, and strike hard. Better yet, we kill him before he can do any further harm.”

Rhys shook his head slightly, removing his face from my hands. “If it was only the king to contend with … But with the Cauldron in his arsenal …”