Nynsar. It’d be the first Tamlin and his court would celebrate in nearly fifty years. Amarantha had banned it on a whim, along with a few other small, but beloved Fae holidays that she had deemed unnecessary. But Nynsar was months from now. “Is it even possible—to truly keep you out?”
“Not likely, but who knows how deep that power goes? Keep practicing and we’ll see what happens.”
“And will I still be bound by this bargain at Nynsar, too?”
Silence.
I pushed, “After—after what happened—” I couldn’t mention specifics on what had occurred Under the Mountain, what he’d done for me during that fight with Amarantha, what he’d done after— “I think we can agree that I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing.”
His gaze was unflinching.
I blazed on, “Isn’t it enough that we’re all free?” I splayed my tattooed hand on the table. “By the end, I thought you were different, thought that it was all a mask, but taking me away, keeping me here … ” I shook my head, unable to find the words vicious enough, clever enough to convince him to end this bargain.
His eyes darkened. “I’m not your enemy, Feyre.”
“Tamlin says you are.” I curled the fingers of my tattooed hand into a fist. “Everyone else says you are.”
“And what do you think?” He leaned back in his chair again, but his face was grave.
“You’re doing a damned good job of making me agree with them.”
“Liar,” he purred. “Did you even tell your friends about what I did to you Under the Mountain?”
So that comment at breakfast had gotten under his skin. “I don’t want to talk about anything related to that. With you or them.”
“No, because it’s so much easier to pretend it never happened and let them coddle you.”
“I don’t let them coddle me—”
“They had you wrapped up like a present yesterday. Like you were his reward.”
“So?”
“So?” A flicker of rage, then it was gone.
“I’m ready to be taken home,” I merely said.
“Where you’ll be cloistered for the rest of your life, especially once you start punching out heirs. I can’t wait to see what Ianthe does when she gets her hands on them.”
“You don’t seem to have a particularly high opinion of her.”
Something cold and predatory crept into his eyes. “No, I can’t say that I do.” He pointed to a blank piece of paper. “Start copying the alphabet. Until your letters are perfect. And every time you get through a round, lower and raise your shield. Until that is second nature. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“What?”
“Copy. The. Alphabet. Until—”
“I heard what you said.” Prick. Prick, prick, prick.
“Then get to work.” Rhys uncoiled to his feet. “And at least have the decency to only call me a prick when your shields are back up.”
He vanished into a ripple of darkness before I realized that I’d let the wall of adamant fade again.
By the time Rhys returned, my mind felt like a mud puddle.
I spent the entire hour doing as I’d been ordered, though I’d flinched at every sound from the nearby stairwell: quiet steps of servants, the flapping of sheets being changed, someone humming a beautiful and winding melody. And beyond that, the chatter of birds that dwelled in the unnatural warmth of the mountain or in the many potted citrus trees. No sign of my impending torment. No sentries, even, to monitor me. I might as well have had the entire place to myself.
Which was good, as my attempts to lower and raise that mental shield often resulted in my face being twisted or strained or pinched.
“Not bad,” Rhys said, peering over my shoulder.
He’d appeared moments before, a healthy distance away, and if I hadn’t known better, I might have thought it was because he didn’t want to startle me. As if he’d known about the time Tamlin had crept up behind me, and panic had hit me so hard I’d knocked him on his ass with a punch to his stomach. I’d blocked it out—the shock on Tam’s face, how easy it had been to take him off his feet, the humiliation of having my stupid terror so out in the open …
Rhys scanned the pages I’d scribbled on, sorting through them, tracking my progress.
Then, a scrape of claws inside my mind—that only sliced against black, glittering adamant.
I threw my lingering will into that wall as the claws pushed, testing for weak spots …
“Well, well,” Rhysand purred, those mental claws withdrawing. “Hopefully I’ll be getting a good night’s rest at last, if you can manage to keep the wall up while you sleep.”
I dropped the shield, sent a word blasting down that mental bridge between us, and hauled the walls back up. Behind it, my mind wobbled like jelly. I needed a nap. Desperately.
“Prick I might be, but look at you. Maybe we’ll get to have some fun with our lessons after all.”
I was still scowling at Rhys’s muscled back as I kept a healthy ten steps behind him while he led me through the halls of the main building, the sweeping mountains and blisteringly blue sky the only witnesses to our silent trek.
I was too drained to demand where we were now going, and he didn’t bother explaining as he led me up, up—until we entered a round chamber at the top of a tower.
A circular table of black stone occupied the center, while the largest stretch of uninterrupted gray stone wall was covered in a massive map of our world. It had been marked and flagged and pinned, for whatever reasons I couldn’t tell, but my gaze drifted to the windows throughout the room—so many that it felt utterly exposed, breathable. The perfect home, I supposed, for a High Lord blessed with wings.
Rhys stalked to the table, where there was another map spread, figurines dotting its surface. A map of Prythian—and Hybern.
Every court in our land had been marked, along with villages and cities and rivers and mountain passes. Every court … but the Night Court.
The vast, northern territory was utterly blank. Not even a mountain range had been etched in. Strange, likely part of some strategy I didn’t understand.
I found Rhysand watching me—his raised brows enough to make me shut my mouth against the forming question.
“Nothing to ask?”
“No.”
A feline smirk danced on his lips, but Rhys jerked his chin toward the map on the wall. “What do you see?”
“Is this some sort of way of convincing me to embrace my reading lessons?” Indeed, I couldn’t decipher any of the writing, only the shapes of things. Like the wall, its massive line bisecting our world.
“Tell me what you see.”
“A world divided in two.”
“And do you think it should remain that way?”
I whipped my head toward him. “My family—” I halted on the word. I should have known better than to admit to having a family, that I cared for them—
“Your human family,” Rhys finished, “would be deeply impacted if the wall came down, wouldn’t they? So close to its border … If they’re lucky, they’ll flee across the ocean before it happens.”
“Will it happen?”
Rhysand didn’t break my stare. “Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because war is coming, Feyre.”
CHAPTER
7
War.
The word clanged through me, freezing my veins.
“Don’t invade,” I breathed. I’d get on my knees for this. I’d crawl if I had to. “Don’t invade—please.”
Rhys cocked his head, his mouth tightening. “You truly think I’m a monster, even after everything.”
“Please,” I gasped out. “They’re defenseless, they won’t stand a chance—”
“I’m not going to invade the mortal lands,” he said too quietly.
I waited for him to go on, glad for the spacious room, the bright air, as the ground started to slide out from beneath me.
“Put your damn shield
up,” he growled.
I looked inward, finding that invisible wall had dropped again. But I was so tired, and if war was coming, if my family—
“Shield. Now.”
The raw command in his voice—the voice of the High Lord of the Night Court—had me acting on instinct, my exhausted mind building the wall brick by brick. Only when it’d ensconced my mind once more did he speak, his eyes softening almost imperceptibly. “Did you think it would end with Amarantha?”
“Tamlin hasn’t said … ” And why would he tell me? But there were so many patrols, so many meetings I wasn’t allowed to attend, such … tension. He had to know. I needed to ask him—demand why he hadn’t told me—
“The King of Hybern has been planning his campaign to reclaim the world south of the wall for over a hundred years,” Rhys said. “Amarantha was an experiment—a forty-nine-year test, to see how easily and how long a territory might fall and be controlled by one of his commanders.”
For an immortal, forty-nine years was nothing. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear he’d been planning this for far longer than a century. “Will he attack Prythian first?”
“Prythian,” Rhys said, pointing to the map of our massive island on the table, “is all that stands between the King of Hybern and the continent. He wants to reclaim the human lands there—perhaps seize the faerie lands, too. If anyone is to intercept his conquering fleet before it reaches the continent, it would be us.”
I slid into one of the chairs, my knees wobbling so badly I could hardly keep upright.
“He will seek to remove Prythian from his way swiftly and thoroughly,” Rhys continued. “And shatter the wall at some point in the process. There are already holes in it, though mercifully small enough to make it difficult to swiftly pass his armies through. He’ll want to bring the whole thing down—and likely use the ensuing panic to his advantage.”
Each breath was like swallowing glass. “When—when is he going to attack?” The wall had held steady for five centuries, and even then, those damned holes had allowed the foulest, hungriest Fae beasts to sneak through and prey on humans. Without that wall, if Hybern was indeed to launch an assult on the human world … I wished I hadn’t eaten such a large breakfast.
“That is the question,” he said. “And why I brought you here.”
I lifted my head to meet his stare. His face was drawn, but calm.
“I don’t know when or where he plans to attack Prythian,” Rhys went on. “I don’t know who his allies here might be.”
“He’d have allies here?”
A slow nod. “Cowards who would bow and join him, rather than fight his armies again.”
I could have sworn a whisper of darkness spread along the floor behind him. “Did … did you fight in the War?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. But then Rhys nodded. “I was young—by our standards, at least. But my father had sent aid to the mortal-faerie alliance on the continent, and I convinced him to let me take a legion of our soldiers.” He sat in the chair beside mine, gazing vacantly at the map. “I was stationed in the south, right where the fighting was thickest. The slaughter was … ” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I have no interest in ever seeing full-scale slaughter like that again.”
He blinked, as if clearing the horrors from his mind. “But I don’t think the King of Hybern will strike that way—not at first. He’s too smart to waste his forces here, to give the continent time to rally while we fight him. If he makes his move to destroy Prythian and the wall, it’ll be through stealth and trickery. To weaken us. Amarantha was the first part of that plan. We now have several untested High Lords, broken courts with High Priestesses angling for control like wolves around a carcass, and a people who have realized how powerless they might truly be.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I said, my voice thin, scratchy. It made no sense—none—that he would reveal his suspicions, his fears.
And Ianthe—she might be ambitious, but she was Tamlin’s friend. My friend, of sorts. Perhaps the only ally we’d have against the other High Priestesses, Rhys’s personal dislike for her or no …
“I am telling you for two reasons,” he said, his face so cold, so calm, that it unnerved me as much as the news he was delivering. “One, you’re … close to Tamlin. He has men—but he also has long-existing ties to Hybern—”
“He’d never help the king—”
Rhys held up a hand. “I want to know if Tamlin is willing to fight with us. If he can use those connections to our advantage. As he and I have strained relations, you have the pleasure of being the go-between.”
“He doesn’t inform me of those things.”
“Perhaps it’s time he did. Perhaps it’s time you insisted.” He examined the map, and I followed where his gaze landed. On the wall within Prythian—on the small, vulnerable mortal territory. My mouth went dry.
“What is your other reason?”
Rhys looked me up and down, assessing, weighing. “You have a skill set that I need. Rumor has it you caught a Suriel.”
“It wasn’t that hard.”
“I’ve tried and failed. Twice. But that’s a discussion for another day. I saw you trap the Middengard Wyrm like a rabbit.” His eyes twinkled. “I need you to help me. To use those skills of yours to track down what I need.”
“What do you need? Whatever was tied to my reading and shielding, I’m guessing?”
“You’ll learn of that later.”
I didn’t know why I’d even bothered to ask. “There have to be at least a dozen other hunters more experienced and skilled—”
“Maybe there are. But you’re the only one I trust.”
I blinked. “I could betray you whenever I feel like it.”
“You could. But you won’t.” I gritted my teeth, and was about to say something vicious when he added, “And then there’s the matter of your powers.”
“I don’t have any powers.” It came out so fast that there was no chance of it sounding like anything but denial.
Rhys crossed his legs. “Don’t you? The strength, the speed … If I didn’t know better, I’d say you and Tamlin were doing a very good job of pretending you’re normal. That the powers you’re displaying aren’t usually the first indications among our kind that a High Lord’s son might become his Heir.”
“I’m not a High Lord.”
“No, but you were given life by all seven of us. Your very essence is tied to us, born of us. What if we gave you more than we expected?” Again, that gaze raked over me. “What if you could stand against us—hold your own, a High Lady?”
“There are no High Ladies.”
His brows furrowed, but he shook his head. “We’ll talk about that later, too. But yes, Feyre—there can be High Ladies. And perhaps you aren’t one of them, but … what if you were something similar? What if you were able to wield the power of seven High Lords at once? What if you could blend into darkness, or shape-shift, or freeze over an entire room—an entire army?”
The winter wind on the nearby peaks seemed to howl in answer. That thing I’d felt under my skin …
“Do you understand what that might mean in an oncoming war? Do you understand how it might destroy you if you don’t learn to control it?”
“One, stop asking so many rhetorical questions. Two, we don’t know if I do have these powers—”
“You do. But you need to start mastering them. To learn what you inherited from us.”
“And I suppose you’re the one to teach me, too? Reading and shielding aren’t enough?”
“While you hunt with me for what I need, yes.”
I began shaking my head. “Tamlin won’t allow it.”
“Tamlin isn’t your keeper, and you know it.”
“I’m his subject, and he is my High Lord—”
“You are no one’s subject.”
I went rigid at the flash of teeth, the smoke-like wings that flared out.
“I will say this once—and
only once,” Rhysand purred, stalking to the map on the wall. “You can be a pawn, be someone’s reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you’re less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it’s your choice.” The shadow of wings rippled again. “But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don’t believe for one damn minute that you’re remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—”
“Stop it—”
“Or,” he plowed ahead, “you’ve got another choice. You can master whatever powers we gave to you, and make it count. You can play a role in this war. Because war is coming one way or another, and do not try to delude yourself that any of the Fae will give a shit about your family across the wall when our whole territory is likely to become a charnel house.”
I stared at the map—at Prythian, and that sliver of land at its southern base.
“You want to save the mortal realm?” he asked. “Then become someone Prythian listens to. Become vital. Become a weapon. Because there might be a day, Feyre, when only you stand between the King of Hybern and your human family. And you do not want to be unprepared.”
I lifted my gaze to him, my breath tight, aching.
As if he hadn’t just knocked the world from beneath my feet, Rhysand said, “Think it over. Take the week. Ask Tamlin, if it’ll make you sleep better. See what charming Ianthe says about it. But it’s your choice to make—no one else’s.”
I didn’t see Rhysand for the rest of the week. Or Mor.
The only people I encountered were Nuala and Cerridwen, who delivered my meals, made my bed, and occasionally asked how I was faring.
The only evidence I had at all that Rhys remained on the premises were the blank copies of the alphabet, along with several sentences I was to write every day, swapping out words, each one more obnoxious than the last:
Rhysand is the most handsome High Lord.