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

by Sarah J. Maas

In the beginning And in the end There was Darkness And nothing more

Everything it had stolen from her, from Elain, she would take from it. Wrapped in black eternity, Nesta and the Cauldron twined, burning through the darkness like a newborn star.

So Nesta had become a wolf. Armed herself with invisible teeth and claws, and learned to strike faster, deeper, more lethally. Had relished it. But when the time came to put away the wolf, she’d found it had devoured her, too.

You think I haven’t gone through what you’re dealing with? You think I haven’t seen and done and felt all that before? And seen those I love deal with it, too? You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last.

I have no regrets in my life, but this. That we did not have time. That I did not have time with you, Nesta. I will find you again in the next world—the next life. And we will have that time. I promise.

The familiar male’s gaze snagged on her. “What’s her business here?” Nesta gave him a secretive smile. “Witchcraft.

I am worthless and I am nothing, Nesta nearly said. She wasn’t sure why the words bubbled up, pressing on her lips to voice them. I hate everything that I am. And I am so, so tired. I am tired of wanting to be anywhere but in my own head.

Azriel was nothing short of beautiful. Even with those scarred hands and the shadows that flowed from him like smoke, she’d always found him to be the prettiest of the three males who called themselves brothers.

“Doesn’t count when you use your hands to do most of the work.” Nesta schooled her face into utter disdain, even as a hiss rose inside her. “I bet that isn’t what you’ve been telling yourself at night.”

When she first came here, she was obsessed with theories regarding the existence of different realms—different worlds. Living on top of each other without even knowing it. Whether there is merely one existence, our existence, or if it might be possible for worlds to overlap, occupying the same space but separated by time and a whole bunch of other things

“Some philosophers believe there are eleven worlds like that. And some believe there are as many as twenty-six, the last one being Time itself,

When I had a shit day, when I was spat on or pummeled or shunned, when I led armies and lost good warriors, when Rhys was taken by Amarantha—through all of that, the training remained. You said the other day the breathing helped you. It helps me, too. It helped Feyre.”

“The first time I saw that look on your face, you were still human. Still human, and I nearly went to my knees before you.”

“Your power is a song, and one I’ve waited a very, very long time to hear, Nesta.”

The Harp can open any door, physical or otherwise. Some say between worlds.

“Shall I tend to my little garden forever?”

“You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you

She’d been sweating herself when they’d finished, wondering what it’d be like to be between those two male bodies, letting them turn all that lethal attention on worshipping her.

If she were to run, it would be toward him, not away.

Only silver fire burned behind the eyes of the Mask.

Because to stand against it would be to provoke the Mask’s wrath. To stand against it would be to stand against Death itself. Death herself

And so they did what their people had always done before Death’s beautiful face. They bowed.

“That is a dialect of our tongue that has not been spoken in fifteen thousand years.”

Oh!!!??? 15000 years you say 👀

She’d been contemplating the Mask when they’d found her in its room, contemplating that void. Wondering whether anyone had ever donned the Mask not to raise the dead, but to simply stop being inside their own minds.

“Do you like seeing me kneel before you?” he asked, the words rumbling into her very core. He dipped his tongue into her. “You taste like you do.”

Never again. Never again would she be weak. Never again would she be at someone’s mercy. Never again would she fail. Never again, never again, never again.

Cassian’s voice stopped, and then the world paused, and all that existed was him, his fierce smile, as if he knew what song roared in her blood, as if he alone understood that the blade was an instrument to channel this raging fire in her.

No fear shone in their eyes. As if they, too, saw what Cassian did. As if they, too, heard those words within Nesta’s head. Never again.

I am the rock against which the surf crashes

“The last one Made, the great blade Gwydion, vanished around the time the last of the Trove went missing.”

Hmmm… I wonder where it went? Maybe in the hand of a star born?

It had belonged to a true Fae High King in Prythian, as there had been in Hybern. He had united the lands, its people—and for a while, with that sword, peace had reigned. Until he had been betrayed by his own queen and his fiercest general, and lost the sword to them, and the lands fell into darkness once more. Never again to see another High King—only High Lords, who ruled the territories that had once answered to the king.

But what Feyre does with paint, that’s what Nesta did with music and dance.

Nesta was wrong, Cassian realized, to think Elain as loyal and loving as a dog. Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t let him see the word in her eyes. Good

Cassian knew that Nesta often hated herself. But he’d never known she hated herself enough to want to … not exist anymore.

She wished he would. Wished someone would cut the damned thing from her chest. Wished someone would smother the voice that whispered of every horrible thing she had ever done, every awful thought she’d had, every person she’d failed.

said, “I am going to tell you that you will get through it. That you will face all of this, and you will get through it. That these tears are good, Nesta. These tears mean you care. I am going to tell you that it is not too late, not for any of it. And I can’t tell you when, or how, but it will get better. What you feel, this guilt and pain and self-loathing—you will get through it. But only if you are willing to fight. Only if you are willing to face it, and embrace it, and walk through it, to emerge on the other side of it. And maybe you will still feel that tinge of pain, but there is another side. A better side.”

“Everyone deserves happiness. The road there isn’t easy. It is long, and hard, and often traveled utterly blind. But you keep going.”

My heart

“There’s nothing broken to be fixed,” he said fiercely. “You are helping yourself. Healing the parts of you that hurt too much—and perhaps hurt others, too.”

“Your story is worth telling, you know.”

Rhys told me once that this island might have even been an eighth court.”

Twenty-six, twenty-six, twenty-six … Gwyn’s voice floated from far away, recounting Merrill’s earlier research on dimensions. The possibility of twenty-six dimensions.

Could the Harp transplant her from one place to another? Not only open a door, but create one she might walk through?

A fourth object lay on the altar, veiled in shadow. But she couldn’t make out more than a gleam of age-worn bone—

Only pulling one had carried her down here, so she supposed that two would take them perhaps a bit farther than that, and Velaris … Well, it seemed like it’d take three strings. She didn’t want to know where all twenty-six strings might take her if strummed. Or if someone made a melody.

“The Fae were not the first masters of this world. According to our oldest legends, most now forgotten, we were created by beings who were near-gods—and monsters. The Daglan. They ruled for millennia, and enslaved us and the humans. They were petty and cruel and drank the magic of the land like wine.”

“Some strains of the mythology claim that one of the Fae heroes who rose up to overthrow them was Fionn, who was given the great sword Gwydion by the High Priestess Oleanna, who had dipped it into the Cauldron itself. Fionn and Gwydion overthrew the Daglan. A millennium of peace followed, and the lands were divided into rough territories that were the precursors to the courts—but at the end of those thousand years, they were at each other’s throats, on the brink of war.” His face tightened. “Fionn unified them and set himself above them as High King. The first and only High King this land has ever had.”

“Fionn was betrayed by his queen, who had been leader of her own territory, and by his dearest friend, who was his general. They killed him, taking some of his bloodline’s most powerful and precious weapons, and then out of the chaos that followed, the seven High Lords rose, and the courts have been in place ever since.”

“The Daglan delighted in terrorizing the Fae and humans under their control. The Wild Hunt was a way to keep all of us in line. They’d gather a host of their fiercest, most merciless warriors and grant them free rein to kill as they pleased. The Daglan possessed mighty, monstrous beasts—hounds, they called them, though they didn’t look like the hounds we know—that they used to run prey to ground before they tortured and killed them. It’s a terrible history, and much of it might be elaborated myths.”