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coffers
drudgery.
I didn’t know what to do with my body, my hands, so I opted for stillness.
Tamlin didn’t have shields around the house. None to prevent anyone from winnowing in, to guard against enemies appearing in his bedroom and slitting his throat. It was almost as if he was waiting for someone to do it.
“We have everything we need,” I admitted to Elain. “Buying presents feels excessive.” “It’s their tradition, though,” Elain countered, her face still flushed with the cold. “One that they fought and died to protect in the war. Perhaps that’s the better way to think of it, rather than feeling guilty.
Despite her pretty smile, her gray eyes were … quiet. There was no way of explaining it. Quiet, and a little distant.
The weaver only stared toward the tapestry. “I thought we’d have a thousand more years together.” She began to coax the loom back into movement. “In the three hundred years we were wed, we never had the chance to have children.” Her fingers moved beautifully, unfaltering despite her words. “I don’t even have a piece of him in that way. He’s gone, and I am not. Void was born of that feeling.”
“How.” I gestured to the loom, the half-finished piece taking form on its frame, the art on the walls. “How do you keep creating, despite what you lost?” Whether she noted the crack in my voice, she didn’t let on. The weaver only said, her sad, sorrowful gaze meeting mine, “I have to.” The simple words hit me like a blow.
“I have to create, or it was all for nothing. I have to create, or I will crumple up with despair and never leave my bed. I have to create because I have no other way of voicing this.” Her hand rested on her heart, and my eyes burned. “It is hard,” the weaver said, her stare never leaving mine, “and it hurts, but if I were to stop, if I were to let this loom or the spindle go silent …” She broke my gaze at last to look to her tapestry. “Then there would be no Hope shining in the Void.”
I painted through the grief that lingered at the weaver’s story, painted for her loss. I painted all that rose within me, letting the past bleed onto the canvas, a blessed relief with each stroke of my brush.
I blew out a breath and surveyed him, the face dearer to me than anything in the world, the weaver’s words echoing through me.
Siphon
He kissed me deeply, lazily—as if he’d be content to do nothing but that all day. I might have considered it.
incredulous
A pulse down the bond, as if in answer. Everything all right? I let Rhys see and hear all that had been said, the conversation conveyed in the blink of an eye.
There was nothing else to be said. So I touched her shoulder and strode out.
“Three Illyrian warriors,” I said. “The greatest Illyrian warriors. Are having a snowball fight.”
I handed Elain the small box with her name on it. Her smile faded as she opened it. “Enchanted gloves,” she read from the card. “That won’t tear or become too sweaty while gardening.” She set aside the box without looking at it for longer than a moment. And I wondered if she preferred to have torn and sweaty hands, if the dirt and cuts were proof of her labor. Her joy.
Told himself he didn’t want to know if the males meant anything—if he meant anything. He didn’t know why the hell he cared. Why he’d bothered. Even from the start.
She tried and failed to muster the shame. But nothing came. Nothing at all. There was anger, occasionally. Sharp, hot anger that sliced her. But most of the time it was silence. Ringing, droning silence.
She hadn’t felt anything in months. Had days when she didn’t really know where she was or what she’d done. They passed swiftly and yet dripped by.
Dark, sensual promise lay in his star-flecked eyes.
His eyes were star-bright. “Long ago, when I was still a boy, she made them—all your gowns. A trousseau for my future bride.” His throat bobbed. “Every piece … Every piece I have ever given you to wear, she made them. For you.”
“Every time,” he gritted out. “Every time, you feel exquisite
Feyre Archeron, a request. Leave this world a better place than how you found it.
