A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3.5)

by Sarah J. Maas

Instead, I asked, “Elain invited you to dinner tonight. Why didn’t you come?” Nesta’s smile was slow, sharp as a blade. “I wanted to hear the musicians play.” I cast a pointed look to the band. More skilled than the usual tavern set, but not a real excuse. “She wanted you there.” I wanted you there.

I knew better than to ask if she thought her mother would come along. We didn’t discuss Mor’s mother. Ever.

“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. To remember that this day means something to them. All of them, regardless of who has more, who has less, and in celebrating the traditions, even through the presents, we honor those who fought for its very existence, for the peace this city now has.” For

The tapestry had been woven from fabric so black it seemed to devour the light, so black it almost strained the eye. The insignia, however, had been rendered in silver thread—no, not silver. A sort of iridescent thread that shifted with sparks of color. Like woven starlight.

“I don’t know who I’d get it for,” I admitted, extending a finger toward the black fabric of the tapestry. The moment my nail touched the velvet-soft surface, it seemed to vanish. As if the material truly did gobble up all color, all light.

The weaver was High Fae, full-figured and pale-skinned. A sheet of black hair had been braided back from her face, the length of the plait dropping over the shoulder of her thick, red sweater. Practical brown pants and shearling-lined boots completed her attire. Simple, comfortable clothes. What I might wear while painting. Or doing anything.

“I wanted to know about the tapestry with the insignia,” I said. “The black fabric—what is it?”

The weaver waved off my apology. “It’s an unusual fabric. Questions are expected.” She smoothed a hand over the wooden frame of her loom. “I call it Void. It absorbs the light. Creates a complete lack of color.”

Her gray eyes shifted toward me again. “My husband didn’t return from the war.” The frank, open words clanged through me. It was an effort to hold her gaze as she continued, “I began trying to create Void the day after I learned he’d fallen.”

“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.”

“The silver thread,” Elain asked. “What is that called?” The weaver paused the loom again, the colorful strings vibrating. She held my sister’s gaze. No attempt at a smile this time. “I call it Hope.”

The weaver explained to my sister, “I made it after I mastered Void.”

I stared and stared at the black fabric that was like peering into a pit of hell. And then stared at the iridescent, living silver thread that cut through it, bright

The impossible depth of blackness before me, the unlikely defiance of Hope shining through it, whispered the truth before I knew it. Before I knew what I wanted to give Rhys.

“Feyre?” Elain was again at my side. I hadn’t heard her steps. Hadn’t heard any sound for moments.

“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. The weaver went on, “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 had no words to offer her, nothing to convey what surged in my chest. Nothing other than, “I would like to buy that tapestry.”

the half-finished puzzle of what seemed to be some sort of autumnal pastoral. “A new hobby of yours?” “Without that odious Book to decipher, I’ve found I miss such things.” Another piece snapped into place. “This is my fifth this week.” “We’re only three days into the week.” “They don’t make them hard enough for me.” “How many pieces is this one?” “Five thousand.” “Show-off.”

“No,” Amren said. “But I know she would not like me to be musing over her path with anyone. With you.”

Again, Amren sifted through her pieces. “Elain has her own problems to focus on.” “Such as?” Amren just gave me a Look. I ignored it.

Mor continued, “Just be patient. It’ll sort itself out. It always does.” Another kernel of truth.

“I want them to be happy. All of them.” “They will be.” She said the simple words with such unflagging conviction that I believed her.

“They’re having a snowball fight.” Another nod. “Three Illyrian warriors,” I said. “The greatest Illyrian warriors. Are having a snowball fight.”

“To the blessed darkness from which we are born, and to which we return.”

Beyond the windows, darkness had indeed fallen. The longest night of the year. I found Elain studying it, beautiful in her amethyst-colored gown. I made to move toward her, but someone beat me to it. The shadowsinger was clad in a black jacket and pants similar to Rhysand’s—the fabric immaculately tailored and built to fit his wings. He still wore his Siphons atop either hand, and shadows trailed his footsteps, curling like swirled embers, but there was little sign of the warrior otherwise. Especially as he gently said to my sister, “Happy Solstice.”

My friends—my family—echoed the words as Rhys set the cake on the low-lying table before the fire. I glanced toward my sister. “Did you …?” A nod from Elain. “Nuala did the decorating, though.” It was then that I realized what the three different tiers had been painted to look like. On the top: flowers. In the middle: flames. And on the bottom, widest layer … stars.

What are you going to wish for? A simple, honest question. And looking at him, at that beautiful face and easy smile, so many of those shadows vanished, our family gathered around us, eternity a road ahead … I knew. I truly knew what I wanted to wish for, as if it were a piece of Amren’s puzzle clicking into place, as if the threads of the weaver’s tapestry finally revealed the design they’d formed to make. I didn’t tell him, though. Not as I gathered my breath and blew.

Azriel’s composure didn’t so much as falter as he opened her present: a set of embroidered blue towels—with his initials on them. Bright blue. I had to look away to keep from laughing. Az, to his credit, gave Mor a smile of thanks, a blush creeping over his cheeks, his hazel eyes fixed on her. I looked away at the heat, the yearning that filled them.

was all the note said. 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.

Elain turned from where she’d been speaking to Nesta. “Oh, that’s from me.” Azriel’s face didn’t so much as shift at the words. Not even a smile as he opened the present and revealed— “I had Madja make it for me,” Elain explained. Azriel’s brows narrowed at the mention of the family’s preferred healer. “It’s a powder to mix in with any drink.” Silence. Elain bit her lip and then smiled sheepishly. “It’s for the headaches everyone always gives you. Since you rub your temples so often.” Silence again. Then Azriel tipped his head back and laughed.

Azriel mastered himself enough to say, “Thank you.” I’d never seen his hazel eyes so bright, the hues of green amid the brown and gray like veins of emerald.

I remained in the chilly antechamber, hand still outstretched, the phantom dryness of that check lingering on my fingers. The floorboards thudded behind me, and then I was being gently but forcibly moved to the side. It happened so fast I barely had time to realize that Cassian had gone storming past—right out the front door. To my sister.

A void seemed to enter those eyes. An endless, depthless void. She only said, “Go home, Cassian.”

“Talk to me. Nesta. Tell me—” She ripped her hand out of his grip. Stared him down. A mighty, vengeful queen.

He watched her until she was a shadow against the darkness—and then she vanished completely. He remained staring after her, that present in his hands. Cassian’s fingertips dug into the soft wood of the small box. He was grateful the streets were empty when he hurled that box into the Sidra. Hurled it hard enough that the splash echoed off the buildings flanking the river, ice cracking from the impact. Ice instantly re-formed over the hole he’d blown open. As if it, and the present, had never been.

The night’s frosty chill crept through the worn shutters, drawing another tremble from her. But she didn’t light the fire in the hearth across the room. She could barely stand to hear the crack and pop of the wood. Had barely been able to endure it in Feyre’s town house. Snap; crunch. How no one ever remarked that it sounded like breaking bones, like a snapping neck, she had no idea.

“You never told me where you got it—where you got all my favorite dresses.” Rhys arched a dark brow. “You never figured it out?” I shook my head. For a moment, he said nothing, his head dipping to study the dress. “My mother made them.” I went still. Rhys smiled sadly at the shimmering gown. “She was a seamstress, back at the camp where she’d been raised. She didn’t just do the work because she was ordered to. She did it because she loved it. And when she mated my father, she continued.” I grazed a reverent hand down my sleeve. “I—I had no idea.” 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.” My eyes stung as I breathed, “Why didn’t you tell me?” He shrugged with one shoulder. “I thought you might be … disturbed to wear gowns made by a female who died centuries ago.” I put a hand over my heart. “I am honored, Rhys. Beyond words.” His mouth trembled a bit. “She would have loved you.” It was as great a gift as any I’d been given. I leaned down until our brows touched. I would have loved her. I

My heart thundered, but I said, “I have one last Solstice gift for you.” Rhys went still at my soft voice, the tremble in it. “Oh?” Our hands linked, I caressed the adamant walls of his mind. The barriers immediately fell, allowing me in. Allowing me to show him that last gift. What I hoped he’d deem as a gift, too. His hands began shaking around mine, but he said nothing until I’d retreated from his mind. Until we were staring at each other again in silence. His breathing turned ragged, his eyes silver-lined. “You’re sure?” he repeated. Yes. More than anything. I’d realized it, felt it, in the weaver’s gallery. “Would it be … Would it indeed be a gift for you?” I dared ask. His fingers tightened around mine. “Beyond measure.” As if in answer, light flared and sizzled along my palms, and I peered down to find my hands altered. The mountain and three stars gracing the heart of each palm.

Rhys didn’t wait for my answer before kneeling before me, his wings draping over the rug. Before he pressed a kiss to my abdomen, as if in reverence and benediction. Then pressed a kiss lower. Lower. My hand slid into his hair, just as he gripped one of my thighs and hoisted my leg over his shoulder. Just as I found myself somehow leaning against the wall near the doorway, as if he’d winnowed us. My head hit the wood with a soft thud as Rhys lowered his mouth to me.

brushed my own mental hands down him and breathed, Can you fuck me in here, too? That wicked delight faltered. Went silent. The stars and darkness paused, too. Then undiluted, utter predator answered, It would be my pleasure. And then I didn’t have the words for what happened. He gave me everything I wanted: the unleashed pounding of him inside my body—the unrelenting thrust and filling and slap of skin on skin, the slam of our bodies against wood. Night singing all around us, stars sweeping by like snow. And then there was us. Mind-to-mind, lain out on that bridge between our souls.

We had no bodies here, but I felt him as he seduced me, his dark power wrapping around mine, licking at my flames, sucking on my ice, scraping claws against my own. I felt him as his power blended with mine, ebbing and flowing, in and out, until my magic lashed out, latching onto him, both of us raging and burning together. All while he moved in me, relentless and driving as the sea. Over and over, power and flesh and soul, until I think I was screaming, until I think he was roaring, and my mortal body clenched around him, shattering. Then I shattered, everything I was rupturing into stars and galaxies and comets, nothing but pure, shining joy. Rhys held me, enveloped me, his darkness absorbing the light that sparkled and blasted, keeping me whole, keeping me together.

Rhys spilled into me with a roar, his wings splaying wide. And in our minds, down that bond, his magic erupted, his soul washing over mine, filling every crack and pit so that there was not one part of me that was not full of him, brimming with his dark, glorious essence and undimming love. He remained buried in me, leaning heavily against the wall as he panted against my neck, “FeyreFeyreFeyre.” He was shaking. We both were. I worked up the presence of mind to crack open my eyes. His face was wrecked. Stunned. His mouth remained partially open as he gaped at me, the glow still radiating from my skin, bright against the star-kissed shadows along his.

I lifted my eyes to his again and found stars and darkness waiting. Found home waiting.

That beautiful, blue-eyed, dark-haired boy that the Bone Carver had once shown me. That promise of the future.

That if I wanted to give it away, I should donate it to the Brush and Chisel. Do you know what that is?” I’d been too stunned to ask, to do anything other than nod and say I would. Ressina’s ochre eyes softened. “It’s a charity for artists in need of financial help—to provide them and their families with money for food or rent or clothes. So they needn’t go hungry or want for anything while they create.”

Feyre Archeron, a request. Leave this world a better place than how you found it.

We’d shown him the lists Az had compiled of the possible troublemakers in these camps. Cassian had been distant ever since. More malcontents than we’d expected. A good number of them from the Ironcrest camp, notorious rival of this clan, where Kallon, son of its lord, was taking pains to stir up as much dissent as possible. All directed toward Cassian and myself.

But this front space … Empty. Save for the tapestry I’d hung on one wall, the black of the Void mesmerizing. And a reminder. As much of a reminder as the impossible iridescence of Hope, glittering throughout. To work through loss, no matter how overwhelming. To create.