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

by Sarah J. Maas

“I like your sister.” One of the few. Amren lifted her eyes to me, as if I’d said the words aloud. “I like her because so few do. I like her because she is not easy to be around, or to understand.”

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

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. The same design of the chest of drawers I’d once painted in that dilapidated cottage.

I met Rhys’s stare over the sparkling candles. His smile was enough to make the tightness in my throat turn into burning in my eyes. 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.

He waited, panting, for the verbal lashing to begin. For her to shred him into ribbons. But Nesta only stared at him, her nose crinkling. Stared, then snorted—and walked away. As if he were nothing. As if he weren’t worth her time. The effort. A low-born Illyrian bastard.

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.

Nesta loosed a shuddering sigh and slid down the wall until she was sitting against it. Until she drew her knees to her chest and stared into the dimness. Still the silence raged and echoed around her. Still she felt nothing.

Never enough. Not to paint him, know him. Eons would never be enough for all I wanted to do, see with him. For all I wanted to love him. The painting shone before me: Night Triumphant—and the Stars Eternal.

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

To the stars who listen, Feyre. I brushed a hand over his cheek to wipe away the last of his tears, his skin warm and soft, and we turned down the street that would lead us home. Toward our future—and all that waited within it. To the dreams that are answered, Rhys.