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

by Sarah J. Maas

“Did something happen that I, as your chaperone, should know about?” Azriel’s dry question dragged Cassian from his rising arousal.

Azriel stilled. “What happened to Elain?”

The Harp can open any door, physical or otherwise. Some say between worlds. And the Crown …” Amren shook her head. “The Crown can influence anyone, even piercing through the mightiest of mental shields. Its only flaw is that it requires close physical proximity to initially sink its claws into a victim’s mind.

Even as something kindled in her chest at his words. His defense of her.

And into the silence, Nesta said, “I wasn’t aware of what I took. Just that I was taking things the Cauldron did not want me to have. It seemed fitting, given what it was doing to me.”

For a heartbeat, it appeared that Elain might say something to soften the words. But Nesta cut her off, seething at the pity about to be thrown her way. “Look who decided to grow claws after all,” she crooned. “Maybe you’ll become interesting at last, Elain.”

Nesta saw the blow land, like a physical impact, in Elain’s face, her posture. No one spoke, though shadows gathered in the corners of the room, like snakes preparing to strike.

“I don’t know,” Azriel said.

“Turn a blind eye, chaperone.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “The only mistake was that I came before I could taste you.” Nesta knew he didn’t mean her mouth. Or her skin. Cassian went on, “The only mistake was that you ran off before I could get on my knees.”

She made herself say, “This stays out of training—and everything else. This is just sex.”

Cassian lunged for her, a beast freed of its cage, and she barely had time to twist toward the edge of the bed before his lips were on hers, devouring and claiming.

“I owe you a debt,” he said in that guttural voice that made her writhe. He watched her hips undulate, and braced his large, powerful hands on either thigh. He waited for her to signal that she understood what he intended. What she’d dreamed of for so long, in the darkest hours of the night. In a choked whisper, she said, “Yes.”

Even Feyre had been hesitant around Az initially, but Nesta considered him with the same unflinching assessment she laid upon everyone. Maybe that was why Azriel had never said a bad word about Nesta. Never seemed inclined to start a fight with her. She saw him, and was not afraid of him. There weren’t many people who fit that bill.

They circled again, but Az snapped his head toward Nesta, eyes wide. Cassian looked, heart leaping into his throat— Azriel struck, a punch to the jaw hard enough that Cassian staggered.

Seeing them spar had been overwhelming. Their beautiful forms, tattooed and scarred and carved with muscle, gleaming with sweat as they fought with a viciousness and intelligence she’d never seen … 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. Elain would faint to hear such thoughts. And to hear that Nesta had already had two males in her bed not once but twice, and had enjoyed every second of it. But the males Nesta had shared herself with hadn’t looked like Cassian and Azriel. Hadn’t been Cassian and Azriel.

Rhysand might be an arrogant, vain bastard, but he was honorable. He fought like hell to protect innocents. Her dislike of him had nothing to do with what he’d proved so many times: he was a fair, just ruler, who put his people before himself. No, she just found his personality—that slick smugness—grating.

I’m pissed off that you can’t seem to believe even one good thing about her. That you refuse to fucking believe one good thing about her. Was it necessary to bait her like that?

You’re not making it easier. Let her build these bonds, and stay the hell out of it.

“My bones are slightly more pliant than ordinary High Fae’s, but who cares about that?”

SLIGHTLY….. read that gwynriels

“There are lightsingers: lovely, ethereal beings who will lure you, appearing as friendly faces when you are lost. Only when you’re in their arms will you see their true faces, and they aren’t fair at all. The horror of it is the last thing you see before they drown you in the bog. But they kill for sport, not food.” “

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

“This sword isn’t Gwydion,” Cassian said, well aware of the myths regarding the sword. 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.

“Amren’s order holds,” Rhys said, and for a heartbeat, Cassian hated him. Hated the mistrust and wariness he beheld on Rhys’s face.

“That’s enough,” Azriel said, and Cassian turned grateful eyes to his brother. Az continued, “I’m with Cassian on this. It’s not right to keep the knowledge from Nesta.”

But inch by inch, the scabbard slid from the blade. And inch by inch, fresh steel glowed—truly glowed, like moonlight lay within the metal.

“With these three blades, you could make yourself High King.”

Nesta didn’t care if he’d come to help during the final battle with Hybern. Tamlin had hurt Feyre. Unforgivably.

It had never concerned her before. Irked her, yes, but … Nesta found her fingers curling. Found her lips peeling back from her teeth as she snarled.

“Elain went into the Cauldron because of you,” Nesta went on. Her fingertips heated, and she knew if she looked down, she’d find silver embers flaring there. “I don’t care how much you apologize or try to atone for it or claim you didn’t know the King of Hybern would do such a thing or that you begged him not to do it. You colluded with him. Because you thought Feyre was your property.”

Azriel offered her a small smile that Elain quickly looked away from. Cassian tucked away his puzzlement. Lucien was certainly not here to snarl at any male who looked at her for too long.

over. I think she saw the parallels between your situations and, in her own way, decided to avenge both of you. That’s my feeling, too. Rhys disagrees.

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.” She pulled back from his

“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.”

The mountain itself held two peaks at its very top, and the stones jutting from its sides were carved in strange, ancient symbols, as old as the song itself.

But rather than red stone, it was carved of black rock. Symbols had been etched into the smooth floor, into the curving walls, rising toward a ceiling so high it faded into gloom. Spells and wards pulsed around the room, but there, in the center of the space, set upon the floor as if it had been laid there by someone who’d merely walked away and forgotten it … There, in the center of the chamber, sat a small, golden harp.

The Harp sighed, a low purr rolling off it as Nesta’s hand neared. We shall open doors and pathways; we shall move through space and eons together. Our music will free us of earthly rules and borders.

Fae screamed, pounding on stone that hadn’t been there a moment before, pleading for their children’s sakes, begging to be let out let out let out— Nesta had the sensation of falling, tumbling through air and stars and time— It was a trap, and our people were too blind to see it— Eons and stars and darkness plunged around her— The Fae clawed

at stone, tearing their nails on rock where there had once been a door. But the way back was now forever sealed, and

they begged as they tried to pass their children through the solid wall, if only their children could be s...

When it cleared, she stood in a white-stoned palace. A great hall, where five thrones graced a dais. The sixth throne, in the center, was occupied by a pointy-eared crone. A golden, spiked crown rested on her head, blazing like the hate in her black eyes. The Fae crone stiffened, blue velvet robes shifting with the movement. Her eyes, clear despite her wrinkled face, sharpened. Right on Nesta. “You have the Harp,” the queen said, voice like crinkling paper. And Nesta knew who she stood frozen before, what crown lay on her thin, white hair. Briallyn’s gnarled fingers curled on the arm...

“But I think someone very wicked used this last.” She stared into the darkness above. “I think they used it to … to trap their enemies and their enemies’ children into the stone itself.” Was that what had been happening to her just now? The Harp had been pushing her into the rock, fusing her soul with it? She shivered.

Gwyn’s voice floated from far away, recounting Merrill’s earlier research on dimensions. The possibility of twenty-six dimensions. We shall move through space and eons together … The small strings are for games—light movement and leaping … Could

“Come with me, Queen of Queens, and we shall return what was once lost.”

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

THE HORN

Strange black blood

Valg motherfucker

fifteen thousand years old.”

“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.”

Daglan.

They were petty and cruel and drank the magic of the...