A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)

by Sarah J. Maas

“Why are you here, then?” The man’s remarkable eyes seemed to glow—with enough of a deadly edge that I backed up a step. “Because all the monsters have been let out of their cages tonight, no matter what court they belong to. So I may roam wherever I wish until the dawn.”

Lucien shuddered, as if shaking off an invisible touch. “We do this by conducting the Great Rite. Each of the seven High Lords of Prythian performs this every year, since their magic comes from the earth and returns to it at the end—it’s a give-and-take.”

“Tonight, Tam will allow … great and terrible magic to enter his body,” Lucien said, staring at the distant fires. “The magic will seize control of his mind, his body, his soul, and turn him into the Hunter.

After Tam hunts down the white stag and kills it for the sacrificial offering, he’ll make his way to that sacred cave,

Though it’s not the Great Rite, our own dalliances tonight will help the land, too.” He shrugged off that invisible hand a second time, and his eyes fell upon the hills.

“Going somewhere?” Tamlin asked. His voice was not entirely of this world.

He reeked of magic. When I looked into his eyes, remnants of power flickered there. No kindness, none of the wry humor and gentle reprimands. The Tamlin I knew was gone.

“No, we were originally from the Summer Court—that’s where my kin still dwells.”

made a choice to come here—and my kin thought me mad.

I ignored the metallic tang of magic as I said, “How … how did you do that? Where did it go?” He cocked his head. “Between. Think of it as … a broom closet tucked between pockets of the world.”

He examined the painting for a miserable eternity, then looked away—to the nearest painting leaning against the wall. My gut tightened. A hazy landscape of snow and skeletal trees and nothing else. It looked like … like nothing, I supposed, to anyone but me. I opened my mouth to explain, wishing I’d turned the others away from view, but he spoke. “That was your forest. Where you hunted.”

At last, Tamlin looked at the painting of the glen and the starlight. He nodded in appreciation. But he pointed to the painting of the snow-veiled woods. “That one. I want that one.”

“There’s nothing I want you to do, nothing you can do—or anyone. It’s my burden to bear.”

“I do. What I have to face, what I endure, Feyre … you would not survive.”

magic makes you into a brute.”

“I thought about sending you away at first,” he murmured. “Part of me still thinks I should have found somewhere else for you to live. But maybe I was selfish.

I couldn’t bring myself to let you go—to find someplace in Prythian where you’d be comfortable enough to not attempt to flee.”

He smiled and half sat up, twisting to look at me. “You’re human,” he said, and I rolled my eyes. “Your senses are still sealed off from everything.”

“I could make you able to see it,” he said.

“How?” I asked, heat blooming as he crouched before me. “Every gift comes with a price.” I frowned, and he grinned. “A kiss.”

“I’m one of the High Fae—we don’t give anything without gaining something from it.”

I braced myself at the brush of his mouth on one of my eyelids, then on the other. He pulled away, and I was left breathless, the kisses still lingering on my skin.

there was an ethereal melody—a woman, melancholy and weary … the willow.

The brook was a near-invisible rainbow of water that flowed over stones as invitingly smooth as silk.

the smell of magic had become like jasmine, like lilac, like roses.

Magic—everything was magic, and it broke my heart.

“Because I willed my glamour back into place.”

a yawn crept from me as a sudden weight pressed on my eyes.

“What about your part of the bargain?”

but the world blurred, lulling me to sleep. The willow beckoned me to lie down, and I obliged.

“You’re exactly as I dreamed you’d be, too.” Darkness swallowed everything.

But why bother to glamour everything?

“They’re not members of my court,” Tamlin said, “so my glamour didn’t keep a hold on them. The puca belongs to the wind and weather and everything that changes. And the naga … they belong to someone else.”

Even if the naga hadn’t been part of his court, had it hurt him to kill them?

Lucien to take care of the head, and the gravel crunched as Lucien departed.

A shadow flickered in his eyes. “Some days, I’m very glad I was still a child when my father sent his slaves south of the wall. What I witnessed then was bad enough.”

Even now, I still hadn’t looked to see if any hints of those long-ago humans had been left behind. I did not think five centuries would be enough to cleanse the stain of the horrors that my people had endured. I should have let it go—should have, but couldn’t. “Do you remember if they were happy to leave?” Tamlin shrugged. “Yes. Yet they had never known freedom, or known the seasons as you do. They didn’t know what to do in the mortal world. But yes—most of them were very, very happy to leave.” Each word was more ground out than the next. “I was happy to see them go, even if my father wasn’t.”

The shadows that flickered in his eyes as he nodded his thanks told me there was more—still more that he had yet to tell me about his family, his life before they’d been killed and this title had been thrust upon him.

Tamlin was called away to one of the borders hours after I found that head—where and why, he wouldn’t tell me.

It was like a million fireworks exploding inside me, filling my veins with starlight.

It was the most glorious thing I’d ever tasted. It liberated me from bonds I hadn’t known existed.

The sky was an eddy of molten amethyst, sapphire, and ruby, all bleeding into a final pool of onyx. I wanted to swim in it, wanted to bathe in its colors and feel the stars twinkling between my fingers.

No chains, no boundaries—just me and the music, dancing and dancing. I wasn’t faerie, but I was a part of this earth, and the earth was a part of me,

“Dance, Feyre,” he whispered.

I had become the music and the fire and the night, and there was nothing that could slow me down.

Music just for me—a gift. He played on, his fingers fast and hard upon the strings of his fiddle. My body slithering like a snake, I tipped my head back to the heavens and let Tamlin’s music fill all of me.

Everything became a blur of color and sound, and he was the only object in it, tethering me to sanity, to my body, which glowed and burned in every place he touched.

I was filled with sunshine.

“Time goes faster when you’re drunk on faerie wine.”

Then, from the opposite side of the meadow, dozens of shimmering shapes floated out across the grass, little more than mirages of moonlight. That was when the singing began.