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

by Sarah J. Maas

It was a collective voice, but in it existed both male and female—two sides of the same coin, singing to each other in a call and response.

Ghostly and ethereal, they waltzed across the field, no more than slender slants of moonlight. “What are they?” “Will-o’-the-wisps—spirits of air and light,” he s...

we danced across the spirit-riddled field.

the will-o’-the-wisps dancing around us like dozens of moons. Our dancing slowed and we stood there, holding each other as we swayed to the songs of the spirits.

“It’s almost dawn.”

I reached up to touch his mask. It was so cold, despite how flushed his skin was just beyond it.

The sky shifted into periwinkle, and the clouds filled with pink light.

“My father once told me that I should let my sisters imagine a better life—a better world.

I let the dawn creep inside me, let it grow

my contact at the Winter Court managed to get a letter to me.” Lucien took a steadying breath, and I wondered—wondered if being emissary also meant being spymaster.

“It just … burned through their magic, then broke apart their minds.

With steps that were too graceful, too feline,

He was exactly as I remembered him, with his fine, rich clothing cloaked in tendrils of night: an ebony tunic brocaded with gold and silver, dark pants, and black boots that went to his knees. I’d never dared to paint him—and now knew I would never have the nerve to.

Rhysand smiled—heartbreaking in its beauty

“At least I haven’t bided my time among the hedges and flowers while the world has gone to Hell.”

And from the way darkness seemed to ripple from him, from those violet eyes that burned like stars

An invisible, talon-tipped hand scraped against my mind.

“If it’s any consolation,” Rhysand confided to him, “she would have been the one for you—and you might have gotten away with it.

“You’re far too desperate, Tamlin. It’s off-putting. Becoming High Lord made you so boring.”

Giving him my name—and my family name—would lead only to more pain and suffering.

Then Rhysand vanished into nothing—as if he’d stepped through a rip in the world—

how deadly she must be to command the High Lords of Prythian. To hold Rhysand’s leash and to make Tamlin beg to keep me hidden from her.

Don’t tell them who I am; don’t tell them where you stayed. Her spies will be looking for you.”

“Who wants someone around who’s so covered in thorns?” “Thorns?”

“Thorny. Prickly. Sour. Contrary.”

And though I knew it was a lie, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

until I saw those gold-flecked eyes.

I love you, Feyre.

all of them restless, not at all like the utter stillness with which the High Fae held themselves. Unfinished, graceless creatures of earth and blood.

Nesta spoke first, curtsying low. Elain followed suit. “Welcome to our home,” Nesta said a bit flatly, her eyes on the ground. “Lady …”

“Nesta,” I said, and she went rigid. I laughed again. “Nesta, don’t you recognize your own sister?”

Nesta took in my clothes and carriage, the pearls that were woven into her gold-brown hair gleaming in the sunlight. “She left you her fortune,” Nesta stated flatly. It wasn’t a question.

“Why are you being so quiet?” Nesta said, keeping her distance.

I’d forgotten how cunning her eyes were, how cold. She’d been made differently, from something harder and stronger than bone and blood. She was as different from the humans around us as I had become.

I glanced over my shoulder at Nesta, who watched me with a carefully blank face.

Nesta fell into step behind us, a quiet, stalking presence.

But I couldn’t fight the sensation, like a darkening shadow within me, that I’d made a very, very big mistake in leaving, no matter Tamlin’s orders. Stay with the High Lord, the Suriel had said. Its only command.

that growing, lengthening shadow blanketed my heart.

made miraculously better by some tonic and a salve a strange, passing healer had given him for free.

my eldest sister stood by a gnarled mulberry tree, looking out over the flat expanse of our lands.

when she stares at them in that way of hers

But you wouldn’t know, since you never got any of our letters.”

“You just look so … different. You sound so different, too.”

My face was still the same, but there was a … glow about me, a kind of shimmering light that was nearly undetectable. I knew without a doubt that it was because of my time in Prythian, that all that magic had somehow rubbed off on me. I dreaded the day it would forever fade.

“Did you … meet someone?”

that light from Elain. Perhaps buried it a bit, but she was generous, loving, and kind—

savored hearing the wind in the trees and the sighing of the high grasses.

Elain’s old flower garden was a wild tangle of weeds and blooms, and the ward-markings were still etched on the stone threshold.

both lit up from within.

Beautiful, imperious, still as one of the High Fae.