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

by Sarah J. Maas

“Your beast’s little trick didn’t work on me,”

“Apparently, an iron will is all it takes to keep a glamour from digging in.

But Nesta’s mind was so entirely her own; she had put up such strong walls—of steel and iron and ash wood—that even a High Lord’s magic couldn’t pierce them.

And for her, with that raging, unrelenting heart, it would have been a line in the sand.

He let Mother die

he could have hired men to go into Prythian and beg them for help. But he let her waste away.”

Tamlin was one of the last bastions

But ash wood—that seems to work. Take my money and buy a damned grove of it for Elain to tend.”

But I turned to my sister and said, “There is a better world, Nesta. There is a better world out

there, waiting for you to find it.

mossy stones placed across from each other, a faint whorl carved into them both. A gate.

Magic stung my nostrils, zapping until my horse bucked again, but we were through.

She’s summoned all the High Lords to her court this time—to make them watch her break him.”

Until a hundred years ago, when she appeared in these lands as an emissary from Hybern.”

of a wicked faerie king who had spent centuries resenting the Treaty he’d been forced to sign, and who had sent out his deadliest commanders to infiltrate the other faerie kingdoms

to see if they might consider reclaiming the human lands for themselves.

“charming the High Lords with talk of more trade between Hybern and Prythian, more communication, more sharing of assets.

The Never-Fading Flower, they called her.

making amends, she claimed, for her own actions and the actions of Hy...

she slipped a potion stolen from the King of Hybern’s unholy spell book into their wine. Once they drank, the High Lords were prone, their magic laid bare—and she stole their powers from where they originated inside their bodies—plucked them out as if she were taking an apple from its branch, leaving them with only the basest elements of their magic.

The other High Lords fought back, too. Forty years ago, she executed three of them and most of their families for banding together against her.” “Open rebellion? What courts?”

“The Day Court, Summer Court, and Winter Court.

the rebel lords tried calling for aid from the other Fae territories using as messengers whatever humans were foolish enough to enter our lands—most of them young women who worshipped us like gods.”

Tamlin will remain her slave forever, and Prythian will stay under her rule. That’s what Fate dealt, that was what the Eddies of the Cauldron decided.”

she stopped in the hollow between two hills. The air was cold—far colder than the air at the top of the hill, and I shivered as my eyes fell upon a slender cave mouth.

“All dark and miserable roads lead Under the Mountain,”

“It’s an ancient shortcut—once considered sacred, but no more.”

the carvings weren’t just ornate designs, but actually depicted faeries and High Fae and animals in various environments and states of movement.

The highest commander of the King of Hybern. She’d slaughtered human armies centuries ago, had murdered her slaves rather than free them. And she’d captured all of Prythian in a matter of days. Then I looked to the black rock throne beside her, and my arms buckled beneath me. He was still wearing that golden mask, still wearing his warrior’s clothes, that baldric—even though there were no knives sheathed along it, not a single weapon anywhere on him. His eyes didn’t widen; his mouth didn’t tighten. No claws, no fangs. He just stared at me, unfeeling—unmoved. Unimpressed.

Night still seemed to ripple off him, like some near-invisible cloak.

His violet eyes held boredom—and disdain.

“Feyre,” Amarantha said, testing my name, the taste of the two syllables on her tongue. “An old name—from our earlier dialects.

I ignored Rhysand as soon as I noticed his feline smile, the corona of darkness around him.

Then, shattering the silence like a shooting star, a voice—Lucien’s—bellowed across the chamber. “TO YOUR LEFT!”

“and just one person said you would win.”

“Rhysand, come here.”

So unless you have some kind of magic you’re not telling us about,

He stopped pacing and stared hard at me. Though the world spun and danced in my vision, something primal inside me went still and cold beneath that gaze.

“I bet you’ll be spitting on Death’s face when she comes to claim you, too.”

“Why? And what are to … to be the terms?” I said, fighting past the dizziness. “Ah,” he said, adjusting the lapel of his obsidian tunic. “If I told you those things, there’d be no fun in it, would there?”

A metallic taste filled my mouth as magic stirred between us.

His smile became a bit wild,

with a snow-kissed breeze.

And as for Fire Night …” He looked me up and down. “I had my reasons to be out then. Do not think, Feyre, that it did not cost me.” He smiled again, and it didn’t meet his eyes.

Your Tamlin has brute strength and shape-shifting; my arsenal is a far deadlier assortment.”

“So you can’t shape-shift? It’s not some High Lord specialty?” “Oh, all the High Lords can. Each of us has a beast roaming beneath our skin, roaring to get out.

these faeries remained mostly made of shadow, their features barely discernable, save for their loose, flowing cobweb gowns.

and my hair was coiled around a small golden diadem imbedded with lapis lazuli.

In the dim light, the embroidered symbol of a sleeping dragon glimmered. Amarantha’s coat of arms.

Sadness flickered in those violet eyes. I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not … felt it—deep inside me. My gaze drifted to the eye etched in my palm. What manner of tattoo, exactly, had he given me?