A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)

by Sarah J. Maas

Maybe I’d always been broken and dark inside.

Maybe someone who’d been born whole and good would have put down the ash dagger and embraced death rather than what lay before me.

I was the butcher of innocents, and the savior of a land.

Murderer. Butcher. Monster. Liar. Deceiver. I didn’t know who I meant. The lines between me and the queen had long since blurred.

As I gripped the fine-boned shoulder, and gazed into that hated face—my face. And plunged the ash dagger into my awaiting heart.

Only a nightmare. One of many, asleep and waking, that haunted me these days.

This was real. I had survived; I’d made it out.

Immortal strength—more a curse than a gift.

one week with him every month in exchange for his saving me from the brink of death.

even if Rhys had miraculously forgotten, I never could. Nor could Tamlin, Lucien, or anyone else. Not with the tattoo.

Even if Rhys, at the end … even if he hadn’t been ...

So few went over the borders of the Night Court a...

Mountains and darkness and stars and death.

I hadn’t felt like Rhysand’s enemy the last time I’d spoken to him, in the hours after Amarantha’s defeat.

Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all.

I wished I felt nothing. I wished my human heart had been changed with the rest of me, made into immortal marble. Instead of the shredded bit of blackness that it now was, leaking its ichor into me.

For him, I had done this—for him, I’d gladly wrecked myself and my immortal soul. And now I had eternity to live with it.

He never woke when the nightmares dragged me from sleep; never woke when I vomited my guts up night after night. If he knew or heard, he said nothing about it.

It had become our unspoken agreement—not to let Amarantha win by acknowledging that she still tormented us in our dreams and waking hours.

I’d broken myself apart. And I didn’t think even eternity would be long enough to fix me.

It had been two months since Tamlin had proposed—two

Whattttt

Mentioning that my birthday had also fallen on that longest night of the year was a fact I’d conveniently forgotten to tell anyone.

“I can’t do what I need to if I’m worrying about whether you’re safe.”

I wore the gowns, and let Alis arrange my hair—if only so it would buy these people a measure of peace and comfort.

You might as well look good if you’re going to arm yourself to the teeth, he’d said.

even if stability reigned for a hundred years, I doubted I’d ever awaken one morning and not put on the knife.

all those paintings, all the supplies, all that blank canvas waiting for me to pour out stories and feelings and dreams … I’d hated it.

I’d stopped cataloging color and feeling and texture, stopped noticing it. I could barely look at the paintings hanging inside the manor.

Goddess to lead them from despair and darkness.

“We are old, and cunning, and enjoy using words like blades and claws. Every word from your mouth, every turn of phrase, will be judged—and possibly used against you.”

Lady. A nonsense name. No one knew what to call me. I wasn’t born High Fae.

I’d been Made—resurrected and given this new body by the seven High Lords of Prythian.

I often wondered what it was like to be that free and so settled within yourself.

“You know how to do these things. I don’t.”

“You and I are so alike—young, untested amongst these … wolves.

“the three of us make a formidable unit. Four, if you count Lucien.”

The day Tamlin had asked me to marry him, I’d certainly felt that way. I’d wept with joy as I told him yes, yes, a thousand times yes,

I sometimes debated asking her to pray for me as well. To pray that I’d one day learn to love the dresses, and the parties, and my role as a blushing, pretty bride.

each time I closed my eyes, my body locked up, the walls of the room pushed in.

“You are—you’re everything to me,” he said thickly. “I need … I need you to be all right. To know they can’t get to you—can’t hurt you anymore.”

what about you? Who gets to keep you safe?”

“Soon you’ll be my wife, and it’ll be fine. We’ll leave all this behind us.”

“They did horrible things. Right now, they’re trying to remember what it is to be normal—how to live.”

The vastness of my now-unending existence yawned open before me. I let it swallow me whole.

I was grateful that I’d never be High Lady, never be Tamlin’s equal in responsibility and power.

my face hurt from the smile I kept plastered there day and night.

he deserved it, had earned it. And these people deserved it, too.

A fitting end would have been me in a grave, burning in hell.

to learn how she lived, how she could shine so brightly and love herself, move from male to male as if they were dishes at a banquet.

“He’s probably running scared now that Tamlin’s got his powers back.” “Then you don’t know Rhysand very well at all.”