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

by Sarah J. Maas

“Amarantha was an experiment—a forty-nine-year test, to see how easily and how long a territory might fall and be controlled by one of his commanders.”

A new threat

As he and I have strained relations, you have the pleasure of being the go-between.” “He doesn’t inform me of those things.” “Perhaps it’s time he did. Perhaps it’s time you insisted.”

“Don’t you? The strength, the speed … If I didn’t know better, I’d say you and Tamlin were doing a very good job of pretending you’re normal. That the powers you’re displaying aren’t usually the first indications among our kind that a High Lord’s son might become his Heir.” “I’m not a High Lord.” “No, but you were given life by all seven of us. Your very essence is tied to us, born of us. What if we gave you more than we expected?” Again, that gaze raked over me. “What if you could stand against us—hold your own, a High Lady?” “There are no High Ladies.”

So she's gonna be the first high lady? Of the night court? 🙄

“I’m his subject, and he is my High Lord—” “You are no one’s subject.”

You're supposed to be the love of his live, not his subject

with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—”

Reluctantly, I gotta agree with Rhys on this one One of the things i was made about in acotar was that last 3rd of the book where Feyre's going through the trials we here absolutely nothing from Tamlin

“Azriel would want to know that,”

New friend?

membranous

Drink

Cassian

Nother new friend?

“I didn’t realize I was a spy.” Lucien shifted in his seat, but Tamlin said, “As much as I hate your bargain, you’ve been granted access into the Night Court.

“Do you think I might have those abilities?” I said, willing myself to hold his gaze. “It’s possible,” Tamlin said with equal quiet. “And if it’s true … ” Lucien said at last, “It’s a power other High Lords might kill for.” It was an effort not to fidget while his metal eye whirred, as if detecting whatever power ran through my blood. “My father, for one, would not be pleased to learn a drop of his power is missing—or that Tamlin’s bride now has it. He’d do anything to make sure you don’t possess it—including kill you. There are other High Lords who would agree.”

“Did you know?” I demanded. Lucien wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Did you suspect?” “I’d hoped it wasn’t true,” Tamlin said carefully. “And now that Rhys suspects, there’s no telling what he’ll do with the information—” “He wants me to train.” I wasn’t stupid enough to mention the mental shield training—not right now. “Training would draw too much attention,” Tamlin said. “You don’t need to train. I can guard you from whatever comes our way.”

For there had been a time when he could not. When he had been vulnerable, and when he had watched me be tortured to death. And could do nothing to stop Amarantha from—

“Too many risks, too many variables,” Tamlin countered. “And there will be no conflict with Hybern, no war.” I snapped, “That’s wishful thinking.” Lucien muttered something that sounded like a plea to the Cauldron.

Easy enough—and perhaps a relief, to not be expected to speak or act.

gritted my teeth. Who did they think would attack us in our own home, on our own land, if they weren’t convinced Hybern might be launching an assault?

pond?” I’d spent enough years with an aching belly to not be able to drop it, to want to scream at the unfairness of it.

Someday. If we ever got married. If I ever became less of a burden, and we both escaped the shadows haunting us. We hadn’t broached the subject at all.

Not a full bow—because I was no one, but recognition that I was the High Lord’s plaything.

His head. I had been inside his head, had slid through his mental walls

Looking at that box, at what was inside, felt like examining a crow-picked corpse.

One breath, the study was intact. The next, it was shards of nothing, a shell of a room. None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs.

ok cool we're finally starting to talk about our feelings but this tantrum Tamlin no honey reel ot back in

“Feyre, please,” he breathed. And I realized that the line, that bubble of protection … It was from me.

Oh she's the phone who broke everything

“I’ll try to be better. I don’t … I can’t control it sometimes. The rage. Today was just … today was bad. With the Tithe, with all of it. Today—let’s forget it, let’s just move past it. Please.”

if he could only say it the way we’d always been good at communicating—skin to skin,

“I couldn’t save you before. I couldn’t protect you from them. And when you said that, about … about me drowning you … Am I any better than they were?”

The days passed in a blur. Tamlin was away more often than not, and whenever he returned, he didn’t tell me anything. I’d long since stopped pestering him for answers. A protector—that’s who he was, and would always be. What I had wanted when I was cold and hard and joyless; what I had needed to melt the ice of bitter years on the cusp of starvation. I didn’t have the nerve to wonder what I wanted or needed now. Who I had become. So with idleness my only option,

“But I’ll always make time for you.”

“Because these days, all I hear through that bond is nothing. Silence. Even with your shields up rather impressively most of the time, I should be able to feel you. And yet I don’t. Sometimes I’ll tug on the bond only to make sure you’re still alive.” Darkness guttered. “And then one day, I’m in the middle of an important meeting when terror blasts through the bond. All I get are glimpses of you and him—and then nothing. Back to silence. I’d like to know what caused such a disruption.”

Months and months, and you’re still a ghost. Does no one there ask what the hell is happening? Does your High Lord simply not care?” He did care. Tamlin did care. Perhaps too much.

Conversation over.

Protect, protect, protect—I could see the word in his eyes, feel it in every thrust he made into my body that night. I had been taken from him once in the most permanent of ways, but never again. The sentries returned in full force the next morning.

Ok but loke as we're remembering how you were taken away let's remember the miraculous way you were brought nack?

Eternity. Was this to be my eternity?

I was burning through books every day—stories about people and places I’d never heard of. They were perhaps the only thing that kept me from teetering into utter despair.

“You’re free,” Mor said tightly. “You’re free.” Not safe. Not protected. Free.

And I saw how I would spend the next few days: in solitude, with nothing to do and only my own, horrible thoughts for company. I began speaking before I could reconsider. “Take me with you.” Rhys halted as he pushed through two purple gossamer curtains. And slowly, he turned back. “You should rest.” “I’ve rested enough,”

Rhys’s smile widened into a grin. “To Velaris—the City of Starlight.”

Welcome to my home,” Rhysand said. A city—a world lay out there.

“Nuala and Cerridwen

New friends?

No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it. So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish.

Decided that, perhaps, the Spring Court might not be my home.

“They’re Rhysand’s Inner Circle.”

No,” Cerridwen interrupted, folding back the covers of the bed. “The High Lord made no such demand. But what he did to shield this city is his story to tell, not ours. We would be more comfortable if he told you, lest we get any of it wrong.”

Maybe Amarantha had won after all. And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me.

“Now’s not the time for that conversation.” Fine. I’d heard that sort of thing a thousand times before at the Spring Court, anyway. It wasn’t worth dredging up the effort to push about it. But I wouldn’t sit in my room, couldn’t allow myself to mourn and mope and weep and sleep. So I would venture out,