Feyre rubbed at her face. “So Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn have to stay in the Rite.”
“Even I can’t break those rules,” Rhys said, a shade softer. “No matter how much I might want to,” he added, clasping Cassian’s shoulder.
Cassian’s stomach turned over. Nesta and her friends—his friends—were in the Rite. And he could do nothing to interfere, not without damning them all. His hands shook. “So, what—we just sit on our asses for a week and wait?” The idea was abhorrent.
Feyre gripped his trembling fingers, squeezing tight. “Did you— Cassian, weren’t you listening at all when we got here?”
No. He’d barely heard anything.
Azriel said tightly, “My spies got word that Eris has been captured by Briallyn. She sent his remaining soldiers after him while he was out hunting with his hounds. They grabbed him and somehow, they were all winnowed back to her palace. I’m guessing using Koschei’s power.”
“I don’t care.” Cassian aimed for the doorway. Even if … Fuck. Hadn’t he been the one to tell Rhys not to go after those soldiers? To leave them be? He was a fool. He’d left an armed enemy in his blind spot and forgotten about it. But Eris could rot for all he cared.
Az said, “We have to get him out.”
Cassian drew up short. “We?”
Rhys stepped up next to Azriel, Feyre beside him. A formidable wall. “We can’t go,” Feyre said, nodding to Rhys. It needed no explanation: with the babe less than two months away, Feyre wasn’t risking anything. But Rhys …
Cassian challenged his High Lord, “You can be in and out in an hour.”
“I can’t go.” Midnight storms swirled in Rhys’s eyes.
“Yes, you fucking can,” Cassian said, rage rising like a tidal wave that would sweep away all in its path. “You—”
“I can’t.”
It was agony—pure, undiluted agony that filled Rhys’s face. And fear. Feyre slipped her tattooed fingers through Rhys’s.
Amren asked sharply, “Why?”
Rhys stared at the tattoo on Feyre’s fingers, interlaced with his. His throat bobbed. Feyre answered for him. “We made a bargain. After the war. To … only leave this world together.”
Amren began massaging her temples, muttering a prayer for sanity.
Azriel asked, “You made a bargain to die together?”
“Fools,” Amren hissed. “Romantic, idealistic fools.” Rhys turned bleak eyes to her.
Cassian couldn’t get a breath down. Az stood still as a statue.
“If Rhys dies,” Feyre said thickly, fear bright in her own eyes, “I die.” Her fingers grazed her swollen belly. The babe would die, too.
“And if you die, Feyre,” Azriel said softly, “then Rhys dies.”
The words rang hollow and cold like a death knell. If Feyre didn’t survive the labor …
Cassian’s knees threatened to buckle. Rhy’s face was tight with pleading and pain. “I never thought it’d turn out like this,” Rhys said quietly.
Amren massaged her temples again. “We can discuss the idiocy of this bargain later.” Feyre glared at her, and Amren glared right back before saying to Cassian, “You and Azriel need to retrieve Eris.”
“Why not you?”
Feyre pinched the bridge of her nose. “Because Amren is …”
“Powerless,” Amren snarled. “You can say it, girl.”
Feyre winced. “Mor left for Vallahan this morning and is out of our daemati magic’s range. Az can’t go in alone. We need you, Cassian.”
Cassian stilled. They just waited.
For Nesta to participate in the Blood Rite, to risk every horror and misery while he went off to save fucking Eris … “Let him die.”
“As tempting as that is,” Feyre said, “he poses a great danger to us in Briallyn’s hands. If he’s under the Crown’s influence, he’ll reveal everything he knows.” She asked Cassian, “What does he know about us, exactly?”
“Too much.” Cassian cleared his throat. Through their own bickering, through his need to goad Eris, he’d revealed too much. “He was worried about what we’d do with Nesta as a Night Court power, and with all three objects of the Dread Trove at our disposal. He thought the Night Court might turn around and attempt some sort of power grab.”
Feyre said hopefully, “Maybe the Made dagger we gave him will grant him immunity from the Crown. If he’s carrying the dagger, if they haven’t unarmed him, it might shield him against another Made object.”