“You had the Illyrians bring me here?”
“My intent was to grab the maimed one.” Nesta’s blood boiled at the mention of Emerie. “Bellius fed me the information about your friendship and I saw how much she meant to you when we were linked through the Harp and the Crown. I knew that if I captured her, brought her here, you’d follow, law or no law. You’re reckless and conceited enough to think you could save her. But you made it easy for me: you went right to her house in Windhaven. Spared me the trouble of luring you. I let those witless Illyrians take her and the half-breed as an amusing bonus.”
Nesta didn’t dare look up at Cassian. “All to wear me down?”
“Yes. And without your magic—”
Nesta cut in, demanding, “I was worn down days ago. Why hold off until now?”
Briallyn glowered at the interruption. “I was waiting for him.” She nodded toward Cassian, who was bristling with rage—something like loathing and fear now pushing through the cloudiness in his eyes. “Days and days, I waited for him to get close enough for me to use the Crown to ensnare him. I had to use that brash princeling Eris to draw him in.” A soft laugh. “Eris tried to help his soldiers when they surrounded him during his hunt. Help those wretches. He rode right up to them, rather than gallop away as any wise person would. They grabbed him with minimal fuss. Even those infernal hounds of his could do nothing as Koschei winnowed him away.”
Was Eris dead? Or now her slave? Cassian’s face revealed nothing.
But Briallyn smiled at him. “I was getting worried you’d never approach. Poor Eris would have met a very sorry end if that had been the case. His fire wouldn’t have withstood Koschei’s lake, I don’t think.”
She glanced toward Bellius’s corpse. “He’s a hateful brute—just like you, Cassian. Arrogant and brash. He wandered off from his scouting unit to look for fun in my lands. So I showed him my idea of fun.” Her thin lips twisted in a mockery of a smile.
Briallyn chuckled. “I told him to hunt you down, not kill you, but it seems I wasn’t precise enough in my wording. And it’s rather satisfying to watch someone kill, especially with tools you’ve provided for them. I knew the Rite would be so much more entertaining with weapons. I suppose I could have ordered Bellius to stand down, but I was rather enjoying the sight.”
Nesta demanded, “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you want peace?”
“Peace?” Briallyn laughed. “What peace can I have now?” She waved a hand down at herself. “What I want is retribution. What I want is power. What I want is the Trove. So I made sure you knew it, too. Made sure you became my unwitting partner in collecting the items of power from this godsforsaken territory. And I know there’s only one way you’ll yield them to me. One person for whom you’d do so.” A smile toward Cassian. “Your mate.”
“I don’t have the Trove here.”
“You can summon it. The objects will answer to you, no matter the wards on them. And you will hand them over to me.”
“And then you’ll kill us both?”
“And then I shall Make myself young again. I shall leave you both untouched.”
Nesta scented the lie.
Cassian grunted out, “Don’t.”
Briallyn shot him a surprised look, and his mouth shut. He trembled, but remained standing still. Yet the glassiness in his gaze had cleared.
“So,” Briallyn said, “you will trade me the Trove for your mate’s life. You are so thoroughly Fae now, Nesta Archeron. You would allow the world to turn to ash and ruin before you let your mate die.” She frowned with distaste at the bodies around them, the blood. “Summon the Trove, and let us be done with this messy business.”
Nesta couldn’t stop her shaking. To give Briallyn the Trove, if she could even summon it … “No.”
“Then I shall have to try to convince you.”
Briallyn snapped her fingers at Cassian, and Nesta had half a second to turn before he was upon her.
Panic and rage shone in his eyes, but Nesta could do nothing, absolutely nothing, as he barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. Pinning her there, an arm at her throat, the weight of him, once so intimate and loving, now the thing that would hold her here, hurt her—
Pleading filled his face, utter anguish, as he fought the Crown. Fought it and lost.
“It will destroy him, of course, to kill his own mate,” Briallyn said. “You will be dead, and you will die knowing you doom him to a life of misery.”