Vassa said to Jurian, “I am a queen, you know.”
A queen by night, and firebird by day, sold by her fellow human queens to a sorcerer-lord who had enchanted her. Damned her into transforming each dawn into a bird of fire and ash. Cassian had waited until sundown to visit, so as to find her in her human form. He needed her to be able to speak.
Jurian crossed an ankle over a knee, his muddy boots dull in the firelight. “Last I heard, your kingdom was no longer yours. Are you still a queen?”
Vassa rolled her eyes, then looked to Lucien, who sank onto the sofa beside Jurian. Like the Fae male had settled similar arguments between them before. But Lucien’s attention was upon Cassian. “Did you come with news or orders?”
Keenly aware of Eris’s presence near the fire, Cassian kept his gaze upon Lucien. “We give you orders as our emissary.” He nodded to Jurian and Vassa. “But when you are with your friends, we only give suggestions.”
Eris snorted. Cassian ignored him, and asked Lucien, “How’s the Spring Court?”
He had to give Lucien credit: the male was somehow able to move between his three roles—an emissary for the Night Court, ally to Jurian and Vassa, and liaison to Tamlin—and still dress immaculately.
Lucien’s face revealed nothing of how Tamlin and his court fared. “It’s fine.”
Cassian didn’t know why he’d expected an update regarding the High Lord of Spring. Lucien only gave those in private to Rhys.
Eris snorted again at Cassian’s fumbling, and, unable to help himself, Cassian at last turned toward him. “What are you doing here?”
Eris didn’t so much as shift in his seat. “Several dozen of my soldiers were out on patrol in my lands several days ago and have not reported back. We found no sign of battle. Even my hounds couldn’t track them beyond their last known location.”
Cassian’s brows lowered. He knew he shouldn’t let anything show, but … Those hounds were the best in Prythian. Canines blessed with magic of their own. Gray and sleek like smoke, they could race fast as the wind, sniff out any prey. They were so highly prized that the Autumn Court forbade them from being given or sold beyond its borders, and so expensive that only its nobility owned them. And they were bred rarely enough that even one was extremely difficult to come by. Eris, Cassian knew, had twelve.
“None of them could winnow?” Cassian asked.
“No. While the unit is one of my most skilled in combat, none of its soldiers are remarkable in magic or breeding.”
Breeding was tossed at Cassian with a smirk. Asshole.
Vassa said, “Eris came to see if I could think of any reason why his soldiers might have gotten into trouble with humans. His hounds detected strange scents at the site of the abduction. Ones that seemed human, but were … odd, somehow.”
Cassian lifted a brow at Eris. “You believe a group of humans could kill your soldiers? They can’t be that skilled, then.”
“Depends on the human,” Jurian said, the male’s face dark. Vassa’s was a mirror.
Cassian grimaced. “Sorry. I— Sorry.”
Some courtier.
But Eris shrugged a shoulder. “I think plenty of parties are interested in triggering another war, and this would be the start of it. Though perhaps your court did it. I wouldn’t put it past Rhysand to winnow my soldiers away and plant some mysterious scents to throw us off.”
Cassian flashed him a savage grin. “We’re allies, remember?”
Eris gave him an identical smile. “Always.”
Cassian couldn’t stop himself. “Maybe you made your own soldiers vanish—if they even vanished at all—and are just making this up for the same bullshit reason you just spewed out.”
Eris chuckled, but Jurian cut in, “There have been tensions amongst the humans regarding your kind. But as far as we know, as far as we’ve heard from Lord Graysen’s forces, the humans here have kept to the old demarcation lines, and have no interest in starting trouble.”
Yet was left unsaid.
Would asking about the human queens on the continent reveal Rhys’s hand? The conversation had shifted toward it, so he could bring it up as idle talk, rather than as the reason he’d come here … Fuck, his head hurt. “What about your—your sisters?” He nodded to Vassa. “Would they have anything to do with this?”
Eris’s gaze shot to him, and Cassian reined in his curse. Perhaps he’d said too much. He wished Mor were here. Even if putting her and Eris in a room together … No, he’d save her that misery.