His brother nodded. “Fine.” But shadows still swarmed him.
Cassian knew it was a lie, but didn’t push it. Az would speak when he was ready, and Cassian would have better success convincing a mountain to move than getting Az to open up.
So he said, “All right. We’ll meet you there.”
CHAPTER
20
Nesta could barely stand to be near Cassian as they flew over Velaris. Every glance, every scent of him, every touch while he carried her down to the river house grated along her skin, threatening to bring her back to last night, when she’d been starved for any taste of him.
Thankfully, Cassian didn’t speak to her. Barely looked at her. And by the time the sprawling manor along the river appeared, she’d forgotten to be annoyed by his silence. Two weeks up at the House, and the city suddenly loomed large, too loud, too full of people.
“This meeting will be fast,” Cassian promised as they landed on the front lawn, as if he’d read the tension in her body.
Nesta said nothing, unable to speak with the churning in her stomach. Who would be here? Which of them would she have to face, to endure them judging her so-called progress? They’d probably all heard of her fight with Elain—gods, would Elain be present?
She followed Cassian into the beautiful house, barely noting the round table in the heart of the entry, crowned with a massive vase full of freshly cut flowers. Barely noting the silence of the house, not a servant to be seen.
But Cassian paused before a landscape painting of a towering, barren mountain, void of life yet somehow thrumming with presence. Snow and pines crusted the smaller peaks around it, but this strange, bald mountain … Only a black stone jutted from its top. A monolith, Nesta realized, stepping closer.
Cassian murmured, “I didn’t realize Feyre had painted Ramiel.”
The sacred mountain from the Blood Rite. Indeed, three stars faintly glowed in the twilight skies above the peak. It was a near-perfect, real-life rendering of the Night Court’s insignia.
“I wonder when she saw it,” Cassian mused, smiling faintly.
Nesta didn’t bother to suggest Feyre might have simply peered into Rhysand’s mind. Cassian continued onward, leading her down the hall without another word.
Nesta steeled herself as he stopped before the study doors—the same room where she’d sat and received a public lashing—and then flung one open.
Rhys and Feyre sat on the sapphire couch before the window. Azriel leaned against the mantel. Amren had curled herself into an armchair, bundled in a gray fur coat, as if the nip in the air today were a blast of winter. No Elain, no Morrigan.
Feyre’s gaze was wary. Cold. But it warmed as she smiled at Cassian, who strode to her and kissed her cheek—or tried to. He said to Rhys, “Really? She’s shielded even in here?”
Rhys stretched out his long legs, crossing one ankle over the other. “Even in here.”
Cassian rolled his eyes and plopped into the armchair beside Amren’s, surveying her fur coat and saying, “It’s barely cold today.”
Amren’s teeth flashed. “Keep talking like that and it’ll be your pelt I wear tomorrow.”
Nesta might have smiled had Amren not turned toward her.
Tension, thick and painful, stretched between them. Nesta refused to look away.
Amren’s red lips curled, her bob of black hair gleaming.
Feyre cleared her throat. “All right, Az. Let’s hear it.”
Azriel folded his wings, shadows writhing around his ankles and neck. “Queen Briallyn has been busier than we thought, but not in the way we expected.”
Nesta’s blood went cold. The queen who had leaped into the Cauldron of her own free will, desperate to be turned young and immortal. She’d emerged a withered crone—and immortal. Doomed to be old and bent forever.
Azriel went on, “In the week I’ve been watching her, I … learned what her next steps are.” The way he hesitated before he said learned said enough: he’d tortured it out of someone. Many people.
Nesta glanced at his scarred hands, and Azriel tucked them behind his back, as if he noted her attention.
“Get on with it,” Amren snapped, rustling in her chair.
“The other queens indeed fled from Briallyn weeks ago, as Eris said. She alone sits in the throne room of their shared palace. And what Eris revealed about Beron was true, too: the High Lord visited Briallyn on the continent, pledging his forces to her cause.” A muscle ticked in Azriel’s jaw. “But Briallyn’s gathering of armies, the alliance with Beron, is only the auxiliary force to what she has planned.” He shook his head, shadows slithering over his wings. “Briallyn wishes to find the Cauldron again. In order to retrieve her youth.”