They stared at me. As if waiting for me to beg not to go, to curl up and cower. Their quick, brutal interview to see if they wanted to work with me, I supposed.
But the Bone Carver, the naga, the Attor, the Suriel, the Bogge, the Middengard Wyrm … Maybe they’d broken whatever part of me truly feared. Or maybe fear was only something I now felt in my dreams.
“Your choice, Feyre,” Rhys said casually.
To shirk and mourn or face some unknown horror—the choice was easy. “How bad can it be?” was my response.
“Bad,” Cassian said. None of them bothered to contradict him.
CHAPTER
17
Jurian.
The name clanged through me, even after we finished dinner, even after Mor and Cassian and Azriel and Amren had stopped debating and snarling about who would do what and be where while Rhys and I went to the Prison—whatever that was—tomorrow.
Rhys flew me back over the city, plunging into the lights and darkness. I quickly found I much preferred ascending, and couldn’t bring myself to watch for too long without feeling my dinner rise up. Not fear—just some reaction of my body.
We flew in silence, the whistling winter wind the only sound, despite his cocoon of warmth blocking it from freezing me entirely. Only when the music of the streets welcomed us did I peer into his face, his features unreadable as he focused on flying. “Tonight—I felt you again. Through the bond. Did I get past your shields?”
“No,” he said, scanning the cobblestone streets below. “This bond is … a living thing. An open channel between us, shaped by my powers, shaped … by what you needed when we made the bargain.”
“I needed not to be dead when I agreed.”
“You needed not to be alone.”
Our eyes met. It was too dark to read whatever was in his gaze. I was the one who looked away first.
“I’m still learning how and why we can sometimes feel things the other doesn’t want known,” he admitted. “So I don’t have an explanation for what you felt tonight.”
You needed not to be alone… .
But what about him? Fifty years he’d been separated from his friends, his family …
I said, “You let Amarantha and the entire world think you rule and delight in a Court of Nightmares. It’s all a front—to keep what matters most safe.”
The city lights gilded his face. “I love my people, and my family. Do not think I wouldn’t become a monster to keep them protected.”
“You already did that Under the Mountain.” The words were out before I could stop them.
The wind rustled his hair. “And I suspect I’ll have to do it again soon enough.”
“What was the cost?” I dared ask. “Of keeping this place secret and free?”
He shot straight down, wings beating to keep us smooth as we landed on the roof of the town house. I made to step away, but he gripped my chin. “You know the cost already.”
Amarantha’s whore.
He nodded, and I think I might have said the two vile words aloud.
“When she tricked me out of my powers and left the scraps, it was still more than the others. And I decided to use it to tap into the mind of every Night Court citizen she captured, and anyone who might know the truth. I made a web between all of them, actively controlling their minds every second of every day, every decade, to forget about Velaris, to forget about Mor, and Amren, and Cassian, and Azriel. Amarantha wanted to know who was close to me—who to kill and torture. But my true court was here, ruling this city and the others. And I used the remainder of my power to shield them all from sight and sound. I had only enough for one city—one place. I chose the one that had been hidden from history already. I chose, and now must live with the consequences of knowing there were more left outside who suffered. But for those here … anyone flying or traveling near Velaris would see nothing but barren rock, and if they tried to walk through it, they’d find themselves suddenly deciding otherwise. Sea travel and merchant trading were halted—sailors became farmers, working the earth around Velaris instead. And because my powers were focused on shielding them all, Feyre, I had very little to use against Amarantha. So I decided that to keep her from asking questions about the people who mattered, I would be her whore.”
He’d done all of that, had done such horrible things … done everything for his people, his friends. And the only piece of himself that he’d hidden and managed to keep her from tainting, destroying, even if it meant fifty years trapped in a cage of rock …
Those wings now flared wide. How many knew about those wings outside of Velaris or the Illyrian war-camps? Or had he wiped all memory of them from Prythian long before Amarantha?
Rhys released my chin. But as he lowered his hand, I gripped his wrist, feeling the solid strength. “It’s a shame,” I said, the words nearly gobbled up by the sound of the city music. “That others in Prythian don’t know. A shame that you let them think the worst.”
He took a step back, his wings beating the air like mighty drums. “As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don’t care about the rest. Get some sleep.”
Then he shot into the sky, and was swallowed by the darkness between the stars.
I tumbled into a sleep so heavy my dreams were an undertow that dragged me down, down, down until I couldn’t escape them.
I lay naked and prone on a familiar red marble floor while Amarantha slid a knife along my bare ribs, the steel scraping softly against my skin. “Lying, traitorous human,” she purred, “with your filthy, lying heart.”