A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,125

still as likely to hurt yourself as you are an opponent, Cassian had said as he laid his weapons on the dining table this morning, but it’s better than going into Oorid unarmed. She’d selected a dagger and he’d grinned. Pointy end goes into your enemy.

She’d given him a withering look, but had allowed him to assist her with the straps and buckles of the various sheaths, focusing upon his strong hands whispering over her skin and not the task at hand.

“We both should go with you,” Rhys amended. “But at least Azriel will be there.”

“Thanks for your confidence,” Cassian said wryly, and kissed Feyre’s cheek. Rhys must have lowered her shield—for the moment. “You two aren’t even parents yet and your mother-henning has reached an unbearable level.”

“Mother-henning?” Feyre choked on a laugh.

“It’s a word,” Cassian said, so casually that Nesta wondered if he comprehended the danger they were walking into.

Nesta slid her gaze to Azriel, who shrugged subtly in confirmation. Yes, they were about to venture into a lethal, ancient bog. No, Cassian didn’t seem as disturbed as the two of them were.

Nesta scowled, and Az offered her a slight smile. They could be allies, that smile seemed to say. Against Cassian’s utter insanity. She found herself answering Azriel with a slight smile of her own.

Rhys sighed to the ceiling. “Shall we?”

Nesta glanced up the stairs past Feyre. Elain had again opted to remain in her room when Nesta was present, which was just fine. Absolutely, utterly fine. Elain could make her own choices. And had chosen to thoroughly shut the door on Nesta. Even as she fully embraced Feyre and her world. Nesta’s chest tightened, but she refused to think of it, acknowledge it. Elain was like a dog, loyal to whatever master kept her fed and in comfort.

Nesta wrenched her attention from the stairs, cursing herself for a fool for even looking.

“I don’t like this,” Feyre blurted, stepping toward her. “You haven’t had enough training.”

Cassian smirked. “She has two Illyrian warriors guarding her. What could go wrong?”

“Don’t answer that,” Rhys said drily to his mate. He met Nesta’s gaze. Stars were born and died in his eyes. “If you don’t want to go—”

“You need me,” Nesta said, chin lifting. “The bog is large enough that you won’t be able to find the Mask without my … gifts.” She had no idea how she’d find the Mask in Oorid, but they could at least begin exploring the area today. Or so Cassian had said this morning.

Feyre seemed poised to object, but Azriel extended his scarred hands to Cassian and Nesta. Feyre stepped forward again. “The Middle is like nothing you have experienced before, Nesta. Don’t let your guard down for a moment.”

Nesta nodded, not bothering to say that she’d operated by that principle for a long time.

Azriel didn’t give them a chance to exchange another word before murmuring shadows swept around them. Nesta couldn’t help clinging to Azriel, gleaning on some innate level that if she let go, she would tumble through this space between places and be lost forever.

But then gray, watery light hit her. And the air—the air was heavy, full of slow-running water and mold and loamy earth. No wind moved around them; not even a breeze.

Cassian whistled. “Look at this hellhole.” Dropping Azriel’s hand, Nesta did just that.

Oorid stretched before them. She had never seen a place so dead. A place that made the still-human part of her recoil, whispering that it was wrong wrong wrong to be here.

Azriel winced. The shadowsinger of the Night Court winced as the full brunt of Oorid’s oppressive air and scent and stillness hit him.

The three of them surveyed the wasteland.

Even the Cauldron’s water hadn’t been as solidly black as the water here, as if it were made of ink. In the shallows mere feet away, where the water met the grass, not one blade was visible where the surface touched it.

Dead trees, gray with age and weather, jutted like the broken lances of a thousand soldiers, some draped with curtains of moss. No leaves clung to their branches. Most of the branches had been cracked off, leaving jagged spears extending from the trunks.

“Not one insect,” Azriel observed. “Not one bird.”

Nesta strained to listen. Only silence answered. Empty of even a whistle of a breeze. “Who would bury their dead here?”

“They didn’t put them in the earth,” Cassian said, his voice oddly muffled, as if that thick air gobbled up any echo. “These were water burials.”

Nesta said, “I’d