A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,126

rather be burned to ashes and cast to the wind than be left here.”

“Noted,” Cassian said.

“This is an evil place,” Azriel whispered. True fear shone in the shadowsinger’s hazel eyes.

The hair on Nesta’s arms rose. “What manner of creature dwells here?”

“You’re asking this now?” Cassian said, brows high. He and Azriel had both worn their thicker armor, summoned by tapping the Siphons atop the backs of their hands.

“I was scared to ask before,” Nesta admitted. “I didn’t want to lose my nerve.”

Cassian opened his mouth, but Azriel said, “Things that hunt in the water and feast on flesh.”

“No one’s seen a kelpie in a damn long time,” Cassian countered.

“That doesn’t mean they’re gone.”

“What’s a kelpie?” Nesta asked, heart pounding at the tension etched into their faces.

“An ancient creature—one of the first true monsters of the faeries,” Cassian said. “Humans called them by other names: water-horses, nixies. They were shape-shifters who dwelled in the lakes and rivers and lured unwitting people into their arms. And after they drowned them, they feasted. Only the entrails would make it back to shore.”

Nesta stared toward the bog’s black surface. “And they live in there?”

“They vanished hundreds of years before we were born,” Cassian said firmly. “They’re a myth whispered around fires, and a warning for children not to play near the water. But no one knows where they went. Most were hunted, but the survivors …” He conceded with a nod to Azriel, “It’s possible that they fled to the Middle. The one place that could protect them.” Nesta grimaced. Cassian threw her a grin that didn’t meet his eyes. “Just don’t go running after a beautiful white horse or a pretty-faced young man and you’ll be fine.”

“And stay out of the water,” Azriel added solemnly.

“What if the Mask is in the water?” She gestured to the vast bog. They’d fly over it, they’d decided, and let her sense whatever lay here.

“Then Az and I will draw straws like the tough warriors we are and the loser goes in.”

Azriel rolled his eyes, but chuckled. Cassian’s grin at last glowed in his gaze as he opened his arms. “Oorid’s beauty awaits, my lady.”

Cassian had been to some horrible places in his five centuries of existence.

The Bog of Oorid was by far the worst. Its very essence spoke of death and decay.

The oppressive air muffled even the sound of their wings, like Oorid would abide no sound disturbing its ancient slumber.

Nesta clung to him as he flew, Az at his side, and Cassian peered at the dead forest that spread below, the black water that had flooded it like an obsidian mirror. It was so still that he could see their reflections perfectly.

The wind whipping her braided hair, Nesta said, “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

“Just keep all your senses open and see if anything sparks.” Cassian began a wide circle to the west. The air seemed to press on his wings, as if it would cast them down to the earth.

But to enter that black water would be a last resort.

Islands of grass dotted the expanse, some so crowded with brambles that he could find no safe place to land. The tangles of thorns were a mockery of what might have been—as if Oorid had ever produced roses. Not a single flower bloomed.

“It’s unbearable.” Nesta shivered.

“We’ll stay only as long as we can stomach it,” Cassian said, “and if we don’t find anything, we’ll return tomorrow and pick up where we left off.”

He had two swords, four knives, an Illyrian bow, and a quiver of arrows, plus all seven Siphons. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of flying naked.

“What else dwells here other than kelpies?”

“Some say witches,” he murmured. “Not the human kind,” he added when she raised a brow. “The kind that used to be something else and then their thirst for magic and power turned them into wretched creatures, banished here by various High Lords.”

“They don’t sound so bad.”

“They drink young blood to fill the coldness the magic left in them.”

Nesta winced. Cassian went on as she scanned the bog, “There are lightsingers: lovely, ethereal beings who will lure you, appearing as friendly faces when you are lost. Only when you’re in their arms will you see their true faces, and they aren’t fair at all. The horror of it is the last thing you see before they drown you in the bog. But they kill for sport, not food.”

“And all these horrible creatures are just left here, untended?”

“The Middle lies under