A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,128

of cobalt in the mist, and Cassian shot higher into the sky, until that blue was a flutter beneath him.

He stopped flapping entirely so the warriors wouldn’t hear any wingbeats.

Then he spread his wings silently and slid into a free fall. Mist bit at him, the heavy air slapped his face, but he drew a blade and the knife at his thigh in silence.

The mist broke five feet above the skirmish.

The soldiers didn’t have time to look up before Cassian was upon them.

Blood sprayed and males screamed, power bouncing off the red of Cassian’s Siphons. Az battled it out with six soldiers at once, left wing limp and bleeding, his own Siphons blazing. The ash bolt had rendered Az’s power nearly useless. But the Siphons had been blazing as a signal—for Cassian.

The sight of Az’s injured wing made his head begin roaring.

Cassian killed and killed and did not stop.

Too long.

Cassian and Azriel had been gone for too long.

Nesta’s limbs were beginning to lock up from the effort of clinging like a bear cub to the tree. She knew she had scant minutes until her body rebelled and let go.

There was no sound, no flash of light. Only the silent bog and the mist and the dead tree.

Every breath echoed her thoughts. Every breath was gobbled up by Oorid’s oppression.

She’d seen Cassian face Hybern soldiers. Two dozen from the Autumn Court should be nothing. But why were they here?

Her legs shook so badly she nearly lost her grip on the branch. She knew she presented an utterly pathetic picture, laid out along the branch precisely as Cassian had left her, legs wrapped around it, ankles crossed over each other, fingers digging into the dry, silvery wood.

Carefully, she pushed herself up, her arms tingling with the numbness of clenching tight for so long. Her legs buckled with relief, too, as she released their grip, letting them hang in the air. She scanned the general direction Cassian had gone. Nothing.

He’d fallen in battle before—she’d seen him gravely injured. The first time in Hybern, when he’d tried to crawl toward her as she went into the Cauldron. The second time against Hybern’s forces, when he’d been gutted and Azriel had held his entrails in with his bare hands. And the third time against the King of Hybern himself, when she had asked him, ordered him, to use her as bait, the distraction while she drew the king away from Feyre and the Cauldron.

After so many brushes with death, it was only a matter of time until it stuck.

Her mouth dried out. Azriel had been struck with an ash arrow. What if the soldiers had injured Cassian similarly? What if they were both in need of help?

She could do nothing against two dozen soldiers—against a single soldier, if she was being honest—but she couldn’t endure sitting in a tree like a coward. Not knowing if he lived. And she had magic. Had no idea how to use it, but … she had that, at least. Maybe it would help.

She told herself she was concerned for Azriel, too. Told herself she cared about the shadowsinger’s fate as much as Cassian’s. But it was Cassian’s dead face that she couldn’t bear to imagine.

Nesta didn’t let herself reconsider as she again laid herself out on the branch, wrapping her arms around it as she blindly lowered her leg, seeking the branch just beneath—

There. Her foot found purchase, but she didn’t let it bear her full weight. Still clinging to the branch, fingernails digging into the dead wood hard enough that splinters sliced beneath them, she lowered herself onto the one below. Panting, she knelt again, and once more lowered her foot, finding another branch. But it was too far. Grunting, she brought her leg back up and carefully placed her hands on either side of her knees, focusing upon her balance, just as Cassian had taught her, thinking through every motion of her body, her feet, her breathing.

Fingertips screaming at the splinters piercing the sensitive flesh beneath her nails, she dropped her legs until they hit the branch below. The branch under it was closer but thinner—wobblier. She had to lay herself flat on it to keep from teetering off.

Branch by branch, Nesta descended until her boots sank into the mossy ground, and the tree loomed like a giant above her.

The bog stretched all around, miles of black water and dead trees and grass.

She’d have to wade through the water to reach him. Nesta focused on her breathing—or