A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,179

They’d reach it tonight, and stay there a day or two.

She barely heard. One foot after another, mile after mile, up and down. The mountains watched her, the river sang to her, as if guiding her onward to that lake.

No amount of driving her body into the earth would make her good. She knew it. Wondered if he did, too. Wondered if he thought he was trekking out here with her on a fool’s errand.

Or maybe it was like one of the ancient stories she’d heard as a child: he a wicked queen’s huntsman, leading her into the deep wild before carving out her heart.

She wished he would. Wished someone would cut the damned thing from her chest. Wished someone would smother the voice that whispered of every horrible thing she had ever done, every awful thought she’d had, every person she’d failed.

She had been born wrong. Had been born with claws and fangs and had never been able to keep from using them, never been able to quell the part of her that roared at betrayal, that could hate and love more violently than anyone ever understood. Elain had been the only one who perhaps grasped it, but now her sister loathed her.

She didn’t know how to fix it. How to make any of it right. How to stop being this way.

She didn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been angry. Maybe before her mother had died, but even then her mother herself had been bitter, disdainful of their father, and her mother’s disdain had become her own.

She couldn’t quell that relentless, churning anger. Couldn’t stop herself from lashing out before she could be wounded.

She was no better than a rabid dog. She had been a rabid dog with Amren and Feyre. A beast, exactly like Tamlin. She hadn’t even cared that she’d made it down the House stairs at last—did it count, when it was driven by fury?

Did she count—was she worth being counted?

It was the question that sent everything crumpling inside her.

Nesta cleared the hill Cassian had mounted ahead, and a sparkling, turquoise lake spread before them. It lay slightly sunken between two peaks, as if a pair of green hands had been cupped to hold the water within them. Gray stones lined its shore.

Nesta didn’t see the lake, or the stones, or the sunlight and green.

Her vision blurred, and her eyes stung as if they had been sliced—cleaved open to allow the tears to pass.

She made it to the stones before she fell to her knees, so hard the rock bit into her bones. Was she worth being counted?

She knew the answer. Had always known it.

Cassian whirled toward her, but Nesta didn’t see him, either, or hear his words.

Not as she buried her face in her hands and wept.

CHAPTER

50

Once the wrenching, gasping sounds came out of her, Nesta knew she could not stop.

She knelt on the shore of that mountain lake and let go entirely.

She allowed every horrible thought to hit her, wash through her. Let herself see Feyre’s pale, devastated face as Nesta had revealed the truth, as she’d let her own anger and pain ride her.

She could never outlive it, her guilt. There was no point in trying. She sobbed into the darkness of her hands.

And then the stones clicked, and a warm, steady presence appeared beside her. He didn’t touch her, but his voice was nearby as he said, “I’m here.”

She sobbed harder at that. She couldn’t stop. As if a dam had burst and only letting the water run its course, raging through her, would suffice.

“Nesta.” His fingers grazed her shoulder.

She couldn’t bear that touch. The kindness in it.

“Please,” she said.

Her first word in five days.

He stilled. “Please what?”

She leaned from him. “Don’t touch me. Don’t—don’t be kind to me.” The words were a sobbing, rippling jumble.

“Why?”

The list of reasons surged, fighting to get out, to voice themselves, and she let them decide. Let them flow through her, as she whispered, “I let him die.”

He went quiet.

Through her hands on her face, she continued to whisper. “He came to save me, and fought for me, and I let him die with hate in my heart. Hate for him. He died because I didn’t stop it.” Her voice broke, and she wept harder. “And I was so horrid to him, until the very end. I was so, so horrid to him all my life—and still he somehow loved me. I didn’t deserve it, but he did. And I let him die.”

She bowed over