A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,202

on the second drawer. “Elain’s drawer.” They drifted lower, curling over a lick of flame. “And yours.”

Nesta managed a grunt of confirmation, her chest tight to the point of pain. There in the corner sat a pair of worn, half-rotted shoes. Her shoes. One of them was bursting at the toe’s seam. She’d worn those shoes—in public. Could still remember mud and stones creeping in.

Her heart thundered, and she walked out of the room, back into the main space.

She didn’t mean to, but she looked toward the dark fireplace. Toward the mantel.

Her father’s wood figurines lay atop it, thickly coated with dust and cobwebs. Some had been knocked over, presumably by whatever creatures now lived here.

That familiar roaring filled her ears, and Nesta’s steps thudded too loudly on the dusty floorboards as she approached the fireplace.

A carving of a rearing bear—no bigger than her fist—sat in the center. Nesta’s fingers shook as she picked it up and blew off the dust.

“He had some skill,” Cassian said quietly.

“Not enough,” Nesta said, setting the bear back onto the stone mantel. She was going to vomit.

No. She could master this. Master herself. And face what lay before her.

She inhaled through her nose. Exhaled through her mouth. Counted the breaths.

Cassian stood beside her through all of it. Not speaking, not touching. Just there, should she need him. Her friend—whom she’d asked to come here with her not because he was sharing her bed, but because she wanted him here. His steadiness and kindness and understanding.

She plucked another figurine from the mantel: a rose carved from a dark sort of wood. She held it in her palm, its solid weight surprising, and traced a finger over one of the petals. “He made this one for Elain. Since it was winter and she missed the flowers.”

“Did he ever make any for you?”

“He knew better than to do that.” She inhaled a shuddering breath, held it, released it. Let her mind calm. “I think he would have, if I’d given him the smallest bit of encouragement, but … I never did. I was too angry.”

“You’d had your life overturned. You were allowed to be angry.”

“That’s not what you told me the first time we met.” She pivoted to find him arching a brow. “You told me I was a piece of shit for letting my younger sister go into the woods to hunt while I did nothing.”

“I didn’t say it like that.”

“The message was the same.” She squared her shoulders, turning to the small, broken cot in the shadows beyond the fireplace. “And you were right.” He didn’t reply as she strode to the cot. “My father slept here for years, letting us have the bedroom. That bed in there … I was born in that bed. My mother died in that bed. I hate that bed.” She ran a hand over the cracking wood of the cot’s frame. Splinters snagged at her fingertips. “But I hate this cot even more. He’d drag it in front of the fire every night and curl up there, huddling under the blankets. I always thought he looked so … so weak. Like a cowering animal. It enraged me.”

“Does it enrage you now?” A casual, but careful question.

“It …” Her throat worked. “I thought him sleeping here was a fitting punishment while we got the bed. It never occurred to me that he wanted us to have the bed, to keep warm and be as comfortable as we could. That we’d only been able to take a few items of furniture from our former home and he’d chosen that bed as one of them. For our comfort. So we didn’t have to sleep on cots, or on the floor.” She rubbed at her chest. “I wouldn’t even let him sleep in the bed when the debtors shattered his leg. I was so lost in my grief and rage and … and sorrow, that I wanted him to feel a fraction of what I did.” Her stomach churned.

He squeezed her shoulder, but said nothing.

“He had to have known that,” she said hoarsely. “He had to have known how awful I was, and yet … he never yelled. That enraged me, too. And then he named a ship after me. Sailed it into battle. I just … I don’t understand why.”

“You were his daughter.”

“And that’s an explanation?” She scanned his face, the sadness etched there. Sadness—for her. For the ache in her chest and the stinging in her eyes.

“Love is complicated.”

She dropped his