A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,228

said, smiling again, a slash of red and white in the glowing dark. “When you arrived here, what did you wish for most?”

Nesta considered, watching a few stars whiz past. “A friend. Deep down, I wanted a friend.”

“So you Made one. Your power brought the House to life with a silent wish born from loneliness and desperate need.”

“But my power only creates terrible things. The House is good,” Nesta breathed.

“Is it?”

Nesta considered. “The darkness in the pit of the library—it’s the heart of the House.”

Amren nodded. “And where is it now?”

“It hasn’t made an appearance in weeks. But it’s still there. I think it’s just … being managed. Maybe the House’s knowledge that I’m aware of it, and didn’t judge it, makes it easier to keep in check.”

Amren put a hand above Nesta’s heart. “That’s the key, isn’t it? To know the darkness will always remain, but how you choose to face it, handle it … that’s the important part. To not let it consume. To focus upon the good, the things that fill you with wonder.” She gestured to the stars zooming past. “The struggle with that darkness is worth it, just to see such things.”

But Nesta’s gaze had slid from the stars—finding a familiar face in the crowd, dancing with Mor. Laughing, his head thrown back. So beautiful she had no words for it.

Amren chuckled gently. “And worth it for that, too.”

Nesta looked back at her friend. Amren smiled, and her face became as lovely as Cassian’s, as the stars arching past. “Welcome back to the Night Court, Nesta Archeron.”

CHAPTER

62

Spring dawned on Velaris. Nesta welcomed the sun into her bones, her heart, letting it warm her.

They had made it through the winter with no movement from Briallyn or Beron, no armies unleashing. But Cassian warned that many armies did not attack in the winter, and Briallyn might have been amassing them in secret. Azriel was forbidden from getting within a few miles of her, thanks to the threat of the Crown, and any reports had to be verified by multiple sources. In short: they knew nothing, and could only wait.

The mood hadn’t been helped by a rare red star blasting across the sky one day—an ill omen, Nesta had heard the priestesses muttering. Cassian reported that even Rhys had been rattled by it, seeming unusually contemplative afterward. But Nesta suspected that the omen wasn’t the only thing contributing to Rhys’s solemnity. Feyre was only two months from giving birth, and they still knew nothing about how to save her.

She channeled that growing worry into her training with the priestesses. Azriel and Cassian devised more training simulations, and they moved through them as a unit, thought and battled as a unit.

Nesta sometimes wondered if they would ever see battle. If these priestesses would ever be willing to leave here to fight, to face violence that might summon the devouring demons of their pasts. Did she wish to move beyond simulations to actual combat? What would it do to her, to see her friends killing or being killed?

It was a final test, she supposed. One they might not ever be taking.

Perhaps the Blood Rite, which Cassian had told her was only a few days away, had started as just that: a way to introduce young Illyrian warriors to killing in a contained environment, a stepping-stone to the full mercilessness of battle.

But Nesta’s first foray into merciless battle came in the form of a letter. An impatient, demanding letter that requested her presence immediately. And Cassian’s.

Eris was waiting for Nesta and Cassian when they arrived in a forest clearing nestled in the Middle. But Nesta didn’t bother to do more than glance at the High Lord’s son—not with the sight rising above the trees. The sacred mountain—the mountain under which Feyre, Rhys, and all the other High Lords had been trapped by Amarantha. It rose like a wave on the horizon, bleak and barren and somehow thrumming with presence.

“Have you never seen it?” Eris asked by way of greeting, tracking her stare.

“No.” She looked away from the unnerving peak. “Why is it sacred to you?”

Eris shrugged, and Nesta knew Cassian monitored his every breath. “There are three of them, you know. Sister peaks. This one, the mountain called the Prison, and the one the Illyrian brutes call Ramiel. All bald, barren mountains at odds with those around them.”

“We didn’t come for a history lesson,” Cassian muttered.

Nesta cut him a look. “I asked. I want to know.”

Cassian snorted, and jerked his chin