A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,251

power. Told them the worst of her, so that if they decided to risk climbing that mountain with her, they’d go into it with their eyes open. So that they could choose to pull back now.

And when Nesta finished, she braced herself for the disappointment in their faces, the disgust.

Gwyn’s hand slid into hers, though. Emerie tightened her grip on Nesta’s other hand, too.

“Neither of you is to blame for what happened,” Nesta whispered. “Neither of you failed anyone.”

“Neither did you,” Emerie said softly.

Nesta gazed at her friends. And saw pain and sorrow in their tear-streaked faces, but also the openness of letting each other see the broken places deep inside. The understanding that they would not turn away.

Nesta’s eyes stung as Gwyn said, “So we climb Ramiel. We take the Breaking. We win to prove to everyone that something new can be as powerful and unbreakable as the old rules. That something no one has ever seen before, not entirely Valkyrie nor entirely Illyrian, can win the Blood Rite.”

“No,” Nesta said at last. “We win to prove to ourselves that it can be done.” She bared her teeth in a feral grin at the mountain. “We win the whole damn thing.”

CHAPTER

69

Eris and the small caravan rode eastward for three days, stopping only to eat and sleep. Their pace was leisurely, and from the glimpses Cassian and Azriel got through the clouds, it seemed Eris was unchained. Briallyn’s small, hunched figure rode at his side each day. But they caught no sign of the Crown on her—no glint of gold in the sun.

The Blood Rite would end the next day. Cassian had heard nothing of Nesta, felt nothing. But he’d barely slept. Had hardly been able to keep his focus on the party ahead as they entered a low-lying forest beyond the hills, ancient and knotted and full of hanging moss.

“I’ve never been here before,” Azriel murmured over the wind. “It feels like an old place. It reminds me of the Middle.”

Cassian kept his silence. Didn’t speak as they trailed their quarry deeper into the wood to a small lake in its center. Only when the party halted at its dark shores did Azriel and Cassian land nearby. Begin their silent tracking on foot.

The group must not have been concerned about being overheard, because Cassian could make out their words from well beyond their campsite along the shore. Twenty of them had gathered, a mixture of what looked like human nobility and soldiers. Eris’s white stallion had been hitched to a branch. But the male—

“Over here, Cassian,” Eris crooned.

Cassian whirled, and found the High Lord’s son holding a knife at his ribs.

By midday, Nesta could barely breathe. Gwyn was dragging, Emerie was panting, and they’d begun to ration their water. No matter how high they climbed, how many boulders they cleared along the narrow path, the peak grew no closer.

They saw no one else. Heard no one else.

A small mercy.

Nesta’s breath singed her lungs. Her legs wobbled. There was only the pain in her body and the relentless circling of her thoughts, as if they were vultures gathering to feast.

She just wanted to turn off her mind—

Was it possible that the Breaking wasn’t merely physical, but mental as well? That this mountain somehow dredged up every bit of her fear and sucked her mind deep into it?

They halted for lunch, if water could be called lunch. Gwyn’s leg was bleeding again, her face ghostly white. None of them spoke.

But Nesta noted their haunted eyes—knew they heard their own horrors.

They rested for as long as they dared, then moved again.

Keep going upward. That was the only way. Step to step to step.

“It looks like we’re two-thirds of the way up,” Emerie rasped from ahead.

Night had fallen, the moon bright enough to keep the Breaking’s path illuminated. To show those three stars above Ramiel’s peak. Beckoning. Waiting.

If they reached it by dawn, it’d be a miracle.

“I need to rest,” Gwyn said faintly. “Just—just another minute.” Her face was gray, her hair limp. The leathers along her leg soaked red.

Emerie had taken a spill on a loose rock two hours earlier and twisted her ankle—she was limping now as well.

They were moving too slowly.

“The Pass of Enalius isn’t too far ahead,” Emerie insisted. “If we can make it through the archway, then it’s a clear shot to the top.”

Gwyn breathed, “I’m not sure if I can.”

“Let her rest, Emerie,” Nesta said, sitting on a small boulder beside Gwyn. Dawn had to be four