A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,31

camp was all that remained of the first and last time he’d let himself sink to that level of rage.

And Rhys had appointed him to play courtier. To put aside the blade and use his words. It was a joke.

Eris uncrossed his legs. “I suppose this could be to sow tensions amongst us. To make us eye each other with suspicion. Weaken our bonds.”

“Hybern would have done that,” Jurian agreed. “He might have taught them a thing or two.” Before Nesta had beheaded him.

But Vassa said, “The queens require no teaching. They were well versed in treachery before they ever contacted Hybern. And have dealt with greater monsters than him.”

Cassian could have sworn flames rippled across her blue eyes.

Both Jurian and Lucien stared at her, the former’s face utterly unreadable, and the latter’s pained. Cassian suppressed his jolt. He should have asked someone before coming here how much time remained before Vassa would be forced to return to the continent—to the sorcerer-lord at a remote lake who held her leash, and had allowed her to leave only temporarily, as part of a bargain Feyre’s father had struck.

Feyre’s father … and Nesta’s father. Cassian blocked out the memory of the man’s neck being snapped. Of Nesta’s face as it had happened. And deciding to damn caution to hell, he asked, “Which of the queens would do something this bold?”

Vassa’s golden face tightened. “Briallyn.”

The once-young, once-human queen who had been turned High Fae by the Cauldron. But in its rage at whatever Nesta had taken from it, the Cauldron had punished Briallyn. She was Made immortal Fae, yes—but she was withered into a crone. Doomed to be old for millennia.

She’d made no secret of her hatred for Nesta. Her desire for revenge.

If Briallyn made a move against Nesta, he’d kill the queen himself.

Cassian tried to think over the bellowing beast in his head that tightened every muscle of his body until only bloody violence would appease it.

“Easy,” Lucien said.

Cassian snarled.

“Easy,” Lucien repeated, and flame sizzled in his russet eye.

The flame, the surprising dominance within it, hit Cassian like a stone to the head, knocking him from his need to kill and kill and kill whatever might threaten—

They were all staring. Cassian rolled his tensed shoulders, stretching out his wings. He’d revealed too much. Like a stupid brute, he’d let them all see too much, learn too much.

“Send that shadowsinger of yours to track Briallyn,” Jurian ordered, his face grave. “If she’s somehow capable of capturing a unit of Fae soldiers, we need to know how. Swiftly.” Spoken like the general Jurian had once been.

Cassian said to Vassa, “You really think Briallyn would do something like this? Be that blatant? Someone has to be trying to fool us into going after her.”

Lucien asked, “How would she even get here and vanish that quickly? Crossing the sea takes weeks. She’d need to winnow to pull it off.”

“The queens can winnow,” Jurian corrected. “They did so during the war, remember?”

But Vassa said, “Only when several of us are together. And it is not winnowing as the Fae do, but a different power. It’s akin to the way all seven High Lords can combine their powers to perform miracles.”

Well, fuck.

Eris said, “I have it on good authority that the other three queens have scattered to the winds.” Cassian tucked away the information and the questions it raised. How did Eris know that? “Briallyn has been residing alone in their palace for weeks now. Long before my soldiers vanished.”

“So she can’t winnow, then,” Cassian concluded. “And again—would she really be foolish enough to do something like this if the other queens have left?”

Vassa’s eyes darkened. “Yes. The others’ departure would serve to remove obstacles to her ambitions. But she’d only do this if she had someone of immense power behind her. Perhaps pulling her strings.”

Even the fire seemed to quiet.

Lucien’s eye clicked. “Who?”

“You wonder who is capable of making a unit of Fae soldiers across the sea vanish? Who could give Briallyn the power to winnow—or do it for her? Who could aid Briallyn so she’d be bold enough to do such a thing? Look to Koschei.”

Cassian froze as memories clicked into place, as surely as one of Amren’s jigsaw puzzles. “The sorcerer who imprisoned you is named Koschei? Is he … is he the Bone Carver’s brother?” Everyone gaped at him. Cassian clarified, “The Bone Carver mentioned a brother to me once, a fellow true immortal and a death-lord. That was his name.”

“Yes,” Vassa breathed. “Koschei