A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses #4) by Sarah J. Maas

“It’s unbearable.” Nesta shivered.

“We’ll stay only as long as we can stomach it,” Cassian said, “and if we don’t find anything, we’ll return tomorrow and pick up where we left off.”

He had two swords, four knives, an Illyrian bow, and a quiver of arrows, plus all seven Siphons. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of flying naked.

“What else dwells here other than kelpies?”

“Some say witches,” he murmured. “Not the human kind,” he added when she raised a brow. “The kind that used to be something else and then their thirst for magic and power turned them into wretched creatures, banished here by various High Lords.”

“They don’t sound so bad.”

“They drink young blood to fill the coldness the magic left in them.”

Nesta winced. Cassian went on as she scanned the bog, “There are lightsingers: lovely, ethereal beings who will lure you, appearing as friendly faces when you are lost. Only when you’re in their arms will you see their true faces, and they aren’t fair at all. The horror of it is the last thing you see before they drown you in the bog. But they kill for sport, not food.”

“And all these horrible creatures are just left here, untended?”

“The Middle lies under no High Lord’s jurisdiction. It’s long been the dumping ground for any unwanteds.”

“Not the Prison?”

“Their crimes are ones of nature. A kelpie is designed to lure and kill, just as a wolf is designed to hunt its prey. The Middle keeps them separate from us without punishing them for what they were made to be.”

“But no one will come rid the world of them?”

“The Middle is full of primal magic. It has its own rules and laws. Hunt the kelpies or lightsingers without provocation and you might find yourself trapped here.”

She shuddered. “How would the Mask have wound up in the bog?”

“I don’t know.” He nodded toward the ground. “You feel anything?”

“No. Nothing.”

Cassian glanced over a shoulder to Az before they entered a cloud of mist hovering above the northern section of the bog. It was so thick that Cassian rose higher, not wanting to impale them on a tall tree. The mist was chill enough to run icy fingers down his wings, his face.

Nesta jolted, then breathed, “Cassian.”

He cleared the mist, banking to the left. “You sensed something?”

“I don’t know what I sensed.” She swallowed. “Something is here.”

He looked over his shoulder again to signal Azriel.

But Az wasn’t there.





CHAPTER

33

“Azriel!”

Cassian’s shout didn’t even echo.

Clinging to his neck, Nesta scanned the mist. Cassian hung back from it, wings beating in place as he searched for his brother. “Hold on,” he hissed before he launched into a drop, using the momentum to swoop into the mist.

Blue light flared below—ahead. Azriel’s Siphons.

“Fuck,” Cassian spat, and shot lower.

Trees thrust upward, sharp as swords, and he swerved around them, wings within an inch of shredding on those spikes. Nesta’s heart thundered, but she wouldn’t shut her eyes against the death all around, not as Cassian dropped beneath the mist’s curtain and they beheld what Azriel faced.

Cassian turned so swiftly Nesta barely had time to brace herself, and then he was flying back the way he’d come, through the mist. “Where are you going?” she demanded. “There are two dozen soldiers there!”

“Autumn Court soldiers,” Cassian clarified, wings pumping so hard the wind ripped at her eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck they’re doing here, or if Eris has royally fucked us over, but one of them shot an ash arrow through Az’s wing.”

“Then why are we flying away?”

“Because I’m not landing with you in the middle of that.”

“Put me down!” she shouted. “Put me down wherever and go back to him!” He didn’t, surveying the bog below for the right place. She slammed a hand on his muscled chest. “Cassian!”

“I know what each second costs me, Nesta,” he said quietly.

“Put me down in a fucking tree, then!” She pointed to one that they narrowly avoided.

He spotted an area he deemed safe enough: a solid stretch of grassy land, the remnants of a tree rising from its midst. He set her in the tree, as she’d suggested, perching her on the highest, sturdiest branch. It groaned and swayed beneath their weight. “Stay here,” he commanded, waiting until she’d wrapped her hands around the branch and was clinging like a child who’d climbed too high. “I’ll be back soon. Do not climb down. No matter what you may see or hear.”

“Go.” She was utterly useless in a fight, she knew. She would only distract him.

“Be careful,” he warned, as if he weren’t the one about to head into danger, and then he was gone. Nesta clung to the tree branch so hard her entire body trembled, the silence of the bog wrapping around her like a leaden blanket.

Oorid devoured Cassian’s swift wingbeats within seconds, so she couldn’t even hear him as he disappeared into the mist.



Cassian aimed toward where his senses told him Az still fought. His eyesight sure as fuck didn’t help him—the mist seemed thicker now.