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

Cassian knew who she meant. “Taking a nap.”

Mor snorted.

“Don’t.” His attention drifting to the glittering Sidra mere feet away. “Please don’t.”

Mor sipped her tea, the portrait of elegant innocence. “We’d be better off throwing Nesta into the Court of Nightmares. She’d thrive there.”

Cassian clenched his jaw, both at the insult and the truth. “That’s exactly the sort of existence we’re trying to steer her away from.”

Mor assessed him with a bob of her thick lashes. “It pains you seeing her like this.”

“All of it pains me.” He and Mor had always had this kind of relationship: truth at all costs, however harsh. Ever since that first and only time they’d slept together, when he’d learned too late that she’d hidden from him the terrible repercussions. When he’d seen her broken body and known that even if she’d lied to him, he’d still played a part.

Cassian blew out a breath, shaking away the blood-soaked memory still staining his mind five centuries later. “It pains me that Nesta has become … this. It pains me that she and Feyre are always at each other’s throats. It pains me that Feyre hurts over it, and I know Nesta does, too. It pains me that …” He drummed his fingers on the table, then sipped from his water. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.” The breeze ruffled the gauzy fabric of Mor’s twilight-blue dress.

He again let himself admire her perfect face. Beyond the disastrous consequences for Mor after their night together, the fallout with Rhys afterward had been awful, and Azriel had been so furious in his own quiet way that Cassian had quelled any further desire for Mor. Had let lust turn into affection, and all romantic feelings turn into familial bonds. But he could still admire her sheer beauty—as he’d admire any work of art. Even though he knew well that what lay inside Mor was far more lovely and perfect than her exterior.

He wondered if she knew that.

Drinking again, he said, “Tell me what happened in Vallahan.” The ancient, mountainous Fae territory across the northern sea had been stirring since before the war with Hybern, and had been both enemy and ally to Prythian in different historical eras. What role Vallahan’s hot-tempered king and proud people would play in this new world of theirs was yet to be decided, though much of its fate seemed to depend upon Mor’s now-frequent presence at their court as Rhys’s emissary.

Indeed, Mor’s eyes shuttered. “They don’t want to sign the new treaty.”

“Fuck.” Rhys, Feyre, and Amren had spent months working on that treaty, with input from their allies in other courts and territories. Helion, High Lord of the Day Court and Rhys’s closest ally, had been the most involved. Helion Spell-Cleaver was unrivaled in sheer, swaggering arrogance—he’d probably made up the moniker himself. But the male had one thousand libraries at his disposal, and had put them all to good use for the treaty.

“I’ve spent weeks in that blasted court,” Mor said, poking at the flaky pastry beside her teacup, “freezing my ass off, trying to kiss their cold asses, and their king and queen refused the treaty. I came home on the earlier side today because I knew any more last-minute pushing from me would be unwelcome. My time there was supposed to be a friendly visit, after all.”

“Why won’t they sign it?”

“Because those stupid human queens are stirring—their army still isn’t disbanded. The Queen of Vallahan even asked me what the point of a peace treaty would be when another war, this time against the humans, might redraw the territory lines far below the wall. I don’t think Vallahan is interested in peace. Or allying with us.”

“So Vallahan wants another war in order to add to their territory?” They’d already seized more than their fair share after the War five hundred years ago.

“They’re bored,” Mor said, frowning with distaste. “And the humans, despite those queens, are far weaker than we are. Pushing into human lands is low-hanging fruit. Montesere and Rask are likely thinking the same thing.”

Cassian groaned skyward. That had been the fear during the recent war: that those three territories across the sea might ally with Hybern. Had they, there would have been no chance at all of survival. Now, even with Hybern’s king dead, its people remained angry. An army might be raised again in Hybern. And if it united with Vallahan, if Montesere and Rask joined with the goal of claiming more territory from the humans … “You already told Rhys this.”

It wasn’t a question, but Mor nodded. “That’s why he’s asking you to look into what’s going on with the human queens. I’m taking a few days off before I head back to Vallahan—but Rhys needs to know where the human queens stand in all of this.”

“So you’re supposed to convince Vallahan not to start another war, and I’m supposed to convince the human queens not to do so, either?”

“You won’t get near the human queens,” Mor said frankly. “But from what I observed in Vallahan, I know they’re up to something. Planning something. We just can’t figure out what, or why the humans would be stupid enough to start a war they cannot win.”

“They’d need something in their arsenal that could grant them the advantage.”