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

The hair on her neck rose. “Yes.” Those stories had always unnerved and petrified her.

“They were based on truth. Based on ancient, near-primordial beings who existed here before the High Fae split into courts, before the High Lords. Some call them the First Gods. They were beings with almost no physical form, but a keen, vicious intelligence. Humans and Fae alike were their prey. Most were hunted and driven into hiding or imprisonment ages ago. But some remained, lurking in forgotten corners of the land.” He swallowed another mouthful.

“When I was nearing three hundred years old, one of them appeared again, crawling out of the roots of a mountain. Before he went into the Prison and confinement weakened him, Lanthys could turn into wind and rip the air from your lungs, or turn into rain and drown you on dry land; he could peel your skin from your body with a few movements. He never revealed his true form, but when I faced him, he chose to appear as swirling mist. He fathered a race of faeries that still plague us, who thrived under Amarantha’s reign—the Bogge. But the Bogge are lesser, mere shadows compared to Lanthys. If there is such a thing as evil incarnate, it is him. He has no mercy, no sense of right or wrong. There is him, and there is everyone else, and we are all his prey. His methods of killing are creative and slow. He feasts on fear and pain as much as the flesh itself.”

Her blood chilled. “How did you trap such a thing?”

Cassian tapped a spot on his neck where a scar slashed beneath his ear. “I quickly learned I could never beat him in combat or magic. Still have the scar here to prove it.” Cassian smiled faintly. “So I used his arrogance against him. Flattered and taunted him into trapping himself in a mirror bound with ash wood. I bet him the mirror would contain him—and Lanthys bet wrong. He got out of the mirror, of course, but by that time, I’d dumped his miserable self into the Prison.”

Nesta lifted a brow. He cut her a sharp smile that didn’t meet his eyes and said, “Not just a brute after all.”

No, he wasn’t, even though she’d said as much to him, but she’d never once believed it—

Cassian went on, “Of all the occupants of the Prison, Lanthys is the one I dread finding a way out.”

“Would such a thing ever happen?”

“I don’t think so, thank the Cauldron. That Prison is inescapable. Unless you’re Amren.”

Nesta didn’t want to talk about Amren. Or think about her. “You said you put others in.” Half of her didn’t want to know.

He shrugged, as if it were of no consequence that he had done such remarkable things. “Seven-headed Lubia, who made the mistake of surfacing from the caves of the deep ocean to prey on girls along the western coast. Blue Annis, who was a terror to behold—cobalt skin and iron claws and, like Lubia, a taste for female flesh. Lubia, at least, swallowed her prey swiftly. Annis … she took longer. Annis was like Lanthys in that regard.” His throat bobbed, and he tugged back the collar of his shirt to reveal another scar: the horrific, thick one above his left pectoral. She’d spied it the other day in the training ring. “That’s all that remains of it now, but Annis had shredded through my chest with those iron claws and was nearly at my heart when Azriel intervened. So I suppose her capture is shared between the two of us.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “And then there was—”

“I’ve heard enough.” Her words were breathless. “I’ll never sleep tonight.” She shook her head, taking another bite of food. “I don’t know how you can, having faced all that.”

He leaned back in his seat. “You learn to live with it. How to block the horrors from your present thoughts.” He added a touch quietly, “But they still lurk there. In the back of your mind.”

She wished she knew how to do such things: to push all the thoughts that devoured her behind some wall, or into a hole within her, so she could bury them deep.

Cassian asked her, voice still quiet, “The darkness in the library—do you think it reacted to you specifically?” When she said nothing, he pressed, “Because of your powers?”

“I don’t have any powers,” she lied. Training with Amren hadn’t done a lick to help her understand them, anyway.

“Then who left that handprint on the stairs?”

She didn’t bother to look pleasant. “Maybe Lucien. He’s got fire in his veins.”

“He said your fire was different from his. That it burned cold, somehow.”

“Perhaps you should lock me up in that Prison, then.”

He set down his fork. “I’m just asking you a question.”

“Does it matter if I have powers?”

Cassian shook his head in what seemed to be a mixture of admiration and disgust. “You might have been born human, but you’re pure faerie. Answering questions with questions, evading an honest answer.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It’s not.” His teeth flashed. “The kind of powers you have aren’t the sort that should sit idly by. They need an outlet, and training—”

“Balancing and stretching?”

His jaw clenched. “What happened with you and Amren?”

“Why so many questions tonight?”

“Because we’re talking like normal people, and I want to know. About all of it.”