A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Rhys shook his head. “What’s the next move, then? I assume you’re doing more than warning humans to flee or hide.”

Jurian pushed off the table. “The next move, Rhysand, is me going back to that Hybern war-camp and throwing a fit that my search for Miryam and Drakon’s whereabouts wasn’t fruitful. My step after that is to take another trip to the continent and sow the seeds of discord amongst the queens’ courts. To let some vital things slip about their agenda. Who they really support. What they really want. It will keep them busy—too worried about their own internal conflict to consider sailing here. And once that’s done … who knows? Perhaps I’ll join you on the battlefield.”

Rhys rubbed his brows with a thumb and forefinger, the locks of his hair sliding forward as he dipped his head. “I wouldn’t believe a word, except I looked into that head of yours.”

Jurian tapped a hand on the door frame. “Tell Cassian to hammer the left flank hard tomorrow. Hybern is putting his untrained nobles there for some seasoning—they’re spoiled and untested. Buckle the ranks there, and it’ll spook the grunts. Hit them with everything you’ve got, and fast—don’t give them time to rally or find their courage.” Jurian gave me a grim smile. “I never congratulated you for slaughtering Dagdan and Brannagh. Good riddance.”

“I did it for those Children of the Blessed,” I said. “Not for glory.”

“I know,” Jurian said, flicking up his brows. “Why do you think I decided to trust you?”





CHAPTER

55


“I’m too old for these sorts of surprises,” Mor groused as the war-tent groaned in the howling mountain wind at the northern border of the Winter Court, the Illyrian army settling down for the night. To wait for the attack tomorrow. They’d flown all day, the location remote enough to keep even an army of our size hidden. Until tomorrow, at least.

We’d warned Tarquin—and dispatched messages to Helion and Kallias to join if they could make it in time. But come the hour before dawn, the Illyrian legion would take to the skies and fly hard for that southern battlefield. They would land, hopefully, before it began. Right as Keir and his commanders winnowed in the Darkbringer legion from the Night Court.

And then the slaughter would begin. On either side.

If what Jurian claimed was true. Cassian had choked when we’d told him Jurian’s battle advice. A milder reaction, Azriel said, than his initial response.

I asked Mor from where I sat at the foot of the fur-covered chaise we currently shared, “You never suspected Jurian might be … good?”

She swigged from her wine and leaned back against the cushions piled before the rolled headrest. My sisters were in another tent, not quite as big but equally luxurious, their lodgings flanked by Cassian’s and Azriel’s tents, and Mor’s before it. No one would get to them without my friends knowing. Even if Mor was currently here with me.

“I don’t know,” she said, hauling a heavy wool throw blanket over her legs. “I was never as close to Jurian as I was to some of the others, but … we did fight together. Saved each other. I just assumed Amarantha broke him.”

“Parts of him are broken,” I said, shuddering to recall those memories I’d seen, the feelings. I pulled some of her blanket over my lap.

“We’re all broken,” Mor said. “In our own ways—in places no one might see.”

I angled my head to inquire, but she asked, “Is Elain … all right?”

“No,” was all I said. Elain was not all right.

She had quietly cried while we winnowed here. And in the hours afterward, while the army arrived and the camp was rebuilt. She did not take off her ring. She only lay on the cot in her tent, nestled among the furs and blankets, and stared at nothing.

Any bit of good, any advancement … gone. I debated returning to smash every bone in Graysen’s body, but resisted—if only because it would give Nesta license to unleash herself upon him. And death at Nesta’s hands … I wondered if they’d have to invent a new word for killing when she was done with Graysen.

So Elain silently cried, the tears so unending that I wondered if it was some sign of her heart bleeding out. Some sliver of hope that had shattered today. That Graysen would still love her, still marry her—and that love would trump even a mating bond.

A final tether had been snapped—to her life in the human lands.

Only our father, wherever he was, remained as any sort of connection.

Mor read whatever was on my face and set down the wine on the small wood table beside the chaise. “We should sleep. I don’t even know why I’m drinking.”

“Today was … unexpected.”

“It’s so much harder,” she said, groaning as she chucked the rest of the blanket into my lap and rose to her feet. “When enemies turn into friends. And the opposite, I suppose. What didn’t I see? What did I overlook or dismiss? It always makes me reassess myself more than them.”

“Another joy of war?”

She snorted, heading for the tent flaps. “No—of life.”



I barely slept that night.

Rhys didn’t come to the tent—not once.

I slipped from our bed when the darkness was just starting to yield to gray, following the tug of the mating bond as I had done that day Under the Mountain.