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

Because the shadow in the corner behind Amren … that was Azriel. The obsidian hilt of Truth-Teller in his scarred hand. He’d moved without my realizing it—though I had no doubt the others had likely been aware.

Amren bared her teeth at him. Azriel’s beautiful face didn’t so much as shift.

Rhys remained where he was as he asked Amren, “Why won’t you tell us?”

Cassian casually slid Nesta behind him, his fingers snagging in the skirts of her black gown. As if to reassure himself that she wasn’t in Amren’s direct path. Nesta only rose onto her toes to peer over his shoulder.

“Because the stone beneath this house has ears, the wind has ears—all of it listening,” Amren said. “And if it reports back … They will remember, Rhysand, that they have not caught me. And I will not let them put me in that black pit again.”

My ears hollowed out as a shield clicked into place. “No one will hear beyond this room.”

Amren surveyed the books lying forgotten on the low table in the sitting room.

Her brows narrowed. “I had to give something up. I had to give me up. To walk out, I had to become something else entirely, something the Prison would not recognize. So I—I bound myself into this body.”

I’d never heard her stumble over a word before.

“You said someone else bound you,” Rhys questioned carefully.

“I lied—to cover what I’d done. So none could know. To escape the Prison, I made myself mortal. Immortal as you are, but … mortal compared to—to what I was. And what I was … I did not feel, the way you do. The way I do now. Some things—loyalty and wrath and curiosity—but not the full spectrum.” Again, that faraway look. “I was perfect, according to some. I did not regret, did not mourn—and pain … I did not experience it. And yet … yet I wound up here, because I was not quite like the others. Even as—as what I was, I was different. Too curious. Too questioning. The day the rip appeared in the sky … it was curiosity that drove me. My brothers and sisters fled. Upon the orders of our ruler, we had just laid waste to twin cities, smote them wholly into rubble on the plain, and yet they fled from that rip in the world. But I wanted to look. I wanted. I was not built or bred to feel such selfish things as want. I’d seen what happened to those of my kind who strayed, who learned to place their needs first. Who developed … feeling. But I went through the tear in the sky. And here I am.”

“And you gave all that up to get out of the Prison?” Mor asked softly.

“I yielded my grace—my perfect immortality. I knew that once I did … I would feel pain. And regret. I would want, and I would burn with it. I would … fall. But I was—the time locked away down there … I didn’t care. I had not felt the wind on my face, had not smelled the rain … I did not even remember what they felt like. I did not remember sunlight.”

It was to Azriel that her attention drifted—the shadowsinger’s darkness pulling away to reveal eyes full of understanding. Locked away.

“So I bound myself into this body. I shoved my burning grace deep into me. I gave up everything I was. The cell door just … unlocked. And so I walked out.”

A burning grace … That still smoldered far within her, visible only through the smoke in her gray eyes.

“That will be the cost of freeing the Carver,” Amren said. “You will have to bind him into a body. Make him … Fae. And I doubt he will agree to it. Especially without the Ouroboros.”

We were silent.

“You should have asked me before you went,” she said, that sharpness returning to her tone. “I would have spared you the visit.”

Rhysand swallowed. “Can you be—unbound?”

“Not by me.”

“What would happen if you were?”

Amren stared at him for a long while. Then me. Cassian. Azriel. Mor. Nesta. Finally back to my mate. “I would not remember you. I would not care for any of you. I would either smite you or abandon you. What I feel now … it would be foreign to me—it would hold no sway. Everything I am, this body … it would cease to be.”

“What were you,” Nesta breathed, coming around Cassian to stand at his side.

Amren toyed with one of her black pearl earrings. “A messenger—and soldier-assassin. For a wrathful god who ruled a young world.”

I could feel the questions of the others brewing. Rhys’s eyes were near-glowing with them.

“Was Amren your name?” Nesta asked.

“No.” The smoke swirled in her eyes. “I do not remember the name I was given. I used Amren because—it’s a long story.”

I almost begged her to tell it, but soft footsteps thudded, and then—

“Oh.”

Elain started—enough so that I realized she couldn’t hear us. Had no idea we were here, thanks to the shield that kept sound from escaping.

It instantly dropped. But my sister remained near the stairs. She’d covered her nightgown with a silk shawl of palest blue, her fingers grappling into the fabric as she held herself.

I went to her immediately. “Do you need anything?”

“No. I … I was sleeping, but I heard …” She shook her head. Blinked at our formal attire, the dark crown atop my head—and Rhysand’s. “I didn’t hear you.”