A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2) by Sarah J. Maas

I didn’t dare look at my sisters. Look at this house, that might very well be turned to rubble. I rasped, “There are good people here.”

The golden queen sweetly parried with, “Then let the High Fae of Prythian defend them.”

Silence.

And it was Nesta who hissed from behind us, “We have servants here. With families. There are children in these lands. And you mean to leave us all in the hands of the Fae?”

The eldest one’s face softened. “It is no easy choice, girl—”

“It is the choice of cowards,” Nesta snapped.

I interrupted before Nesta could dig us a deeper grave, “For all that your kind hate ours … You’d leave the Fae to defend your people?”

“Shouldn’t they?” the golden one asked, sending that cascade of curls sliding over a shoulder as she angled her head to the side. “Shouldn’t they defend against a threat of their own making?” A snort. “Should Fae blood not be spilled for their crimes over the years?”

“Neither side is innocent,” Rhys countered calmly. “But we might protect those who are. Together.”

“Oh?” said the eldest, her wrinkles seeming to harden, deepen. “The High Lord of the Night Court asks us to join with him, save lives with him. To fight for peace. And what of the lives you have taken during your long, hideous existence? What of the High Lord who walks with darkness in his wake, and shatters minds as he sees fit?” A crow’s laugh. “We have heard of you, even on the continent, Rhysand. We have heard what the Night Court does, what you do to your enemies. Peace? For a male who melts minds and tortures for sport, I did not think you knew the word.”

Wrath began simmering in my blood; embers crackled in my ears. But I cooled that fire I’d slowly been stoking these past weeks and tried, “If you will not send forces here to defend your people, then the artifact we requested—”

“Our half of the Book, child,” the crone cut me off, “does not leave our sacred palace. It has not left those white walls since the day it was gifted as part of the Treaty. It will never leave those walls, not while we stand against the terrors in the North.”

“Please,” was all I said.

Silence again.

“Please,” I repeated. Emissary—I was their emissary, and Rhys had chosen me for this. To be the voice of both worlds. “I was turned into this—into a faerie—because one of the commanders from Hybern killed me.”

Through our bond, I could have sworn I felt Rhys flinch.

“For fifty years,” I pushed on, “she terrorized Prythian, and when I defeated her, when I freed its people, she killed me. And before she did, I witnessed the horrors that she unleashed on human and faerie alike. One of them—just one of them was able to cause such destruction and suffering. Imagine what an army like her might do. And now their king plans to use a weapon to shatter the wall, to destroy all of you. The war will be swift, and brutal. And you will not win. We will not win. Survivors will be slaves, and their children’s children will be slaves. Please … Please, give us the other half of the Book.”

The eldest queen swapped a glance with the golden one before saying gently, placatingly, “You are young, child. You have much to learn about the ways of the world—”

“Do not,” Rhys said with deadly quiet, “condescend to her.” The eldest queen—who was but a child to him, to his centuries of existence—had the good sense to look nervous at that tone. Rhys’s eyes were glazed, his face as unforgiving as his voice as he went on, “Do not insult Feyre for speaking with her heart, with compassion for those who cannot defend themselves, when you speak from only selfishness and cowardice.”

The eldest stiffened. “For the greater good—”

“Many atrocities,” Rhys purred, “have been done in the name of the greater good.”

No small part of me was impressed that she held his gaze. She said simply, “The Book will remain with us. We will weather this storm—”

“That’s enough,” Mor interrupted.

She got to her feet.

And Mor looked each and every one of those queens in the eye as she said, “I am the Morrigan. You know me. What I am. You know that my gift is truth. So you will hear my words now, and know them as truth—as your ancestors once did.”

Not a word.

Mor gestured behind her—to me. “Do you think it is any simple coincidence that a human has been made immortal again, at the very moment when our old enemy resurfaces? I fought side by side with Miryam in the War, fought beside her as Jurian’s ambition and bloodlust drove him mad, and drove them apart. Drove him to torture Clythia to death, then battle Amarantha until his own.” She took a sharp breath, and I could have sworn Azriel inched closer at the sound. But Mor blazed on, “I marched back into the Black Land with Miryam to free the slaves left in that burning sand, the slavery she had herself escaped. The slaves Miryam had promised to return to free. I marched with her—my friend. Along with Prince Drakon’s legion. Miryam was my friend, as Feyre is now. And your ancestors, those queens who signed that Treaty … They were my friends, too. And when I look at you … ” She bared her teeth. “I see nothing of those women in you. When I look at you, I know that your ancestors would be ashamed.