A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas

We set the table upright again, and both of us panted a bit as we slumped against it.

“He tried,” Alis said. “Even with her spies, he tried finding ways to break the curse, to do anything against it, against having to send his men out again to be slaughtered by humans. He thought that if the human girl loved true, then bringing her here to free him was another form of slavery. And he thought that if he did indeed fall in love with her, Amarantha would do everything she could to destroy her, as her sister had been destroyed. So he spent decades refusing to do it, to even risk it. But this winter, with months to go, he just … snapped. He sent the last of his men out, one by one. And they were willing—they had begged him to go, all these years. Tamlin was desperate to save his people, desperate enough to risk the lives of his men, risk that human girl’s life to save us. Three days in, Andras finally ran into a human girl in a clearing—and you killed him with hate in your heart.”

But I had failed them. And in so doing, I’d damned them all.

I had damned each and every person on this estate, damned Prythian itself.

I was glad I was leaning against the table’s edge—or else I might have slid to the floor.

“You could have broken it,” Alis snarled, those sharp teeth mere inches from my face. “All you had to do was say that you loved him—say that you loved him and mean it with your whole useless human heart, and his power would have been freed. You stupid, stupid girl.”

No wonder Lucien had resented me and yet still tolerated my presence—no wonder he’d been so bitterly disappointed when I left, had argued with Tamlin to let me stay longer. “I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes burning.

Alis snorted. “Tell that to Tamlin. He had only three days after you left before the forty-nine years were over. Three days, and he let you go. She came here with her cronies at the exact moment the seven times seven years were over and seized him, along with most of the court, and brought them Under the Mountain to be her subjects. Creatures like me are too lowly for her—though she’s not above murdering us for sport.”

I tried not to visualize it. “But what of the King of Hybern—if she’s conquered Prythian for herself and stolen his spells, then does he see her as insubordinate or as an ally?”

“If they are on bad terms, he has made no move to punish her. For forty-nine years now, she’s held these lands in her grip. Worse, after the High Lords fell, all the wicked ones in our lands—the ones too awful even for the Night Court—flocked to her. They still do. She’s offered them sanctuary. But we know—we know she’s building her army, biding her time before launching an attack on your world, armed with the most lethal and vicious faeries in Prythian and Hybern.”

“Like the Attor,” I said, horror and dread twisting in my gut, and Alis nodded. “In the human territory,” I said, “rumor claims more and more faeries have been sneaking over the wall to attack humans. And if no faeries can cross the wall without her permission, then that has to mean she’s been sanctioning those attacks.”

And if I was right about what had happened to Clare Beddor and her family, then Amarantha had given the order for that, too.

Alis swiped some dirt I couldn’t see from the table we leaned against. “I would not be surprised if she has sent her minions into the human realm to investigate your strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of the destruction she one day hopes to cause.”

This was worse—so much worse than I had thought when I warned Nesta and my family to stay on alert and leave at the slightest sign of trouble. I felt sick to think of what kind of company Tamlin was keeping—sick at the thought of him being so desperate, so stricken by guilt and grief over having to sacrifice his sentries and never being able to tell me … And he’d let me go. Let all their sacrifices, let Andras’s sacrifice, be in vain.

He’d known that if I remained, I would be at risk of Amarantha’s wrath, even if I freed him.

“I can’t even protect myself against them, against what’s happening in Prythian … Even if we stood against the blight, they would hunt you down—she would find a way to kill you.”

I remembered that pathetic effort to flatter me upon my arrival—and then he’d given up on it, on any attempt to win me when I’d seemed so desperate to get away, to never talk to him. But he’d fallen in love with me despite all that—known I’d loved him, and let me go with days to spare. He had put me before his entire court, before all of Prythian.

“If Tamlin were freed—if he had his full powers,” I said, staring at a blackened bit of wall, “would he be able to destroy Amarantha?”

“I don’t know. She tricked the High Lords through cunning, not force. Magic’s a specific kind of thing—it likes rules, and she manipulated them too well. She keeps their powers locked up inside herself, as if she can’t use them, or can access very little of them, at least. She has her own deadly powers, yes, so if it came down to a fight—”

“But is he stronger?” I started wringing my hands.

“He’s a High Lord,” Alis replied, as if that were answer enough. “But none of that matters now. He’s to be her slave, and we’re all to wear these masks until he agrees to become her lover—even then, he’ll never regain his full powers. And she’ll never let those Under the Mountain go.”