I was sobbing and sobbing, and his arms came around me. Every inch of them felt wrong. I nearly gagged on his

Play—please play along. Please— There was no sound, no shield, no glimmer of feeling in our bond. The king’s power had blocked it out too thoroughly. There was nothing I could do against it, Cursebreaker or no. But Rhys slid his hands into his pockets as he purred, “How did you get free?”

Cassian again stirred—trying to rise, to answer Nesta’s voice as she held my sister and cried her name again and again.

Nesta’s screaming was the only sound. Cassian blindly lurched toward it—toward her, moaning in pain.

“If you bring me from here, if you take me from my mate, I will destroy you. I will destroy your court, and everything you hold dear.”

“I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire—but that I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it … Then I didn’t

“Nesta,” I said, starting on the other wing, “I painted flames for her. She was always angry, always burning. I think she and Amren would be fast friends. I think she would like Velaris, despite herself. And I think Elain—Elain would like it, too. Though she’d probably cling to Azriel, just to have some peace and quiet.” I smiled at the thought—at

But something ancient, and frozen, and so vicious that it honed my focus into razor-sharpness.

The High Lord whose power had not scared me. Whose wrath did not wreck me.