A Court of Mist and Fury Online Read

  For Josh and Annie—

my own Court of Dreams

CONTENTS

Office ONE THE Business firm OF BEASTS

Affiliate 1

Chapter ii

Affiliate three

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Affiliate 7

Chapter 8

Chapter ix

Chapter 10

Affiliate 11

Affiliate 12

Affiliate thirteen

Role TWO THE Business firm OF WIND

Affiliate 14

Chapter fifteen

Chapter sixteen

Chapter 17

Affiliate 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Affiliate 25

Chapter 26

Affiliate 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Affiliate 30

Affiliate 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Affiliate 34

Affiliate 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Affiliate 38

Chapter 39

Affiliate forty

Chapter 41

Affiliate 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Affiliate 45

Affiliate 46

Chapter 47

Affiliate 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

PART Iii THE HOUSE OF MIST

Chapter 52

Affiliate 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Affiliate 59

Chapter threescore

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Affiliate 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Acknowledgments

Also by Sarah J. Maas

Maybe I'd always been broken and dark inside.

Maybe someone who'd been born whole and skillful would take put down the ash dagger and embraced death rather than what lay before me.

In that location was claret everywhere.

It was an effort to keep a grip on the dagger every bit my claret-soaked paw trembled. As I fractured flake past bit while the sprawled corpse of the High Fae youth cooled on the marble floor.

I couldn't let become of the blade, couldn't motion from my place before him.

"Skillful," Amarantha purred from her throne. "Again."

There was another ash dagger waiting, and another Fae kneeling. Female.

I knew the words she'd say. The prayer she'd recite.

I knew I'd slaughter her, as I'd slaughtered the youth before me.

To free them all, to free Tamlin, I would do it.

I was the butcher of innocents, and the savior of a land.

"Whenever you're ready, lovely Feyre," Amarantha drawled, her deep ruddy hair as bright every bit the claret on my easily. On the marble.

Murderer. Butcher. Monster. Liar. Deceiver.

I didn't know who I meant. The lines betwixt me and the queen had long since blurred.

My fingers loosened on the dagger, and information technology clattered to the ground, splattering the spreading pool of claret. Flecks splashed onto my worn boots—remnants of a mortal life so far behind me it might equally well have been 1 of my fever-dreams these few last months.

I faced the female person waiting for death, that hood sagging over her head, her lithe torso steady. Braced for the cease I was to give her, the sacrifice she was to go.

I reached for the second ash dagger atop a black velvet pillow, its hilt icy in my warm, damp hand. The guards yanked off her hood.

I knew the confront that stared up at me.

Knew the blue-greyness optics, the brownish-gold hair, the full mouth and sharp cheekbones. Knew the ears that had now become delicately biconvex, the limbs that had been streamlined, limned with power, whatever human imperfections smoothed into a subtle immortal glow.

Knew the hollowness, the despair, the abuse that leaked from that face.

My hands didn't tremble as I angled the dagger.

As I gripped the fine-boned shoulder, and gazed into that hated confront—my face.

And plunged the ash dagger into my awaiting center.

PART 1

THE HOUSE OF BEASTS

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one

I vomited into the toilet, hugging the cool sides, trying to incorporate the sounds of my retching.

Moonlight leaked into the massive marble bathing room, providing the only illumination equally I was quietly, thoroughly sick.

Tamlin hadn't stirred as I'd jolted awake. And when I hadn't been able to tell the darkness of my chamber from the countless dark of Amarantha's dungeons, when the cold sweat coating me felt like the blood of those faeries, I'd hurtled for the bathing room.

I'd been here for fifteen minutes now, waiting for the retching to subside, for the lingering tremors to spread apart and fade, like ripples in a pool.

Panting, I braced myself over the bowl, counting each breath.

Only a nightmare. One of many, asleep and waking, that haunted me these days.

It had been three months since Nether the Mountain. 3 months of adjusting to my immortal torso, to a world struggling to piece itself together after Amarantha had fractured information technology apart.

I focused on my breathing—in through my nose, out through my mouth. Over and over.

When it seemed like I was done heaving, I eased from the toilet—but didn't make it. Just to the side by side wall, virtually the cracked window, where I could see the night sky, where the breeze could caress my gluey face. I leaned my head against the wall, flattening my hands confronting the chill marble floor. Real.

This was real. I had survived; I'd made it out.

Unless information technology was a dream—just a fever-dream in Amarantha's dungeons, and I'd awaken back in that cell, and—

I curled my knees to my chest. Real. Existent.

I mouthed the words.

I kept mouthing them until I could loosen my grip on my legs and lift my head. Pain splintered through my easily—

I'd somehow curled them into fists then tight my nails were close to puncturing my skin.

Immortal forcefulness—more than a curse than a gift. I'd dented and folded every piece of silverware I'd touched for 3 days upon returning hither, had tripped over my longer, faster legs so often that Alis had removed whatever irreplaceable valuables from my rooms (she'd been particularly grumpy about me knocking over a table with an eight-hundred-year-erstwhile vase), and had shattered non one, non 2, but five drinking glass doors merely by accidentally closing them too hard.

Sighing through my olfactory organ, I unfolded my fingers.

My right hand was patently, smooth. Perfectly Fae.

I tilted my left mitt over, the whorls of night ink blanket my fingers, my wrist, my forearm all the way to the elbow, soaking up the darkness of the room. The eye etched into the center of my palm seemed to watch me, calm and cunning every bit a cat, its slitted educatee wider than it'd been earlier that solar day. As if it adjusted to the light, as any ordinary eye would.

I scowled at information technology.

At whoever might be watching through that tattoo.

I hadn't heard from Rhys in the 3 months I'd been here. Not a whisper. I hadn't dared ask Tamlin, or Lucien, or anyone—lest information technology'd somehow summon the High Lord of the Night Court, somehow remind him of the fool's bargain I'd struck Nether the Mount: one week with him every month in exchange for his saving me from the brink of death.

>   Only even if Rhys had miraculously forgotten, I never could. Nor could Tamlin, Lucien, or anyone else. Not with the tattoo.

Even if Rhys, at the end … fifty-fifty if he hadn't been exactly an enemy.

To Tamlin, yes. To every other court out there, yeah. Then few went over the borders of the Nighttime Courtroom and lived to tell. No one really knew what existed in the northernmost office of Prythian.

Mountains and darkness and stars and death.

But I hadn't felt like Rhysand's enemy the last time I'd spoken to him, in the hours after Amarantha's defeat. I'd told no one about that meeting, what he'd said to me, what I'd confessed to him.

Exist glad of your man middle, Feyre. Compassion those who don't feel annihilation at all.

I squeezed my fingers into a fist, blocking out that eye, the tattoo. I uncoiled to my anxiety, and flushed the toilet earlier padding to the sink to rinse out my rima oris, and so wash my face.

I wished I felt nothing.

I wished my human heart had been inverse with the rest of me, fabricated into immortal marble. Instead of the shredded flake of black that it now was, leaking its ichor into me.

Tamlin remained asleep every bit I crept back into my darkened bedroom, his naked body sprawled across the mattress. For a moment, I but admired the powerful muscles of his back, and so lovingly traced by the moonlight, his golden hair, mussed with sleep and the fingers I'd run through it while we made love before.

For him, I had done this—for him, I'd gladly wrecked myself and my immortal soul.

And now I had eternity to live with information technology.

I continued to the bed, each step heavier, harder. The sheets were now cool and dry, and I slipped in, curling my dorsum to him, wrapping my arms around myself. His breathing was deep—even. But with my Fae ears … sometimes I wondered if I heard his breath grab, only for a heartbeat. I never had the nerve to ask if he was awake.

He never woke when the nightmares dragged me from sleep; never woke when I vomited my guts upwards night after night. If he knew or heard, he said nothing about it.

I knew similar dreams chased him from his slumber equally often as I fled from mine. The beginning time it had happened, I'd awoken—tried to speak to him. But he'd shaken off my touch, his skin clammy, and had shifted into that animal of fur and claws and horns and fangs. He'd spent the residuum of the night sprawled across the foot of the bed, monitoring the door, the wall of windows.

He'd since spent many nights like that.

Curled in the bed, I pulled the blanket higher, craving its warmth confronting the arctic night. It had become our unspoken agreement—non to permit Amarantha win by acknowledging that she even so tormented us in our dreams and waking hours.

Information technology was easier to non have to explain, anyhow. To not have to tell him that though I'd freed him, saved his people and all of Prythian from Amarantha … I'd broken myself apart.

And I didn't think even eternity would be long enough to gear up me.

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2

"I want to go."

"No."

I crossed my arms, tucking my tattooed paw under my correct bicep, and spread my feet slightly further apart on the dirt flooring of the stables. "It'due south been three months. Goose egg'south happened, and the hamlet isn't fifty-fifty 5 miles—"

"No." The midmorning sun streaming through the stable doors glassy Tamlin'south golden hair equally he finished buckling the bandolier of daggers across his chest. His confront—ruggedly handsome, exactly as I'd dreamed it during those long months he'd worn a mask—was gear up, his lips a thin line.

Behind him, already atop his dapple-grey horse, along with three other Fae lord-sentries, Lucien silently shook his head in warning, his metallic centre narrowing. Don't push button him, he seemed to say.

But as Tamlin strode toward where his blackness stallion had already been saddled, I gritted my teeth and stormed after him. "The village needs all the assist it can get."

"And we're withal hunting down Amarantha'south beasts," he said, mounting his equus caballus in i fluid motility. Sometimes, I wondered if the horses were merely to maintain an appearance of civility—of normalcy. To pretend that he couldn't run faster than them, didn't live with one foot in the wood. His greenish eyes were like chips of ice as the stallion started into a walk. "I don't have the sentries to spare to escort you lot."

I lunged for the bridle. "I don't demand an escort." My grip tightened on the leather every bit I tugged the horse to a stop, and the golden ring on my finger—along with the square-cut emerald glittering atop it—flashed in the sun.

It had been 2 months since Tamlin had proposed—two months of indelible presentations well-nigh flowers and wearing apparel and seating arrangements and food. I'd had a small reprieve a week ago, thank you to the Winter Solstice, though I'd traded contemplating lace and silk for selecting evergreen wreaths and garlands. But at least information technology had been a break.

Three days of feasting and drinking and exchanging small presents, culminating in a long, rather odious anniversary atop the foothills on the longest dark to escort us from 1 year to some other as the sun died and was born anew. Or something like that. Celebrating a winter holiday in a place that was permanently entrenched in bound hadn't done much to improve my full general lack of festive cheer.

I hadn't particularly listened to the explanations of its origins—and the Fae themselves debated whether it had emerged from the Winter Court or Day Court. Both now claimed it as their holiest vacation. All I really knew was that I'd had to endure two ceremonies: one at sunset to begin that countless night of presents and dancing and drinking in honor of the old sun'southward death; and one at the following dawn, bleary-eyed and feet aching, to welcome the dominicus'south rebirth.

It was bad enough that I'd been required to stand before the gathered courtiers and lesser faeries while Tamlin fabricated his many toasts and salutes. Mentioning that my birthday had also fallen on that longest night of the year was a fact I'd conveniently forgotten to tell anyone. I'd received enough presents, anyway—and would no uncertainty receive many, many more on my nuptials day. I had petty use for so many things.

Now, only 2 weeks stood between me and the anniversary. If I didn't get out of the estate, if I didn't take a day to do something other than spend Tamlin's money and exist groveled to—

"Please. The recovery efforts are so dull. I could hunt for the villagers, get them food—"

"It'southward not safe," Tamlin said, again nudging his stallion into a walk. The equus caballus'due south coat shone like a dark mirror, even in the shade of the stables. "Particularly not for you."

He'd said that every time we had this argument; every time I begged him to let me become to the nearby hamlet of High Fae to assist rebuild what Amarantha had burned years ago.

I followed him into the brilliant, clement day beyond the stables, the grasses blanket the nearby foothills undulating in the soft breeze. "People desire to come back, they want a place to live—"

"Those same people see you as a blessing—a marker of stability. If something happened to you lot … " He cut himself off as he halted his horse at the edge of the dirt path that would take him toward the eastern forest, Lucien now waiting a few yards down it. "In that location'southward no point in rebuilding anything if Amarantha'southward creatures tear through the lands and destroy it again."

"The wards are up—"

"Some slipped in before the wards were repaired. Lucien hunted downward five naga yesterday."

I whipped my head toward Lucien, who winced. He hadn't told me that at dinner last night. He'd lied when I'd asked him why he was limping. My tum turned over—not just at the lie, merely … naga. Sometimes I dreamed of their claret showering me as I killed them, of their leering serpentine faces while they tried to fillet me in the wood.

Tamlin said softly, "I can't do what I demand to if I'grand worrying about whether you're condom."

"Of grade I'll exist safe." Equally a Loftier Fae, with my forcefulness and speed, I'd stand a good chance of getting away if something happened.

"Please—please just practise thi

southward for me," Tamlin said, stroking his stallion's thick neck as the beast nickered with impatience. The others had already moved their horses into easy canters, the first of them nearly within the shade of the woods. Tamlin jerked his chin toward the alabaster estate looming behind me. "I'thou certain there are things to help with around the house. Or you could paint. Effort out that new set I gave for you for Wintertime Solstice."

In that location was zippo just wedding planning waiting for me in the house, since Alis refused to allow me elevator a finger to exercise anything. Not because of who I was to Tamlin, what I was about to become to Tamlin, but … because of what I'd done for her, for her boys, for Prythian. All the servants were the aforementioned; some nevertheless cried with gratitude when they passed me in the halls. And as for painting …

"Fine," I breathed. I made myself look him in the eye, made myself smile. "Exist careful," I said, and meant it. The idea of him going out there, hunting the monsters that had one time served Amarantha …

"I love you lot," Tamlin said quietly.

I nodded, murmuring it back every bit he trotted to where Lucien notwithstanding waited, the emissary now frowning slightly. I didn't watch them get.

I took my time retreating through the hedges of the gardens, the bound birds chirping merrily, gravel crunching under my flimsy shoes.

I hated the bright dresses that had go my daily uniform, simply didn't have the middle to tell Tamlin—not when he'd bought so many, non when he looked so happy to encounter me wear them. Not when his words weren't far from the truth. The day I put on my pants and tunics, the 24-hour interval I strapped weapons to myself like fine jewelry, it would send a message far and clear beyond the lands. And so I wore the gowns, and let Alis arrange my hair—if but so it would buy these people a measure of peace and comfort.

At to the lowest degree Tamlin didn't object to the dagger I kept at my side, hanging from a jeweled chugalug. Lucien had gifted both to me—the dagger during the months before Amarantha, the belt in the weeks afterwards her downfall, when I'd carried the dagger, along with many others, everywhere I went. You might besides look good if y'all're going to arm yourself to the teeth, he'd said.

Merely even if stability reigned for a hundred years, I doubted I'd ever awaken i morning and non put on the pocketknife.

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