“I think the Valkyries were even more sadistic than the Illyrians,” Gwyn grunted, and Nesta could see the priestess’s legs shaking as she held the pose that had been illustrated in one of her many research volumes. “No amount of Mind-Stilling will get me through these exercises. What was that phrase they used? I am the rock against which the surf crashes. A rock never had to hold a lunge, though.”
“This is outrageous,” Emerie agreed, teeth gritted.
Cassian idly flipped a long dagger in his hand. “I warned you that they were stone-cold warriors.”
Nesta panted through her teeth in a steady rhythm. “My legs might break.”
“You three still have … twenty seconds.” Cassian looked to the clock Azriel had dragged up from the House and left on the water station table. The shadowsinger was away today, but the priestesses he usually trained had been left with a strict lesson plan.
Nesta’s legs wobbled and burned, but she rooted her strength through her toes, focusing on her breathing, her breathing, her breathing, as the Mind-Stilling had bade her to do. She sought that place of calm, where she might be beyond her thoughts of pain and her shaking body, and it was so close, so near, if she could just concentrate, breathe more deeply—
“Time,” Cassian declared, and the three of them collapsed onto the dirt.
He laughed again. “Pathetic.”
“You try it,” Gwyn panted, lying prone on the earth. “I don’t think even you could survive that.”
“Thanks to the passages you sent me last night, I was here at dawn doing the exercises myself,” he said. Nesta raised her brows. He hadn’t been at dinner, and hadn’t sought her out, but she’d been tired enough after a few nights of little sleep that she hadn’t minded. “I figured if I’m going to torture you three, I should at least be able to back it up.” He winked. “For exactly the moment when you groused that I should suffer alongside you.”
“No wonder you look like that,” Emerie muttered, turning over to lie on her back and gaze at the crisp autumn sky. The days had given up any attempt at being warm, though true cold had not yet set in. The sun offered a kernel of heat against the chill breeze, a buttery, bone-heating warmth that Nesta savored as she, too, lay on her back.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” His grin tightened something low in Nesta’s gut.
He caught her staring and that grin became a little more knowing. But he just said to her, “If you were to name a sword, what would you call it?”
Gwyn answered, though she hadn’t been asked, “Silver Majesty.” Emerie snorted. “Really?”
Gwyn demanded, “What would you call it?”
Emerie considered. “Foe Slayer, or something. Something intimidating.”
“That’s no better!”
Nesta’s mouth tugged upward at their teasing. Gwyn looked to her, teal eyes bright. “Which one is worse: Foe Slayer or Silver Majesty?”
“Silver Majesty,” Nesta said, and Emerie crowed with triumph. Gwyn waved a hand, booing.
“What would you call it?” Cassian asked Nesta again. “Why do you want to know?”
“Humor me.”
She lifted a brow. But then said with all sincerity. “Killer.” His brows flattened.
Nesta shrugged. “I don’t know. Is it necessary to name a sword?”
“Just tell me: If you had to name a sword, what would you call it?”
“Are you getting her one as a Winter Solstice present?” Emerie asked. “No.”
Nesta hid her smile. She loved this—when the three of them ganged up on him, like lionesses around a very muscled, very attractive carcass.
“Then why keep asking?” Gwyn said. Cassian scowled. “Curiosity.”
But his jaw tightened. It wasn’t that. There was something else. Why would he want her to name a sword?
“Back to work,” he said, clapping his hands. “For all that sass, you’re doing double time on the Valkyrie lunge hold.”
Emerie and Gwyn groaned, but Nesta surveyed Cassian for another moment before following their lead.
She was still mulling it over when they finished two hours later, drenched in sweat, legs wobbling. Emerie and Gwyn picked up their earlier conversation and aimed for the water station.
Nesta watched the two of them go, then turned to Cassian. “Why were you pestering me about naming a sword?”
His eyes remained on Gwyn and Emerie. “I just wanted to know what you’d name one.”
“That’s not an answer. Why do you want to know?”
He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. “Do you remember when we went to the blacksmith?”
“Yes. He’s giving me a blade for Winter Solstice?” “He’s given you three. The ones you touched.” She arched an eyebrow.
He tapped his foot on the ground. “When you hammered those blades, you imbued them—the two swords and the dagger—with your power. The Cauldron’s power. They’re now magic blades. And I’m not talking nice, pretty magic. I’m talking big, ancient magic that hasn’t been seen in a long, long time. There are no magic weapons left. None. They were either lost or destroyed or dumped in the sea. But you just Made three of them. You
created a new Dread Trove. You could create even more objects, if you wished.”
Her brows rose higher with each absurd word. “I Made three magic weapons?”
“We don’t know yet what manner of magic they have, but yes.”
She angled her head. Emerie and Gwyn halted their chatting at the water station, as if they could see or sense the shift in her. And it wasn’t the fact that she’d Made these weapons that hit her like a blow.
“Who is ‘we’?” “What?”
“You said ‘We don’t know what manner of magic they have.’ Who is ‘we’?”
“Rhys and Feyre and the others.”
“And how long have all of you known about this?” He winced as he realized his error. “I … Nesta …”
“How long?” Her voice became sharp as glass. The priestesses were watching, and she didn’t care.
He did, apparently. “This isn’t the place to talk about it.”
“You’re the one trying to coax a name out of me in the middle of training!” She gestured to the ring.
Her blood pounded in her ears, and Cassian’s face grew pained. “This isn’t coming out the way it should. We argued about whether to tell you, but we took a vote and it went in your favor. Because we trust you. I just … hadn’t gotten a chance to bring it up yet.”
“There was a possibility you wouldn’t even tell me? You all sat around and judged me, and then you voted?” Something deep in her chest cracked to know that every horrible thing about her had been analyzed.
“It … Fuck.” Cassian reached for her, but she stepped back. Everyone was staring now. “Nesta, this isn’t …”
“Who. Voted. Against me.” “Rhys and Amren.”
It landed like a physical blow. Rhys came as no surprise. But Amren, who had always understood her more than the others; Amren who’d been
unafraid of her; Amren with whom she’d quarreled so badly … Some small part of her had hoped Amren wouldn’t hate her forever.
Her head went quiet. Her body went quiet. Cassian’s eyes widened. “Nesta—”
“I’m fine,” she said coldly. “I don’t care.”
She let him see her fortify those steel walls within her mind. Used every bit of Mind-Stilling she’d practiced with Gwyn to become calm, focused, steady. Breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth.
She made a show of rolling her shoulders, of approaching Emerie and Gwyn, whose faces bunched with concern in a way Nesta knew she didn’t deserve, in a way that she knew would one day vanish, when they, too, realized what a wretch she was. When Amren told them what a pathetic waste of life she was, or they heard it from someone else, and they ceased being her friends. She wondered if they’d even say it to her face, or if they’d just disappear.
“Nesta,” Cassian said again. But she left the ring without looking back at him.
Emerie was on her heels instantly, trailing her down the stairs. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Nesta said, her own voice foreign to her ears. “Court business.”
“Are you all right?” Gwyn asked, a step behind Emerie.
No. She couldn’t stop the roaring in her head, the cracking in her chest. “Yes,” she lied, and didn’t look back as she hit the landing and vanished down the hall.
Nesta made it to her bedroom, where she ran the bath. She knew Cassian would come by. So she stood by the tub, the water gushing from the spout, while he knocked on her door. She waited until she sensed him leave, giving up on her as everyone else had done, and then shut off the flow.
She asked the House, “Is he gone?” The door opened in answer.
“Thank you.” She strode into the empty hallway. Perhaps the House hid her from sight, for she saw and scented no glimpse of Cassian as she
hurried down the short flight of stairs near her room. Down the hall. Right through the archway into that long stairwell.
Then and only then did she let her fury out. Then and only then did she drop that coldness and give herself over to the raging of her heart.
Amren had deemed her so untrustworthy, so awful, that knowing she had this world-altering gift would be dangerous. Amren had spoken to the others about it, and they had voted on it.
Down and down and down. Step to step to step.
Around and around and around.
She didn’t count the stairs. Didn’t feel her legs moving. There was only the roaring of her blood and the roaring in her head and the crack down the center of her chest. No amount of Mind-Stilling could calm it, smother it.
The ground grew nearer.
She couldn’t think around her fury, that pain. Couldn’t think, only move.
The stairwell turned warmer, farther away from the cold wind above.
Amren had entirely given up on her. The debate about sending her up here had been different—Nesta knew that debate had been out of a desire to help her. She could acknowledge that now.
This debate had been out of hatred and fear of her.
The tiled rooftops became clear. Her legs were shaking. She didn’t feel them.
Didn’t feel anything but that molten rage as the stairs suddenly stopped and she found herself before a door.
It opened before her fingers could touch the handle. Sunlight flooded the stairwell, revealing cobblestones beyond.
Rage rippling like a storm around her, Nesta stepped back into Velaris at last.
