Rhys was there, an arm sliding around my waist. “Can we get you anything, Elain?” He spoke with such gentleness I could barely stand it.
“I want to go home,” she repeated.
I couldn’t ask her—about Lucien. Not now. Not yet.
I turned away, fully prepared to bolt and completely fall apart in another room, another section of the House. But Lucien was standing in the doorway.
And from the devastation on his face, I knew he’d heard every word. Seen and heard and felt the hollowness and despair radiating from her.
Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light.
Perhaps that was why she now kept all the curtains open. To fill the void that existed where all of that light had once been.
And now nothing remained.
CHAPTER
16
Rhysand silently led Lucien to the suite he’d be occupying at the opposite end of the House of Wind. Cassian and I trailed behind, none of us speaking until my mate opened a set of onyx doors to reveal a sunny sitting room carved from more red stone. Beyond the wall of windows, the city flowed far below, the view stretching to the distant jagged mountains and glittering sea.
Rhys paused in the center of a midnight-blue handwoven rug and gestured to the sealed doors on his left. “Bedroom.” He waved a lazy hand toward the single door on the opposite wall. “Bathing room.”
Lucien surveyed it all with cool indifference. What he felt about Elain, what he planned to do … I didn’t want to ask.
“I assume you’ll need clothes,” Rhys went on, nodding toward Lucien’s filthy jacket and pants—which he’d worn for the past week while we scrambled through territories. Indeed, that was … blood splattered in several spots. “Any preferences for attire?”
That drew Lucien’s attention, the male shifting enough to take in Rhys—to note Cassian and me lurking in the doorway. “Is there a cost?”
“If you’re trying to say that you have no money, don’t worry—the clothes are complimentary.” Rhys gave him a half smile. “If you’re trying to ask if this is some sort of bribe …” A shrug. “You are a High Lord’s son. It would be bad manners not to house and clothe you in your time of need.”
Lucien bristled.
Stop baiting him, I shot down the bond.
But it’s so fun, came the purred reply.
Something had rattled him. Rattled Rhys enough that taunting Lucien was an easy way to take the edge off. I stepped closer, Cassian remaining behind me as I told Lucien, “We’ll be back for dinner in a few hours. Rest a while—bathe. If you need anything, pull that rope by the door.”
Lucien stiffened—not at what I’d said, I realized, but at the tone. A hostess. But he asked, “What of—Elain?”
Your call, Rhys offered.
“I need to think about it,” I answered plainly. “Until I figure out what to do with her, with Nesta, stay out of their way.” I added perhaps too tightly, “This house is warded against winnowing, both from outside and within. There’s one way out—the stairs to the city. It, too, is warded—and guarded. Please don’t do anything stupid.”
“So am I a prisoner?”
I could feel the response simmering in Rhys, but I shook my head. “No. But understand while you may be her mate, Elain is my sister. I’ll do what I must to protect her from further harm.”
“I would never hurt her.”
A bleak sort of honesty in his words.
I simply nodded, loosening a breath, and met Rhysand’s stare in silent urging.
My mate gave no indication of my wordless plea as he said, “You are free to wander where you wish, into the city itself if you feel like braving the stairs, but there are two conditions: you are not to take either sister, and you are not to enter their floor. If you require a book from the library, you will ask the servants. If you wish to speak to Elain or Nesta, you will also ask the servants, who will ask us. If you disregard those rules, I’ll lock you in a room with Amren.”
Then Rhys turned away, hands sliding into his pockets as he offered his hooked elbow to me. I looped my arm through his, but said to Lucien, “We’ll see you in a few hours.”
We were almost to the door, Cassian already in the hall, when Lucien said to me, “Thank you.”
I didn’t dare ask him for what.
We flew right to Amren’s loft, more than a few people waving as we soared over the rooftops of Velaris. My smile wasn’t faked when I waved back to them—my people. Rhys only held me a bit tighter while I did so, his own smile as bright as the sun on the Sidra.
Mor and Azriel were already waiting inside Amren’s apartment, seated like scolded children on the threadbare divan against the wall while the dark-haired female flipped through the pages of books sprawled around her on the floor.
Mor gave me a grateful, relieved look as we entered, Azriel’s own face revealing nothing while he stood, keeping a careful, too-casual distance from her side. But it was Amren who said from the floor, “You should kill Beron and his sons and set up the handsome one as High Lord of Autumn, self-imposed exile or no. It will make life easier.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” Rhys said, striding toward her while I remained with the others. If they were hanging back … Amren had to be in some mood.
I blew out a breath. “Who else thinks it’s a terrible idea to leave the three of them up at the House of Wind?”
Cassian raised his hand as Rhys and Mor chuckled. The High Lord’s general said, “I give him an hour before he tries to see her.”
“Thirty minutes,” Mor countered, sitting back down on the divan and crossing her legs.
I cringed. “I guarantee Nesta is now guarding Elain. I think she might honestly kill him if he so much as tries to touch her.”
“Not without training she won’t,” Cassian grumbled, tucking in his wings as he claimed the seat beside Mor that Azriel had vacated. The shadowsinger didn’t so much as look at it. No, Azriel just walked to the wall beside Cassian and leaned against the wood paneling.
But Rhys and the others remained quiet enough that I knew to proceed carefully as I asked Cassian, “Nesta spoke as if you’ve been up at the House … often. You’ve offered to train her?”
Cassian’s hazel eyes shuttered as he crossed a booted ankle over another, stretching his muscled legs before him. “I go up there every other day. It’s good exercise for my wings.” Those wings shifted in emphasis. Not a scratch marred them.
“And?”
“And what you saw in the library is a pleasanter version of the conversation we always have.”
Mor’s lips pressed into a thin line, as if she was trying her best not to say anything. Azriel was trying his best to shoot a warning stare at Mor to remind her to indeed keep her mouth shut. As if they’d already discussed this. Many times.
“I don’t blame her,” Cassian said, shrugging despite his words. “She was—violated. Her body stopped belonging wholly to her.” His jaw clenched. Even Amren didn’t dare say anything. “And I am going to peel the King of Hybern’s skin off his bones the next time I see him.”
His Siphons flickered in answer.
Rhys said casually, “I’m sure the king will thoroughly enjoy the experience.”
Cassian glowered. “I mean it.”
“Oh, I have no doubt that you do.” Rhys’s violet eyes were dazzling in the dimness of the loft. “But before you lose yourself in plans for revenge, do remember that we have a war to plan first.”
“Asshole.”
A corner of my mate’s mouth tugged upward. And—Rhys was goading him, working Cassian into a temper to keep that brittle edge of guilt from consuming him. The others letting him take on the task, likely having done it several times themselves these weeks. “I am most definitely that,” Rhys said, “but the fact still remains that revenge is secondary to winning this war.”