The meeting with the High Lords, it seemed, would decide that.
Rhys jerked his chin at Azriel, who took it as an order to vanish—to no doubt check in on Amren.
“Find out if Keir and his Darkbringers had any attacks,” my mate ordered Mor and Cassian, who nodded and left as well. Alone with my sisters and Lucien, Rhys and I caught Nesta’s eye.
And for once, my sister rose to her feet and came toward us, the three of us not so subtly heading upstairs. Leaving Lucien and Elain alone.
It was an effort not to linger atop the landing, to listen to what was said.
If anything was said at all.
But I made myself take Rhys’s hand, flinching at the blood still caked on his skin, and led him to our bathing room. Nesta’s bedroom door clicked shut down the hall.
Rhys wordlessly watched me as I turned on the bathtub faucet and grabbed a washcloth from the chest against the wall. I took up a seat at the edge of the tub, testing the water temperature against my wrist, and patted the porcelain rim beside me. “Sit.”
He obeyed, his head drooping as he sat.
I took one of his hands, guided it to the gurgling stream of water, and held it beneath.
Red flowed off his skin, eddying in the water beneath. I plucked up the cloth and scrubbed gently, more blood flaking off, water splashing onto the still-immaculate sleeves of his jacket. “Why not shield your hands?”
“I wanted to feel it—their lives ending beneath my fingers.”
Cold, flat words.
I scrubbed at his nails, the blood wedged into the cracks where it met his skin. The arcs beneath. “Why is it different this time?” Different from the Attor’s ambush, Hybern’s attack in the woods, the attack on Velaris … all of it. I’d seen him in a rage before, but never … never so detached. As if morality and kindness were things that lurked on a surface far, far above the frozen depths he’d plunged into.
I turned his palm into the spray, getting at the space between his fingers.
“What is the point of it,” he said, “of all this power … if I can’t protect those who are most vulnerable in my city? If it can’t detect an incoming attack?”
“Even Azriel didn’t learn of it—”
“The king used an archaic spell and walked in the front door. If I can’t …” Rhys shook his head, and I lowered his now-clean hand and reached for the other. More blood stained the water. “If I can’t protect them here … How can …” His throat bobbed. I lifted his chin with a hand. Icy rage had slipped into something a bit shattered and aching. “Those priestesses have endured enough. I failed them today. That library … it will no longer feel safe for them. The one place they’ve had to themselves, where they knew they were protected … Hybern took that away today.”
And from him. He had gone to that library for his own need for healing—for safety.
He said, “Perhaps it’s punishment for taking away Velaris from Mor—in granting Keir access here.”
“You can’t think like that—it won’t end well.” I finished washing his other hand, rinsed the cloth, then began swiping it along his neck, his temples … Soothing, warm presses, not to clean but to relax.
“I’m not angry about the bargain,” he said, closing his eyes as I swiped the cloth over his brow. “In case you were … worried.”
“I wasn’t.”
Rhys opened his eyes, as if he could hear the smile in my voice, and studied me while I chucked the cloth into the tub with a wet slap and turned off the faucet.
He was still studying me when I took his face in my damp hands. “What happened today was not your fault,” I said, the words filling the sun-drenched bathing room. “None of it. It all lies on Hybern—and when we face the king again, we will remember these attacks, these injuries to our people. We forgot Amarantha’s spell book—to our own loss. But we have a Book of our own—hopefully with the spell we need. And for now … for now, we will prepare, and we will face the consequences. For now, we move ahead.”
He turned his head to kiss my palm. “Remind me to give you a salary raise.”
I choked on a cough. “For what?”
“For the sage counsel—and the other vital services you provide me.” He winked.
I laughed in earnest, and squeezed his face as I pressed a swift kiss to his mouth. “Shameless flirt.”
The warmth returned to his eyes at last.
So I reached for an ivory towel and bundled his hands, now clean and warm, into the folds of soft fabric.
CHAPTER
34
Amren found no other Hybern assassins or spies during her long night of hunting through Velaris. How she sought them, how she distinguished friend from foe … Some people, Mor told me the next morning—after we all had a sleepless night—painted their thresholds in lamb’s blood. A sort of offering to her. And payment to stay away. Some left cups of it on their doorsteps.
As if everyone in the city knew that the High Lord’s Second, that small-boned female … she was the monster that defended them from the other horrors of the world.
Rhys had spent much of the previous day and night reassuring the priestesses of their safety, walking them through the new wards. The priestess who had let them in … for whatever reason, Hybern had left her alive. She allowed Rhys into her mind to see what had happened: once the king had sundered the wards with that fleeting spell, his Ravens had appeared as two old scholars to get the priestess to open the door, then forced their way into her mind so that she’d welcome them in without being vetted. The violation of that alone … Rhys had spent hours with those priestesses yesterday. Mor, too.
Talking, listening to the ones who could speak, holding the hands of the ones who couldn’t.
And when they at last left … There was a peace between my mate and his cousin. Some lingering jagged edge that had somehow been soothed.
We didn’t have long. I knew that. Felt it with every breath. Hybern wasn’t coming; Hybern was here.
Our meeting with the High Lords was now over a week away—and still Nesta refused to join us.
But it was fine. We’d manage. I’d manage.
We didn’t have another choice.
Which was why I found myself standing in the foyer the next morning, watching Lucien shoulder his heavy pack. He wore Illyrian leathers under a heavier jacket, along with layers of clothes beneath to help him survive in varying climates. He’d braided back his red hair, the length of it snaking across his back—right in front of the Illyrian sword strapped down his spine.
Cassian had given him free rein yesterday afternoon to loot his personal cache of weapons, though my friend had been economical about which ones he’d selected. The blade, plus a short sword, plus an assortment of daggers. A quiver of arrows and an unstrung bow were tied to his pack.
“You know precisely where you want Rhys to take you?” I asked at last.
Lucien nodded, glancing to where my mate now waited by the front door. He’d bring Lucien to the edge of the human continent—to wherever Lucien had decided would be the best landing spot. No farther, Azriel had insisted. His reports indicated it was too watched, too dangerous. Even for one of our own. Even for the most powerful High Lord in history.
I stepped forward, and didn’t give Lucien time to step back as I hugged him tightly. “Thank you,” I said, trying not to think about all the steel on him—if he’d need to use it.
“It was time,” Lucien said quietly, giving me a squeeze. “For me to do something.”
I pulled away, surveying his scarred face. “Thank you,” I said again. It was all I could think of to say.
Rhys extended a hand to Lucien.
Lucien studied it—then my mate’s face. I could nearly see all the hateful words they’d spoken. Dangling between them, between that outstretched hand and Lucien’s own.