Chapter Seven
CHAPTER
Without the wall’s magic blocking access to the human lands, Mor winnowed Cassian after sundown directly to the manor that had become home and headquarters to Jurian, Vassa, and—apparently—Lucien.
Even more than a year later, the ravages of war lay evident around the estate: trees felled, barren patches of earth where greenery had not yet returned, and a general bleak openness that made the gray-stoned house seem like an accidental survivor.
In the moonlight, that starkness was even emptier, the remnants of trees silvered, the shadows in the pockmarked earth deeper.
Cassian didn’t know to whom the home had once belonged, and apparently neither did its new occupants.
Feyre had told him that they called themselves the Band of Exiles.
Cassian snorted to himself at the thought.
Mor didn’t linger upon dropping him at the house’s arched wooden door, smirking in a way that told him even if he begged her to help, she wouldn’t.
No, she wanted to see him play courtier, precisely as Rhys had asked.
He hadn’t planned on starting this mission today, but after that disastrous attempt at a lesson with Nesta, he’d needed to do something. Anything.
Nesta had known exactly what bullshit she was pulling by refusing to get off that rock. How it would appear to Devlon and the other preening assholes. She’d known, and done it anyway.
So as soon as he’d dumped Nesta at the House, he’d headed to a deserted cliff by the sea where the roar of the surf drowned the raging heat in his bones.
He’d stopped by the river house to admit to his failure, but Feyre had only simmered with annoyance at Nesta’s behavior, and Rhys had given him a wary, amused look.
It was Amren who had said, Let her dig her own grave, boy. Then offer her a hand.
I thought that’s what this past year has been, he’d countered.
Keep reaching out your hand, had been Amren’s only reply.
He’d found Mor soon after that, explained that he needed to be transported, and here he was. He raised his fist to the door, but the wooden slab pulled away before he could touch it.
Lucien’s scarred, handsome face appeared, his golden eye whirring. “I thought I sensed someone else arriving.”
Cassian stepped into the house, floorboards creaking beneath his boots. “You just got here?”
“No,” Lucien said, and Cassian marked the tightness of his shoulders beneath the dark gray jacket he wore, the taut silence emanating from every stone of the house.
He marked its layout, in case he needed to fight his way to an exit.
Which, given the displeasure that Lucien radiated as he strode for an archway to their left, seemed a distinct possibility.
Without turning, Lucien said, “Eris is here.”
Cassian didn’t falter. Didn’t reach for the knife strapped to his thigh, though it was an effort to block the memory of Mor’s battered face.
The note nailed to her abdomen, her naked body dumped like garbage at the border of the Autumn Court.
The fucking bastard had found her there and left her. She had been on death’s threshold and—
Cassian’s plans for what he’d one day do to him went far beyond the pain inflicted by a knife. Eris’s suffering would last weeks. Months. Years.
Cassian didn’t care that Eris had convinced Keir to delay his visit to Velaris, had apparently done so out of whatever shred of kindness remained in him.
Didn’t care that Rhys had noted something in Eris that had earned his trust. None of that mattered to Cassian one fucking bit.
His attention focused on the red-haired male seated near the roaring fire in the surprisingly fancy parlor.
He knew enough to keep tabs on an enemy.
Eris lounged in a golden chair, legs crossed, his pale face the portrait of courtly arrogance.
Cassian’s fingers curled. Every time he’d seen the prick these past five centuries, he’d struggled with it. This blinding rage at the mere sight of him.
Eris smiled, well aware of it. “Cassian.”
Lucien’s gold eye clicked, reading Cassian’s rage while warning flashed in his remaining russet eye.
The male had grown up alongside Eris. Had dealt with Eris’s and Beron’s cruelty. Had his lover slaughtered by his own father. But Lucien had learned to keep his cool.
Right. Rhys had asked Cassian to do this. He should think like Rhys, like Mor. Push aside the rage.
Cassian gave himself a second to do so, vaguely aware of Vassa saying something. He had noted and half-dismissed the two humans in the room: the brown-haired warrior—Jurian—and the red-haired young queen.
If Rhys and Mor were here … They wouldn’t say a word about anything in front of Eris. Would pretend this was a friendly visit, to check on how the human lands were holding together. Even if Eris was most likely their ally.
No, Eris was their ally. Rhys had bargained with him, worked with him. Eris had held up his end at every turn. Rhys trusted him. Mor, despite all that had happened, trusted him. Sort of. So Cassian supposed he should do so as well.
His head hurt. So many things to calculate.
He’d done it on battlefields, but these mind games and webs of lies …
Why had Rhys asked him to do this? He’d been direct in dealing with the Illyrians: he’d laid out the hell that would be brought down upon them if they rebelled, and shown up to help with whatever they needed. That was in no way comparable to this.
Cassian blinked, and registered what Vassa had said: General Cassian. A pleasure.
He gave the queen a swift, perfunctory bow. “Your Majesty.”
Jurian coughed, and Cassian glanced to the human warrior.
Once human? Partially human? He didn’t know.
Jurian had been sliced apart by Amarantha, his consciousness somehow trapped within his eye, which she’d mounted on a ring and worn for five hundred years.
Until his lingering bones had been used by Hybern to resurrect his body and return that essence into this form, the same one that had led armies on those long-ago battlefields during the War. Who was Jurian now? What was he?
From his spot on a ridiculous pink sofa by the far wall, Jurian said, “It only goes to her head when you call her that.”
Vassa straightened, her cobalt jacket a sharp contrast to the red-gold of her hair.
Of the three redheaded people in this room, Cassian liked her coloring the best: the golden hue of her skin, the large, uptilted blue eyes framed by dark lashes and brows, and the silken red hair, which she’d cut to her shoulders since he’d last seen her.
Vassa said to Jurian, “I am a queen, you know.”
A queen by night, and firebird by day, sold by her fellow human queens to a sorcerer-lord who had enchanted her. Damned her into transforming each dawn into a bird of fire and ash. Cassian had waited until sundown to visit, so as to find her in her human form. He needed her to be able to speak.
Jurian crossed an ankle over a knee, his muddy boots dull in the firelight. “Last I heard, your kingdom was no longer yours. Are you still a queen?”
Vassa rolled her eyes, then looked to Lucien, who sank onto the sofa beside Jurian. Like the Fae male had settled similar arguments between them before. But Lucien’s attention was upon Cassian. “Did you come with news or orders?”
Keenly aware of Eris’s presence near the fire, Cassian kept his gaze upon Lucien. “We give you orders as our emissary.” He nodded to Jurian and Vassa. “But when you are with your friends, we only give suggestions.”
Eris snorted. Cassian ignored him, and asked Lucien, “How’s the Spring Court?”
He had to give Lucien credit: the male was somehow able to move between his three roles—an emissary for the Night Court, ally to Jurian and Vassa, and liaison to Tamlin—and still dress immaculately.
Lucien’s face revealed nothing of how Tamlin and his court fared. “It’s fine.”
Cassian didn’t know why he’d expected an update regarding the High Lord of Spring. Lucien only gave those in private to Rhys.
Eris snorted again at Cassian’s fumbling, and, unable to help himself, Cassian at last turned toward him. “What are you doing here?”
Eris didn’t so much as shift in his seat. “Several dozen of my soldiers were out on patrol in my lands several days ago and have not reported back. We found no sign of battle. Even my hounds couldn’t track them beyond their last known location.”
Cassian’s brows lowered. He knew he shouldn’t let anything show, but …
Those hounds were the best in Prythian. Canines blessed with magic of their own.
Gray and sleek like smoke, they could race fast as the wind, sniff out any prey.
They were so highly prized that the Autumn Court forbade them from being given or sold beyond its borders, and so expensive that only its nobility owned them.
And they were bred rarely enough that even one was extremely difficult to come by. Eris, Cassian knew, had twelve.
“None of them could winnow?” Cassian asked.
“No. While the unit is one of my most skilled in combat, none of its soldiers are remarkable in magic or breeding.”
Breeding was tossed at Cassian with a smirk. Asshole.
Vassa said, “Eris came to see if I could think of any reason why his soldiers might have gotten into trouble with humans. His hounds detected strange scents at the site of the abduction. Ones that seemed human, but were … odd, somehow.”
Cassian lifted a brow at Eris. “You believe a group of humans could kill your soldiers? They can’t be that skilled, then.”
“Depends on the human,” Jurian said, the male’s face dark. Vassa’s was a mirror.
Cassian grimaced. “Sorry. I— Sorry.”
Some courtier.
But Eris shrugged a shoulder. “I think plenty of parties are interested in triggering another war, and this would be the start of it. Though perhaps your court did it. I wouldn’t put it past Rhysand to winnow my soldiers away and plant some mysterious scents to throw us off.”
Cassian flashed him a savage grin. “We’re allies, remember?”