Chapter Forty-Two
CHAPTER
Cassian got the summons to the river house just after dawn.
He hadn’t slept in Nesta’s room—no, after that second time, when his entire body had been turned to sated, content jelly, he’d rolled off her and returned to his own suite. She hadn’t said anything. The understanding had been there, though: just sex, but they needn’t wait so long again.
Sleep had been elusive as he’d thought of what they’d done, what he’d done to her.
The second time had been even rougher than the first, and she’d taken everything he’d thrown at her, met his demanding pace and depth, and had held that headboard until her body had collapsed with pleasure. Gods, sex with Nesta was like …
He didn’t let himself dwell on comparisons as he sat in Rhys’s office next to Amren and Azriel, facing their High Lord across his desk. Those thoughts had not done him any favors last night. Or this morning, when he woke hard and aching, and realized that the scent of her was all over him.
He knew his friends smelled it. Neither Rhys nor Az had commented, but Amren’s eyes had narrowed. Yet she said nothing, and he wondered if Rhys had given her a silent command. Cassian filed away his curiosity about why Rhys might have felt the need to do such a thing.
“All right, Rhysand,” Amren said, tucking one foot under her thigh. “Tell me why I’m here before breakfast while Varian is still sleeping soundly in my bed.”
Rhys pulled back a canvas tarp that had been over part of his desk. “We’re here because I got a visit at dawn from a blacksmith out by the western edge of the city.”
Cassian went still as he saw what lay there: a sword, a dagger, and a longer great sword, all sheathed in black leather. “What blacksmith?”
Rhys leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “The one you and Nesta visited several days ago.”
Cassian’s brow furrowed. “Why did he bring you these weapons? As a gift?”
Azriel leaned forward, a scarred hand reaching for the closest sword.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Rhys warned, and Az halted.
Rhys said to Cassian, “The blacksmith dumped them here in an absolute panic. He said the blades were cursed.”
Cassian’s blood chilled.
Amren asked, “Cursed in what way?”
“He just said cursed,” Rhys replied, motioning to the weapons. “Said he wanted nothing to do with them and they were our problem now.”
Amren slid her eyes to Cassian. “What happened in the shop?”
“Nothing,” he said. “He let her hammer at the metal for a bit, so she could get a sense of the hard work that went into making weapons. But there was no cursing.”
Rhys straightened. “Nesta hammered the blades?”
“All three,” Cassian said. “First the sword, then the dagger, and then the great sword.”
Rhys and Amren exchanged a look.
Cassian demanded, “What?”
Rhys asked Amren, “Is it possible?”
Amren gazed at the blades. “It has been … It has been such a long time, but … yes.”
“Someone please explain,” Azriel said, peering at the three blades from a safe distance.
Cassian forced himself to sit perfectly still as Rhys dragged a hand through his black hair.
“Once, the High Fae were more elemental, more given to reading the stars and crafting masterpieces of art and jewelry and weaponry. Their gifts were rawer, more connected to nature, and they could imbue objects with that power.”
Cassian instantly knew where this was headed. “Nesta put her power in those swords?”
“No one has been able to create a magic sword in more than ten thousand years,” Amren said. “The last one Made, the great blade Gwydion, vanished around the time the last of the Trove went missing.”
“This sword isn’t Gwydion,” Cassian said, well aware of the myths regarding the sword.
It had belonged to a true Fae High King in Prythian, as there had been in Hybern.
He had united the lands, its people—and for a while, with that sword, peace had reigned.
Until he had been betrayed by his own queen and his fiercest general, and lost the sword to them, and the lands fell into darkness once more.
Never again to see another High King—only High Lords, who ruled the territories that had once answered to the king.
“Gwydion is gone,” Amren said, a shade sadly, “or has been gladly missing for millennia.” She nodded toward the great sword. “This is something new.”
Azriel said, “Nesta created a new magic sword.”
“Yes,” Amren said. “Only the Great Powers could do that—Gwydion was given its powers when the High Priestess Oleanna dipped it into the Cauldron during its crafting.”
Cassian’s blood chilled, waves rippling over his skin. “One touch from Nesta’s magic while the blade was still hot …”
“And the blade was infused with it.”
“Nesta didn’t know what she was doing,” Cassian said. “She was letting off some steam.”
“Which might be worse,” Amren said. “Who knows what emotions she poured into the blades with her power? It might have shaped them into instruments of such feelings—or it might have been the catalyst to release her power. There is no way of knowing.”
“So we use the sword,” Cassian said, “and figure it out.”
“No,” Amren countered sharply. “I wouldn’t dare draw these blades. Especially not the great sword. I can feel power clustering there. Did she work on that one longest?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is to be treated as an object of the Dread Trove. A new Trove.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Amren’s brows flattened. “The Dread Trove was forged by the Cauldron. Nesta possesses the Cauldron’s powers. So anything she crafts and imbues with her power becomes a new Trove. At this point, I wouldn’t so much as eat a piece of bread if she’d toasted it.”
They all stared at the three blades atop the desk.
Azriel said, “People will kill for this power. Either kill her to stop it, or kill us to capture her.”
“Nesta forged a new Trove,” Cassian said, reining in his rage at the truth of Azriel’s words. “She could create anything.” He nodded to Rhys. “She could fill our arsenals with weapons that would win us any war.” Briallyn, Koschei, and Beron wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Which is why Nesta must not learn about it,” Amren said.
Cassian demanded, “What?”
Amren’s gray eyes held steady. “She cannot know.”
Rhys said, “That seems like a risk. What if, unaware, she creates more?”
“What if, in one of her moods,” Amren challenged, “Nesta creates what she pleases just to spite us?”
“She’d never do that,” Cassian said hotly. He pointed at her. “You fucking know it, too.”
“Nesta would create not a Dread Trove,” Amren said, unfazed by his snarling, “but a Trove of Nightmares.”
“I can’t lie to her,” Cassian said, looking to Rhys. “I can’t.”
“You don’t need to lie,” Amren answered. “Simply don’t volunteer the information.”
He appealed to Rhys, “You’re all right with this? Because I’m sure as hell not.”
“Amren’s order holds,” Rhys said, and for a heartbeat, Cassian hated him. Hated the mistrust and wariness he beheld on Rhys’s face.
“I’d be careful when you’re fucking her,” Amren added, lips curling in a sneer. “Who knows what she might transform you into when her emotions are high?”
“That’s enough,” Azriel said, and Cassian turned grateful eyes to his brother. Az continued, “I’m with Cassian on this. It’s not right to keep the knowledge from Nesta.”
Rhys considered, then gazed long and hard at Cassian. Cassian weathered the look, kept his back straight and face grave. Rhys said at last, “When Feyre returns from her studio, I’ll ask her. She’ll be the deciding vote.”
It was a compromise, and even Amren could agree with that. Cassian nodded, uneasy but willing to let the decision lie in Feyre’s hands.
Amren nestled back into her chair. “That sword shall be known by history.” Her eyes darkened as she looked at the great sword, her words echoing. “It remains to be seen whether it shall be known for good or evil.”
Cassian shook off the shiver that slithered down his spine, as if fate itself heard her words and shuddered. He threw her a grin. “You do love to be dramatic, don’t you?”
Amren scowled, then rose. “I’m going back to bed.” She pointed at Rhysand. “Put those weapons somewhere no one will find them. And Mother damn you if you dare unsheathe one.”
Rhys waved her off, bored and tired. “Of course.”
“I mean it, boy,” Amren said. “Do not unsheathe those blades.” She surveyed all three of them before she left. “Any of you.”
For a moment, only the ticking grandfather clock made a sound.
Rhys looked toward it. Then he said, eyes distant, “I can’t find anything to help Feyre with the baby—with the labor.”
Cassian’s chest tightened. “Drakon and Miryam?”
Rhys shook his head. “The Seraphim’s wings are as flexible and rounded as the Illyrians’ are bony.
That’s what will kill Feyre. Miryam’s children were able to pass through her birth canal because their wings bent easily—and nearly every one of her human people who’s mixed with Drakon’s has had similar success.
” Rhys’s throat bobbed. His next words cracked Cassian’s heart.
“I didn’t realize how much hope I’d been holding on to until I saw the pity and fear in their faces.
Until Drakon had to embrace me to keep me from falling apart. ”
Cassian crossed to his brother in a few steps. He clasped Rhys’s shoulder, leaning against the edge of the desk. “We’ll keep looking. What about Thesan?”
Rhys loosened the uppermost buttons on his black jacket, revealing a hint of the tattooed chest beneath.
“The Dawn Court had nothing of use. The Peregryns are similar to the Seraphim—they’re related, though distantly.
Their healers know how to get a breech baby with wings to turn, how to get it out of the mother, but again: their wings are flexible. ”
Azriel appeared on Rhys’s other side, a hand on his shoulder as well.
The clock ticked on, a brutal reminder of every second racing toward sure doom. What they needed, Cassian realized with each tick of that clock, was a miracle.
Azriel asked, “And Feyre still doesn’t know?”