Chapter Forty-Two #2
“No. She knows the labor will be difficult, but I haven’t told her yet that it might very well claim her life.” Rhys spoke into their minds, as if he couldn’t say it aloud, I haven’t told her that the nightmares that now send me lurching from sleep aren’t ones of the past, but of the future.
Cassian squeezed Rhys’s shoulder. “Why won’t you tell her?”
Rhys’s throat worked. “Because I can’t bring myself to give her that fear.
To take away one bit of the joy in her eyes every time she puts a hand on her belly.
” His voice shook. “It is fucking eating me alive, this terror. I keep myself busy, but … there is no one to bargain with for her life, no amount of wealth to buy it, nothing that I can do to save her.”
“Helion?” Azriel asked, eyes pained.
“I told him before he left yesterday. Pulled him aside when Feyre had winnowed home, and begged him on my knees to find something in his thousand libraries to save her. He said every head librarian and researcher who can be spared will be put on it. Somewhere in history, someone must have studied this. Found a way to deliver a baby with wings to a mother whose body was not equipped for it.”
“We’ll hold on to our hope, then,” Cassian said. Rhys shuddered, hanging his head, his silken black hair obscuring his eyes.
Cassian lifted his stare to Azriel, whose face conveyed everything: hope wouldn’t keep Feyre alive.
Cassian swallowed hard, and shifted his gaze to the three blades on the desk.
Their hilts were ordinary—as might be expected from a blacksmith in a small village. He made fine weapons, yes, but not artistic masterpieces. The great sword’s hilt was a simple cross guard, the pommel a rounded bit of metal.
Gwydion, the last of the magic swords, had been dark as night and as beautiful.
How many games had Cassian played as a child with Rhys and Azriel, where a long stick had been a stand-in for Gwydion? How many adventures had they imagined, sharing that mythical sword between them as they slew wyrms and rescued damsels?
Never mind that Rhys’s particular damsel had slain a wyrm herself and rescued him instead.
But if Amren was right … Cassian couldn’t think of another place in the world that held three magic blades, let alone one.
These might very well be the only ones in existence.
Cassian drummed his fingers on the desk, curiosity biting deep. “Let’s have a look.”
“Amren said not to,” Azriel warned.
“Amren’s not here,” Cassian said, smirking. “And we don’t need to touch them.” He clapped Rhys on the shoulder. “Use that fancy magic to unsheathe them.”
Rhys lifted his head. “This is a bad idea.”
Cassian winked. “That should be written on the Night Court crest.”
A few stars blinked into existence in Rhys’s eyes. Azriel muttered a prayer.
But Rhys took two steadying breaths and unspooled his power toward the massive sword, letting it lift the blade in star-flecked hands.
“It’s heavy,” Rhys observed, brows bunched in concentration. “In a way it should not be. Like it’s fighting against my magic.” He kept the sword floating above his desk, perpendicular to it, as if it were held in a stand.
Cassian braced himself as Rhys angled his head, his magic probing the hilt, the scabbard.
Rhys mused, “The blacksmith never said anything about what had seemed cursed, and he must have touched it several times—to feel the power and to bring it here, at least. So it can’t be a death-sword to slay any careless hand. ”
Azriel grunted. “I’d still be careful.”
With a wicked smile toward Az, Rhys used his power to draw away the black scabbard.
It did not go easily, as if the sword did not wish to be revealed—or not by Rhysand.
But inch by inch, the scabbard slid from the blade. And inch by inch, fresh steel glowed—truly glowed, like moonlight lay within the metal.
Even Az didn’t school his features into anything but gaping awe as the scabbard fell away at last.
Cassian stumbled back, gawking.
Iridescent sparks danced along the blade. Pure, crackling magic. The light danced and spurted as if an invisible hammer still struck it.
The hair on Cassian’s body rose.
Rhys inhaled, rallying his magic, then floated and unsheathed the other sword and the dagger.
They did not spark with raw power, but Cassian could feel them. The dagger radiated cold, its blade gleaming so bright it looked like an icicle in the sun. The second sword seemed hot—angry and willful.
But the great sword between the two others … The sparks faded, as if sucked into the blade itself.
None of them dared touch it. Something deep and primal within Cassian warned him not to. That to be impaled or sliced by that blade would be no ordinary wound.
A soft, female laugh rippled from the door, and Cassian didn’t need to turn to know Amren stood there. “I knew you idiots wouldn’t be able to resist.”
Rhys murmured, “I have never seen anything like this.” His magic set the three blades to rotating, allowing them to observe every facet. Az’s face was still slack with awe.
“Amarantha destroyed one,” Amren said.
Cassian started. “I never heard that.”
Amren amended, “Rumor claimed she dumped one into the sea. It would not come to Amarantha’s hand, nor the hands of any of her commanders, and rather than let the King of Hybern attain it, she disposed of it.”
Azriel asked, “Which sword?”
“Narben.” Amren’s red lips quirked downward. “At least that’s what rumor said. You were Under the Mountain then, Rhys. She would have kept it secret. I only heard from a fleeing water-nymph that it had been done.”
“Narben was even older than Gwydion,” Rhys said. “Where the hell was it?”
“I don’t know, but she found it, and when it would not bend to her, she destroyed it. As she did all good things.” It was as much as Amren would say about that terrible time. “It was perhaps in our favor. Had the King of Hybern possessed Narben, I fear we would have lost the war.”
Narben’s powers had not been the holy, savior’s light of Gwydion, but ones far darker. “I can’t believe that witch threw it into the sea,” Cassian said.
“Again, it was a rumor, heard from someone who heard it from someone. Who knows if she actually found Narben? Even if it would not obey her, she’d have been a fool to throw it away.”
“Amarantha could be shortsighted,” Rhys said. Cassian hated the sound of her name on his brother’s tongue. From the flare of rage on Azriel’s face, so did the shadowsinger.
“But you, Rhysand, are not.” Amren nodded to the still-rotating weapons. “With these three blades, you could make yourself High King.”
The words clanged through the room. Cassian slowly blinked.
Rhys said tightly, “I don’t wish to be High King. I only wish to be here, with my mate and my people.”
Amren countered, “All seven courts united under one ruler would give us far better odds of survival in any upcoming conflict. No bickering and politicking required to dispatch our armies. Malcontents like Beron would have no ability to threaten our plans by allying with our enemies.”
“We would have to fight an internal war first. I would be branded a traitor by my friends in other courts—I’d be forced to make them kneel.”
Azriel stepped forward, shadows trailing from his shoulders. “Kallias, Tarquin, and Helion might be willing to kneel. Thesan will kneel if the others do.”
Cassian nodded. Rhys as High King: he could think of no other male he’d trust more.
No other male who would be a fairer ruler than Rhys.
And with Feyre as High Queen … Prythian would be blessed to have such leaders.
So Cassian said, “Tamlin would probably fight, and lose. Beron would be the only one standing in your way.”
Rhys’s teeth flashed. “Beron is already standing in my way, and doing a damn good job of it. I have no interest in justifying his behavior.” He gave Cassian a withering look. “Don’t we have to leave soon to winnow you and Nesta down to the Spring Court to meet with Eris?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Cassian drawled.
Rhys’s power rumbled in the room. “I do not want to be High King. There is no need to discuss it.”
“Yours is a terrible and beautiful power, Rhysand,” Amren said, sighing. “You have three magic blades before you, each a kingmaker in its own right, and yet you would rather share that power. Keep to your borders. Why?”
Rhys demanded, “Why do you want me to turn conqueror?”
Amren shot back, “Why do you shy from the power that is your birthright?”
“I did nothing to earn that power,” Rhys said. “I was born with it. It is a tool to defend my people, not to attack others.” He surveyed them. “Where is this talk coming from?”
Azriel said quietly, “We are weakened—all seven courts. Even more at odds with each other and with the rest of the world since the war. If Montesere and Vallahan march on us, if Rask joins with them, we will not withstand it. Not with Beron already turned against us and allied with Briallyn. Not if Tamlin cannot master his guilt and grief and become what he once was.”
Cassian picked up the thread, tucking in his wings. “But a land united under one king and queen, armed with such power and objects … Our enemies would hesitate.”
Rhys snarled, “If you think for one moment that Feyre would be remotely interested in being High Queen, you’re delusional.”
Amren said, “Feyre would see it as a necessary evil. To protect your child from being born into war, she would do what is necessary.”
“And I won’t?” Rhys demanded, standing. “I will not be High King. I will not consider it, not today and not in a century.”
Amren looked to the great sword, still slowly rotating above them.
“Then explain to me why, after thousands of years, objects that once crowned and aided the old Fae have returned. The last time a High King ruled Prythian, it was with a magic sword in his hand. Look at that great sword before you, Rhysand, and tell me that it is not a sign from the Cauldron itself.”
Cassian’s breath caught in his throat. “It was a fluke, Amren. Nesta didn’t make it on purpose.”
Amren shook her head, hair swaying. “Nothing is a fluke. The Cauldron’s power flows through Nesta, and could use her as a puppet without her knowledge.
It wanted those weapons Made, and thus they were Made.
It wanted Rhysand to have them and thus the blacksmith brought them to you.
To you, Rhysand, not to Nesta. And do not forget that Nesta herself—and Elain, with whatever powers she has—is here.
Feyre is here. All three sisters blessed by fate and gifted with powers to match your own.
Feyre alone doubles your strength. Nesta makes you unstoppable.
Especially if she were to march into battle wearing the Mask.
No enemy could stand against her. She’d slay Beron’s soldiers, then raise them from the dead and turn them on him. ”
Cassian’s blood chilled. Yes, Nesta would be unstoppable. But at what cost to her soul?
Rhys leveled a cool stare at Amren. “I will not entertain this ridiculous notion for another moment.”
Cassian knew they’d been dismissed. He nodded to Az, who followed him toward the doors.
They paused, however, right before the threshold.
Looked back at their brother, their High Lord, now seated alone at his desk.
The weight of so many choices pressing heavy on his broad shoulders, drooping his wings.
“Very well then, Rhysand.” Amren also turned from the desk and the blades Rhys’s magic now sheathed and set upon the surface. “But know that the Cauldron’s benevolence will be extended to you only for so long before it is offered to another.”