A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses #3.1)

Had given his father and brothers the information on where my sister and mother would be waiting for me to meet them. And done nothing to help them as they were butchered.

I still saw their heads in those baskets, their faces still etched with fear and pain. And saw them again as I beheld the High Lord of Spring, both of us crowned in the same blood-soaked night.

“To protect humans from us, yes,” I said, my voice going dangerously quiet. “To maintain the peace.”

“What peace?” The claws slid back under his skin as he crossed his arms, less muscled than I’d last seen them on the battlefields. “Nothing is different. The wall is gone, that’s all.”

“We can make it different. Better. But only if we start off the right way.”

“I’m not allowing one Night Court brute onto my lands.”

His people despised him enough, it seemed.

And at that word—brute—I had enough. Dangerous territory. For me, at least. To let my own temper get the better of me. At least around him.

I rose from the chair, Tamlin not bothering to stand. “You brought every bit of this upon yourself,” I said, my voice still soft. I didn’t need to yell to convey my rage. I never had.

“You won,” he spat, sitting forward. “You got your mate. Is that not enough?”

“No.”

The word echoed through the library.

“You nearly destroyed her. In every way possible.”

Tamlin bared his teeth. I bared mine back, temper be damned. Let some of my power rumble through the room, the house, the grounds.

“She survived it, though. Survived you. And you still felt the need to humiliate her, belittle her. If you meant to win her back, old friend, that wasn’t the wisest route.”

“Get out.”

I wasn’t finished. Not even close. “You deserve everything that has befallen you. You deserve this pathetic, empty house, your ravaged lands. I don’t care if you offered that kernel of life to save me, I don’t care if you still love my mate. I don’t care that you saved her from Hybern, or a thousand enemies before that.” The words poured out, cold and steady. “I hope you live the rest of your miserable life alone here. It’s a far more satisfying end than slaughtering you.” Feyre had once arrived at the same decision. I’d agreed with her then, still did, but now I truly understood.

Tamlin’s green eyes went feral.

I braced for it, readied for it—wanted it. For him to explode out of that chair and launch himself at me, for his claws to start slashing.

My blood hammered in my veins, my power coiling inside me.

We could wreck this house in our fight. Bring it down to rubble. And then I’d turn the stones and wood into nothing but black dust.

But Tamlin only stared. And after a heartbeat, his eyes lowered to the desk. “Get out.”

I blinked, the only sign of my surprise. “Not in the mood for a brawl, Tamlin?”

He didn’t bother to look at me again. “Get out” was all he said.

A broken male.

Broken, from his own actions, his own choices.

It was not my concern. He did not deserve my pity.

But as I winnowed away, the dark wind ripping around me, a strange sort of hollowness took root in my stomach.

Tamlin didn’t have shields around the house. None to prevent anyone from winnowing in, to guard against enemies appearing in his bedroom and slitting his throat.

It was almost as if he was waiting for someone to do it.



I found Feyre walking home from presumably doing some shopping, a few bags dangling from her gloved hands.

Her smile when I landed beside her, snow whipping around us, was like a fist to my heart.

It faded immediately, however, when she read my face.

Even in the middle of the busy city street, she put a hand to my cheek. “That bad?”

I nodded, leaning into her touch. The most I could manage.

She pressed a kiss to my mouth, her lips warm enough that I realized I’d gone cold.

“Walk home with me,” she said, looping her arm through mine and pressing close.

I obeyed, taking the bags from her other hand. As the blocks passed and we crossed over the icy Sidra, then up the steep hills, I told her. Everything I’d said to Tamlin.

“Having heard you rip into Cassian, I’d say you were fairly mild,” she observed when I’d finished.

I snorted. “Profanity wasn’t necessary here.”

She contemplated my words. “Did you go because you were concerned about the wall, or just because you wanted to say those things to him?”

“Both.” I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her about it. “And perhaps slaughter him.”

Alarm flared in her eyes. “Where is this coming from?”

I didn’t know. “I just …” Words failed me.

Her arm tightened around mine, and I turned to study her face. Open, understanding. “The things you said … they weren’t wrong,” she offered. No judgment, no anger.

Something still a bit hollow inside me filled slightly. “I should have been the bigger male.”

“You’re the bigger male most days. You’re entitled to a slipup.” She smiled broadly. Bright as the full moon, lovelier than any star.

I still had not gotten her a Solstice gift. And birthday present.

She angled her head at my frown, her braid slipping over a shoulder. I ran my hand along it, savoring the silken strands against my frozen fingers. “I’ll meet you at home,” I said, handing her the bags once more.

It was her turn to frown. “Where are you going?”

I kissed her cheek, breathing in her lilac-and-pear scent. “I have some errands that need tending to.” And looking at her, walking beside her, did little to cool the rage that still roiled in me. Not when that beautiful smile made me want to winnow back to the Spring Court and punch my Illyrian blade through Tamlin’s gut.

Bigger male indeed.

“Go paint my nude portrait,” I told her, winking, and shot into the bitterly cold sky.

The sound of her laughter danced with me all the way to the Palace of Thread and Jewels.



I surveyed the spread my preferred jeweler had laid out on black velvet atop the glass counter. In the lights of her cozy shop bordering the Palace, they flickered with an inner fire, beckoning.

Sapphires, emeralds, rubies … Feyre had them all. Well, in moderate amounts. Save for those cuffs of solid diamond I’d given her for Starfall.

She’d worn them only twice:

That night I had danced with her until dawn, barely daring to hope that she might be starting to return a fraction of what I felt for her.

And the night we’d returned to Velaris, after that final battle with Hybern. When she had worn only those cuffs.

I shook my head, and said to the slim, ethereal faerie behind the counter, “Beautiful as they are, Neve, I don’t think milady wants jewels for Solstice.”

A shrug that wasn’t at all disappointed. I was a frequent enough customer that Neve knew she’d make a sale at some point.

She slid the tray beneath the counter and pulled out another, her night-veiled hands moving smoothly.

Not a wraith, but something similar, her tall, lean frame wrapped in permanent shadows, only her eyes—like glowing coals—visible. The rest tended to come in and out of view, as if the shadows parted to reveal a dark hand, a shoulder, a foot. Her people all master jewel smiths, dwelling in the deepest mountain mines in our court. Most of the heirlooms of our house had been Tartera-made, Feyre’s cuffs and crowns included.

Neve waved a shadowed hand over the tray she’d laid out. “I had selected these earlier, if it’s not too presumptuous, to consider for Lady Amren.”

Indeed, these all sang Amren’s name. Large stones, delicate settings. Mighty jewelry, for my mighty friend. Who had done so much for me, my mate—our people. The world.

I surveyed the three pieces. Sighed. “I’ll take all of them.”

Neve’s eyes glowed like a living forge.





CHAPTER

12

Feyre


“What the hell is that?”

Cassian was grinning the next evening as he waved a hand toward the pile of pine boughs dumped on the ornate red rug in the center of the foyer. “Solstice decorations. Straight from the market.”

Snow clung to his broad shoulders and dark hair, and his tan cheeks were flushed with cold. “You call that a decoration?”