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

The room filled, and Ressina and I swapped a quick, relieved look. A nervous look, too.

And when I faced the families gathered, the room open and sunny around us, I smiled once more and began.





CHAPTER

28

Feyre


He was waiting for me an hour and a half later.

As the last of the children flitted out, some laughing, some still solemn and hollow-eyed, he held the door open for them and their families. They all gawked, bowing their heads, and Rhys offered them a wide, easy smile in return.

I loved that smile. Loved that casual grace as he strode into the gallery, no sign of his wings today, and surveyed the still-drying paintings. Surveyed the paint splattered on my face and sweater and boots. “Rough day at the office?”

I pushed back a strand of my hair. Knowing it was likely streaked with blue paint. Since my fingers were covered in it. “You should see Ressina.”

Indeed, she’d gone into the back moments ago to wash off a face full of red paint. Courtesy of one of the children, who’d deemed it a good idea to form a bubble of all the paint to see what color it would turn, and then float it across the room. Where it collided with her face.

Rhys laughed when I showed him down the bond. “Excellent use of their budding powers, at least.”

I grinned, surveying one of the paintings beside him. “That’s what I said. Ressina didn’t find it so funny.”

Though she had. Smiling had been a little difficult, though, when so many of the children had both visible and unseen scars.

Rhys and I studied a painting by a young faerie whose parents had been killed in the attack. “We didn’t give them any detailed prompts,” I said as Rhys’s eyes roved around the painting. “We only told them to paint a memory. This is what she came up with.”

It was hard to look at. The two figures in it. The red paint. The figures in the sky, their vicious teeth and reaching claws.

“They don’t take their paintings home?”

“These will dry first, but I asked her if she wanted me to keep this somewhere special. She said to throw it out.”

Rhys’s eyes danced with worry.

I said quietly, “I want to keep it. To put in my future office. So we don’t forget.”

What had happened, what we were working for. Exactly why Aranea’s tapestry of the Night Court insignia hung on the wall here.

He kissed my cheek in answer and moved to the next painting. He laughed. “Explain this one.”

“This boy was immensely disappointed in his Solstice presents. Especially since it didn’t include a puppy. So his ‘memory’ is one he hopes to make in the future—of him and his ‘dog.’ With his parents in a doghouse instead, while he and the dog live in the proper house.”

“Mother help his parents.”

“He was the one who made the bubble.”

He laughed again. “Mother help you.”

I nudged him, laughing now. “Walk me home for lunch?”

He sketched a bow. “It would be my honor, lady.”

I rolled my eyes, shouting to Ressina that I’d be back in an hour. She called that I should take my time. The next class didn’t come until two. We’d decided to both be at these initial classes, so the parents and guardians got to know us. And the children as well. It would be two full weeks of this before we got through the entire roster of classes.

Rhys helped me with my coat, stealing a kiss before we walked out into the sunny, frigid day. The Rainbow bustled around us, artists and shoppers nodding and waving our way as we strode for the town house.

I linked my arm through his, nestling into his warmth. “It’s strange,” I murmured.

Rhys angled his head. “What is?”

I smiled. At him, at the Rainbow, at the city. “This feeling, this excitement to wake up every day. To see you, and to work, and to just be here.”

Nearly a year ago, I’d told him the opposite. Wished for the opposite. His face softened, as if he, too, remembered it. And understood.

I went on, “I know there’s much to do. I know there are things we’ll have to face. A few sooner than later.” Some of the stars in his eyes banked at that. “I know there’s the Illyrians, and the human queens, and the humans themselves, and all of it. But despite them …” I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t find the right words. Or speak them without falling apart in public.

So I leaned into him, into that unfailing strength, and said down the bond, You make me so very happy. My life is happy, and I will never stop being grateful that you are in it.

I looked up to find him not at all ashamed to have tears slipping down his cheeks in public. I brushed a few away before the chill wind could freeze them, and Rhys whispered in my ear, “I will never stop being grateful to have you in my life, either, Feyre darling. And no matter what lies ahead”—a small, joyous smile at that—“we will face it together. Enjoy every moment of it together.”

I leaned into him again, his arm tightening around my shoulders. Around the top of the arm inked with the tattoo we both bore, the promise between us. To never part, not until the end.

And even after that.

I love you, I said down the bond.

What’s not to love?

Before I could elbow him, Rhys kissed me again, breathless and swift. To the stars who listen, Feyre.

I brushed a hand over his cheek to wipe away the last of his tears, his skin warm and soft, and we turned down the street that would lead us home. Toward our future—and all that waited within it.

To the dreams that are answered, Rhys.





The black water at her thrashing heels was freezing.

Not the bite of winter chill, or even the burn of solid ice, but something colder. Deeper.

It was the cold of the gaps between stars, the cold of a world before light.

The cold of hell—true hell, she realized, as she bucked and kicked against the strong hands trying to shove her into that Cauldron.

True hell, because that was Elain lying on the floor, the red-haired, one-eyed Fae male hovering over her. Because those were pointed ears poking through the sodden gold-brown hair, and that was an immortal glow resting upon Elain’s fair skin.

True hell, worse than the inky depths that waited mere inches from her toes.

Put her in, the hard-faced king ordered.

And the sound of that voice, the male who had done this to Elain …

She knew that she was going into the Cauldron. Knew she would lose this fight.

Knew no one was coming to save her, not sobbing Feyre, not Feyre’s gagged former lover, not her devastated new mate. Not Cassian, broken and bleeding on the floor, still trying to rise on trembling arms.

The king—he had done this. To Elain. To Cassian.

And to her.

The icy water bit into the soles of her feet.

It was a bite of venom, a bite of a death so permanent that every inch of her roared in defiance.

She was going in, but she would not go gently. She would not go bowed to this Fae king.

The water gripped her ankles with phantom hands, tugging her down.

So she twisted, wrenching her arm free from the guard who held it.

And so she pointed.

One finger—at the king.

Down down down that water wanted to pull her.

But Nesta Archeron still pointed at the King of Hybern.

A death-promise. A target marked.

Hands shoved her into the water’s awaiting claws.

And Nesta Archeron laughed at the fear that crept into the king’s eyes. Just before the water devoured her whole.

In the beginning

And at the end

There was Darkness

And nothing more

She did not feel the cold as she sank into a sea of blackness that had no bottom, no horizon, no surface.

But she felt the burning when it began.

Immortality was not a serene youth.

It was fire.

It was molten ore poured into her veins, boiling up her human blood until it was nothing but steam, forging her brittle bones into fresh steel.

When she opened her mouth to scream, when the pain ripped apart her very self, there was no sound. There was nothing here, in this place, but darkness and agony and power— Not gently.

She would not take this gently.

She would not let them do this. To her, to Elain.

She would not bow, or yield, or grovel.

They would pay. All of them.