The sun and arid day had warmed the garden, bits of green now poking their heads out here and there in the countless beds and pots. Rhys sat on the rim of the fountain, forearms braced on his knees, staring at the moss-flecked flagstone between his feet.
We all found our seats in the white-painted iron chairs throughout. If only humans could see them: faeries, sitting on iron. They’d throw away those ridiculous baubles and jewelry. Perhaps even Elain would receive an engagement ring that hadn’t been forged with hate and fear.
“If you’re out here to brood, Rhys,” Amren said from her perch on a little bench, “then just say so and let me go back to my work.”
Violet eyes lifted to hers. Cold, humorless. “The humans wish for proof of our good intentions. That we can be trusted.”
Amren’s attention cut to me. “Feyre was not enough?”
I tried not to let the words sting. No, I had not been enough; perhaps I’d even failed in my role as emissary—
“She is more than enough,” Rhys said with that deadly calm, and I wondered if I’d sent my own pathetic thoughts down the bond. I snapped my shield up once more. “They’re fools. Worse—frightened fools.” He studied the ground again, as if the dried moss and stone made up some pattern no one but him could see.
Cassian said, “We could … depose them. Get newer, smarter queens on their thrones. Who might be willing to bargain.”
Rhys shook his head. “One, it’d take too long. We don’t have that time.” I thought of the past few wasted weeks, how hard Azriel had tried to get into those courts. If even his shadows and spies could not breach their inner workings, then I doubted an assassin would. The confirming shake of the head Azriel gave Cassian said as much. “Two,” Rhys continued, “who knows if that would somehow impact the magic of their half of the Book. It must be given freely. It’s possible the magic is strong enough to see our scheming.” He sucked on his teeth. “We are stuck with them.”
“We could try again,” Mor said. “Let me speak to them, let me go to their palace—”
“No,” Azriel said. Mor raised her brows, and a faint color stained Azriel’s tan face. But his features were set, his hazel eyes solid. “You’re not setting foot in that human realm.”
“I fought in the War, you will do well to remember—”
“No,” Azriel said again, refusing to break her stare. His shifting wings rasped against the back of his chair. “They would string you up and make an example of you.”
“They’d have to catch me first.”
“That palace is a death trap for our kind,” Azriel countered, his voice low and rough. “Built by Fae hands to protect the humans from us. You set foot inside it, Mor, and you won’t walk out again. Why do you think we’ve had such trouble getting a foothold in there?”
“If going into their territory isn’t an option,” I cut in before Mor could say whatever the temper limning her features hissed at her to retort and surely wound the shadowsinger more than she intended, “and deceit or any mental manipulation might make the magic wreck the Book … What proof can be offered?” Rhys lifted his head. “Who is—who is this Miryam? Who was she to Jurian, and who was that prince you spoke of—Drakon? Perhaps we … perhaps they could be used as proof. If only to vouch for you.”
The heat died from Mor’s eyes as she shifted a foot against the moss and flagstone.
But Rhys interlocked his fingers in the space between his knees before he said, “Five hundred years ago, in the years leading up to the War, there was a Fae kingdom in the southern part of the continent. It was a realm of sand surrounding a lush river delta. The Black Land. There was no crueler place to be born a human—for no humans were born free. They were all of them slaves, forced to build great temples and palaces for the High Fae who ruled. There was no escape; no chance of having their freedom purchased. And the queen of the Black Land … ” Memory stirred in his face.
“She made Amarantha seem as sweet as Elain,” Mor explained with soft venom.
“Miryam,” Rhys continued, “was a half-Fae female born of a human mother. And as her mother was a slave, as the conception was … against her mother’s will, so, too, was Miryam born in shackles, and deemed human—denied any rights to her Fae heritage.”