They were not the males I had come to know.
Clad in battle-black that hugged their muscled forms, their armor was intricate, scaled—their shoulders impossibly broader, their faces a portrait of unfeeling brutality. They reminded me, somehow, of the ebony beasts carved into the pillars they passed.
More Siphons, I realized, glimmered in addition to the ones atop each of their hands. A Siphon in the center of their chest. One on either shoulder. One on either knee.
For a moment, my knees quaked, and I understood what the camp-lords had feared in them. If one Siphon was what most Illyrians needed to handle their killing power … Cassian and Azriel had seven each. Seven.
The courtiers had the good sense to back away a step as Cassian and Azriel strolled through the crowd, toward the dais. Their wings gleamed, the talons at the apex sharp enough to pierce air—like they’d honed them.
Cassian’s focus had gone right to Mor, Azriel indulging in all of a glance before scanning the people around them. Most shirked from the spymaster’s eyes—though they trembled as they beheld Truth-Teller at his side, the Illyrian blade peeking above his left shoulder.
Azriel, his face a mask of beautiful death, silently promised them all endless, unyielding torment, even the shadows shuddering in his wake. I knew why; knew for whom he’d gladly do it.
They had tried to sell a seventeen-year-old girl into marriage with a sadist—and then brutalized her in ways I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let myself consider. And these people now lived in utter terror of the three companions who stood at the dais.
Good. They should be afraid of them.
Afraid of me.
And then Rhysand appeared.
He had released the damper on his power, on who he was. His power filled the throne room, the castle, the mountain. The world. It had no end and no beginning.
No wings. No weapons. No sign of the warrior. Nothing but the elegant, cruel High Lord the world believed him to be. His hands were in his pockets, his black tunic seeming to gobble up the light. And on his head sat a crown of stars.
No sign of the male who had been drinking on the roof; no sign of the fallen prince kneeling on his bed. The full impact of him threatened to sweep me away.
Here—here was the most powerful High Lord ever born.
The face of dreams and nightmares.
Rhys’s eyes met mine briefly from across the room as he strolled between the pillars. To the throne that was his by blood and sacrifice and might. My own blood sang at the power that thrummed from him, at the sheer beauty of him.
Mor stepped off the dais, dropping to one knee in a smooth bow. Cassian and Azriel followed suit.
So did everyone in that room.
Including me.
The ebony floor was so polished I could see my red-painted lips in it; see my own expressionless face. The room was so silent I could hear each of Rhys’s footsteps toward us.
“Well, well,” he said to no one in particular. “Looks like you’re all on time for once.”
Raising his head as he continued kneeling, Cassian gave Rhys a half grin—the High Lord’s commander incarnate, eager to do his bloodletting.
Rhys’s boots stopped in my line of sight.
His fingers were icy on my chin as he lifted my face.
The entire room, still on the floor, watched. But this was the role he needed me to play. To be a distraction and novelty. Rhys’s lips curved upward. “Welcome to my home, Feyre Cursebreaker.”
I lowered my eyes, my kohl-thick lashes tickling my cheek. He clicked his tongue, his grip on my chin tightening. Everyone noticed the push of his fingers, the predatory angle of his head as he said, “Come with me.”
A tug on my chin, and I rose to my feet. Rhys dragged his eyes over me and I wondered if it wasn’t entirely for show as they glazed a bit.
He led me the few steps onto the dais—to the throne. He sat, smiling faintly at his monstrous court. He owned every inch of the throne. These people.
And with a tug on my waist, he perched me on his lap.
The High Lord’s whore. Who I’d become Under the Mountain—who the world expected me to be. The dangerous new pet that Mor’s father would now seek to feel out.
Rhys’s hand slid along my bare waist, the other running down my exposed thigh. Cold—his hands were so cold I almost yelped.
He must have felt the silent flinch. A heartbeat later, his hands had warmed. His thumb, curving around the inside of my thigh, gave a slow, long stroke as if to say Sorry.
Rhys indeed leaned in to bring his mouth near my ear, well aware his subjects had not yet risen from the floor. As if they had once done so before they were bidden, long ago, and had learned the consequences. Rhysand whispered to me, his other hand now stroking the bare skin of my ribs in lazy, indolent circles, “Try not to let it go to your head.”
I knew they could all hear it. So did he.