“Shield. Now.”
The raw command in his voice—the voice of the High Lord of the Night Court—had me acting on instinct, my exhausted mind building the wall brick by brick. Only when it’d ensconced my mind once more did he speak, his eyes softening almost imperceptibly. “Did you think it would end with Amarantha?”
“Tamlin hasn’t said … ” And why would he tell me? But there were so many patrols, so many meetings I wasn’t allowed to attend, such … tension. He had to know. I needed to ask him—demand why he hadn’t told me—
“The King of Hybern has been planning his campaign to reclaim the world south of the wall for over a hundred years,” Rhys said. “Amarantha was an experiment—a forty-nine-year test, to see how easily and how long a territory might fall and be controlled by one of his commanders.”
For an immortal, forty-nine years was nothing. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear he’d been planning this for far longer than a century. “Will he attack Prythian first?”
“Prythian,” Rhys said, pointing to the map of our massive island on the table, “is all that stands between the King of Hybern and the continent. He wants to reclaim the human lands there—perhaps seize the faerie lands, too. If anyone is to intercept his conquering fleet before it reaches the continent, it would be us.”
I slid into one of the chairs, my knees wobbling so badly I could hardly keep upright.
“He will seek to remove Prythian from his way swiftly and thoroughly,” Rhys continued. “And shatter the wall at some point in the process. There are already holes in it, though mercifully small enough to make it difficult to swiftly pass his armies through. He’ll want to bring the whole thing down—and likely use the ensuing panic to his advantage.”
Each breath was like swallowing glass. “When—when is he going to attack?” The wall had held steady for five centuries, and even then, those damned holes had allowed the foulest, hungriest Fae beasts to sneak through and prey on humans. Without that wall, if Hybern was indeed to launch an assult on the human world … I wished I hadn’t eaten such a large breakfast.
“That is the question,” he said. “And why I brought you here.”
I lifted my head to meet his stare. His face was drawn, but calm.
“I don’t know when or where he plans to attack Prythian,” Rhys went on. “I don’t know who his allies here might be.”
“He’d have allies here?”
A slow nod. “Cowards who would bow and join him, rather than fight his armies again.”
I could have sworn a whisper of darkness spread along the floor behind him. “Did … did you fight in the War?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. But then Rhys nodded. “I was young—by our standards, at least. But my father had sent aid to the mortal-faerie alliance on the continent, and I convinced him to let me take a legion of our soldiers.” He sat in the chair beside mine, gazing vacantly at the map. “I was stationed in the south, right where the fighting was thickest. The slaughter was … ” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I have no interest in ever seeing full-scale slaughter like that again.”
He blinked, as if clearing the horrors from his mind. “But I don’t think the King of Hybern will strike that way—not at first. He’s too smart to waste his forces here, to give the continent time to rally while we fight him. If he makes his move to destroy Prythian and the wall, it’ll be through stealth and trickery. To weaken us. Amarantha was the first part of that plan. We now have several untested High Lords, broken courts with High Priestesses angling for control like wolves around a carcass, and a people who have realized how powerless they might truly be.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I said, my voice thin, scratchy. It made no sense—none—that he would reveal his suspicions, his fears.
And Ianthe—she might be ambitious, but she was Tamlin’s friend. My friend, of sorts. Perhaps the only ally we’d have against the other High Priestesses, Rhys’s personal dislike for her or no …
“I am telling you for two reasons,” he said, his face so cold, so calm, that it unnerved me as much as the news he was delivering. “One, you’re … close to Tamlin. He has men—but he also has long-existing ties to Hybern—”
“He’d never help the king—”
Rhys held up a hand. “I want to know if Tamlin is willing to fight with us. If he can use those connections to our advantage. As he and I have strained relations, you have the pleasure of being the go-between.”
“He doesn’t inform me of those things.”
“Perhaps it’s time he did. Perhaps it’s time you insisted.” He examined the map, and I followed where his gaze landed. On the wall within Prythian—on the small, vulnerable mortal territory. My mouth went dry.
“What is your other reason?”
Rhys looked me up and down, assessing, weighing. “You have a skill set that I need. Rumor has it you caught a Suriel.”