Rhys blinked, his only sign of surprise. He looked to me, then Amren, and nodded. Go. Now.
While Hybern was focused on the approaching army—trying to calculate the risks, to staunch the chaos Beron and his sons unleashed with their targeted attacks. Trying to figure out what the hell Jurian was doing there, and how many weaknesses Jurian had learned. And would now exploit.
Amren ushered my sisters forward, even as Elain let out a low sob at the sight of the Graysen coat of arms. “Now. Quick and quiet as shadows.”
We were going down—into that. Bryaxis and the Carver were still shredding, still slaughtering in their little pockets past the enemy lines. And the Weaver … Where was the Weaver—
There. Slowly plowing a slim path of carnage. As Rhys had instructed her moments before.
“This way,” I said to them, keeping an eye on Stryga’s path of horror. Elain was shaking, still gazing toward that human army and her betrothed in it. Nesta monitored the Illyrian legions soaring past overhead, their lines unfaltering.
“I assume we’ll be following the path of bodies,” Amren muttered to me. “How does the Weaver know how to find the Cauldron?”
Rhys seemed to be listening, even as we turned away, his fingers brushing mine in silent farewell. I just said, “Because she appears to have an unnaturally good sense of smell.”
Amren snorted, and we fell into flanking positions around my sisters. A glamour of invisibility would hopefully allow us to skirt the southern edge of the battlefield—along with Azriel’s shadows as he monitored from behind. But once we got behind enemy lines …
I looked back as we neared the edge of the knoll. Just once. At Rhys, where he now stood talking to Azriel and Eris, explaining the plan to relay to Tamlin, Beron, and Jurian. Eris’s brothers made it back behind their father’s lines—fires now burning throughout Hybern’s army. Not enough to stop them, but … at least the faebane had been dealt with. For now.
Rhys’s attention slid to me. And even with the battle around us, hell unleashing everywhere … For a heartbeat, we were the only two people on this plain.
I opened up my mental barriers to speak to him. Just one more farewell, one more—
Nesta inhaled a shuddering gasp. Stumbled, and took down Amren with her when she tried to keep her upright.
Rhys was instantly there, before the understanding dawned upon me. The Cauldron.
Hybern was rousing the Cauldron.
Amren squirmed out from beneath Nesta, whirling toward the battlefield. “Shields—”
Eris winnowed away—to warn his father, no doubt.
Nesta pushed herself onto her elbows, hair shaking free of her braid, lips bloodless. She heaved into the grass.
Rhys’s magic shot out of him, arcing around our entire army, his breathing a wet rasp—
Nesta’s hands grappled into the grass as she lifted her head, scanning the horizon.
Like she could see right to where the Cauldron was now about to be unleashed.
Rhys’s power flowed and flowed out of him, bracing for impact. Azriel’s Siphons flashed, a sprawling shield of cobalt locking over Rhysand’s, his breathing just as heavy as my mate’s—
And then Nesta began screaming. Not in pain. But a name. Over and over.
“CASSIAN.”
Amren reached for her, but Nesta roared, “CASSIAN!”
She scrambled to her feet, as if she’d leap into the skies.
Her body lurched, and she went down, heaving again.
A figure shot from the Illyrian ranks, spearing for us, flapping hard, red Siphons blazing—
Nesta moaned, writhing on the ground.
The earth seemed to shudder in response.
No—not in response to her. In terror of the thing that erupted from Hybern’s army.
I understood why the king had claimed those rocky foothills. Not to make us charge uphill if we should push them so far. But to position the Cauldron.
For it was from the rocky outcropping that a battering ram of death-white light hurled for our army. Just about level with the Illyrian legion in the sky—as the Attor’s legion dropped to the earth, and ducked for cover. Leaving the Illyrians exposed.
Cassian was halfway to us when the Cauldron’s blast hit the Illyrian forces.
I saw him scream—but heard nothing. The force of that power …
It shredded Azriel’s shield. Then Rhysand’s. And then shredded any Siphon-made ones.
It hollowed out my ears and seared my face.
And where a thousand soldiers had been a heartbeat before …
Ashes rained down upon our foot soldiers.
Nesta had known. She gaped up at me, terror and agony on her face, then scanned the sky for Cassian, who flapped in place, as if torn between coming for us and charging back to the scattering Illyrian and Peregryn ranks. She’d known where that blast was about to hit.
Cassian had been right in the center of it.
Or would have been, if she hadn’t called him away.
Rhys was looking at her like he knew, too. Like he didn’t know whether to scold her for the guilt Cassian would no doubt feel, or thank her for saving him.
Nesta’s body went stiff again, a low moan breaking from her.
I felt Rhys cast out his power—a silent warning signal.
The other High Lords raised shields this time, backing the one he rallied.
But the Cauldron did not hit the same spot twice. And Hybern was willing to incinerate part of his own army if it meant wiping out a strength of ours.
Cassian was again hurtling for us, for Nesta sprawled on the ground, as the light and unholy heat of the Cauldron were unleashed again.
Right into its own lines. Where the Bone Carver was gleefully shredding apart soldiers, draining the life from them in sweeps and gusts of that deadly wind.
An unearthly, female shriek broke from deep in the Hybern forces. A sister’s warning—and pain. Just as that white light slammed into the Bone Carver.
But the Carver … I could have sworn he looked toward me as the Cauldron’s power crashed into him. Could have sworn he smiled—and it was not a hideous thing at all.
There—and gone.
The Cauldron wiped him away without any sign of effort.
CHAPTER
71
I could barely hear, barely think in the wake of the Cauldron’s power.
In the wake of the empty, blasted bit of plain where the Carver had been. The sudden cold that shuddered down my spine—as if erasing the tattoo inked upon it.
And then the silence—silence in some pocket of my mind as a section of that two-pronged leash of control faded into darkness without end. Leaving nothing behind.
I wondered who would carve his death in the Prison.
If he had perhaps already carved it for himself on the walls of that cell. If he had wanted to make sure I was worthy not to taunt me, but because he wanted his end … he wanted his end to be worth carving.