He watched me in the reflection of the mirror as I strode for my armoire, flinging open the doors to yank out the dress I’d selected. Scraps of shimmering black—a slightly more modest version of what I’d worn to the Court of Nightmares months ago. “You said your mother and father were wrong for each other; Tamlin said his own parents were wrong for each other.” I peeled off my dressing robe. “So it can’t be a perfect system of matching. What if”—I jerked my chin toward the window, to my sister and the shadowsinger in the garden—“that is what she needs? Is there no free will? What if Lucien wishes the union but she doesn’t?”
“A mating bond can be rejected,” Rhys said mildly, eyes flickering in the mirror as he drank in every inch of bare skin I had on display. “There is choice. And sometimes, yes—the bond picks poorly. Sometimes, the bond is nothing more than some … preordained guesswork at who will provide the strongest offspring. At its basest level, it’s perhaps only that. Some natural function, not an indication of true, paired souls.” A smile at me—at the rareness, perhaps, of what we had. “Even so,” Rhys went on, “there will always be a … tug. For the females, it is usually easier to ignore, but the males … It can drive them mad. It is their burden to fight through, but some believe they are entitled to the female. Even after the bond is rejected, they see her as belonging to them. Sometimes they return to challenge the male she chooses for herself. Sometimes it ends in death. It is savage, and it is ugly, and it mercifully does not happen often, but … Many mated pairs will try to make it work, believing the Cauldron selected them for a reason. Only years later will they realize that perhaps the pairing was not ideal in spirit.”
I scrounged up the jeweled, dark belt from an armoire drawer and slung it low over my hips. “So you’re saying she could walk away—and Lucien would have free rein to kill whoever she wishes to be with.”
Rhys turned from the mirror at last, his dark clothes pristine—cut perfectly to his body. No wings tonight. “Not free rein—not in my lands. It has been illegal in our territory for a long, long time for males to do that. Even before I was born. Other courts, no. On the continent, there are territories that believe the females literally belong to their mate. But not here. Elain would have our full protection if she rejects the bond. But it will still be a bond, however weakened, that will trail her for the rest of her existence.”
“Do you think she and Lucien match well?” I pulled out a pair of sandals that laced up my bare thighs and jammed my feet into them before beginning work on the bindings.
“You know them better than I do. But I will say that Lucien is loyal—fiercely so.”
“So is Azriel.”
“Azriel,” Rhys said, “has been preoccupied with the same female for the past five hundred years.”
“Wouldn’t the mating bond have snapped into place for them if it exists?”
Rhys’s eyes shuttered. “I think that is a question Azriel has been asking himself every day since he met Mor.” He sighed as I finished one foot and started on the other. “Am I allowed to request that you not play matchmaker? Let them sort it out.”
I rose, bracing my hands on my hips. “I would never meddle in someone else’s affairs!”
He only raised a brow in silent challenge. And I knew precisely what he referred to.
My gut tightened as I took a seat at the vanity and began braiding my hair into a coronet atop my head. Perhaps I was a coward, for not being able to ask it aloud, but I said down the bond, Was it a violation—going into Lucien’s mind like that?
I can’t answer that for you. Rhys came over and handed me a hairpin.
I slid it into a section of braid. I needed to be sure—that he wasn’t about to try to grab her, to sell us out.
He handed me another. And did you get an answer to that?
We worked in unison, pinning my hair into place. I think so. It wasn’t just about what he thought—it was the … feeling. I sensed no ill will, no conniving. Only concern for her. And … sorrow. Longing. I shook my head. Do I tell him? What I did?
Rhys pinned a hard-to-reach section of my hair. You have to deem whether the cost is worth assuaging your guilt.
The cost being Lucien’s tentative trust in me, this place. I crossed a line.
But you did it to ensure the safety of people you love.
I didn’t realize … I trailed off, shaking my head again.
He squeezed my shoulder. Didn’t realize what?
I shrugged, slouching on the cushioned stool. That it’d be so complicated. My face warmed. I know that sounds terribly na?ve—
It’s always complicated, and it never gets easier, no matter how many centuries I’ve been doing it.
I pushed around the extra hairpins on the vanity. It’s the second time I’ve gone into his mind.
Then say it’s the last, and be done with it.
I blinked, lifting my head. I’d painted my lips in a shade of red so dark it was nearly black, and they now pressed into a thin line.
He clarified, What’s done is done. Agonizing over it won’t change anything. You realized it was a line you didn’t like crossing, and so you won’t make that mistake again.
I shifted in my seat. Would you have done it?
Rhys considered. Yes. And I would have felt just as guilty afterward.
Hearing that settled something, deep down. I nodded once—twice.
If you want to make yourself feel a little better, he added, Lucien did technically violate the rules we set. So you were entitled to look into his mind, if only to ensure the safety of your sister. He crossed the line first.
That thing deep in me eased a bit more. You’re right.
And it was done.
I watched Rhys in the mirror as a dark crown appeared in his hands. The one of ravens’ feathers that I’d seen him wear—or its feminine twin. A tiara—which he gently, reverently, set before the braid we’d pinned into place atop my head. The original crown … it appeared atop Rhys’s head a moment later.
Together, we stared at our reflection. Lord and Lady Night.
“Ready to be wicked?” he purred in my ear.
My toes curled at the caress in that voice—at the memory of the last time we’d gone to the Court of Nightmares. How I’d sat in his lap—where his fingers had drifted.
I rose from the bench, facing him fully. His hands skimmed the bare skin along my ribs. Between my breasts. Down the outside of my thighs. Oh, he remembered, too.
“This time,” I breathed, kissing the tendril of tattoo that peeked just above the collar of Rhys’s black jacket, “I get to make Keir beg.”
CHAPTER
25
Amren hadn’t dressed Nesta in cobwebs and stardust, as Mor and I were clothed. And she hadn’t dressed Nesta in her own style of loose pants and a cropped blouse.
She had kept it simple. Brutal.
A dress of impenetrable black flowed to the dark marble floors of the throne room of the Hewn City, tight through the bodice and sleeves, its neckline skimming the base of her pale throat. Nesta’s hair had been swept into a simple style to reveal the panes of her face, the savage clarity of her eyes as she took in the assembled crowd, the towering carved pillars and the scaled beasts twined around them, the mighty dais and the throne atop it … and did not balk.
Indeed, Nesta’s chin only lifted with each step we took toward that dais.
One throne, I realized—that mighty throne of those twined, scaly beasts.