Our goodbyes with Feyre’s sisters were short. Nesta seemed glad to be rid of us, queens and all. I didn’t argue with her for once. Nor did Cassian.

No one spoke as we flew home. Not even Feyre, who I carried through the warm, dry skies filled with an angry sun that seemed to sense the anger rolling underneath my skin.

Those queens were damned fools and they were going to make us all pay for it. Make all of them pay for it - my friends, my family, Feyre. Watching them all fly home, it would be my fault if they never made it. My fault if the court fell into ruin because the queens didn’t trust me enough to hand over the Book.

I thought about everything I’d done as we landed at the townhouse. Every single way I’d defiled myself to save this city for centuries. Letting people think me a whore, a murderer, and a tormentor who delighted in less savory carnal acts. I set Feyre down and walked past an awaiting Amren, needing to look out on the city and know it was worth it, but as I sat by the fountain in the courtyard, I couldn’t face my people. My eyes found the ground instead.

A thick scratching noise scraped against the flagstone, as seats were pulled apart and my friends sat with me. “If you’re out here to brood, Rhys,” Amren said across from me, “then just say so and let me go back to my work.”

I had no retort to give her as I met her gaze, so sharp and piercing as ever. “The humans wish for proof of our good intentions,” I said. “That we can be trusted.”

Amren shot to Feyre in a blaze. “Feyre was not enough?”

Feyre winced slightly, and I felt the bond wobble between us. “She is more than enough,” I said, feeling rage snap through me again at the implications of what those queens had inferred of our meeting. “They’re fools. Worse - frightened fools.”

“We could... depose them,” Cassian suggested. “Get newer, smarter queens on their thrones. Who might be willing to bargain.” There was no trace of humor. It was, on the whole, a serious suggestion and one that we might have taken up in the past.

Because this was what my court did. This was what I did, to maintain peace for a single city in the cold mountains of Prythian. Murdered innocent people and it made me a monster even the humans knew and feared.

And still, I considered it before shaking my head no. My gut twisting that my reasons had more to do with logistics than the morality of it.

“One, it’d take too long. We don’t have that time. Two, 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.” I pictured every one of those queens - even the sixth and missing one - and hissed. “We are stuck with them.”

“We could try again,” Mor said. Finally, I looked up and found her warm eyes watching me, understanding me even possibly. “Let me speak to them, let me go to their palace-”

“No,” Azriel said, cutting across her. Mor perked up, undoubtedly unused to Az’s fixed opinion against her, but the shadowsinger was set - and I couldn’t blame him. The things he’d told me of the palace were more than simply dangerous.

That didn’t stop Mor from staring at him incredulously, her voice sharpening as she redirected her attention to him. “I fought in the War, you will do well to remember-”

“No,” Azriel said again, staring right back at her determined. Every muscle in his body seemed to flex. “They would string you up and make an example of you.”

“They’d have to catch me first.”

Azriel’s wings shifted. Cassian and I shared a look and both equally tensed. “That palace is a death trap for our kind,” Azriel said, halfway toward getting up out of his seat and sitting next to Mor if it would convince her - if it would keep her safe. “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?”

Mor opened her mouth to retort, but Feyre spoke first. “If going into their territory isn’t an option, and deceit or any mental manipulation might make the magic wreck the Book... What proof can be offered? Who is - who is this Miryam?” Mor’s mouth closed, the moment forgotten. History flooding back to all of us as we looked at Feyre. “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.”

My heart slowed down, a weight pressing in. Whatever we did moving forward, it seemed all of our options would betray somebody.

“Five hundred years ago,” I said, “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...”

I trailed off, Mor picking up the pieces my scars barred me from recalling. “She made Amarantha seem as sweet as Elain.”

“Miryam 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.”

A cruel, dark blemish on the history of our kind was that era, no war needed.

“Tell the full story another time,” Amren said, clipped and rritated. “The gist of it, girl is that Miryam was given as a wedding gift by the queen to her betrothed, a foreign Fae prince named Drakon. He was horrified, and let Miryam escape. Fearing the queen’s wrath, she fled through the desert, across the sea, into more desert... and was found by Jurian. She fell in with his rebel armies, became his lover, and was a healer amongst the warriors. Until a devestating battle found her tending to Jurian’s new Fae allies - including Prince Drakon. Turns out, Miryam had opened his eyes to the monster he planned to wed. He’d broken the engagement, allied his armies with the humans, and had been looking for the beautiful slave-girl for three years. Jurian had no idea that his new ally coveted his lover. He was too focused on winning the War, on destroying Amarantha in the North. As his obsession took over, he was blind to witnessing Miryam and Drakon falling in love behind his back.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard Amren say so much in one go.

“It wasn’t behind his back,” Mor said, a near snarl. “Miryam ended it with Jurian before she ever laid a finger on Drakon.” She looked at Amren with a trace of that same regal warrior she’d stared the mortal queens down with. A queen in her own right, ready to defend her friends to the death - not against Amren, but in that war she’d lived through. I didn’t want to think of her fighting in one again.

Amren brushed her off easily. “Long story short, girl, when Jurian was slaughtered by Amarantha, and during the long centuries after, she told him what had happened to his lover. That she’d betrayed him for a Fae male. Everyone believed Miryam and Drakon perished while liberating her people from the Black Land at the end of the War - even Amarantha.”

Mor’s eyes flashed. She’d been there, marching through the sand and hell fires to help Miryam free her people.

“And they didn’t,” Feyre said, putting the pieces of the story together. “It was all a way to escape, wasn’t it? To start over somewhere else, with both their peoples?” Mor and I nodded simultaneously. “So why not show the queens that? You started to tell them-”

“Because,” I said, the words sounding tired - exhausted - even to me, “in addition to it not proving a thing about my character, which seemed to be their biggest gripe, it would be a grave betrayal of our friends. Their only wish was to remain hidden - to live in peace with their peoples. They fought and bled and suffered enough for it. I will not bring them into this conflict.”

“Drakon’s aerial army was as good as ours,” Cassian said softly, a thought more than a suggestion. “We might need to call upon him by the end.”

I shook my head.

No, not Drakon. Not Miryam. Not their armies nor their families, nor mine. And not the queens’ own lives forfeited for new ones. Each of those routes either ended with too much death or would not be enough to assure the queens of my own guilt.

If we were to get the book, I would have to take the risk again to right myself before them.

And I only knew one way to do that.

“So, what do we offer them instead?” Feyre asked. Everyone looked to me. “What do we show them?”

The queens wanted to know me - the real, true me. Then I would pay a steep price to give it to them if it would save us - save my city and my mate that I’d written so desperately about to those women.

I swallowed, my throat feeling raw. “We show them Velaris.”

“What?” Mor said. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“You can’t mean to bring them here,” Feyre said hesitantly.

“Of course not,” I replied. “The risks are too great, entertaining them for even a night would likely result in bloodshed. So I plan to merely show them.”

“They’ll dismiss it as mind tricks,” Azriel said, no doubt thinking of those beautifully laid dangers he’d met in their court.

Finally, I stood. I was tired. I was hungry. And I felt empty. “No, I mean to show them - playing by their own rules.”

“What do you mean, High Lord?” Amren asked, her eyes narrowed. But I faced my cousin, and she saw me for what I meant. Her skin paled, another curse at my feet to carry forward in this fight.

“Send word to your father. We’re going to pay him and my other court a visit.”

To my side, Feyre’s head slowly lifted to meet mine. The bond pulled taut.

Just one more curse to carry.

---

“What about-”

“No,” I said, stifling a sigh as I stared at the dark red liquid swirling inside my wine glass. All of us save Amren sat the dinner table. Mor’s face was heavy. “That city is too far north - too near Illyrian territory. If my reputation proceeds me to the mortal realms, the proximity to Illyrian territory may very well also. It doesn’t matter anyway. You’ve all suggested half a dozen cities already. None of them will hold as Velaris will.”

Mor looked away tersely, her lips tight. Cassian sat on one side staring hard at her, concern urging him to do something. He’d been restless since we’d sat down to dinner - almost as restless as Azriel’s shadows, who’d leave soon to contact his spies now that the plans were set for tomorrow’s visit to the Hewn City.

“I still don’t understand,” Feyre said on my right, “why any city will work, Velaris or no. What’s the Veritas? Why will the queens trust it?”

I parted my lips to answer, but Mor’s voice rang clear across the table even if she wouldn’t look at Feyre - or me. “The Veritas is my family’s most ancient gift,” she explained. “The wielded holds the ability to show truth - to show the world exactly as it is anywhere, at any given time, among other things. It was forged and given to my family that our bloodline might share that power and merge it with our natural magic. It is why the queens could hear my story and know that it was truth, even if...” Azriel leaned forward across from Mor as she ran her lips together, staring hard at her plate. “Even if it didn’t matter in the end anyway.”

“With the Veritas,” Cassian cut across for her, “the queens will be able to see Velaris and know with absolute certainty that it is real, safe, and most importantly, that Rhys isn’t the evil prick they think he is.”

Cassian’s eyes darted quickly to me, as if I might take offense, but I shook my head. He gave me a short nod.

“And you’re positive,” Feyre asked, hesitantly crossing her arms on the table as she looked at Mor, a line creasing her brow, “that there’s nothing else we can show them? Nothing that would equally prove-”

“No,” I said. Her eyes snapped to me, considering.

“Even...” She swallowed, allowing herself to remember even as the vision of us wailing and crying out across Amarantha’s blood-strewn floor together flashed across the bond and caused us both to cringe.

“Definitely not,” I said, breaking my gaze off. I took a sip of wine and sat the glass back on the table, my fingers picking at the stem. “Velaris is the only way. Tomorrow, we winnow in close to the base of the mountain and fly the rest of the way. You three,” and I pointed to Mor, Cassian, and Feyre - wishing it wasn’t Feyre, “will help me distract Keir while Azriel slips out to get the Orb. We stay no longer than necessary to avoid suspicion.”

Mor stood up abruptly from the table. “If we’re done here, I need to start preparing.”

“Mor-” Cassian said, jerking at her motion, and standing quickly to follow her.

But my cousin only made it a few steps, muttered, “I need to write my father to let him know we’re coming,” and winnowed. Her skin was ghost white.

Cassian ran a hand through his hair, his temper perhaps the only sentiment stronger in the room than my guilt. Azriel stood and walked over to his brother, placing a shadow-encrusted hand on his shoulder. “I’ll find her after I sort my spies out,” he said quietly.

“She’s not going to-”

“I know where she’ll be. And yes, she will.” They shared a hard look, one so private and intimate even to me, that Feyre and I both looked away.

A pause. And then, “Okay.”

Azriel left, Cassian not far behind with barely even a goodbye. A lengthy silence ensued before Feyre announced she was going for a walk. I didn’t object.

I had the table cleared with a snap of my fingers the second she left the door, my wine glass replaced with something much deeper and of a more amber coloring.

The house was too still and quiet as I poured a fresh glass. I thought of Mor and hated - hated - the way she refused to look at me before she left. It felt exactly the way losing Feyre’s first smile to Tarquin that morning she wouldn’t meet my gaze in Adriata had felt: broken and isolating.

I took a long sip of that drink, feeling it burn in my throat, just as it had when I’d received the blood rubies.

Tarquin.

Feyre.

Mor.

Mor .

She had told me many times over the years that she was not bothered to be a queen in a city that once made her a slave of its own liking. There were days she returned from the Hewn City looking empowered for having held court over the family she despised for what they’d done to her.

And then there were days like today, where I asked too much of her - to steal from her own family, to get perhaps too close to history. And it was only that sheer determination and duty to the crown Mor and I shared that kept her from breaking in two.

That, and Azriel. I hoped for both our sakes that he resolved his discussions with his spies and found my cousin quickly. Hurting her... was not something I wanted. Not ever . She deserved better than that for all she’d given our family since the day I’d met her. All of this city and more.

And yet... tomorrow she would wear the mask. We all would. Cassian the alpha male, dominating with his siphons and that aura that crackled like fire to fill a mountain top. Azriel, the phantom that would haunt and vanish like smoke, injecting fear into every heart he touched. And Feyre.

I did not want to think of what Feyre would have to become if she came tomorrow.

Feyre - who was out now looking at my city and possibly wondering if what she’d said about it when she escaped the Attor was no longer true. Feyre, who was now my friend. Would I sacrifice that friendship, that hope for more, to keep my crown - our crown , the bond begged me to think - safe? Could I?

I’d already forced the scene from filling out in my mind half a dozen times at dinner, knowing how she would hate me for the mask that I would wear tomorrow if she came. The one that had forced her to return to a place of pain and torture where I’d painted her body, drugged her, and splintered her bones. It wouldn’t matter why I’d done those things. Only that I’d done them at all.

Maybe Mor and Amren were right. Maybe I should... tell her.

I waited for her in the foyer near the stairs and wasn’t left waiting long. Feyre returned within close to an hour of her initial departure, her cheeks flushed from the walk and crisp air.

She took one look at me and halted, brows knitting together. “What’s wrong?” My heart sank.

Concern. My friend was concerned - for me.

“I’m debating asking you to stay tomorrow,” I said. Her chin jerked to one side brusquely, her arms crossing.

“I thought I was going.” Her eyes pleaded silently with me behind those few words. Behind that mind that thought I would lock her up like him . I could neither take her, nor leave her. Either way, I was damned.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to stay upright. The stairs looked inviting. “What I have to be tomorrow, who I have to become, is not...” Feyre’s chin dipped waiting, “it’s not something I want you to see. How I will treat you, treat others...”

“The mask of the High Lord,” she finished when I could not.

‘Whore...’

Both of us. We’d both be whores if Feyre went.

“Yes,” I said, and sat down, unable to stand any longer. The angle of the stairs felt sharp against my back, like the throne I would sit on in a matter of hours.

Feyre watched me from where she still stood, that momentary doubt and fire gone. “Why don’t you want me to see that?”

Tell her, Rhys. Tell her the truth .

Mor-

Tell her, damn it, or I’m not going tomorrow .

I sighed.

Alright, Mor - for you.

“Because,” I said slowly, “you’ve only started to look at me like I’m not a monster, and I can’t stomach the idea of anything you see tomorrow, being beneath that mountain, putting you back into that place where I found you.”

Feyre held my gaze, and... after a moment, I watched that crease in her brow release, felt the bond go soft and pliant. But her eyes - they were not afraid as they stared into the darkness.

“Let me help,” she said, resolute. “In whatever way I can.”

What would happen to that resolution if I brought her, dressed her up and objectified her before my entire court? “The role you will have to play is not a pleasant one.”

Feyre was walking purposefully toward me instantly, taking the small spot next to me on the stairs. She sat so close, our arms and knees brushed. That one simple touch meaning almost as much to me as the way she stared straight into my eyes past the stars and the bleakness and whispered, “I trust you.”

My friend - my mate.

My trust.

“Why did Mor look so disturbed when she left?” Feyre asked.

I swallowed roughly. By now, Azriel would be with Mor. And she’d be... better. I hoped.

“I was there, in the Hewn City, the day her father declared she was to be sold in marriage to Eris, eldest son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court.” Feyre’s eyes went wide - and rightfully so. “Eris had a reputation for cruelty, and Mor... begged me not to let it happen. For all her power, all her wildness, she had no voice, no rights with those people. And my father didn’t particularly care if his cousins used their offspring as breeding stock.”

That day had been... horrifying. And Mor had not begged me to save her so much as wept and mourned and all but thrown herself off the edges of the world if it would save her somehow.

“What happened?” Feyre’s voice came out particularly tiny. I missed the amber decanter I’d left sitting on the dining table.

“I brought Mor to the Illyrian camp for a few days. And she saw Cassian, and decided she’d do the one thing that would ruin her value to these people. I didn’t know until after, and... it was a mess. With Cassian, with her, with out families. And it’s another long story, but the short of it is that Eris refused to marry her. Said she’d been sullied by a bastard-born lesser faerie, and he’d now sooner fuck a sow. Her family... they...” A sharpness stung behind my eyes. I’d never forget the way she’d... how her stomach had... and Cassian, Azriel. My cousin - my Morrigan.

I scraped the pain off my throat enough to admit to Feyre, who sat dutifully at my side through every word, “When they were done, they dumped her on the Autumn Court border, with a note nailed to her body that said she was Eris’s problem.” Feyre sucked in a breath. I’d never felt the bond so quiet since those weeks of silence in between visits from the Spring Court. “Eris left her for dead in the middle of their woods. Azriel found her a day later. It was all I could do to keep him from going to either court and slaughtering them all.”

Mor-

She’ll be okay.

Still, I’d had to restrain my brother with magic to keep him from leaving her bedside and flying back to those woods of fall.

Thank you for finding her.

I would have gone to the ends of the world and back to find her.

Eyes like stone, he’d had that day.

I know you would have.

That was the day we’d become family - all four of us. I would not let it break. Not then. Not now. Not ever .

Too much. It was always too, too much, it seemed.

Whether she felt the tension in my veins or simply needed to relieve her own, Feyre’s gently took my hand and allowed me the privilege of keeping it. Her skin was soft as I brushed idle strokes back and forth over her palm.

And then she told me in that same resolute voice that would not, could not be broken anymore, “Tell me what I need to do tomorrow.”

I sighed, but squeezed her hand and told my friend the role she would play in my Court of Nightmares.