Of Hearts and Swords - Chapter 16 - QueenofNightmares (2024)

Chapter Text

The King of Prythian stood with his hands in his pockets, looking every bit the picture of unruffled ease.

Feyre leveled a glare at him that might’ve sent a lesser male running. And though he didn’t balk, his beautiful face seemed unnaturally gray. The slightly larger male—Cassian, she'd been told—had two wicked blades crossed in front of him, appearing for all the world like he was poised and ready to fight. But Lysandra scanned his face from her perch inside the riding pack tied to the wyvern's saddle. Cassian appeared more inclined to throw himself out of the hole Feyre had just blasted through the wall than meet her eye.

“Nithe,” Feyre murmured, running a gentle hand across one of the beast’s massive scales. The creature purred, huffing a breath into the room that sent a plume of dust and debris skittering across the floor and over the males' boots.

Someone was chained to the wall on the opposite end of the study, watching everything unfold in stunned silence. A male from Midgard, she realized—she recognized the wings. She'd met another angel once, many years ago. Baxter? Baxton? She couldn't remember. She wondered if this angel could even understand what anyone was saying. Unless he spoke the common tongue of Prythian, he’d need Wyrd-based magic to transcend the language barrier between words. Or something else, she supposed.

Through the suffocating dust Lysandra saw the slice of Rhysand’s smile. “Welcome home, Feyre.”

Feyre swung her leg over Nithe's saddle and slipped gracefully down her scaled neck. Her boots crunched over broken wood and glass, but Rhysand moved—turned on a heel before Lysandra could see his face clearly through the hazy air. He aimed right for a bar cart and plucked up a bottle filled with a strange purple liquid. It didn’t look like any liquor or cider she’d ever seen.

With her tiny mouse's feet, Lysandra scurried out of her pack and down Nithe's body, then zipped across the floor towards the bookshelf. She needed to be up and out of sight. She scampered and leapt, hopping over bindings and perfectly dusted pages until she was nestled in the blooming soil of a potted iris.

“I know it’s been a while since you’ve been here,” Rhysand drawled, “but we do have a front door.” His back remained to Feyre. She'd mentioned to Lysandra that he had wings, but that he hid them sometimes. He must be hiding them now.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

He glanced back at her as he poured a knuckle's worth of liquid into a glass. “Indeed.” Lysandra watched the male down the mixture in a single gulp. He set the empty glass down and poured again—his hand hovering a moment, as if deciding whether to have more—before it dipped and he poured himself another.

Feyre snorted.

“New tincture." Rhysand set down the bottle and held his glass up to the faelight, making a show of watching it swirl and eddy about. It nearly sparkled. “Madja makes it for me.” He threw the second glass back before finally turning to face his mate.

Feyre stared at him. “For your arthritic knee?”

His lips twitched. “Something like that.” He leaned against the cart, folding his arms.

Feyre sauntered over and ran her hands along the tops of the bottles. She pulled them away, examining invisible dust on her fingertips. "The wards around Velaris were down. Expecting me?"

The male’s expression remained unreadable, but he said, “I suspected Elain's presence amongst our armies might've earned your ire." He shrugged. "I didn't feel like rebuilding the wards when you inevitably brought them crashing down. Though I admit I didn't account for the possibility of having to rebuild my study."

"That was rather shortsighted of you."

Rhysand pushed off the bar cart, rising to his full height. He was tall—about as towering as Rowan was to Aelin. "I have other things on my mind."

Feyre's pretty mouth was a cruel slash of a smile. It looked wrong on her.

"How could I forget."

She stepped around him to examine the room. It was large and well decorated, full of books and baubles and shelves of strange enchanted objects. A salt-scented breeze blew in off the nearby river, fluttering the cream curtains and brushing strands of Feyre’s golden-brown hair across her face. Rhysand's eyes tracked the movement.

She’d ridden in on Nithe wearing witch leathers—had spent long enough in Erilea with the Crochans that she’d eventually commissioned a set of her own. They made Feyre's usually soft features sharper, more defined. Her eyes settled on some strange golden contraption resting on a dais in the corner of the room. Feyre walked towards it, and Lysandra moved to follow. She hopped from the fat pages of a history text to the shelf below, running along an adjacent bookshelf until she was closer to the peculiar device. Cassian's head whipped around as if he’d heard her, and she paused, peeking out from behind an ornate clay urn. But the warrior just eyed the bookshelf a moment longer before turning back to the argument.

Lysandra crept closer on silent feet. Four orbs—planets, she realized—circled and clicked along golden rings, all of them running against a strange circle that looked like a clock—but not.

“You’ve made some changes to this,” Feyre observed.

”Much has changed,” Rhysand said simply.

She turned to face the male. “So you’ve found it?”

Rhysand reached forward and ran a finger along a golden ring of one of the planets, ignoring her question. Lysandra had no idea what Feyre was referring to—but it didn't matter. Her reason for being here was simple, and it didn't involve understanding whatever the hell it was they were talking about.

Feyre motioned to the contraption again. "Show me." His jaw tightened at the command in her voice, but he scanned the glittering device before gesturing to one of the orbs ticking slowly along its ring. Feyre walked towards it, marveling as she reached up a hand. "Does Amren know?" She brushed the tip of her finger against the golden planet. It was small—the smallest of the four planets showcased on the device.

"Amren was the one who ultimately found it. But—" a ghost of a smile, "—I like to think I helped." He touched the rotating orb. "It was added to the orrery as soon as we discovered it. As far as I'm aware, there are no gates to that world. No magic that can open any." He gazed with creased brows at the tiny planet.

"What do they call it?"

Rhysand didn't respond, and Feyre dropped her hand, turning to stare at him. He watched her with an odd sort of expression; like he half expected her to blast the thing—the orrery, he'd called it—apart. Like he was inclined to put himself between her and it before she could attempt that.

"Is she going back?" she probed.

"She already did."

"I'm sorry,” she murmured. It sounded genuine. "You must miss her."

A beat of silence, then, "Yes."

Feyre turned back to the orrery. "Will she return to Prythian?"

"I don’t know."

Feyre pursed her lips, considering his words for a moment before brushing past him and moving towards the massive desk on the opposite end of the room—where to Lysandra's immense surprise, a gigantic portrait of Feyre hung mounted on the wall.

The Archeron girl was beautiful. Her blue-grey eyes were bright and kind, offsetting the full red lips capable of such wit and charm that it had earned Aelin's silent admiration and brought Fenrys to tears with laughter on multiple occasions. Lysandra wished she'd known the female for longer. Wished things were different, and they'd been granted the time to become friends, because she just knew they would be. But Lysandra looked at Feyre now—noticed the smattering of freckles across the female's cheeks that made her look youthful and endearing and simply . . . lovely, and her heart strained. Because the Feyre painted in that massive space behind the King's desk . . . that Feyre was a different person. A person full of life and joy, her face stretched into a smile so open and delighted that it took Lysandra's breath away.

Feyre ignored it completely.

She aimed for the desk, ruffling through paperwork, carelessly knocking glasses, toppling stacks of books, until—

She lifted a worn leather-bound book with frayed edges. Lysandra raised herself higher on her back legs to look at the cover. It was painted with an odd symbol made of three interlacing arcs. Feyre ran her thumb across it, pausing for a moment longer before flipping it over to examine the back of the book. There were pages missing—at least two or three, ripped jaggedly from the binding. She set it aside.

Underneath it lay another book, the cover revealing what appeared to be words in the same language as the first, though she'd never seen that alphabet before today.

She couldn’t see Feyre’s face, but she watched her fingers hover over the cover; it was small and red, with simple lettering adorning the top. She opened it gingerly.

"Can you read it?" If Lysandra hadn't known better, she might've thought Feyre sounded . . . awed.

Rhysand was silent for a moment before asking quietly, "Can you?"

Feyre turned to him, enough that Lysandra could see her expression. Something had sparked in the lady's eyes; an emotion that Lysandra couldn't quite place. Something stashed in the legroom between humor and annoyance, perhaps. She grabbed the book, eyes fluttering across the page until they paused on a line. Her lips quirked.

“‘This is a sharp time, now. A precise time. We live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world.’” She tossed the book aside. “Kind of a fitting line, don’t you think?”

Rhysand half-turned towards her, his eyes wary and his face hard. Still, he said nothing. Feyre jerked her chin towards the orrery—towards the planet they'd been observing earlier. Waiting. Expectant.

Rhysand drew a slow breath as he watched her. Then he said, "From the texts I can find on the matter—from what we've gleaned so far—they called it Earth."

Feyre nodded absently, looking lost in thought as she gazed across the planets. Everyone was silent; Cassian, standing watchful and alert, squeezed the hilts of his still-drawn blades. The male in chains on the floor assessed them with preternatural stillness. Finally Feyre said, "Do you have a theory on how the books got here?"

Rhysand slid his hands once again into his pockets. "There must have been a portal once. I'm still trying to work that out—the Wyrdmarks won't open to that world. I'm not sure magic ever existed on Earth in the first place. If it did, it's been long gone. So whatever—however someone managed to open that world to allow a crossing, it was likely through some other force."

Feyre considered. "A world of humans?"

Rhysand's eyes shifted back to his mate. "Apparently so. They had a strange culture. Our best bet was that they sought to create an artificial type of power that would rival magic. Something synthetic that effectuated similar results. They studied it and devoted jobs to it as a science of sorts. They made curious devices with lights and clockwork, rigs and levers and all sorts of things. It’s not unlike what we've encountered on Midgard, as a matter of fact." He co*cked his head, lost in thought. "I opined that perhaps Midgard is where the crossing bled into, and yet . . ." he trailed off again, eyes going distant.

"And yet Amren arrived here. In Prythian."

Rhysand nodded."With no prior knowledge of Midgard when Bryce first arrived here."

"Two rips," she murmured so quietly that Lysandra had to strain to hear it, then said, "beings from Earth crossing to different worlds, at different times." She hummed and looked at the orrery. “ Is . . . when Amren returned there, did she—was she returned back to her original form?" A note of concern filled Feyre's voice, and for the first time, Rhysand's expression betrayed a hint of emotion. It was quick—there and gone, but Lysandra saw it. The flash of something sad in his face.

"Whatever gods ruled that planet have long since abandoned it. The creatures that lived there destroyed it, laid ruin to the world until it was a wasteland."

A wasteland? Lysandra’s pointed little ears twitched. Feyre blinked. “Is it still occupied?”

”Sparsely,” he eyed her, “but yes.”

Feyre took a deep breath. "So what does an angel of death do when there's no longer a god to serve?"

Rhysand's countenance turned, his expression one of cool assessment. Of near-cruelty. "Finally taking an interest in my hobbies, Feyre? Did life grow too boring for you over in Erilea?"

She matched his tone instantly, her face hardening. "You certainly went through a lot of effort to get me to stay there. Though that doesn't answer my question."

"I couldn't risk your presence here. Not when we're on the cusp of accomplishing this."

She scoffed and said, "We?"

"My family—Cassian and Amren—were willing to help in ways that you were not." His voice was clipped, and Lysandra felt the words sting like a slap even though they weren't directed at her. Yet nothing showed on Feyre's face; she just smiled whimsically at Rhysand.

"And the Asteri?"

Rhysand took a step closer. "You should know by now, Feyre, that there is no ally I won't win, no cost I won't pay to get what I want. I don't care who helps me acquire it, or whether the world is razed to the ground in the process."

"So that's it, then—what Sibila promised you in return for your allegiance to them. Enough of their power to send Amren back, to prove it could be done. And when you help them win this war, enough to send you back as well."

He said through gritted teeth, "A deal I would not have had to make, if not for you."

"I wonder," she stepped closer, "if the Asteri know that's what was promised, or if she's as big a liar to them as you are to me."

He smirked. "She's better."

Feyre nodded. "And what does she get out of this? Out of betraying them in the end?"

He brought a hand to his chest in feigned outrage. "Is an eternity at my side not enough?"

“Tell me.”

He waved her off. “That’s her own business, and not mine to share. Suffice it to say that for reasons she may or may not feel like disclosing, she wants the Asteri destroyed, and she’s more inclined to work with you and your merry band of misfits than continue as a double agent under the Asteri.”

“She is their spybreaker,” Feyre countered.

“There are many betrayers in their ranks. Some that you would not expect. And you can wreak quite the havoc from inside, believe me.” He examined his nails. “But at some point, one must pick up the knife and strike.” He threw her an amused glance.

It was a strange way to phrase it, but Lysandra understood what he was saying. She’d been working in the shadows against Arobynn for a long while before she slit his throat. Before it was finally time to act.

“I’m sure she appreciates your discretion on the matter—that you’re so willing to keep her motives a secret. But it makes me wonder why you’re not as discreet with respect to her loyalties. Or your own.”

A slow smile spread across Rhysand’s sensuous lips. “Indeed.”

Feyre took a step closer. “You know what I think?”

Rhysand leaned into her presence, gazing down at her intently, though his face was unreadable.

“I think you allied with the Asteri not to kill them, but to use them. They’re siphoners—that’s how they acquire so much power in the first place. You realized that defeating them is a waste of what they possess. And when I wouldn’t help you, you changed course. You planned to get close enough to them to eventually use their own tricks against them—to siphon their own power. They’re monsters, so you had no qualms about betraying them.”

Rhysand watched her. Waited.

“Sibila was your way in. And you bothwreaked a lot of havocworking undercover for a while. I’m assuming the most recent battles won by the Free World in Erilea were due to your meddling. I’m also assuming that you were the brains behind convincing them to abandon an entire planet.”

He looked smug. Lysandra didn’t know him, but he had a very slappable face when he looked like that.

“But things aren’t going as smoothly for you two anymore, are they?”

He shrugged, the picture of arrogance. “All marriages have their problems.”

She ignored him. “The Asteri are a difficult enemy to defeat. Even from the inside. You have your own plans for dealing with them, but something tells me that your wife wasn’t willing to be patient enough for them to unfold.” Lysandra didn’t miss the inflection.

“Small annoyances,” he said casually. “Nothing I couldn’t remedy.”

“Let me guess,” she crooned, earning a single mirthless chuckle from Rhysand. “I’m the wildcard. I’m the only person outside your court who knows your big secret—the only one who could ruin everything for you if I chose to walk that path. If I won’t join you, then I’m a liability. You need me out of your way, and I just won’t stay gone.”

He ran a hand down his sleeve, sweeping away invisible dust.

What an ass,Lysandra observed.

”But here’s what I can’t figure out,” she held up a finger, thinking. “The other High Lords —Helion, Kallias—after Under the Mountain, you’d worn too many masks to get away with playing the villain again. They never would have believed you. And even if they did, they would have fought you the moment you made them kneel as their King. Which means they’re in on it.”

“I must’ve missed the question.”

“How?”

He raised a hand, picking once more at already perfect nails. “How . . . what? Be specific please, Feyre. I’m getting slower in my old age.”

Acolossalass is more like it.

Feyre let no annoyance show. “How did you convince them to go along with a plan that permanently instills you as a King over them, their people, and their territories.” She said it as a statement, not a question, clearly in no mood for games. “They made a blood oath to you. That’s a lot of trust, even for allies. I doubt that you assuring them of your eventual demise would have been convincing enough.”

Rhysand’s presence was imposing before her, but she didn’t balk. Tendrils of night leaked from his body, as if he were bleeding it out into the world. He smiled at her, and it was a thing of nightmares. Then he looked at Cassian—grave but alert. He looked at the male on the floor. “What a question.”

He moved, walking towards her, his gait heavy with menace. “Look at you,” he said quietly, raising his hand to tuck a stray tendril of hair behind one of her ears. “Thinking you have everything figured out.”

“Why don’t you tell me where my imagination deviates from reality.”

“I want to be honest with you, Feyre.” He leaned even closer, causing them to share breath. The darkness swelling around him seeming to deepen, become denser. They were mere inches apart, and the hand he’d raised to tuck her hair lingered at the base of her throat. Like he could just as easily caress her as he could strange her—and it was all the same to him.

“You’re right,” he conceded, co*cking his head as he assessed her. She kept still as he grazed his knuckles across her collarbone. “About everything. You always were.” Another sweep of his hand. This time, it brushed sideways, pushing her long, unbound hair behind a shoulder. “But Sibila’s impatience is a malady I don’t share. I’ve always been content to play the long game.” He brought his thumb down to grip her chin. "I do not need the Asteri, or the High Lords. I do not need her remarkable ass in my bed every night, and I certainly don’t need my pesky mate’s borrowed powers. I might prefer some options over the others,” he shrugged, “but I’m a male of reason. So while Sibila’s imprudent haste in fulfilling her plans may have led you back here today, I’m not bound to honor anything she offered you.” His fingers moved again—wrapped around her throat. “So you will find,” he stepped closer, until they were eye to eye, nose to nose, gazing at each other, “that you coming here today was a very, very big mistake.”

For someone with a male’s hand at her throat, Feyre remained remarkably calm. Lysandra watched, waiting for what she came here to hear.

“Yes,” Feyre breathed. “That. I’ve thought about that every day since I left.”

Rhysand’s eyes flicked to his hand at her throat, then back up. “What.”

“What you said to me before I left. Why you feel the way you do.”

For the second time, emotion plagued his face. His eyes went wholly black, gleaming with anger, as he abruptly released her throat. “Oh?”

Feyre didn’t seem affected in the least. She knew what she was doing, and Lysandra waited for it.

“Yes. And I want to know something.”

Cassian shifted on his feet. Rhysand waited, his face tight. Feyre stared at him for a moment longer before asking, “Did you mean it?”

Lysandra was sure she was asking about Nyx. Even with Feyre's in-depth briefing of the plan in Vallahan's war room, she'd been tight-lipped about the loss that haunted her day and night. But she had that look in her eye—that quiet, solitary sadness that only a mother grieving a child could feel.

It was the mirror of a child yearning for a mother—a feeling Lysandra knew well as a little girl, and still knew from time to time. This line of conversation wasn’t exactly part of the plan, but if it gave Feyre the information she needed, she didn’t care—she listened. She must be asking whether Rhysand had meant it when he said he’d found a way to bring their son back. Lysandra and Aedion didn’t have children yet, but they had Evangeline, and if something happened to her—

She couldn't finish the thought. Her throat constricted, even in her little mouse’s body. Perhaps her heart would always remain the same no matter the body she bore.

“Did you mean it,” she whispered again.

Rhysand stared at her for a heavy moment before saying in a half-broken voice, “Yes.”

Cassian dropped his gaze to the floor. And Rhysand . . . Rhysand just watched her, his face perfectly guarded.

She nodded. “I came to make a deal.”

“Oh?” he said again.

She nodded. “You can spout all the bullsh*t you want about not caring who your ally is. You can make a show of being above Sibila’s scheming. But I know you, as much as you don’t want me to.” A muscle ticked in his jaw, but Feyre went on. “You say you're a male of reason, but that’s only the half of it. You’re a male of opportunity. And I think I have an offer you’ll be interested in.”

Feyre reached into the hidden pocket at her breast, pulling out a small, folded stack of papers.

“Where did you get these,” he asked quietly after a moment.

“That’s not part of the deal.”

His eyes, which at one point looked to be a deep, vibrant shade of blue, now seemed to be as dark as the night outside. They turned to Feyre’s face.

”You will be a double agent for us,” she began. “You will work in our ranks, and your conning will have a purpose beyond your own motivations.” His eyes flashed—at what she was saying or at the command in her voice, Lysandra couldn’t tell. “You will expend every resource at your disposal and you will win us this war.”

His brows rose.

“And in return, I will help you bring Nyx back.”

It was the first time she’d said his name, and Rhysand visibly flinched. He tossed the papers she’d given him on the desk. “I already have the power of the other six High Lords,” he snapped. “I no longer need you to lend it to me.”

“Six High Lords are not as powerful as six Asteri,” she countered calmly.

He prowled a step closer, again closing the distance between them. “And how many Asteri is my power worth?” The darkness sweeping across the room pulsed.

Feyre didn’t cower away from it; she raised her chin higher—took her own step closer. “It’s not worth anything if you fail.”

“Why now? You had power to offer five years ago, and still you wouldn’t consider it. Am I to believe that Sibila’s little speech moved you so thoroughly that you abandoned all your principles?”

“No,” she shook her head. “That’s not what changed my mind.”

“Then what did?”

She jerked her chin towards the papers he’d scattered over the desk. “You don’t know what those say, do you?”

He threw her an irritated glare. “How could I? They’ve been missing since I came into possession of that book,” then he added haughtily, “I don’t suppose you’re confessing to being the one to rip them out?”

She ignored him. " There was no guarantee that it could be done when you came to me five years ago. There was too much unknown about what you were dabbling in."

"And now you have all the answers?" he drawled incredulously.

"I have the only answer I need."

He took another step, again towering over her. From beyond the shattered windows, it might've appeared to the world that they were two lovers drinking in each other's presence; that they were chatting intimately in the moments before embrace. But Lysandra knew better.

"And what," Rhysand said through gritted teeth, "would that be."

"That it will work."

He blinked, the only sign that he was surprised by what she was saying. She seized the opening and continued. "The book is a journal. But you already knew that." His eyes were on her mouth as she spoke. "It's the journal of someone who did the exact thing you want to do. But you've never known how it ended for him, and it's driven you crazy. It's been the one thing that's held you back—well," she added with a mirthless chuckle, "besides me. You've been trying to work backwards, to piece together whether the ruin that became of Earth had something to do with the power he invoked. And despite all your peaco*cking about razing the world to the ground, you're a good male. And a good ruler. If Nyx's life costs you your soul, you'll pay that price. But if it costs the souls of everyone in Prythian—"

"Get to your point."

She offered him a humorless smile. "It worked for him. He brought her back." Rhysand swallowed, and Lysandra watched his face twist into something like pain when she added, "and it destroyed his world."

Rhysand's nostrils flared and he took a breath. Another. Another. He said nothing, and the room remained silent. He finally said, his voice tight, "Then I suppose you're here to convince me to find another way."

She shook her head. "I'm here to help you do it right. With my power. With Aelin Galathynius' power. With Rowan Whitethorn, and Dorian Havilliard." She rattled off names—some he clearly knew, some he didn't. "The man who attempted this on Earth didn't have these wells of power behind him. And because of that, I think what was required . . . I think it took from the world itself—splitting it. Destroying it. If this is done right, then there will be only one casualty."

He stared at her, the insinuation heavy between them, before he asked quietly, “And I’m to trust you?”

"I have never lied to you. I have never hidden anything from you, or acted behind your back. Can you say the same?"

Darkness continued to seep from every corner of the room; bleeding, creeping like smoke. Thicker and thicker until Lysandra shrank back—until she felt her skin start to prickle and her fur stand on end. Until the poor male on the floor had gone white, watching the darkness as if were a spreading wildfire about to consume them all. Until the warrior named Cassian gripped the hilts of his swords so forcefully that the leather groaned.

Rhysand’s face was tight, eyes darting between her lips and her eyes, and Feyre went in for the kill. She murmured, “I said no before. You can resent me for it. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel the same.” She took a deep breath. “But I think we’re both just going to have to get over that. You’re not going to throw away everything you’ve worked for because of pride. Take my offer. Work with us.” She finally stepped back, leaving her words bare between them. An opportunity that was his for the taking, if he wished it.

“Rhys,” Cassian murmured. It was the first time the male had spoken. The King’s eyes cut to the warrior—a sharp expression, then flicked back to Feyre.

"What of Sibila?" he asked.

Feyre didn't hesitate. "I want her, too. On the inside." Rhysand's expression was unreadable, but something crossed his face that Lysandra couldn't understand.

"Rhys," the male said again, an edge of warning in his tone. But the King didn’t acknowledge him; he looked at no one but his mate, cold calculation plainly written on his face.

“There are others involved in this,” he said finally. “On Midgard. Others who wish to bring someone back. Let them in on this, and I’m yours.”

Feyre turned wary eyes to the male in chains on the floor. “Him?”

Rhysand looked at the male, who was now scowling at the both of them.

“Yes,” he said carefully, eyeing the chains. “And a few others. Only one life though.”

“And who will be the sacrifice for that exchange?” she asked bitterly.

He gave her an arrogant smile, but she was already shaking her head.

“It’s a soul payment. You may have enough power to accomplish bringing two people back from the dead, but you can only pay for one with your life. You need someone else.”

“We have that covered.”

“Who?” she pressed.

But he crooned, “That’s not part of the deal,” throwing her earlier words back in her face.

They stared at each other, this moment between them suspended in silence, this path stretched out before them.

“Help us win this war,” she said slowly, “and I swear to you, Rhysand, that I will give you everything you need to bring our son back.”

His eyes flickered. “If we’re going to be working together, won’t you call me Rhys?”

“You once told me that your enemies call you Rhysand.”

“You won’t be my enemy anymore.” He reached forward, tucking the stubborn hair from before once again behind her ear.

“But you’ll still be mine,” she breathed into the space between their bodies. It was the way she said it—the way she told him he was hers that made the words hit their mark.

Rhysand paused, his eyes going wholly black. Otherworldly. They flicked to her mouth, and he abruptly dropped his hand, sliding it back into his pocket. “That’s an excellent turn of phrase. Well done. Now allow me to make one adjustment to your terms.” He leaned into her again, his face intense. “I will do everything in my power to help the Free World win this war. And in return, you will do everything needed to trade my life and the life of a being of my choosing to bring back two souls.”

“Rhys.” Cassian’s voice was reaching an octave of true concern. But the King kept his eyes trained on Feyre, searching her face.

“I will not stand in your way when you trade your life for Nyx’s,” she countered.

The distinction seemed to matter to him, because he pursed his lips and scanned her face. Lysandra couldn’t imagine why it would make a difference. He seemed to be contemplating the same thought.

“Rhys—”

“I’ve heard fantastic things about hate sex,” he grinned, his voice dripping with arrogance. “Are you sure you don’t want to barter for that, instead?”

Feyre stared at him. “So it’s a bargain?”

Something shifted in the room; a strange charge zipping through like a current. A collectively held breath by the masters of universe themselves. Rhysand’s face was hard again, all jest gone. He extended a tattooed hand.

“It’s a bargain, Feyre.”

Feyre grasped it.

A small flare of light, then dark etchings appeared across Feyre’s throat, as if she were wearing a necklace. Lysandra couldn’t see the tattoo snaking its way across Rhysand’s skin, wherever it ended up.

Rhysand beheld the design with furrowed brows. “I’ve never seen a bargain mark there,” he murmured, still clutching Feyre’s hand. The magic wasn’t yet finished—intricate whirls and delicate, strange markings were still flowering around her neck, but she snatched her hand away.

Lysandra didn’t need to hear more. The deal was done. She moved—hastened across her shelf and jumped, tiny claws digging and snagging into a curtain as she slid down, down, down. Again, the warrior named Cassian looked over in alarm, sensing or hearing something, but Lysandra was already gone—halfway to the shattered window and Nithe’s sleeping, massive head. If more was said between them, she didn’t hear it. She climbed until she was faced with the great expanse of open air, and then she leapt.

Light filled her vision, and it was as if her bones and muscles were pulled in a glorious stretch. It was not painful, but it tingled and crackled as her skeleton reformed and her muscles shifted. She grew, head becoming scaled and heavy. Large, membranous wings folded out from her body, and she banked from her free fall into a gentle glide. City lights twinkled below her, begging her to sweep across the night sky. But she turned back towards Rhysand’s now-ruined estate, towards the three males gawking and alarmed at the wyvern who’d just popped out of nowhere.

“Damnit,” Cassian spat—loud enough that Lysandra could hear him over the wind. He raised his swords, then lowered them, probably realizing how useless the weapons would be against her. She batted her wings once, twice, until she could land as gingerly as possible on the ground.

Rhysand looked furious. He glared at Feyre. “Never kept anything from me, haven’t you?”

Feyre began to stalk towards Nithe. “This is Lysandra,” she said blandly. “She’ll be your escort in the morning.”

Lysandra dropped her head, weaving it through beams until her snout was mere paces away from Rhysand. Then she opened her massive maw, exposed every one of her sharp teeth, and roared in his face.

And despite the veracity at which she did so, she had to hand it to the male—he weathered it. He stood unmoving, eyes squeezed shut against the wind of her breath, and lips pressed tight against his temper. When she finally stopped, he blinked his eyes open and heaved the breath he must’ve been holding.

“Hello, Lysandra,” he said sourly. “So lovely to make your acquaintance. But I’m sorry to say that we do notneed an escort.”

Lysandra huffed. Feyre had already mounted Nithe and was twisting the reigns, commanding her to return to the skies. The great beast rustled, waking from her nap.

“You will arrive in Vallahan tomorrow morning accompanied by two of our emissaries. Lysandra will accompany you,” she said, referring to Rhysand, before jerking her head towards Cassian. “Yours is on the way. She had more important things to do first.”

Lysandra didn’t miss the glint of hurt in Cassian’s eyes, or the flare of anger that immediately followed.

“She—”

“It’s not Nesta. And speaking of my sister, you will stay away from her while we end this war together. Unless she comes to you, leave her alone.”

Cassian looked torn between outrage and offense. He opened his mouth, but Rhysand snapped, “Later, Cassian.” The warrior’s face contorted in rage, but he kept his mouth shut. He turned his attention back to Feyre, now perched atop Nithe’s saddle.

“We do not require escorts,” he said coolly. “Nor did the bargain we made include any arrangement to leave Velaris.”

“You swore to do everything in your power to help us win this war. And that is exactly what you are going to do.”

His eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

Feyre smiled down at him. “I’ll brief you on the plan when you arrive in the morning. Sleep tight.”

She was adjusting the reigns and about to command Nithe to fly when Rhysand called to her, "You’ve changed, Feyre.”

Feyre paused. Lysandra watched.

His face became cruel; became the face of the person his reputation warned of him to be.

“You remind me of her when you’re like this. But I suppose loss will do that to someone. It did it to her.”

Something in Rhysand's expression had shifted. He'd shown emotion today—plenty of it, for someone so obviously used to control. He'd been annoyed, and angry, and upset. Lysandra had been with enough men and women to notice that he'd even cast a few prurient glances at her backside when she'd strutted about in those witch leathers. But those emotions were always kept on a tight leash. They didn't bleed into his tone when he spoke to her. Which is why now, the words he started to speak struck so much differently.

"You're so much like her I think I'll dream of it tonight. Only now it'll be your face that haunts me. So thank you, Feyre. For finally driving away the memory of Amarantha."

Lysandra flapped her wings, not privy to the joke, and made to rise into the sky when she spotted Feyre’s expression. She’d gone pale, her lips pressed together firmly to—

Her bottom lip quivered slightly, and alarm shot though Lysandra's chest. Feyre was trying not to cry. What did the insult mean? Feyre hadn't once let his barbed retorts bother her. But now?

She didn't have time to ponder it further; Feyre yanked Nithe's reigns and the beast jolted, flinging its head to the side so violently that another portion of wall was knocked to the ground. It roared into the night, the cry reverberating off of the mountains so fiercely that it sent sheets of snow tumbling off of even the most distant peaks. Rhysand watched it happen with an odd expression. Something that struck Lysandra so deeply that it hurt.

Aedion had looked at her like that once.

You can go to hell, you lying bitch,he’d shouted at her on that beach. And the way Aedion had looked at Lysandra . . . that was how Rhysand was looking at Feyre now.

Feyre saw that in his face—saw and understood, just as Lysandra had at the time.

Then Feyre was gone, soaring through the sky on Nithe's back. Rhysand watched them go, his hair wind-blown from the flurry left in the wyvern’s wake.

Lysandra watched him with curiosity for a moment longer before turning to disappear into the darkness.