Even I paused at that. And Nesta, stones and bones now in hand … She made no move to close her eyes. “I—am I to … touch it?”
“No,” Amren warned. “Just come close. Find it, but do not interact.”
Nesta still didn’t move. She could not use the bathtub, she’d told me. Because the memories it dragged up—
Cassian said to her, “Nothing can harm you here.” He sucked in a breath, groaning softly, and rose to his feet. Azriel tried to stop him, but Cassian brushed him off and strode for my sister’s side. He braced a hand on the desk when he at last stopped. “Nothing can harm you,” he repeated.
Nesta was still looking at him when she finally shut her eyes. I shifted, and the angle allowed me to see what I hadn’t detected before.
Nesta stood before the map, a fist of bones and stones clenched over it. Cassian remained at her side—his other hand on her lower back.
And I marveled at the touch she allowed—marveled at it as much as I did the mud-splattered hand she held out. The concentration that settled over her face.
Her eyes shifted beneath their lids, as if scanning the world. “I don’t see anything.”
“Go deeper,” Amren urged. “Find that tether between you.”
She stiffened, but Cassian stepped closer, and she settled again.
A minute went by. Then another.
A muscle twitched on Nesta’s brow. Her hand bobbed.
Her breath then came fast and hard, her lips curling back as she panted through her teeth.
“Nesta,” Cassian warned.
“Quiet,” Amren snapped.
A small noise came out of her—one of terror.
“Where is it, girl,” Amren coaxed. “Open your hand. Let us see.”
Nesta’s fingers only clutched tighter, the whites of her knuckles as stark as the stones held within them.
Too deep—whatever she had done—
I lunged for her. Not physically, but with my mind.
If Elain’s mental gates were those of a sleeping garden, Nesta’s … They belonged to an ancient fortress, sharp and brutal. The sort I imagined they once impaled people upon.
But they were open wide. And inside …
Dark.
Dark like I had never known, even with Rhysand.
Nesta.
I took a step into her mind.
The images slammed into me.
One after one after one, I saw them.
The army that stretched into the horizon. The weapons, the hate, the sheer size.
I saw the king standing over a map in a war-tent, flanked by Jurian and several commanders, the Cauldron squatting in the center of the room behind them.
And there was Nesta.
Standing in that tent, watching the king, the Cauldron.
Frozen in place.
With undiluted fear.
“Nesta.”
She did not seem to hear me as she stared at them.
I reached for her hand. “You found it. I see—I see where it is.”
Nesta’s face was bloodless. But she at last dragged her attention to me. “Feyre.”
Surprise lit her terror-wide eyes.
“Let’s go back,” I said.
She nodded, and we turned. But we felt it—we both did.
Not the king or the commanders plotting with him. Not Jurian as he played his deadly game of deception. But the Cauldron. As if some great sleeping beast opened an eye.
The Cauldron seemed to sense us watching. Sense us there.
I felt it stir—like it would lunge for Nesta. I grabbed my sister and ran.
“Open your fist,” I ordered her as we sprinted for the iron gates to her mind. “Open it now.”
She only panted, and that monstrous force swelled behind us, a black wave rising up.
“Open it now, or it will get in here. Open it now, Nesta!”
I heard the words as I threw myself out of her mind—heard them because I’d been shouting in that tent.
With a gasp, Nesta’s fingers splayed wide, scattering stones and bones over the map.
Cassian caught her with an arm around the waist as she swayed. He hissed in pain at the movement. “What the hell—”
“Look,” Amren breathed.
There was no throw that could have done it—save for one blessed by magic.
The stones and bones formed a perfect, tight circle around a spot on the map.
Nesta and I went pale. I had seen the size of that army—we both had. While Hybern had been driving us northward, letting us chase them in these two battles …
The king had amassed his host along the western edge of the human territory.
Perhaps no more than a hundred miles from our family’s estate.
Rhys called in Tarquin and Helion to show them what we’d discovered.
Too few. We had too few soldiers, even with three armies here, to take on that host. I’d shown Rhysand what I’d seen—and he’d shown it to the others.
“Kallias will arrive soon,” Helion said, dragging his hands through his onyx hair.
“He’d have to bring forty thousand soldiers,” Cassian said. “I doubt he has half that.”
Rhys was staring and staring at that cluster of stones and bones on the map. I could feel the wrath rippling off him—not just at Hybern, but himself for not thinking Hybern might be deliberately toying with us. Positioning us here.
We’d won the high ground these two battles—Hybern had won the high ground in this war.
He knew what waited in the Middle.
And Hybern had now forced us to gather here—in this spot—so that he and his behemoth army could drive us northward. A clean sweep from the south, eventually pushing us into the Middle or forcing us to break apart to avoid the lethal tangle of trees and denizens.
And if we took the battle to them … We might court death.
None of us were foolish enough to risk building any plans around Jurian, regardless of where his true allegiance lay. Our best chance was in buying time for other allies to arrive. Kallias. Thesan.
Tamlin had chosen who to back in this war. And even if he’d picked Prythian, he would have been left with the problem of mustering a Spring Court force after I’d destroyed their faith in him.
And Miryam and Drakon … Not enough time, Rhys said to me. To hunt for them—find them, and bring back their army. We could return to find Hybern has wiped our own off the map.
But there was the Carver—if I dared risk retrieving his prize. I didn’t mention it, didn’t offer it. Not until I could know for certain—once I wasn’t about to faint from exhaustion.