A Court of Wings and Ruin

Rhys said it so mildly that the threat took a second to register. To settle in me like a stone plunked into a pool.

Lucien only shifted on his feet. Wary. Considering. I counted the heartbeats, debating how much I’d interfere if he said something truly stupid, when he at last murmured, “There is a longer story to be told, it seems.”

Smart answer. The rage ebbed from Rhys’s face—and Cassian’s and Azriel’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.

Just once, Lucien had said to me, during those days on the run. That was all he wanted—to see Elain only once.

And then … I’d have to figure out what to do with him. Unless my mate already had some plan in motion.

One look at Rhys, who lifted his brows as if to say He’s all yours, told me it was my call. But until then … I cleared my throat.

“I’m going to see my sisters up at the House,” I said to Lucien, whose eyes snapped to mine, the metal one tightening and whirring. I forced a grim smile to my face. “Would you like to come?”

Lucien weighed my offer—and the three males monitoring his every blink and breath.

He only nodded. Another wise decision.

We were gone within minutes, the quick walk up to the roof of the town house serving as Lucien’s tour of my home. I didn’t bother to point out the bedrooms. Lucien certainly didn’t ask.

Azriel left us as we took to the skies, murmuring that he had some pressing business to attend to. From the glare Cassian gave him, I wondered if the shadowsinger had invented it to avoid carrying Lucien to the House of Wind, but Rhys’s subtle nod to Azriel told me enough.

There were indeed matters afoot. Plans in motion, as they always were. And once I finished visiting my sisters … I’d get answers of my own.

So Cassian bore a stone-faced Lucien into the skies, and Rhys swept me into his arms, shooting us gracefully into the cloudless blue.

With every wing beat, with every deep inhale of the citrus-and-salt breeze … some tightness in my body uncoiled.

Even if every wing beat brought us closer to the House looming above Velaris. To my sisters.

The House of Wind had been carved into the red, sun-warmed stone of the flat-topped mountains that lurked over one edge of the city, with countless balconies and patios jutting to overhang the thousand-foot drop to the valley floor. Velaris’s winding streets flowed right to the sheer wall of the mountain itself, and snaking through it wove the Sidra, a glittering, bright band in the midday sun.

As we landed on the veranda that edged our usual dining room, Cassian and Lucien alighting behind us, I let it sink in: the city and the river and the distant sea, the jagged mountains on the other side of Velaris and the blazing blue of the sky above. And the House of Wind, my other home. The grand, formal sister to the town house—our public home, I supposed. Where we would hold meetings and receive guests who weren’t family.

A far more pleasant alternative to my other residence. The Court of Nightmares. At least there, I could stay in the moonstone palace high atop the mountain under which the Hewn City had been built. Though the people I’d rule over … I shut them from my thoughts as I adjusted my braid, tucking in strands that had been whipped free by the gentle wind Rhys had allowed through his shield while flying.

Lucien just walked to the balcony rail and stared out. I didn’t quite blame him.

I glanced over a shoulder to where Rhys and Cassian now stood. Rhys lifted a brow.

Wait inside.

Rhys’s smile was sharp. So you won’t have any witnesses when you push him over the railing?

I gave him an incredulous look and strode for Lucien, Rhys’s murmur to Cassian about getting a drink in the dining room the only indication of their departure. That, and the near-silent opening and closing of the glass doors that led into the dining room beyond. The same room where I’d first met most of them—my new family.

I came up beside Lucien, the wind ripping strands of his red hair free from where he’d tied it at his nape.

“This isn’t what I expected,” he said, taking in the sprawl of Velaris.

“The city is still rebuilding after the Hybern attack.”

His eyes dropped to the carved balcony rail. “Even though we had no part in that … I’m sorry. But—that’s not what I meant.” He glanced behind us, to where Rhys and Cassian waited inside the dining room, drinks now in hand, leaning all too casually against the giant oak table in its center.

They became immensely interested in some spot or stain on the surface between them.

I scowled at them, but swallowed. And even though my sisters waited inside, even though the urge to see them was so tangible I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a rope tugging me into the House, I said to Lucien, “Rhys saved my life on Calanmai.”

So I told him. All of it—the story that perhaps would help him understand. And realize how truly safe Elain was—he now was. I eventually summoned Rhys to explain his own history—and he gave Lucien the barest details. None of the vulnerable, sorrowful bits that had reduced me to tears in that mountain cabin. But it painted a clear enough picture.

Lucien said nothing while Rhys spoke. Or when I continued with my tale, Cassian often chiming in with his own account of how it’d been to live with two mated-yet-un-mated people, to pretend Rhys wasn’t courting me, to welcome me into their little circle.

I didn’t know how long had passed when we finished, though Rhys and Cassian used the time to unabashedly sun their wings by the open balcony ledge. I left off our story at Hybern—at the day I’d gone back to the Spring Court.

Silence fell, and Rhys and Cassian again walked away, understanding the emotion swimming in Lucien’s eye—the meaning of the long breath he blew out.

When we were alone, Lucien rubbed his eyes. “I’ve seen Rhysand do such … horrible things, seen him play the dark prince over and over. And yet you tell me it was all a lie. A mask. All to protect this place, these people. And I would have laughed at you for believing it, and yet … this city exists. Untouched—or until recently, I suppose. Even the Dawn Court’s cities are nothing so lovely as this.”

“Lucien—”

“And you love him. And he—he truly does love you.” Lucien dragged a hand through his red hair. “And all these people I have spent my centuries hating, even fearing … They are your family.”