Lucien swore. “They went through the wall last night. To hunt them down.”
Even with hours separating them, the royals were Fae—swift, immortal. The three Children of the Blessed would have tired after running, would have camped somewhere.
Blood was already drying on the grass, on the trunks of the surrounding trees.
Hybern’s brand of torture wasn’t very creative: Clare, the golden queen, and these three … A similar mutilating and torment.
I unfastened my cloak and carefully laid it over the biggest remains of them I could find: the torso of the young man, clawed up and bloodless. His face was still etched in pain.
Flame heated at my fingertips, begging me to burn them, to give them at least that sort of burial. But— “Do you think it was for sport, or to send us a message?”
Lucien laid his own cloak across the remains of the two young women. His face was as serious as I’d ever seen it. “I think they aren’t accustomed to being denied. I’d call this an immortal temper tantrum.”
I closed my eyes, trying to calm my roiling stomach.
“You aren’t to blame,” he added. “They could have killed them out in the mortal lands, but they brought them here. To make a statement about their power.”
He was right. The Children of the Blessed would have been dead even if I hadn’t interfered. “They’re threatened,” I mused. “And proud to a fault.” I toed the blood-soaked grass. “Do we bury them?”
Lucien considered. “It sends a message—that we’re willing to clean up their messes.”
I surveyed the clearing again. Considered everything at stake. “Then we send another sort of message.”
CHAPTER
8
Tamlin paced in front of the hearth in his study, every turn as sharp as a blade.
“They are our allies,” he growled at me, at Lucien, both of us seated in armchairs flanking the mantel.
“They’re monsters,” I countered. “They butchered three innocents.”
“And you should have left it alone for me to deal with.” Tamlin heaved a jagged breath. “Not retaliated like children.” He threw a glare in Lucien’s direction. “I expected better from you.”
“But not from me?” I asked quietly.
Tamlin’s green eyes were like frozen jade. “You have a personal connection to those people. He does not.”
“That’s the sort of thinking,” I snapped, clutching the armrests, “that has allowed for a wall to be the only solution between our two peoples; for the Fae to look at these sorts of murders and not care.” I knew the guards outside could hear. Knew anyone walking by could hear. “The loss of any life on either side is a personal connection. Or is it only High Fae lives that matter to you?”
Tamlin stopped short. And snarled at Lucien, “Get out. I’ll deal with you later.”
“Don’t you talk to him like that,” I hissed, shooting to my feet.
“You have jeopardized this alliance with that stunt you two pulled—”
“Good. They can burn in hell for all I care!” I shouted. Lucien flinched.
“You sent the Bogge after them!” Tamlin roared.
I didn’t so much as blink. And I knew the sentries had heard indeed by the cough of one outside—a sound of muffled shock.
And I made sure those sentries could still hear as I said, “They terrorized those humans—made them suffer. I figured the Bogge was one of the few creatures that could return the favor.”
Lucien had tracked it down—and we’d lured it, carefully, over hours, back to that camp. Right to where Dagdan and Brannagh had been gloating over their kill. They’d managed to get away—but only after what had sounded like a good bit of screaming and fighting. Their faces remained bloodless even hours later, their eyes still brimming with hate whenever they deigned to look at us.
Lucien cleared his throat. Stood as well. “Tam—those humans were barely more than children. Feyre gave the royals an order to stand down. They ignored it. If we let Hybern walk all over us, we stand to lose more than their alliance. The Bogge reminded them that we aren’t without our claws, too.”
Tamlin didn’t take his eyes off me as he said to Lucien, “Get. Out.”
There was enough violence in the words that neither Lucien nor I objected this time as he slipped from the room and shut the double doors behind him. I speared my power into the hall, sensing him sitting on the foot of the stairs. Listening. As the six sentries in the hall were listening.
I said to Tamlin, my back ramrod straight, “You don’t get to speak to me like that. You promised you wouldn’t act this way.”
“You have no idea what’s at risk—”
“Don’t you talk down to me. Not after what I went through to get back here, to you. To our people. You think any of us are happy to be working with Hybern? You think I don’t see it in their faces? The question of whether I am worth the dishonor of it?”
His breathing turned ragged again. Good, I wanted to urge him. Good.
“You sold us out to get me back,” I said, low and cold. “You whored us out to Hybern. Forgive me if I am now trying to regain some of what we lost.”
Claws slid free. A feral growl rippled out of him.
“They hunted down and butchered those humans for sport,” I went on. “You might be willing to get on your knees for Hybern, but I certainly am not.”
He exploded.
Furniture splintered and went flying, windows cracked and shattered.
And this time, I did not shield myself.
The worktable slammed into me, throwing me against the bookshelf, and every place where flesh and bone met wood barked and ached.
My knees slammed into the carpeted floor, and Tamlin was instantly in front of me, hands shaking—
The doors burst open.
“What have you done,” Lucien breathed, and Tamlin’s face was the picture of devastation as Lucien shoved him aside. He let Lucien shove him aside and help me stand.
Something wet and warm slid down my cheek—blood, from the scent of it.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Lucien said, an arm around my shoulders as he eased me from the room. I barely heard him over the ringing in my ears, the slight spinning to the world.
The sentries—Bron and Hart, two of Tamlin’s favorite lord-warriors among them—were gaping, attention torn between the wrecked study and my face.
With good reason. As Lucien led me past a gilded hall mirror, I beheld what had drawn such horror. My eyes were glassy, my face pallid—save for the scratch just beneath my cheekbone, perhaps two inches long and leaking blood.
Little scratches peppered my neck, my hands. But I willed that cleansing, healing power—that of the High Lord of Dawn—to keep from seeking them out. From smoothing them away.
“Feyre,” Tamlin breathed from behind us.
I halted, aware of every eye that watched. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” I wiped at the blood dribbling down my cheek. “I’m fine,” I told him again.
No one, not even Tamlin, looked convinced.
And if I could have painted that moment, I would have named it A Portrait in Snares and Baiting.
Rhysand sent word down the bond the second I was soaking in the bathtub.
Are you hurt?
The question was faint, the bond quieter and tenser than it had been days ago.
Sore, but fine. Nothing I can’t handle. Though my injuries still lingered. And showed no signs of a speedy healing. Perhaps I’d been too good at keeping those healing powers at bay.
The reply was a long time coming. Then it came all at once, as if he wanted to cram every word in before the difficulty of the distance silenced us.
I know better than to tell you to be careful, or to come home. But I want you home. Soon. And I want him dead for putting a hand on you.
Even with the entirety of the land between us, his rage rippled down the bond.
I answered, my tone soothing, dry, Technically, his magic touch
ed me, not his hand.
The bathwater was cold by the time his reply came through. I’m glad you have a sense of humor about this. I certainly don’t.
I sent back an image of me sticking out my tongue at him.
My clothes were back on when his answer arrived.
Like mine, it was wordless, a mere image. Like mine, Rhysand’s tongue was out.
But it was occupied with doing something else.