Nesta let out a breathy, sharp noise and surged from her chair.
I lunged for her, nearly tripping over the skirts of my dress as she staggered back, a hand clutching at her chest.
Another step would have taken her stumbling into the reflection pool, but Mor sprang forward, gripping her. “What’s wrong?” Mor demanded, holding my sister upright as her face contorted in what looked to be—pain. Confusion and pain.
Sweat beaded on Nesta’s brow, though her face went deathly pale. “Something …” The word was cut off by a low groan. She sagged, and Mor caught her fully, scanning Nesta’s face. Cassian was instantly there, his hand at her back, teeth bared at the invisible threat.
“Nesta,” I said, reaching for her.
Nesta seized—then twisted past Cassian to empty her stomach into the reflection pool.
“Poison?” Kallias asked, pushing Viviane behind him. She merely stepped around his arm. Tamlin remained seated, his jaw a hard line, monitoring us all.
But Helion and Thesan strode forward, grim and focused. Helion’s power flickered around him like blindingly bright fireflies, darting to my sister, landing on her gently.
Thesan, glowing gold and rosy, laid a hand on Nesta’s arm. Healing.
“Nothing,” they said together.
Nesta rested her head against Mor’s shoulder, her breathing ragged. “Something is wrong,” she managed to say. “Not with me. Not me.”
But with the Cauldron.
Rhys was having some sort of silent conversation with Azriel and Cassian, the latter monitoring every breath my sister took. But the two Illyrians nodded to Rhys, and began stalking for the open windows—to fly out.
Nesta moaned, body tensing as if she’d vomit again. But then we felt it.
A shuddering through the earth. Through air and stone and green, growing things.
As if some great god blew a breath across the land.
Then the impact came.
Rhys threw himself over me so fast I didn’t register wholly that the mountain itself shook, that the building swayed. We hit the stones as debris rained, and I felt him readying to winnow—
Then it stopped.
Screaming rose up from the valley below. But silence reigned in the palace. Amongst us.
Nesta vomited again, and Mor let her sag to the floor this time.
“What in hell—” Helion began.
But Rhys hauled his body off mine, his tan face draining of color. His lips going bloodless as he stared southward. Far, far southward.
I felt his magic spear from him, a shooting star across the land.
And when he looked back at us, his eyes went right to me. It was the fear in them—the sorrow and fear—that made my mouth go wholly dry. That made my blood run cold.
Rhys swallowed. Once. Twice. Then he declared hoarsely, “The King of Hybern just used the Cauldron to attack the wall.”
Murmuring—some gasps.
Rhys swallowed a third time, and the ground slid out from under me as he clarified, “The wall is gone. Shattered. Across Prythian, and on the continent.” He said again, as if convincing himself, “We were too late—too slow. Hybern just destroyed the wall.”
CHAPTER
49
Nesta’s connection to the Cauldron, Rhys mused as we gathered around the dining table in the town house, had allowed her to sense that the King of Hybern was rallying its power.
The same way I was able to wield the connection to the High Lords to track their traces of power, and to find the Book and Cauldron, Nesta’s own power—own immortality—was so closely bound to the Cauldron that its dreadful presence, when awoken, brushed through her, too.
That was why he hunted her. Not just for the power she’d taken … but for the fact that Nesta was a warning bell.
We’d all departed the Dawn Court within minutes, Thesan promising large shipments of faebane antidote to every High Lord and army within two days, and that his Peregryns would begin readying themselves under his captain’s command—to join the Illyrians in the skies.
Kallias and Helion swore their own terrestrial armies would march as soon as possible. Only Tamlin, whose southern border covered the entire wall, was unaccounted for—his armies in shambles. Helion just said to Tamlin before the latter left, “Get your people out. Bring whatever host you can muster.” Whatever remained after me.
Tarquin echoed the sentiment, along with his promise to offer safe harbor for the Spring Court. Tamlin didn’t reply to either of them. Didn’t confirm that he would be bringing forces before he winnowed—without a glance at me. A small relief, since I hadn’t decided whether to demand his sworn help or spit on him.
Good-byes were brief. Viviane had embraced Mor tightly—then me, to my surprise. Kallias only clasped Rhys’s hand, a taut, tentative gesture, and vanished with his mate. Then Helion, with a wink at all of us. Tarquin was the last to go, Varian and Cresseida flanking him. His armada, they’d decided, would be left to guard his own cities while the bulk of his soldiers would march on land.
Tarquin’s crushing blue eyes flared as his power rallied to winnow them. But Varian said—to me, to Rhys—“Tell her thank you.” He put a hand on his chest, the fine gold-and-silver thread of his teal jacket glinting in the morning sun. “Tell her …” The Prince of Adriata shook his head. “I’ll tell her myself the next time I see her.” It seemed like more of a promise—that Varian would see Amren again, war or no. Then they were gone.
No word arrived from Beron before we uttered our farewells and gratitude to Thesan. Not a whisper that Beron might have changed his mind. Or that Eris might have persuaded him.
But that was not my concern. Or Nesta’s.
If the wall had come down … Too late. We’d been too late. All of that research … I should have insisted that if Amren deemed Nesta nearly ready, then we should have gone directly to the wall. Seen what she could do, spell from the Book or no.
Perhaps it was my fault, for wanting to shelter her, build her strength, for letting her remain withdrawn. But if I had pushed and pushed …
Even now, seated around the town house dining table in Velaris, I hadn’t decided whether the potential of breaking my sister permanently was worth the cost of saving lives. I didn’t know how Rhys and the others had made such decisions—for years. Especially during Amarantha’s reign.
“We should have evacuated months ago,” Nesta said, her plate of roast chicken and vegetables untouched. It was the first words any of us had spoken in minutes while we’d all picked at our food.
Elain had been told—by Amren. She now sat at the table, more straight-backed and clear-eyed than I’d seen her. Had she beheld this, in whatever wanderings that new, inner sight granted her? Had the Cauldron whispered of it while we’d been away? I hadn’t the heart to ask her.
Rhys was saying to Nesta, “We can go to your estate tonight—evacuate your household and bring them back here.”
“They will not come.”
“Then they will likely die.”
Nesta straightened her fork and knife beside her plate. “Can’t you spirit them away somewhere south—far from here?”
“That many people? Not without first finding a safe place, which would take time we don’t have.” Rhys considered. “If we get a ship, they can sail—”
“They will demand their families and friends come.”
A beat of silence. Not an option. Then Elain said quietly, “We could move them to Graysen’s estate.”
We all faced her at the evenness of her voice.
She swallowed, her slender throat so pale, and explained, “His father has high walls—made of thick stone. With space for plenty of people and supplies.” All of us made a point not to look at that ring she still wore. Elain went on, “His father has been planning for something like this for … a long time. They have defenses, stores …” A shallow breath. “And a grove of ash trees, with a cache of weapons made from them.”
A snarl from Cassian. Despite their po
wer, their might … However those trees had been created, something in the ash wood cut right through Fae defenses. I’d seen it firsthand—killed one of Tamlin’s sentinels with an arrow through the throat.
“If the faeries who attack possess magic,” Cassian said, and Elain recoiled at the harsh tone, “then thick stone won’t do much.”
“There are escape tunnels,” Elain whispered. “Perhaps it is better than nothing.”
A glance between the Illyrians. “We can set up a guard—” Cassian began.
“No,” Elain interrupted, her voice louder than I’d heard in months. “They … Graysen and his father …”
Cassian’s jaw tightened. “Then we cloak—”
“They have hounds. Bred and trained to hunt you. Detect you.”
A stiff silence as my friends contemplated how, exactly, those hounds had been trained.
“You can’t mean to leave their castle undefended,” Cassian tried a shade more gently. “Even with the ash, it won’t be enough. We’d need to set wards at the very minimum.”
Elain considered. “I can speak to him.”
“No,” I said—at the same moment Nesta did.
But Elain cut us off. “If—if you and … they”—a glance at Rhys, my friends—“come with me, your Fae scents might distract the dogs.”
“You’re Fae, too,” Nesta reminded her.
“Glamour me,” Elain said—to Rhys. “Make me look human. Just long enough to convince him to open his gates to those seeking sanctuary. Perhaps even let you set those wards around the estate.”
And with our scents to confuse the hounds … “This could end very badly, Elain.”
She brushed her thumb over the iron-and-diamond engagement ring. “It’s already ended badly. Now it’s just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences.”
“Wisely said,” Mor offered, smiling softly at Elain. She looked to Cassian. “You need to move the Illyrian legions today.”
Cassian nodded, but said to Rhys, “With the wall down, we need you to make a few things clear to the Illyrians. I need you at the camp with me—to give one of your pretty speeches before we go.”