You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.
CHAPTER
39
“Do you think you can decode it once we get the other half?” I said to
Amren, lingering by the front door of her apartment the next afternoon.
She owned the top floor of a three-story building, the sloped ceiling
ending on either side in a massive window. One looked out on the Sidra; the
other on a tree-lined city square. The entire apartment consisted of one giant
room: the faded oak floors were covered in equally worn carpets, furniture
was scattered about as if she constantly moved it for whatever purpose.
Only her bed, a large, four-poster monstrosity canopied in gossamer,
seemed set in a permanent place against the wall. There was no kitchen—
only a long table and a hearth burning hot enough to make the room near-
stifling. The dusting of snow from the night before had vanished in the dry
winter sun by midmorning, the temperature crisp but mild enough that the
walk here had been invigorating.
Seated on the floor before a low-lying table scattered with papers, Amren
looked up from the gleaming metal of the book. Her face was paler than
usual, her lips wan. “It’s been a long while since I used this language—I
want to master it again before tackling the Book. Hopefully by then, those
haughty queens will have given us their share.”
“And how long will relearning the language take?”
“Didn’t His Darkness fill you in?” She went back to the Book.
I strode for the long wooden table and set the package I’d brought on the
scratched surface. A few pints of hot blood—straight from the butcher. I’d
nearly run here to keep them from going cold. “No,” I said, taking out the
containers. “He didn’t.” Rhys had already been gone by breakfast, though
one of his notes had been on a bedside table.
Thank you—for last night, was all it had said. No pen to write a response.
But I’d hunted down one anyway, and had written back, What do the
tattooed stars and mountain on your knees mean?
The paper had vanished a heartbeat later. When it hadn’t returned, I’d
dressed and gone to breakfast. I was halfway through my eggs and toast
when the paper appeared beside my plate, neatly folded.
That I will bow before no one and nothing but my crown.
This time, a pen had appeared. I’d merely written back, So dramatic. And
through our bond, on the other side of my mental shields, I could have
sworn I heard his laugh.
Smiling at the memory, I unscrewed the lid on the first jar, the tang of
blood filling my nostrils. Amren sniffed, then whipped her head to the glass
pints. “You—oh, I like you.”
“It’s lamb, if that makes a difference. Do you want me to heat it up?”
She rushed from the Book, and I just watched as she clutched the jar in
both hands and gulped it down like water.
Well, at least I wouldn’t have to bother finding a pot in this place.
Amren drank half in one go. A trickle of blood ran down her chin, and
she let it drip onto her gray shirt—rumpled in a way I’d never seen.
Smacking her lips, she set the jar on the table with a great sigh. Blood
gleamed on her teeth. “Thank you.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
She jerked her bloody chin, then wiped it with a napkin as she realized
she’d made a mess. “Lamb has always been my favorite. Horrible as it is.”
“Not—human?”
She made a face. “Watery, and often tastes like what they last ate. And
since most humans have piss-poor palates, it’s too much of a gamble. But
lamb … I’ll take goat, too. The blood’s purer. Richer. Reminds me of—
another time. And place.”
“Interesting,” I said, and meant it. I wondered what world, exactly, she
meant.
She drained the rest, color already blooming on her face, and placed the
jar in the small sink along the wall.
“I thought you’d live somewhere more … ornate,” I admitted.
Indeed, all her fine clothes were hanging on racks near the bed, her
jewelry scattered on a few armoires and tables. There was enough of the
latter to provide an emperor’s ransom.
She shrugged, plopping down beside the Book once more. “I tried that
once. It bored me. And I didn’t like having servants. Too nosy. I’ve lived in
palaces and cottages and in the mountains and on the beach, but I somehow
like this apartment by the river the best.” She frowned at the skylights that
dotted the ceiling. “It also means I never have to host parties or guests. Both
of which I abhor.”
I chuckled. “Then I’ll keep my visit short.”
She let out an amused huff, crossing her legs beneath her. “Why are you
here?”
“Cassian said you’d been holed up in here night and day since we got
back, and I thought you might be hungry. And—I had nothing else to do.”
“Cassian is a busybody.”
“He cares about you. All of you. You’re the only family he has.” They
were all the only family they each had.
“Ach,” she said, studying a piece of paper. But it seemed to please her
nonetheless. A gleam of color caught my attention on the floor near her.
She was using her blood ruby as a paperweight.
“Rhys convinced you not to destroy Adriata for the blood ruby?”
Amren’s eyes flicked up, full of storms and violent seas. “He did no such
thing. That convinced me not to destroy Adriata.” She pointed to her
dresser.
Sprawled across the top like a snake lay a familiar necklace of diamonds
and rubies. I’d seen it before—in Tarquin’s trove. “How … what?”
Amren smiled to herself. “Varian sent it to me. To soften Tarquin’s
declaration of our blood feud.”
I’d thought the rubies would need to be worn by a mighty female—and
could think of no mightier female than the one before me. “Did you and
Varian … ?”
“Tempting, but no. The prick can’t decide if he hates or wants me.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
A low chuckle. “Indeed.”
Thus began weeks of waiting. Waiting for Amren to relearn a language
spoken by no other in our world. Waiting for the mortal queens to answer
our request to meet.
Azriel continued his attempt to infiltrate their courts—still to no avail. I
heard about it mostly from Mor, who always knew when he’d return to the
House of Wind, and always made a point to be there the moment he touched
down.
She told me little of the specifics—even less about how the frustration of
not being able to get his spies or himself into those courts took a toll on
him. The standards to which he held himself, she confided in me, bordered
on sadistic.
Getting Azriel to take any time for himself that didn’t involve work or
training was nearly impossible. And when I pointed out that he did go to
Rita’s with her whenever she asked, Mor simply informed me that it had
taken her four centuries to get him to do that. I sometimes wondered what
went on up at the House of Wind while Rhys and I stayed at the town
house.
I only really visited in the mornings, when I filled the first half of my day
training with Cassian—who, along with Mor, had decided to point out what
foods I should be eating to gain back the weight I’d lost, to become strong
and swift again. And as the days passed, I went from physical defense to
learning to wield an Illyrian blade, the weapon so fine, I’d nearly taken
Cassian’s arm off.
But I was learning to use it—slowly. Painfully. I’d had one break from
Cassian’s brutal training—just one morning, when he’d flown to the human
realm to see if my sisters had heard from the queens and deliver another
letter from Rhys to be sent to them.
I assumed seeing Nesta went about as poorly as could be imagined,
because my lesson the following morning was longer and harder than it’d
been in previous days. I’d asked what, exactly, Nesta had said to him to get
under his skin so easily. But Cassian had only snarled and told me to mind
my own business, and that my family was full of bossy, know-it-all females.
Part of me had wondered if Cassian and Varian might need to compare
notes.
Most afternoons … if Rhys was around, I’d train with him. Mind to
mind, power to power. We slowly worked through the gifts I’d been given
—flame and water, ice and darkness. There were others, we knew, that had
gone undiscovered, undelved. Winnowing still remained impossible. I
hadn’t been able to do it since that snowy morning with the Attor.
It’d take time, Rhys told me each day, when I’d inevitably snap at him—
time, to learn and master each one.
He infused each lesson with information about the High Lords whose
power I’d stolen: about Beron, the cruel and vain High Lord of the Autumn
Court; about Kallias, the quiet and cunning High Lord of Winter; about
Helion Spell-Cleaver, the High Lord of Day, whose one thousand libraries
had been personally looted by Amarantha, and whose clever people
excelled at spell work and archived the knowledge of Prythian.
Knowing who my power had come from, Rhys said, was as important as
learning the nature of the power itself. We never spoke of shape-shifting—
of the talons I could sometimes summon. The threads that went along with
us looking at that gift were too tangled, the unspoken history too violent
and bloody.
So I learned the other courts’ politics and histories, and learned their
masters’ powers, until my waking and sleeping hours were spent with flame
singeing my mouth and hoarfrost cracking between my fingers. And each
night, exhausted from a day of training my body and powers, I tumbled into
a heavy sleep, laced with jasmine-scented darkness.
Even my nightmares were too tired to hound me.
On the days when Rhys was called elsewhere, to deal with the inner
workings of his own court, to remind them who ruled them or mete out
judgment, to prepare for our inevitable visit to Hybern, I would read, or sit
with Amren while she worked on the Book, or stroll through Velaris with
Mor. The latter was perhaps my favorite, and the female certainly excelled
at finding ways to spend money. I’d peeked only once at the account Rhys
had set up for me—just once, and realized he was grossly, grossly
overpaying me.
I tried not to be disappointed on those afternoons that he was gone, tried
not to admit that I’d begun looking forward to it—mastering my powers,
and … bantering with him. But even when he was gone, he would talk to
me, in the notes that had become our own strange secret.
One day, he’d written to me from Cesere, a small city in the northeast
where he was meeting with the few surviving priestesses to discuss
rebuilding after their temple had been wrecked by Hybern’s forces. None of
the priestesses were like Ianthe, he’d promised.
Tell me about the painting.
I’d written back from my seat in the garden, the fountain finally revived
with the return of milder weather, There’s not much to say.
Tell me about it anyway.
It had taken me a while to craft the response, to think through that little
hole in me and what it had once meant and felt like. But then I said, There
was a time when all I wanted was enough money to keep me and my family
fed so that I could spend my days painting. That was all I wanted. Ever.
A pause. Then he’d written, And now?
Now, I’d replied, I don’t know what I want. I can’t paint anymore.
Why?
Because that part of me is empty. Though maybe that night I’d seen him
kneeling in the bed … maybe that had changed a bit. I had contemplated the
next sentence, then written, Did you always want to be High Lord?
A lengthy pause again. Yes. And no. I saw how my father ruled and knew
from a young age that I did not want to be like him. So I decided to be a
different sort of High Lord; I wanted to protect my people, change the
perceptions of the Illyrians, and eliminate the corruption that plagued the
land.
For a moment, I hadn’t been able to stop myself from comparing: Tamlin
hadn’t wanted to be High Lord. He resented being High Lord—and maybe
… maybe that was part of why the court had become what it was. But
Rhysand, with a vision, with the will and desire and passion to do it …
He’d built something.
And then gone to the mat to defend it.
It was what he’d seen in Tarquin, why those blood rubies had hit him so
hard. Another High Lord with vision—a radical vision for the future of
Prythian.
So I wrote back, At least you make up for your shameless flirting by
being one hell of a High Lord.
He’d returned that evening, smirking like a cat, and had merely said
“One hell of a High Lord?” by way of greeting.
I’d sent a bucket’s worth of water splashing into his face.
Rhys hadn’t bothered to shield against it. And instead shook his wet hair
like a dog, spraying me until I yelped and darted away. His laughter had
chased me up the stairs.
Winter was slowly loosening its grip when I awoke one morning and
found another letter from Rhys beside my bed. No pen.
No training with your second-favorite Illyrian this morning. The queens
finally deigned to write back. They’re coming to your family’s estate
tomorrow.
I didn’t have time for nerves. We left after dinner, soaring into the
thawing human lands under cover of darkness, the brisk wind screaming as
Rhys held me tightly.
My sisters were ready the following morning, both dressed in finery fit for
any queen, Fae or mortal.
I supposed I was, too.
I wore a white gown of chiffon and silk, cut in typical Night Court
fashion to reveal my skin, the gold accents on the dress glittering in the
midmorning light streaming through the sitting room windows. My father,
thankfully, would remain on the continent for another two months—due to
whatever vital trade he’d been seeking across the kingdoms.
Near the fireplace, I stood beside Rhys, who was clad in his usual black,
his wings gone, his face a calm mask. Only the dark crown atop his head—
the metal shaped like raven’s feathers—was different. The crown that was
the sibling to my gold diadem.
Cassian and Azriel monitored everything from the far wall, no weapons
in sight.
But their Siphons gleamed, and I wondered what manner of weapon,
exactly, they could craft with it, if the need demanded it. For that had been
one of the demands the queens had issued for this meeting: no weapons. No
matter that the Illyrian warriors themselves were weapons enough.
Mor, in a red gown similar to mine, frowned at the clock atop the white
mantel, her foot tapping on the ornate carpet. Despite my wishes for her to
get to know my sisters, Nesta and Elain had been so tense and pale when
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