Her eyes lifted toward mine, round as saucers.

Beron spat, “Don’t talk to her, you human filth.”

Rhys shattered through Beron’s shield, his fire, his defenses.

Shattered through them like a stone hurled into a window, and slammed his dark power into Beron so hard he rocked back in his seat. Then that seat disintegrated into black, sparkling dust beneath him.

Leaving Beron to fall on his ass.

Glittering ebony dust drifted away on a phantom wind, staining Beron’s crimson jacket, clinging like clumps of ash to his brown hair.

“Don’t ever,” Rhys said, hands sliding into his pockets, “speak to my mate like that again.”

Beron shot to his feet, not bothering to brush off the dust, and declared to no one in particular, “This meeting is over. I hope Hybern butchers you all.”

But Nesta rose from her chair. “This meeting is not over.”

Even Beron paused at her tone. Eris sized up the space between my sister and his father.

She stood tall, a pillar of steel. “You are all there is,” she said to Beron, to all of us. “You are all that there is between Hybern and the end of everything that is good and decent.” She settled her stare on Beron, unflinching and fierce. “You fought against Hybern in the last war. Why do you refuse to do so now?”

Beron did not deign to answer. But he did not leave. Eris subtly motioned his brothers to sit.

Nesta marked the gesture—hesitated. As if realizing she indeed held their complete attention. That every word mattered. “You may hate us. I don’t care if you do. But I do care if you let innocents suffer and die. At least stand for them. Your people. For Hybern will make an example of them. Of all of us.”

“And you know this how?” Beron sneered.

“I went into the Cauldron,” Nesta said flatly. “It showed me his heart. He will bring down the wall, and butcher those on either side of it.”

Truth or lie, I could not tell. Nesta’s face revealed nothing. And no one dared contradict her.

She looked to Kallias and Viviane. “I am sorry for the loss of those children. The loss of one is abhorrent.” She shook her head. “But beneath the wall, I witnessed children—entire families—starve to death.” She jerked her chin at me. “Were it not for my sister … I would be among them.”

My eyes burned, but I blinked it away.

“Too long,” Nesta said. “For too long have humans beneath the wall suffered and died while you in Prythian thrived. Not during that—queen’s reign.” She recoiled, as if hating to even speak Amarantha’s name. “But long before. If you fight for anything—fight now, to protect those you forgot. Let them know they’re not forgotten. Just this once.”

Thesan cleared his throat. “While a noble sentiment, the details of the Treaty did not demand we provide for our human neighbors. They were to be left alone. So we obeyed.”

Nesta remained standing. “The past is the past. What I care about is the road ahead. What I care about is making sure no children—Fae or human—are harmed. You have been entrusted with protecting this land.” She scanned the faces around her. “How can you not fight for it?”

She looked to Beron and his family as she finished. Only the Lady and Eris seemed to be considering—impressed, even, by the strange, simmering woman before them.

I didn’t have the words in me—to convey what was in my heart. Cassian seemed the same.

Beron only said, “I shall consider it.” A look at his family, and they vanished.

Eris was the last to winnow, something conflicted dancing over his face, as if this was not the outcome he’d planned for. Expected.

But then he, too, was gone, the space where they’d been empty save for that black, glittering dust.

Slowly, Nesta sat, her face again cold—as if it were a mask to conceal whatever raged in her at Beron’s disappearance.

Kallias asked me quietly, “Did you master the ice?”

I gave a shallow nod. “All of it.”

Kallias scrubbed at his face as Viviane set a hand on his arm. “Does it make a difference, Kal?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

That fast, this alliance unraveled. That fast—because of my lack of control, my—

It either would have been this or something else, Rhys said from where he stood beside my chair, one hand toying with the glittering panels on the back of my gown. Better now than later. Kallias won’t break—he just needs to sort it through on his own.

But Tarquin said, “You saved us Under the Mountain. Losing a kernel of power seems a worthy payment.”

“It seems she took far more than that,” Helion argued, “if she could be within seconds of drowning Beron despite the wards.” Perhaps I’d gotten around them simply by being Made—outside anything the wards knew to recognize.

Helion’s power, warm and clear, brushed against the shield, trawling through the air between us. As if testing for a tether. As if I were some parasite, leeching power from him. And he’d gladly sever it.

Thesan declared, “What’s done is done. Short of killing her”— Rhys’s power roiled through the room at the words—“there is nothing we can do.”

It wasn’t entirely placating, his tone. Words of peace, yet the tone was terse. As if, were it not for Rhys and his power, he’d consider tying me down on an altar and cutting me open to see where his power was—and how to take it back.

I stood, looking Thesan in the eye. Then Helion. Tarquin. Kallias. Exactly as Nesta had done. “I did not take your power. You gave it to me, along with the gift of my immortal life. I am grateful for both. But they are mine now. And I will do with them what I will.”

My friends had risen to their feet, now in rank behind me, Nesta at my left. Rhys stepped up to my right, but did not touch me. Let me stand on my own, stare them all down.

I said quietly, but not weakly, “I will use these powers—my powers—to smash Hybern to bits. I will burn them, and drown them, and freeze them. I will use these powers to heal the injured. To shatter through Hybern’s wards. I have done so already, and I will do so again. And if you think that my possession of a kernel of your magic is your biggest problem, then your priorities are severely out of order.”

Pride flickered down the bond. The High Lords and their retinues said nothing.

But Viviane nodded, chin high, and rose. “I will fight with you.”

Cresseida stood a heartbeat later. “As will I.”

Both of them looked to the males in their court.

Tarquin and Kallias rose.

Then Helion, smirking at me and Rhys.

And finally Thesan—Thesan and Tamlin, who did not so much as breathe in my direction, had barely moved or spoken these past few minutes. It was the least of my concerns, so long as they all were standing.

Six out of seven. Rhys chuckled down the bond. Not bad, Cursebreaker. Not bad at all.

CHAPTER

47

Our alliance did not begin well.

Even though we talked for a good two hours afterward … the bickering, the back-and-forth, continued. With Tamlin there, none would declare what numbers they had, what weapons, what weaknesses.

As the afternoon slipped into evening, Thesan pushed back his chair. “You are all welcome to stay the night and resume this discussion in the morning—unless you wish to return to your own homes for the evening.”

We’re staying, Rhysand said. I need to talk to some of the others alone.

Indeed, the others seemed to have similar thoughts, for all decided to stay.

Even Tamlin.

We were shown toward the suites appointed for us—the sunstone turning a deep gold in the late-afternoon sun. Tamlin was escorted away first, by Thesan himself and a trembling attendant. He had wisely chosen not to attack Rhys or me during the debating, though his refusal to even acknowledge us did not go unnoticed. And as he left, back stiff and steps clipped, he did not say a word. Good.