When I awoke, sun streamed through the windows, and I was in my bed—tucked in tightly to the fresh, clean sheets.
I stared up at the sharp grassy slope of the small mountain, shivering at the veils of mist that wafted past. Behind us, the land swept away to brutal cliffs and a violent pewter sea. Ahead, nothing but a wide, flat-topped mountain of gray stone and moss.
Rhys stood at my side, a double-edged sword sheathed down his spine, knives strapped to his legs, clothed in what I could only assume were Illyrian fighting leathers, based on what Cassian and Azriel had worn the night before. The dark pants were tight, the scale-like plates of leather worn and scarred, and sculpted to legs I hadn’t noticed were quite that muscled. His close-fitting jacket had been built around the wings that were now fully out, bits of dark, scratched armor added at the shoulders and forearms.
If his attire hadn’t told me enough about what we might be facing today—if my own, similar attire hadn’t told me enough—all I needed was to take one look at the rock before us and know it wouldn’t be pleasant. I’d been so distracted in the study an hour ago by what Rhys had been writing as he drafted a careful request to visit the Summer Court that I hadn’t thought to ask what to expect here. Not that Rhys had really bothered explaining why he wanted to visit the Summer Court beyond “improving diplomatic relations.”
“Where are we?” I said, our first words since winnowing in a moment ago. Velaris had been brisk, sunny. This place, wherever it was, was freezing, deserted, barren. Only rock and grass and mist and sea.
“On an island in the heart of the Western Isles,” Rhysand said, staring up at the mammoth mountain. “And that,” he said, pointing to it, “is the Prison.”
There was nothing—no one around.
“I don’t see anything.”
“The rock is the Prison. And inside it are the foulest, most dangerous creatures and criminals you can imagine.”
Go inside—inside the stone, under another mountain—
“This place,” he said, “was made before High Lords existed. Before Prythian was Prythian. Some of the inmates remember those days. Remember a time when it was Mor’s family, not mine, that ruled the North.”
“Why won’t Amren go in here?”
“Because she was once a prisoner.”
“Not in that body, I take it.”
A cruel smile. “No. Not at all.”
I shivered.
“The hike will get your blood warming,” Rhys said. “Since we can’t winnow inside or fly to the entrance—the wards demand that visitors walk in. The long way.”
I didn’t move. “I—” The word lodged in my throat. Go under another mountain—
“It helps the panic,” he said quietly, “to remind myself that I got out. That we all got out.”
“Barely.” I tried to breathe. I couldn’t, I couldn’t—
“We got out. And it might happen again if we don’t go inside.”
The chill mist bit at my face. And I tried—I did—to take a step toward it.
My body refused to obey.
I tried to take a step again; I tried for Elain and Nesta and the human world that might be wrecked, but … I couldn’t.
“Please,” I whispered. I didn’t care if it meant that I’d failed my first day of work.
Rhysand, as promised, didn’t ask any questions as he gripped my hand and brought us back to the winter sun and rich colors of Velaris.
I didn’t get out of bed for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER
18
Amren was standing at the foot of my bed.
I jolted back, slamming into the headboard, blinded by the morning light blazing in, fumbling for a weapon, anything to use—
“No wonder you’re so thin if you vomit up your guts every night.” She sniffed, her lip curling. “You reek of it.”
The bedroom door was shut. Rhys had said no one entered without his permission, but—
She chucked something onto the bed. A little gold amulet of pearl and cloudy blue stone. “This got me out of the Prison. Wear it in, and they can never keep you.”
I didn’t touch the amulet.
“Allow me to make one thing clear,” Amren said, bracing both hands on the carved wooden footboard. “I do not give that amulet lightly. But you may borrow it, while you do what needs to be done, and return it to me when you are finished. If you keep it, I will find you, and the results won’t be pleasant. But it is yours to use in the Prison.”
By the time my fingers brushed the cool metal and stone, she’d walked out the door.
Rhys hadn’t been wrong about the firedrake comparison.
