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She didn’t know how to think in the gray like that. Cassian had always been better at that sort of thing—might have been able to explain how Fionn could at once be good and have done terrible things.
For a thousand years, humans aside, a tentative peace held. The Fae formed kingdoms and territories, and in Prythian, a High King ruled, a High Queen with him: Theia. The first and last High Queen of Prythian.
Not counting Amarantha, who’d declared herself High Queen during her reign. That monster had never been a true queen of anything.
But Theia had ruled this land. And in those tunnels beneath the Prison, Nesta and Azriel had learned the secret history of the forgotten court that Theia had established solely for her personal use and retreat. What might now be considered an eighth court: the Prison.
The Prison, which had once been fertile and teeming with life. The Prison, which had once been ruled by a High Lady with starlight in her veins.
But in the end, that starlight might as well have been poison, fueling and justifying a ruthless ambition for power. Theia had betrayed her husband, Fionn, taking for herself his great sword: Gwydion.
Maybe it was good Nesta hadn’t discussed it with Cassian. Surely he would have made some jab about Theia taking whatever magical items she wished and Nesta using the Trove as she pleased, gifting the Mask to Bryce. She ground her teeth merely imagining what that argument would be like.
He’d probably have pointedly mentioned that even Gwydion hadn’t been enough to save Theia from a betrayal herself, and that she got what was coming to her: When she’d led her people, including her two daughters, into another world, she’d never returned to this one. Theia’s youngest daughter, however—Silene—had managed to get back to this world, separated from her sister and mother in the process and forced to leave them behind. Then Silene had taken it upon herself to leave a record of this history, carved into rock and magic in the catacombs beneath the Prison. To be forgotten until Nesta, Az, and Bryce Quinlan had found it.
Of course, had she been working through it with Cassian, that would have been the point where Nesta started yelling about whether he actually considered her as monstrous as Theia—if he truly believed that her lending Bryce Quinlan the Mask was on the same level as Theia’s betrayal of her husband, her world, and her people.
Nesta already knew she didn’t want to hear her mate’s answer.
She straightened, and found Az watching her carefully, his shadows likely whispering that she’d lost herself once again to thoughts of the past and of her mate. And she said, perhaps because Az was one of the few people with whom she could be honest, “Does it keep you awake, thinking of that time in the caves with Bryce? I can’t stop thinking about it.”
He considered, all traces of his earlier foul mood gone. “Because you feel guilty about handing over the Mask?”
“No.” It was as close as she’d come to talking about this with anyone. “Just a sense that maybe there’s more to learn.”
His Siphons blazed, but his face remained impassive. “Like what?”
She shrugged, pouring herself more tea. “We still know so little about how to wield the Trove. About the Prison—what it used to be. There are countless chambers and tunnels, many forgotten or hidden. You’ve all been going there for five centuries, yet you never knew or even sensed what was contained within. What if there’s more hidden inside?”
Azriel studied her. “Have you sensed something?”
“I don’t know.” How to even explain what she’d seen and felt beneath the sea, when she was drowning? It might have all been a hallucination on the edge of death. “It’s just this . . . feeling I can’t shake.”
“You want Gwyn to record all this so that you can chase a feeling.”
She shrugged, ignoring his disbelieving tone, if only because she did indeed sound out of her wits. “Maybe in the telling of it, I’ll piece it together.” In the way she so badly wanted to, needed to, with her mate. “But at the very least, there should be documentation of it for future generations. In case . . .” She didn’t want to finish the words, to put them out into the world.
But Azriel asked, almost daring her, “In case what?”
Nesta clenched her jaw. “In case we don’t make it through this coming conflict with the continent. In case future generations might need it.”
Az scanned her face, his shadows swirling. Nesta withstood the scrutiny. Let him see whatever he wished. She had little to hide.
But Az said, “I’m sure you’ll be able to cover it all on your own when you tell Gwyn.” He rose, silent despite his considerable size, and headed for the patio doors. His shadows trailed him like a long, shifting cloak.
And maybe she was foolish, maybe she was too softhearted, but she asked, “Are you all right?” If he’d been pulled off one of his usual information-gathering duties, something had to have happened with Rhys. Something that had given Az that icy edge in his eyes, that lack of appetite and interest in engaging in any sort of conversation.
Az paused at the glass doors, shadows swirling with the sudden stop, but he didn’t turn. He quietly asked, “Do you think Rhys will ever forgive you? For handing over the Mask to Bryce Quinlan?”
She knew he wasn’t asking about her, or even the Mask. But Az was her friend—sort of. He had been, up until the moment she’d handed the Mask to Bryce. At the very least, she could offer him honesty. So Nesta said, “No. I don’t. Maybe he’ll be able to speak civilly to me again one day, but I don’t think he’ll ever truly forgive me. I don’t think he’s capable of it.”
Az had known the male for over five centuries. He should have known the answer already. Or maybe he did, and just needed to hear it from someone other than himself.
She waited for Az to respond, but he didn’t say another word before he stalked onto the front lawn, a storm of brooding black against the light, punctured only by the blue gleam of his Siphons on those scarred hands, and gently shut the doors behind him.
CHAPTER
8
