His breathing turned ragged again. Good, I wanted to urge him. Good.

“You sold us out to get me back,” I said, low and cold. “You whored us out to Hybern. Forgive me if I am now trying to regain some of what we lost.”

Claws slid free. A feral growl rippled out of him.

“They hunted down and butchered those humans for sport,” I went on. “You might be willing to get on your knees for Hybern, but I certainly am not.”

He exploded.

Furniture splintered and went flying, windows cracked and shattered.

And this time, I did not shield myself.

The worktable slammed into me, throwing me against the bookshelf, and every place where flesh and bone met wood barked and ached.

My knees slammed into the carpeted floor, and Tamlin was instantly in front of me, hands shaking—

The doors burst open.

“What have you done,” Lucien breathed, and Tamlin’s face was the picture of devastation as Lucien shoved him aside. He let Lucien shove him aside and help me stand.

Something wet and warm slid down my cheek—blood, from the scent of it.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Lucien said, an arm around my shoulders as he eased me from the room. I barely heard him over the ringing in my ears, the slight spinning to the world.

The sentries—Bron and Hart, two of Tamlin’s favorite lord-warriors among them—were gaping, attention torn between the wrecked study and my face.

With good reason. As Lucien led me past a gilded hall mirror, I beheld what had drawn such horror. My eyes were glassy, my face pallid—save for the scratch just beneath my cheekbone, perhaps two inches long and leaking blood.

Little scratches peppered my neck, my hands. But I willed that cleansing, healing power—that of the High Lord of Dawn—to keep from seeking them out. From smoothing them away.

“Feyre,” Tamlin breathed from behind us.

I halted, aware of every eye that watched. “I’m fine,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” I wiped at the blood dribbling down my cheek. “I’m fine,” I told him again.

No one, not even Tamlin, looked convinced.

And if I could have painted that moment, I would have named it A Portrait in Snares and Baiting.

 

Rhysand sent word down the bond the second I was soaking in the bathtub.

Are you hurt?

The question was faint, the bond quieter and tenser than it had been days ago.

Sore, but fine. Nothing I can’t handle. Though my injuries still lingered. And showed no signs of a speedy healing. Perhaps I’d been too good at keeping those healing powers at bay.

The reply was a long time coming. Then it came all at once, as if he wanted to cram every word in before the difficulty of the distance silenced us.

I know better than to tell you to be careful, or to come home. But I want you home. Soon. And I want him dead for putting a hand on you.

Even with the entirety of the land between us, his rage rippled down the bond.

I answered, my tone soothing, dry, Technically, his magic touched me, not his hand.

The bathwater was cold by the time his reply came through. I’m glad you have a sense of humor about this. I certainly don’t.

I sent back an image of me sticking out my tongue at him.

My clothes were back on when his answer arrived.

Like mine, it was wordless, a mere image. Like mine, Rhysand’s tongue was out.

But it was occupied with doing something else.

 

I made a point to take a ride the next day. Made sure it was when Bron and Hart were on duty, and asked them to escort me.

They didn’t say much, but I felt their assessing glances at my every wince as we rode the worn paths through the spring wood. Felt them study the cut on my face, the bruises beneath my clothes that had me hissing every now and then. Still not fully healed to my surprise—though I supposed it worked to my advantage.

Tamlin had begged my forgiveness at dinner yesterday—and I’d given it to him. But Lucien hadn’t spoken to him all evening.

Jurian and the Hybern royals had sulked at the delay after I’d quietly admitted my bruises made it too difficult to accompany them to the wall. Tamlin hadn’t possessed the nerve to suggest they go without me, to rob me of that duty. Not when he saw the purplish markings and knew that if they were on a human, I might have been dead.

And the royals, after Lucien and I had sent the Bogge’s invisible malice after them, had backed off. For now. I kept my shields up—around myself and the others, the strain now a constant headache that had any extra sort of magic feeling feeble and thin. The reprieve on the border hadn’t done much—no, it’d made the strain worse after I’d sent my power through the wall.

I’d invited Ianthe to the house, subtly requesting her comforting presence. She arrived knowing the full details of what had transpired in that study—letting it conveniently slip that Tamlin had confessed it to her, pleading for absolution from the Mother and Cauldron and whoever else. I prattled about my own forgiveness to her that evening, and made a show of taking her good counsel, telling the courtiers and others at our crowded table that night how lucky we were to have Tamlin and Ianthe guarding our lands.

Honestly, I don’t know how none of them connected it.

How none of them saw my words as not a strange coincidence but a dare. A threat.

That last little nudge.

Especially when seven naga broke into the estate grounds just past midnight.

They were dispatched before they reached the house—an attack halted by a Cauldron-sent warning vision from none other than Ianthe herself.

The chaos and screaming woke the estate. I remained in my room, guards beneath my windows and outside my door. Tamlin himself, blood-drenched and panting, came to inform me that the grounds were again secure. That the naga had been found with the keys to the gate, and the sentry who had lost them would be dealt with in the morning. A freak accident, a final show of power from a tribe that had not gone gently after Amarantha’s reign.

All of us saved from further harm by Ianthe.

We all gathered outside the barracks the next morning, Lucien’s face pallid and drawn, purple smudges beneath his glazed eyes. He hadn’t returned to his room last night.

Beside me, the Hybern royals and Jurian were silent and grim as Tamlin paced before the sentry strung up between two posts.

“You were entrusted with guarding this estate and its people,” Tamlin said to the shuddering male, already stripped down to his pants. “You were found not only asleep at the gate last night, but it was your set of keys that originally went missing.” Tamlin snarled softly. “Do you deny this?”

“I—I never fall asleep. It’s never happened until now. I must have just nodded off for a minute or two,” the sentry stammered, the ropes restraining him groaning as he strained against them.

“You jeopardized the lives of everyone in this manor.”

And it could not go unpunished. Not with the Hybern royals here, seeking any sign of weakness.

Tamlin held out a hand. Bron, stone-faced, approached to give him a whip.

All the sentries, his most trusted warriors, shifted about. Some outright glaring at Tamlin, some trying not to watch what was about to unfold.

I grabbed Lucien’s hand. It wasn’t entirely for show.

Ianthe stepped forward, hands folded over her stomach. “Twenty lashes. And one more, for the Cauldron’s forgiveness.”