2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

CHAPTER
13
I woke to sunlight, and open space—nothing but clear sky and snowcapped mountains
around me.
And Rhysand lounging in an armchair across from the couch where I was sprawled,
gazing at the mountains, his face uncharacteristically solemn.
I swallowed, and his head whipped toward me.
No kindness in his eyes. Nothing but unending, icy rage.
But he blinked, and it was gone. Replaced by perhaps relief. Exhaustion.
And the pale sunlight warming the moonstone floors … dawn. It was dawn. I didn’t
want to think about how long I’d been unconscious.
“What happened?” I said. My voice was hoarse. As if I’d been screaming.
“You were screaming,” he said. I didn’t care if my mental shield was up or down or
completely shattered. “You also managed to scare the shit out of every servant and sentry
in Tamlin’s manor when you wrapped yourself in darkness and they couldn’t see you.”
My stomach hollowed out. “Did I hurt any—”
“No. Whatever you did, it was contained to you.”
“You weren’t—”
“By law and protocol,” he said, stretching out his long legs, “things would have become
very complicated and very messy if I had been the one to walk into that house and take
you. Smashing that shield was fine, but Mor had to go in on her own two feet, render the
sentries unconscious through her own power, and carry you over the border to another
court before I could bring you here. Or else Tamlin would have free rein to march his
forces into my lands to reclaim you. And as I have no interest in an internal war, we had to
do everything by the book.”
That’s what Mor had said—that she did everything by the book.
But— “When I go back …”
“As your presence here isn’t part of our monthly requirement, you are under no
obligation to go back.” He rubbed at his temple. “Unless you wish to.”
The question settled in me like a stone sinking to the bottom of a pool. There was such
quiet in me, such … nothingness.
“He locked me in that house,” I managed to say.
A shadow of mighty wings spread behind Rhys’s chair. But his face was calm as he