2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

The street sloped down, revealing more pretty town houses and puffing chimneys, more
well-fed, unconcerned people. And at the very bottom of the hill curved a broad, winding
river, sparkling like deepest sapphire, snaking toward a vast expanse of water beyond.
The sea.
The city had been built like a crust atop the rolling, steep hills that flanked the river, the
buildings crafted from white marble or warm sandstone. Ships with sails of varying shapes
loitered in the river, the white wings of birds shining brightly above them in the midday
sun.
No monsters. No darkness. Not a hint of fear, of despair.
Untouched.
The city has not been breached in five thousand years.
Even during the height of her dominance over Prythian, whatever Rhys had done,
whatever he’d sold or bartered … Amarantha truly had not touched this place.
The rest of Prythian had been shredded, then left to bleed out over the course of fifty
years, yet Velaris … My fingers curled into fists.
I sensed something looming and gazed down the other end of the street.
There, like eternal guardians of the city, towered a wall of flat-topped mountains of red
stone—the same stone that had been used to build some of the structures. They curved
around the northern edge of Velaris, to where the river bent toward them and flowed into
their shadow. To the north, different mountains surrounded the city across the river—a
range of sharp peaks like fish’s teeth cleaved the city’s merry hills from the sea beyond.
But these mountains behind me … They were sleeping giants. Somehow alive, awake.
As if in answer, that undulating, slithering power slid along my bones, like a cat
brushing against my legs for attention. I ignored it.
“The middle peak,” Rhys said from behind me, and I whirled, remembering he was
there. He just pointed toward the largest of the plateaus. Holes and—windows seemed to
have been built into the uppermost part of it. And flying toward it, borne on large, dark
wings, were two figures. “That’s my other home in this city. The House of Wind.”
Sure enough, the flying figures swerved on what looked to be a wicked, fast current.
“We’ll be dining there tonight,” he added, and I couldn’t tell if he sounded irritated or
resigned about it.
And I didn’t quite care. I turned toward the city again and said, “How?”
He understood what I meant. “Luck.”
“Luck? Yes, how lucky for you,” I said quietly, but not weakly, “that the rest of Prythian
was ravaged while your people, your city, remained safe.”
The wind ruffled Rhys’s dark hair, his face unreadable.
“Did you even think for one moment,” I said, my voice like gravel, “to extend that luck