2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

clawed, webbed feet, some elegant, wild puzzles of horns and hooves and striped fur.
Some were bundled in heavy overcoats, scarves, and mittens—others strode about in
nothing but their scales and fur and talons and didn’t seem to think twice about it. Neither
did anyone else. All of them, however, were preoccupied with taking in the sights, some
shopping, some splattered with clay and dust and—and paint.
Artists. I’d never called myself an artist, never thought that far or that grandly, but …
Where all that color and light and texture had once dwelled, there was only a filthy
prison cell. “I’m tired,” I managed to say.
I could feel Rhys’s gaze, didn’t care if my shield was up or down to ward against him
reading my thoughts. But he only said, “We can come back another day. It’s almost time
for dinner, anyway.”
Indeed, the sun was sinking toward where the river met the sea beyond the hills,
staining the city pink and gold.
I didn’t feel like painting that, either. Even as people stopped to admire the approaching
sunset—as if the residents of this place, this court, had the freedom, the safety of enjoying
the sights whenever they wished. And had never known otherwise.
I wanted to scream at them, wanted to pick up a loose piece of cobblestone and shatter
the nearest window, wanted to unleash that power again boiling beneath my skin and tell
them, show them, what had been done to me, to the rest of the world, while they admired
sunsets and painted and drank tea by the river.
“Easy,” Rhys murmured.
I whipped my head to him, my breathing a bit jagged.
His face had again become unreadable. “My people are blameless.”
That easily, my rage vanished, as if it had slipped a rung of the ladder it had been
steadily climbing inside me and splattered on the pale stone street.
Yes—yes, of course they were blameless. But I didn’t feel like thinking more on it. On
anything. I said again, “I’m tired.”
His throat bobbed, but he nodded, turning from the Rainbow. “Tomorrow night, we’ll
go for a walk. Velaris is lovely in the day, but it was built to be viewed after dark.”
I’d expect nothing less from the City of Starlight, but words had again become difficult.
But—dinner. With him. At that House of Wind. I mustered enough focus to say, “Who,
exactly, is going to be at this dinner?”
Rhys led us up a steep street, my thighs burning with the movement. Had I become so
out of shape, so weakened? “My Inner Circle,” he said. “I want you to meet them before
you decide if this is a place you’d like to stay. If you’d like to work with me, and thus
work with them. Mor, you’ve met, but the three others—”
“The ones who came this afternoon.”