2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

—”
We shot into the sky, fast as a shooting star.
Before my yelp finished echoing, the city had yawned wide beneath us. Rhys’s hand
slid under my knees while the other wrapped around my back and ribs, and we flapped up,
up, up into the star-freckled night, into the liquid dark and singing wind.
The city lights dropped away until Velaris was a rippling velvet blanket littered with
jewels, until the music no longer reached even our pointed ears. The air was chill, but no
wind other than a gentle breeze brushed my face—even as we soared with magnificent
precision for the House of Wind.
Rhys’s body was hard and warm against mine, a solid force of nature crafted and honed
for this. Even the smell of him reminded me of the wind—rain and salt and something
citrus-y I couldn’t name.
We swerved into an updraft, rising so fast it was instinct to clutch his black tunic as my
stomach clenched. I scowled at the soft laugh that tickled my ear. “I expected more
screaming from you. I must not be trying hard enough.”
“Do not,” I hissed, focusing on the approaching tiara of lights in the eternal wall of the
mountain.
With the sky wheeling overhead and the lights shooting past below, up and down
became mirrors—until we were sailing through a sea of stars. Something tight in my chest
eased a fraction of its grip.
“When I was a boy,” Rhys said in my ear, “I’d sneak out of the House of Wind by
leaping out my window—and I’d fly and fly all night, just making loops around the city,
the river, the sea. Sometimes I still do.”
“Your parents must have been thrilled.”
“My father never knew—and my mother …” A pause. “She was Illyrian. Some nights,
when she caught me right as I leaped out the window, she’d scold me … and then jump
out herself to fly with me until dawn.”
“She sounds lovely,” I admitted.
“She was,” he said. And those two words told me enough about his past that I didn’t
pry.
A maneuver had us rising higher, until we were in direct line with a broad balcony,
gilded by the light of golden lanterns. At the far end, built into the red mountain itself, two
glass doors were already open, revealing a large, but surprisingly casual dining room
carved from the stone, and accented with rich wood. Each chair fashioned, I noted, to
accomodate wings.
Rhys’s landing was as smooth as his takeoff, though he kept an arm beneath my
shoulders as my knees buckled at the adjustment. I shook off his touch, and faced the city
behind us.