2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

“Repulsive,” Mor said, clicking her tongue.
Some surviving, small part of my heart wanted to … laugh at that.
Cassian shrugged. “Rhys’s power grew every day—and everyone, even the camp-lords,
knew he could mist everyone if he felt like it. And the two of us … we weren’t far
behind.” He tapped his crimson Siphon with a finger. “A bastard Illyrian had never
received one of these. Ever. For Az and me to both be appointed them, albeit
begrudgingly, had every warrior in every camp across those mountains sizing us up. Only
pure-blood pricks get Siphons—born and bred for the killing power. It still keeps them up
at night, puzzling over where the hell we got it from.”
“Then the War came,” Azriel took over. Just the way he said the words made me sit up.
Listen. “And Rhys’s father visited our camp to see how his son had fared after twenty
years.”
“My father,” Rhys said, swirling his wine once—twice, “saw that his son had not only
started to rival him for power, but had allied himself with perhaps the two deadliest
Illyrians in history. He got it into his head that if we were given a legion in the War, we
might very well turn it against him when we returned.”
Cassian snickered. “So the prick separated us. He gave Rhys command of a legion of
Illyrians who hated him for being a half-breed, and threw me into a different legion to be a
common foot soldier, even when my power outranked any of the war-leaders. Az, he kept
for himself as his personal shadowsinger—mostly for spying and his dirty work. We only
saw each other on battlefields for the seven years the War raged. They’d send around
casualty lists amongst the Illyrians, and I read each one, wondering if I’d see their names
on it. But then Rhys was captured—”
“That is a story for another time,” Rhys said, sharply enough that Cassian lifted his
brows, but nodded. Rhys’s violet eyes met mine, and I wondered if it was true starlight
that flickered so intensely in them as he spoke. “Once I became High Lord, I appointed
these four to my Inner Circle, and told the rest of my father’s old court that if they had a
problem with my friends, they could leave. They all did. Turns out, having a half-breed
High Lord was made worse by his appointment of two females and two Illyrian bastards.”
As bad as humans, in some ways. “What—what happened to them, then?”
Rhys shrugged, those great wings shifting with the movement. “The nobility of the
Night Court fall into one of three categories: those who hated me enough that when
Amarantha took over, they joined her court and later found themselves dead; those who
hated me enough to try to overthrow me and faced the consequences; and those who hated
me, but not enough to be stupid and have since tolerated a half-breed’s rule, especially
when it so rarely interferes with their miserable lives.”
“Are they—are they the ones who live beneath the mountain?”
A nod. “In the Hewn City, yes. I gave it to them, for not being fools. They’re happy to
stay there, rarely leaving, ruling themselves and being as wicked as they please, for all
eternity.”