2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

“Mor is who I’ll call in when the armies fail and Cassian and Azriel are both dead.”
My blood chilled. “So she’s supposed to wait until then?”
“No. As my Third, Mor is my … court overseer. She looks after the dynamics between
the Court of Nightmares and the Court of Dreams, and runs both Velaris and the Hewn
City. I suppose in the mortal realm, she might be considered a queen.”
“And Amren?”
“Her duties as my Second make her my political adviser, walking library, and doer of
my dirty work. I appointed her upon gaining my throne. But she was my ally, maybe my
friend, long before that.”
“I mean—in that war where your armies fail and Cassian and Azriel are dead, and even
Mor is gone.” Each word was like ice on my tongue.
Rhys paused his reach for the bald rock face before us. “If that day comes, I’ll find a
way to break the spell on Amren and unleash her on the world. And ask her to end me
first.”
By the Mother. “What is she?” After our chat this morning, perhaps it was stupid to ask.
“Something else. Something worse than us. And if she ever finds a way to shed her
prison of flesh and bone … Cauldron save us all.”
I shivered again and stared up at the sheer stone wall. “I can’t climb bare rock like that.”
“You don’t need to,” Rhys said, laying a hand flat on the stone. Like a mirage, it
vanished in a ripple of light.
Pale, carved gates stood in its place, so high their tops were lost to the mist.
Gates of bone.
The bone-gates swung open silently, revealing a cavern of black so inky I had never seen
its like, even Under the Mountain.
I gripped the amulet at my throat, the metal warm under my palm. Amren got out. I
would walk out, too.
Rhys put a warm hand on my back and guided me inside, three balls of moonlight
bobbing before us.
No—no, no, no, no—
“Breathe,” he said in my ear. “One breath.”
“Where are the guards?” I managed to get out past the tightness in my lungs.
“They dwell within the rock of the mountain,” he murmured, his hand finding mine and
wrapping around it as he tugged me into the immortal gloom. “They only emerge at
feeding time, or to deal with restless prisoners. They are nothing but shadows of thought
and an ancient spell.”