2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

step from the strength of the blow. I blinked. I’d forgotten—forgotten that strength in my
panic. Just like with the Weaver. I’d forgotten how strong I was.
“Yes, you did,” Rhysand snarled, reading the surprise on my face, that icy calm
shattering. “You forgot that strength, and that you can burn and become darkness, and
grow claws. You forgot. You stopped fighting.”
He didn’t just mean the Attor. Or the Weaver.
And the rage rose up in me in such a mighty wave that I had no thought in my head but
wrath: at myself, what I’d been forced to do, what had been done to me, to him.
“So what if I did?” I hissed, and shoved him again. “So what if I did?”
I went to shove him again, but Rhys winnowed away a few feet.
I stormed for him, snow crunching underfoot. “It’s not easy.” The rage ran me over,
obliterated me. I lifted my arms to slam my palms into his chest—
And he vanished again.
He appeared behind me, so close that his breath tickled my ear as he said, “You have no
idea how not easy it is.”
I whirled, grappling for him. He vanished before I could strike him, pound him.
Rhys appeared across the clearing, chuckling. “Try harder.”
I couldn’t fold myself into darkness and pockets. And if I could—if I could turn myself
into smoke, into air and night and stars, I’d use it to appear right in front of him and smack
that smile off his face.
I moved, even if it was futile, even as he rippled into darkness, and I hated him for it—
for the wings and ability to move like mist on the wind. He appeared a step away, and I
pounced, hands out—talons out—
And slammed into a tree.
He laughed as I bounced back, teeth singing, talons barking as they shredded through
wood. But I was already lunging as he vanished, lunging like I could disappear into the
folds of the world as well, track him across eternity—
And so I did.
Time slowed and curled, and I could see the darkness of him turn to smoke and veer, as
if it were running for another spot in the clearing. I hurtled for that spot, even as I felt my
own lightness, folding my very self into wind and shadow and dust, the looseness of it
radiating out of me, all while I aimed for where he was headed—
Rhysand appeared, a solid figure in my world of smoke and stars.
And his eyes were wide, his mouth split in a grin of wicked delight, as I winnowed in
front of him and tackled him into the snow.