2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

“I am when my brothers tag-team me,” he grumbled. He offered no warning before we
vanished on a midnight wind, and then—
Then I was squinting at the glaring sun off a turquoise sea, just as I was trying to
reorder my body around the dry, suffocating heat, even with the cooling breeze off the
water.
I blinked a few times—and that was as much reaction as I let myself show as I yanked
my hand from Rhys’s grip.
We seemed to be standing on a landing platform at the base of a tan stone palace, the
building itself perched atop a mountain-island in the heart of a half-moon bay. The city
spread around and below us, toward that sparkling sea—the buildings all from that stone,
or glimmering white material that might have been coral or pearl. Gulls flapped over the
many turrets and spires, no clouds above them, nothing on the breeze with them but salty
air and the clatter of the city below.
Various bridges connected the bustling island to the larger landmass that circled it on
three sides, one of them currently raising itself so a many-masted ship could cruise
through. Indeed, there were more ships than I could count—some merchant vessels, some
fishing ones, and some, it seemed, ferrying people from the island-city to the mainland,
whose sloping shores were crammed full of more buildings, more people.
More people like the half dozen before us, framed by a pair of sea glass doors that
opened into the palace itself. On our little balcony, there was no option to escape—no path
out but winnowing away … or going through those doors. Or, I supposed, the plunge
awaiting us to the red roofs of the fine houses a hundred feet below.
“Welcome to Adriata,” said the tall male in the center of the group.
And I knew him—remembered him.
Not from memory. I’d already remembered that the handsome High Lord of Summer
had rich brown skin, white hair, and eyes of crushing, turquoise blue. I’d already
remembered he’d been forced to watch as his courtier’s mind was invaded and then his
life snuffed out by Rhysand. As Rhysand lied to Amarantha about what he’d learned, and
spared the male from a fate perhaps worth than death.
No—I now remembered the High Lord of Summer in a way I couldn’t quite explain,
like some fragment of me knew it had come from him, from here. Like some piece of me
said, I remember, I remember, I remember. We are one and the same, you and I.
Rhys merely drawled, “Good to see you again, Tarquin.”
The five other people behind the High Lord of Summer swapped frowns of varying
severity. Like their lord, their skin was dark, their hair in shades of white or silver, as if
they had lived under the bright sun their entire lives. Their eyes, however, were of every
color. And they now shifted between me and Amren.
Rhys slid one hand into a pocket and gestured with the other to Amren. “Amren, I think
you know. Though you haven’t met her since your … promotion.” Cool, calculating grace,