2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

I picked at the strawberry salad on my plate. “I only saw a very small slice of it. My
father was called the Prince of Merchants—but I was too young to be taken on his
voyages to other parts of the mortal world. When I was eleven, he lost our fortune on a
shipment to Bharat. We spent the next eight years in poverty, in a backwater village near
the wall. So I can’t speak for the entirety of the mortal world when I say that what I saw
there was … hard. Brutal. Here, class lines are far more blurred, it seems. There, it’s
defined by money. Either you have it and you don’t share it, or you are left to starve and
fight for your survival. My father … He regained his wealth once I went to Prythian.” My
heart tightened, then dropped into my stomach. “And the very people who had been
content to let us starve were once again our friends. I would rather face every creature in
Prythian than the monsters on the other side of the wall. Without magic, without power,
money has become the only thing that matters.”
Tarquin’s lips were pursed, but his eyes were considering. “Would you spare them if
war came?”
Such a dangerous, loaded question. I wouldn’t tell him what we were doing over the
wall—not until Rhys had indicated we should.
“My sisters dwell with my father on his estate. For them, I would fight. But for those
sycophants and peacocks … I would not mind to see their order disrupted.” Like the hatemongering
family of Elain’s betrothed.
Tarquin said very quietly, “There are some in Prythian who would think the same of the
courts.”
“What—get rid of the High Lords?”
“Perhaps. But mostly eliminate the inherent privileges of High Fae over the lesser
faeries. Even the terms imply a level of unfairness. Maybe it is more like the human realm
than you realize, not as blurred as it might seem. In some courts, the lowest of High Fae
servants has more rights than the wealthiest of lesser faeries.”
I became aware that we were not the only people on the barge, at this table. And that we
were surrounded by High Fae with animal-keen hearing. “Do you agree with them? That it
should change?”
“I am a young High Lord,” he said. “Barely eighty years old.” So he’d been thirty when
Amarantha took over. “Perhaps others might call me inexperienced or foolish, but I have
seen those cruelties firsthand, and known many good lesser faeries who suffered for
merely being born on the wrong side of power. Even within my own residences, the
confines of tradition pressure me to enforce the rules of my predecessors: the lesser faeries
are neither to be seen nor heard as they work. I would like to one day see a Prythian in
which they have a voice, both in my home and in the world beyond it.”
I scanned him for any deceit, manipulation. I found none.
Steal from him—I would steal from him. But what if I asked instead? Would he give it
to me, or would the traditions of his ancestors run too deep?
“Tell me what that look means,” Tarquin said, bracing his muscled arms on the gold