2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

cold through me. But there—a carved whorl in the center of the door. “This has been here
for a very long time,” I murmured.
Amren nodded. “I would not be surprised if, despite the imprint of the High Lord’s
power, Tarquin and his predecessors had never set foot here—if the blood-spell to ward
this place instantly transferred to them once they assumed power.”
“Why covet the Book, then?”
“Wouldn’t you want to lock away an object of terrible power? So no one could use it for
evil—or their own gain? Or perhaps they locked it away for their own bargaining chip if it
ever became necessary. I had no idea why they, of all courts, was granted the half of the
Book in the first place.”
I shook my head and laid my hand flat on the whorl in the lead.
A jolt went through me like lightning, and I grunted, bearing down on the door.
My fingers froze to it, as if the power were leeching my essence, drinking as Amren
drank, and I felt it hesitate, question—
I am Tarquin. I am summer; I am warmth; I am sea and sky and planted field.
I became every smile he’d given me, became the crystalline blue of his eyes, the brown
of his skin. I felt my own skin shift, felt my bones stretch and change. Until I was him, and
it was a set of male hands I now possessed, now pushed against the door. Until the essence
of me became what I had tasted in that inner, mental shield of his—sea and sun and brine.
I did not give myself a moment to think of what power I might have just used. Did not
allow any part of me that wasn’t Tarquin to shine through.
I am your master, and you will let me pass.
The lock pulled harder and harder, and I could barely breathe—
Then a click and groan.
I shifted back into my own skin, and scrambled into the piled mud right as the door
sank and swung away, tucking beneath the stones to reveal a spiral staircase drifting into a
primordial gloom. And on a wet, salty breeze from below came the tendrils of power.
Across the open stair, Amren’s face had gone paler than usual, her silver eyes glowing
bright. “I never saw the Cauldron,” she said, “but it must be terrible indeed if even a grain
of its power feels … like this.”
Indeed, that power was filling the chamber, my head, my lungs—smothering and
drowning and seducing—
“Quickly,” I said, and a small ball of faelight shot down the curve of the stairs,
illuminating gray, worn steps slick with slime.
I drew my hunting knife and descended, one hand braced on the freezing stone wall to
keep from slipping.
I made it one rotation down, Amren close behind, before faelight danced on waist-deep,