2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

count.”
We searched, but the missed arrows had been snatched up by our attackers—and even the
shadows and wind told Azriel nothing, as if our enemy had been hidden from them as
well.
But that was twice now that they’d known where Rhys and I would be.
Mor found Azriel and me after twenty minutes, wanting to know what the hell had
happened. We’d explained—and she’d winnowed away, to spin whatever excuse would
keep her horrible family from suspecting anything was amiss.
But at the end of the hour, we hadn’t found a single track. And we could delay our
meeting no longer.
The Court of Nightmares lay behind a mammoth set of doors carved into the mountain
itself. And from the base, the mountain rose so high I couldn’t see the palace I had once
stayed in atop it. Only snow, and rock, and birds circling above. There was no one outside
—no village, no signs of life. Nothing to indicate a whole city of people dwelled within.
But I did not let my curiosity or any lingering trepidation show as Mor and I entered.
Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel would arrive minutes later.
There were sentries at the stone gates, clothed not in black, as I might have suspected,
but in gray and white—armor meant to blend into the mountain face. Mor didn’t so much
as look at them as she led me silently inside the mountain-city.
My body clenched as soon as the darkness, the scent of rock and fire and roasting meat,
hit me. I had been here before, suffered here—
Not Under the Mountain. This was not Under the Mountain.
Indeed, Amarantha’s court had been the work of a child.
The Court of Nightmares was the work of a god.
While Under the Mountain had been a series of halls and rooms and levels, this … this
was truly a city.
The walkway that Mor led us down was an avenue, and around us, rising high into
gloom, were buildings and spires, homes and bridges. A metropolis carved from the dark
stone of the mountain itself, no inch of it left unmarked or without some lovely, hideous
artwork etched into it. Figures danced and fornicated; begged and reveled. Pillars were
carved to look like curving vines of night-blooming flowers. Water ran throughout in little
streams and rivers tapped from the heart of the mountain itself.
The Hewn City. A place of such terrible beauty that it was an effort to keep the wonder
and dread off my face. Music was already playing somewhere, and our hosts still did not
come out to greet us. The people we passed—only High Fae—were clothed in finery, their
faces deathly pale and cold. Not one stopped us, not one smiled or bowed.
Mor ignored them all. Neither of us had said one word. Rhys had told me not to—that