2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

the walls had ears here.
Mor led me down the avenue toward another set of stone gates, thrown open at the base
of what looked to be a castle within the mountain. The official seat of the High Lord of the
Night Court.
Great, scaled black beasts were carved into those gates, all coiled together in a nest of
claws and fangs, sleeping and fighting, some locked in an endless cycle of devouring each
other. Between them flowed vines of jasmine and moonflowers. I could have sworn the
beasts seemed to writhe in the silvery glow of the bobbing faelights throughout the
mountain-city. The Gates of Eternity—that’s what I’d call the painting that flickered in my
mind.
Mor continued through them, a flash of color and life in this strange, cold place.
She wore deepest red, the gossamer and gauze of her sleeveless gown clinging to her
breasts and hips, while carefully placed shafts left much of her stomach and back exposed.
Her hair was down in rippling waves, and cuffs of solid gold glinted around her wrists. A
queen—a queen who bowed to no one, a queen who had faced them all down and
triumphed. A queen who owned her body, her life, her destiny, and never apologized for it.
My clothes, which she had taken a moment in the pine wood to shift me into, were of a
similar ilk, nearly identical to those I had been forced to wear Under the Mountain. Two
shafts of fabric that hardly covered my breasts flowed to below my navel, where a belt
across my hips joined them into one long shaft that draped between my legs and barely
covered my backside.
But unlike the chiffon and bright colors I had worn then, this one was fashioned of
black, glittering fabric that sparkled with every swish of my hips.
Mor had fashioned my hair onto a crown atop my head—right behind the black diadem
that had been set before it, accented with flecks of diamond that made it glisten like the
night sky. She’d darkened and lengthened my eyelashes, sweeping out an elegant, vicious
line of kohl at the outer corner of each. My lips she’d painted bloodred.
Into the castle beneath the mountain we strode. There were more people here, milling
about the endless halls, watching our every breath. Some looked like Mor, with their gold
hair and beautiful faces. They even hissed at her.
Mor smirked at them. Part of me wished she’d rip their throats out instead.
We at last came to a throne room of polished ebony. More of the serpents from the front
gates were carved here—this time, wrapped around the countless columns supporting the
onyx ceiling. It was so high up that gloom hid its finer details, but I knew more had been
carved there, too. Great beasts to monitor the manipulations and scheming within this
room. The throne itself had been fashioned out of a few of them, a head snaking around
either side of the back—as if they watched over the High Lord’s shoulder.
A crowd had gathered—and for a moment, I was again in Amarantha’s throne room, so
similar was the atmosphere, the malice. So similar was the dais at the other end.