2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

CHAPTER
58
We immediately returned to Velaris, not trusting the queens to go long without noticing
the Book’s absence, especially if the vague mention of the sixth alluded to further foul
play amongst them.
Amren had the second half within minutes, not even bothering to ask about the meeting
before she vanished into the dining room of the town house and shut the doors behind her.
So we waited.
And waited.
Two days passed.
Amren still hadn’t cracked the code.
Rhys and Mor left in the early afternoon to visit the Court of Nightmares—to return the
Veritas to Keir without his knowing, and ensure that the Steward was indeed readying his
forces. Cassian had reports that the Illyrian legions were now camped across the
mountains, waiting for the order to fly out to wherever our first battle might be.
There would be one, I realized. Even if we nullified the Cauldron using the Book, even
if I was able to stop that Cauldron and the king from using it to shatter the wall and the
world, he had armies gathered. Perhaps we’d take the fight to him once the Cauldron was
disabled.
There was no word from my sisters, no report from Azriel’s soldiers that they’d
changed their minds. My father, I remembered, was still trading in the continent for the
Mother knew what goods. Another variable in this.
And there was no word from the queens. It was of them that I most frequently thought.
Of the two-faced, golden-eyed queen with not just a lion’s coloring … but a lion’s heart,
too.
I hoped I saw her again.
With Rhys and Mor gone, Cassian and Azriel came to stay at the town house as they
continued to plan our inevitable visit to Hybern. After that first dinner, when Cassian had
broken out one of Rhys’s very old bottles of wine so we could celebrate my mating in
style, I’d realized they’d come to stay for company, to dine with me, and … the Illyrians
had taken it upon themselves to look after me.
Rhys said as much that night when I’d written him a letter and watched it vanish.
Apparently, he didn’t mind his enemies knowing he was at the Court of Nightmares. If
Hybern’s forces tracked him there … good luck to them.