2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

spindly gray arms gauntlets of that bluish stone I’d seen on Rhys, glimmering in the sun.
Stone that broke and repelled magic. Straight from the unholy trove of the King of
Hybern.
One after one after one, they punched through his shield.
Cassian sent another wall barreling for them. Some of the creatures peeled away and
launched themselves upon the outskirts of the city, vulnerable outside of his shield. The
heat that had been building in my palms faded to clammy sweat.
People were shrieking, fleeing. And I knew his shields would not hold—
“GO!” Cassian roared. I lurched into motion, knowing he likely lingered because I
stayed, that he needed Azriel and Amren and—
High above us, three of them slammed into the dome of the red shield. Clawing at it,
ripping through layer after layer with those stone gauntlets.
That’s what had delayed the king these months: gathering his arsenal. Weapons to fight
magic, to fight High Fae who would rely on it—
A hole ripped open, and Cassian threw me to the ground, shoving me against the marble
railing, his wings spreading wide over me, his legs as solid as the bands of carved rock at
my back—
Screams on the bridge, hissing laughter, and then—
A wet, crunching thud.
“Shit,” Cassian said. “Shit—”
He moved a step, and I lunged from under him to see what it was, who it was—
Blood shone on the white marble bridge, sparkling like rubies in the sun.
There, on one of those towering, elegant lampposts flanking the bridge …
Her body was bent, her back arched on the impact, as if she were in the throes of
passion.
Her golden hair had been shorn to the skull. Her golden eyes had been plucked out.
She was twitching where she had been impaled on the post, the metal pole straight
through her slim torso, gore clinging to the metal above her.
Someone on the bridge vomited, then kept running.
But I could not break my stare from the golden queen. Or from the Attor, who swept
through the hole it had made and alighted atop the blood-soaked lamppost.
“Regards,” it hissed, “of the mortal queens. And Jurian.” Then the Attor leaped into
flight, fast and sleek—heading right for the theater district we’d left.
Cassian had pressed me back down against the bridge—and he surged toward the Attor.
He halted, remembering me, but I rasped, “Go.”