2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

Cassian said, “We’ve considered that. So you and Rhys will winnow us in off the coast;
we fly in while he stays.” They’d have to winnow me, I realized, since I still had not yet
mastered doing it over long distances. At least, not with many stops in between. “As for
the spell,” Cassian continued, “it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
Silence fell as they waited for Rhys’s answer. My mate scanned my face, eyes wide.
Azriel pushed, “It’s a solid plan. The king doesn’t know our scents. We wreck the
Cauldron and vanish before he notices … It’ll be a graver insult than the bloodier, direct
route we’d been considering, Rhys. We beat them yesterday, so when we go into that
castle … ” Vengeance indeed danced in that normally placid face. “We’ll leave a few
reminders that we won the last damn war for a reason.”
Cassian nodded grimly. Even Mor smiled a bit.
“Are you asking me,” Rhys finally said, far too calmly, “to stay outside while my mate
goes into his stronghold?”
“Yes,” Azriel said with equal calm, Cassian shifting himself slightly between them. “If
Feyre can’t nullify the Cauldron easily or quickly, we steal it—send the pieces back to the
bastard when we’re done breaking it apart. Either way, Feyre calls you through the bond
when we’re done—you and Mor winnow us out. They won’t be able to track you fast
enough if you only come to retrieve us.”
Rhysand dropped onto the couch beside me at last, loosing a breath. His eyes slid to me.
“If you want to go, then you go, Feyre.”
If I hadn’t been already in love with him, I might have loved him for that—for not
insisting I stay, even if it drove his instincts mad, for not locking me away in the aftermath
of what had happened yesterday.
And I realized—I realized how badly I’d been treated before, if my standards had
become so low. If the freedom I’d been granted felt like a privilege and not an inherent
right.
Rhys’s eyes darkened, and I knew he read what I thought, felt. “You might be my
mate,” he said, “but you remain your own person. You decide your fate—your choices.
Not me. You chose yesterday. You choose every day. Forever.”
And maybe he only understood because he, too, had been helpless and without choices,
had been forced to do such horrible things, and locked up. I threaded my fingers through
his and squeezed. Together—together we’d find our peace, our future. Together we’d fight
for it.
“Let’s go to Hybern,” I said.
I was halfway up the stairs an hour later when I realized that I still had no idea what room
to go to. I’d gone to my bedroom since we’d returned from the cabin, but … what of his?
With Tamlin, he’d kept his own rooms and slept in mine. And I supposed—I supposed
it’d be the same.