2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

War.
CHAPTER
7
The word clanged through me, freezing my veins.
“Don’t invade,” I breathed. I’d get on my knees for this. I’d crawl if I had to. “Don’t
invade—please.”
Rhys cocked his head, his mouth tightening. “You truly think I’m a monster, even after
everything.”
“Please,” I gasped out. “They’re defenseless, they won’t stand a chance—”
“I’m not going to invade the mortal lands,” he said too quietly.
I waited for him to go on, glad for the spacious room, the bright air, as the ground
started to slide out from beneath me.
“Put your damn shield up,” he growled.
I looked inward, finding that invisible wall had dropped again. But I was so tired, and if
war was coming, if my family—
“Shield. Now.”
The raw command in his voice—the voice of the High Lord of the Night Court—had
me acting on instinct, my exhausted mind building the wall brick by brick. Only when it’d
ensconced my mind once more did he speak, his eyes softening almost imperceptibly.
“Did you think it would end with Amarantha?”
“Tamlin hasn’t said … ” And why would he tell me? But there were so many patrols, so
many meetings I wasn’t allowed to attend, such … tension. He had to know. I needed to
ask him—demand why he hadn’t told me—
“The King of Hybern has been planning his campaign to reclaim the world south of the
wall for over a hundred years,” Rhys said. “Amarantha was an experiment—a forty-nineyear
test, to see how easily and how long a territory might fall and be controlled by one of
his commanders.”
For an immortal, forty-nine years was nothing. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear
he’d been planning this for far longer than a century. “Will he attack Prythian first?”
“Prythian,” Rhys said, pointing to the map of our massive island on the table, “is all that
stands between the King of Hybern and the continent. He wants to reclaim the human
lands there—perhaps seize the faerie lands, too. If anyone is to intercept his conquering
fleet before it reaches the continent, it would be us.”