2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

I slid into one of the chairs, my knees wobbling so badly I could hardly keep upright.
“He will seek to remove Prythian from his way swiftly and thoroughly,” Rhys
continued. “And shatter the wall at some point in the process. There are already holes in it,
though mercifully small enough to make it difficult to swiftly pass his armies through.
He’ll want to bring the whole thing down—and likely use the ensuing panic to his
advantage.”
Each breath was like swallowing glass. “When—when is he going to attack?” The wall
had held steady for five centuries, and even then, those damned holes had allowed the
foulest, hungriest Fae beasts to sneak through and prey on humans. Without that wall, if
Hybern was indeed to launch an assult on the human world … I wished I hadn’t eaten
such a large breakfast.
“That is the question,” he said. “And why I brought you here.”
I lifted my head to meet his stare. His face was drawn, but calm.
“I don’t know when or where he plans to attack Prythian,” Rhys went on. “I don’t know
who his allies here might be.”
“He’d have allies here?”
A slow nod. “Cowards who would bow and join him, rather than fight his armies
again.”
I could have sworn a whisper of darkness spread along the floor behind him. “Did …
did you fight in the War?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. But then Rhys nodded. “I was young—by
our standards, at least. But my father had sent aid to the mortal-faerie alliance on the
continent, and I convinced him to let me take a legion of our soldiers.” He sat in the chair
beside mine, gazing vacantly at the map. “I was stationed in the south, right where the
fighting was thickest. The slaughter was … ” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I
have no interest in ever seeing full-scale slaughter like that again.”
He blinked, as if clearing the horrors from his mind. “But I don’t think the King of
Hybern will strike that way—not at first. He’s too smart to waste his forces here, to give
the continent time to rally while we fight him. If he makes his move to destroy Prythian
and the wall, it’ll be through stealth and trickery. To weaken us. Amarantha was the first
part of that plan. We now have several untested High Lords, broken courts with High
Priestesses angling for control like wolves around a carcass, and a people who have
realized how powerless they might truly be.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I said, my voice thin, scratchy. It made no sense—none
—that he would reveal his suspicions, his fears.
And Ianthe—she might be ambitious, but she was Tamlin’s friend. My friend, of sorts.
Perhaps the only ally we’d have against the other High Priestesses, Rhys’s personal dislike
for her or no …
“I am telling you for two reasons,” he said, his face so cold, so calm, that it unnerved