“Thank you,” she said, coming over to watch me. “Visiting them always leaves me raw.”

“Cassian seemed concerned.” Another prying question.

She shrugged. “Cassian, I think, would also savor the opportunity to shred that entire court to pieces. Starting with my parents. Maybe I’ll let him do it one year as a present. Him and Azriel both. It’d make a perfect solstice gift.”

I asked perhaps a bit too casually. “You told me about the time with Cassian, but did you and Azriel ever … ?”

A sharp laugh. “No. Azriel? After that time with Cassian, I swore off any of Rhys’s friends. Azriel’s got no shortage of lovers, though, don’t worry. He’s better at keeping them secret than we are, but … he has them.”

“So if he were ever interested would you … ?”

“The issue, actually, wouldn’t be me. It’d be him. I could peel off my clothes right in front of him and he wouldn’t move an inch. He might have defied and proved those Illyrian pricks wrong at every turn, but it won’t matter if Rhys makes him Prince of Velaris—he’ll see himself as a bastard-born nobody, and not good enough for anyone. Especially me.”

“But … are you interested?”

“Why are you asking such things?” Her voice became tight, sharp. More wary than I’d ever heard.

“I’m still trying to figure out how you all work together.”

A snort, that wariness gone. I tried not to look too relieved. “We have five centuries of tangled history for you to sort through. Good luck.”

Indeed. I finished her eyes—honey brown to Amren’s quicksilver. But almost in answer, Mor declared, “Paint Azriel’s. Next to mine. And Cassian’s next to Amren’s.”

I lifted my brows.

Mor gave me an innocent smile. “So we can all watch over you.”

I just shook my head and hopped off the stool to start figuring out how to paint hazel eyes.

Mor said quietly, “Is it so bad—to be his mate? To be a part of our court, our family, tangled history and all?”

I blended the paint in the small dish, the colors swirling together like so many entwined lives. “No,” I breathed. “No, it’s not.”

And I had my answer.

CHAPTER

53

Mor stayed overnight, even going so far as to paint some rudimentary stick figures on the wall beside the storeroom door. Three females with absurdly long, flowing hair that all resembled hers; and three winged males, who she somehow managed to make look puffed up on their own sense of importance. I laughed every time I saw it.

She left after breakfast, having to walk out to where the no-winnowing shield ended, and I waved to her distant, shivering figure before she vanished into nothing.

I stared across the glittering white expanse, thawed enough that bald patches peppered it—revealing bits of winter-white grass reaching toward the blue sky and mountains. I knew summer had to eventually reach even this melting dreamland, for I’d found fishing poles and sporting equipment that suggested warm-weather usage, but it was hard to imagine snow and ice becoming soft grass and wildflowers.

Brief as a glimmering spindrift, I saw myself there: running through the meadow that slumbered beneath the thin crust of snow, splashing through the little streams already littering the floor, feasting on fat summer berries as the sun set over the mountains …

And then I would go home to Velaris, where I would finally walk through the artists’ quarter, and enter those shops and galleries and learn what they knew, and maybe—maybe one day—I would open my own shop. Not to sell my work, but to teach others.

Maybe teach the others who were like me: broken in places and trying to fight it—trying to learn who they were around the dark and pain. And I would go home at the end of every day exhausted but content—fulfilled.

Happy.

I’d go home every day to the town house, to my friends, chock full of stories of their own days, and we’d sit around that table and eat together.

And Rhysand …

Rhysand …

He would be there. He’d give me the money to open my own shop; and because I wouldn’t charge anyone, I’d sell my paintings to pay him back. Because I would pay him back, mate or no.

And he’d be here during the summer, flying over the meadow, chasing me across the little streams and up the sloped, grassy mountainside. He would sit with me under the stars, feeding me fat summer berries. And he would be at that table in the town house, roaring with laughter—never again cold and cruel and solemn. Never again anyone’s slave or whore.

And at night … At night we’d go upstairs together, and he would whisper stories of his adventures, and I’d whisper about my day, and …

And there it was.

A future.

The future I saw for myself, bright as the sunrise over the Sidra.

A direction, and a goal, and an invitation to see what else immortality might offer me. It did not seem so listless, so empty, anymore.

And I would fight until my last breath to attain it—to defend it.

So I knew what I had to do.

Five days passed, and I painted every room in the cottage. Mor had winnowed in extra paint before she’d left, along with more food than I could possibly eat.

But after five days, I was sick of my own thoughts for company—sick of waiting, sick of the thawing, dripping snow.

Thankfully, Mor returned that night, banging on the door, thunderous and impatient.

I’d taken a bath an hour before, scrubbing off paint in places I hadn’t even known it was possible to smear it, and my hair was still drying as I flung open the door to the blast of cool air.

But Mor wasn’t leaning against the threshold.

CHAPTER

54

I stared at Rhys.

He stared at me.

His cheeks were tinged pink with cold, his dark hair ruffled, and he honestly looked freezing as he stood there, wings tucked in tight.

And I knew that one word from me, and he’d go flying off into the crisp night. That if I shut the door, he’d go and not push it.

His nostrils flared, scenting the paint behind me, but he didn’t break his stare. Waiting.

Mate.

My—mate.

This beautiful, strong, selfless male … Who had sacrificed and wrecked himself for his family, his people, and didn’t feel it was enough, that he wasn’t enough for anyone … Azriel thought he didn’t deserve someone like Mor. And I wondered if Rhys … if he somehow felt the same about me. I stepped aside, holding the door open for him.

I could have sworn I felt a pulse of knee-wobbling relief through the bond.

But Rhys took in the painting I’d done, gobbling down the bright colors that now made the cottage come alive, and said, “You painted us.”

“I hope you don’t mind.”

He studied the threshold to the bedroom hallway. “Azriel, Mor, Amren, and Cassian,” he said, marking the eyes I’d painted. “You do know that one of them is going to paint a moustache under the eyes of whoever pisses them off that day.”

I clamped my lips to keep the smile in. “Oh, Mor already promised to do that.”

“And what about my eyes?”