Yet those guards, yet Ianthe, managed to keep close behind, even as they swore at the snapping trunks that seemed to shift into their way, the rocks that went loose beneath their feet. I only had to outrun them for so long.
Only for a few miles. Draw them away from the Suriel, buy it time to flee.
And make sure they paid for what they had done. All of it.
I opened my senses, letting them lead the way. The forest did the rest.
Perhaps she was waiting for me. Perhaps she had ordered the woods to open a path.
The Hybern guards gained on me. My feet flew beneath me, swift as a deer.
I began to recognize the trees, the rocks. There, I had stood with Rhys—there, I had flirted with him. There, he had lounged atop a branch while waiting for me.
The air behind me parted—an arrow.
I veered left, nearly slamming into a tree. The arrow went wide.
The light shifted ahead—brighter. The clearing.
I let out a whimper of relief that I made sure they heard.
I broke from the tree line in a leap, knees popping as I flew over the stones leading to that hair-thatched cottage.
“Help me,” I breathed, making sure they heard that, too.
The wooden door was already half-open. The world slowed and cleared with each step, each heartbeat, as I hurtled over the threshold.
And into the Weaver’s cottage.
CHAPTER
60
I gripped the door handle as I passed the threshold, digging in my heels and throwing every scrap of strength into my arms to keep that door from shutting. From locking me in.
Invisible hands shoved against it, but I gritted my teeth and braced a foot against the wall, iron biting into my hands.
The room behind me was dark. “Thief,” intoned a lovely voice in the blackness.
“You do know,” Ianthe tittered from outside the cottage, her steps slowing into a walk, “that we’ll have to kill whoever is inside there with you. Selfish of you, Feyre.”
I panted, holding the door open, making sure they couldn’t see me on the other side.
“You have seen my twin,” the Weaver hissed softly—with a hint of wonder. “I smell him on you.”
Outside, Ianthe and the guard grew closer. Closer and closer.
Somewhere deep in the room, I felt her move. Felt her stand. And take a step toward me.
“What are you,” the Weaver breathed.
“Feyre, you can be quite tedious,” Ianthe said. Right outside. I could barely make out her pale robes through the crack between the door and threshold. “Do you think you can ambush us in there? I saw your shield. You’re drained. And I do not think your glowing trick will help.”
The Weaver’s dress rustled as she crept closer in the gloom. “Who did you bring, little wolf? Who did you bring to me?”
Ianthe and her two guards stepped over the threshold. Then another step. Past the open door. They didn’t see me in the shadows behind it.
“Dinner,” I said to the Weaver, whirling around the door—to its outside face. And let go of the handle.
Just as the door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the cottage, I saw the ball of faelight that Ianthe lifted to illuminate the room.
Saw the horrible face of the Weaver, that mouth of stumped teeth opening wide with delight and unholy hunger. A death-god of old—starved for life. With a beautiful priestess before her.
I was already hurtling for the trees when the guards and Ianthe began screaming.
Their unending screams followed me for half a mile. By the time I reached the spot where I’d seen the Suriel fall, they’d faded.
Sprawled out, the Suriel’s bony chest heaved unevenly, its breaths few and far between.
Dying.
I slid to my knees before it, sinking into the bloody moss. “Let me help you. I can heal you.”
I’d do it the same way I’d helped Rhysand. Remove those arrows—and offer it my blood.
I reached for the first one, but a dry, bony hand settled on my wrist. “Your magic …,” it rasped, “is spent. Do not … waste it.”
“I can save you.”
It only gripped my wrist. “I am already gone.”
“What—what can I do?” The words turned thin—brittle.
“Stay …,” it breathed. “Stay … until the end.”
I took its hand in mine. “I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say. I had done this—I had brought it here.
“I knew,” it gasped, sensing my shift in thoughts. “The tracking … I knew of it.”
“Then why come at all?”
“You … were kind. You … fought your fear. You were … kind,” it said again.
I began crying.
“And you were kind to me,” I said, not brushing away the tears that fell onto its bloodied, tattered robe. “Thank you—for helping me. When no one else would.”
A small smile on that lipless mouth. “Feyre Archeron.” A labored breath. “I told you—to stay with the High Lord. And you did.”
Its warning to me that first time we’d met. “You—you meant Rhys.” All this time. All this time—
“Stay with him … and live to see everything righted.”
“Yes. I did—and it was.”
“No—not yet. Stay with him.”
“I will.” I always would.
Its chest rose—then fell.
“I don’t even know your name,” I whispered. The Suriel—it was a title, a name for its kind.
That small smile again. “Does it matter, Cursebreaker?”
“Yes.”
Its eyes dimmed, but it did not tell me. It only said, “You should go now. Worse things—worse things are coming. The blood … draws them.”
I squeezed its bony hand, the leathery skin growing colder. “I can stay a while longer.”
I had killed enough animals to know when a body neared death. Soon, now—it would be a matter of breaths.
“Feyre Archeron,” the Suriel said again, gazing at the leafy canopy, the sky peeking through it. A painful inhale. “A request.”
I leaned close. “Anything.”
Another rattling breath. “Leave this world … a better place than how you found it.”
And as its chest rose and stopped altogether, as its breath escaped in one last sigh, I understood why the Suriel had come to help me, again and again. Not just for kindness … but because it was a dreamer.