Prologue – Under the Mountain
The Mountain had never looked so welcoming.
What would one day be Amarantha’s throne room had been transformed into something almost holy in its splendor. The cavernous space gleamed beneath layers of illusion and careful craft—stone smoothed and polished until it reflected light like water, veins of quartz and gold coaxed into elegant arches rather than left to claw raw through rock.
Crystal chandeliers bloomed from the ceiling like captured constellations, their light fractured into prisms that danced across silk and skin alike. Music drifted through the vast hall—strings and flutes interwoven with something older, something thrumming just beneath hearing. A spell-song, meant to soothe instincts honed for war and dull the edge of suspicion we High Lords carried like second hearts.
It was brilliant. It was deliberate.
Tables lined the perimeter, groaning beneath abundance taken from every corner of Prythian. Fruits from Summer glistened with dew that hadn’t yet fallen. Winter wines steamed faintly in crystal decanters. Breads dusted with Spring herbs sat beside Autumn’s spiced meats and Night Court confections spun with sugar and starlight.
Nothing was accidental. Every bite, every scent, every note of music whispered the same promise: you are safe here.
All of Prythian had answered her invitation.
High Lords stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the Mountain, masks polished, crowns gleaming, power humming just beneath skin and silk. Old rivals exchanged careful pleasantries, words chosen with surgical precision. Old wounds—some centuries deep—were hidden behind smiles honed to perfection. For one night, we pretended we were not predators penned together, not creatures who had learned long ago that proximity often ended in blood.
I did not pretend nearly as well as some. Because Tamlin was uneasy.
He hid it better than most—his posture relaxed, his expression neutral—but I knew him too well for the tells to escape me. He lingered on the edges of conversations with Amarantha. Declined her touch when he could. Watched her the way one watches a blade laid too casually on a table.
Tamlin had known her for centuries. Before the masks. Before the crowns.
She had been a frequent presence in his father’s court, a favored guest, a smiling constant. Familiarity bred something far more dangerous than fear—recognition. And if Tamlin, stubborn and proud and not easily rattled, did not trust her…
Then she was already far more dangerous than she appeared. Amarantha moved among us like a dream made flesh.
She was charming—gods help us, she truly was. Laughter came easily to her, ringing bright and unforced. Her smiles were warm, disarming, practiced just enough to feel genuine. Her touch was light and friendly as she greeted each court in turn, fingers brushing sleeves, hands clasped briefly in gestures of alliance rather than dominance.
She spoke of peace as though it were already inevitable. Of trade routes opening between Prythian and Hybern. Of borders stabilized and old hostilities smoothed into something almost civil. Of an age where power would no longer need to be proved through bloodshed and war-bands. She made it sound merciful. She made it sound necessary. Many listened. Some even believed her.
I watched from the edge of the room, goblet idle in my hand, posture relaxed, smile easy. I played my part flawlessly—offering amused agreement, the occasional clever remark, a raised brow at precisely the right moment. The Night Court’s indulgent, dangerous High Lord: entertaining, irreverent, safely underestimated.
Inside, I catalogued everything. Who leaned closer when she spoke. Who avoided her gaze. Who stiffened when Hybern was mentioned.
And all the while, I tested the air—searching for the trap I knew must be there. Tamlin would not distrust without reason. And Amarantha did not gather every High Lord in Prythian simply to toast peace. Something waited beneath the music. Beneath the wine. Beneath the borrowed stars.
Inside, I was already moving. I let my body remain idle at the edge of the room—laughing at the right moments, sipping wine I didn’t taste—while my mind slipped free, quiet as breath. I brushed against her consciousness the way one might trail fingers across silk: not pressing, not pulling, simply testing the weave.
There. Resistance. Her mental shields were exquisite. Not walls. Not barriers. Layers—interlocking and adaptive, humming with intention. They shifted as I touched them, rearranging themselves with a living intelligence that spoke of centuries spent perfecting the craft. This was not brute-force defense. This was artistry.
Annoyance flickered through me, quickly banked. I changed tactics. Instead of probing for cracks, I followed the seams—where one layer met the next, where magic had been folded back on itself too many times. I mimicked the cadence of her own thoughts, adjusted my rhythm to match hers, let my presence fade until it was no more intrusive than background noise. Patience. That had always been my strength.
Snatches brushed against me as I worked: intention without detail, ambition sharpened into certainty, the echo of another power braided tightly through her own—older, colder. Hybern. I pressed closer, carefully, isolating that thread. Almost— The shield flexed.
Not reacting. Adapting. I froze, holding myself perfectly still within the lattice of her mind, every instinct screaming to retreat. If I pushed now—if I grew impatient—she would feel it. Not as an intrusion, but as imbalance. A wrong note in a flawless chord.
So, I waited. Counted heartbeats. Let the music swell. Let the laughter crest. Let the wine dull the edges of attention around us.
I eased back a fraction, retreating along the same path I’d taken in, sealing my wake behind me so thoroughly even I could barely sense where I’d been. I learned just enough to be afraid. Enough to know the shields were not meant to keep others out—but to keep something in.
Tonight was not the night for open battle. Not yet. I needed time. Needed leverage. Needed to understand how far her plans extended—how many minds, how many courts, how deeply Hybern’s will had already sunk its hooks into Prythian.
I was still cataloguing possibilities—still calculating the next move— When the music softened. When voices stilled. When Amarantha lifted her glass. She called us together with a single, delicate gesture.
Conversation ebbed like a tide drawn suddenly back to sea. Music softened, instruments tapering into a hush that felt rehearsed. Servants moved smoothly through the crowd, refilling glasses with pale, sparkling champagne that caught the chandelier light like liquid crystal.
I had already lifted mine.
“Friends,” Amarantha said, her voice carrying easily through the hall. “High Lords. Allies.”
We turned toward her as one. Glasses were raised. Smiles answered smiles. Anticipation hummed through the air, thick and pleasant and utterly disarming. The spell-song woven through the music shifted subtly, encouraging compliance, encouraging trust.
“A toast,” she continued, lifting her goblet. “To peace. To unity. To an end to the endless wars that have bled us dry.”
I sipped my wine, not thinking of what was in my hand, as I still tried to tunnel through her mental shields. That was when I felt it. The wine. Magic—foreign, elegant, catastrophic—unfurled across my tongue the instant the champagne touched my lips. It bloomed outward with horrifying speed, racing through blood and bone and breath, seeking the core of what I was.
A binding spell. Ancient. Precise. Designed not to kill—but to take. Magic.
Around the room, glasses shattered as High Lords dropped them in shock. Wine froze midair, suspended in glittering arcs as the spell fully took hold. The music died on a single, discordant note, the sound snapping like a thread pulled too tight.
Pain detonated inside me. White-hot. Absolute. It felt as if hands had plunged into my chest and seized my power—ancient, vast, mine—and were tearing it free root and vein. Not stolen in a rush, but peeled away, layer by layer, each second an agony unto itself.
Cries echoed through the hall. Not screams of fear—but of loss. Of violation. High Lords fell to their knees, to their hands, to the polished stone floor as their magic was ripped from them, stripped and bound by a spell so perfectly crafted there was no resisting it. The air filled with the sound of something sacred breaking—something that should never have been touched.
I dropped to one knee, breath sawing from my lungs, vision blurring as the world tilted violently. My hands clawed uselessly at the floor as the last of my power tore loose, leaving behind a hollow so vast it felt like freefall.
No. No, no, no—
I reached inward, frantic, clawing for what remained as the spell continued its merciless work. My power was bleeding out of me in great, violent pulls, each one leaving me weaker, slower, closer to collapse. Panic clawed up my throat, sharp enough to choke.
There was so little time. I forced myself to focus—to prioritize. Power could be mourned later. Pride could burn. But there was one thing I would not allow her to touch.
With what magic I had left—what scraps hadn’t yet been stripped from me—I gathered it with brutal efficiency. I ignored the pain screaming through every nerve and hurled that power outward, far beyond the Mountain, beyond stone and sea and shadow.
Across leagues of night. Across memory and secrecy.
I wove a shield—not merely of spellcraft or raw magic, but of intent. Of command layered with sacrifice. Of love sharpened into something unbreakable. Velaris. Hidden. Forgotten. Untouched.
I felt the city answer—not with sound, but with recognition. The wards bloomed into place, folding inward and outward at once, disguising truth beneath illusion so complete it bordered on myth. I anchored the shield deep, binding it to my blood and will, threading myself into its foundation so thoroughly that it became an extension of me.
So thoroughly that even from beneath this cursed Mountain, I could feel it—taut as a drawn bowstring—held together by the fragile tether of what remained of my power.
If I shattered completely here… if she drained me to nothing… The shield would falter. And Velaris would burn.
As the last threads slipped through my fingers, unraveling even as I secured them, I reached for the only ones who needed to know.
Cassian. Azriel. Mor. Amren. Listen to me.
The words tore from me, raw and urgent, carried on the thinnest remaining strand of my power. She has betrayed us. She is taking everything.
Their answers slammed back instantly—fear sharp and bright, shock rippling outward, rage coiling tight and lethal.
Stay within the city, I ordered, forcing command into every syllable despite the agony ripping me apart. Do not leave its borders. The shield will hold—but only if you do. If you cross it, it will fail. Understanding flickered back at me, quick and brutal. They obeyed.
My power tore free at last, the final pull so violent it stole the breath from my lungs and left behind a hollow so vast I thought it might swallow me whole. The world tilted. Stone rushed up to meet me.
I hit the floor hard. Above me, Amarantha laughed—bright, triumphant, victorious—as the Mountain claimed us all. Her laughter echoed through the ruined hall, ringing over fallen High Lords and shattered illusions.
I felt Amarantha’s attention snap onto me the moment the last of my power tore free. Not because she sensed Velaris. Not because she knew what I had done with those final scraps. But because she was looking for a reaction. For submission.
The hall was still chaos—High Lords on their knees, magic stripped from us like skin from bone, crystal shattered across the marble floor. The scent of spilled champagne hung sickly sweet in the air. And through it all, she stood untouched at the center. Victorious.
Her gaze swept the room slowly, savoring it. Lingering on broken pride, on rage, on disbelief. And then it found me. I was on one knee, breathing hard, palms braced against the fractured stone. I forced my head to bow—not too low. Never too low.
Her red lips curved. “Rhysand,” she said softly.
The way she said my name sent a ripple through the room. Not invitation. Not yet. Claim. She descended the steps of what had only moments ago been a neutral dais—now her seat of conquest. Her heels clicked against the marble as she circled me slowly. The other High Lords were still reeling, too stunned to mask their fury.
I masked mine. That was always my talent.
She stopped before me and tipped my chin up with one finger. “You look disappointed.” Her nails pressed just enough to sting. A reminder. A warning.
I gave her a slow, lazy smile—though my magic lay in tatters and my bones still rang from the loss. “On the contrary,” I drawled, voice steady despite the hollow cavern where my power had been. “I do love a good surprise.” A lie.
She studied me for a heartbeat too long. Testing. Searching for defiance. If she had felt the shield settle across Prythian—if she had sensed the city anchoring itself beyond her reach—she would have torn my mind apart then and there. But she did not.
Instead, her expression shifted into something colder. More intimate. “You will walk with me,” she said quietly. Not a request.
Around us, the court watched. The High Lords watched. Humiliation was part of the ritual now. A demonstration of who would kneel first. I rose when she gestured, though my knees nearly buckled. Not from weakness—never that. From the absence. From the violent silence where my power had once roared. She slid her hand around my arm. Possessive. Public. Let them see, her grip said. Let them understand what happens to those who interest me.
I inclined my head just enough to sell it. To make it look willing. Inside, I held to one truth like a blade between my ribs. She had taken Prythian. But she had not taken everything.
A city of starlight slept on, unaware of how narrowly it had escaped annihilation. And for that alone— For them— The loss was worth it.
Amarantha laughed. Clear. Triumphant. The chandeliers dimmed as the stolen magic settled into her waiting grasp.
And in that moment—choking on pain and betrayal—I understood the full scope of her brilliance. She hadn’t needed to overpower us. She had only needed us to drink.
And we had.
