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A Court of Thorns and Roses

Book by Sarah J. Maas · 50 quotes · Feyre, A Court Of Thorns And Roses, Sarah J Maas

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“He stole you away into the night, claiming some nonsense about the Treaty. And then everything went on as if it had never happened. It wasn’t right. None of it was right." "You went after me," I said. "You went after me -- to Prythian." "I got to the wall. I couldn't find a way through." I raised a shaking hand to my throat. "You trekked two days there and two days back-- through the winter woods?" She shrugged, looking at the sliver she'd pried from the table. "I hired that mercenary from town to bring me a week after you were taken. With the money from your pelt. She was the only one who seemed like she would believe me." "You did that -- for me?" Nesta's eyes -- my eyes, our mother's eyes -- met mine. "It wasn't right," she said again.”

“They watched me, too closely to be casual. Tamlin straightened a bit and said, 'You look... better than before.' Was that a compliment? I could have sworn Lucien gave Tamlin an encouraging nod. 'And your hair is... clean.' Perhaps it was my raging hunger making me hallucinate the piss-poor attempt at flattery.”

“Why?' I asked. 'Why be so generous?' Lucien gave me a look that suggested he had no idea, either, given that I'd murdered their companion, but Tamlin stared at me for a long moment. 'I kill too often as it is,' Tamlin said finally, shrugging his broad shoulders. 'And you're insignificant enough to not ruffle this estate. Unless you decide to start killing us.”

“Tamlin broke the silence. 'Feyre likes to hunt.' 'I don't like to hunt.' I should have probably used a more polite tone, but I went on. 'I hunted out of necessity. And how did you know that?' Tamlin's stare was bald, assessing. 'Why else were you in the woods that day? You had a bow and arrows in your... house.' I wondered whether he'd almost said hovel. 'When I saw your father's hands, I knew he wasn't the one using them.' He gestured to my scarred, calloused hands. 'You told him about the rations and money from pelts. Faeries might be many things, but we're not stupid. Unless your ridiculous legends claim that about us, too.' Ridiculous, insignificant. I stared at the crumbs of bread and swirls of remaining sauce on my golden plate. Had I been home, I would have licked my plate clean, desperate for any extra bit of nourishment. And the plates... I could have bought a team of horses, a plow, and a field for just one of them. Disgusting.”

“My blood froze as a creeping, leeching cold lurched by. I couldn't see anything, just a vague shimmering in the corner of my vision, but my horse stiffened beneath me. I willed my face in to blackness. Even the balmy spring woods seemed to recoil, to wither and freeze. The cold thing whispered past, circling. I could see nothing, but I could feel it. And in the back of my mind, an ancient hollow voice whispered: I will grind your bones between my claws; I will drink your marrow; I will feast on your flesh. I am what you fear; I am what you dread... Look at me. Look at me. I tried to swallow, but my throat had closed up. I kept my eyes on the trees, on the canopy, on anything but the cold mass circling us again and again. Look at me. I wanted to look- I needed to see what it was. Look at me. I stared at the coarse trunk of a distant elm, thinking of pleasant things. Like hot bread and full bellies- I will fill my belly with you. I will devour you. Look at me. A starry, unclouded night sky, peaceful and glittering and endless Summer sunrise. A refreshing bath in a forest pool. Meetings with Issac, losing myself for an hour or two in his body, in our shared breaths. It was all around us, so cold that my teeth chattered. Look at me. I stared and stared at the ever-nearing tree trunk, not daring to blink. My eyes strained, filling with tears, and I let them fall, refusing to acknowledge the thing that lurked around us. Look at me. And just as I thought I would give in, when my eyes so much from not looking, the cold disappeared in to the brush, leaving a trail of still, recoiling plants behind. Only after Lucien exhaled and our horses shook their heads did I dare sag in my seat. Even the crocuses seemed to straighten. 'What was that?' I asked, brushing the tears from my face. Lucien's face was still pale. 'You don't want to know.' 'Please. Was it that... Suriel you mentioned?' Lucien's russet eye was dark as he answered hoarsely. 'No. It was a creature that should not be in these lands. We call it the Bogge. You can not hunt it, and you cannot kill it. Even with your beloved ash arrows.' 'Why can't I look at it?' 'Because when you look at it- when you acknowledge it- that's when it becomes real. That's when it can kill you.”

“I can't just give up on it, on them. No matter what you say.' Even if I had been a fool- a stupid, human fool- to believe my father would ever actually come for me. Tamlin eyed me sidelong. 'You're not giving up on them.' 'Living in luxury, stuffing myself with food? How is that not-' 'They are cared for- they are fed and comfortable.' Fed and comfortable. If he couldn't lie, if it was true, then.. then it was beyond anything I'd ever dared hope for. Then... my vow to my mother was fulfilled. It stunned me enough that I didn't say anything for a moment as we walked. My life was now owned by the Treaty, but... perhaps I'd been freed in another sort of way.”

“The golden-haired High Fae's mask gleamed with the last rays of the afternoon sunshine. 'Before you ask again: the food is safe for you to eat.' He pointed to the chair at the other end of the table. No sign of his claws. When I didn't move, he sighed sharply. 'What do you want, then?' I said nothing. To eat, flee, save my family. Lucien drawled from his seat along the length of the table. 'I told you so, Tamlin.' He flicked a glance toward his friend. 'Your skills with females have definitely become rusty in recent decades.”

“What do you plan to do with me now that I'm here?' Tamlin's eyes didn't leave my face. 'Nothing. Do whatever you want.' 'So, I'm not here to be your slave?' I dared ask. Lucien choked on his wine. But Tamlin didn't smile. 'I don't keep slaves.' I ignored the release of tightness in my chest at that. 'But what am I to do with my life here?' I pressed. 'Do you- do you wish me to earn my keep? To work?' a stupid question, if he hadn't considered it, but... but I had to know. Tamlin stiffened. 'What you do with your life isn't my problem.' Lucien pointedly cleared his throat, and Tamlin flashed him a glare. After an exchanged look I couldn't read, Tamlin sighed and said. 'Don't you have any... interests?' 'No.' Not entirely true, but I wasn't about to explain the painting to him. Not when he was apparently having a great deal of trouble just talking to me civilly. Lucien muttered. 'So typically human.' Tamlin's mouth quirked to the side. 'Do whatever you want with your time. Just stay out of trouble.”

“It's been a few decades since I last saw one of you,' Lucien drawled, 'but you humans never change, so I don't think I'm wrong in asking why you find our company to be so unpleasant, when surely the men back home aren't much to look at.' At the other end of the table, Tamlin gave his emissary a long, warning look. Lucien ignored it. 'You're High Fae,' I said tightly. 'I'd ask why you'd even bother inviting me here at all- or dining with me.' Fool- I should have been killed ten times over already. Lucien said. 'True. But indulge me: you're a human woman, and yet you'd rather eat hot coals than sit here longer than necessary. Ignoring this'- he waved a hang at the metal eye and brutal scar on his face- 'surely we're not so miserable to look at.' Typical faerie vanity and arrogance. That, at least, the legends have been right about. I tucked the knowledge away. 'Unless you have someone back home. Unless there's a line of suitors out the door of your hovel that makes us seem like worms in comparison.”

“Alis looked me over from head to toe. 'You think a bit of rope snapping in my face will keep me from breaking your bones?' My blood went cold. 'You think that will do anything against one of us?' I might have kept apologising were it not for the sneer she gave me. I crossed my arms. 'It was a warning bell to give me time to run. Not a trap.' She seemed poised to spit on me, but then her sharp brown eyes narrowed. 'You can outrun us, either, girl.' 'I know,' I said, my heart calming at last. 'But at least I wouldn't face my death unaware.' Alis barked out a laugh. 'My master gave his word that you could live here- live, not die. We will obey.”

“So is this what you do with your lives? Spare humans from the Treaty and have fine meals?' I gave a pointed glance toward Tamlin's baldric, the warrior's clothes, Lucien's sword. Lucien smirked. 'We also dance with the spirits under the full moon and snatch human babes from their cradles to replace with changelings-”

“Please,' I breathed. 'My father-' 'Your father?' He lifted his stare to the gates behind me, and his growl rumbled through me as he bared his teeth. 'Why don't you look again?' He released me. I staggered back a step, whirling, sucking in a breath to tell my father to run, but- But he wasn't there. Only a pale bow and a quiver of pale arrows remained, propped up against the gates. Mountain ash. They hadn't been there moments before, hadn't- They rippled, as if they were nothing but water- and then the bow and quiver became a large pack, laden with supplies. Another ripple- and there were my sisters, huddled together, weeping. My knees buckled. 'What is...' I didn't finish the question. My father now stood there, still hunched and beckoning. A flawless rendering. 'Weren't you warned to keep your wits about you?' Tamlin snapped. 'That your human senses would betray you?' He stepped beyond me and let out a snarl so vicious that whatever the thing was by the gates shimmered with light and darted out as fast as lightning streaking through the dark. 'Fool,' he said to me, turning. 'If you're ever going to run away, at least do it in the daytime.' He stared me down, and the fangs slowly retracted. The claws remained. 'There are worse things than the Bogge prowling these woods at night. That thing at the gates isn't one of them- and it would have taken a good while devouring you.”

“Well, good-bye for now," he said, rolling his neck as if we hadn't been talking about anything important at all. He bowed at the waist, those wings vanishing entirely, and had begun to fade into the nearest shadow when he went rigid. His eyes locked on mine wide and wild, and his nostrils flared. Shock—pure shock flashed across his features at whatever he saw on my face, and he stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled. "What is—" I began. He disappeared—simply disappeared, not a shadow in sight—into the crisp air.”

“When you healed my arm...You didn't need to bargain with me. You could have demanded every single week of the year." My brows knit together as he turned, already half-consumed by the dark. "Every single week, and I would have said yes." It wasn't entirely a question, but I needed the answer. A half smile appeared on his sensuous lips. "I know," he said, and vanished.”

“If he hadn’t been kissing me, if he hadn’t shown up and interrupted us, I would have gone out into that throne room covered in smudged paint. And everyone—especially Amarantha—would have known what I’d been up to. It wouldn’t have taken much to figure out whom I’d been with, especially not once they saw the paint on Tamlin. I didn’t want to consider what the punishment might have been. Regardless of his motives or his methods, Rhysand was keeping me alive. And had done so even before I set foot Under the Mountain.”

“—Porque cuando se escriban las leyendas, no quería que me recordarán como alguien que escurrió el bulto. Quiero que mi futuro hijo sepa que yo estuve ahí, que pelee contra Amarantha al final, aunque mis esfuerzos de poco sirvieran. Parpadeé, y esta vez no era por el brillo del sol. —Porque —continuó él, los ojos fijos en los míos— no queria que pelearas sola. O murieras sola.”

“They grabbed for me, but he bared his teeth in a smile that was anything but friendly - and they halted. "No more household chores, no more tasks," he said, his voice an erotic caress. Their yellow eyes went glazed and dull, their sharp teeth gleaming as their mouths slackened. "Tell the others, too. Stay out of her cell, and don't touch her. If you do, you're to take your own daggers and gut yourselves. Understood?" Dazed, numb nods, then they blinked and straightened. I hid my trembling. Glamour, mind control - whatever it was he had done, it worked. They beckoned - but didn't dare touch me. Rhysand smiled. "You're welcome," he purred as I walked out.”

“He chuckled. Even as he said my most private thoughts, even as I burned with outrage and shame, I trembled at the grip still on my mind. Rhysand turned to the High Lord. "I'm curious: Why did she wonder if it would feel good to have you bite her breast the way you bit her neck?" "Let. Her. Go." Tamlin's face was twisted with such feral rage that it struck a different, deeper chord of terror in me. "If it's any consolation," Rhysand confided to him, "she would have been the one for you - and you might have gotten away with it. A bit late, though. She's more stubborn than you are.”

“What - what was I doing the whole time?" So much for Alis's warning. Lucien let out a sharp breath, running a hand through his red hair. "He had you dance for him for most of the night. And when you weren't dancing, you were sitting in his lap." "What kind of dancing?" I pushed. "Not the kind you were doing with Tamlin on Solstice," Lucien said, and my face heated. From the murkiness of my memories of last night, I recalled the closeness of a certain pair of violet eyes - eyes that sparkled with mischief as they beheld me. "In front of everyone?" "Yes," Lucien replied - more gently than I'd heard him speak to me before.”

“—Porque cuando se escriban las leyendas, no quería que me recordarán como alguien que escurrió el bulto. Quiero que mi futuro hijo sepa que yo estuve ahí, que pelee contra Amarantha al final, aunque mis esfuerzos de poco sirvieran. Parpadeé, y esta vez no era por el brillo del sol. —Porque —continuó él, los ojos fijos en los míos— no queria que pelearas sola. O murieras sola.” –Capítulo 46, pág. 451”

“Is this necessary?” I said, gesturing to the paint and clothing. “Of course,” he said coolly. “How else would I know if anyone touches you?” He approached, and I braced myself as he ran a finger along my shoulder, smearing the paint. As soon as his finger left my skin, the paint fixed itself, returning the design to its original form. “The dress itself won’t mar it, and neither will your movements,” he said, his face close to mine. His teeth were far too near to my throat. “And I’ll remember precisely where my hands have been. But if anyone else touches you—let’s say a certain High Lord who enjoys springtime—I’ll know.” He flicked my nose. “And, Feyre,” he added, his voice a caressing murmur, “I don’t like my belongings tampered with.”

“What?” Lucien laughed. “Yes—all those female faeries around you were females for Tamlin to pick. It’s an honor to be chosen, but it’s his instincts that select her.” “But you were there—and other male faeries.” My face burned so hot that I began sweating. That was why those three horrible faeries had been there—and they’d thought that just by my presence, I was happy to comply with their plans. “Ah.” Lucien chuckled. “Well, Tam’s not the only one who gets to perform the rite tonight. Once he makes his choice, we’re free to mingle. Though it’s not the Great Rite, our own dalliances tonight will help the land, too.” He shrugged off that invisible hand a second time, and his eyes fell upon the hills. “You’re lucky I found you when I did, though,” he said. “Because he would have smelled you, and claimed you, but it wouldn’t have been Tamlin who brought you into that cave.” His eyes met mine, and a chill went over me. “And I don’t think you would have liked it. Tonight is not for lovemaking.”

“Tam would gut me if he caught you drinking that.” “Always looking after your best interests,” I said, and pointedly chugged the contents of the glass. It was like a million fireworks exploding inside me, filling my veins with starlight. I laughed aloud, and Lucien groaned. “Human fool,” he hissed. But his glamour had been ripped away. His auburn hair burned like hot metal, and his russet eye smoldered like a bottomless forge. That was what I would capture next. “I’m going to paint you,” I said, and giggled—actually giggled—as the words popped out. “Cauldron boil and fry me,” he muttered, and I laughed again.”

“I smelled you,” he breathed, his painted chest rising and falling so close to mine. “I searched for you, and you weren’t there.” ............. “I would have been gentle with you, though.” I shuddered as I closed my eyes. Every inch of my body went taut as his words echoed through me. “I would have had you moaning my name throughout it all. And I would have taken a very, very long time, Feyre.”

“...from the opposite side of the meadow, dozens of shimmering shapes floated out across the grass, little more than mirages of moonlight. That was when the singing began. It was a collective voice, but in it existed both male and female- two sides of the same coin, singing to each other in a call and response. I raised a hand to my throat as their music rose and they danced. Ghostly and ethereal, they waltzed across the field, no more than slender slants of moonlight. 'What are they?' ''Will-o'-the-wisps- spirits of air and light,' he said softly. 'Come to celebrate the solstice.' 'They're beautiful.' His lips grazed my neck as he murmured against my skin. 'Dance with me, Feyre.' 'Really?' I turned and found my face mere inches from him. He cracked a lazy smile. 'Really.' As though I were nothing but air myself, he pulled me into a sweeping dance.”

“Say that you don’t love him!” Amarantha shrieked, and the blood on my hands became the blood of that rabbit—became the blood of what I had lost. But I wouldn’t say it. Because loving Tamlin was the only thing I had left, the only thing I couldn’t sacrifice. A path cleared through my red-and-black vision. I found Tamlin’s eyes—wide as he crawled toward Amarantha, watching me die, and unable to save me while his wound slowly healed, while she still gripped his power. Amarantha had never intended for me to live, never intended to let him go. “Amarantha, stop this,” Tamlin begged at her feet as he clutched the gaping wound in his chest. “Stop. I’m sorry—I’m sorry for what I said about Clythia all those years ago. Please.”

“What do you know?' Nesta breathed. 'You're just a half-wild beast with the nerve to bark orders at all hours of the day and night. Keep it up and someday- someday, Feyre, you'll have no one left to remember you or to care that you ever existed.' ... I'd heard the words before- and knew she only repeated them because I'd flinched the first time she spat them. They still burned anyway.”

“My fingers stung and ached, but I still held on to the rose as I said, 'I don't know why I feel so tremendously ashamed of myself for leaving them. Why it feels so selfish and horrible to paint. I shouldn't- shouldn't feel that way, should I? I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it.' The rose hung limply from my fingers. 'All those years, what I did for them... And they didn't try to stop you from taking me.' There it was, the giant pain that cracked me in two if I thought about it too long. 'I don't know why I expected them to- why I believed that the puca's illusion was real that night. I don't know why I bother still thinking about it. Or still caring.' He was silent long enough that I added. 'Compared to you- to your borders and magic being weakened- I suppose my self-pity is absurd.' 'If it grieves you,' he said, the words caressing my bones, 'then I don't think it's absurd at all.' 'Why?' A flat question and I chucked the rose into the bushes. He took my hands. His callused fingers, strong and sturdy, were gentle as he lifted my bleeding hand to his mouth and kissed my palm. As if that were answer enough. His lips were smooth against my skin, his breath warm, and my knees buckled as he lifted my other hand to his mouth and kissed it, too. Kissed it carefully- in a way that made heat begin pounding in my core, between my legs. When he withdrew, my blood shone on his mouth. I glanced at my hands, which he still held, and found the wounds gone. I looked at his face again, at his gilded mask, the tanness of his skin, the red of his blood-covered lips as he murmured. 'Don't feel bad for one moment about doing what brings you joy.' He stepped closer, releasing one of my hands to tuck the rose I'd plucked behind my ear. I didn't know how it had gotten into his hand, or where the thorns had gone.”

“So you'll let Lucien take you on hunts and-' 'Lucien,' I interrupted quietly but not softly, 'doesn't pretend to be anything what he is.' 'What's that supposed to mean?' he growled, but his claws stayed retracted, even as he clenched his hands into fists at his sides. I was definitely walking a dangerous line, but I didn't care. Even if he'd offered me sanctuary. I didn't have to fall at his feet. 'It means,' I said with that same cold quiet, 'That I don't know you. I don't know who you are, or what you really are, or what you want.' 'It means you don't trust me.' 'How can I trust a faerie? Don't you delight in killing and tricking us?' His snarl set the flames of the candles guttering. 'You aren't what I had in mind for a human- believe me.' I could almost feel the wound deep in my chest as it ripped open and all those awful, silent words came pouring out. Illiterate, ignorant, unremarkable, proud, cold- all spoken from Nesta's mouth, all echoing in my head with her sneering voice. I pinched my lips together. He winced and lifted a hand slightly, as if about to reach for me. 'Feyre,' he began- softly enough that I just shook my head and left the room. He didn't stop me. But that afternoon, when I went to retrieve my crumpled list from the wastebasket, it was gone. And my pile of books had been disturbed- the titles out of order.”