Name: A Court of Wings and Ruin
Rating: 4.708333333333333 (12 reviews)

Sarah J. Maas

*Feyrewill bring vengeance*.

She has left the Night Court—and her High Lord—and is playing a deadly game of deceit. Her former lover Tamlin is making deals with Feyre's enemies and she's determined to uncover his plans. But can she make him believe she has come back to him when every fibre of her being yearns for Rhysand?

As mighty armies clash, Feyre will discover she is not the only one hiding something. And as the web of secrets, lies and betrayals is revealed, fighting for the truth may cost Feyre and her court the ultimate price.

The third book in the epic fantasy series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah J Maas.

(A Court of Thorns and Roses #3)

A Court of Wings and Ruin 

Anna Stewart

I’d always thought death would be some sort of peaceful homecoming—a sweet, sad lullaby to usher me into whatever waited afterward. 

I crunched down with an armored boot on the flagpole of a Loyalist standard-bearer, smearing red mud across the tusked boar embroidered on its emerald flag. 

I now wondered if the lullaby of death was not a lovely song, but the droning of flies. If flies and maggots were all Death’s handmaidens.

The fact that he didn't stop searching for Cassian or Azriel (even though he knew they probably weren't there at all) breaks my heart

My aching, bloodied fingers dug into dented armor and clammy, stiff flesh as I heaved away the last of the High Fae corpses piled atop the fallen Illyrian soldier. 

The dark hair, the golden-brown skin… The same as Cassian’s. 

But it was not Cassian’s death-gray face that gaped at the sky. 

My breath whooshed from me, my lungs still raw from roaring, my lips dry and chapped. 

I needed water—badly. But nearby, another set of Illyrian wings poked up from the piled dead. 

I stumbled and lurched toward it, letting my mind drift someplace dark and quiet while I righted the twisted neck to peer at the face beneath the simple helm. 

I picked my way through the corpses to another Illyrian. 

Some I knew. Some I didn’t. Still the killing field stretched onward under the sky. 

Mile after mile. A kingdom of the rotting dead. 

“It’s nowhere near done,” I said, dredging up that girl who had shunned praise and compliments, who had wanted to go unnoticed. “It’s still a mess.” 

Frankly, it was some of my best work, even if its soullessness was only apparent to me. 

“I think we all are,” Tamlin offered with a tentative smile. 

I reined in the urge to roll my eyes, and returned his smile, brushing my hand over his shoulder as I passed.

“You are a better friend to me, Feyre,” he said quietly, “than I ever was to you.”

“I was there that day, you know,” Alis said, folding her spindly arms across her chest. “I saw the Morrigan arrive. Saw her reach into that cocoon of power and pick you up like a child. I begged her to take you out.” 

“I never told him that. Never told any of them. I let them think you’d been abducted. But you clung to her, and she was willing to slaughter all of us for what had happened.” 

“I don’t know why you’d assume that.” I tugged the edges of my silk robe tighter around me. 

“Servants talk. And Under the Mountain, I never heard of or saw Rhysand laying a hand on a servant. Guards, Amarantha’s cronies, the people he was ordered to kill, yes. But never the meek. Never those unable to defend themselves.” 

“They say you came back different. Came back wrong.” A crow’s laugh. “I never bother to tell them I think you came back right. Came back right at last.”

But he was studying my hand, braced on his arm. The empty finger where that ring had once perched. 

What did he make of it—where did he think that ring had gone, if Lucien had hidden the evidence? For a heartbeat, I pitied him. 

Pitied that not only Lucien had lied to him, but Alis as well. How many others had seen the truth of my suffering—and tried to spare 

Seen my suffering and done nothing to help 

Slowly, the golden disc of the sun broke over the hazy greens and blues of the horizon. 

Light filled the world, clear and strong, spearing right for us. 

Ianthe’s back arched, her body a mere vessel for the solstice’s light to fill, and what I could see of her face was already limned in pious ecstasy. 

The sun rose, a held, gilded note echoing through the land. 

At me, resplendent and pure in white, beginning to glow with the light of day as the sun’s path flowed directly over me instead.

I made a show of looking surprised—surprised and yet accepting of the Cauldron’s choice. Tamlin’s face was taut with shock, the Hybern royals’ nothing short of baffled. 

But I turned to Lucien, my light radiating so brightly that it bounced off his metal eye. A friend beseeching another for help. I reached a hand toward him. 

Beyond us, I could feel Ianthe scrambling to regain control, to find some way to spin it. 

Perhaps Lucien could, too. For he took my hand, and then knelt upon one knee in the grass, pressing my fingers to his brow. 

Like stalks of wheat in a wind, the others fell to their knees as well. 

For in all of her preening ceremonies and rituals, never had Ianthe revealed any sign of power or blessing. But Feyre Cursebreaker, who had led Prythian from tyranny and darkness… 

I let my glow spread, until it, too, rippled from Lucien’s bowed form. 

When I looked to Ianthe and smiled again, I let a little bit of the wolf show.

, I said into the bond, sending along flickers of all that had occurred atop that hill. 

He would have enjoyed my performance—would have laughed himself hoarse afterward at the expression on Ianthe’s face. 

I finished washing up and was about to head out into the hills again when Rhysand’s voice filled my mind. 

to spend even a moment in the company of Feyre Cauldron-blessed

I’d left Lucien’s door open, with him too distracted and unsuspecting of why I’d really be there to bother to shut it, or notice the shield of hard air I’d placed around the room so that he wouldn’t hear or scent Tamlin as he arrived. 

Until Tamlin saw us there, limbs entwined, my nightgown askew, staring at each other so intently, so full of 

 that we’d either just been starting or finishing up. That we didn’t even notice until Tamlin was right there—and that invisible shield vanished before he could sense it. 

“Autumn Court males have fire in their blood—and they fuck like it, too.”

“You get a second shot at life and that’s what you wish to do? Revenge?” 

Jurian smiled slowly. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?” 

Months of working with Rhys had me remembering to furrow my brow in confusion. “Against Rhys, I would one day like it.” 

“That’s what they all say, when they pretend he’s a sadistic murderer. You forget I knew him in the War. You forget he risked his legion to save Miryam from our enemy’s fort. That’s how Amarantha captured him, you know. Rhys knew it was a trap—for Prince Drakon. So Rhys went against orders, and marched in his whole legion to get Miryam out. For his friend, for 

 lover—and for that bastard Drakon’s sake. Rhys sacrificed his legion in the process, got all of them captured and tortured afterward. Yet everyone insists Rhysand is soulless, wicked. But the male I knew was the most decent of them all. Better than that prick-prince. You don’t lose that quality, no matter the centuries, and Rhys was too smart to do anything but have the vilification of his character be a calculated move. And yet here you are—his mate. The most powerful High Lord in the world lost his mate, and has not yet come to claim her, even when she is defenseless in the woods.” Jurian chuckled. “Perhaps that’s because Rhysand has not lost you at all. But rather unleashed you upon us.”

I’d given them both a length of rope. I supposed now would be the moment to see whether they’d hang themselves with it.

Not with my knives or magic, but my mind. 

I ripped down the shield I’d kept up around her to avoid the twins’ control—and slammed myself into her consciousness. 

A mask over a face of decay. That’s what it was like to go inside that beautiful head and find such hideous thoughts inside it. A trail of males she’d used her power on or outright forced to bed, convinced of her entitlement to them. I pulled back against the tug of those memories, mastering myself. “Take your hands off him.” 

Lucien’s skin drained of color as Ianthe obeyed me, her face queerly vacant, pliant. The blue stone shackles thumped to the mossy ground. 

Lucien’s shirt was askew, the top button on his pants already undone. 

The roaring that filled my mind was so loud I could barely hear myself as I said, “Pick up that rock.” 

Lucien remained pressed against that tree. And he watched in silence as Ianthe stooped to pick up a gray, rough rock about the size of an apple. 

“Put your right hand on that boulder.” 

She obeyed, though a tremor went down her spine. 

Her mind thrashed and struggled against me, like a fish snared on a line. I dug my mental talons in deeper, and some inner voice of hers began screaming. 

“Smash your hand with the rock as hard as you can until I tell you to stop.” 

The hand she’d put on him, on so many others.

“I debated slitting your throat this morning,” I told her. “I debated it all last night while you slept beside me. I’ve debated it every single day since I learned you sold out my sisters to Hybern.” I smiled a bit. “But I think this is a better punishment. And I hope you live a long, long life, Ianthe, and never know a moment’s peace.”

I was running out of borrowed time. I could winnow, but then I’d abandon Lucien to them if he somehow couldn’t manage to himself with the faebane in his system from the food at the camp— 

But to a fate perhaps worse than death— 

I exploded into night and smoke and shadow. 

And even a thousand years wasn’t enough for Dagdan to adequately prepare as I winnowed in front of him and struck.

“You were right,” Lucien declared at last. “That girl I knew did die Under the Mountain.” 

I wasn’t sure if it was an insult. But I nodded all the same. “At least we can agree on that.” I stepped into the awaiting cold and dark. 

Lucien fell into step beside me as we strode beneath the archway of carved, crude stone, our blades out as we left behind the warmth and green of eternal spring.

“My father will hunt you for taking his power if he finds out,” he said into the frigid dark. “And kill you for learning how to wield it.” 

“He can get in line,” was all I said.

“My mate is engaged to a human male.” He spoke more to himself than to me. 

“I want to see her. Just once. Just—to know.” 

He hitched my damp cloak higher around us. “If she is worth fighting for.”

A shadow slammed into the earth before us, cracking the ice toward every horizon. 

Seven red Siphons glinted over his scaled black armor as Cassian tucked in his wings and snarled at Eris with five centuries’ worth of rage. 

Lovely book, didn’t love the ending quite as much, felt a bit unnecessary in parts 

A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses #3)

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