A Court of Bastards [ACOTAR]

Chapter 40

When the six of them winnowed in atop the House of Wind, Fiona was momentarily stunned, wondering how they had managed to spend so long in the Hewn City that night had fallen. It was only when the dense plumes of black began to move that she realised it was smoke.

Velaris was up in flames.

The harbour breeze and gust over the clifftops was not enough to dispel the rising towers of soot being swept into the air, carrying on the wind such bloodcurdling screams, pleas of such desperation that the longer they watched, the more the horrors engulfed them. Fiona felt swallowed up by the city, as though she was already down there. She pictured the tidalwave of blood cresting the Rainbow, smelling the acrid tang of soot as the flames licked their way through the Palace of Thread & Jewels.

Gabriel dropped to his knees beside her, tears brimming in his wide eyes. 

"It's here," he whispered. "It's all coming true...I- I don't know how I didn't see it before." He was blinking fiercely, as though hoping he might wake up from the terror and bloodshed. "It was Keir...Keir was the king of stone all along."

Bella was shaking her head slowly, staring down into the city. "I don't understand."

"So much blood," Gabriel whimpered, wings drooping onto the stone behind him. Fiona wanted to reassure him, but no fae could ignore the sounds and scents of suffering below them. They could smell it already, the irony tang of blood rising above the city and mingling with the smoke, like some horrid haze of death.

"I don't understand," Bella repeated. "If Keir was down there, then who's up here?"

"Darkbringers." Xander's violet gaze was fixed on the smog engulfing the docks. "Some footsoldiers, some lesser fae, and..."

Fiona spotted them in the same instant he did. Keir's legions were spread across the wreckage, furthering the boundary of flame and anguish in small, uncoordinated spurts. But there was one large group working through the streets with methodical malice. One platoon of soldiers in gleaming armour, marching beneath a familiar sigil: a red fox beneath an oak tree.

Green satin was balled into smouldering fists of fabric. "Eris." Though Fiona was trembling with rage, her voice did not waver as she spoke her father's name aloud, felt that rush of hatred as the wind whispered murder in her ears.

"But how did they get in?"

"The wards." Nyx was still as stone, unblinking as he watched the destruction unfold. "Father was taking down the wards today."

"But how did he know?" Bella snapped, slowly working back to life as her shock was replaced by cold, coursing fury.

Nyx had no answer, but he shook his head. "I'm going to find Keir," was all he said, before he blipped out of sight. For a minute, all they could hear was Gabriel's quiet sobbing. But Fiona could not stand to stay another moment on that rooftop, watching her father's troops lay waste to her home.

Before she'd even moved, before she'd so much as taken a pre-emptive breath, Xander had an arm out to block her. Fiona turned her murderous gaze on him. "I'm going down there."

"Our priority is evacuation." he told her. Though she could see the panic rimming his pupils, knew the swirling abyss of fear was threatening to consume him, he gave his orders with quiet strength. "Bella will go to Cassian and find out where the front line is. Gabriel and I will go and hold off the darkbringers, Riordan-"

The Prince of Daybreak glanced up, as though only just noticing them.

"You and Fiona will go to the residential quarters and evacuate the remaining citizens."