A Court of Rage and Fire

Chapter 9

Nesta headed to the cave-pools to rinse off the sweat of her run, only to promptly turn around when she saw Ada soaking in the hot pool.

"Oh!" she squealed as she spun on her heel.

"Is bathing so antisocial in the Night Court?" Ada asked. "I don't mind if you don't. There's no shame. I've got a mask on anyway. Headache."

Nesta glanced back and saw, indeed, a mask beaded all over with small stones lay across Ada's eyes, presumably to keep her forehead cool as she soaked.

"Right," Nesta said, undressing. "I'm still getting used to how...open Fae are with their bodies."

"Ah, human modesty," Ada said with a wan smile. "Just wait until Calanmai, the fertility festival of Spring. All the High Fae nobility are usually invited, through I'm not sure the High Lord of Spring will hold it this year. He didn't last year. You'll get a small taste here on Calangaeaf, Spirit Night here in Autumn. It's not as popular a holiday as the Equinox or the harvest, but you'll be invited. They call you a witch, don't they? It's the night when the veil is thinnest, and all the witches commune and dance naked around the bonfires, while males cast wards and cower and dread the day of their reaping."

"The veil between worlds?" Nesta awkwardly crossed her arms in characteristic human modesty while she attempted to unbraid her hair. She eventually gave up, accepting that Ada wasn't looking, and even if she was it, didn't really matter. Relaxing a bit made freeing her hair much easier.

"Maybe. Mostly between this land and the land of the dead."

"Are you a witch?" Nesta asked.

"Are you?" Ada flipped up the corner of her mask so Nesta could see her wink, then laid her head back against the side of the pool and was quiet while Nesta scrubbed under the waterfall.

Afterward, Nesta wrapped herself in a plush towel and sat on the edge of the hot pool, dangling her feet in the water while she oiled and combed out her hair. The water felt nice, and soaking might have felt even better after exercising, but ankle deep was about as much as she could handle most days.

"Are you alright? Is there anything I can get for you?" Nesta finally asked.

"I'm fine. Just an unpleasant conversation with my husband this morning. That always brings on a headache, and the weather...it's going to rain, and that pains my old bones. The baths help. So does talking another female. He asked me to send you to the graveyard again in three days."

Nesta simmered, considering Beron's famed cruelty and the way Ada seemed to shrink and cringe whenever he was around. "Did he hurt—"

"No," Ada said quietly. "You would know if he did."

"Do you ever think about—"

"Be a dear and pass me the mint oil. Please." Ada gently changed the subject. "This is not so easy a Court to survive in as the Night Court, Nesta. It is highly unusual for any High Fae, let alone a High Lord, to have multiple sons, let alone seven. Yes, I had seven sons, and now there are five. And I will have fewer yet if they all rush at once to fill a power vacuum, whether mine or Beron's. I may not be High Lady like your sister, but I still have duties and sway here. Do you understand?"

She nodded, then remembered Ada could not see her. Nesta sniffed a few oil bottles before finding the right one, which the Lady uncorked and dotted on her temples. "I—I apologize." They were not words that came easily to Nesta, but she liked the kind older female and worried she had pushed the Lady too far.

"Don't. It's a natural conclusion, and you don't think like a mother. Yet."

"How old are you?"

"I thought humans considered that a rather rude question. I'm five hundred fifty-six." Definitely too young to complain of old bones—more like old injuries, Nesta suspected. The Illyrian brothers and Mor were all a year or two shy of five hundred forty, and if Eris was close enough in age to have been betrothed to Mor as teenagers, that meant Ada must have been younger than Feyre when she was married off to Beron and pregnant with Eris. Seven sons and pregnant by twenty—strangely fertile for a High Fae couple. Nesta hoped that, if Feyre survived this pregnancy, she would not have to navigate six more.