Feyre Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Feyre walked beside Lucien the next morning, the book heavy in her bag. He had taught her the strokes. He had caught the error that killed Saraid. She trusted his hands with the script. But she did not know him. A stranger who admitted he was not trustworthy, who had chosen someone over her once. Before she spoke the curse-name aloud, she needed to know what he wanted from her. She stopped on the steps of the great stone library, its towers rising into gray cloud. Stained glass burned in the arches. "Why do you help me?" she asked. "You told me yourself you can't be trusted. So tell me the truth now." Lucien did not look away. "My grandmother wants me married. She thinks you are my soulmate." He said it flatly, like a fact he disliked. "She sent me to the inn. She knew you would be there." Feyre's stomach turned cold. "So this was arranged. The script. All of it." "The meeting was arranged. The teaching was mine." He paused. "I did not expect to care whether you lived." She pushed through the heavy doors. Inside, the archive stretched up in shelves of timeworn books, the air thick with dust and old leather. She needed one thing now: proof he had lied or proof he had not. She found a case near the far wall, glass over an ancient page of tattoo-script. Beside it sat a quiet desk with a candle lamp. "Draw the curse-name," she said. "Here. In front of me. If you wanted me dead, you'd draw it wrong and let me speak it." Lucien sat. He took her pen. He drew from the center outward. Breath. Bind. Then the seal stroke, slow, two bends, not one. Exactly as he had taught her. Exactly as Saraid should have drawn it. He set the pen down. "That kills your plan," Feyre said. "If you had one." "I have no plan." He met her eyes. "My grandmother wants a wedding. I want you alive. Those are different things. Believe which one you like." She studied the mark. Every stroke true. A man who wanted her dead had just handed her the way to live. She looked at the drawn name, then at him. "Then you'll sit here while I read it silent," she said. "Every stroke. If you so much as breathe the word, I stop." "I won't speak it," he said. "I never have." Feyre opened the book under the candle. She found the symbol. She read it with her eyes alone, stroke by stroke, the two bends holding under her gaze. Her hands stayed steady. The name held. It was true. She closed the book. She trusted his hands now, and she knew his reason. The last barrier between her and the curse-name was gone. Only one thing remained. To speak it aloud, and live.