A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 41:
Upon returning to Velaris, Rhys goes to brood on the edge of his fountain. His friends rally around him:
If only humans could see them: faeries, sitting on iron. They’d throw away those ridiculous baubles and jewelry. Perhaps even Elain would receive an engagement ring that hadn’t been forged with hate and fear.
Yes, if only humans could see the faeries sitting in these lawn chairs made out of material incorrectly believed to harm them, then they wouldn’t give gifts to one another made after said material. What a world that would be.
They try to come up with a plan to convince the queens – who all apparently live together in one palace, which makes no sense to me – that they’re not really the evil people they convinced everyone they were.
Feyre asks who all the random characters were that Rhys spoke about last chapter and if they can somehow be used as proof of his good intentions, which is dumb. I have a better plan. Might I suggest re-gifting something from Tarquin? I mean, why not a beautiful blood ruby?
Oh my gosh and then Rhys infodumps all this shit about these random characters rather than just immediately telling Feyre her suggestion doesn’t make sense.
It’s obvious this will come up again in a future book, so here you go: Miryam is half-Fae, and her mother was a human slave to the Fae. Amren interrupts Rhys’ infodumping to say he’s being too slow and proceeds to infodump at the same fucking pace! I mean really!
“The gist of it, girl,” she said to me, “is that Miryam was given as a wedding gift by the queen to her betrothed, a foreign Fae prince named Drakon. He was horrified, and let Miryam escape. Fearing the queen’s wrath, she fled through the desert, across the sea, into more desert … and was found by Jurian. She fell in with his rebel armies, became his lover, and was a healer amongst the warriors. Until a devastating battle found her tending to Jurian’s new Fae allies— including Prince Drakon. Turns out, Miryam had opened his eyes to the monster he planned to wed. He’d broken the engagement, allied his armies with the humans, and had been looking for the beautiful slave-girl for three years. Jurian had no idea that his new ally coveted his lover. He was too focused on winning the War, on destroying Amarantha in the North. As his obsession took over, he was blind to witnessing Miryam and Drakon falling in love behind his back.”
Are we honestly expected to give any shits about this? Seriously, tell me you read that and 1) felt this was an appropriate place in the story to discover all this currently irrelevant information 2) that you found it interesting.
“Long story short, girl, when Jurian was slaughtered by Amarantha, and during the long centuries after, she told him what had happened to his lover. That she’d betrayed him for a Fae male. Everyone believed Miryam and Drakon perished while liberating her people from the Black Land at the end of the War— even Amarantha.”
Someone needs to clarify what “long story short” actually means to everyone that has ever entered the pages of this book.
Anyway, Feyre argues that they should show Miryam and Drakon’s happy kingdom of humans and Fae that was also somehow hidden away from the world, but everyone refuses to betray their beloved friends who we have no attachment to whatsoever. Rhys finally points out that this wouldn’t prove very much about his character except that he betrays people. So telling us their whole history right now was poorly timed to say the least.
After all that, Rhys announces they’re going to show the queens Velaris to prove he’s great…somehow. I mean, technically Rhys also runs the Court of Nightmares, so the people who live in his various cities don’t necessarily reflect on his character either, but this is where we are.
Before they can show the queens this fantastic city, they apparently need to get something from the Court of Nightmares because of course there’s another artifact that needs to be stolen. To prove what a great guy Rhys is.
Mor’s family owns an orb…that conveniently shows the truth…and of course the queens already know it exists and will know it’s not a trick? Okay. Sure. Fine. I’m too tired to argue with you, book. Obviously Rhys has known about this orb all along, so seriously, what did the rest of this chapter have to do with anything?
But what exactly is the plan, you ask?
Mor, Cassian, and I were mere distractions to make Rhys’s sudden visit less suspicious— while Azriel stole the orb from Mor’s father’s chambers.
How is having Mor/Cassian/Feyre there impacting the levels of suspicion raised by Rhys’ sudden visit? Surely they have zero impact on this.
Dear lord, just when I thought I was out of the woods for infodumping, Rhys explains to Feyre why Mor hates her family so much. They were going to marry her off to one of Lucien’s awful brothers, and to get out of it, Mor slept with Cassian. Rhys dares to again utter the phrase “it’s another long story but the short of it is [long story that is NOT AT ALL SHORT]”.
Here is an actual long story short: Mor’s family beat her up and left her for dead at the Autumn Court, and Azriel saved her. The end. Bye.
Rhys warns Feyre he’s going to have to wear “the mask of the High Lord” and that she’ll have to play her part of an asshole as well, but she is not deterred.