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Eris didn’t take the bait, and instead examined his neatly trimmed nails, the rings adorning his fingers. “I assume Spring is too busy peeing on trees and bushes to bother helping unify Prythian?”

“Something like that,” Cassian said.

Eris’s amber eyes flicked up, pure fire. “And you mean to tell me Thesan has agreed to stand with you? Dawn is much more skittish about these conflicts than even we are.”

“Thesan isn’t opposed to the idea,” Cassian lied. They hadn’t yet broached the subject with the High Lord of Dawn. But they’d need him—and his legion of Peregryns. Thesan had willingly joined the conflict against Hybern, but that had been a threat that imperiled them all with immediate consequences. This one was different. Thesan would need to be approached delicately about it. “But he’s rightly concerned about Koschei’s involvement. Hence the need for tangible proof of that alliance. It would persuade him to our side.”

Eris smiled, like he scented Cassian’s lies as accurately as one of his famed smokehounds. “I’ll spare making you give me the Together we rise, apart we fall speech and tell you the truth,” the male drawled. “Even if every legion of Prythian’s courts came together to face the threat of Koschei, there is not one reality in which we could take on the combined might of Rask, Vallahan, Montesere, and any of the unaffiliated Fae who join them. Death-lord pulling their strings or no.”

“Which is why we need to prove to other territories that Koschei is involved—and get them to pressure Rask, Vallahan, and Montesere to back down.”

“Perhaps,” Eris said mildly. “But is there a possibility that the very territories you’re counting on to stop the invasion might do the opposite? That, when given the opportunity, they might risk the threat Koschei poses and join the march southward to seize human land before it’s all claimed? Many of them are arrogant enough to think they could handle Koschei themselves—after the old lands are returned.”

Cassian shook his head, disgust curdling in his gut. “It’s certainly a possibility.” Hadn’t Az heard as much a few days ago in Montesere’s mountains? That their enemies sought the box that contained Koschei’s death in order to control him? Fools, all of them, for double-dealing with a death-god. Cassian sighed. “But for us to stand aside and let it happen—”

“Would be the wise thing to do. I know wisdom is a foreign concept to you.” Eris held his gaze with a force that hinted at the High Lord he might one day become, if Cassian didn’t kill him first. “You’re fools for letting Morrigan go back into Vallahan when you’re so close to war. And fools for involving yourselves in a conflict that has nothing to do with you or your lands.”

“We’ve heard that before,” Cassian said with a dismissive arrogance calculated to drive Eris up the wall. “But these situations usually shake out in our favor.”

“It won’t this time. Not with Koschei involved.”

Cassian snorted. “Thanks for your support.”

“I’m not telling you this out of cruelty,” Eris said sharply. “I’m telling you this so you don’t all wind up dead. Or worse.”

“I’d think you’d be pleased,” Cassian taunted.

He could have sworn hurt flickered in Eris’s eyes. “You must be truly stupid if, after everything, you actually believe that.”

Cassian schooled his face into neutrality. Eris had just come awfully close to admitting he actually liked them. Cared about their well-being.

To avoid having to really think about whether Eris considered them all to be friends, Cassian turned and spread his wings. Why the fuck had Feyre sent him to do this? Maybe it was busywork, like the type he assigned to the grunts in his armies to keep them too tired to grumble.

A strong, unyielding hand wrapped around his forearm. Cassian blinked at it, one of his own hands already palming the knife at his side.

Eris’s eyes simmered with flame. “Rhysand is clever, I’ll give him that. But he’s revealed himself in recent years to be too kindhearted. Dangerously so. This is a conflict that won’t be resolved by civilized discussions on Storr.”

How did Eris know about that meeting? Cassian shook off Eris’s grip. “Touch me again and I’ll cut your hand off.”

Eris didn’t back down, though he let go, rings flashing again in the dappled sunlight. “The Autumn Equinox is a time of balance: light and dark held in perfect unity for one day.”

“What’s your fucking point?”

“Perhaps think on it—all of you. You cannot have too much of one and not enough of the other. Dark is needed to appreciate the light, and light is needed to appreciate the dark. The scales tipped too far toward one side after the war five hundred years ago. Now they are seeking to rebalance, and perhaps Koschei is the instrument of that. It might not be a bad thing.”

Cassian’s wings flared. “Tell that to the humans about to lose their lives and homes.”

“Tell that to the Fae who lost theirs five hundred years ago.”

Cassian’s lip curled. “I didn’t come to debate the ethics of this invasion. And if you have nothing of value to tell me, then we’re done here. Enjoy your perfectly balanced holiday of bullshit.”

Eris snarled. “I’d mind the insults you levy toward the Mother and her sacred days. Especially after what she’s granted you, of all people.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Eris shrugged, his fine jacket shimmering. “The Mother granted you a gift when she gave you your mate. Not only your court, but you. If I were you, I’d be on my knees every day thanking the Mother for it.”

Before Bryce Quinlan’s arrival, Cassian had been on his knees every day, not just thanking the Mother for Nesta, but showing his mate exactly how much he appreciated her.