Heir of Fire

36

“Things are ready for your meeting to­night with Captain Westfall?” Aedion could have sworn Ren Allsbrook bristled as he bit out the name.

Seated beside the young lord on the ledge of the roof of the ware­house apartment, Aedion considered Ren’s tone, decided it ­wasn’t enough of a challenge to warrant a verbal slap, and gave a nod as he went back to cleaning his nails with one of his fighting knives.

Ren had been recovering for days now, after the captain had set him up in the guest room of the apartment. The old man had refused to take the main bedroom, saying he’d prefer the couch, but Aedion wondered what exactly Murtaugh had observed when they arrived in the apartment. If he suspected who the own­er was—­Celaena or Aelin or both—­he revealed nothing.

Aedion hadn’t seen Ren since the opium den, and didn’t really know why he’d bothered to come to­night. He said, “You’ve managed to build yourself a network of lowlifes ­here. That’s a far cry from the lofty towers of Allsbrook Castle.”

Ren’s jaw tightened. “You’re a far cry from the white towers of Orynth, too. We all are.” A breeze ruffled Ren’s shaggy hair. “Thank you. For—­helping that night.”

“It was nothing,” Aedion said coolly, giving him a lazy smile.

“You killed for me, then hid me. That isn’t nothing. I owe you.”

Aedion was plenty used to accepting gratitude from other men, from his men, but this . . . “You should have told me,” he said, dropping the grin as he watched the golden lights twinkling across the city, “that you and your grandfather had no home.” Or money. No wonder Ren’s clothes ­were so shabby. The shame Aedion had felt that night had almost overwhelmed him—­and had haunted him for the past few days, honing his temper to a near-­lethal edge. He’d tried working it off with the castle guards, but sparring with the men who protected the king had only sharpened it.

“I don’t see how it’s relevant to anything,” Ren said tightly. Aedion could understand pride. The kind Ren had went deep, and admitting this vulnerability was as hard for him as it was for Aedion to accept Ren’s gratitude. Ren said, “If you find out how to break the spell on magic, you’re going to do it, right?”

“Yes. It could make a difference in what­ever battles lie ahead.”

“It didn’t make a difference ten years ago.” Ren’s face was a mask of ice, and then Aedion remembered. Ren hardly had a drop of magic. But Ren’s two elder sisters . . . The girls had been away at their mountain school when everything went to hell. A school for magic.

As if reading his thoughts, as if this ­were a reprieve from the city below them, Ren said, “When the soldiers dragged us to the butchering blocks, that was what they mocked my parents about. Because even with their magic, my sisters’ school was defenseless—­they could do nothing against ten thousand soldiers.”

“I’m sorry,” Aedion said. That was all he could offer for the time being, until Aelin returned.

Ren looked right at him. “Going back to Terrasen will be . . . hard. For me, and for my grandfather.” He seemed to struggle with the words, or just with the idea of telling anyone anything, but Aedion gave him the time he needed. At last Ren said, “I’m not sure I’m civilized enough anymore. I don’t know if . . . if I could be a lord, even. If my people would want me as lord. My grandfather is better suited, but he’s an Allsbrook by marriage and he says he ­doesn’t want to rule.”

Ah. Aedion found himself actually pausing—­contemplating. The wrong word, the wrong reaction, could make Ren shut up forever. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. So he said, “My life has been war and death for the past ten years. It will probably be war and death for the next few as well. But if there’s ever a day when we find peace . . .” Gods, that word, that beautiful word. “It’ll be a strange transition for all of us. For what­ever it’s worth, I don’t see how the people of Allsbrook ­wouldn’t embrace a lord who spent years trying to break Adarlan’s rule—­or a lord who spent years in poverty for that dream.”

“I’ve . . . done things,” Ren said. “Bad things.” Aedion had suspected as much from the moment Ren gave them the address of the opium den.

“So have we all,” Aedion said. So has Aelin. He wanted to say it, but he still didn’t want Ren or Murtaugh or anyone knowing a damn thing about her. It was her story to tell.

Aedion knew the conversation was about to take a turn for the ugly when Ren tensed and asked too quietly, “What do you plan to do about Captain Westfall?”

“Right now, Captain Westfall is useful to me, and useful to our queen.”

“So as soon as he’s outlived his usefulness . . .”

“I’ll decide that when the time comes—­if it’s safe to leave him alive.” Ren opened his mouth, but Aedion added, “This is the way it has to be. The way I operate.” Even if he’d helped save Ren’s life and given him a place to stay.

“I wonder what our queen will think of the way you operate.”

Aedion flashed him a glare that had sent men running. But he knew Ren ­wasn’t particularly scared of him, not with what he had seen and endured. Not after Aedion had killed for him.

Aedion said, “If she’s smart, then she’ll let me do what needs to be done. She’ll use me as the weapon I am.”

“What if she wishes to be your friend? Would you deny her that, too?”

“I will deny her nothing.”

“And if she asks you to be her king?”

Aedion bared his teeth. “Enough.”

“Do you want to be king?”

Aedion swung his legs back onto the roof and stood. “All I want,” he snarled, “is for my people to be free and my queen restored to her throne.”

“They burned the antler throne, Aedion. There is no throne for her.”

“Then I’ll build one myself from the bones of our enemies.”

Ren winced as he stood as well, his injuries no doubt bothering him, and kept his distance. He might not be afraid, but he ­wasn’t stupid. “Answer the question. Do you want to be king?”

“If she asked me, I would not refuse her.” It was the truth.

“That’s not an answer.”

He knew why Ren had asked. Even Aedion was aware that he could be king—­with his legion and ties to the Ashrvyers, he’d be an advantageous match. A warrior-­king would make any foes think twice. Even before their kingdom shattered, he’d heard the rumors . . .

“My only wish,” Aedion said, growling in Ren’s face, “is to see her again. Just once, if that’s all the gods will allow me. If they grant me more time than that, then I’ll thank them every damn day of my life. But for now, all I’m working for is to see her, to know for certain that she’s real—­that she survived. The rest is none of your concern.”

He felt Ren’s eyes on him as he vanished through the door to the apartment below.

•

The tavern was packed with soldiers on rotation home to Adarlan, the heat and reek of bodies making Chaol wish Aedion had done this alone. There was no hiding now that he and Aedion ­were drinking friends, as the general trumpeted for everyone to hear while the soldiers cheered.

“Better to hide it right under everyone’s noses than pretend, eh?” Aedion murmured to Chaol as yet another free drink was slapped down on their stained, sodden table, courtesy of a soldier who had bowed—­actually bowed—­to Aedion. “For the Wolf,” said the scarred and tan-­skinned soldier, before returning to his packed table of comrades.

Aedion saluted the man with the mug, getting a cheer in response, and there was nothing faked about his feral grin. It hadn’t taken Aedion long to find the soldiers Murtaugh thought they should question—­soldiers who had been stationed at one of the suspected spell origin points. While Aedion had been searching for the right group of men, Chaol had taken the time to go about his own duties—­which now included considering a candidate to replace him—­and packing for his return to Anielle. He’d come into Rifthold today with the excuse of finding a company to ship his first trunk of belongings, a task he’d actually accomplished. He didn’t want to think of what his mother would do when the trunk of books arrived at the Keep.

Chaol didn’t bother looking pleasant as he said, “Get on with it.”

Aedion stood, hoisting his mug. As though they’d all been watching him, the room quieted.

“Soldiers,” he said, loud and soft at once, grave and reverent. He turned in place, mug still upheld. “For your blood, for your scars, for every dent in your shield and nick in your sword, for every friend and foe dead before you . . .” The mug raised higher, and Aedion bowed his head, golden hair gleaming in the light. “For what you have given, and have yet to give, I salute you.”

For a heartbeat, as the room thundered with roars and cries, Chaol beheld what truly made Aedion a threat—­what made him a god to these men, and why the king tolerated his insolence, ring or no ring.

Aedion was not a noble in a castle, sipping wine. He was metal and sweat, sitting in this filthy tavern, drinking their ale. Whether it was real or not, they believed he cared about them, listened to them. They preened when he remembered their names, their wives’ and sisters’ names, and slept assured that he saw them as his brothers. Aedion made sure that they believed he would fight and die for them. Thus they would fight and die for him.

And Chaol was afraid, but not for himself.

He was afraid of what would come when Aedion and Aelin ­were re­united. For he’d seen in her that same glittering ember that made people look and listen. Had seen her stalk into a council meeting with Councilor Mullison’s head and smile at the King of Adarlan, every man in that room enthralled and petrified by the dark whirlwind of her spirit. The two of them together, both of them lethal, working to build an army, to ignite their people . . . He was afraid of what they would do to his kingdom.

Because this was still his kingdom. He was working for Dorian, not Aelin—­not Aedion. And he didn’t know where all of this put him.

•

“A contest!” Aedion called, standing on the bench. Chaol hadn’t moved during the long, long hour Aedion had been saluted and toasted by half the men in this room, each one getting a turn to stand and tell his story to the general.

When Aedion had enough of being serenaded by his own enemy, his Ashryver eyes brilliant with a rush that Chaol knew was precisely because he hated each and every one of them and they ­were eating out of his palm like rabbits, the general roared for the contest.

There ­were a few shouted suggestions for drinking games, but Aedion hoisted his mug again, and silence fell. “Farthest to travel drinks for free.”

There ­were cries of Banjali, Orynth, Melisande, Anielle, Endovier, but then . . . “Quiet, all of you!” An older, gray-­haired soldier stood. “I got you all beat.” He lifted his glass to the general, and pulled a scroll from his vest. Release papers. “I just spent five years at Noll.”

Bulls-­eye. Aedion thumped the empty seat at the table. “Then you drink with us, my friend.” The room cheered again.

Noll. It was a speck on the map at the farthest end of the Deserted Peninsula.

The man sat down, and before Aedion could raise a finger to the barkeep, a fresh pint was before the stranger. “Noll, eh?” Aedion said.

“Commander Jensen, of the twenty-­fourth legion, sir.”

“How many men ­were under you, commander?”

“Two thousand—­all of us sent back ­here last month.” Jensen took a long drink. “Five years, and ­we’re done just like that.” He snapped his scarred, thick fingers.

“I take it His Majesty didn’t give you any warning?”

“With all due respect, general . . . he didn’t tell us shit. I got the word that we ­were to move out because new forces ­were coming in, and we ­weren’t needed anymore.”

Chaol kept his mouth shut, listening, as Aedion had told him to do.

“What for? Is he sending you to join another legion?”

“No word yet. Didn’t even tell us who was taking our place.”

Aedion grinned. “At least you’re not in Noll anymore.”

Jensen looked into his drink, but not before Chaol caught the shadow in the man’s eyes.

“What was it like? Off the record, of course,” Aedion said.

Jensen’s smile had faded, and when he looked up, there was no light in his eyes. “The volcanoes are active, so it’s always dark, you see, because the ash covers everything. And because of the fumes, we always had headaches—­sometimes men went mad from them. Sometimes we got nosebleeds from them, too. We got our food once a month, occasionally less than that depending on the season and when the ships could bring in supplies. The locals ­wouldn’t make the trek across the sands, no matter how much we threatened and bribed them.”

“Why? Laziness?”

“Noll isn’t much—­just the tower and town we built around it. But the volcanoes ­were sacred, and ten years ago, maybe a bit longer, apparently we . . . not my men, because I ­wasn’t there, but rumor says the king took a legion into those volcanoes and sacked the temple.” Jensen shook his head. “The locals spit on us, even the men who ­weren’t there, for that. The tower of Noll was built afterward, and then the locals cursed it, too. So it was always just us.”

“A tower?” Chaol said quietly, and Aedion frowned at him.

Jensen drank deeply. “Not that we ­were ever allowed in.”

“The men who went mad,” Aedion said, a half smile on his face. “What did they do, exactly?”

The shadows ­were back and Jensen glanced around him, not to see who was listening, but almost as if he wanted to find a way out of this conversation. But then he looked at the general and said, “Our reports say, general, that we killed them—­arrows to the throat. Quick and clean. But . . .”

Aedion leaned closer. “Not a word leaves this table.”

A vague nod. “The truth was, by the time we got our archers ready, the men who went mad had already bashed their own skulls in. Every time, as if they ­couldn’t get the pain out.”

Celaena claimed Kaltain and Roland had complained about headaches. As a result of the king’s magic being used on them, his horrible power. And she had told him she got a pounding headache when she uncovered those secret dungeons beneath the castle. Dungeons that led to . . .

“The tower—­you ­were never allowed in?” Chaol ignored Aedion’s warning glare.

“There was no door. Always seemed more decorative than anything. But I hated it—­we all did. It was just this awful black stone.”

Just like the clock tower in the glass castle. Built around the same time, if not a few years before. “Why bother?” Aedion drawled. “A waste of resources, if you ask me.”

There ­were still so many shadows in the man’s eyes, full of stories that Chaol didn’t dare ask about. The commander drained his glass and stood. “I don’t know why they bothered—­with Noll, or Amaroth. We’d sometimes send men up and down the Western Sea with messages between the towers, so we knew they had a similar one. We didn’t even really know what the hell we ­were all doing out there, anyway. There was no one to fight.”

Amaroth. The other outpost, and Murtaugh’s other possible origin point for their spell. Due north from Noll. Both the same distance from Rifthold. Three towers of black stone, all three points making an equilateral triangle. It had to be part of the spell, then.

Chaol traced the rim of his glass. He had sworn to keep Dorian out of it, to leave him alone . . .

He had no way of testing out any theory, and didn’t want to get within ten feet of that clock tower. But perhaps the theory could be tested on a small scale. Just to see if they ­were right about what the king had done. Which meant . . .

He needed Dorian.

37

It was two weeks of training for Manon and her Thirteen. Two weeks of waking up before the sun to fly each canyon run, to master it as one unit. Two weeks of scratches and sprained limbs, of near deaths from falls or the wyverns squabbling or just stupid miscalculation.

But slowly, they developed instincts—­not just as a fighting unit, but as individual riders and mounts. Manon didn’t like the thought of the mounts eating the foul-­tasting meat raised within the mountain, so twice a day they hunted the mountain goats, swooping to pluck them off the mountainsides. It ­wasn’t long before the witches started eating the goats themselves, building hasty fires in the mountain passes to cook their breakfast and eve­ning meals. Manon didn’t want any of them—­mounts or riders—­taking another bite of the food given to them by the king’s men, or tasting the men themselves. If it smelled and tasted strange, odds ­were something was wrong with it.

She didn’t know if it was the fresh meat or the extra lessons, but the Thirteen ­were starting to outpace every coven. To the point where Manon ordered the Thirteen to hold back whenever the Yellowlegs gathered to watch their lessons.

Abraxos was still a problem. She hadn’t dared take the Crossing with him, as his wings, while slightly stronger, ­weren’t better by much—­at least not enough to brave the sheer plunge through the narrow pass. Manon had been chewing it over every night when the Thirteen gathered in her room to compare notes about flying, their iron nails glinting as they used their hands to demonstrate the ways they’d taught their wyverns to bank, to take off, to do some fancy maneuver.

For all the excitement, they ­were exhausted. Even the lofty-­headed Bluebloods had their tempers on tight leashes, and Manon had been called in a dozen times now to break apart brawls.

Manon used her downtime to see Abraxos—­to check on his iron claws and teeth, to take him out for extra rides when everyone ­else had passed out in their cots. He needed as much training as he could get, and she liked the quiet and stillness of the night, with the silvered mountain peaks and the river of stars above, even if it made waking up the next day difficult.

So after braving the wrath of her grandmother, Manon won two days off for the Blackbeaks, convincing her that if they didn’t rest, there would be outright war in the middle of the mess hall and the king ­wouldn’t have an aerial cavalry left to ­ride his wyverns into battle.

They got two days to sleep and eat and see to what­ever needs only the men across the mountain could provide. That was something a good number of the Thirteen ­were doing, as she’d seen Vesta, Lin, Asterin, and the demon twins stalking across the bridge.

No sleeping for Manon today or tomorrow. No eating. Or bedding men.

No, she was taking Abraxos out into the Ruhnns.

He was already saddled, and Manon ensured Wind-­Cleaver was tightly strapped to her back as she mounted him. The saddlebags ­were an unexpected weight behind her, and she made a note to start training the Thirteen and the rest of the covens with them. If they ­were to be an army, then they’d carry their supplies, as most soldiers did. And training with weights would make them faster when it came time to fly without them.

“You sure I ­can’t convince you not to go?” the overseer said as she paused at the back gates. “You know the stories as well as I do—­this won’t come without a cost.”

“His wings are weak, and so far everything ­else ­we’ve tried to reinforce them has failed,” she said. “It might be the only material that could patch up his wings and withstand the winds. As I don’t see any markets nearby, I suppose I’ll have to go directly to the source.”

The overseer frowned at the gray sky beyond. “Bad day for flying—­storm’s coming.”

“It’s the only day I have.” Even as she said it, she wished that she could take the Thirteen into the skies when the storm hit—­to train them in that, too.

“Be careful, and think through any bargain they offer you.”

“If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it, mortal,” she said, but he was right.

Still, Manon led Abraxos out through the gates and to their usual takeoff spot. They had a long way to fly today and tomorrow—­all the way to the edge of the Ruhnn Mountains.

To find spidersilk. And the legendary Stygian spiders, large as ­horses and deadlier than poison, who wove it.

•

The storm hit right as Manon and Abraxos circled the westernmost outcropping of the Ruhnns. Through the icy rain lashing her face and soaking right through her layers of clothes, she could see that the mist hung low over the mountains, veiling much of the ash-­gray, jagged labyrinth below.

With the rising winds and lightning thrashing around them, Manon grounded Abraxos on the only open bit of land she could spot. She’d wait until the storm had passed, and then they would take to the skies and scan the area until they found the spiders. Or at least clues about their whereabouts—­mostly in the form of bones, she expected.

But the storm continued, and though she and Abraxos pressed themselves into the side of a little cliff, it did nothing to shield them. She would have preferred snow over this freezing rain, which came with so much wind that she ­couldn’t light a fire.

Night fell swiftly thanks to the storm, and Manon had to put her iron teeth away to keep them from chattering right through her lip. Her hood was useless, soaked and dripping in her eyes, and even Abraxos had curled into as tight a ball as he could against the storm.

Stupid, horrible idea. She pulled a goat leg from a saddle bag and tossed it to Abraxos, who uncurled himself long enough to chomp it down, and then went right back to shielding himself against the storm. She cursed herself for a fool as she choked down her own meal of soggy bread and a freezing apple, then gnawed on a bit of cheese.

It was worth it. To secure victory for the Thirteen, to be Wing Leader, one night in a storm was nothing. She’d been through worse, trapped in snowy mountain passes with fewer layers of clothes, no way out, and no food. She’d survived storms some witches didn’t awaken from the next morning. But she still would have preferred snow.

Manon studied the labyrinth of rock around them. She could feel eyes out there—­observing. Yet nothing came closer, nothing dared. So after a while, she curled on her side, just like Abraxos, her head and chest angled toward the cliff face, and tucked her arms across herself, holding tight.

Mercifully, it stopped raining in the night, or at least the angle of the wind shifted to stop pounding on them. She slept better after that, but she still shook from cold—­though it felt slightly warmer. Those small hints of warmth and dryness ­were probably what kept her from shaking to death or getting ill, she realized as she dozed off, awakening at the gray light of dawn.

When she opened her eyes, she was in shadow—­shadow, but dry and warm, thanks to the massive wing shielding her from the elements and the heat of Abraxos’s breath filling the space like a little furnace. He was still snoozing—­a deep, heavy sleep.

She had to brush ice crystals off his outstretched wing before he came awake.

•

The storm had cleared and the skies ­were an untamed blue—­clear enough that they only needed to circle the western outcropping of the Ruhnns once before Manon spotted what she’d been looking for. Not just bones, but trees shrouded in dusty gray webs like mourning widows.

It ­wasn’t spidersilk, she saw as Abraxos swooped low, gliding over the trees. These ­were only ordinary webs.

If you could call an entire mountain wood shrouded in webs ordinary. Abraxos growled every so often at something below—­shadows or whispers she ­couldn’t see. But she did notice the crawling on the branches, spiders of every shape and size, as if they had all been summoned ­here to live under the protection of their massive brethren.

It took them half the morning to find the ashen mountain caves hovering above the veiled wood, where bare bones littered the ground. She circled a few times, then set Abraxos down on an outcropping of stone at one of the cave mouths, the cliff face behind them a sheer plunge to a dried-­out ravine below.

Abraxos paced like a mountain cat, tail lashing this way and that as he watched the cave.

She pointed to the edge of the cliff. “Enough. Sit down and stop moving. You know why ­we’re ­here. So don’t ruin it.”

He huffed but plopped down, shooting grayish dust into the air. He draped his long tail along the length of the cliff ’s edge, a physical barrier between Manon and the plunge. Manon stared him down for a moment before an otherworldly, feminine laugh flittered from the cave mouth. “Now that beast is one we have not seen for an age.”

Manon kept her face blank. The light was bright enough to reveal several ancient, merciless eyes looming within the cave mouth—­and three massive shadows lurking behind. The voice said, closer now, pincers clicking like an accompanying drum, “And it has been an age since we dealt with the Ironteeth.”

Manon didn’t dare touch Wind-­Cleaver as she said, “The world is changing, sister.”

“Sister,” the spider mused. “I suppose we are sisters, you and I. Two faces of the same dark coin, from the same dark maker. Sisters in spirit, if not in flesh.”

Then she emerged into the murky light, the mist sweeping past her like a pilgrimage of phantom souls. She was black and gray, and the sheer mass of her was enough to make Manon’s mouth go dry. Despite the size, she was elegantly built, her legs long and smooth, her body streamlined and gleaming. Glorious.

Abraxos let out a soft growl, but Manon held out a hand to silence him.

“I see now,” Manon said softly, “why my Blueblood sisters still worship you.”

“Do they, now?” The spider remained motionless, but the three behind her crept closer, silent and observing with their many dark eyes. “We can hardly recall the last time the Blueblood priestesses brought their sacrifices to our foothills. We do miss them.”

Manon smiled tightly. “I can think of a few I’d like to send your way.”

A soft, wicked laugh. “A Blackbeak, no doubt.” Those eight massive eyes took her in, swallowed her ­whole. “Your hair reminds me of our silk.”

“I suppose I should be flattered.”

“Tell me your name, Blackbeak.”

“My name does not matter,” Manon said. “I’ve come to bargain.”

“What would a Blackbeak witch want with our precious silk?”

She turned to reveal the vigilant Abraxos, his focus pinned on the massive spider, tense from the tip of his nose to his iron-­spiked tail. “His wings need reinforcement. I heard the legends and wondered if your silk might help.”

“We have bartered our silk to merchants and thieves and kings, to be spun into dresses and veils and sails. But never for wings.”

“I’ll need ten yards of it—­woven bolts, if you have them.”

The spider seemed to still further. “Men have sacrificed their lives for a yard.”

“Name your price.”

“Ten yards . . .” She turned to the three waiting behind her—offspring or minions or guards, Manon didn’t know. “Bring out the bolt. I shall inspect it before I name my price.”

Good. This was going well. Silence fell as the three scuttled into the cave, and Manon tried not to kick any of the tiny spiders crawling across her boots. Or look for the eyes she felt watching from the nearby caves across the ravine.

“Tell me, Blackbeak,” the spider said, “how did you come across your mount?”

“He was a gift from the King of Adarlan. We are to be a part of his host, and when we are done serving him, we will take them home—­to the Wastes. To reclaim our kingdom.”

“Ah. And is the curse broken?”

“Not yet. But when we find the Crochan who can undo it . . .” She would enjoy that bloodletting.

“Such a delightfully nasty curse. You won the land, only for the cunning Crochans to curse it beyond use. Have you seen the Wastes these days?”

“No,” Manon said. “I have not yet been to our home.”

“A merchant came by a few years ago—­he told me there was a mortal High King who had set himself up there. But I heard a whisper on the wind recently that said he’d been deposed by a young woman with wine-­red hair who now calls herself their High Queen.”

Manon bristled. High Queen of the Wastes indeed. She would be the first Manon would kill when she returned to reclaim the land, when she finally saw it with her own eyes, breathed in its smells and beheld its untamable beauty.

“A strange place, the Wastes,” the spider continued. “The merchant himself was from there—­a former shape-­shifter. Lost his gifts, just like all of you truly mortal things. He was stuck in a man’s body, thankfully, but he did not realize that when he sold me twenty years of his life, some of his gifts passed to me. I ­can’t use them, of course, but I wonder . . . I do wonder what it would be like. To see the world through your pretty eyes. To touch a human man.”

The hair on Manon’s neck ­rose. “Here we are,” the spider said as the three approached, a bolt of silk flowing between them like a river of light and color. Manon’s breath caught. “Isn’t it magnificent? Some of the finest weaving I’ve ever done.”

“Glorious,” Manon admitted. “Your price?”

The spider stared at her for a long time. “What price could I ask of a long-­lived witch? Twenty years off your lifespan is nothing to you, even with magic aging you like an ordinary woman. And your dreams . . . what dark, horrible dreams they must be, Blackbeak. I do not think I should like to eat them—­not those dreams.” The spider came closer. “But what of your face? What if I took your beauty?”

“I do not think I’d walk away if you took my face.”

The spider laughed. “Oh, I don’t mean your literal face. But the color of your skin, the hue of your burnt gold eyes. The way your hair catches the light, like moonlight on snow. Those things I could take. That beauty could win you a king. Perhaps if magic returns, I’ll use it for my woman’s body. Perhaps I’ll win a king of my very own.”

Manon didn’t particularly care about her beauty, weapon though it was. But she ­wasn’t about to say that, or to offer it without bargaining. “I’d like to inspect the silk first.”

“Cut a swatch,” the spider ordered the three, who gently set down the yards of silk while one sliced off a perfect square. Men had killed for smaller amounts—­and ­here they ­were, cutting it as if it ­were ordinary wool. Manon tried not to think about the size of the pincer that extended it to her. She stalked to the cliff edge, stepping over Abraxos’s tail as she held the silk to the light.

Darkness embrace her, it sparkled. She tugged it. Flexible, but strong as steel. Impossibly light. But—

“There’s an imperfection ­here . . . Can I expect the rest of it to be similarly marred?” The spider hissed and the ground thudded as she neared. Abraxos stopped her with a warning growl that set the other three coming up behind her—­guards, then. But Manon held up the swatch to the light. “Look,” Manon said, pointing to a vein of color running through it.

“That’s no imperfection,” the spider snapped. Abraxos’s tail curled around Manon, a shield between her and the spiders, bringing her closer to the wall of his body.

Manon held it higher, angling it toward the sun. “Look in the better light. You think I’m going to give away my beauty for second-­rate weaving?”

“Second rate!” the spider seethed. Abraxos’s tail curled tighter.

“No—it appears I’m mistaken.” Manon lowered her arms, smiling. “It seems I’m not in the bargaining mood today.”

The spiders, now standing along the cliff ’s edge, didn’t even have time to move as Abraxos’s tail unwound like a whip and slammed into them.

They went flying into the ravine, shrieking. Manon didn’t waste a second as she stuffed the remaining yards of silk into the empty saddle­bags. She mounted Abraxos and they leapt into the air, the cliff the perfect takeoff spot, just as she’d planned.

The perfect trap for those foolish, ancient monsters.

38

Manon gave a foot of spidersilk to the overseer after he carefully grafted it onto Abraxos’s wings. She’d gotten extra—­lots of it, in case it ever wore down—­and it was now locked in the false bottom of a trunk. She told no one where she had been, or why Abraxos’s wings now shimmered in a certain light. Asterin would have murdered her for the risk, and her grandmother would have butchered Asterin for not being there. Manon was in no mood to replace her Second and find a new member for the Thirteen.

Once Abraxos had healed, Manon brought him to the mouth of the Northern Fang to try the Crossing. Before, his wings had been too weak to attempt the plunge—­but with the silk reinforcements, he’d stand a far greater chance.

But the risk remained, which was why Asterin and Sorrel waited behind her, already on their mounts. If things went wrong, if Abraxos ­couldn’t pull up or the silk failed, she was to jump—­jump away from him. Let him die, while one of them caught her in the claws of their wyverns.

Manon ­wasn’t too keen on that plan, but it was the only way Asterin and Sorrel would agree to let her do it. Though Manon was the Blackbeak heir, they would have locked her in a wyvern pen rather than let her make the Crossing without the proper precautions. She might have called them softhearted and given them the beatings they deserved, but it was smart. Tensions ­were worse than ever, and she ­wouldn’t put it past the Yellowlegs heir to spook Abraxos during the Crossing.

Manon nodded her readiness to her Second and Third before approaching her beast. Not many had gathered, but Iskra was on the viewing platform, smiling faintly. Manon checked the stirrups, the saddle, and the reins one more time, Abraxos tense and snarling.

“Let’s go,” she said to him, pulling the reins to lead him a bit farther ahead so she could mount him. He still had plenty of space to get a running start—­and with his new wings, she knew he would be fine. They’d done steep plunges and hard upswings before. But Abraxos ­wouldn’t move.

“Now,” she snapped at him, tugging hard.

Abraxos turned an eye to her and growled. She lightly smacked his leathery cheek. “Now.”

Those hind legs dug in, and he tucked his wings in tight. “Abraxos.”

He was looking at the Crossing, then back at her. Wide-­eyed. Petrified—­utterly petrified. Useless, stupid, cowardly beast.

“Stop it,” she said, moving to climb into the saddle instead. “Your wings are fine now.” She reached for his haunch but he reared away, the ground shaking as he slammed down. Behind her, Asterin and Sorrel murmured to their mounts, who had skittered back and snapped at Abraxos, and at each other.

There was a soft laugh from the viewing platform, and Manon’s teeth popped down.

“Abraxos. Now.” She reached for the saddle again.

He bucked away, slamming into the wall and shrinking back.

One of the men brought out a whip, but she held out a hand. “Don’t take another step,” she snapped, iron nails out. Whips only made Abraxos more uncontrollable. She turned to her mount. “You rutting coward,” she hissed at the beast, pointing to the Crossing. “Get back in line.” Abraxos met her stare, refusing to back down. “Get in line, Abraxos!”

“He ­can’t understand you,” Asterin said quietly.

“Yes, he—” Manon shut her mouth. She hadn’t told them that theory, not yet. She turned back to the wyvern. “If you don’t let me into that saddle and make that jump, I’m going to have you confined to the darkest, smallest pit in this bloody mountain.”

He bared his teeth. She bared hers.

The staring contest lasted for a full minute. One humiliating, enraging minute.

“Fine,” she spat, turning from the beast. He was a waste of her time. “Have him locked up wherever he’ll be the most miserable,” she said to the overseer. “He’s not coming out until he’s willing to make the Crossing.”

The overseer gaped, and Manon snapped her fingers at Asterin and Sorrel to signal them to dismount. She’d never hear the end of this—­not from her grandmother, or from the Yellowlegs witches, or from Iskra, who was already making her way across the floor of the pit.

“Why don’t you stay, Manon?” Iskra called. “I could show your wyvern how it’s done.”

“Keep walking,” Sorrel murmured to Manon, but she didn’t need a reminder.

“They say it’s not the beasts who are the problem, but the riders,” Iskra went on, loud enough for everyone to hear. Manon didn’t turn. She didn’t want to see them take Abraxos back to the gate, to what­ever hole they’d lock him in. Stupid, useless beast.

“Though,” Iskra said thoughtfully, “perhaps your mount needs a bit of discipline.”

“Let’s go,” Sorrel coaxed, pressing in tight to Manon’s side. Asterin walked a step behind, guarding Manon’s back.

“Give that to me,” Iskra barked at someone. “He just needs the right encouragement.”

A whip snapped behind them, and there was a roar—­of pain and fear.

Manon stopped dead.

Abraxos was huddling against the wall.

Iskra stood before him, whip bloody from the line she’d sliced down his face, narrowly missing his eye. Her iron teeth shining bright, Iskra smiled at Manon as she raised the whip again and struck. Abraxos yelped.

Asterin and Sorrel ­weren’t fast enough to stop Manon as she hurtled past and tackled Iskra.

Teeth and nails out, they rolled across the dirt floor, flipping and shredding and biting. Manon thought she might be roaring, roaring so loud the hall shook. Feet slammed into her stomach, and the air shot out of her as Iskra kicked her off.

Manon hit the earth, spat out a mouthful of blue blood, and was up in a heartbeat. The Yellowlegs heir slashed with an iron-­tipped hand, a blow that could have severed through bone and flesh. Manon ducked past her guard and threw Iskra onto the unforgiving stone.

Iskra groaned above the shouts of the swarming witches, and Manon brought her fist down onto her face.

Her knuckles howled in pain, but all she could see was that whip, the pain in Abraxos’s eyes, the fear. Struggling against Manon’s weight, Iskra swiped at her face. Manon reeled back, the blow cutting down her neck. She didn’t quite feel the stinging, or the warm trickle of blood. She just drew back her fist, knee digging harder into Iskra’s chest, and struck. Again. And again.

She lifted her aching fist once more, but there ­were hands at her wrist, under her arms, hauling her off. Manon thrashed against them, still screaming, the sound wordless and endless.

“Manon!” Sorrel roared in her ear, and nails cut into her shoulder—­not hard enough to damage but to make her pause, to realize there ­were witches everywhere, in the pit and in the viewing platform, gaping. Sword raised, Asterin was standing between her and—

And Iskra, on the ground, face bloodied and swollen, her own Second’s sword out and poised to meet Asterin’s.

“He is fine,” Sorrel said, squeezing her tighter. “Abraxos is fine, Manon. Look at him. Look at him and see that he’s fine.” Breathing through her mouth thanks to her blood-­clogged nose, Manon obeyed, and found him crouching, eyes wide and on her. His wound had already clotted.

Iskra hadn’t moved an inch from where Manon had thrown her onto the floor. But Asterin and the other Second ­were growling, ready to launch into another fight that might very well rip this mountain apart.

Enough.

Manon shook off Sorrel’s firm grip. Everyone went dead silent as Manon wiped her bloody nose and mouth on the back of her wrist. Iskra snarled at her from the floor, blood from her broken nose leaking onto her cut lip.

“You touch him again,” Manon said, “and I’ll drink the marrow from your bones.”

•

The Yellowlegs heir got a second beating that night from her mother in the mess hall—­plus two lashes of the whip for the blows she’d given Abraxos. She’d offered them to Manon, but Manon refused under the guise of indifference.

Her arm was actually too stiff and aching to use the whip with any efficiency.

Manon had just entered Abraxos’s cage the next day, Asterin on her heels, when the Blueblood heir appeared at the stairway ­en­­trance, her red-haired Second close behind. Manon, her face still swollen and eye beautifully black, gave the witch a tight nod. There ­were other pens down ­here, though she rarely ran into anyone ­else, especially not the two heirs.

But Petrah paused at the bars, and it was then that Manon noticed the goat’s leg in her Second’s arms. “I heard the fight was something to behold,” Petrah said, keeping a respectful distance from Manon and the open door to the pen. Petrah smiled faintly. “Iskra looks worse.”

Manon flicked her brows up, though the motion made her face throb.

Petrah held out a hand to her Second, and the witch passed her the leg of meat. “I also heard that your Thirteen and your mounts only eat the meat they catch. My Keelie caught this on our morning flight. She wanted to share with Abraxos.”

“I don’t accept meat from rival clans.”

“Are we rivals?” Petrah asked. “I thought the King of Adarlan had convinced us to fly under one banner again.”

Manon took a long breath. “What do you want? I have training in ten minutes.”

Petrah’s Second bristled, but the heir smiled. “I told you—­my Keelie wanted to give this to him.”

“Oh? She told you?” Manon sneered.

Petrah cocked her head. “Doesn’t your wyvern talk to you?”

Abraxos was watching with as much awareness as the other witches. “They don’t talk.”

Petrah shrugged, tapping a hand casually over her heart. “Don’t they?”

She left the goat leg before walking off into the raucous gloom of the pens.

Manon threw the meat away.

39

“Tell me about how you learned to tattoo.”

“No.”

Hunched over the wooden table in Rowan’s room a night after their encounter with the creature in the lake, Celaena looked up from where she held the bone-­handled needle over his wrist. “If you don’t answer my questions, I might very well make a mistake, and . . .” She lowered the tattooing needle to his tan, muscled arm for emphasis. Rowan, to her surprise, let out a huff that might have been a laugh. She figured it was a good sign that he’d asked her to help shade in the parts of his arm he ­couldn’t reach himself; the tattoo around his wrist needed to be re-­inked now that the wounds from her burning him had faded. “Did you learn from someone? Master and apprentice and all that?”

He gave her a rather incredulous look. “Yes, master and apprentice and all that. In the war camps, we had a commander who used to tattoo the number of enemies he’d killed on his flesh—­sometimes he’d write the ­whole story of a battle. All the young soldiers ­were enamored of it, and I convinced him to teach me.”

“With that legendary charm of yours, I suppose.”

That earned her a half smile at least. “Just fill in the spots where I—” A hiss as she took the needle and little mallet and made another dark, bloody mark in him. “Good. That’s the right depth.” With his immortal, fast-­healing body, Rowan’s ink was mixed with salt and powdered iron to keep the magic in his blood from wiping away any trace of the tattoo.

She’d awoken that morning feeling . . . clear. The grief and pain ­were still there, writhing inside her, but for the first time in a long while, she felt as though she could see. As though she could breathe.

Focusing on keeping her hand steady, she made another little mark, then another. “Tell me about your family.”

“Tell me about yours and I’ll tell you about mine,” he said through gritted teeth as she kept going. He’d instructed her thoroughly before he had let her take the needles to his skin.

“Fine. Are your parents alive?” A stupid, dangerous question to ask, given what had happened with his mate, but there was no grief in his face as he shook his head.

“My parents ­were very old when they conceived me.” Not old in the human sense, she knew. “I was their only child in the millennia they’d been mated. They faded into the Afterworld before I reached my second de­cade.”

Before she could think more on that interesting, different way of describing death, Rowan said, “You had no siblings.”

She focused on her work as she let out the thinnest tendril of memory. “My mother, thanks to her Fae heritage, had a difficult time with the pregnancy. She stopped breathing during labor. They said it was my father’s will that kept her tethered to this world. I don’t know if she even could have conceived again after that. So, no siblings. But—” Gods, she should shut her mouth. “But I had a cousin. He was five years older than me, and we fought and loved each other like siblings.”

Aedion. She hadn’t spoken that name aloud in ten years. But she’d heard it, and seen it in papers. She had to set down the needle and mallet and flex her fingers. “I don’t know what happened, but they started saying his name—­as a skilled general in the king’s army.”

She had failed Aedion so unforgivably that she ­couldn’t bring herself to blame or detest him for what he’d become. She’d avoided learning any details about what, exactly, he’d done in the north all these years. Aedion had been fiercely, wildly loyal to Terrasen as a child. She didn’t want to know what he’d been forced to do, what had happened to him, to change that. It was by luck or fate or something ­else entirely that he had never been in the castle when she was there. Because not only would he have recognized her, but if he knew what she had done with her life . . . his hatred would make Rowan’s look pleasant, probably.

Rowan’s features ­were set in a mask of contemplation as she said, “I think facing my cousin after everything would be the worst of it—­worse than facing the king.” There was nothing she could say or do to atone for what she’d become while their kingdom fell into ruin and their people ­were slaughtered or enslaved.

“Keep working,” Rowan said, jerking his chin at the tools sitting in her lap. She obeyed, and he hissed again at the first prick. “Do you think,” he said after a moment, “your cousin would kill you or help you? An army like his could change the tide of any war.”

A chill went down her spine at that word—war. “I don’t know what he would think of me, or where his loyalties lie. And I’d rather not know. Ever.”

Though their eyes ­were identical, their bloodlines were distant enough that she’d heard servants and courtiers alike pondering the usefulness of a Galathynius-­Ashryver ­union someday. The idea was as laughable now as it had been ten years ago.

“Do you have cousins?” she asked.

“Too many. Mora’s line was always the most widespread, and my meddlesome, gossiping cousins make my visits to Doranelle . . . irksome.” She smiled a little at the thought. “You’d probably get along with my cousins,” he said. “Especially with the snooping.”

She paused her inking and squeezed his hand hard enough to hurt anyone but an immortal. “You’re one to talk, Prince. I’ve never been asked so many questions in my life.”

Not quite true, but not quite an exaggeration, either. No one had ever asked her these questions. And she’d never told anyone the answers.

He bared his teeth, though she knew he didn’t mean it, and glanced meaningfully at his wrist. “Hurry up, Princess. I want to go to bed at some point before dawn.”

She used her free hand to make a particularly vulgar gesture, and he caught it with his own, teeth still out. “That is not very queenly.”

“Then it’s good I’m not a queen, isn’t it?”

But he ­wouldn’t let go of her hand. “You have sworn to free your friend’s kingdom and save the world—­but will not even consider your own lands. What scares you about seizing your birthright? The king? Facing what remains of your court?” He kept his face so close to hers that she could see the flecks of brown in his green eyes. “Give me one good reason why you won’t take back your throne. One good reason, and I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.”

She weighed the earnestness in his gaze, his breathing, and then said, “Because if I free Eyllwe and destroy the king as Celaena, I can go anywhere after that. The crown . . . my crown is just another set of shackles.”

It was selfish and horrible, but it was true. Nehemia, long ago, had once said as much—­it was her most ardent and selfish wish to be ordinary, without the weight of her crown. Had her friend known how deeply those words had echoed in her?

She waited for the scolding, saw it simmering in Rowan’s eyes. But then he quietly said, “What do you mean, another set of shackles?”

He loosened his grip to reveal the two thin bands of scars that wrapped around her wrist. His mouth tightened, and she yanked her wrist back hard enough that he let go.

“Nothing,” she said. “Arobynn, my master, liked to use them for training every now and then.” Arobynn had chained her to make her learn how to get free. But the shackles at Endovier had been crafted with people like her in mind. It ­wasn’t until Chaol had removed them that she’d gotten out.

She didn’t want Rowan knowing that—­any of it. Anger and hatred she could handle, but pity . . . And she ­couldn’t talk about Chaol, ­couldn’t explain just how much he had rebuilt and then shattered her heart, not without explaining Endovier. Not without explaining how one day, she didn’t know how distant, she was going back to Endovier and freeing them all. Each and every slave, even if she had to unshackle them all herself.

Celaena went back to her work, and Rowan’s face remained tight—­as if he could smell her half truth. “Why did you stay with Arobynn?”

“I knew I wanted two things: First, to disappear from the world and from my enemies, but . . . ah.” It was hard to look him in the eye. “I wanted to hide from myself, mostly. I convinced myself I should disappear, because the second thing I wanted, even then, was to be able to someday . . . hurt people the way I had been hurt. And it turned out that I was very, very good at it.

“If he had tossed me away, I would either have died or wound up with the rebels. If I had grown up with them, I probably would have been found by the king and slaughtered. Or I would have grown up so hateful that I would have been killing Adarlanian soldiers from a young age.” His brows ­rose, and she clicked her tongue. “You thought I was just going to spread my ­whole history at your feet the moment I met you? I’m sure you have even more stories than I do, so stop looking so surprised. Maybe we should just go back to beating each other into a pulp.”

His eyes gleamed with near-­predatory intent. “Oh, not a chance, Princess. You can tell me what you want, when you want, but there’s no going back now.”

She lifted her tools again. “I’m sure your other friends just adore having you around.”

A feral smile, and he grabbed her by the chin—­not hard enough to hurt, but to get her to look at him. “First thing,” he breathed, “we’re not friends. I’m still training you, and that means you’re still under my command.” The flicker of hurt must have shown, because he leaned closer, his grip tightening on her jaw. “Second—­whatever we are, what­ever this is? I’m still figuring it out, too. So if I’m going to give you the space you deserve to sort yourself out, then you can damn well give it to me.”

She studied him for a moment, their breath mingling.

“Deal,” she said.

40

“Tell me your greatest wish,” Dorian murmured into Sorscha’s hair as he entwined their fingers, marveling at the smoothness of her tan skin against the calluses of his. Such pretty hands, like mourning doves.

She smiled onto his chest. “I don’t have a greatest wish.”

“Liar.” He kissed her hair. “You’re the world’s worst liar.”

She turned toward the window of his bedroom, the morning light making her dark hair glow. It had been two weeks since that night she’d kissed him, two weeks since she’d started creeping up ­here after the castle had gone to sleep. They’d been sharing a bed, though not in the manner he still yearned to. And he detested the sneaking and the hiding.

But she’d lose her position if they ­were found out. With him being who he was . . . he could bring down a world of trouble on her just for being associated with him. His mother alone could find ways to get her shipped off somewhere.

“Tell me,” he said again, bending to snatch a kiss. “Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”

He’d always been generous with his lovers. Usually he gave them gifts to keep them from complaining when he lost interest, but this time he genuinely wanted to give her things. He had tried giving her jewelry and clothes, and she had refused it all. So he’d taken to giving her hard-­to-­come-­by herbs and books and special tools for her workroom. She’d tried to refuse those, but he’d worn her down quickly—­mostly by kissing away her protests.

“And if I asked for the moon on a string?”

“Then I would start praying to Deanna.”

She smiled, but Dorian’s own grin faded. Deanna, Lady of the Hunt. He usually tried not to think about Celaena, Aelin—­whoever she was. Tried not to think about Chaol and his lying, or Aedion and his treason. He wanted nothing to do with them, not now that Sorscha was with him. He’d been a fool once, swearing he would tear the world apart for Celaena. A boy in love with a wildfire—­or believing he was in love with one.

“Dorian?” Sorscha pulled back to study his face. She looked at him the way he’d once caught Celaena looking at Chaol.

He kissed her again, soft and lingering, and her body melted into his. He savored the silkiness of her skin as he ran a hand down her arm. She yanked back. “I have to go. I’m late.”

He groaned. It was indeed almost breakfast—­and she would be noticed if she didn’t leave. She shimmied out of his embrace and into her dress, and he helped tie the stays in the back. Always hiding—­was that to be his life? Not just the women he loved, but his magic, his true thoughts . . .

Sorscha kissed him and was at the door, a hand on the knob. “My greatest wish,” she said with a little smile, “is for a morning when I don’t have to run out the door at first light.”

Before he could say anything, she was gone.

But he didn’t know what he could say, or do, to make it happen. Because Sorscha had her obligations, and he had his.

If he left to be with her, if he turned on his father, or if his magic was discovered, then his brother would become heir. And the thought of Hollin as king one day . . . What he would do to their world, especially with their father’s power . . . No, Dorian could not have the luxury of choosing, because there was no option. He was bound to his crown, and would be until the day he died.

There was a knock on his door, and Dorian smiled, wondering if Sorscha had come back. The grin vanished as the door opened.

“We need to talk,” Chaol said from the threshold. Dorian hadn’t seen him in weeks, and yet—­his friend looked older. Exhausted.

“Not going to bother with flattery?” Dorian said, plopping onto the couch.

“You would see through it anyway.” Chaol shut the door behind him and leaned against it.

“Humor me.”

“I am sorry, Dorian,” Chaol said softly. “More than you know.”

“Sorry because lying cost you me—­and her? Would you be sorry if you hadn’t been caught?”

Chaol’s jaw tightened. And perhaps Dorian was being unfair, but he didn’t care.

“I am sorry for all of it,” Chaol said. “But I—­I’ve been working to fix it.”

“And what about Celaena? Is working with Aedion actually to help me, or her?”

“Both of you.”

“Do you still love her?” He didn’t know why he cared, why it was important.

Chaol closed his eyes for a moment. “A part of me will always love her. But I had to get her out of this castle. Because it was too dangerous, and she was . . . what she was becoming . . .”

“She was not becoming anything different from what she always was and always had the capacity to be. You just finally saw everything. And once you saw that other part of her . . . ,” Dorian said quietly. It had taken him until now, until Sorscha, to understand what that meant. “You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love.” He pitied Chaol, he realized. His heart hurt for his friend, for all that Chaol had surely been realizing these past few months. “Just as you cannot pick which parts of me you accept.”

“I don’t—”

“You do. But what’s done is done, Chaol. And there is no going back, no matter how hard you try to change things. Like it or not, you played a role in getting us all to this point, too. You set her down that path, to revealing what and who she is, to what­ever she decides to do now.”

“You think I wanted any of this to happen?” Chaol splayed his arms. “If I could, I would put it all back to the way it was. If I could, she ­wouldn’t be queen, and you ­wouldn’t have magic.”

“Of course—­of course you still see the magic as a problem. And of course you wish she ­wasn’t who she is. Because you’re not really scared of those things, are you? No—­it’s what they represent. The change. But let me tell you,” Dorian breathed, his magic flickering and then subsiding in a flash of pain, “things have already changed. And changed because of you. I have magic—­there is no undoing that, no getting rid of it. And as for Celaena . . .” He clamped down on the power that surged as he imagined—­for the first time, he realized—­what it was to be her. “As for Celaena,” he said again, “you do not have the right to wish she ­were not what she is. The only thing you have a right to do is decide whether you are her enemy or her friend.”

He did not know all of her story, did not know what had been truth and what had been lies, or what it had been like in Endovier to slave beside her countrymen, or to bow to the man who had murdered her family. But he had seen her—­seen glimpses of the person beneath, regardless of name or title.

And he knew, deep down, that she had not blinked at his magic but rather understood that burden, and that fear. She had not walked away or wished him to be anything but what he was. I’ll come back for you.

So he stared down his friend, even though he knew Chaol was hurting and adrift, and said, “I’ve already made my decision about her. And when the time comes, regardless of whether you are ­here or in Anielle, I hope your choice is the same as mine.”

•

Aedion hated to admit it, but the captain’s self-­control was impressive as they waited in the hidden apartment for Murtaugh to arrive. Ren, who ­couldn’t keep his ass planted in a chair for more than a moment even with his still-healing wounds, paced around the great room. But Chaol sat beside the fire, saying little but always watching, always listening.

To­night the captain seemed different. Warier, but tighter. Thanks to all those meetings where he’d carefully watched the captain’s movements, every breath and blink, Aedion instantly noted the difference. Had there been some news, some development?

Murtaugh was to return to­night, after a few weeks near Skull’s Bay. He had refused Ren’s offer to go with him and told his grandson to rest. Which, though Ren tried to hide it, left the young lord anxious, ungrounded, and aggressive. Aedion was honestly surprised the apartment hadn’t been torn to shreds. In his war camp, Aedion might have taken Ren into the sparring ring and let him fight it out. Or sent him on some mission of his own. Or at least made him chop wood for hours.

“So ­we’re just going to wait all night,” Ren said at last, pausing before the dining table and looking at them both.

The captain yielded nothing more than a vague nod, but Aedion crossed his arms and gave him a lazy grin. “You have something better to do, Ren? Are we interfering with a visit to one of your opium dens?” A low blow, but nothing that the captain hadn’t already guessed about Ren. And if Ren showed any indication of that sort of habit, Aedion ­wouldn’t let him within a hundred miles of Aelin.

Ren shook his head and said, “We’re always waiting these days. Waiting for Aelin to send some sign, waiting for nothing. I bet my grandfather will have nothing, too. I’m surprised ­we’re not all dead by now—­that those men didn’t track me down.” He stared into the fire, the light making his scar look even deeper. “I have someone who . . .” Ren trailed off, glancing at Chaol. “They could find out more about the king.”

“I don’t trust your sources one bit—­especially not after those men found you,” Chaol said. It had been one of Ren’s informants—­caught and tortured—who had given his location away. And even though the information had been yielded under duress, it still didn’t sit well with Aedion. He said as much, and Ren tensed, opening his mouth to snap something undoubtedly stupid and brash, but a three-­note whistle interrupted.

The captain whistled back, and Ren was at the door, opening it to find his grandfather there. Even with his back to them, Aedion could see the relief flooding Ren’s body as they clasped forearms, weeks of waiting without word finally over. Murtaugh ­wasn’t young by any means—­and as he threw back his hood, his face was pale and grim.

“There’s brandy on the buffet table,” Chaol said, and Aedion, yet again, had to admire the captain’s keen eyes—­even if he would never tell him. The old man nodded his thanks, and didn’t bother to remove his cloak as he knocked back a glass of it. “Grandfather.” Ren lingered by the door.

Murtaugh turned to Aedion. “Answer me truthfully, boy: do you know who General Narrok is?”

Aedion ­rose to his feet in a smooth movement. Ren took a few steps toward them, but Murtaugh held his ground as Aedion stalked to the buffet table and slowly, with deliberate care, poured himself a glass of brandy. “Call me boy again,” Aedion said with lethal calm, holding the old man’s stare, “and you’ll find yourself back squatting in shanties and sewers.”

The old man threw up his hands. “When you’re my age, Aedion—”

“Don’t waste your breath,” Aedion said, returning to his chair. “Narrok’s been in the south—­last I heard, he was bringing the armada to the Dead Islands.” Pirate territory. “But that was months ago. ­We’re kept on a need-­to-­know basis. I learned about the Dead Islands because some of the Pirate Lord’s ships sailed north looking for trouble, and they informed us that they’d come to avoid Narrok’s fleet.”

The pirates had scattered, actually. The Pirate Lord Rolfe had taken half of them south; some had gone east; and some had made the fatal mistake of sailing to Terrasen’s north coast.

Murtaugh sagged against the buffet table. “Captain?”

“I’m afraid I know even less than Aedion,” Chaol said.

Murtaugh rubbed his eyes, and Ren pulled out a chair at the table for his grandfather. The old man slid into it with a small groan. It was a miracle the bag of bones was still breathing. Aedion shoved down a flicker of regret. He’d been raised better than that—­he knew better than to act like an arrogant, hotheaded prick. Rhoe would have been ashamed of him for speaking to an elder in that manner. But Rhoe was dead—­all the warriors he’d loved and worshipped ­were ten years dead, and the world was worse for it. Aedion was worse for it.

Murtaugh sighed. “I fled ­here as quickly as I could. I have not rested for more than a few hours this past week. Narrok’s fleet is gone. Captain Rolfe is again Pirate Lord of Skull’s Bay, though not more than that. His men do not venture into the eastern Dead Islands.”

Despite the hint of shame, Aedion ground his teeth when Murtaugh didn’t immediately get to the point. “Why?” he demanded.

The lines of Murtaugh’s face deepened in the light of the fire. “Because the men who go into the eastern islands do not come back. And on windy nights, even Rolfe swears he can hear . . . roaring, roaring from the islands; human, but not quite.

“The crew that hid in the islands during Narrok’s occupation claim it’s quieted down, as if he took the source of the sound with him. And Rolfe . . .” Murtaugh rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He told me that on the night they sailed back into the islands, they saw something standing on an outcropping of rocks, just on the border of the eastern islands. Looked like a pale man, but . . . not. Rolfe might be in love with himself, but he’s not a liar. He said whatever—­whoever—it was felt wrong. Like there was a hole of silence around it, at odds with the roaring they usually hear. And that it just watched them sail past. The next day, when they returned to the same spot, it was gone.”

“There have always been legends of strange creatures in the seas,” the captain said.

“Rolfe and his men swore that this was nothing from legend. It was made, they said.”

“How did they know?” Aedion asked, eyeing the captain, whose face was still bone-­white.

“It bore a black collar—­like a pet. It took a step toward them, as if to go into the sea and hunt them down, but it was yanked back by some invisible hand—­some hidden leash.”

Ren raised his scarred brow. “The Pirate Lord thinks there are monsters in the Dead Islands?”

“He thinks, and I also believe, that they ­were being made there. And Narrok took some of them with him.”

It was Chaol who asked, “Where did Narrok go?”

“To Wendlyn,” Murtaugh said. Aedion’s heart, damn him, stopped. “Narrok took the fleet to Wendlyn—­to launch a surprise attack.”

“That’s impossible,” the captain said, shooting to his feet. “Why? Why now?”

“Because someone,” the old man said, sharper than Aedion had ever heard him, “convinced the king to send his Champion there to kill the royal family. What better time to try out these alleged monsters than when the country is in chaos?”

Chaol gripped the back of a chair. “She’s not actually going to kill them—­she would never. It—­it was all a ruse,” he said. Aedion supposed that was all he would tell the Allsbrook men, and all they really needed to know right now. He ignored the wary glance Ren tossed him, no doubt to see how he would react to news of his Ashryver kin having targets on their backs. But they’d been dead to him for ten years already, from the moment they refused to send aid to Terrasen. Gods help them if he ever set foot in their kingdom. He wondered what Aelin thought of them—­if she thought Wendlyn might be convinced of an alliance now, especially with Adarlan launching a larger-­scale assault on their borders. Perhaps she would be content to let them all burn, as the people of Terrasen had burned. He ­wouldn’t mind either way.

“It ­doesn’t matter if they are assassinated or not,” Murtaugh said. “When these things arrive, I think the world will soon learn what our queen is up against.”

“Can we send a warning?” Ren demanded. “Can Rolfe get word to Wendlyn?”

“Rolfe will not get involved. I offered him promises of gold, of land when our queen returns . . . nothing can sway him. He has his territory back, and he will not risk his men again.”

“Then there has to be some blockade runner, some message we can smuggle,” Ren went on. Aedion debated informing Ren that Wendlyn hadn’t bothered to help Terrasen, but decided he didn’t particularly feel like getting into an ethical debate.

“I have sent a few that way,” Murtaugh said, “but I do not have much faith in them. And by the time they arrive, it may be too late.”

“So what do we do?” Ren pushed.

Murtaugh sipped his brandy. “We keep looking for ways to help ­here. Because I do not believe for one moment that His Majesty’s newest surprises ­were located only in the Dead Islands.”

That was an interesting point. Aedion took a sip from the brandy, but set it down. Alcohol ­wouldn’t help him sort through the jumble of forming plans. So Aedion half listened to the others as he slipped into the steady rhythm, the beat to which he calculated all his battles and campaigns.

•

Chaol watched Aedion pace in the apartment, Murtagh and Ren having left to see to their own agendas. Aedion said, “You want to tell me why you look like you’re going to vomit?”

“You know everything I know, so it’s easy to guess why,” Chaol said from his armchair, his jaw clenched. His fight with Dorian had left him in no hurry to get back to the castle, even if he needed the prince to test out his theories on that spell. Dorian had been right about Celaena—­about Chaol resenting her darkness and abilities and true identity, but . . . it hadn’t changed how he felt.

“I still don’t quite grasp your role in things, Captain,” Aedion said. “You’re not fighting for Aelin or for Terrasen; for what, then? The greater good? Your prince? Whose side does that put you on? Are you a traitor—­a rebel?”

“No.” Chaol’s blood chilled at the thought. “I’m on neither side. I only wish to help my friend before I leave for Anielle.”

Aedion’s lip pulled back in a snarl. “Perhaps that’s your problem. Perhaps not picking a side is what costs you. Perhaps you need to tell your father you’re breaking your promise.”

“I will not turn my back on my kingdom or my prince,” Chaol snapped. “I will not fight in your army and slaughter my people. And I will not break my vow to my father.” His honor might very well be all he would have left at the end of this.

“What if your prince sides with us?”

“Then I will fight alongside him, however I am able, even if it’s from Anielle.”

“So you will fight alongside him, but not for what is right. Have you no free will, no wants of your own?”

“My wants are none of your concern.” And those wants . . . “Regardless of what Dorian decides, he would never sanction the killing of innocents.”

A sneer. “No taste for blood?”

Chaol ­wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to meet his temper. Instead he went for the throat and said, “I think your queen would condemn you if you spilled one drop of innocent blood. She would spit in your face. There are good people in this kingdom, and they deserve to be considered in any course of action your side takes.”

Aedion’s eyes flicked to the scar on Chaol’s cheek. “Just like how she condemned you for the death of her friend?” Aedion gave him a slow, vicious smile, and then, almost too fast to register, the general was in his face, arms braced on the wings of the chair.

Chaol wondered if Aedion would strike him, or kill him, as the general’s features turned more lupine than he’d ever seen them, nose crinkled, teeth exposed. Aedion said, “When your men have died around you, when you have seen your women unforgivably hurt, when you have watched droves of orphaned children starve to death in the streets of your city, then you can talk to me about sparing innocent lives. Until then, the fact remains, Captain, that you have not picked a side because you are still a boy, and you are still afraid. Not of losing innocent lives, but of losing what­ever dream it is you’re clinging to. Your prince has moved on, my queen has moved on. But you have not. And it will cost you in the end.”

Chaol had nothing to say after that and quickly left the apartment. He hardly slept that night, hardly did anything but stare at his sword, discarded on his desk. When the sun ­rose, he went to the king and told him of his plans to return to Anielle.

41

The next two weeks fell into a pattern—­enough that Celaena started to find comfort in it. There ­were no unexpected stumbles or turns or pitfalls, no deaths or betrayals or nightmares made flesh. In the mornings and eve­nings, she played scullery maid. Late morning until dinner she spent with Rowan, slowly, painfully exploring the well of magic inside her—­a well that, to her horror, had no bottom in sight.

The small things—­lighting candles, putting out hearth fires, weaving a ribbon of flame through her fingers—­were still the hardest. But Rowan pushed, dragging her from ruin to ruin, the only safe places for her to lose control. At least he brought food with him now, as she was constantly starving and could hardly go an hour without eating something. Magic gobbled up energy, and she was eating double or triple what she used to.

Sometimes they would talk. Well, she would make him talk, because after telling him about Aedion and her own selfish wish for freedom, she decided that talking was . . . good. Even if she ­wasn’t able to open up about some things, she liked hearing Rowan speak. She managed to get him to tell her about his various campaigns and adventures, each more brutal and harrowing than the next. There was a ­whole giant world to the south and east of Wendlyn, kingdoms and empires she’d heard of in passing but had never known much about. Rowan was a true warrior, who had walked on and off of killing fields, led men through hell, sailed on raging seas and seen distant, strange shores.

Though she envied his long life—­and the gift of seeing the world that went along with it—­she could still feel the undercurrent of rage and grief beneath each tale, the loss of his mate that haunted him no matter how far he rode or sailed or flew. He spoke very little of his friends, who sometimes accompanied him on his journeys. She did not envy him the battles he had fought, the wars in far-­off lands, or the bloody years spent laying siege to cities of sand and stone.

She did not tell him that, of course. She only listened as he narrated while instructing her. And as she listened, she began to hate Maeve—­truly hate her aunt in her core. That rage drove her to request legends about her aunt from Emrys every night. Rowan never reprimanded her when she asked for those stories, never showed any alarm.

It came as some surprise when Emrys announced one day that Beltane was two days off and they would begin preparations for their feasting and dancing and celebrating. Already Beltane, and according to Rowan, she was still far from ready to go to Doranelle, despite mastering the shift. Spring would now be in full bloom on her own continent. Maypoles would be raised, hawthorn bushes decorated—­that was about as much as the king would allow. There would be no small gifts left at crossroads for the Little Folk. The king permitted the bare bones only, with the focus squarely on the gods and planting for the harvest. Not a hint or whisper of magic.

Bonfires would be ignited and a few brave souls would jump across for luck, to ward off evil, to ensure a good crop—­whatever they hoped would come of it. As a child, she had run rampant through the field before the gates of Orynth, the thousand bonfires burning like the lights of the invading army that would too soon be encamped around the white city. It was her night, her mother had said—­a night when a fire-­bearing girl had nothing to fear, no powers to hide. Aelin Fireheart, people had whispered as she bounded past, embers streaming from her like ribbons, Aedion and a few of her more lethal court members trailing as indulgent guards. Aelin of the Wildfire.

After days of helping Emrys with the food (and devouring it when the cook ­wasn’t looking), she was hoping for a chance to relax on Bel­tane, but Rowan hauled her to a field atop the mountain plateau. Celaena bit into an apple she’d pulled from her pocket and raised her brows at Rowan, who was standing in front of a massive pile of wood for the bonfire, flanked by two small unlit fires on either side.

Around them, some of the demi-­Fae ­were still hauling in more wood and kindling, others setting up tables to serve the food that Emrys had been laboring over without rest.

Dozens of other demi-­Fae had arrived from their various outposts, with little fanfare and much embracing and good-­natured teasing. Between helping Emrys and training with Rowan, Celaena hardly had time to inspect them—­though a wretched part of her was somewhat pleased by the few admiring glances she caught being thrown in her direction by the visiting males.

She didn’t fail to notice how quickly they looked away when they beheld Rowan at her side. Though she did catch a few females looking at him with far warmer interest. She wanted to claw their faces off for it.

She munched on the apple as she studied him now, in his usual pale-gray tunic and wide belt, hood thrown back and leather vambraces gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Gods, she had no interest in him like that, and she was certain he had no inclination to take her to his bed, either. Maybe it was just from spending so much time in her Fae body that she felt . . . territorial. Territorial and grumpy and mean. Last night, she had growled at a female in the kitchen who would not stop staring at him and had actually taken a step toward him as if to say hello.

Celaena shook her head to clear away the instincts that ­were starting to make her see fire at all hours of the day. “I assume you brought me ­here so I could practice?” She chucked the apple core across the field and rubbed at her shoulder. She’d been feverish the night before thanks to Rowan making her practice all afternoon, and had awoken exhausted this morning.

“Ignite them, and keep the fires controlled and even all night.”

“All three.” Not a question.

“Keep the end ones low for the jumpers. The middle one should be scorching the clouds.”

She wished she hadn’t eaten the apple. “This could easily turn lethal.”

He lifted a hand and wind stirred around her. “I’ll be ­here,” he said simply, eyes shining with an arrogance he’d more than earned in his centuries of living.

“And if I somehow still manage to turn someone into a living torch?”

“Then it’s a good thing the healers are also ­here to celebrate.”

She gave him a dirty look and rolled her shoulders. “When do you want to start?”

Her stomach clenched as he said, “Now.”

•

She was burning, but remaining steady, even as the sun set and the field became packed with revelers. Musicians took up places by the forest edge and the world filled with their violins and fiddles and flutes and drums, such beautiful, ancient music that her flames moved with it, turning into rubies and citrines and tigereyes and deepest sapphires. Her magic didn’t manifest in only blue wildfire anymore; it had been slowly changing, growing, these past few weeks. No one really noticed her, standing on the outskirts of the fire’s light, though a few marveled at the flames that burned but did not consume the wood.

Sweat ran down every part of her—­mostly thanks to the terror of people jumping over the lower-­burning bonfires. Yet Rowan remained beside her, murmuring as if she were a ner­vous ­horse. She wanted to tell him to go away, to maybe indulge one of those doe-­eyed females who kept silently inviting him to dance. But she focused on the flames and on maintaining that shred of control, even though her blood was starting to boil. A knot tightened in her lower back, and she shifted. Gods, she was soaked—­every damn crevice was damp.

“Easy,” Rowan said as the flames danced a little higher.

“I know,” she gritted out. The music was already so inviting, the dancing around the fire so joyous, the food on the tables smelling so delicious . . . and ­here she was, far from it all, just burning. Her stomach grumbled. “When can I stop?” She shifted on her feet again, and the largest bonfire twisted, the flame slithering with her body. No one noticed.

“When I say so,” he said. She knew he was using the people around them, her fear for their safety, to get her to master her control, but . . .

“I’m sweating to death, I’m starving, and I want a break.”

“Resorting to whining?” But a cool breeze licked up her neck, and she closed her eyes, moaning. She could feel him watching her, and after a moment he said, “Just a little while longer.”

She almost sagged with relief, but opened her eyes to focus. She could hold out for a bit, then go eat and eat and eat. Maybe dance. She hadn’t danced in so long. Maybe she would try it out, ­here in the shadows. See if her body could find room for joy, even though it was currently so hot and aching that she would bet good money that the moment she stopped, she would fall asleep.

But the music was entrancing, the dancers mere shadows swirling around. Unlike in Adarlan, there ­were no guards monitoring the festivities, no villagers lurking to see who might cross the line into treason and earn a pretty coin for whoever they turned in. There was just the music and the dancing and the food and the fire—­her fire.

She tapped a foot, bobbing her head, eyes on the three smokeless fires and the silhouettes dancing around them. She did want to dance. Not from joy, but because she felt her fire and the music meld and pulse against her bones. The music was a tapestry woven of light and dark and color, building delicate links in a chain that latched on to her heart and spread out into the world, binding her to it, connecting everything.

She understood then. The Wyrdmarks ­were—­were a way of harnessing those threads, of weaving and binding the essence of things. Magic could do the same, and from her power, from her imagination and will and core, she could create and shape.

“Easy,” Rowan said, then added with a hint of surprise, “Music. That day on the ice, you ­were humming.” She registered another cool wind on her neck, but her skin was already pulsing in time with the drums. “Let the music steady you.”

Gods, to be free like this . . . The flames roiled and undulated with the melody.

“Easy.” She could barely hear him above the wave of sound filling her up, making her feel each tether binding her to the earth, each infinite thread. For a breath she wished for a shape-­shifter’s heart so she could shed her skin and weave herself into something ­else, the music or the wind, and blow across the world. Her eyes ­were stinging, almost blurry from staring so long at the flames, and a muscle in her back twinged.

“Steady.” She didn’t know what he was talking about—­the flames ­were calm, lovely. What would happen if she walked through them? The pulsing in her head seemed to say do it, do it, do it.

“That’s enough for now.” Rowan grabbed her arm, but hissed and let go. “That is enough.”

Slowly, too slowly, she looked at him. His eyes ­were wide, the light of the fire making them almost blaze. Fire—her fire. She returned to the flame, submitted to it. The music and the dancing continued, bright and merry.

“Look at me,” Rowan said, but didn’t touch her. “Look at me.”

She could hardly hear him, as if she ­were underwater. There was a pounding in her now—­edged with pain. It was a knife that sliced into her mind and her body with each pulse. She ­couldn’t look at him—­didn’t dare take her attention from the fire.

“Let the fires burn on their own,” Rowan ordered. She could have sworn she heard something like fear in his voice. It was an effort of will, and pain spiked down the tendons in her neck, but she looked at him. His nostrils flared. “Aelin, stop right now.”

She tried to speak, but her throat was raw, burning. She ­couldn’t move her body.

“Let go.” She tried to tell him she ­couldn’t, but it hurt. She was an anvil and the pain was a hammer, striking again and again. “If you don’t let go, you are going to burn out completely.”

Was this the end of her magic, then? A few hours tending fires? Such a relief—­such a blessed relief, if it ­were true.

“You are on the verge of roasting yourself from the inside out,” Rowan snarled.

She blinked, and her eyes ached as if she had sand in them. Agony lashed down her spine, so hard she fell to the grass. Light flared—­not from her or Rowan, but from the fires surging. People yelled, the music faltered. The grass hissed beneath her hands, smoking. She groaned, fumbling inside for the three tethers to the fires. But she was a maze, a labyrinth, the strings all tangled, and—

“I’m sorry,” Rowan hissed, swearing again, and the air vanished.

She tried to groan, to move, but she had no air. No air for that inner fire. Blackness swept in.

Oblivion.

Then she was gasping, arcing off the grass, the fires now crackling naturally and Rowan hovering over her. “Breathe. Breathe.”

Though he’d snapped her tethers to the fires, she was still burning.

Not burning on the outside, where even the grass had stopped smoldering.

She was burning up from within. Each breath sent fire down her lungs, her veins. She could not speak or move.

She had shoved herself over some boundary—­hadn’t heard the warning signs to turn back—­and she was burning alive beneath her skin.

She shook with tearless, panicked sobs. It hurt—­it was endless and eternal and there was no dark part of her where she could flee to escape the flames. Death would be a mercy, a cold, black haven.

She didn’t know Rowan had left until he came sprinting back, two females in tow. One of them said, “Can you stand to carry her? There aren’t any water-­wielders ­here, and we need to get her into cold water. Now.”

She didn’t hear what ­else was said, heard nothing but the pounding-­pounding of that forge under her skin. There was a grunt and a hiss, and then she was in Rowan’s arms, bouncing against his chest as he hurtled through the woods. Every step sent splinters of red-­hot pain through her. Though his arms ­were ice cold, a frigid wind pressing on her, she was adrift in a sea of fire.

Hell—this was what the dark god’s underworld felt like. This was what awaited her when she took her last breath.

It was the horror of that thought that made her focus on what she could grasp—­namely the pine-­and-­snow smell of Rowan. She pulled that smell into her lungs, pulled it down deep and clung to it as though it were a lifeline tossed into a stormy sea. She didn’t know how long it took, but her grasp on him was weakening, each pulse of fiery pain fraying it.

But then it was darker than the woods, and the sounds echoed louder, and they took stairs, and then—“Get her into the water.”

She was lowered into the water in the sunken stone tub, then steam brushed her face. Someone swore. “Freeze it, Prince,” the second voice commanded. “Now.”

There was a moment of blissful cold, but then the fire surged, and—

“Get her out!” Strong hands yanked at her, and she had the vague sense of hearing bubbling.

She had boiled the water in that tub. Almost boiled herself. She was in another tub a moment later, the ice forming again—­then melting. Melting, and— “Breathe,” Rowan said by her ear, kneeling at the head of the tub. “Let it go—­let it get out of you.”

Steam ­rose, but she took a breath. “Good,” Rowan panted. Ice formed again. Melted.

She was sweating, heat pulsing against her skin like a drum. She did not want to die like this. She took another breath.

Like the ebb and flow of the tide, the bath froze, then melted, froze, then melted, slower each time. And each time, the cold soaked into her a bit more, numbing her, urging her body to relax.

Ice and fire. Frost and embers. Locked in a battle, pushing and pulling. Beneath it, she could almost taste Rowan’s steel will slamming against her magic—­a will that refused to let the fire burn her into nothing.

Her body ached, but now the pain was mortal. Her cheeks ­were still aflame, but the water went cold, then lukewarm, then warm and—­stayed that way. Warm, not hot.

“We need to get those clothes off her,” one of the females said. Celaena lost track of time as two small sets of hands eased up her head and then stripped off her sodden clothes. Without them, she was almost weightless in the water. She didn’t care if Rowan saw—­didn’t think there was an inch of a woman’s body he hadn’t already explored anyway. She lay there, eyes shut, face tilted toward the ceiling.

After a while, Rowan said, “Just answer yes or no. That’s all you have to do.” She managed a slight nod, though she winced as pain shot down her neck and shoulders. “Are you in danger of flaring up again?”

She was breathing as evenly as she could, the heat pounding in her cheeks, her legs, her core, but it was steadily diminishing. “No,” she whispered, a brush of hot air from her tongue.

“Are you in pain?” Not a sympathetic question, but a commander assessing his soldier’s condition to sort out the best course of action.

“Yes.” A hiss of steam.

A woman said, “We will prepare a tonic. Just keep her cool.” Soft feet padded on the stone floors on their way out, then came the snick of the door to the baths closing. There was a slosh of water in a bucket, then—

Celaena sighed, or tried to, as an ice-­cold cloth was laid on her forehead. More sloshing, then another cloth dripped freezing water onto her hair, her neck.

“The burnout,” Rowan said quietly. “You should have told me you ­were at your limit.”

Speaking was too hard, but she opened her eyes to find him kneeling at the head of the bath, a bucket of water beside him and a cloth in his hands. He wrung it again over her brow, the water so wonderful she would have moaned. The bath cooled further, but was still warm—­too warm.

“If you’d gone on any longer, the burnout would have destroyed you. You must learn to recognize the signs—­and how to pull back before it’s too late.” Not a statement, but a command. “It will rip you apart inside. Make this . . .” He shook his head again. “Make this look like nothing. You don’t touch your magic until you’ve rested for a while. Understand?”

She tilted her head up, beckoning for more cold water on her face, but he refused to wring the cloth until she nodded her agreement. He cooled her off for another few moments, then slung the cloth over the side of the bucket and stood. “I’m going to check on the tonic. I’ll be back soon.” He left once she’d nodded again. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought he was fussing. Worried, even.

She hadn’t been old enough in Terrasen to have anyone teach her about the deadly side to her power—­and no one had explained, since her lessons had been so limited. She hadn’t felt like she was burning out. It had come on so quickly. Maybe that was all there was to her magic. Maybe her well didn’t go as deep as everyone had thought. It would be a relief if that ­were true.

She lifted her legs, groaning at the aches along her muscles, and leaned forward far enough to hug her knees. Above the lip of the sunken tub, there ­were a few candles burning on the stones, and she glared at the flames. Hated the flames. Though she supposed they needed light in ­here.

She rested her forehead on her scarred knees, her skin nearly scorching. She shut her eyes, piecing her splintered consciousness together.

The door opened. Rowan. She kept herself in that cool darkness, savoring the growing chill in the water, the quieting pulse under her skin. He sounded about halfway across the room when his footsteps halted.

His breath caught, harsh enough that she looked over her shoulder.

But his eyes ­weren’t on her face. Or the water. They ­were on her bare back.

Curled as she was against her knees, he could see the ­whole expanse of ruined flesh, each scar from the lashings. “Who did that do you?”

It would have been easy to lie, but she was so tired, and he had saved her useless hide. So she said, “A lot of people. I spent some time in the Salt Mines of Endovier.”

He was so still that she wondered if he’d stopped breathing. “How long?” he asked after a moment. She braced herself for the pity, but his face was so carefully blank—­no, not blank. Calm with lethal rage.

“A year. I was there a year before . . . it’s a long story.” She was too exhausted, her throat too raw, to say the rest of it. She noticed then that his arms ­were ban­daged, and more ban­dages across his broad chest peeked up from beneath his shirt. She’d burned him again. And yet he had held on to her—­had run all the way ­here and not let go once.

“You ­were a slave.”

She gave him a slow nod. He opened his mouth, but shut it and swallowed, that lethal rage winking out. As if he remembered who he was talking to and that it was the least punishment she deserved.

He turned on his heel and shut the door behind him. She wished he’d slammed it—­wished he’d shattered it. But he closed it with barely more than a click and did not return.

42

Her back.

Rowan soared over the trees, riding and shaping the winds to push him onward, faster, their roar negligible to the bellowing in his head. He took in the passing world out of instinct rather than interest, his eyes turned inward—­toward that slab of ruined flesh glistening in the candlelight.

The gods knew he’d seen plenty of harrowing injuries. He’d be­­stowed plenty of them on his enemies and friends alike. In the grand sense of things, her back ­wasn’t even close to some of those wounds. Yet when he’d seen it, his heart had clean stopped—­and for a moment, there had been an overwhelming silence in his mind.

He felt his magic and his warrior’s instincts honing into a lethal combination the longer he stared—­howling to rip apart the people who had done that with his bare hands. Then he’d just left, hardly making it out of the baths before he shifted and soared into the night.

Maeve had lied. Or lied by omission. But she knew. She knew what the girl had gone through—­knew she’d been a slave. That day—­that day early on, he’d threatened to whip the girl, gods above. And she had lost it. He’d been such a proud fool that he’d assumed she’d lashed out because she was nothing more than a child. He should have known better—­should have known that when she did react to something like that, it meant the scars went deep. And then there ­were the other things he’d said . . .

He was almost to the towering line of the Cambrian Mountains. She had barely been grown into her woman’s body when they hurt her like that. Why hadn’t she told him? Why hadn’t Maeve told him? His hawk loosed a piercing cry that echoed on the dark gray stones of the mountain wall before him. A chorus of unearthly howls ­rose in response—­Maeve’s wild wolves, guarding the passes. Even if he flew all the way to Doranelle, he’d reach his queen and demand answers and . . . she would not give them to him. With the blood oath, she could command he not go back to Mistward.

He gripped the winds with his magic, choking off their current. Aelin . . . Aelin had not trusted him—­had not wanted him to know.

And she’d almost burned out completely, gods be damned, leaving her currently defenseless. Primal anger sharpened in his gut, brimming with a territorial, possessive need. Not a need for her, but a need to protect—­a male’s duty and honor. He had not handled the news as he should have.

If she hadn’t wanted to tell him about being a slave, then she probably had done so assuming the worst about him—­just as she was probably assuming the worst about his leaving. The thought didn’t sit well.

So he veered back to the north and reined his magic to pull the winds with him, easing his flight back to the fortress.

He would get answers from his queen soon enough.

•

The healers gave her a tonic, and when Celaena reassured them that she ­wasn’t going to incinerate herself, she stayed in the bath until her teeth ­were chattering. It took three times as long as usual to get back to her rooms, and she was so frozen and drained that she didn’t change into clothes before she dropped into bed.

She didn’t want to think about what it meant that Rowan had left like that, but she did, aching and cramping from the magic. She drifted into a jerking, fitful sleep, the cold so fierce she ­couldn’t tell whether it was from the temperature or the aftermath of the magic. At some point, she was awoken by the laughing and singing of the returning revelers. After a while, even the drunkest found their bed or someone ­else’s. She was almost asleep again, teeth still chattering, when her window groaned open in the breeze. She was too cold and sore to get up. There was a flutter of wings and a flash of light, and before she could roll over, he’d scooped her up, blanket and all.

If she’d had any energy, she might have objected. But he carried her up the two flights of stairs, down the hall, and then—

A roaring fire, warm sheets, and a soft mattress. And a heavy quilt that was tucked in with surprising gentleness. The fire dimmed on a phantom wind, and then the mattress shifted.

In the flickering dark, he said roughly, “You’re staying with me from now on.” She found him lying as far away from her as he could get without falling off the mattress. “The bed is for to­night. Tomorrow, you’ll get a cot. You’ll clean up after yourself or you’ll be back in that room.”

She nestled into her pillow. “Very well.” The fire dimmed, yet the room remained toasty. It was the first warm bed she’d had in months. But she said, “I don’t want your pity.”

“This is not pity. Maeve decided not to tell me what happened to you. You have to know that I—­I ­wasn’t aware you had—”

She slid an arm across the bed to grasp his hand. She knew that if she wanted to, she could strike him a wound so deep it would fracture him. “I knew. At first, I was afraid you’d mock me if I told you, and I would kill you for it. Then I didn’t want you to pity me. And more than any of that, I didn’t want you to think it was ever an excuse.”

“Like a good soldier,” he said. She had to look away for a moment to keep from letting him see just what that meant to her. He took a long breath that made his broad chest expand. “Tell me how you ­were sent there—­and how you got out.”

She was tired in her bones, but she rallied her energy one last time and told him of the years in Rifthold, of stealing Asterion ­horses and racing across the desert, of dancing until dawn with courtesans and thieves and all the beautiful, wicked creatures in the world. And then she told him about losing Sam, and of that first whipping in Endovier, when she’d spat blood in the Chief Overseer’s face, and what she had seen and endured in the following year. She spoke of the day she had snapped and sprinted for her own death. Her heart grew heavy when at last she got to the eve­ning when the Captain of the Royal Guard prowled into her life, and a tyrant’s son had offered her a shot at freedom. She told him what she could about the competition and how she’d won it, until her words slurred and her eyelids drooped.

There would be more time to tell him of what happened next—­of the Wyrdkeys and Elena and Nehemia and how she had become so broken and useless. She yawned, and Rowan rubbed his eyes, his other hand still in hers. But he didn’t let go. And when she awoke before dawn, warm and safe and rested, Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest.

Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—­but to weld.

To forge.

43

Rowan didn’t let her get out of bed that day. He brought trays of food, going so far as to make sure she consumed every last drop of beef stew, half a loaf of crusty bread, a bowl of the first spring berries, and a mug of ginger tea. He hardly needed to offer any encouragement to eat; she was starving. But if she didn’t know better, she’d say he was fussing.

Emrys and Luca visited once to see if she was alive, took one look at Rowan’s stone-­cold face, heard the ripple of a growl, and took off, saying she was in more than competent hands and promising to come back when she was feeling better.

“You know,” Celaena said, propped in bed with her fourth mug of tea of the day, “I highly doubt anyone is going to attack me now, if they’ve already put up with my nonsense for this long.”

Rowan, who was yet again poring over the map of the location of the bodies, didn’t even look up from his seat at his worktable. “This isn’t negotiable.”

She might have laughed had her body not given a burst of twisting, blinding pain. She bore down on it, clenching her mug, focusing on her breathing. That was why she’d allowed him to fuss. Thanks to her magical meltdown last night, every damn part of her was sore. The constant throb and stinging and twisting, the headache between her brows, the fuzziness on the edge of her vision . . . even sliding her gaze across the room sent sparks of pain through her head.

“So you mean to tell me that whenever someone comes close to burnout, she not only goes through all this misery, but if she’s female, the males around her go this berserk?”

He set down his pen and twisted to examine her. “This is hardly berserk. At least you can defend yourself by physical means when your magic is useless. For other Fae, even if they’ve had weapons and defense training, if they ­can’t touch their magic, they’re vulnerable, especially when they’re drained and in pain. That makes people—­usually males, yes—­somewhat edgy. Others have been known to kill without thought any perceived threat, real or otherwise.”

“What sort of threat? Maeve’s lands are peaceful.” She leaned over to set down her tea, but he was already moving, so swift that he intercepted her mug before it could hit the table. He took it from her with surprising gentleness, saw that she’d drained it, and poured another cup.

“Threats from anywhere—­males, females, creatures . . . You ­can’t reason against it. Even if it ­wasn’t in our culture, there would still be an instinct to protect the defenseless, regardless of whether they’re female or male, young or old.” He reached for a slice of bread and a bowl of beef broth. “Eat this.”

“It pains me to say this, but one more bite and I’ll be sick all over the place.” Oh, he was definitely fussing, and though it warmed her miserable heart, it was becoming rather irritating.

The bastard just dipped the bread into the broth and held them out to her. “You need to keep up your energy. You probably came so close to burnout because you didn’t have enough food in your stomach.”

Fine; it smelled too good to resist, anyway. She took the bread and the broth. While she ate, he made sure the room passed inspection: the fire was still high (suffocatingly hot, as it had been since morning, thanks to the chills that had racked her), only one window was cracked (to allow in the slightest of breezes when she had hot flashes), the door was shut (and locked), and yet another pot of tea was waiting (currently steeping on his worktable). When he was done ensuring all was accounted for and no threats lurked in the shadows, he looked her over with the same scrutiny: skin (wan and gleaming from the remnants of those hot flashes), lips (pale and cracked), posture (limp and useless), eyes (pain-­dimmed and increasingly full of irritation). Rowan frowned again.

After handing the empty bowl to him, she rubbed her thumb and forefinger against the per­sis­tent headache between her eyebrows. “So when the magic runs out,” she said, “that’s it—­either you stop or you burn out?”

Rowan leaned back in his chair. “Well, there’s the carranam.” The Old Language word was beautiful on his tongue—­and if she’d had a death wish, she might have begged him to speak only in the ancient language, just to savor the exquisite sounds.

“It’s hard to explain,” Rowan went on. “I’ve only ever seen it used a handful of times on killing fields. When you’re drained, your carranam can yield their power to you, as long as you’re compatible and actively sharing a blood connection.”

She tilted her head to the side. “If we ­were carranam, and I gave you my power, would you still only be using wind and ice—­not my fire?” He nodded gravely. “How do you know if you’re compatible with someone?”

“There’s no way of telling until you try. And the bond is so rare that the majority of Fae never meet someone who is compatible, or whom they trust enough to test it out. There’s always a threat that they could take too much—­and if they’re unskilled, they could shatter your mind. Or you could both burn out completely.”

Interesting. “Could you ever just steal magic from someone?”

“Less savory Fae once attempted to do so—­to win battles and add to their own power—­but it never worked. And if it did, it was because the person they held hostage was coincidentally compatible. Maeve outlawed any forced bonds long before I was born, but . . . I’ve been sent a few times to hunt down corrupt Fae who keep their carranam as slaves. Usually, the slaves are so broken there’s no way to rehabilitate them. Putting them down is the only mercy I can offer.”

His face and voice didn’t change, but she said softly, “Doing that must be harder than all the wars and sieges you’ve ever waged.”

A shadow darted across his harsh face. “Immortality is not as much of a gift as mortals would believe. It can breed monsters that even you would be sick to learn about. Imagine the sadists you’ve encountered—­and then imagine them with millennia to hone their craft and warped desires.”

Celaena shuddered. “This conversation’s become too awful to have after eating,” she said, slumping against the pillows. “Tell me which one of your little cadre is the handsomest, and if he would fancy me.”

Rowan choked. “The thought of you with any of my companions makes my blood run cold.”

“They’re that awful? Your kitty-­cat friend looked decent enough.”

Rowan’s brows ­rose high. “I don’t think my kitty-­cat friend would know what to do with you—­nor would any of the others. It would likely end in bloodshed.” She kept grinning, and he crossed his arms. “They would likely have very little interest in you, as you’ll be old and decrepit soon enough and thus not worth the effort it would take to win you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Killjoy.”

Silence fell, and he looked her over again (lucid, if drained and moody), and she ­wasn’t that surprised when he glanced at her bare wrists—one of the few bits of skin showing thanks to all the blankets he’d piled on top of her. They hadn’t discussed it last night, but she knew he’d been working up to it.

There was no judgment in his eyes as he said, “A skilled healer could probably get rid of those scars—­definitely the ones on your wrist, and most on your back.”

She clenched her jaw, but after a moment loosed a long breath. Even though she knew he would understand without much explanation, she said, “There ­were cells in the bowels of the mines that they used to punish slaves. Cells so dark you would wake up in them and think you’d been blinded. They locked me in there sometimes—­once for three weeks straight. And the only thing that got me through it was reminding myself of my name, over and over and over—I am Celaena Sardothien.”

Rowan’s face was drawn, but she went on. “When they would let me out, so much of my mind had shut down in the darkness that the only thing I could remember was that my name was Celaena. Celaena Sardothien, arrogant and brave and skilled, Celaena who did not know fear or despair, Celaena who was a weapon honed by Death.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair. “I don’t usually let myself think about that part of Endovier,” she admitted. “After I got out, there ­were nights when I would wake up and think I was back in those cells, and I would have to light every candle in my room to prove I ­wasn’t. They don’t just kill you in the mines—­they break you.

“There are thousands of slaves in Endovier, and a good number are from Terrasen. Regardless of what I do with my birthright, I’m going to find a way to free them someday. I will free them. Them, and all the slaves in Calaculla, too. So my scars serve as a reminder of that.”

She’d never said it, but there it was. Once she dealt with the King of Adarlan, if destroying him somehow didn’t put an end to the labor camps, she would. Stone by stone, if necessary.

Rowan asked, “What happened ten years ago, Aelin?”

“I’m not going to talk about that.”

“If you took up your crown, you could free Endovier far more easily than—”

“I ­can’t talk about it.”

“Why?”

There was a pit in the memory—­a pit she ­couldn’t climb out of if she ever fell in. It ­wasn’t her parents’ deaths. She had been able to tell others in vague terms about their murders. That pain was still staggering, still haunted her. But waking up between their corpses ­wasn’t the moment that had shattered everything Aelin Galathynius was and might have been. In the back of her mind, she heard another woman’s voice, lovely and frantic, another woman who—

She rubbed her brows again. “There is this . . . rage,” she said hoarsely. “This despair and hatred and rage that lives and breathes inside me. There is no sanity to it, no gentleness. It is a monster dwelling under my skin. For the past ten years, I have worked every day, every hour, to keep that monster locked up. And the moment I talk about those two days, and what happened before and after, that monster is going to break loose, and there will be no accounting for what I do.

“That is how I was able to stand before the King of Adarlan, how I was able to befriend his son and his captain, how I was able to live in that palace. Because I did not give that rage, those memories, one inch. And right now I am looking for the tools that might destroy my enemy, and I cannot let out the monster, because it will make me use those tools against the king, not put them back as I should—­and I might very well destroy the world for spite. So that is why I must be Celaena, not Aelin—­because being Aelin means facing those things, and unleashing that monster. Do you understand?”

“For what­ever it’s worth, I don’t think you would destroy the world from spite.” His voice turned hard. “But I also think you like to suffer. You collect scars because you want proof that you are paying for what­ever sins you’ve committed. And I know this because I’ve been doing the same damn thing for two hundred years. Tell me, do you think you will go to some blessed Afterworld, or do you expect a burning hell? You’re hoping for hell—­because how could you face them in the Afterworld? Better to suffer, to be damned for eternity and—”

“That’s enough,” she whispered. She must have sounded as miserable and small as she felt, because he turned back to the worktable. She shut her eyes, but her heart was thundering.

She didn’t know how much time passed. After a while, the mattress shifted and groaned, and a warm body pressed against hers. Not holding her, just lying beside her. She didn’t open her eyes, but she breathed in the smell of him, the pine and snow, and her pain settled a bit.

“At least if you’re going to hell,” he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, “then we’ll be there together.”

“I feel bad for the dark god already.” He brushed a large hand down her hair, and she almost purred. She hadn’t realized just how much she missed being touched—­by anyone, friend or lover. “When I’m back to normal, can I assume you’re going to yell at me about almost burning out?”

He let out a soft laugh but continued stroking her hair. “You have no idea.”

She smiled against the pillow, and his hand stilled for a moment—­then started again.

After a long while he murmured, “I have no doubt that you’ll be able to free the slaves from the labor camps some day. No matter what name you use.”

Her eyes burned behind their lids, but she leaned into his touch some more, even going so far as to put a hand on his broad chest, savoring the steady, assured heartbeat pounding beneath.

“Thank you for looking after me,” she said. He grunted—­acceptance or dismissal, she didn’t know. Sleep tugged at her, and she followed it into oblivion.

•

Rowan kept her cooped up in his room for a few more days, and even once she told him she was feeling fine, he made her spend an extra half day in bed. She supposed it was nice, having someone, even an overbearing, snarling Fae warrior, bothering to care whether she lived or died.

Her birthday arrived—­nineteen somehow felt rather dull—­and her sole present was that Rowan left her alone for a few hours. He came back with the news of another demi-­Fae corpse found near the coast. She asked him to let her see it, but he flat-­out refused (barked at her was more like it) and said he’d already gone to see it himself. It was the same pattern: a dried nosebleed, a body drained until only a husk remained, and then a careless dumping. He’d also gone back to that town—­where they had been more than happy to see him, since he’d brought gold and silver.

And he’d returned to Celaena with chocolates, since he claimed to be insulted that she considered his absence a proper birthday present. She tried to embrace him, but he would have none of that, and told her as much. Still, the next time she used the bathing room, she’d snuck behind his chair at the worktable and planted a great, smacking kiss on his cheek. He’d waved her off and wiped his face with a snarl, but she had the suspicion that he’d let her get past his defenses.

•

It was a mistake to think that finally going back outdoors would be delightful.

Celaena was standing across a mossy clearing from Rowan, her knees slightly bent, hands in loose fists. Rowan hadn’t told her to, but she’d gotten into a defensive position upon seeing the faint gleam in his eyes.

Rowan only looked like this when he was about to make her life a living hell. And since they hadn’t gone to the temple ruins, she assumed he thought she’d at least mastered one element of her power, despite the events of Beltane. Which meant they ­were on to mastering the next.

“Your magic lacks shape,” Rowan said at last, standing so still that she envied him for it. “And because it has no shape, you have little control. As a form of attack, a fireball or wave of flame is useful, yes. But if you are engaging a skilled combatant—­if you want to be able to use your power—­then you have to learn to fight with it.” She groaned. “But,” he added sharply, “you have one advantage that many magic-­wielders do not: you already know how to fight with weapons.”

“First chocolates on my birthday, now an actual compliment?”

His eyes narrowed, and they had yet another of their wordless conversations. The more you talk, the more I’m going to make you pay in a moment.

She smiled slightly. Apologies, master. I am yours to instruct.

Brat. He jerked his chin at her. “Your fire can take what­ever form you wish—­the only limit being your imagination. And considering your upbringing, should you go on the offensive—”

“You want me to make a sword out of fire?”

“Arrows, daggers—­you direct the power. Visualize it, and use it as you would a mortal weapon.”

She swallowed.

He smirked. Afraid to play with fire, Princess?

You won’t be happy if I singe your eyebrows off.

Try me. “When you trained as an assassin, what was the first thing you learned?”

“How to defend myself.”

She understood why he’d looked so amused for the past few minutes when he said, “Good.”

•

Not surprisingly, having ice daggers thrown at her was miserable.

Rowan hurled dagger after magical dagger at her—­and every damn time, the shield of fire that she tried (and failed) to imagine did nothing. If it appeared at all, it always manifested too far to the left or right.

Rowan didn’t want a wall of flame. No—­he wanted a small, controlled shield. And it didn’t matter how many times he nicked her hands or arms or face, it didn’t matter that dried blood was now itching down her cheeks. One shield—­that was all she had to craft and he would stop.

Sweating and panting, Celaena was beginning to wonder if she should step directly into the path of his next dagger and put herself out of her suffering when Rowan growled. “Try harder.”

“I am trying,” she snapped, rolling aside as he sent two gleaming ice daggers at her head.

“You’re acting like you’re on the verge of a burnout.”

“Maybe I am.”

“If you believe for one moment that you’re close to a burnout after an hour of practicing—”

“It happened that quickly on Beltane.”

“That was not the end of your power.” His next ice dagger hovered in the air beside his head. “You fell into the lure of the magic and let it do what it wanted—­let it consume you. Had you kept your head, you could have had those fires burning for weeks—­months.”

“No.” She didn’t have any better answer than that.

His nostrils flared slightly. “I knew it. You wanted your power to be insignificant—­you ­were relieved when you thought that was all you had.”

Without warning, he sent the dagger, then the next, then the next at her. She raised her left arm as she would raise a shield, picturing the flame surrounding her arm, blocking those daggers, obliterating them, but—

She cursed so loudly that the birds stopped their chatter. She clutched her forearm as blood welled and soaked into her tunic. “Stop hitting me! I get the point!”

But another dagger came. And another.

Ducking and dodging, raising her bloodied arm again and again, she gritted her teeth and swore at him. He sent a dagger twirling with deadly efficiency—­and she ­couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the thin scratch along her cheekbone. She hissed.

He was right—­he was always right, and she hated that. Almost as much as she hated the power that flooded her and did what it wanted. It was hers to command—­not the other way around. She was not its slave. She was no one’s slave anymore. And if Rowan threw one more damned dagger at her face—

He did.

The ice crystal didn’t make it past her upraised forearm before it vanished in a hiss of steam.

Celaena gazed over the flickering edge of the compact red-­burning flame before her arm. Shaped like—­a shield.

Rowan smiled slowly. “We’re done for today. Go eat something.”

The circular shield did not burn her, though its flames swirled and sizzled. As she’d commanded. It had . . . worked.

So she raised her eyes to Rowan. “No. Again.”

•

After a week of making shields of various sizes and temperatures, Celaena could have multiple defenses burning at once, and encircle the entire glen with half a thought to protect it from outside assault. And when she awoke one morning before dawn, she ­couldn’t say why she did it, but she slipped from the room she shared with Rowan and went down to the ward-­stones.

She shivered from more than the early morning cold as the power of the curving gate-­stones zinged against her skin when she passed through. But none of the sentries on the battlements ordered her to stop as she walked along the line of towering, carved rocks until she found a bit of even ground and began to practice.

44

As one the Thirteen flew; as one the Thirteen led the other Blackbeak covens in the skies. Drill after drill, through rain and sun and wind, until they ­were all tanned and freckled. Even though Abraxos had yet to make the Crossing, the Spidersilk patching on his wings improved his flying significantly.

It was all going beautifully. Abraxos had gotten into a brawl for dominance with Lin’s bull and emerged victorious, and after that, none in her coven or any other challenged him. The War Games ­were fast approaching, and though Iskra hadn’t been any trouble since the night Manon had half killed her, they watched their backs: in the baths, around every dark corner, double-­checking every rein and strap before they mounted their wyverns.

Yes, it was all going beautifully, until Manon was summoned to her grandmother’s room.

“Why is it,” her grandmother said by way of greeting, pacing the room, teeth always out, “that I have to hear from gods-­damned Cresseida that your runty, useless wyvern hasn’t made the Crossing? Why is it that I am in the middle of a meeting, planning these War Games so you can win, and the other Matrons tell me that you aren’t allowed to participate because your mount will not make the Crossing and therefore isn’t allowed to fly in the host?”

Manon glimpsed the flash of nails before they raked down her cheek. Not hard enough to scar, but enough to bleed.

“You and that beast are an embarrassment,” her grandmother hissed, teeth snapping in her face. “All I want is for you to win these Games—­so we can take our rightful place as queens, not High Witches. Queens of the Waste, Manon. And you are doing your best to ruin it.” Manon kept her eyes on the ground. Her grandmother dug a nail into her chest, cutting through her red cloak, piercing the flesh right above her heart. “Has your heart melted?”

“No.”

“No,” her grandmother sneered. “No, it cannot melt, because you do not have a heart, Manon. We are not born with them, and we are glad of it.” She pointed to the stone floor. “Why is it that I am informed today that Iskra caught a gods-­damned Crochan spying on us? Why am I the last to know that she is in our dungeons and that they have been interrogating her for two days?”

Manon blinked, but that was all the surprise she let show. If Crochans ­were spying on them . . . Another slice to the face, marring the other cheek.

“You will make the Crossing tomorrow, Manon. Tomorrow, and I don’t care if you splatter yourself on the rocks. If you live, you had better pray to the Darkness that you win those Games. Because if you don’t . . .” Her grandmother sliced a nail across Manon’s throat. A scratch to set the blood running.

And a promise.

•

Everyone came this time to watch the Crossing. Abraxos was saddled, focus pinned on the cave mouth open to the night beyond. Asterin and Sorrel ­were behind her—­but beside their mounts, not astride them. Her grandmother had gotten wind of how they planned to save her and forbidden it. It was Manon’s own stupidity and pride that had to pay, she’d said.

Witches lined the viewing platform, and from high above, the High Witches and their heirs watched from a small balcony. The noise was near deafening. Manon glanced at Asterin and Sorrel and found them looking stone-­cold fierce, but tense.

“Keep to the walls so he ­doesn’t spook your wyverns,” she told them. They nodded grimly.

Since grafting the Spidersilk onto Abraxos’s wings, Manon had been careful not to push him too hard until the healing was absolutely complete. But the Crossing, with its plunge and winds . . . his wings could be shredded in a matter of seconds if the silk didn’t hold.

“We’re waiting, Manon,” her grandmother barked from above. She waved a hand toward the cave mouth. “But by all means, take your time.”

Laughter—from the Yellowlegs, Blackbeaks . . . everyone. Yet Petrah ­wasn’t smiling. And none of the Thirteen, gathered closest along the viewing platform, ­were smiling, either.

Manon turned to Abraxos, looking into those eyes. “Let’s go.” She tugged on the reins.

But he refused to move—­not from fear or terror. He slowly lifted his head—­looking to where her grandmother stood—­and let out a low, warning growl. A threat.

Manon knew she should reprimand him for the disrespect, but the fact that he could grasp what was occurring in this hall . . . it should have been impossible.

“The night is waning,” her grandmother called, heedless of the beast that stared at her with such rage in his eyes.

Sorrel and Asterin exchanged glances, and she could have sworn her Second’s hand twitched toward the hilt of her sword. Not to hurt Abraxos, but . . . Every single one of the Thirteen was casually reaching for their weapons. To fight their way out—­in case her grandmother gave the order to have Manon and Abraxos put down. They’d heard the challenge in Abraxos’s growl—­understood that the beast had drawn a line in the sand.

They ­were not born with hearts, her grandmother said. They had all been told that. Obedience, discipline, brutality. Those ­were the things they ­were supposed to cherish.

Asterin’s eyes ­were bright—­stunningly bright—­and she nodded once at Manon.

It was that same feeling she’d gotten when Iskra whipped Abraxos—­that thing she ­couldn’t describe, but it blinded her.

Manon gripped Abraxos’s snout, forcing his gaze away from her grandmother. “Just once,” she whispered. “All you have to do is make this jump just once, Abraxos, and then you can shut them up forever.”

Then, rising up from the deep, there came a steady two-­note beat. The beat of the chained bait beasts, who hauled the massive machines around. Like a thudding heart. Or beating wings.

Louder the beat sounded, as if the wyverns down in the pits knew what was happening. It grew and grew, until it reached the cavern—­until Asterin reached for her shield and joined in. Until each one of the Thirteen took up the beat. “You hear that? That is for you.”

For a moment, as the beat pulsed around them, phantom wings from the mountain itself, Manon thought that it would not be so bad to die—­if it was with him, if she was not alone.

“You are one of the Thirteen,” she said to him. “From now until the Darkness cleaves us apart. You are mine, and I am yours. Let’s show them why.”

He huffed into her palms as if to say he already knew all that and that she was just wasting time. She smiled faintly, even as Abraxos cast another challenging glare in her grandmother’s direction. The wyvern lowered himself to the ground for Manon to climb into the saddle.

The distance to the entrance seemed so much shorter in the saddle than on foot, but she did not let herself doubt him as she blinked her inner lid into place and retracted her teeth. The Spidersilk would hold—­she would consider no other alternative. “Fly, Abraxos,” she told him, and dug her spurs into his sides.

Like a roaring star, he thundered down the long shoot, and Manon moved with him, meeting each gallop of his powerful body, each step in time with the beat of the wyverns locked in the belly of the mountain. Abraxos flapped his wings open, pounding them once, twice, gathering speed, fearless, unrelenting, ready.

Still, the beat did not stop, not from the wyverns or from the Thirteen or from the Blackbeak covens, who picked it up, stomping their feet or clapping their hands. Not from the Blueblood heir, who clapped her sword against her dagger, or the Blueblood witches who followed her lead. The entire mountain shook with the sound.

Faster and faster, Abraxos raced for the drop, and Manon held on tight. The cave mouth opened wide. Abraxos tucked in his wings, using the movement to give his body one last shove over the lip as he took Manon with him and plunged.

Fast as lightning arcing across the sky, he plummeted toward the Gap floor.

Manon ­rose up into the saddle, clinging as her braid ripped free from her cloak, then came loose from its bonds, pulling painfully behind her, making her eyes water despite the lids. Down and down he fell, wings tucked in tight, tail straight and balanced.

Down into hell, into eternity, into that world where, for a moment, she could have sworn that something tightened in her chest.

She did not shut her eyes, not as the moon-­illuminated stones of the Gap became closer, clearer. She did not need to.

Like the sails of a mighty ship, Abraxos’s wings unfurled, snapping tight. He tilted them upward, pulling against the death trying to drag them down.

And it was those wings, covered in glimmering patches of Spidersilk, that stayed strong and sturdy, sending them soaring clean up the side of the Omega and into the starry sky beyond.

45

To their credit, the sentries didn’t jump when Rowan shifted beside them atop the battlement wall. They had eyes keen enough to have detected his arrival as he swooped in. A slight tang of fear leaked from them, but that was to be expected, even if it troubled him more than it had in the past. But they did stir slightly when he spoke. “How long has she been down there?”

“An hour, Prince,” one said, watching the flashing flames below.

“For how many mornings in a row?”

“This is the fourth, Prince,” the same sentry replied.

The first three days she’d slipped from bed before dawn, he’d assumed she’d been helping in the kitchens. But when they’d trained yesterday she’d . . . improved at a rate she shouldn’t have, as if overnight. He had to give her credit for resourcefulness.

The girl stood outside the ward-­stones, fighting with herself.

A dagger of flame flew from her hand toward the invisible barrier between two stones, then another, as if racing for the head of an opponent. It hit the magic wall with a flash of light and bounced back, reflected off the protective spell encircling the fortress. And when it reached her, she shielded—­swift, strong, sure. A warrior on a battlefield.

“I’ve never seen anyone . . . fight like that,” the sentry said.

It was a question, but Rowan didn’t bother to answer. It ­wasn’t their business, and he ­wasn’t entirely certain if his queen would be pleased with the demi-­Fae learning to use their powers in such a way. Though he fully planned to tell Lorcan, his commander and the only male who outranked him in Doranelle, just to see whether they could use it in their training.

The girl moved from throwing weapons to hand-­to-­hand combat: a punch of power, a sweeping kick of flame. Her flames had become gloriously varied—­golds and reds and oranges. And her technique—­not the magic, but the way she moved . . . Her master had been a monster, there was no doubt of that. But he had trained her thoroughly. She ducked and flipped and twisted, relentless, raging, and—

She swore with her usual color as the wall sent the punch of ruby flame back at her. She managed to shield, but still got knocked on her ass. Yet none of the sentries laughed. Rowan didn’t know if it was because of his presence or because of her.

He got his answer a heartbeat later, as he waited for her to shout or shriek or walk away. But the princess just slowly got to her feet, not bothering to brush off the dirt and leaves, and kept practicing.

•

The next corpse appeared a week later, setting a rather wretched tone for the crisp spring morning as Celaena and Rowan ran for the site.

They’d spent the past week fighting and defending and manipulating her magic, interrupted only by a rather miserable visit from some Fae nobility traveling through the area—­which left Celaena in no hurry to set foot in Doranelle. Thankfully, the guests stayed for one night, hardly disrupting her lessons.

They worked only with fire, ignoring the drop of water affinity that she’d been given. She tried again and again to summon the water, when she was drinking, while in the bath, when it rained, but to no avail. Fire it was, then. And while she knew Rowan was aware of her early morning practicing, he never lightened her training, though she could have sworn she occasionally felt their magic . . . playing together, her flame taunting his ice, his wind dancing amongst her embers. But each morning brought something new, something harder and different and miserable. Gods, he was brilliant. Cunning and wicked and brilliant.

Even when he beat the hell out of her. Every. Damn. Day.

Not from malice, not like it had been before, but to prove his point—­her enemies would give no quarter. If she needed to pause, if her power faltered, she died.

So he knocked her into the mud or the stream or the grass with a blast of wind or ice. So she ­rose, shooting arrows of flame, her shield now her strongest ally. Again and again, hungry and exhausted and soaking with rain and mist and sweat. Until shielding was an instinct, until she could hurl arrows and daggers of flame together, until she knocked him on his ass. There was always more to learn; she lived and breathed and dreamt of fire.

Sometimes, though, her dreams ­were of a brown-­eyed man in an empire across the sea. Sometimes she’d awaken and reach for the warm, male body beside hers, only to realize it was not the captain—­that she would never again lie next to Chaol, not after what had happened. And when she remembered that, it sometimes hurt to breathe.

There was nothing romantic about sharing a bed with Rowan, and they kept to their own sides. There certainly was nothing romantic about it when they reached the site of the corpse and she peeled off her shirt to cool down. In nothing but her underclothes, Celaena’s skin was bitten by the sea air with a delightful chill, and even Rowan unbuttoned his heavy jacket as they carefully approached the coordinates.

“Well, I can certainly smell him this time,” Celaena said between panting breaths. They’d reached the site in little less than three hours, guessing by the sun. That was faster and longer than she’d ever run, thanks to the Fae form she’d been training in.

“This body has been rotting ­here longer than the demi-­Fae from three days ago.”

She bit back her retort. There had been another demi-­Fae body found, and he hadn’t let her go see it, instead forcing her to practice all day while he flew to the site. But this morning, he’d taken one look at the fire smoldering in her eyes and relented.

Celaena stepped carefully on the pine carpet, scanning for any signs of a fight or of the attacker. The ground was churned up, and despite the rushing stream, the flies ­were buzzing near what appeared to be a heap of clothing peeking from behind a small boulder.

Rowan swore, low and viciously, even lifting his forearm to cover his nose and mouth as he examined the husk that remained, the demi-­Fae male’s face twisted in horror. Celaena might done the same, except . . . except—

That second smell was ­here, too. Not as strong as it had been at the first site, but it lingered. She shoved back against the memory that wanted to rise in response to the smell, the memory that had overwhelmed her that day in the barrow-­field.

“It has our attention and it knows it,” she said. “It’s targeting demi-­Fae—either to send a message, or because they . . . taste good. But—” She pictured the map Rowan kept in his room, detailing the wide area where the corpses had been found, and winced. “What if there’s more than one?” Rowan looked back at her, brows high. She didn’t say anything ­else until she had moved to where he stood by the body, careful not to disturb any clues. Her stomach lurched and bile stung the back of her throat, but she clamped down on the horror with a wall of ice that even her fire could not melt. “You’re old as hell,” she said. “You must have considered that ­we’re dealing with a few of them, given how vast the territory is. What if the one we saw in the barrows ­wasn’t even the creature responsible for these bodies?”

He narrowed his eyes, but conceded a nod. She studied the hollowed-­out face, the torn clothes.

Torn clothes, what looked like small cuts along the palms—as if he’d dug in his fingernails. The others had barely been touched, but this . . .

“Rowan.” She waved away flies. “Rowan, tell me you see what I’m seeing.”

Another vicious curse. He crouched, using the tip of a dagger to push back a bit of clothing torn at the collar. “This male—”

“Fought. He fought back against it. None of the others did, according to the reports.”

The stench of the corpse was nearly enough to bring her to her knees. But she squatted by the decaying hand and forearm, shriveled and wasted from the inside out. She held out a hand for Rowan’s dagger, still possessing none of her own. He hesitated as she looked up at him.

Only for the afternoon, he seemed to growl as he pressed the hilt into her open palm.

She yanked down the dagger. I know, I know. I ­haven’t earned my weapons back yet. Don’t get your feathers ruffled.

She turned back to the husk, cutting off their wordless conversation and getting a snarl in response. Butting heads with Rowan was the least of her concerns, even if it had become one of her favorite activities.

There was something so familiar about doing this, she thought as she carefully, as gently and respectfully as she could, ran the tip of the dagger under the male’s cracked and filthy nails, then smeared the contents on the back of her own hand. Dirt and black . . . black . . .

“What the hell is that?” Rowan demanded, kneeling beside her, sniffing her outstretched hand. He jerked back, snarling. “That’s not dirt.”

No, it ­wasn’t. It was blacker than night, and reeked just as badly as it had the first time she’d smelled it, in the catacombs beneath the library, an obsidian, oily pool of blood. Slightly different from that other, horrific smell that loitered around this place, but similar. So similar to—

“This isn’t possible,” she said, jolting to her feet. “This—­this—this—” She paced, if only to keep from shaking. “I’m wrong. I have to be wrong.”

There had been so many cells in that forgotten dungeon beneath the library, beneath the king’s Wyrdstone clock tower. The creature she’d encountered there had possessed a human heart. It had been left, she’d suspected, because of some defect. What if . . . what if the perfected ones had been moved elsewhere? What if they ­were now . . . ready?

“Tell me,” Rowan growled, the words barely understandable as he seemed to struggle to rein in the killing edge he rode in response to the threat lurking somewhere in these woods.

She lifted her hand to rub her eyes, but realized what was on her fingers and went to wipe them on her shirt. Only to recall that she was wearing nothing but the soft white band around her breasts, and that she was cold to her very bones. She rushed to the nearby stream to scrub off the dried black blood, hating even that the trace of it would be in the water, in the world, and quickly, quietly told Rowan of the creature in the library, the Wyrdkeys, and the information Maeve held hostage regarding how to destroy that power. Power that was being used by the king to make things—­and targeting people with magic in their blood to be their hosts.

A warm breeze wrapped around her, heating her bones and blood, steadying her. “How did it get ­here?” Rowan asked, his features now set with icy calm.

“I don’t know. I hope I’m wrong. But that smell—­I’ll never forget that smell as long as I live. Like it had rotted from the inside out, its very essence ruined.”

“But it retained some cognitive abilities. And what­ever this is, it must have them, too, if it’s dumping the bodies.”

She tried to swallow—­twice—but her mouth was dry. “Demi-­Fae . . . they would make perfect hosts, with so many of them able to use magic and no one in Wendlyn or Doranelle caring if they live or die. But these corpses—­if he wanted to kidnap them, why kill them?”

“Unless they ­weren’t compatible,” Rowan said. “And if they ­weren’t compatible, then what better use for them than to drain them dry?”

“But what’s the point of leaving the bodies where we can find them? To drum up fear?”

Rowan ground his jaw and stalked through the area, examining the ground, the trees, the rocks. “Burn the body, Aelin.” He removed the sheath and belt that had ­housed the dagger still dangling from her hand and tossed them to her. She caught them with her free hand. “We’re going hunting.”

•

They found nothing, even when Rowan shifted into his other form and circled high above. As the light grew dim, they climbed into the biggest, densest tree in the area. They squeezed onto a massive branch, huddling together, as he would not let her summon even a flicker of flame.

When she complained about the conditions, Rowan pointed out that there was no moon that night, and worse things than the skinwalkers prowled the woods. That shut her up until he asked her to tell him more about the creature in the library, to explain every detail and weakness and strength.

After she finished, he took out one of his long knives—­a fraction of the marvelous assortment he carried—­and began cleaning it. With her heightened senses, she could see enough in the starlight to make out the steel, his hands, and the shifting muscles in his shoulders as he wiped the blade. He himself was a beautiful weapon, forged by centuries of ruthless training and warring.

“Do you think I was mistaken?” she said as he put away the knife and reached for the ones hidden beneath his clothes. Like the first, none of them ­were dirty, but she didn’t point it out. “About the creature, I mean.”

Rowan slung his shirt over his head to get at the weapons strapped beneath, revealing his broad back, muscled and scarred and glorious. Fine—­some very feminine, innate part of her appreciated that. And she didn’t mind his half-­nakedness. He’d seen every inch of her now. She supposed there was no part of him that would be much of a surprise, either, thanks to Chaol. But—­no, she ­wouldn’t think about Chaol. Not when she was feeling balanced and clear-­headed and good.

“We’re dealing with a cunning, lethal predator, regardless of where it originated and how many there are,” he said, cleaning a small dagger that had been strapped across his pectoral muscle. She followed the path of his tattoo down his face, neck, shoulders, and arm. Such a stark, brutal marking. Had the scars on Chaol’s face healed, or would they be a permanent reminder of what she’d done to him? “If you ­were mistaken, I’d consider it a blessing.”

She slumped against the trunk. That was twice now she’d thought of Chaol. She must truly be exhausted, because the only other option was that she just wanted to make herself feel miserable.

She didn’t want to know what Chaol had been doing these months, or what he now thought of her. If he’d sold the information about her past to the king, maybe the king had sent one of those things ­here, to hunt her. And Dorian—­gods, she’d been so lost in her own misery that she’d hardly wondered about him, whether he’d managed to keep his magic secret. She prayed he was safe.

She suffered with her own thoughts until Rowan finished with his weapons, then took out their skin of water and rinsed his hands, neck, and chest. She watched him sidelong, the way the water gleamed on his skin in the starlight. It was a damn good thing Rowan had no interest in her, either, because she knew she was stupid and reckless enough to consider whether moving on in the physical sense might solve the problem of Chaol.

There was still such a mighty hole in her chest. A hole that grew bigger, not smaller, and that no one could fix, not even if she took Rowan to bed. There ­were some days when the amethyst ring was her most precious belonging—­others when it was all she could do not to melt it down in a flame of her own making. Maybe she had been a fool to love a man who served the king, but Chaol had been what she needed after losing Sam, after surviving the mines.

But these days . . . she didn’t know what she needed. What she wanted. If she felt like admitting it, she actually didn’t have the faintest clue who the hell she was anymore. All she knew was that what­ever and whoever climbed out of that abyss of despair and grief would not be the same person who had plummeted in. And maybe that was a good thing.

Rowan put his clothes back on and settled against the trunk, his body warm and solid against hers. They sat in the dark for a little until she said quietly, “You once told me that when you find your mate, you can’t stomach the idea of hurting them physically. Once you’re mated, you’d sooner harm yourself.”

“Yes; why?”

“I tried to kill him. I mauled his face, then held a dagger over his heart because I thought he was responsible for Nehemia’s death. I would have done it if someone hadn’t stopped me. If Chaol—­if he’d truly been my mate, I ­wouldn’t have been able to do that, would I?”

He was silent for a long while. “You hadn’t been in your Fae form for ten years, so perhaps your instincts ­weren’t even able to take hold. Sometimes, mates can be together intimately before the actual bond snaps into place.”

“It’s a useless hope to cling to, anyway.”

“Do you want the truth?”

She tucked her chin into her tunic and closed her eyes. “Not to­night.”

46

Shielding her eyes from the glare, Celaena scanned the cliffs and the spit of beach far below. It was scorching, with hardly a breeze, but Rowan remained in his heavy pale-gray jacket and wide belt, vambraces strapped to his forearms. He’d deigned to give her a few of his weapons that morning—­as a precaution.

They’d returned to the latest site at dawn to retrace their steps—­and that was where Celaena had picked up a trail. Well, she’d spied a droplet of dark blood on a nearby rock, and then Rowan had followed the scent back toward the cliffs. She looked down the beach, at the natural-­cut arches of the many caves along its curving length. But there was nothing ­here—­and the trail, thanks to the sea and wind and elements, had gone cold. They’d been ­here for the past half hour, looking for any other signs, but there was nothing. Nothing, except—

There. A sagging curve in the cliff edge, as if many pairs of feet had worn the lip down as they slid carefully over the edge. Rowan gripped her arm as she leaned to view the crumbled, hidden stair. She glared at him, but he didn’t let go. “I’m trying not to be insulted,” she said. “Look.”

They ­were hardly steps now—­just lumps of rock and sand peppered with shrubs. The water beyond the beach was so clear and calm that a slight break could be seen in the barrier reef that guarded these shores. It was one of the few ways to make a safe landing ­here without shattering your boat, only wide enough for a small craft to pass through. No warships or merchant vessels would fit, undoubtedly one reason this area had never been developed. It was the perfect place, however, if you wanted to surreptitiously enter the country—­and stay hidden.

She began sketching in the sandy earth, a long, hard line, then drew dot after dot after dot.

“The bodies ­were dumped in streams and rivers,” she said.

“The sea was never far off,” he said, kneeling beside her. “They could have dumped the bodies there. But—”

“But then those bodies probably would drift right back to shore, and prompt people to look along the beach. Look ­here,” she said, pointing to the stretch of coastline she’d sketched—­and where they ­were currently sitting, smack dab in the middle of it.

“There are countless caves along this section of the shore.”

She indicated where the waves broke on the reef and the small, calm space between them. “It’s an easy access point from—” She swore. She ­couldn’t say it. There ­were no ships along ­here, but that didn’t mean that one or two or more ­couldn’t have come from Adarlan, sneaking in at night, and slipped in their violent, vicious cargo using smaller boats.

Rowan stood. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“Don’t you think they would already have attacked if they’d seen us?”

Rowan pointed to the sun. If he was about to tell her it ­wasn’t safe for a queen to be throwing herself into danger, then he could— “If ­we’re going to explore, then ­we’re going to do it under cover of darkness. So ­we’re going back to the stream, and ­we’re going to find something to eat. And then, Princess,” he said with a wild grin, “we are going to have some fun.”

•

Some god must have decided to take pity on them, because the rain started right after sunset, thundering clouds rolling in with a vengeance to conceal any sound they made as they returned to the beach and began a thorough search of the caves.

But that was about where their favor from the gods ended, because what they found, while lying on their bellies on a narrow cliff overhanging a barren beach, was worse than anything they’d anticipated. It ­wasn’t only monsters of the king’s making.

It was a host of soldiers.

A few men came out of the massive cave mouth, which was camouflaged among the rocks and sand. They might have missed them had it not been for Rowan’s keen sense of smell. He did not have the words, he said, to describe what that smell was like. But she knew it.

Celaena’s mouth had gone dry, her stomach a knot as the dark figures slipped in and out of the cave with disciplined, economic movements that suggested they ­were highly trained. They ­weren’t rabid, half-­feral monsters like the one in the library, or cold, flawless creatures like what she’d seen in the barrows, but mortal soldiers. All of them aware, disciplined, ruthless.

“The crab-­monger,” Celaena murmured to Rowan. “In the village. He said—­he said he found weapons in his nets. They must be taking ships and then getting close enough to swim through the reef without attracting attention. We need to get a closer look.” She raised her brows at Rowan, who gave her a hunter’s smile. “I knew you’d be useful someday.”

Rowan just snorted and shifted, a flicker of light that she hoped was gobbled up by the storm. He flapped over the cliff edge and glided across the water, nothing more than a predator looking for a meal, then circled back until he rested on a rock just beyond the breaking waves. She watched him hunt, moving toward the cave itself, an animal looking for shelter from the rain. And then, keeping close to the towering ceiling of the cave, he swept inside.

She didn’t breathe the entire time he was out of her sight. She counted the gaps between the thunder and the lightning, her fingers itching to grab on to the hilt of her sword.

But at long last, Rowan swooped out of the cave in a leisurely flight. He made his way up to her, then flew past, heading into the woods. A message to follow. Carefully, she dragged herself through the dirt and mud and rocks until she was far enough away to slip between the trees. She followed Rowan for a ways, the forest growing denser, the rain masking all sounds.

She found him standing with crossed arms against a gnarled pine. “There are about two hundred mortal soldiers and three of those creatures in the caves. There’s a hidden network of them all along the shore.”

Her throat closed up. She made herself wait for him to go on.

“They are under the command of someone called General Narrok. The soldiers all look highly trained, but they keep well away from the three creatures.” Rowan wiped at his nose, and in the flash of lightning, she beheld the blood. “You ­were right. The three creatures look like men, but aren’t men. What­ever dwells inside their skin is . . . disgusting isn’t the right word. It was as if my magic, my blood—­my very essence was repelled by them.” He examined the blood on his fingers. “All of them seem to be waiting.”

Three of those things. Just one had nearly killed her. “Waiting for what?”

Rowan’s animal eyes glowed as they fixed on her. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“The king never said anything about this. He—­he . . .” Had something gone wrong in Adarlan? Had Chaol somehow told the king who and what she was, and the king sent these men ­here to . . . No, it had to have taken weeks, months, to get these creatures smuggled ­here. “Send word for Wendlyn’s forces—­warn them right now.”

“Even if I reached Varese tomorrow, it would take over a week to get ­here on foot. Most of the units have been deployed in the north all spring.”

“We still need to warn them that they’re at risk.”

“Use your head. There are endless caves and places to hide along the western coastline. And yet they pick ­here, this access point.”

She visualized the map of the area. “The mountain road will take them past the fortress.” Her blood chilled, and even her magic, flickering in an attempt to soothe her, could not warm her as she said, “No—­not past. To the fortress. They’re going after the demi-­Fae.”

A slow, grave nod. “I think those bodies we found ­were experiments. To learn the weaknesses and strengths of the demi-­Fae, to learn which ones ­were . . . compatible with what­ever it is they do to warp beings. With these numbers, I’d suggest this unit was sent ­here to capture and retrieve the demi-­Fae, or to wipe out a potential threat.”

Because if they could not be converted and enslaved to Adarlan, then the demi-­Fae could be convinced to potentially fight for Wendlyn in a war. They could be the strongest warriors in Wendlyn’s forces—­and cause more than a bit of trouble for Adarlan as a result.

She lifted her chin and said, “Then right now—­right now, we’ll go down to that beach and unleash our magic on them all. While they’re sleeping.” She turned, even as part of her soul started bucking and thrashing at the thought of it.

Rowan grabbed her elbow. “If I had thought there was a way to do it, I would have suffocated them all. But we ­can’t—­not without endangering our lives in the pro­cess.”

“Believe me, I can and I will.” They ­were Adarlan’s soldiers—­they had butchered and pillaged and done more evil than she could stomach. She could do it. She would do it.

“No. You physically cannot harm them, Aelin. Not right now. They know enough about those Wyrdmarks to have protected their ­whole rutting camp from our kind of magic. Wards—­like the stones around the fortress, but different. They wear iron everywhere they can, in their weapons, in their armor. They know their enemy well. We might be good, but we ­can’t take them on alone and walk out of those caves alive.”

Celaena paced, running her hands through her rain-­wet hair, and then realized he hadn’t finished. “Say it,” she demanded.

“Narrok is in the very back of the caves, in a private chamber. He is like them, a creature wearing the skin of a man. He sends out his three monsters to retrieve the demi-­Fae, and they bring them back to the cave—­for him to experiment on.”

She knew, then, why Rowan had moved her into the trees, far from the beach. Not for safety, but because—­because there was a demi-­Fae in there right now.

“I tried to cut off her air—­to make it easier for her,” Rowan said. “But they have her in too much iron, and . . . she won’t make it through the night, even if we go in there now. She is already a husk, barely able to breathe. There is no coming back from what they’ve done. They’ve fed on the very life of her, trapping her in her mind, making her relive what­ever horrors and miseries she’s already encountered.”

Even the fire in her blood froze. “It truly fed on me that day in the barrows,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t managed to escape, it would have drained me like that.” A low, confirming growl rippled out of Rowan.

Nauseated, Celaena scrubbed at her face—­tipped her head back to the rain trickling in from the canopy above, then finally took a long breath and faced Rowan. “We cannot kill them with our magic while they are encamped. Wendlyn’s forces are too far away, and Narrok is going after the demi-­Fae with three of those monsters plus two hundred soldiers.” She was thinking aloud, but Rowan nodded ­anyway. “How many of the sentries at Mistward have actually seen ­battle?”

“Thirty or less. And some, like Malakai, are too old, but will fight anyway—­and die.”

Rowan walked deeper into the woods. She followed him, if only because she knew if she took one step closer to the beach, she would go after that female. From the tension in Rowan’s shoulders, she knew he felt the same.

The rain ceased, and Celaena pulled back her hood to let the misty air soak into her too-­hot face. This area was full of shepherds and farmers and fishermen. Aside from the demi-­Fae, there was no one ­else to fight the creatures. They had no advantage, save for knowing their territory better than their enemy. They would send word to Wendlyn, of course, and maybe, maybe help would arrive in the next week.

Rowan held up a fist, and she halted as he scanned the trees ahead and behind. With expert quietness, he unsheathed one of the blades in his vambraces. The smell hit her a second later—­the stench of what­ever those creatures ­were beneath the mortal meat.

“Only one.” He was so quiet she could hardly hear even with her Fae ears.

“That’s not reassuring,” she said with equal softness, drawing her own dagger.

Rowan pointed. “He’s coming dead at us. You head to the right for twenty yards, I’ll go left. When he’s between us, wait for my signal, then strike. No magic—­it might attract too much attention if others are nearby. Keep it quick and quiet and fast.”

“Rowan, this thing—”

“Quick and quiet and fast.”

His green eyes flashed, but she held his stare. It fed on me and would have turned me into a husk, she silently said. We could easily meet that fate right now.

You ­were unprepared, he seemed to say. And I was not with you.

This is insane. I faced one of the defective ones, too, and it almost killed me.

Scared, Princess?

Yes, and wisely so.

But he was right. These ­were their woods, and they ­were warriors. This time, it would be different. So she nodded, a soldier accepting orders, and did not bother with farewells before she slipped into the trees. She made her footfalls light, counting the distance, listening to the forest around them, keeping her breathing steady.

She ducked behind a mossy tree and drew her other blade. The smell deepened into a steady reek that made her head pound. As the clouds overhead cleared further, the starlight faintly illuminated the low-­lying mist on the loamy earth. Nothing.

She was starting to wonder whether Rowan had been mistaken when the creature appeared between the trees ahead—­closer to her than she’d anticipated. Much, much closer.

She felt him first: the smudge of blackness, the silence that enveloped him like an extra cloak. Even the fog seemed to pull away from him.

Beneath his hood, she could only glimpse pale skin and sensual lips. He did not bother with weapons. But it was his nails that made her breath catch. Long, sharp nails that she remembered all too well—­how they’d felt when they ripped into her in the library.

Unlike those nails, these ­were unbroken, the polished black curves gleaming. The skin on his fingers was bone-­white and flawless, too smooth to be natural. Indeed, she could have sworn she saw dark, glittering veins, a mockery of the blood that had once flowed there.

Celaena didn’t dare bat an eyelash as the thing turned his hooded head toward her. Rowan still didn’t give the signal. Did he realize how close it was?

A wet trickle of warmth flowed onto her lips from one of her nostrils. She tensed, bracing herself, and wondered how fast he could move and how deeply she would have to slice with her long knives. The sword would be a last resort, as it was more cumbersome. Even if using the knives meant getting in close.

He scanned the trees, and Celaena pressed behind hers. The creature beneath the library had torn through metal doors as if they ­were curtains. And it knew how to use the Wyrdmarks—

She glanced out in time to see him step toward her tree, the movement deadly elegant and promising a long, painful end. He had not had his mind broken; he still retained the ability to think, to calculate. These things ­were so good at their work, it seemed that the king had thought only three ­were necessary ­here. How many others remained hidden on her continent?

The forest had fallen so still that she could hear a huffing sound. He was scenting her. Her magic flared, and she shoved it down. She didn’t want her magic touching this thing, with or without Rowan’s command. The creature sniffed again—­and took another step in her direction. Just like that day at the barrows, the air began to hollow out, pulsing against her ears. Her other nostril began to bleed. Shit.

The thought hit her then, and the world stumbled. What if it had gotten to Rowan first? She dared another glance around the tree.

The creature was gone.

47

Celaena silently swore, scanning the trees. Where in hell had the creature gone? The rain began again, but the dead scent still clung to everything. She lifted her long dagger to angle it in Rowan’s direction—­to signal him to indicate whether he was breathing. He had to be; she would accept no other alternative. The blade was so clean she could see her face in it, see the trees and the sky and—

And the creature now standing behind her.

Celaena pivoted, swiping for its exposed side, one blade angled to sink straight into its ribs, the other slashing for the throat. A move she’d practiced for years and years, as easy as breathing.

But its black, depthless eyes met hers, and Celaena froze. In her body, her mind, her soul. Her magic sputtered and went out.

She scarcely heard the damp thud of her blades hitting the earth. The rain on her face dulled to a distant sensation.

The darkness around them spread, welcoming, embracing. Comforting. The creature pulled back the cowl of its cloak.

The face was young and male—­unearthly perfection. Around his neck, a torque of dark stone—­Wyrdstone, she vaguely recalled—­gleamed in the rain. This was the god of death incarnate. It was not with any mortal man’s expression or voice that he smiled and said, “You.”

She ­couldn’t look away. There ­were screams in the darkness—­screams she had drowned out for so many years. But now they ­beckoned.

His smile widened, revealing too-­white teeth, and he reached a hand for her throat.

So gentle, those icy fingers, as his thumb brushed her neck, as he tilted her face up to better stare into her eyes. “Your agony tasted like wine,” he murmured, peering into the core of her.

Wind was tearing at her face, her arms, her stomach, roaring her name. But there was eternity and calm in his eyes, a promise of such sweet darkness, and she could not look away. It would be a blessed relief to let go. She need only surrender to the dark, just as he asked. Take it, she wanted to say, tried to say. Take everything.

A flash of silver and steel pierced the inky veil, and another creature—a monster made of fangs and rage and wind—­was there, ripping her away. She clawed at him, but he was ice—­he was . . . Rowan.

Rowan was hauling her away, shouting her name, but she ­couldn’t reach him, ­couldn’t stop that pull toward the other creature.

Teeth pierced the spot between her neck and shoulder, and she jerked, latching on to the pain as if it ­were a rope yanking her out of that sea of stupor, up, up, until—

Rowan crushed her against him with one arm, sword out, her blood dripping down his chin as he backed away from the creature that lingered by the tree. Pain—­that was why the body that morning had been marred. The demi-­Fae had tried to use physical pain to break free of these things, to remind the body of what was real and not real.

The creature huffed a laugh. Oh gods. It had placed her in its thrall. That swiftly, that easily. She hadn’t stood a chance, and Rowan ­wasn’t attacking because—

Because in the dark, with limited weapons against an enemy who did not need blades to kill them, even Rowan was outmatched. A true warrior knew when to walk away from a fight. Rowan breathed, “We have to run.”

There was another low laugh from the creature, who stepped closer. Rowan pulled them farther back. “You can try,” it said in that voice that did not come from her world.

That was all Celaena needed to hear. She flung out her magic.

A wall of flame sprang up as she and Rowan sprinted away, a shield into which she poured every ounce of will and horror and shame, damning the consequences. The creature hissed, but she didn’t know if it was due to the light stinging its eyes or merely frustration.

She didn’t care. It bought them time, a ­whole minute hurtling uphill through the trees. Then crashing came from behind, that reeking stain of darkness spreading like a web.

Rowan knew the woods, knew how to hide their trail. It bought them more time and distance. The creature stalked them, even as Rowan used his wind to blow their scent away.

Mile after mile they ran, until her breath was like shards of glass in her lungs and even Rowan seemed to be tiring. They ­weren’t going to the fortress—­no, they ­wouldn’t lead this thing within ten miles of there. Rather, they headed into the Cambrian Mountains, the air growing chilled, the hills steeper. Still the creature followed.

“He won’t stop,” Celaena panted as they hauled themselves up a harrowing incline, almost on all fours. She pushed against the urge to fall to her knees and vomit. “He’s like a hound on a scent.” Her scent. Far below, the thing prowled after them.

Rowan bared his teeth, rain sluicing down his face. “Then I’ll run him down until he drops dead.”

Lightning illuminated a deer path atop the hill. “Rowan,” she panted. “Rowan, I have an idea.”

•

Celaena wondered if she still had a death wish.

Or perhaps the god of death just liked to play with her too much.

It was another uphill trek to the trees whose bark had been skinned off. And then she made herself a merry fire and burned a torch beside a forgotten road, the light shining through those skinless trees.

Far below, she prayed that Rowan was keeping the creature occupied the way she’d told him to—­leading it in circles with the scent on her tunic.

Screee went the whetting stone down her dagger as she perched atop a large rock. Despite her incessant trembling, she hummed as she sharpened, a symphony she’d gone to see performed in Rifthold every year until her enslavement. She controlled her breathing and focused on counting the minutes, wondering how long she could remain before she had to find another way. Screee.

A rotting scent stuffed itself up her nose, and the already quiet forest went still.

Screee. Not her own blade sharpening but another’s, almost in answer to her own.

She sagged in relief and ran the whetting stone down her dagger one more time before standing, willing strength to her knees. She did not allow herself to flinch when she beheld the five of them standing beyond the skinned trees, tall and lean and bearing their wicked tools.

Run, her body screamed, but she held her ground. Lifted her chin and smiled into the dark. “I’m glad you received my invitation.” Not a hint of sound or movement. “Your four friends decided to come uninvited to my last campfire—­and it didn’t end well for them. But I’m sure you know that already.”

Another one sharpened his blades, firelight shivering on the jagged metal. “Fae bitch. We’ll take our sweet time with you.”

She sketched a bow, even though her stomach was heaving at the reek of carrion, and waved her torch as if it ­were a baton at what awaited below. “Oh, I certainly hope you do,” she said.

Before they could surround her, she burst into a sprint.

•

Celaena knew they ­were near not because of the crashing brush or the whip of their blades through the air but from the stench that tore gnarled fingers through her senses. Clutching her torch in one hand, she used the other to keep herself aloft as she bounded down the steep road, dodging rocks and brambles and loose stones.

It was a mile down to where she’d told Rowan to lead the creature, a mad flight through the dark. Ankles and knees barking in protest, she leapt and ran, the skinwalkers closing in around her like wolves on a deer.

The key was not to panic—­panic made you stupid. Panic got you killed. There was a piercing cry—­a hawk’s screech. Rowan was exactly where they’d planned, the king’s creature perhaps a minute behind and slinking through the brush. Right by the creek, where she dumped her torch. Right where the road curved around a boulder.

The ancient road went one way, but she went another. A wind shoved past, going in the direction of the road. She threw herself behind a tree, a hand over her mouth to keep her jagged breaths contained as the wind pushed her scent away.

A heartbeat later, a hard body enveloped hers, shielding and sheltering. And then five pairs of bare feet slithered along the road, after the scent that now darted and hurtled down, down to the creature running right at them.

She pressed her face into Rowan’s chest. His arms ­were solid as walls, his assortment of weapons just as reassuring.

At last, he tugged at her sleeve, nudging her upward—­to climb. In a few deft movements, she hauled herself up the tree to a wide branch near its top. A moment later, Rowan was behind her, sitting against the trunk. He pulled her against him, her back to his chest as he folded his arms around her, hiding her scent from the monsters raging below.

A minute passed before the screaming began—­bleating shrieks and shouts and roars of two different sets of monsters who knew death was upon them, and the face it bore was not kind.

For the better part of half an hour, the creatures fought in the rainy dark, until those wretched shrieks turned victorious, and the unearthly roars sounded no more.

Celaena and Rowan held tight to each other and did not dare close their eyes for the entirety of the night.

48

There was no uproar, no hysteria when they told the fortress what they’d discovered. Malakai immediately dispatched messengers to Wendlyn’s king to beg for help; to the other demi-­Fae settlements to order those who could not fight to flee; and to the healers’ compound, to help every single patient who was not bed-­bound evacuate.

Messengers returned from the king, promising as many men as could be spared. It was a relief, Celaena thought—­but a bit of a terror, too. If Galan showed up, if any of her mother’s kin arrived ­here . . . She ­wouldn’t care, she told herself. There ­were bigger matters at hand. And so she prayed for their swift arrival, and prepared with the rest of the fortress’s residents. They would face the threat head-­on, starting by taking out the two hundred mortal soldiers that accompanied Narrok and his three creatures as soon as they left their protected caves.

Rowan seized control of the fortress with no fuss—­only gratitude from the others, actually. Even Malakai thanked the prince as Rowan set about or­ga­niz­ing rotations, delegating tasks, and planning their survival. They had a few days until reinforcements arrived and they could launch their assault, but should their enemy march sooner, Rowan wanted them slowed down and incapacitated as much as possible until help arrived. The demi-­Fae ­were not an army and did not have the resources of a fully stocked fortress, so Rowan declared they’d make do with what they did possess: their wits, determination, and knowledge of the terrain. From the sound of it, somehow the skinwalkers had brought down one of the creatures, so they ­weren’t truly invincible—­but without a body the following morning, they hadn’t learned how it had been killed.

Rowan and Celaena went out with the small groups that ­were preparing the forest for the attack. If Narrok’s force was going to take the deer path to sack the fortress, then they’d find themselves taking it through pitfall-­laden territory: through glens of venomous creatures, over concealed holes full of spikes, and into snares at every turn. It might not kill them, but it would slow them down enough to buy more time for aid to come. And should they wind up under siege, there was a secret tunnel leading out of the fortress itself, so ancient and neglected that most of the residents hadn’t even known it existed until Malakai mentioned it. It was better than nothing.

A few days later, Rowan assembled a small group of captains around a table in the dining hall. “Bas’s scouting team reported that the creatures look like they’re readying to move in a few days,” he said, pointing to a map. “Are the first and second miles of traps almost done?” The captains gave their confirmation. “Good. Tomorrow, I want your men preparing the next few miles, too.”

Standing beside Rowan, Celaena watched as he led them through the meeting, keeping track of all the various legs and arms of their plan—­not to mention remembering all the names of the captains, their soldiers, and what they ­were responsible for. He remained calm and steady—­fierce, even—­despite the hell that might soon be upon them.

Glancing at the demi-­Fae assembled, their attention wholly on Rowan, she could see that they clung to that steadiness, that cold determination and clever mind—­and centuries of experience. She envied him for it. And beneath that, with a growing heaviness she could not control, she wished that when she left this continent . . . she ­wouldn’t go alone.

“Get some sleep. You’re no use to me completely dazed.”

She blinked. She’d been staring at him. The meeting was over, the captains already walking away to attend to their various tasks.

“Sorry.” She rubbed her eyes. They’d been up since before dawn, readying the last few miles of path, checking that all the traps ­were secure. Working with him was so effortless. There was no judgment, no need to explain herself. She knew no one would ever replace Nehemia, and she never wanted anyone to, but Rowan made her feel . . . better. As if she could finally breathe after months of suffocating. Yet now . . .

He was still watching her, frowning. “Just say it.”

She examined the map on the table between them. “We can handle the mortal soldiers, but those creatures and Narrok . . . if we had Fae warriors—­like your companion who came to receive his tattoo”—­she didn’t think calling him Rowan’s kitty-­cat friend would help her case this time—“or all five of your cadre, even, it could turn the tide.” She traced the line of mountains that separated these lands from the immortal ones beyond. “But you have not sent for them. Why?”

“You know why.”

“Would Maeve order you home out of spite for the demi-­Fae?”

His jaw tightened. “For a few reasons, I think.”

“And this is the person you chose to serve.”

“I knew what I was doing when I drank her blood to seal the oath.”

“Then let’s hope Wendlyn’s reinforcements get ­here quickly.” She pursed her lips and turned to go to their room. He gripped her wrist.

“Don’t do that.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“With that . . . disgust.”

“I’m not—” But he gave her a sharp look. She sighed. “This . . . all this, Rowan . . .” She waved a hand to the map, to the doors the demi-­Fae had passed through, to the sounds of people readying their supplies and defenses in the courtyard. “For what­ever it’s worth, all of this just proves that she ­doesn’t deserve you. I think you know that, too.”

He looked away. “That isn’t your concern.”

“I know. But I thought you should still hear it.”

He didn’t respond, ­wouldn’t even meet her eyes, so she walked away. She looked over her shoulder once, to find him still hunched over the table, hands braced on its surface, the powerful muscles of his back visible through his shirt. And she knew he ­wasn’t looking at the map, not really.

But saying that she wished he could return with her to Adarlan, to Terrasen, was pointless. He had no way to break his oath to Maeve, and she had nothing to entice him with even if he could. She was not a queen. She had no plans to be one, and even if she had a kingdom to give him if he ­were free . . . Telling him all that was useless.

So she left Rowan in the hall. But it did not stop her from wishing she could keep him.

•

The next afternoon, after washing her face and bandaging a burn on her forearm in Rowan’s room, Celaena was just coming down to help with the dinner preparations when she felt, rather than heard, the ripple of silence through the fortress, deeper and heavier than the ner­vous quiet that had hovered over the compound the last few days.

The fortress had not been this tense since that first night Maeve had been ­here.

It was too soon for her aunt to be checking on her. She had little to show so far other than a few somewhat useful tricks and her various shields.

She took the stairs two at a time until she reached the kitchen. If Maeve learned about the invasion and ordered Rowan to leave . . . Breathing, thinking—­those ­were the key tools to enduring this encounter.

The heat and yeasty scent hit her as she bounded down the last steps, slowing her gait, lifting her chin, even though she doubted her aunt would condescend to meet in the kitchen. Unless she wanted her unbalanced. But—

But Maeve was not in the kitchen.

Rowan was, and his back was to her as he stood at the other end with Emrys, Malakai, and Luca, talking quietly. Celaena stopped dead as she beheld at Emrys’s too pale face, the hand gripping Malakai’s arm.

As Rowan turned to her, lips thin and eyes wide with—­with shock and horror and grief—­the world stopped dead, too.

Rowan’s arms hung slack at his sides, his fingers clenching and unclenching. For a heartbeat, she wondered if she went back upstairs, what­ever he had to say would not be true.

Rowan took a step toward her—­one step, and that was all it took before she began shaking her head, before she lifted her hands in front of her as if to push him away. “Please,” she said, and her voice broke. “Please.”

Rowan kept approaching, the bearer of some inescapable doom. And she knew that she could not outrun it, and could not fall on her knees and beg for it to be undone.

Rowan stopped within reach but did not touch her, his features hardening again—­not from cruelty. Because he knew, she realized, that one of them would have to hold it together. He needed to be calm—­needed to keep his wits about him for this.

Rowan swallowed once. Twice. “There was . . . there was an uprising at the Calaculla labor camp,” he said.

Her heart stumbled on a beat.

“After Princess Nehemia was assassinated, they say a slave girl killed her overseer and sparked an uprising. The slaves seized the camp.” He took a shallow breath. “The King of Adarlan sent two legions to get the slaves under control. And they killed them all.”

“The slaves killed his legions?” A push of breath. There ­were thousands of slaves in Calaculla—­all of them together would be a mighty force, even for two of Adarlan’s legions.

With horrific gentleness, Rowan grasped her hand. “No. The soldiers killed every slave in Calaculla.”

A crack in the world, through which a keening wail pushed in like a wave. “There are thousands of people enslaved in Calaculla.”

The resolve in Rowan’s countenance splintered as he nodded. And when he opened and closed his mouth, she realized it was not over. The only word she could breathe was “Endovier?” It was a ­fool’s plea.

Slowly, so slowly, Rowan shook his head. “Once he got word of the uprising in Eyllwe, the King of Adarlan sent two other legions north. None ­were spared in Endovier.”

She did not see Rowan’s face when he gripped her arms as if he could keep her from falling into the abyss. No, all she could see ­were the slaves she’d left behind, the ashy mountains and those mass graves they dug every day, the faces of her people, who had worked beside her—­her people whom she had left behind. Whom she had let herself forget, had let suffer; who had prayed for salvation, holding out hope that someone, anyone would remember them.

She had abandoned them—­and she had been too late.

Nehemia’s people, the people of other kingdoms, and—­and her people. The people of Terrasen. The people her father and mother and court had loved so fiercely. There had been rebels in Endovier—­rebels who fought for her kingdom when she . . . when she had been . . .

There ­were children in Endovier. In Calaculla.

She had not protected them.

The kitchen walls and ceiling crushed her, the air too thin, too hot. Rowan’s face swam as she panted, panted, faster and faster—

He murmured her name too softly for the others to hear.

And the sound of it, that name that had once been a promise to the world, the name she had spat on and defiled, the name she did not deserve . . .

She tore off his grip, and then she was walking out the kitchen door, across the courtyard, through the ward-­stones, and along the invisible barrier—­until she found a spot just out of sight of the fortress.

The world was full of screaming and wailing, so loud she drowned in it.

Celaena did not utter a sound as she unleashed her magic on the barrier, a blast that shook the trees and set the earth rumbling. She fed her power into the invisible wall, begging the ancient stones to take it, to use it. The wards, as if sensing her intent, devoured her power ­whole, absorbing every last ember until it flickered, hungry for more.

So she burned and burned and burned.

49

For weeks now, Chaol hadn’t had any contact with any of his friends—­allies, what­ever they had been. So, one last time, Chaol slipped into the rhythm of his old duties. Though it was more difficult than ever to oversee the king’s luncheons, though making his reports was an effort of will, he did it. He had heard nothing from Aedion or Ren, and still hadn’t yet asked Dorian to use his magic to test out their theories about the spell. He was starting to wonder if he was done playing his part in Aelin’s growing rebellion.

He’d gathered enough information, crossed enough lines. Perhaps it was time to learn what could be done from Anielle. He would be closer to Morath, and maybe he could uncover what the king was brewing down there. The king had accepted his plans to take up his mantle as heir to Anielle with hardly any objections. Soon, he was to present options for a replacement.

Chaol was currently standing guard at a state luncheon in the great hall, which Aedion and Dorian ­were both attending. The doors had been thrown open to welcome in the spring air, and Chaol’s men ­were standing at each one, weapons at the ready.

Everything was normal, everything was going smoothly, until the king stood, his black ring seeming to gobble up the midday sun streaming in through the towering windows. He lifted a goblet, and the room fell silent. Not in the way it did when Aedion spoke. Chaol hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what the general had said to him about choosing a side, or what Dorian had said about his refusal to accept Celaena and the prince for what they really ­were. Over and over again, he’d contemplated it.

But nothing could prepare Chaol, or anyone in that silent hall, as the king smiled to the tables below his dais and said, “Good news arrived this morning from Eyllwe and the north. The Calaculla slave rebellion has been dealt with.”

They’d heard nothing of it, and Chaol wished he could cover his ears as the king said, “We’ll have to work to replenish the mines, there and in Endovier, but the rebel taint has been purged.”

Chaol was glad he was leaning against a pillar. It was Dorian who spoke, his face bone-­white. “What are you talking about?”

His father smiled at him. “Forgive me. It seems the slaves in Calaculla got it into their heads to start an uprising after Princess Nehemia’s unfortunate death. We got it into our heads not to allow it. Or any other potential uprisings. And as we didn’t have the resources to devote to interrogating each and every slave to weed out the ­traitors . . .”

Chaol understood what strength it took for Dorian not to shake his head in horror as he did the calculations and understood just how many people had been slaughtered.

“General Ashryver,” the king said. Aedion sat motionless. “You and your Bane will be pleased to know that since the purge in Endovier, many of the rebels in your territory have ceased their . . . antics. It seems they did not want a fate similar to that of their friends in the mines.”

Chaol didn’t know how Aedion found the courage and will, but the general smiled and bowed his head. “Thank you, Majesty.”

•

Dorian burst into Sorscha’s workroom. She jumped from her spot at the table, a hand on her chest. “Did you hear?” he asked, shutting the door behind him.

Her eyes ­were red enough to suggest that she had. He took her face in his hands, pressing his brow against hers, needing that cool strength. He didn’t know how he’d kept from weeping or vomiting or killing his father on the spot. But looking at her, breathing in her rosemary-­and-­mint scent, he knew why.

“I want you out of this castle,” he said. “I’ll give you the funds, but I want you away from ­here as soon as you can find a way to go without raising suspicion.”

She yanked out of his grasp. “Are you mad?”

No, he’d never seen anything more clearly. “If you stay, if we are caught . . . I will give you what­ever money you need—”

“No money you could offer could convince me to leave.”

“I’ll tie you to a ­horse if I have to. I’m getting you out—”

“And who will look after you? Who will make your tonics? You’re not even talking to the captain anymore. How could I leave now?”

He gripped her shoulders. She had to understand—­he had to make her understand. Her loyalty was one of the things he loved, but now . . . it would only get her killed. “He murdered thousands of people in one sweep. Imagine what he’ll do if he finds you’ve been helping me. There are worse things than death, Sorscha. Please—please, just go.”

Her fingers found his, entwining tight. “Come with me.”

“I ­can’t. It will get worse if I leave, if my brother is made heir. And I think . . . I know of some people who might be trying to stop him. If I am ­here, perhaps I can help them in some way.”

Oh, Chaol. He understood completely now why he had sent Celaena to Wendlyn—­understood that his return to Anielle . . . Chaol had sold himself to get Celaena to safety.

“If you stay, I stay,” Sorscha said. “You cannot convince me ­otherwise.”

“Please,” he said, because he didn’t have it in him to yell, not with the deaths of those people hanging over him. “Please . . .”

But she brushed her thumb across his cheek. “Together. We’ll face this together.”

And it was selfish and horrible of him, but he put up no further argument.

•

Chaol went to the tomb for privacy, to mourn, to scream. But he was not alone.

Aedion was sitting on the steps of the spiral stairwell, his forearms braced on his knees. He didn’t turn as Chaol set down his candle and sat beside him.

“What do you suppose,” Aedion breathed, staring into the darkness, “the people on other continents, across all those seas, think of us? Do you think they hate us or pity us for what we do to each other? Perhaps it’s just as bad there. Perhaps it’s worse. But to do what I have to do, to get through it . . . I have to believe it’s better. Somewhere, it’s better than this.”

Chaol had no answer.

“I have . . .” Aedion’s teeth gleamed in the light. “I have been forced to do many, many things. Depraved, despicable things. Yet nothing made me feel as filthy as I did today, thanking that man for murdering my people.”

There was nothing he could say to console him, nothing he could promise. So Chaol left Aedion staring into the darkness.

•

There was not one empty seat in the Royal Theater that night. Every box and tier was crammed with nobility, merchants, whoever could afford the ticket. Jewels and silk gleamed in the light of the glass chandeliers, the riches of a conquering empire.

The news about the slave massacres had struck that afternoon, spreading through the city on a wave of murmuring, leaving only silence behind. The upper tiers of the theater ­were unusually still, as if the audience had come to be soothed, to let the music sweep away the stain of the news.

Only the boxes ­were full of chatter. About what this meant for the fortunes of those seated in the plush crimson velvet chairs, debates over where the new slaves would come from to ensure there was no pause in labor, and about how they should treat their own slaves afterward. Despite the chiming bells and the raising and dimming of the chandeliers, it took the boxes far longer to quiet than usual.

They ­were still talking when the red curtains pulled back to reveal the seated orchestra, and it was a miracle they bothered to applaud for the conductor as he hobbled across the stage.

That was when they noticed that every musician on the stage was wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And when the conductor raised his arms, it was not a symphony that filled the cavernous space.

It was the Song of Eyllwe.

Then the Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labor camps.

And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had become, they played the Song of Adarlan.

When the final note finished, the conductor turned to the crowd, the musicians standing with him. As one, they looked to the boxes, to all those jewels bought with the blood of a continent. And without a word, without a bow or another gesture, they walked off the stage.

The next morning, by royal decree, the theater was shut down.

No one saw those musicians or their conductor again.

50

A cooling breeze kissed down Celaena’s neck. The forest had gone silent, as if the birds and insects had been quieted by her assault on the invisible wall. The barrier had gobbled down every spark of magic she’d launched at it, and now seemed to hum with fresh power.

The scent of pine and snow wrapped around her, and she turned to find Rowan standing against a nearby tree. He’d been there for some time now, giving her space to work herself into exhaustion.

But she was not tired. And she was not done. There was still wildfire in her mind, writhing, endless, damning. She let it dim to embers, let the grief and horror die down, too.

Rowan said, “Word just arrived from Wendlyn. Reinforcements aren’t coming.”

“They didn’t come ten years ago,” she said, her throat raw though she had not spoken in hours. Cold, glittering calm was now flowing in her veins. “Why should they bother helping now?”

His eyes flickered. “Aelin.” When she only gazed into the darkening forest, he suddenly said, “You do not have to stay—­we can go to Doranelle to­night, and you can retrieve your knowledge from Maeve. You have my blessing.”

“Do not insult me by asking me to leave. I am fighting. Nehemia would have stayed. My parents would have stayed.”

“They also had the luxury of knowing that their bloodline did not end with them.”

She gritted her teeth. “You have experience—you are needed ­here. You are the only person who can give the demi-­Fae a chance of surviving; you are trusted and respected. So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to what­ever end.” And if the creatures devoured her body and soul, then she would not mind. She had earned that fate.

For a long moment, he said nothing. But his brows narrowed slightly. “To what­ever end?”

She nodded. He had not needed to mention the massacres, had not needed to try to console her. He knew—­he understood without her having to say a word—­what it was like.

Her magic thrummed in her blood, wanting out, wanting more. But it would wait—­it had to wait until it was time. Until she had Narrok and his creatures in her sight.

She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, its long blade gleaming as if he’d been secretly polishing and caring for it these months.

And when she grasped the dagger, its weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of her, and said, “Fireheart.”

•

Reinforcements from Wendlyn ­weren’t coming—­not out of spite but because a legion of Adarlan’s men had attacked the northern border. Three thousand men in ships had launched a full-­on assault. Wendlyn had sent every last soldier to the northern coast, and there they would remain. The demi-­Fae ­were to face Narrok and his forces alone. Rowan calmly encouraged the nonfighters at the fortress to flee.

But no one fled. Even Emrys refused, and Malakai merely said that where his mate went, he went.

For hours, they adjusted their plans to accommodate the lack of reinforcements. In the end they didn’t have to change much, thankfully. Celaena contributed what she could to the planning, letting Rowan order everyone about and adjust the masterful strategy in that brilliant head of his. She tried not to think about Endovier and Calaculla, but the knowledge of it still simmered in her, brewing during the long hours that they debated.

They planned until Emrys hauled up a pot from the kitchen and began whacking it with a spoon, ordering them out because dawn would come too soon.

Within a minute of returning to their room, Celaena was undressed and flopping into bed. Rowan took his time, however, peeling off his shirt and striding to the washbasin. “You did well helping me plan to­night.”

She watched him wash his face, then his neck. “You sound surprised.”

He wiped his face with a towel, then leaned against the dresser, bracing his hands against either end. The wood groaned, but his face remained still.

Fireheart, he had called her. Did he know what that name meant to her? She wanted to ask, still had so many questions for him, but right now, after all the news of the day, she needed to sleep.

“I sent word,” Rowan said, letting go of the dresser and approaching the bed. She’d left the sword from the mountain cave on the bedpost, and its smoldering ruby now glinted in the dim light as he ran a finger down the golden hilt. “To my . . . cadre, as you like to call them.”

She braced herself on her elbows. “When?”

“A few days ago. I don’t know where they all are or whether they’ll arrive in time. Maeve might not let them come—­or some of them might not even ask her. They can be . . . unpredictable. And it may be that I just get the order to return to Doranelle, and—”

“You actually called for aid?”

His eyes narrowed. I just said that I did.

She stood, and he retreated a step. What changed your mind?

Some things are worth the risk.

He didn’t back away again as she approached and said with every ember left in her shredded heart, “I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”

He just turned to the washbasin again, but she caught the unspoken words that he’d tried to keep her from reading on his face. It ­doesn’t matter. Even if we survive, when we go to Doranelle, you will walk out of Maeve’s realm alone.

•

Emrys joined them—­along with all the demi-­Fae at Mistward who had not been dispatched with messages—­in traveling down to the healers’ compound the next morning to help cart the patients to safety. Anyone who could not fight remained to help the sick and wounded, and Emrys declared he would stay there until the very end. So they left him, along with a small contingent of sentries in case things went very, very wrong. When Celaena headed off into the trees with Rowan, she did not bother with good-­byes. Many of the others did not say farewell, either—­it seemed like an invitation for death, and Celaena was fairly certain she ­wasn’t on the good side of the gods.

She was awoken that night by a large, callused hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake. It seemed that death was already waiting for them.

51

“Get your sword and your weapons, and hurry,” Rowan said to Celaena as she instantly came to her feet, reaching for the dagger beside the bed.

He was already halfway across the room, slinging on his clothes and weapons with lethal efficiency. She didn’t bother with questions—­he would tell her what was necessary. She hopped into her pants and boots.

“I think ­we’ve been betrayed,” Rowan said, and her fingers caught on a buckle of her sword-­belt as she turned to the open window. Quiet. Absolute quiet in the forest.

And along the horizon, a growing smear of blackness. “They’re coming to­night,” she breathed.

“I did a sweep of the perimeter.” Rowan stuffed a knife into his boot. “It’s as if someone told them where every trap, every warning bell is located. They’ll be ­here within the hour.”

“Are the ward-­stones still working?” She finished braiding her hair and strapped her sword across her back.

“Yes—they’re intact. I raised the alarm, and Malakai and the others are readying our defenses on the walls.” A small part of her smiled at the thought of what it must have been like for Malakai to find a half-­naked Rowan shouting orders in his room.

She asked, “Who would have betrayed us?”

“I don’t know, and when I find them, I’ll splatter them on the walls. But for now, we have bigger problems to worry about.”

The darkness on the horizon had spread, devouring the stars, the trees, the light. “What is that?”

Rowan’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Bigger problems.”

•

The ward-­stones ­were the last line of defense before the fortress itself. If Narrok planned to lay siege to Mistward, they ­couldn’t outlast him forever—­but hopefully the barrier would wear down the creatures and their power a bit. On the battlements, in the courtyard and atop the towers, stood the demi-­Fae. Archers would take down as many men as possible once the barrier fell, and they would use the oak doors of the fortress as a bottleneck into the courtyard.

But there ­were still the creatures and Narrok, along with the darkness that they carried with them. Birds and animals streamed past the fortress as they fled—­an exodus of flapping wings, padding feet, claws clicking on stone. Herding the animals to safety ­were the Little Folk, hardly more than a gleam of night-­seeing eyes. What­ever darkness Narrok and the creatures brought . . . once you went in, you did not come out.

She was standing with Rowan just beyond the gates of the courtyard, the grassy expanse of earth between the fortress and the ward-­stones feeling far too small. The animals and Little Folk had stopped appearing moments before, and even the wind had died.

“As soon as the barrier falls, I want you to put arrows through their eyes,” Rowan said to her, his bow slack in his hands. “Don’t give them a chance to enthrall you—­or anyone. Leave the soldiers to the others.”

They hadn’t heard or seen any of the two hundred men, but she nodded, gripping her own bow. “What about magic?”

“Use it sparingly, but if you think you can destroy them with it, don’t hesitate. And don’t get fancy. Take them down by any means possible.” Such icy calculation. Purebred, undiluted warrior. She could almost feel the aggression pouring off him.

A reek was rising from beyond the barrier, and some of the sentries in the courtyard behind them began murmuring. A smell from another world, from what­ever hellish creature lurked under mortal skin. Some straggling animals darted out of the trees, foaming at the mouth, the darkness behind them thickening. “Rowan,” she said as she felt rather than saw them. “They’re ­here.”

At the edge of the trees, hardly five yards from the ward-­stones, the creatures emerged.

Celaena started. Three.

Three, not two. “But the skinwalkers—” She ­couldn’t finish the words as the three men surveyed the fortress. They ­were clad in deepest black, their tunics open to reveal the Wyrdstone torques at their throats. The skinwalkers hadn’t killed it—­no, because there was that same perfect male, looking straight at her. Smiling at her. As if he could already taste her.

A rabbit bolted out of the bushes, racing for the ward-­stones. Like the paw of a massive beast, the darkness behind the creatures lashed out, sweeping over the fleeing animal.

The rabbit fell midleap, its fur turning dull and matted, bones pushing through as the life was sucked out of it. The sentries on the walls and towers stirred, some swearing. She had stood a chance of escaping the clutches of just one of those creatures. But all three together became something ­else, something infinitely powerful.

“The barrier cannot be allowed to fall,” Rowan said to her. “That blackness will kill anything it touches.” Even as he spoke, the ­darkness stretched around the fortress. Trapping them. The barrier hummed, and the reverberations zinged against the ­soles of her boots.

She shifted into her Fae form, wincing against the pain. She needed the sharper hearing, the strength and healing. Still, the three creatures remained on the forest edge, the darkness spreading. No sign of the two hundred soldiers.

As one, the three half turned to the shadows behind them and stepped aside, heads bowed. Then, stalking out of the trees, Narrok appeared.

Unlike the others, Narrok was not beautiful. He was scarred and powerfully built, and armed to the teeth. But he, too, had skin carved with those glittering black veins, and wore that torque of obsidian. Even from this distance, she could see the devouring emptiness in his eyes. It seeped toward them like blood in a river.

She waited for him to say something, to parlay and offer a choice between yielding to the king’s power or death, to give some speech to break their morale. But Narrok looked upon Mistward with a slow, almost delighted sweep of the head, drew his iron blade, and pointed at the curving ward-­stone gates.

There was nothing Celaena or Rowan could do as a whip of darkness snapped out and struck the invisible barrier. The air shuddered, and the stones whined.

Rowan was already moving toward the oak doors, shouting orders to the archers to ready themselves and use what­ever magic they had to shield against the oncoming darkness. Celaena remained where she was. Another strike, and the barrier rippled.

“Aelin,” Rowan snapped, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Get inside the gates.”

But she slung her bow across her back, and when she raised her hand, it was consumed with fire. “In the woods that night, it balked from the flame.”

“To use it, you’ll have to get outside the barrier, or it’ll just rebound against the walls.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

“The last time, you took one look at that thing and fell under its spell.”

The darkness lashed again.

“It won’t be like last time,” she said, eyes on Narrok, on his three creatures. Not when she had a score to settle. Her blood heated, but she said, “I don’t know what ­else to do.”

Because if that darkness reached them, then all the blades and arrows would be useless. They ­wouldn’t have a chance to strike.

A cry sounded behind them, followed by a few more, then the clash of metal on metal. Someone shouted, “The tunnel! They’ve been let in through the tunnel!”

For a moment, Celaena just stood there, blinking. The escape tunnel. They had been betrayed. And now they knew where the soldiers ­were: creeping through the underground network, let in perhaps because the ward-­stones, with that strange sentience, ­were too focused on the threat above to be able to contain the one below.

The shouting and fighting grew louder. Rowan had stationed their weaker fighters inside to keep them safe—­right in the path of the tunnel entrance. It would be a slaughter­house. “Rowan—”

Another blow to the barrier from the darkness, and another. She began walking toward the stones, and Rowan growled. “Do not take one more step—”

She kept going. Inside the fortress, screaming had begun—­pain and death and terror. Each step away from it tore at her, but she headed to the stones, toward the megalith gates. Rowan grabbed her elbow. “That was an order.”

She knocked his hand away. “You’re needed inside. Leave the barrier to me.”

“You don’t know if it’ll work—”

“It will work,” she snarled. “I’m the expendable one, Rowan.”

“You are heir to the throne of—”

“Right now, I am a woman who has a power that might save lives. Let me do this. Help the others.”

Rowan looked at the ward-­stones, at the fortress and the sentries scrambling to help below. Weighing, calculating. At last, Rowan said, “Do not engage them. You focus on that darkness and keeping it away from the barrier, and that’s it. Hold the line, Aelin.”

But she didn’t want to hold the line—­not when her enemy was so close. Not when the weight of those souls at Calaculla and Endovier pressed on her, screaming as loudly as the soldiers inside the fortress. She had failed all of them. She had been too late. And it was enough. But she nodded, like the good soldier Rowan believed she was, and said, “Understood.”

“They will attack you the moment you set foot outside the barrier,” he said, releasing her arm. Her magic began to boil in her veins. “Have a shield ready.”

“I know” was her only answer as she neared the barrier and the swirling dark beyond. The curving stones of the gateway loomed, and she drew the sword from her back with her right hand, her left hand enveloped in flame.

Nehemia’s people, butchered. Her own people, butchered. Her people.

Celaena stepped under the archway of stones, magic zinging and kissing her skin. Just a few steps would take her outside the barrier. She could feel Rowan lingering, waiting to see if she would survive the first moments. But she would—­she was going to burn these things into ash and dust.

This was the least she owed those murdered in Endovier and Calaculla—­the least she could do, after so long. A monster to destroy monsters.

The flames on her left hand burned brighter as Celaena stepped beyond the archway and into the beckoning abyss.

52

The darkness lashed at Celaena the moment she passed beyond the invisible barrier.

A wall of flame seared across the spear of blackness, and, just as she’d gambled, the blackness recoiled. Only to strike again, swift as an asp.

She met it blow for blow, willing the fire to spread, a wall of red and gold encasing the barrier behind her. She ignored the reek of the creatures, the hollowness of the air at her ears, the overwhelming throbbing in her head, so much worse beyond the protection of the wards, especially now that all three creatures ­were gathered. But she did not give them one inch, even as blood began trickling from her nose.

The darkness lunged for her, simultaneously assaulting the wall, punching holes through her flame. She patched them by reflex, allowing the power to do as it willed, but with the command to protect—­to keep that barrier shielded. She took another step beyond the stone gateway.

Narrok was nowhere to be seen, but the three creatures ­were waiting for her.

Unlike the other night in the woods, they ­were armed with long, slender swords that they drew with their unearthly grace. And then they attacked.

Good.

She did not look them in the eyes, nor did she acknowledge the bleeding from her nose and the pressure in her ears. She merely called in a shield of fire around her left forearm and begin swinging that ancient sword.

Whether Rowan lingered to see her break his first order, then his next, then his next, she didn’t know.

The three creatures kept coming at her, swift and controlled, as if they’d had eons to practice swordplay, as if they ­were all of one mind, one body. Where she deflected one, another was there; where she punched one with flame and steel, another was ducking beneath it to grab her. She could not let them touch her, could not let herself meet their gaze.

The shield around the barrier burned hot at her back, the darkness of the creatures stinging and biting at it, but she held firm. She had not lied to Rowan about that—­about protecting the wall.

One of them swept its blade at her—­not to kill. To incapacitate.

It was second nature, somehow, that flames leapt down her blade as she struck back, willing fire into the sword itself. When it met the black iron of the creature, blue sparks danced, so bright that she dared look into the creature’s face to glimpse—­surprise. Horror. Rage.

The hilt of the sword was warm—­comforting—in her hand, and the red stone glowed as if with a fire of its own.

The three creatures stopped in unison, their sensual mouths pulling back from their too-­white teeth in a snarl. The one in the center, the one who had tasted her before, hissed at the sword, “Goldryn.”

The darkness paused, and she used its distraction to patch her shields, a chill snaking up her spine even as the flames warmed her. She lifted the sword higher and advanced another step.

“But you are not Athril, beloved of the dark queen,” one of them said. Another said, “And you are not Brannon of the Wildfire.”

“How do you—” But the words caught in her throat as a memory struck, from months ago—­a lifetime ago. Of a realm that was in-­between, of the thing that lived inside Cain speaking. To her, and—­Elena. Elena, daughter of Brannon. You ­were brought back, it said. All the players in the unfinished game.

A game that had begun at the dawn of time, when a demon race had forged the Wyrdkeys and used them to break into this world, and Maeve had used their power to banish them. But some demons had remained trapped in Erilea and waged a second war centuries later, when Elena fought against them. What of the others, who had been sent back to their realm? What if the King of Adarlan, in learning of the keys, had also learned where to find them? Where to . . . harness them?

Oh gods. “You are the Valg,” she breathed.

The three things inside those mortal bodies smiled. “We are princes of our realm.”

“And what realm is that?” She poured her magic into the shield behind her.

The Valg prince in the center seemed to reach toward her without moving an inch. She sent a punch of flame at him, and he curled back. “A realm of eternal dark and ice and wind,” he said. “And we have been waiting a very, very long time to taste your sunshine again.”

The King of Adarlan was either more powerful than she could imagine, or the most foolish man to ever live if he thought he could control these demon princes.

Blood dripped onto her tunic from her nose. Their leader purred, “Once you let me in, girl, there shall be no more blood, or pain.”

She sent another wall of flame searing at them. “Brannon and the others beat you into oblivion once,” she said, though her lungs ­were burning. “We can do it again.”

Low laughter. “We ­were not beaten. Only contained. Until a mortal man was foolish enough to invite us back in, to use these glorious bodies.”

­Were the men who had once occupied them still inside? If she cut off their heads—­that torque of Wyrdstone—­would the creatures vanish, or be unleashed in another form?

This was far, far worse than she had expected.

“Yes,” the leader said, taking a step toward her and sniffing. “You should fear us. And embrace us.”

“Embrace this,” she snarled, and flung a hidden dagger from her vambrace at his head.

He was so swift that it scraped his cheek rather than wedging itself between its eyes. Black blood welled and flowed; he raised a moon-­white hand to examine it. “I shall enjoy devouring you from the inside out,” he said, and the darkness lunged for her again.

•

The battle was still raging inside the fortress, which was good, because it meant they hadn’t all died yet. And Celaena was still swinging Goldryn against the three Valg princes—­though it grew heavier by the moment, and the shield behind her was beginning to fray. She had not had time to tunnel down into her power, or to consider rationing it.

The darkness that the Valg brought with them continued to strike the wall, so Celaena threw up shield after shield, fire flaming through her blood, her breath, her mind. She gave her magic free rein, only asking it to keep the shield behind her alive. It did so, gobbling up her reserves.

Rowan had not come back to help. But she told herself he would come, and he would help, because it was not weakness to admit she needed him, needed his help and—

Her lower back cramped, and it was all she could do to keep her grip on the legendary blade as the leader of the Valg princes swiped for her neck. No.

A muscle twinged near her spine, twisting until she had to bite down a scream as she deflected the blow. It ­couldn’t be a burnout. Not so soon, not after practicing so much, not—

A hole tore through the shield behind her, and the darkness slammed into the barrier, making the magic ripple and shriek. She flung a thought toward it, and as the flame patched it up, her blood began to pound.

The princes ­were closing in again. She growled, sending a wall of white-­hot flame at them, pushing them back, back, back while she took a deep breath.

But blood came coughing out instead of air.

If she ran inside the gates, how long would the shield last before it fell to the princes and their ancient darkness? How long would any of those inside last? She didn’t dare look behind to see who was winning. It didn’t sound good. There ­were no cries of victory, only pain and fear.

Her knees quaked, but she swallowed the blood in her mouth and took another breath.

She had not imagined it would end like this. And maybe it was what she deserved, after turning her back on her kingdom.

One of the Valg princes ripped a hand through the wall of flame separating them, the darkness shielding his flesh from being melted off. She was about to send another blast at him when a movement from the trees caught her eye.

Far up the hill, as if they had come racing down from the mountains and had not stopped for food or water or sleep, ­were a towering man, a massive bird, and three of the largest predators she had ever seen.

Five in all.

Answering their friend’s desperate call for aid.

They hurtled through the trees and over stones: two wolves, one black and one moon-­white; the powerfully built male; the bird swooping low over them; and a familiar mountain cat racing behind. Heading for the darkness looming between them and the fortress.

The black wolf skidded to a halt as they neared the darkness, as if sensing what it could do. The screaming in the fortress ­rose. If the newcomers could destroy the soldiers, the survivors could take the tunnel and flee before the dark consumed everything.

Sweat stung Celaena’s eyes, and pain sliced into her so deep that she wondered if it was permanent. But she had not lied to Rowan about saving lives.

So she did not stop to doubt or consider as she flung the remnants of her power toward Rowan’s five friends, a bridge of flame through the darkness, cleaving it in two.

A path toward the gates behind her.

To their credit, Rowan’s friends did not hesitate as they raced for it, the wolves leading the way, the bird—­an osprey—­close behind. She poured her power into the bridge, gritting her teeth against the agony as the five rushed past, not sparing her a glance. But the golden mountain cat slowed as he charged through the gates behind her, as her chest seized and she coughed, her blood bright on the grass.

“He’s inside,” she choked out. “Help him.”

The great cat lingered, assessing her, and the wall, and the princes fighting against her flame. “Go,” she wheezed. The bridge through the darkness collapsed, and she staggered back a step as that black power slammed into her, the shield, the world.

The blood was roaring so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear when the mountain cat raced for the fortress. Rowan’s friends had come. Good. Good that he would not be alone, that he had people in the world.

She coughed blood again, splattering it on the ground—­on the legs of the Valg prince.

She barely moved before he slammed her into her own flames, and she hit the magical wall beneath, as hard and unforgiving as if it ­were made of stone. The only way into the fortress was through the ward-­gates. She swiped with Goldryn, but the blow was feeble. Against the Valg, against this horrible power that the King of Adarlan possessed, the army at his disposal . . . it was all useless. As useless as the vow she’d made to Nehemia’s grave. As useless as an heir to a broken throne and a broken name.

The magic was boiling her blood. The darkness—­it would be a relief compared to the hell smoldering in her veins. The Valg prince advanced, and part of her was screaming—­screaming at herself to get up, to keep fighting, to rage and roar against this horrible end. But moving her limbs, even breathing, had become a monumental effort.

She was so tired.

•

The fortress was a hell of yelling and fighting and gore, but Rowan kept swinging his blades, holding his position at the tunnel mouth as soldier after soldier poured in. The scout leader, Bas, had let them in, Luca had told Rowan. The other demi-­Fae who had conspired with Bas wanted the power the creatures offered—­wanted a place in the world. From the devastation in the bleeding boy’s eyes, Rowan knew that Bas had already met his end. He hoped Luca hadn’t been the one to do it.

The soldiers kept coming, highly trained men who ­were not afraid of the demi-­Fae, or of the little magic that they bore. They ­were armed with iron and did not differentiate between young and old, male and female, as they hacked and slaughtered.

Rowan was not drained, not in the least. He had fought for longer and in worse conditions. But the others ­were flagging, especially as soldiers continued flooding the fortress. Rowan yanked his sword from the gut of a falling soldier, dagger already slicing across the neck of the next, when growling shook the stones of the fortress. Some of the demi-­Fae froze, but Rowan nearly shuddered with relief as twin wolves leapt down the staircase and closed their jaws around the necks of two Adarlanian soldiers.

Great wings flapped, and then a glowering, dark-­eyed male was in front of him, swinging a sword older than the occupants of Mistward. Vaughan merely nodded at him before taking up a position, never one to waste words.

Beyond him, the wolves ­were nothing short of lethal, and did not bother to shift into their Fae forms as they took down soldier after soldier, leaving those that got through to the male waiting behind them. That was all Rowan had to see before he sprinted for the stairs, dodging the stunned and bloodied demi-­Fae.

Darkness had not fallen, which meant she had to still be breathing, she had to still be holding the line, but—

A mountain cat skidded to a halt on the stairwell landing and shifted. Rowan took one look at Gavriel’s tawny eyes and said, “Where is she?”

Gavriel held out an arm. As if to stop him. “She’s in bad shape, Rowan. I think—”

Rowan ran, shoving aside his oldest friend, shouldering past the other towering male who now appeared—­Lorcan. Even Lorcan had answered his call. The time for gratitude would come later, and the dark-­haired demi-­Fae didn’t say anything as Rowan rushed to the battlement gates. What he saw beyond almost drove him to his knees.

The wall of flame was in tatters, but still protecting the barrier. But the three creatures . . .

Aelin was standing in front of them, hunched and panting, sword limp in her hand. They advanced, and a feeble blue flame sprang up before them. They swiped it away with wave of their hands. Another flame sprang up, and her knees buckled.

The shield of flame surged and receded, pulsing like the light around her body. She was burning out. Why hadn’t she retreated?

Another step closer and the things said something that had her raising her head. Rowan knew he could not reach her, didn’t even have the breath to shout a warning as Aelin gazed into the face of the creature before her.

She had lied to him. She had wanted to save lives, yes. But she had gone out there with no intention of saving her own.

He drew in a breath—­to run, to roar, to summon his power, but a wall of muscle slammed into him from behind, tackling him to the grass. Though Rowan shoved and twisted against Gavriel, he could do nothing against the four centuries of training and feline instinct that had pinned him, keeping him from running through those gates and into the blackness that destroyed worlds.

The creature took Aelin’s face in its hands, and her sword thudded to the ground, forgotten.

Rowan was screaming as the creature pulled her into its arms. As she stopped fighting. As her flames winked out and darkness swallowed her ­whole.

53

There was blood everywhere.

As before, Celaena stood between the two bloody beds, reeking breath caressing her ear, her neck, her spine. She could feel the Valg princes roving around her, circling with predators’ gaits, devouring her misery and pain bit by bit, tasting and savoring.

There was no way out, and she could not move as she looked from one bed to the other.

Nehemia’s corpse, mangled and mutilated. Because she had been too late, and because she had been a coward.

And her parents, throats slit from ear to ear, gray and lifeless. Dead from an attack they should have sensed. An attack she should have sensed. Maybe she had sensed it, and that was why she had crept in that night. But she had been too late then as well.

Two beds. Two fractures in her soul, cracks through which the abyss had come pouring in long before the Valg princes had ever seized her. A claw scraped along her neck and she jerked away, stumbling toward her parents’ corpses.

The moment that darkness had swept around her, snuffing out her exhausted flame, it began eating away at the reckless rage that had compelled her to step out of the barrier. ­Here in the dark, the silence was complete—­eternal. She could feel the Valg slinking around her, hungry and eager and full of cold, ancient malice. She’d expected to have the life sucked from her instantly, but they had just stayed close in the dark, brushing up against her like cats, until a faint light had formed and she’d found herself between these two beds. She was unable to look away, unable to do anything but feel her nausea and panic rise bit by bit. And now . . . Now . . .

Though her body remained unmoving on the bed, Nehemia’s voice whispered, Coward.

Celaena vomited. A faint, hoarse laugh sounded behind her.

She backed up, farther and farther from the bed where Nehemia lay. Then she was standing in a sea of red—­red and white and gray, and—

She now stood like a wraith in her parents’ bed, where she had lain ten years ago, awakening between their corpses to the servant woman’s screaming. It was those screams she could hear now, high and endless, and—Coward.

Celaena fell against the headboard, as real and smooth and cold as she remembered it. There was nowhere ­else for her to go. It was a memory—­these ­were not real things.

She pressed her palms against the wood, fighting her building scream. Coward. Nehemia’s voice again filled the room. Celaena squeezed her eyes shut and said into the wall, “I know. I know.”

She did not fight as cold, claw-­tipped fingers stroked at her cheeks, at her brow, at her shoulders. One of the claws severed clean through her long braid as it whipped her around. She did not fight as darkness swallowed her ­whole and dragged her down deep.

•

The darkness had no end and no beginning.

It was the abyss that had haunted her steps for ten years, and she free-fell into it, welcomed it.

There was no sound, only the vague sense of going toward a bottom that might not exist, or that might mean her true end. Maybe the Valg princes had devoured her, turning her into a husk. Maybe her soul was forever trapped ­here, in this plunging darkness.

Perhaps this was hell.

•

The blackness was rippling now, shifting with sound and color that she passed through. She lived through each image, each memory worse than the next. Chaol’s face as he saw what she truly was; Nehemia’s mutilated body; her final conversation with her friend, the damning things she’d said. When your people are lying dead around you, don’t come crying to me.

It had come true—­now thousands of slaves from Eyllwe had been slaughtered for their bravery.

She tumbled through a maelstrom of the moments when she had proved her friend right. She was a waste of space and breath, a stain on the world. Unworthy of her birthright.

This was hell—­and looked like hell, as she saw the bloodbath she’d created on the day she rampaged through Endovier. The screams of the dying—­the men she’d cut apart—­tore at her like phantom hands.

This was what she deserved.

•

She went mad during that first day in Endovier.

Went mad as the descent slowed and she was stripped and strapped between two blood-­splattered posts. The cold air nipped at her bare breasts, a bite that was nothing compared to the terror and agony as a whip cracked and—

She jerked against the ropes binding her. She scarcely had time to draw in a breath before the crack sounded again, cleaving the world like lightning, cleaving her skin.

“Coward,” Nehemia said behind her, and the whip cracked. “Coward.” The pain was blinding. “Look at me.” She ­couldn’t lift her head, though. ­Couldn’t turn. “Look at me.”

She sagged against her ropes, but managed to look over her shoulder.

Nehemia was ­whole, beautiful and untouched, her eyes full of damning hatred. And then from behind her emerged Sam, handsome and tall. His death had been so similar to Nehemia’s, and yet so much worse, drawn out over hours. She had not saved him, either. When she beheld the iron-­tipped whip in his hands, when he stepped past Nehemia and let the whip unfurl onto the rocky earth, Celaena let out a low, quiet laugh.

She welcomed the pain with open arms as he took a deep breath, clothes shifting with the movement as he snapped the whip. The iron tip—­oh gods, it ripped her clean open, knocked her legs out from underneath her.

“Again,” Celaena told him, the word little more than a rasp. “Again.”

Sam obeyed. There was only the thud of leather on wet flesh as Sam and Nehemia took turns, and a line of people formed behind them, waiting for what they deserved as payment for what she had failed to do.

Such a long line of people. So many lives that she had taken or failed to protect.

Again.

Again.

Again.

•

She had not walked past the barrier expecting to defeat the Valg princes.

She had walked out there for the same reason she had snapped that day in Endovier.

But the Valg princes had not killed her yet.

She had felt their plea­sure as she begged for the whipping. It was their sustenance. Her mortal flesh was nothing to them—­it was the agony within that was the prize. They would draw this out forever, keep her as their pet.

There was no one to save her, no one who could enter their darkness and live.

One by one, they groped through her memories. She fed them, gave them everything they wanted and more. Back and back, sorting through the years as they plunged into the dark, twining together. She did not care.

She had not looked into the Valg prince’s eyes expecting to ever again see sunrise.

•

She did not know how long she fell with them.

But then there was a rushing, roaring below—­a frozen river. Whispers and foggy light ­were rising to meet them. No, not rising—­this was the bottom.

An end to the abyss. And an end to her, perhaps, at last.

She didn’t know if the Valg princes’ hissing was from anger or plea­sure as they slammed into that frozen river at the bottom of her soul.

54

Trumpets announced his arrival. Trumpets and silence as the people of Orynth crowded the steep streets winding up to the white palace that watched over them all. It was the first sunny day in weeks—­the snow on the cobblestone streets melting quickly, though the wind still had a final bite of winter to it, enough so that the King of Adarlan and his entire massive party ­were bundled in furs that covered their regalia.

Their gold and crimson flags, however, flapped in the crisp wind, the golden poles shining as brightly as the armor of their bearers, who trotted at the head of the party. She watched them approach from one of the balconies off the throne room, Aedion at her side running a constant commentary about the state of their ­horses, armor, weapons—­about the King of Adarlan himself, who rode near the front on a great black warhorse. There was a pony beside him, bearing a smaller figure. “His sniveling son,” Aedion told her.

The ­whole castle was miserably quiet. Everyone was dashing around, but silently, tensely. Her father had been on edge at breakfast, her mother distracted, the ­whole court snarly and wearing far more weapons than usual. Only her uncle seemed the same—­only Orlon had smiled at her today, said she looked very pretty in her blue dress and golden crown, and tugged one of her freshly pressed curls. No one had told her anything about this visit, but she knew it was important, because even Aedion was wearing clean clothes, a crown, and a new dagger, which he’d taken to tossing in the air.

“Aedion, Aelin,” someone hissed from inside the throne room—­Lady Marion, her mother’s dearest friend and handmaiden. “On the dais, now.” Behind the lovely lady peeked a night-­black head of hair and onyx eyes—­Elide, her daughter. The girl was too quiet and breakable for her to bother with usually. And Lady Marion, her nursemaid, coddled her own daughter endlessly.

“Rat’s balls,” Aedion cursed, and Marion went red with anger, but did not reprimand. Proof enough that today was different—­dangerous, even.

Her stomach shifted. But she followed Lady Marion inside, Aedion at her heels as always, and preched on her little throne set beside her father’s. Aedion took up his place flanking her, shoulders back and head high, already her protector and warrior.

The ­whole of Orynth was silent as the King of Adarlan entered their mountain home.

•

She hated the King of Adarlan.

He did not smile—­not when he stalked into the throne room to greet her uncle and parents, not when he introduced his eldest son, Crown Prince Dorian Havilliard, and not when they came to the great hall for the largest feast she’d ever seen. He’d only looked at her twice so far: once during that initial meeting, when he’d stared at her long and hard enough that her father had demanded to know what he found so interesting about his daughter, and their ­whole court had tensed. But she hadn’t broken his dark stare. She hated his scarred, brutish face and furs. Hated the way he ignored his dark-­haired son, who stood like a pretty doll beside him, his manners so elegant and graceful, his pale hands like little birds as they moved.

The second time the king had looked at her had been at this table, where she now sat a few seats down, flanked by Lady Marion on the side closest to the king and Aedion on the other. There ­were daggers on Lady Marion’s legs beneath her dress—­she knew because she kept bumping into them. Lord Cal, Marion’s husband, sat beside his wife, the steel on him gleaming.

Elide, along with all the other children, had been sent upstairs. Only she and Aedion—­and Prince Dorian—­were allowed ­here. Aedion puffed with pride and barely restrained temper when the King of Adarlan viewed her a second time, as if he could see through to her bones. Then the king was swept into conversation with her parents and uncle and all the lords and ladies of the court who had placed themselves around the royal family.

She had always known her court took no chances, not with her and not with her parents or uncle. Even now, she noticed the eyes of her father’s closest friends darting to the windows and doorways as they maintained conversation with those around them.

The rest of the hall was filled with the party from Adarlan and the outer circles of Orlon’s court, along with key merchants from the city who wanted to make ties with Adarlan. Or something like that. But her attention was on the prince across from her, who seemed utterly ignored by his father and his own court, shoved down near the end with her and Aedion.

He ate so beautifully, she thought, watching him cut into his roast chicken. Not a drop moved out of place, not a scrap fell on the table. She had decent manners, while Aedion was hopeless, his plate littered with bones and crumbs scattered everywhere, even some on her own dress. She’d kicked him for it, but his attention was too focused on the royals down the table.

So both she and the Crown Prince ­were to be ignored, then. She looked at the boy again, who was around her age, she supposed. His skin was from the winter, his blue-­black hair neatly trimmed; his sapphire eyes lifted from his plate to meet hers.

“You eat like a fine lady,” she told him.

His lips thinned and color stained his ivory cheeks. Across from her, Quinn, her uncle’s Captain of the Guard, choked on his water.

The prince glanced at his father—­still busy with her uncle—­before replying. Not for approval, but in fear. “I eat like a prince,” Dorian said quietly.

“You do not need to cut your bread with a fork and knife,” she said. A faint pounding started in her head, followed by a flickering warmth, but she ignored it. The hall was hot, as they’d shut all the windows for some reason.

“Here in the North,” she went on as the prince’s knife and fork remained where they ­were on his dinner roll, “you need not be so formal. We don’t put on airs.”

Hen, one of Quinn’s men, coughed pointedly from a few seats down. She could almost hear him saying, Says the little lady with her hair pressed into careful curls and wearing her new dress that she threatened to skin us over if we got dirty.

She gave Hen an equally pointed look, then returned her attention to the foreign prince. He’d already looked down at his food again, as if he expected to be neglected for the rest of the night. And he looked lonely enough that she said, “If you like, you could be my friend.” Not one of the men around them said anything, or coughed.

Dorian lifted his chin. “I have a friend. He is to be Lord of Anielle someday, and the fiercest warrior in the land.”

She doubted Aedion would like that claim, but her cousin remained focused down the table. She wished she’d kept her mouth closed. Even this useless foreign prince had friends. The pounding in her head increased, and she took a drink of her water. Water—­always water to cool her insides.

Reaching for her glass, however, sent spikes of red-­hot pain through her head, and she winced. “Princess?” Quinn said, always the first to notice.

She blinked, black spots forming. But the pain stopped.

No, not a stop, but a pause. A pause, then—

Right between her eyes, it ached and pressed at her head, trying to get in. She rubbed her brows. Her throat closed up, and she reached for the water, thinking of coolness, of calm and cold, exactly as her tutors and the court had told her. But the magic was churning in her gut—­burning up. Each pulse of pain in her head made it worse.

“Princess,” Quinn said again. She got to her feet, legs wobbling. The blackness in her vision grew with each blow from the pain, and she swayed. Distantly, as if she ­were underwater, she heard Lady Marion say her name, reach for her, but she wanted her mother’s cool touch.

Her mother turned in her seat, face drawn, her golden earrings catching in the light. She stretched out an arm, beckoning. “What is it, Fireheart?”

“I don’t feel well,” she said, barely able to get the words out. She gripped her mother’s velvet-­clad arm, for comfort and to keep her buckling knees from giving out.

“What feels wrong?” her mother asked, even as she put a hand to her forehead. A flicker of worry, then a glance back at her father, who watched from beside the King of Adarlan. “She’s burning up,” she said softly. Lady Marion was suddenly behind her, and her mother looked up to say, “Have the healer go to her room.” Marion was gone in an instant, hurrying to a side door.

She didn’t need a healer, and she gripped her mother’s arm to tell her as much. Yet no words would come out as the magic surged and burned. Her mother hissed and jerked back—­smoke rising from her dress, from where she had gripped her. “Aelin.”

Her head gave a throb—­a blast of pain, and then . . .

A wriggling, squirming inside her head.

A worm of darkness, pushing its way in. Her magic roiled, thrashing, trying to get it out, to burn it up, to save them both, but—“Aelin.”

“Get it out,” she rasped, pushing at her temples as she backed away from the table. Two of the foreign lords grabbed Dorian from the table and swept him from the room.

Her magic bucked like a stallion as the worm wriggled farther in. “Get it out.”

“Aelin.” Her father was on his feet now, hand on his sword. Half the others ­were standing too, but she flung out a hand—­to keep them away, to warn them.

Blue flame shot out. Two people dove in time to avoid it, but everyone was on their feet as the vacated seats went up in flames.

The worm would latch into her mind and never let go.

She grabbed at her head, her magic screaming, so loud it could shatter the world. And then she was burning, a living column of turquoise flame, sobbing as the dark worm continued its work and the walls of her mind began to give.

Above her own voice, above the shouting in the hall, she heard her father’s bellow—­a command to her mother, who was on her knees, hands outstretched toward her in supplication. “Do it, Evalin!”

The pillar of flame grew hotter, hot enough that people ­were fleeing now.

Her mother’s eyes met her own, full of pleading and pain.

Then water—­a wall of water crashing down on her, slamming her to the stones, flowing down her throat, into her eyes, choking her.

Drowning her. Until there was no air for her flame, only water and its freezing embrace.

The King of Adarlan looked at her for a third time—­and smiled.

•

The Valg princes enjoyed that memory, that terror and pain. And as they paused to savor it, Celaena understood. The King of Adarlan had used his power on her that night. Her parents could not have known that the person responsible for that dark worm, which had vanished as soon as she’d lost consciousness, was the man sitting beside them.

There was another one of them now—­a fourth prince, living inside Narrok, who said, “The soldiers have almost taken the tunnel. Be ready to move soon.” She could feel him hovering over her, observing. “You’ve found me a prize that will interest our liege. Do not waste her. Sips only.”

She tried to summon horror—­tried to feel anything at the thought of where they would take her, what they would do to her. But she could feel nothing as the princes murmured their understanding, and the memory tumbled onward.

•

Her mother thought it was an attack from Maeve, a vicious reminder of what­ever debt she owed, to make them look vulnerable. In the hours afterward, as she’d lain in the ice-­cold bath adjacent to her bedroom, she had used her Fae ears to overhear her parents and their court debating it from the sitting room of their suite.

It had to be Maeve. No one ­else could do anything like that, or know that such a demonstration—­in front of the King of Adarlan, who already loathed magic—­would be detrimental.

She did not want to talk, even once she was again capable of walking and speaking and acting like a princess. Insisting some normalcy might help, her mother made her go to a tea the next afternoon with Prince Dorian, carefully guarded and monitored, with Aedion sitting between them. And when Dorian’s flawless manners faltered and he knocked over the teapot, spilling on her new dress, she’d made a good show of having Aedion threaten to pummel him.

But she didn’t care about the prince, or the tea, or the dress. She could barely walk back to her room, and that night she dreamt of the maggot invading her mind, waking with screams and flames in her mouth.

At dawn, her parents took her out of the castle, headed for their manor two days away. Their foreign visitors might have caused too much stress, the healer said. She suggested Lady Marion take her, but her parents insisted they go. Her uncle approved. The King of Adarlan, it seemed, would not stay in the castle with her magic running rampant, either.

Aedion remained in Orynth, her parents promising he would be sent for when she was settled again. But she knew it was for his safety. Lady Marion went with them, leaving her husband and Elide at the palace—­for their safety, too.

A monster, that was what she was. A monster who had to be contained and monitored.

Her parents argued the first two nights at the manor, and Lady Marion kept her company, reading to her, brushing her hair, telling her stories of her home in Perranth. Marion had been a laundress in the palace from her childhood. But when Evalin arrived, they had become friends—­mostly because the princess had stained her new husband’s favorite shirt with ink and wanted to get it cleaned before he noticed.

Evalin soon made Marion her lady-in-waiting, and then Lord Lochan had returned from a rotation on the southern border. Handsome Cal Lochan, who somehow became the dirtiest man in the castle and constantly needed Marion’s advice on how to remove various stains. Who one day asked a bastard-­born servant to be his wife—­and not just wife, but Lady of Perranth, the second-­largest territory in Terrasen. Two years later, she had borne him Elide, heir of Perranth.

She loved Marion’s stories, and it was those stories she clung to in the quiet and tension of the next few days, when winter still gripped the world and made the manor groan.

The ­house was creaking in the brisk winds the night her mother walked into her bedroom—­far less grand than the one in the palace, but still lovely. They only summered ­here, as the ­house was too drafty for winter, and the roads too perilous. The fact that they’d come . . .

“Still not asleep?” her mother asked. Lady Marion ­rose from beside the bed. After a few warm words, Marion left, smiling at them both.

Her mother curled up on the mattress, drawing her in close. “I’m sorry,” her mother whispered onto her head. For the nightmares had also been of drowning—­of icy water closing over her head. “I am so sorry, Fireheart.”

She buried her face in her mother’s chest, savoring the warmth.

“Are you still frightened of sleeping?”

She nodded, clinging tighter.

“I have a gift, then.” When she didn’t move, her mother said, “Don’t you wish to see it?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want a gift.

“But this will protect you from harm—­this will keep you safe always.”

She lifted her head to find her mother smiling as she removed the golden chain and heavy, round medallion from beneath her nightgown and held it out to her.

She looked at the amulet, then at her mother, eyes wide.

The Amulet of Orynth. The heirloom honored above all others of their ­house. Its round disk was the size of her palm, and on its cerulean front, a white stag had been carved of horn—­horn gifted from the Lord of the Forest. Between his curling antlers was a burning crown of gold, the immortal star that watched over them and pointed the way home to Terrasen. She knew every inch of the amulet, had run her fingers over it countless times and memorized the shape of the symbols ­etched into the back—­words in a strange language that no one could remember.

“Father gave this to you when you ­were in Wendlyn. To protect you.”

The smile remained. “And before that, his uncle gave it to him when he came of age. It is a gift meant to be given to people in our family—­to those who need its guidance.”

She was too stunned to object as her mother slipped the chain over her head and arranged the amulet down her front. It hung almost to her navel, a warm, heavy weight. “Never take it off. Never lose it.” Her mother kissed her brow. “Wear it, and know that you are loved, Fireheart—­that you are safe, and it is the strength of this”—­she placed a hand on her heart—“that matters. Wherever you go, Aelin,” she whispered, “no matter how far, this will lead you home.”

•

She had lost the Amulet of Orynth. Lost it that very same night.

She could not bear it. She tried begging the Valg princes to put her out of her misery and drain her into nothing, but she had no voice ­here.

Hours after her mother had given her the Amulet of Orynth, a storm had struck.

It was a storm of unnatural darkness, and in it she felt that wriggling, horrific thing pushing against her mind again. Her parents remained unconscious along with everyone ­else in the manor, even though a strange smell coated the air.

She had clutched the amulet to her chest when she awoke to the pure dark and the thunder—­clutched it and prayed to every god she knew. But the amulet had not given her strength or courage, and she had slunk to her parents’ room, as black as her own, save for the window flapping in the gusting wind and rain.

The rain had soaked everything, but—­but they had to be exhausted from dealing with her, and from the anxiety they tried to hide. So she shut the window for them, and carefully crawled into their damp bed so that she did not wake them. They didn’t reach for her, didn’t ask what was wrong, and the bed was so cold—­colder than her own, and reeking of copper and iron, and that scent that did not sit well with her.

It was to that scent that she awoke when the maid screamed.

Lady Marion rushed in, eyes wide but clear. She did not look at her dead friends, but went straight to the bed and leaned across Evalin’s corpse. The lady-in-waiting was small and delicately boned, but she somehow lifted her away from her parents, holding her tightly as she rushed from the room. The few servants at the manor ­were in a panic, some racing for help that was at least a day away—­some fleeing.

Lady Marion stayed.

Marion stayed and drew a bath, helping her peel away the cold, bloody nightgown. They did not talk, did not try. Lady Marion bathed her, and when she was clean and dry, she carried her down to the cold kitchen. Marion sat her at the long table, bundled in a blanket, and set about building the hearth fire.

She had not spoken today. There ­were no sounds or words left in her, anyway.

One of the few remaining servants burst in, shouting to the empty ­house that King Orlon was dead, too. Murdered in his bed just like—

Lady Marion was out of the kitchen with her teeth bared before the man could enter. She didn’t listen to gentle Marion slapping him, ordering him to get out and find help—­find real help and not useless news.

Murdered. Her family was—­dead. There was no coming back from death, and her parents . . . What had the servants done with their . . . their . . .

Shaking hit her so hard the blanket tumbled away. She ­couldn’t stop her teeth from clacking. It was a miracle she stayed in the chair.

It ­couldn’t be true. This was another nightmare, and she would awaken to her father stroking her hair, her mother smiling, awaken in Orynth, and—

The warm weight of the blanket wrapped around her again, and Lady Marion scooped her into her lap, rocking. “I know. I’m not going to leave—­I’m going to stay with you until help comes. They’ll be ­here tomorrow. Lord Lochan, Captain Quinn, your Aedion—­they’re all going to be ­here tomorrow. Maybe even by dawn.” But Lady Marion was shaking, too. “I know,” she kept saying, weeping quietly. “I know.”

The fire died down, along with Marion’s crying. They held on to each other, rooted to that kitchen chair. They waited for the dawn, and for the others who would help, somehow.

A clopping issued from outside—­faint, but the world was so silent that they heard the lone ­horse. It was still dark. Lady Marion scanned the kitchen windows, listening to the ­horse slowly circling, until—

They ­were under the table in a flash, Marion pressing her into the freezing floor, covering her with her delicate body. The ­horse headed toward the darkened front of the ­house.

The front, because—­because the kitchen light might suggest to whoever it was that someone was inside. The front was better for sneaking in . . . to finish what had begun the night before.

“Aelin,” Marion whispered, and small, strong hands found her face, forcing her to look at the white-­as-­snow features, the bloodred lips. “Aelin, listen to me.” Though Marion was breathing quickly, her voice was even. “You are going to run for the river. Do you remember the way to the footbridge?”

The narrow rope and wood bridge across the ravine and the rushing River Florine below. She nodded.

“Good girl. Make for the bridge, and cross it. Do you remember the empty farm down the road? Find a place to hide there—­and do not come out, do not let yourself be seen by anyone except someone you recognize. Not even if they say they’re a friend. Wait for the court—­they will find you.”

She was shaking again. But Marion gripped her shoulders. “I am going to buy you what time I can, Aelin. No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, don’t look back, and don’t stop until you find a place to hide.”

She shook her head, silent tears finding their way out at last. The front door groaned—­a quick movement.

Lady Marion reached for the dagger in her boot. It glinted in the dim light. “When I say run, you run, Aelin. Do you understand?”

She didn’t want to, not at all, but she nodded.

Lady Marion brushed a kiss to her brow. “Tell my Elide . . .” Her voice broke. “Tell my Elide that I love her very much.”

A soft thud of approaching footsteps from the front of the ­house. Lady Marion dragged her from under the table and eased open the kitchen door only wide enough for her to squeeze through.

“Run now,” Lady Marion said, and shoved her into the night.

The door shut behind her, and then there was only the cold, dark air and the trees that led toward the path to the bridge. She staggered into a run. Her legs ­were leaden, her bare feet tearing on the ground. But she made it to the trees—­just as there was a crash from the ­house.

She gripped a trunk, her knees buckling. Through the open window, she could see Lady Marion standing before a hooded, towering man, her daggers out but trembling. “You will not find her.”

The man said something that had Marion backing to the door—­not to run, but to block it.

She was so small, her nursemaid. So small against him. “She is a child,” Marion bellowed. She had never heard her scream like that—­with rage and disgust and despair. Marion raised her daggers, precisely how her husband had shown her again and again.

She should help, not cower in the trees. She had learned to hold a knife and a small sword. She should help.

The man lunged for Marion, but she darted out of the way—­and then leapt on him, slicing and tearing and biting.

And then something broke—­something broke so fundamentally she knew there was no coming back from it, either for her or Lady Marion—­as the man grabbed the woman and threw her against the edge of the table. A crack of bone, then the arc of his blade going for her stunned form—­for her head. Red sprayed.

She knew enough about death to understand that once a head was severed like that, it was over. Knew that Lady Marion, who had loved her husband and daughter so much, was gone. Knew that this—­this was called sacrifice.

She ran. Ran through the barren trees, the brush ripping her clothes, her hair, shredding and biting. The man didn’t bother to be quiet as he flung open the kitchen door, mounted his ­horse, and galloped after her. The hoofbeats ­were so powerful they seemed to echo through the forest—the ­horse had to be a monster.

She tripped over a root and slammed into the earth. In the distance, the melting river was roaring. So close, but—­her ankle gave a bolt of agony. Stuck—she was stuck in the mud and roots. She yanked at the roots that held her, wood ripping her nails, and when that did nothing, she clawed at the muddy ground. Her fingers burned.

A sword whined as it was drawn from its sheath, and the ground reverberated with the pounding hooves of the ­horse. Closer, closer it came.

A sacrifice—­it had been a sacrifice, and now it would be in vain.

More than death, that was what she hated most—­the wasted sacrifice of Lady Marion. She clawed at the ground and yanked at the roots, and then—

Tiny eyes in the dark, small fingers at the roots, heaving them up, up. Her foot slipped free and she was up again, unable to thank the Little Folk who had already vanished, unable to do anything but run, limping now. The man was so close, the bracken cracking behind, but she knew the way. She had come through ­here so many times that the darkness was no obstacle.

She only had to make it to the bridge. His ­horse could not pass, and she was fast enough to outrun him. The Little Folk might help her again. She only had to make it to the bridge.

A break in the trees—­and the river’s roar grew overpowering. She was so close now. She felt and heard, rather than saw, his ­horse break through the trees behind her, the whoosh of his sword as he lifted it, preparing to cleave her head right there.

There ­were the twin posts, faint on the moonless night. The bridge. She had made it, and now she had only yards, now a few feet, now—

The breath of his ­horse was hot on her neck as she flung herself between the two posts of the bridge, making a leap onto the wood planks.

Making a leap onto thin air.

She had not missed it—­no, those ­were the posts and—

He had cut the bridge.

It was her only thought as she plummeted, so fast she had no time to scream before she hit the icy water and was pulled under.

•

That.

That moment Lady Marion had chosen a desperate hope for her kingdom over herself, over her husband and the daughter who would wait and wait for a return that would never come.

That was the moment that had broken everything Aelin Gala­thynius was and had promised to be.

Celaena was lying on the ground—­on the bottom of the world, on the bottom of hell.

That was the moment she could not face—­had not faced.

For even then, she had known the enormity of that sacrifice.

There was more, after the moment she’d hit the water. But those memories ­were hazy, a mix of ice and black water and strange light, and then she knew nothing more until Arobynn was crouched over her on the reedy riverbank, somewhere far away. She awoke in a strange bed in a cold keep, the Amulet of Orynth lost to the river. What­ever magic it had, what­ever protection, had been used up that night.

Then the pro­cess of taking her fear and guilt and despair and twisting them into something new. Then the hate—­the hate that had rebuilt her, the rage that had fueled her, smothering the memories she buried in a grave within her heart and never let out.

She had taken Lady Marion’s sacrifice and become a monster, almost as bad as the one who had murdered Lady Marion and her own family.

That was why she could not, did not, go home.

She had never looked for the death tolls in those initial weeks of slaughter, or the years afterward. But she knew Lord Lochan had been executed. Quinn and his men. And so many of those children . . . such bright lights, all hers to protect. And she had failed.

Celaena clung to the ground.

It was what she had not been able to tell Chaol, or Dorian, or Elena: that when Nehemia arranged for her own death so it would spur her into action, that sacrifice . . . that worthless sacrifice . . .

She could not let go of the ground. There was nothing beneath it, nowhere ­else to go, nowhere to outrun this truth.

She didn’t know how long she lay on the bottom of wherever this was, but eventually the Valg princes started up again, barely more than shadows of thought and malice as they stalked from memory to memory as if sampling platters at a feast. Little bites—­sips. They did not even look her way, for they had won. And she was glad of it. Let them do what they wanted, let Narrok carry her back to Adarlan and throw her at the king’s feet.

There was a scrape and crunch of shoes, then a small, smooth hand slid toward her. But it was not Chaol or Sam or Nehemia who lay across from her, watching her with those sad turquoise eyes.

Her cheek against the moss, the young princess she had been—­Aelin Galathynius—­reached a hand for her. “Get up,” she said softly.

Celaena shook her head.

Aelin strained for her, bridging that rift in the foundation of the world. “Get up.” A promise—­a promise for a better life, a better world.

The Valg princes paused.

She had wasted her life, wasted Marion’s sacrifice. Those slaves had been butchered because she had failed—­because she had not been there in time.

“Get up,” someone said beyond the young princess. Sam. Sam, standing just beyond where she could see, smiling faintly.

“Get up,” said another voice—­a woman’s. Nehemia.

“Get up.” Two voices together—­her mother and father, faces grave but eyes bright. Her uncle was beside them, the crown of Terrasen on his silver hair. “Get up,” he told her gently.

One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire.

And then there was Lady Marion, smiling beside her husband. “Get up,” she whispered, her voice full of that hope for the world, and for the daughter she would never seen again.

A tremor in the darkness.

Aelin still lay before her, hand still reaching. The Valg princes turned.

As the demon princes moved, her mother stepped toward her, face and hair and build so like her own. “You are a disappointment,” she hissed.

Her father crossed his muscular arms. “You are everything I hated about the world.”

Her uncle, still wearing the antler crown long since burned to ash: “Better that you had died with us than shame us, degrade our memory, betray our people.”

Their voices swirled together. “Traitor. Murderer. Liar. Thief. Coward.” Again and again, worming in just as the King of Adarlan’s power had wriggled in her mind like a maggot.

The king hadn’t done it merely to cause a disruption and hurt her. He had also done it to separate her family, to get them out of the castle—to take the blame away from Adarlan and make it look like an outside attack.

She had blamed herself for dragging them to the manor ­house to be butchered. But the king had planned it all, every minute detail. Except for the mistake of leaving her alive—­perhaps because the power of the amulet did indeed save her.

“Come with us,” her family whispered. “Come with us into the ageless dark.”

They reached for her, faces shadowed and twisted. Yet—­yet even those faces, so warped with hatred . . . she still loved them—­even if they loathed her, even if it ached; loved them until their hissing faded, until they vanished like smoke, leaving only Aelin lying beside her, as she had been all along.

She looked at Aelin’s face—­the face she’d once worn—­and at her still outstretched hand, so small and unscarred. The darkness of the Valg princes flickered.

There was solid ground beneath her. Moss and grass. Not hell—earth. The earth on which her kingdom lay, green and mountainous and as unyielding as its people. Her people.

Her people, waiting for ten years, but no longer.

She could see the snow-­capped Staghorns, the wild tangle of Oakwald at their feet, and . . . and Orynth, that city of light and learning, once a pillar of strength—­and her home.

It would be both again.

She would not let that light go out.

She would fill the world with it, with her light—­her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who ­were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—­but light, light to drive out darkness.

She was not afraid.

She would remake the world—­remake it for them, those she had loved with this glorious, burning heart; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the Afterworld, she would not be ashamed. She would build it for her people, who had survived this long, and whom she would not abandon. She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath.

She was their queen, and she could offer them nothing less.

Aelin Galathynius smiled at her, hand still outreached. “Get up,” the princess said.

Celaena reached across the earth between them and brushed her fingers against Aelin’s.

And arose.

55

The barrier fell.

But the darkness did not advance over the ward-­stones, and Rowan, who had been restrained by Gavriel and Lorcan in the grass outside the fortress, knew why.

The creatures and Narrok had captured a prize far greater than the demi-­Fae. The joy of feeding on her was something they planned to relish for a long, long while. Everything ­else was secondary—­as if they’d forgotten to continue advancing, swept up in the frenzy of feasting.

Behind them, the fighting continued, as it had for the past twenty minutes. Wind and ice ­were of no use against the darkness, though Rowan had hurled both against it the moment the barrier fell. Again and again, anything to pierce that eternal black and see what was left of the princess. Even as he started hearing a soft, warm female voice, beckoning to him from the darkness—­that voice he had spent centuries forgetting, which now tore him to shreds.

“Rowan,” Gavriel murmured, tightening his grip on Rowan’s arm. Rain had begun pouring. “We are needed inside.”

“No,” he snarled. He knew Aelin was alive, because during all these weeks that they had been breathing each other’s scents, they had become bonded. She was alive, but could be in any level of torment or decay. That was why Gavriel and Lorcan ­were holding him back. If they didn’t, he would run for the darkness, where Lyria beckoned.

But for Aelin, he had tried to break free.

“Rowan, the others—”

“No.”

Lorcan swore over the roar of the torrential rain. “She is dead, you fool, or close enough to it. You can still save other lives.”

They began hauling him to his feet, away from her. “If you don’t let me go, I’ll rip your head from your body,” he snarled at Lorcan, the commander who had offered him a company of warriors when he had nothing and no one left.

Gavriel flicked his eyes to Lorcan in some silent conversation. Rowan tensed, preparing to fling them off. They would knock him unconscious sooner than allow him into that dark, where Lyria’s beckoning had now turned to screaming for mercy. It ­wasn’t real. It ­wasn’t real.

But Aelin was real, and was being drained of life with every moment they held him ­here. All he needed to get them unconscious was for Gavriel to drop his magical shield—­which he’d had up against Rowan’s own power from the moment he’d pinned him. He had to get into that dark, had to find her. “Let go,” he growled again.

A rumbling shook the earth, and they froze. Beneath them some huge power was surging—­a behemoth rising from the deep.

They turned toward the darkness. And Rowan could have sworn that a golden light arced through it, then disappeared.

“That’s impossible,” Gavriel breathed. “She burned out.”

Rowan didn’t dare blink. Her burnouts had always been self-­imposed, some inner barrier composed of fear and a lingering desire for normalcy that kept her from accepting the true depth of her power.

The creatures fed on despair and pain and terror. But what if—­what if the victim let go of those fears? What if the victim walked through them—­embraced them?

As if in answer, flame erupted from the wall of darkness.

The fire unfurled, filling the rainy night, vibrant as a red opal. Lorcan swore, and Gavriel threw up additional shields of his own magic. Rowan didn’t bother.

They did not fight him as he shrugged off their grip, surging to his feet. The flame didn’t singe a hair on his head. It flowed above and past him, glorious and immortal and unbreakable.

And there, beyond the stones, standing between two of those creatures, was Aelin, a strange mark glowing on her brow. Her hair flowed around her, shorter now and bright like her fire. And her eyes—­though they ­were red-­rimmed, the gold in her eyes was a living flame.

The two creatures lunged for her, the darkness sweeping in around them.

Rowan ran all of one step before she flung out her arms, grabbing the creatures by their flawless faces—­her palms over their open mouths as she exhaled sharply.

As if she’d breathed fire into their cores, flames shot out of their eyes, their ears, their fingers. The two creatures didn’t have a chance to scream as she burned them into cinders.

She lowered her arms. Her magic was raging so fiercely that the rain turned to steam before it hit her. A weapon bright from the forging.

He forgot Gavriel and Lorcan as he bolted for her—­the gold and red and blue flames utterly hers, this heir of fire. Spying him at last, she smiled faintly. A queen’s smile.

But there was exhaustion in that smile, and her bright magic flickered. Behind her, Narrok and the remaining creature—­the one they had faced in the woods—­were spooling the darkness into themselves, as if readying for attack. She turned toward them, swaying slightly, her skin deathly pale. They had fed on her, and she was drained after shredding apart their brethren. A very real, very final burnout was steadily approaching.

The wall of black swelled, one final hammer blow to squash her, but she stood fast, a golden light in the darkness. That was all Rowan needed to see before he knew what he had to do. Wind and ice ­were of no use ­here, but there ­were other ways.

Rowan drew his dagger and sliced his palm open as he sprinted through the gate-­stones.

•

The darkness built and built, and she knew it would hurt, knew it would likely kill her and Rowan when it came crashing down. But she would not run from it.

Rowan reached her, panting and bloody. She did not dishonor him by asking him to flee as he extended his bleeding palm, offering his raw power to harness now that she was well and truly emptied. She knew it would work. She had suspected it for some time now. They ­were carranam.

He had come for her. She held his gaze as she grabbed her own dagger and cut her palm, right over the scar she’d given herself at Nehemia’s grave. And though she knew he could read the words on her face, she said, “To what­ever end?”

He nodded, and she joined hands with him, blood to blood and soul to soul, his other arm coming around to grip her tightly. Their hands clasped between them, he whispered into her ear, “I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”

The wave of impenetrable black descended, roaring as it made to devour them.

Yet this was not the end—­this was not her end. She had survived loss and pain and torture; she had survived slavery and hatred and despair; she would survive this, too. Because hers was not a story of darkness. So she was not afraid of that crushing black, not with the warrior holding her, not with the courage that having one true friend offered—­a friend who made living not so awful after all, not if she ­were with him.

Rowan’s magic punched into her, old and strange and so vast her knees buckled. He held her with that unrelenting strength, and she harnessed his wild power as he opened his innermost barriers, letting it flow through her.

The black wave was not halfway fallen when they shattered it apart with golden light, leaving Narrok and his remaining prince gaping.

She did not give them a moment to spool the darkness back. Drawing power from the endless well within Rowan, she pulled up fire and light, embers and warmth, the glow of a thousand dawns and sunsets. If the Valg craved the sunshine of Erilea, then she would give it to them.

Narrok and the prince ­were shrieking. The Valg did not want to go back; they did not want to be ended, not after so long spent waiting to return to her world. But she crammed the light down their throats, burning up their black blood.

She clung to Rowan, gritting her teeth against the sounds. There was a sudden silence, and she looked to Narrok, standing so still, watching, waiting. A spear of black punched into her head—­offering one more vision in a mere heartbeat. Not a memory, but a glimpse of the future. The sounds and smell and look of it ­were so real that only her grip on Rowan kept her anchored in the world. Then it was gone, and the light was still building, enveloping them all.

The light became unbearable as she willed it into the two Valg who had now dropped to their knees, pouring it into every shadowy corner of them. And she could have sworn that the blackness in Narrok’s eyes faded. Could have sworn that his eyes became a mortal brown, and that gratitude flickered just for a moment. Just for a moment; then she burned both demon and Narrok to ash.

The remaining Valg prince crawled only two steps before he followed suit, a silent scream on his perfect face as he was incinerated. When the light and flames receded, all that remained of Narrok and the Valg ­were four Wyrdstone collars steaming in the wet grass.

56

A few days after the unforgivable, despicable slave massacre, Sorscha was finishing up a letter to her friend when there was a knock on her workroom door. She jumped, scrawling a line of ink down the center of the page.

Dorian popped his head in, grinning, but the grin faltered when he saw the letter. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” he said, slipping in and shutting the door. As he turned, she balled up the ruined paper and chucked it into the rubbish pail.

“Not at all,” she said, toes curling as he nuzzled her neck and slipped his arms around her waist. “Someone might walk in,” she protested, squirming out of his grip. He let her go, but his eyes gleamed in a way that told her when they ­were alone again to­night, he might not be so easy to convince. She smiled.

“Do that again,” he breathed.

So Sorscha smiled again, laughing. And he looked so baffled by it that she asked, “What?”

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

She had to look away, go find something to do with her hands. They worked together in silence, as they ­were prone to doing now that Dorian knew his way around the workroom. He liked helping her with her tonics for other patients.

Someone coughed from the doorway, and they straightened, Sor­scha’s heart flying into her throat. She hadn’t even noticed the door opening—­or the Captain of the Guard now standing in it.

The captain walked right in, and Dorian stiffened beside her.

“Captain,” she said, “are you in need of my assistance?”

Dorian said nothing, his face unusually grim—­those beautiful eyes haunted and heavy. He slipped a warm hand around her waist, resting it on her back. The captain quietly shut the door, and seemed to listen to the outside hall for a moment before speaking.

He looked even graver than her prince—­his broad shoulders seeming to sag under an invisible burden. But his golden-­brown eyes ­were clear as they met Dorian’s. “You ­were right.”

•

Chaol supposed it was a miracle in itself that Dorian had agreed to do this. The grief on Dorian’s face this morning had told him he could ask. And that Dorian would say yes.

Dorian made Chaol explain everything—­to both of them. That was Dorian’s price: the truth owed to him, and to the woman who deserved to know what she was risking herself for.

Chaol quietly, quickly, explained everything: the magic, the Wyrdkeys, the three towers . . . all of it. To her credit, Sorscha didn’t fall apart or doubt him. He wondered if she was reeling, if she was upset with Dorian for not telling her. She revealed nothing, not with that healer’s training and self-­control. But the prince watched Sorscha as if he could read her impregnable mask and see what was brewing beneath.

The prince had somewhere to be. He kissed Sorscha before he left, murmuring something in her ear that made her smile. Chaol hadn’t suspected to find Dorian so . . . happy with his healer. Sorscha. It was an embarrassment that Chaol had never known her name until today. And from the way Dorian looked at her, and she him . . . He was glad that his friend had found her.

When Dorian had gone, Sorscha was still smiling, despite what she’d learned. It made her truly stunning—­it made her ­whole face open up.

“I think,” Chaol said, and Sorscha turned, brows high, ready to get to work. “I think,” he said again, smiling faintly, “that this kingdom could use a healer as its queen.”

She did not smile at him, as he’d hoped. Instead she looked unfathomably sad as she returned to her work. Chaol left without further word to ready himself for his experiment with Dorian—­the only person in this castle, perhaps in the world, who could help him. Help them all.

Dorian had raw power, Celaena had said, power to be shaped as he willed it. That was the only thing similar enough to the power of the Wyrdkeys, neither good nor evil. And crystals, Chaol had once read in Celaena’s magic books, ­were good conduits for magic. It hadn’t been hard to buy several from the market—­each about as long as his finger, white as fresh snow.

Everything was nearly ready when Dorian finally arrived in one of the secret tunnels and took a seat on the ground. Candles burned around them, and Chaol explained his plan as he finished pouring the last line of red sand—­from the Red Desert, the merchant had claimed—­between the three crystals. Equidistant from one another, they made the shape Murtaugh had drawn on the map of their continent. In the center of the triangle sat a small bowl of water.

Dorian pinned him with a stare. “Don’t blame me if they ­shatter.”

“I have replacements.” He did. He’d bought a dozen crystals.

Dorian stared at the first crystal. “You just want me to . . . focus my power on it?”

“Then draw a line of power to the next crystal, then the next, imagining that your goal is to freeze the water in the bowl. That’s all.”

A raised brow. “That’s not even a spell.”

“Just humor me,” Chaol said. “I ­wouldn’t have asked if this ­wasn’t the only way.” He dipped a finger in the bowl of water, setting it rippling. Something in his gut said that maybe the spell required nothing more than power and sheer will.

The prince’s sigh filled the stone hall, echoing off the stones and vaulted ceiling. Dorian gazed at the first crystal, roughly representing Rifthold. For minutes, there was nothing. But then Dorian began sweating, swallowing repeatedly.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine,” Dorian gasped, and the first crystal began to glow white.

The light grew brighter, Dorian sweating and grunting as if he ­were in pain. Chaol was about to ask him to stop when a line shot toward the next crystal—­so fast it was nearly undetectable save for the slight ripple in the sand. The crystal flashed bright, and then another line shot out, heading south. Again, the sand rippled in its wake.

The water remained fluid. The third crystal glowed, and the final line completed the triangle, making all three crystals flash for a moment. And then . . . slowly, crackling softly, the water froze. Chaol shoved back against his horror—­horror and awe at how much Dorian’s control had grown.

Dorian’s skin was pasty and gleamed with sweat. “This is how he did it, isn’t it?”

Chaol nodded. “Ten years ago, with those three towers. They ­were all built years before so that this could happen precisely when his invading forces ­were ready, so no one could strike back. Your father’s spell must be far more complex, to have frozen magic entirely, but on a basic level, this is probably similar to what occurred.”

“I want to see where they are—­the towers.” Chaol shook his head, but Dorian said, “You’ve told me everything ­else already. Show me the damn map.”

With a wipe of his hand, a god destroying a world, Dorian knocked down a crystal, releasing the power. The ice melted, the water rippling and sloshing against the bowl. Just like that. Chaol blinked.

If they could knock out one tower . . . It was such a risk. They needed to be sure before acting. Chaol pulled out the map Murtaugh had marked, the map he didn’t dare to leave anywhere. “Here, ­here, and ­here,” he said, pointing to Rifthold, Amaroth, and Noll. “That’s where we know towers ­were built. Watchtowers, but all three had the same traits: black stone, gargoyles . . .”

“You mean to tell me that the clock tower in the garden is one of them?”

Chaol nodded, ignoring the laugh of disbelief. “That’s what we think.”

The prince leaned over the map, bracing a hand against the floor. He traced a line from Rifthold to Amaroth, then from Rifthold to Noll. “The northward line cuts through the Ferian Gap; the southern cuts directly through Morath. You told Aedion that you thought my father had sent Roland and Kaltain to Morath, along with any other nobles with magic in their blood. What are the odds that it’s a mere coincidence?”

“And the Ferian Gap . . .” Chaol had to swallow. “Celaena said she’d heard of wings in the Gap. Nehemia said her scouts did not come back, that something was brewing there.”

“Two spots for him to breed what­ever army he’s making, perhaps drawing on this power as it makes a current through them.”

“Three.” Chaol pointed to the Dead Islands. “We had a report that something strange was being bred there . . . and that it’s been sent to Wendlyn.”

“But my father sent Celaena.” The prince swore. “There’s no way to warn them?”

“We’ve already tried.”

Dorian wiped the sweat from his brow. “So you’re working with them—­you’re on their side.”

“No. I don’t know. We just share information. But this is all information that helps us. You.”

Dorian’s eyes hardened, and Chaol winced as a cool breeze swept in.

“So what are you going to do?” Dorian asked. “Just . . . knock down the clock tower?”

Destroying the clock tower was an act of war—­an act that could endanger the lives of too many people. There would be no going back. He didn’t even want to tell Aedion or Ren, for fear of what they’d do. They ­wouldn’t think twice before incinerating it, perhaps killing everyone in this castle in the pro­cess. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. You ­were right about that.”

He wished he had something more to say to Dorian, but even small talk was an effort now. He was closing in on candidates to replace him as Captain of the Guard, sending more trunks to Anielle every week, and he could barely bring himself to look at his own men. As for Dorian . . . there was so much left between them.

“Now’s not the time,” Dorian said quietly, as if he could read Chaol’s mind.

Chaol swallowed. “I want to thank you. I know what you’re risking is—”

“We’re all risking something.” There was so little of the friend he’d grown up with. The prince glanced at his pocket watch. “I need to go.” Dorian stalked to the stairs, and there was no fear in his face, no doubt, as he said, “You gave me the truth today, so I’ll share mine: even if it meant us being friends again, I don’t think I would want to go back to how it was before—­who I was before. And this . . .” He jerked his chin toward the scattered crystals and the bowl of water. “I think this is a good change, too. Don’t fear it.”

Dorian left, and Chaol opened his mouth, but no words came out. He was too stunned. When Dorian had spoken, it hadn’t been a prince who looked at him.

It had been a king.

57

Celaena slept for two days.

She hardly remembered what had happened after she incinerated Narrok and the Valg prince, though she had a vague sense of Rowan’s men and the others having the fortress under control. They’d lost only about fifteen in total, since the soldiers had not wanted to kill the demi-­Fae but to capture them for the Valg princes to haul back to Adarlan. When they subdued the surviving enemy soldiers, locking them in the dungeon, they’d come back hours later to find them all dead. They’d carried poison with them—­and it seemed they had no inclination to be interrogated.

Celaena stumbled up the blood-­soaked steps and into bed, briefly stopping to frown at the hair that now fell just past her collarbones thanks to the razor-­sharp nails of the Valg princes, and collapsed into a deep sleep. By the time she awoke, the gore was cleaned away, the soldiers ­were buried, and Rowan had hidden the four Wyrdstone collars somewhere in the woods. He would have flown them out to the sea and dumped them there, but she knew he’d stayed to look after her—­and did not trust his friends to do anything but hand them over to Maeve.

Rowan’s cadre was leaving when she finally awoke, having lingered to help with repairs and healing, but it was only Gavriel who bothered to acknowledge her. She and Rowan ­were heading into the woods for a walk (she’d had to bully him into letting her out of bed) when they passed by the golden-­haired male lingering by the back gate.

Rowan stiffened. He’d asked her point-­blank what had happened when his friends had arrived—­if any of them had tried to help. She had tried to avoid it, but he was relentless, and she finally told him that only Gavriel had shown any inclination. She didn’t blame his men. They didn’t know her, owed her nothing, and Rowan had been inside, in harm’s way. She didn’t know why it mattered so much to Rowan, and he told her it was none of her business.

But there was Gavriel, waiting for them at the back gate. Since Rowan was stone-­faced, she smiled for both of them as they approached.

“I thought you’d be gone by now,” Rowan said.

Gavriel’s tawny eyes flickered. “The twins and Vaughan left an hour ago, and Lorcan left at dawn. He said to tell you good-­bye.”

Rowan nodded in a way that made it very clear he knew Lorcan had done no such thing. “What do you want?”

She ­wasn’t quite sure they had the same definition of friend that she did. But Gavriel looked at her from head to toe and back up again, then at Rowan, and said, “Be careful when you face Maeve. We’ll have given our reports by then.”

Rowan’s stormy expression didn’t improve. “Travel swiftly,” he said, and kept walking.

Celaena lingered, studying the Fae warrior, the glimmer of sadness in his golden eyes. Like Rowan, he was enslaved to Maeve—­and yet he thought to warn them. With the blood oath, Maeve could order him to divulge every detail, including this moment. And punish him for it. But for his friend . . .

“Thank you,” she said to the golden-­haired warrior. He blinked, and Rowan froze. Her arms ached from the inside out, and her cut hand was ban­daged and still tender, but she extended it to him. “For the warning. And for hesitating that day.”

Gavriel looked at her hand for a moment before shaking it with surprising gentleness. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Nineteen,” she said, and he loosed a breath that could have been sadness or relief or maybe both, and told her that made her magic even more impressive. She debated saying that he would be less impressed once he learned of her nickname for him, but winked at him instead.

Rowan was frowning when she caught up to him, but said nothing. As they walked away, Gavriel murmured, “Good luck, Rowan.”

•

Rowan brought her to a forest pool she’d never seen before, the clear water fed by a lovely waterfall that seemed to dance in the sunlight. He took a seat on a broad, flat, sun-­warmed rock, pulling off his boots and rolling up his pants to dip his feet in the water. She winced at every sore muscle and bone in her body as she sat. Rowan scowled, but she gave him a look that dared him to order her back to bed rest.

When her own feet ­were in the pool and they had let the music of the forest sink into them, Rowan spoke. “There is no undoing what happened with Narrok. Once the world hears that Aelin Galathynius fought against Adarlan, they will know you are alive. He will know you are alive, and where you are, and that you do not plan to cower. He will hunt you for the rest of your life.”

“I accepted that fate from the moment I stepped outside the barrier,” she said quietly. She kicked at the water, the ripples spreading out across the pool. The movement sent shuddering pain through her magic-­ravaged body, and she hissed.

Rowan handed her the skein of water he’d brought with him but hadn’t touched. She took a sip and found it contained the pain-­killing tonic she’d been guzzling since she’d awoken that morning.

Good luck, Rowan, Gavriel had said to his friend. There was a day coming, all too soon, when she would also have to bid him farewell. What would her parting words be? Would she be able to offer him only a blessing for luck? She wished she had something to give him—­some kind of protection against the queen who held his leash. The Eye of Elena was with Chaol. The Amulet of Orynth—­she would have offered him that, if she hadn’t lost it. Heirloom or no, she would rest easier if she knew it was protecting him.

The amulet, decorated with the sacred stag on one side . . . and Wyrdmarks on the other.

Celaena stopped breathing. Stopped seeing the prince beside her, hearing the forest humming around her. Terrasen had been the greatest court in the world. They had never been invaded, had never been conquered, but they had prospered and become so powerful that every kingdom knew to provoke them was folly. A line of uncorrupted rulers, who had amassed all the knowledge of Erilea in their great library. They had been a beacon that drew the brightest and boldest to them.

She knew where it was—­the third and final Wyrdkey.

It had been around her neck the night she fell into the river.

And around the neck of every one of her ancestors, going back to Brannon himself, when he stopped at the Sun Goddess’s temple to take a medallion from Mala’s High Priestess—­and then destroyed the entire site to prevent anyone from tracing his steps.

The medallion of cerulean blue, with the gold sun-­stag crowned with immortal flame—­the stag of Mala Fire-­Bringer. Upon leaving Wendlyn’s shores, Brannon had stolen those same stags away to Terrasen and installed them in Oakwald. Brannon had placed the third sliver of Wyrdkey inside the amulet and never told a soul what he had done with it.

The Wyrdkeys ­weren’t inherently bad or good. What they ­were depended on how their bearers used them. Around the necks of the kings and queens of Terrasen, one of them had been unknowingly used for good, and had protected its bearers for millennia.

It had protected her, that night she fell into the river. For it had been Wyrdmarks she’d seen glowing in the frozen depths, as if she had summoned them with her watery cries for help. But she had lost the Amulet of Orynth. It had fallen into that river and—­no.

No. It ­couldn’t have, because she ­wouldn’t have made it to the riverbank, let alone survived the hours she lay ­here. The cold would have claimed her. Which meant she’d had it when . . . when . . . Arobynn Hamel had taken it from her and kept it all these years, a prize whose power he had never guessed the depth of.

She had to get it back. She had to get it away from him and make sure that no one knew what lay inside. And if she had it . . . She didn’t let herself think that far.

She had to hurry to Maeve, retrieve the information she needed, and go home. Not to Terrasen, but to Rifthold. She had to face the man who had made her into a weapon, who had destroyed another part of her life, and who could prove to be her greatest threat.

Rowan said, “What is it?”

“The third Wyrdkey.” She swore. She could tell no one, because if anyone knew . . . they would head straight to Rifthold. Straight to the Assassins’ Keep.

“Aelin.” Was it fear, pain, or both in his eyes? “Tell me what you learned.”

“Not while you are bound to her.”

“I am bound to her forever.”

“I know.” He was Maeve’s slave—­worse than a slave. He had to obey every command, no matter how wretched.

He leaned over his knees, dipping a large hand in the water. “You’re right. I don’t want you to tell me. Any of it.”

“I hate that,” she breathed. “I hate her.”

He looked away, toward Goldryn, discarded behind them on the rock. She’d told him its history this morning as she scarfed down enough food for three full-­grown Fae warriors. He hadn’t seemed particularly impressed, and when she showed him the ring she’d found in the scabbard, he had nothing to say other than “I hope you find a good use for it.” Indeed.

But the silence that was building between them was unacceptable. She cleared her throat. Perhaps she ­couldn’t tell him the truth about the third Wyrdkey, but she could offer him another.

The truth. The truth of her, undiluted and complete. And after all that they had been through, all that she still wanted to do . . .

So she steeled herself. “I have never told anyone this story. No one in the world knows it. But it’s mine,” she said, blinking past the burning in her eyes, “and it’s time for me to tell it.”

Rowan leaned back on the rock, bracing his palms behind him.

“Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom . . . very much.”

And then she told him of the princess whose heart had burned with wildfire, of the mighty kingdom in the north, of its downfall and of the sacrifice of Lady Marion. It was a long story, and sometimes she grew quiet and cried—­and during those times he leaned over to wipe away her tears.

When she finished, Rowan merely passed her more of the tonic. She smiled at him, and he looked at her for a while before he smiled back, a different smile than all the others he’d given her before.

They ­were quiet for some time, and she didn’t know why she did it, but she held out a hand in front of her, palm facing the pool beneath.

And slowly, wobbling, a droplet of water the size of a marble ­rose from the surface to her cupped palm.

“No wonder your sense of self-­preservation is so pathetic, if that’s all the water you can conjure.” But Rowan flicked her chin, and she knew he understood what it meant, to have summoned even a droplet to her hand. To feel her mother smiling at her from realms away.

She grinned at Rowan through her tears, and sent the droplet splashing onto his face.

Rowan tossed her into the pool. A moment later, laughing, he jumped in himself.

•

After a week of regaining her strength, she and the other injured demi-­Fae had recovered enough to attend a celebration thrown by Emrys and Luca. Before she and Rowan headed downstairs to join the festivities, Celaena peered in the mirror—­and stopped dead.

The somewhat shorter hair was the least of the changes.

She was now flushed with color, her eyes bright and clear, and though she’d regained the weight she’d lost that winter, her face was leaner. A woman—­a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-­slumbering joy in her heart.

She danced that night. The morning after, she knew it was time.

When she and Rowan had finished saying their good-­byes to the others, she paused at the edge of the trees to look at the crumbling stone fortress. Emrys and Luca ­were waiting for them at the tree line, faces pale in the morning light. The old male had already stuffed their bags full of food and supplies, but he still pressed a hot loaf into Celaena’s hands as they looked at each other.

She said, “It might take a while, but if—when I reclaim my kingdom, the demi-­Fae will always have a home there. And you two—­and Malakai—­will have a place in my ­house­hold, should you wish it. As my friends.”

Emrys’s eyes ­were gleaming as he nodded, gripping Luca’s hand. The young man, who had opted to keep a long, wicked scratch bestowed in battle down his face, merely stared at her, wide-­eyed. A part of her heart ached at the shadows that now lay in his face. Bas’s betrayal would haunt him, she knew. But Celaena smiled at him, ruffled his hair, and made to turn away.

“Your mother would be proud,” Emrys said.

Celaena put a hand on her heart and bowed in thanks.

Rowan cleared his throat, and Celaena gave them one last parting smile before she followed the prince into the trees—­to Doranelle, and to Maeve, at last.

58

“Just be ready to leave for Suria in two days,” Aedion ordered Ren as the three of them gathered at midnight in the apartment where Ren and Murtaugh had stayed, still unaware of who it belonged to. “Take the southern gate—­it’ll be the least monitored at that hour.”

It had been weeks since they’d last met, and three days since a vague letter had arrived for Murtaugh from Sol of Suria, a friendly invitation to a long-­lost friend to visit him. The wording was simple enough that they all knew the young lord was feeling them out, hinting at interest in the “opportunity” Murtagh had mentioned in an earlier letter. Since then, Aedion had combed every path northward, calculating the movements and locations of every legion and garrison along the way. Two more days; then perhaps this court could begin to rebuild itself.

“Why does it feel like ­we’re fleeing, then?” Ren paused his usual pacing. The young Lord of Allsbrook had healed up just fine, though he’d now converted some of the great room into his own personal training space to rebuild his strength. Aedion wondered just how thrilled their queen would be to learn about that.

“You are fleeing,” Aedion drawled, biting into one of the apples he’d picked up at the market for Ren and the old man. “The longer you stay ­here,” he went on, “the bigger the risk of being discovered and of all our plans falling apart. You’re too recognizable now, and you’re of better use to me in Terrasen. There’s no negotiating, so don’t bother trying.”

“And what about you?” Ren asked the captain, who was seated in his usual chair.

Chaol frowned and said quietly, “I’m going to Anielle in a few days.” To fulfill the bargain he’d made when he sold his freedom to get Aelin to Wendlyn. If Aedion let himself think too much about it, he knew he might feel bad—­might try to convince the captain to stay, even. It ­wasn’t that Aedion liked the captain, or even respected him. In fact, he wished Chaol had never caught him in that stairwell, mourning the slaughter of his people in the labor camps. But ­here they ­were, and there was no going back.

Ren paused his pacing to stare down the captain. “As our spy?”

“You’ll need someone on the inside, regardless of whether I’m in Rifthold or Anielle.”

“I have people on the inside,” Ren said.

Aedion waved a hand. “I don’t care about your people on the inside, Ren. Just be ready to go, and stop being a pain in my ass with your endless questions.” He would chain Ren to a ­horse if he had to.

Aedion was about to turn to go when feet thundered up the stairs. They all had their swords drawn as the door flew open and Murtaugh appeared, panting and grasping the doorframe. The old man’s eyes ­were wild, his mouth opening and closing. Behind him, the stairwell revealed no sign of a threat, no pursuit. But Aedion kept his sword out and angled himself into a better position.

Ren rushed to Murtaugh, slipping an arm under his shoulders, but the old man planted his heels in the rug. “She’s alive,” he said, to Ren, to Aedion, to himself. “She’s—­she’s truly alive.”

Aedion’s heart stopped. Stopped, then started, then stopped again. Slowly, he sheathed his sword, calming his racing mind before he said, “Out with it, old man.”

Murtaugh blinked and let out a choked laugh. “She’s in Wendlyn, and she’s alive.”

The captain stalked across the floor. Aedion might have joined him had his legs not stopped working. For Murtaugh to have heard about her . . . The captain said, “Tell me everything.”

Murtaugh shook his head. “The city’s swarming with the news. People are in the streets.”

“Get to the point,” Aedion snapped.

“General Narrok’s legion did indeed go to Wendlyn,” Murtaugh said. “And no one knows how or why, but Aelin . . . Aelin was there, in the Cambrian Mountains, and was part of a host that met them in battle. They’re saying she’s been hiding in Doranelle all this time.”

Alive, Aedion had to tell himself—­alive, and not dead after the battle, even if Murtaugh’s information about her whereabouts was wrong.

Murtaugh was smiling. “They slaughtered Narrok and his men, and she saved a great number of people—­with magic. Fire, they say—­power the likes of which the world has not seen since Brannon ­himself.”

Aedion’s chest tightened to the point of hurting. The captain was just staring at the old man.

It was a message to the world. Aelin was a warrior, able to fight with blade or magic. And she was done with hiding.

“I’m riding north today. It cannot wait as we had planned,” Murtaugh said, turning toward the door. “Before the king tries to keep the news from spreading, I need to let Terrasen know.” They trailed him down the stairs and into the ware­house below. Even from inside, Aedion’s Fae hearing picked up the rising commotion in the streets. The moment he entered the palace, he would have to consider his every step, every breath. Too many eyes would be on him now.

Aelin. His Queen. Aedion slowly smiled. The king would never suspect, not in a thousand years, who he’d actually sent to Wendlyn—­that his own Champion had destroyed Narrok. Few had ever known about the Galathyniuses’ deeply rooted distrust of Maeve—­so Doranelle would be a believable place to hide and raise a young queen all these years.

“Once I get out of the city,” Murtaugh said, going to the ­horse he’d tied inside the ware­house, “I’ll send riders to every contact, to Fenharrow and Melisande. Ren, you stay ­here. I’ll take care of Suria.”

Aedion gripped the man’s shoulder. “Get word to my Bane—­tell them to lie low until I return, but keep those supply lines with the rebels open at any cost.” He didn’t let go until Murtaugh gave him a nod.

“Grandfather,” Ren said, helping the man into the saddle. “Let me go instead.”

“You stay ­here,” Aedion ordered, and Ren bristled.

Murtaugh murmured his agreement. “Gather what information you can, and then you’ll come to me when I’m ready.”

Aedion didn’t give Ren time to refuse as he hauled open the ware­house door for Murtaugh. Brisk night air poured in, bringing with it the ruckus from the city. Aelin—­Aelin had done this, caused this clamor of sound. The stallion pawed and huffed, and Murtaugh might have galloped off had the captain not surged to grab his reins.

“Eyllwe,” Chaol breathed. “Send word to Eyllwe. Tell them to hold on—­tell them to prepare.” Perhaps it was the light, perhaps it was the cold, but Aedion could have sworn there ­were tears in the captain’s eyes as he said, “Tell them it’s time to fight back.”

•

Murtaugh Allsbrook and his riders spread the news like wildfire. Down every road, over every river, to the north and south and west, through snow and rain and mist, their hooves churning up the dust of each kingdom.

And for every town they told, every tavern and secret meeting, more riders went out.

More and more, until there was not a road they had not covered, until there was not one soul who did not know that Aelin Galathynius was alive—­and willing to stand against Adarlan.

Across the White Fangs and the Ruhnns, all the way to the Western Wastes and the red-haired queen who ruled from a crumbling castle. To the Deserted Peninsula and the oasis-­fortress of the Silent Assassins. Hooves, hooves, hooves, echoing through the continent, sparking against cobblestones, all the way to Banjali and the riverfront palace of the King and Queen of Eyllwe, still in their midnight mourning clothes.

Hold on, the riders told the world.

Hold on.

•

Dorian’s father was in a rage the likes of which he’d not seen before. Two ministers had been executed this morning, for no worse crime than attempting to calm the king.

A day after the news arrived of what Aelin had done in Wendlyn, his father was still livid, still demanding answers.

Dorian might have found it funny—­so typically Celaena to make such a flamboyant return—­had he not been utterly petrified. She had drawn a line in the sand. Worse than that, she’d defeated one of the king’s deadliest generals.

No one had done that and lived. Ever.

Somewhere in Wendlyn, his friend was changing the world. She was fulfilling the promise she’d made him. She had not forgotten him, or any of them still ­here.

And perhaps when they figured out a way to destroy that tower and free magic from his father’s yoke, she would know her friends had not forgotten her, either. That he had not forgotten her.

So Dorian let his father rage. He sat in on those meetings and shut down his revulsion and horror when his father sent a third minister to the butchering block. For Sorscha, for the promise of keeping her safe, of someday, perhaps, not having to hide what and who he was, he kept on his well-­worn mask, offered banal suggestions about what to do regarding Aelin, and pretended. One last time.

When Celaena got back, when she returned as she’d sworn she would . . .

Then they would set about changing the world together.

59

It took a week for Celaena and Rowan to reach Doranelle. They traveled over the rough, miserable mountains where Maeve’s wild wolves monitored them day and night, then down into the lush valley through forests and fields, the air heavy with spices and magic.

The temperature grew warmer the farther south they traveled, but breezes kept it from being too unpleasant. After a while, they began spotting pretty stone villages in the distance, but Rowan kept them away, hidden, until they crested a rocky hill and Doranelle spread before them.

It took her breath away. Even Orynth could not compare to this.

They had called it the City of Rivers for a reason. The pale-­stoned city was built on a massive island smack in the center of several of them, the waters raging as the tributaries from the surrounding hills and mountains blended. On the island’s north end, the rivers toppled over the mouth of a mighty waterfall, its basin so huge that the mist floated into the clear day, setting the domed buildings, pearlescent spires, and blue rooftops shining. There ­were no boats moored to the city edges, though there ­were two elegant stone bridges spanning the river—­heavily guarded. Fae moved across the bridges, and carts loaded with everything from vegetables to hay to wine. Somewhere, there had to be fields and farms and towns to supply them. Though she’d bet Maeve had a stronghold of goods stocked up.

“I assume you normally fly right in and don’t deign to use the bridges,” she said to Rowan, who was frowning at the city, not looking very much like a warrior about to return home. He nodded distantly. He’d fallen silent in the past day—­not rude, but quiet and vague, as if he ­were rebuilding the wall between them. This morning, she’d awoken in their hilltop camp to find him staring at the sunrise, looking for all the world as if he’d been having a conversation with it. She hadn’t had the nerve to ask if he’d been praying to Mala Fire-­Bringer, or what he would even ask of the Sun Goddess. But there had been a strangely familiar warmth wrapped around the camp, and she could have sworn that she felt her magic leap in joyous response. She didn’t let herself think about it.

Because for the past day, she, too, had been lost in herself, busy gathering her strength and clarity. She hadn’t been able to talk much, and even now, focusing on the present required an im­mense effort. “Well,” she said, taking an exaggerated breath and patting Goldryn’s hilt, “let’s go see our beloved aunt. I’d hate to keep her waiting.”

•

It took them until nightfall to reach the bridge, and Celaena was glad: there ­were fewer Fae to witness their arrival, even though the winding, elegant streets ­were now full of musicians and dancing and vendors selling hot food and drinks. There had been plenty of that in Adarlan, but ­here there was no empire weighing on them, no darkness or cold or despair. Maeve had not sent aid ten years ago—­and while the Fae danced and drank mulled cider, Celaena’s people had been butchered and burned. She knew it ­wasn’t their fault, but as she headed across the city, toward the northern edge by the waterfall, she ­couldn’t bring herself to smile at the merriment.

She reminded herself that she had danced and drunk and done what­ever she pleased while her own people had suffered for ten years, too. She was in no position to resent the Fae, or anyone except the queen who ruled over this city.

None of the guards stopped them, though she did note shadows trailing them from the rooftops and alleys, a few birds of prey circling above. Rowan didn’t acknowledge them, though she caught his teeth glinting in the golden lamplight. Apparently, the escort ­wasn’t making the prince too happy, either. How many of them did he know personally? How many had he fought beside, or ventured with to unmapped lands?

They saw no sign of his friends, and he made no comment about whether or not he expected to see them. Even though his gaze was straight ahead, she knew he was aware of every sentry watching them, every breath issued nearby.

She didn’t have the space left in her for doubt or fear. As they walked, she played with the ring tucked into her pocket, turning it over and over as she reminded herself of her plan and of what she needed to accomplish before she left this city. She was as much a queen as Maeve. She was the sovereign of a strong people and a mighty kingdom.

She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.

•

They ­were escorted through a shining palace of pale stone and sky-­blue gossamer curtains, the floors a mosaic of delicate tiles depicting various scenes, from dancing maidens to pastorals to the night sky. Throughout the building, the river itself ran in tiny streams, sometimes gathering in pools freckled with night-­blooming lilies. Jasmine wove around the massive columns, and lights of colored glass hung from the arched ceilings. Enough of the palace was open to the elements to suggest that the weather ­here was always this mild. Music played from distant rooms, but it was faint and placid compared to the riot of sound and color in the city outside the mammoth marble palace walls.

Sentries ­were everywhere. They lurked just out of sight, but in her Fae body she could smell them, the steel and the crisp scent of what­ever soap they must use in the barracks. Not too different from the glass castle. But Maeve’s stronghold had been built from stone—­so much stone, everywhere, all of it pale and carved and polished and gleaming. She knew Rowan had private quarters in this palace, and that the Whitethorn family had various residences in Doranelle, but they saw nothing of his kin. He’d told her on their journey that there ­were several other princes in his family, with his father’s brother ruling over them. Fortunately for Rowan, his uncle had three sons, keeping him free of responsibility, though they certainly tried to use Rowan’s position with Maeve to their advantage. As scheming and sycophantic as any royal family in Adarlan, she supposed.

After an eternity of walking in silence, Rowan led her onto a wide veranda overhanging the river. He was tense enough to suggest he was scenting and hearing things she ­couldn’t, but he offered no warning. The waterfall beyond the palace roared, though not loud enough to drown out conversation.

Across the veranda sat Maeve on her throne of stone.

Sprawled on either side of the throne ­were the twin wolves, one black and one white, monitoring their approach with cunning golden eyes. There was no one ­else—­no smell of Rowan’s other friends lurking nearby as they crossed the tiled floor. She wished Rowan had let her freshen up in his suite, but . . . she supposed that ­wasn’t what this meeting was about, anyway.

Rowan kept pace with her as she stalked to the small dais before the carved railing, and when they stopped, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. “Majesty,” he murmured.

Her aunt did not even glance at Rowan or bid him to rise. She left her nephew kneeling as she turned her violet, starry eyes to Celaena and gave her that spider’s smile.

“It would seem that you have accomplished your task, Aelin Galathynius.”

Another test—­using her name to elicit a reaction.

She smiled right back at Maeve. “Indeed.”

Rowan kept his head down, eyes on the floor. Maeve could make him kneel there for a hundred years if she wished. The wolves beside the throne didn’t move an inch.

Maeve deigned a glance at Rowan and then gave Celaena that little smile again. “I will admit that I am surprised that you managed to gain his approval so swiftly. So,” Maeve said, lounging in her throne, “show me, then. A demonstration of what you have learned these months.”

Celaena clenched the ring in her pocket, not lowering her chin one millimeter. “I would prefer to first retrieve the knowledge you’re keeping to yourself.”

A feminine click of the tongue. “You don’t trust my word?”

“You ­can’t believe I’d give you everything you want with no proof you can deliver your side of the bargain.”

Rowan’s shoulders tensed, but his head remained down.

Maeve’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The Wyrdkeys.”

“How they can be destroyed, where they are, and what ­else you know of them.”

“They cannot be destroyed. They can only be put back in the gate.”

Celaena’s stomach twisted. She’d known that already, but hearing the confirmation was hard, somehow. “How can they be put back in the gate?”

“Don’t you think they would already have been restored to their home if anyone knew?”

“You said you knew about them.”

An adder’s smile. “I do know about them. I know they can be used to create, to destroy, to open portals. But I do not know how to put them back. I never learned how, and then they ­were taken by Brannon across the sea and I never saw them again.”

“What did they look like? What did they feel like?”

Maeve cupped her palm and looked at it, as if she could see the keys lying there. “Black and glittering, no more than slivers of stone. But they ­were not stone—­they ­were like nothing on this earth, in any realm. It was like holding the living flesh of a god, like containing the breath of every being in every realm all at once. It was madness and joy and terror and despair and eternity.”

The thought of Maeve possessing all three of the keys, even for brief moment, was horrifying enough that Celaena didn’t let herself fully contemplate it. She just said, “And what ­else can you tell me about them?”

“That’s all I can recall, I’m afraid.” Maeve settled back in her throne.

No—no, there had to be some way. She ­couldn’t have spent all these months in a fool’s bargain, ­couldn’t have been tricked that badly. But if Maeve did not know, then there ­were other bits of information to extract; she would not walk out of ­here empty-­handed.

“The Valg princes—­what can you tell me of them?”

For a few heartbeats, Maeve remained silent, as if contemplating the merits of answering more than she’d originally promised. Celaena ­wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to know why Maeve decided in her favor as the queen said, “Ah—­yes. My men informed me of their presence.” Maeve paused again, no doubt dredging up the information from some ancient corner of her memory. “There are many different races of Valg—­creatures that even your darkest nightmares would flee from. They are ruled by the princes, who themselves are made of shadow and despair and hatred and have no bodies to occupy save those that they infiltrate. There aren’t many princes—­but I once witnessed an entire legion of Fae warriors devoured by six of them within hours.”

A chill went down her spine, and even the wolves’ hackles ­rose. “But I killed them with my fire and light—”

“How do you think Brannon won himself such glory and a kingdom? He was a discarded son of nobody, unclaimed by either parent. But Mala loved him fiercely, so his flames ­were sometimes all that held the Valg princes at bay until we could summon a force to push them back.”

She opened to her mouth to ask the next question, but paused. Maeve ­wasn’t the sort to toss out random bits of information. So Celaena slowly asked, “Brannon ­wasn’t royal-­born?”

Maeve cocked her head. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you what the mark on your brow means?”

“I was told it was a sacred mark.”

Maeve’s eyes danced with amusement. “Sacred only because of the bearer who established your kingdom. But before that, it was nothing. Brannon was born with the bastard’s mark—­the mark every unclaimed, unwanted child possessed, marking them as nameless, nobody. Each of Brannon’s heirs, despite their noble lineage, has since been graced with it—­the nameless mark.”

And it had burned that day she’d dueled with Cain. Burned in front of the King of Adarlan. A shudder went down her spine. “Why did it glow when I dueled Cain, and when I faced the Valg princes?” She knew Maeve was well informed about the shadow-­creature that had lived inside Cain. Perhaps not a Valg prince, but something small enough to be contained by the Wyrdstone ring he’d worn instead of a collar. It had recognized Elena—­and it had said to both of them, You ­were brought ­here—­all of you ­were. All the players in the unfinished game.

“Perhaps your blood merely recognized the presence of the Valg and was trying to tell you something. Perhaps it meant nothing.”

She didn’t think so. Especially when the reek of the Valg had been in her parents’ bedroom the morning after they’d been murdered. Either the assassin had been possessed, or he’d known how to use their power to keep her parents unconscious while he slaughtered them. All bits of information ­to be pieced together later, when she was away from Maeve. If Maeve let her walk out of ­here.

“Are fire and light the only way to kill the Valg princes?”

“They are hard to kill, but not invincible,” Maeve admitted. “With the way the Adarlanian king compels them, cutting off their heads to sever the collar might do the trick. If you are to return to Adarlan, that will be the only way, I suspect.”

Because in Adarlan, magic was still locked up by the king. If she faced one of the Valg princes again, she’d have to kill it by blade and wits. “If the king is indeed summoning the Valg to his armies, what can be done to stop them?”

“The King of Adarlan, it seems, is doing what I never had the nerve to do while the keys ­were briefly in my possession. Without all three keys, he is limited. He can only open the portal between our worlds for short periods, long enough to let in perhaps one prince to infiltrate a body he has prepared. But with all three keys, he could open the portal at will—­he could summon all the Valg armies, to be led by the princes in their mortal bodies, and . . .” Maeve looked more intrigued than horrified. “And with all three keys, he might not need to rely on magically gifted hosts for the Valg. There are countless lesser spirits amongst the Valg, hungry for entrance to this world.”

“He’d have to make countless collars for them, then.”

“He would not need to, not with all three keys. His control would be absolute. And he would not need living hosts—­only bodies.”

Celaena’s heart stumbled a beat, and Rowan tensed from his spot on the ground. “He could have an army of the dead, inhabited by the Valg.”

“An army that does not need to eat or sleep or breathe—­an army that will sweep like a plague across your continent, and others. Maybe other worlds, too.”

But he would need all three keys for it. Her chest tightened, and though they ­were in the open air, the palace, the river, the stars seemed to push in on her. There would be no army that she could raise to stop them, and without magic . . . they ­were doomed. She was doomed. She was—

A calming warmth wrapped around her, as if someone had pulled her into an embrace. Feminine, joyous, infinitely powerful. This doom has not yet come to pass, it seemed to whisper in her ear. There is still time. Do not succumb to fear yet.

Maeve was watching her with a feline interest, and Celaena wondered what it was that the dark queen beheld—­if she, too, could sense that ancient, nurturing presence. But Celaena was warm again, the panic gone, and though the feeling of being held disappeared, she still could have sworn the presence lingered nearby. There was time—­the king still did not have the third key.

Brannon—he had possessed all three, yet had chosen to hide them, rather than put them back. And somehow, suddenly, that became the greatest question of all: why?

“As for the locations of the three keys,” Maeve said, “I do not know where they are. They ­were brought across the sea, and I have not heard of them again until these past ten years. It would seem that the king has at least one, probably two. The third, however . . .” She looked her up and down, but Celaena refused to flinch. “You have some inkling of its whereabouts, don’t you?”

She opened her mouth, but Maeve’s fingers clenched the arm of her throne—­just enough to make Celaena glance at the stone. So much stone ­here—­in this palace and in the city. And that word Maeve had used earlier, taken . . .

“Don’t you?” Maeve pressed.

Stone—and not a sign of wood, save for plants and furniture . . .

“No, I don’t,” said Celaena.

Maeve cocked her head. “Rowan, rise and tell me the truth.”

His hands clenched, but he stood, his eyes on his queen as he swallowed. Twice. “She found a riddle, and she knows the King of Adarlan has at least the first key, but ­doesn’t know where he keeps it. She also learned what Brannon did with the third—­and where it is. She refused to tell me.” There was a glimmer of horror in his eyes, and his fists ­were trembling, as if some invisible force had compelled him to say it. The wolves only watched.

Maeve tutted. “Keeping secrets, Aelin? From your aunt?”

“Not for all the world would I tell you where the third key is.”

“Oh, I know,” Maeve purred. She snapped her fingers, and the wolves ­rose to their feet, shifting in flashes of light into the most beautiful men she’d ever beheld. Warriors from the size of them, from the lethal grace with which they moved; one light and one dark, but stunning—­perfect.

Celaena went for Goldryn, but the twins went for Rowan, who did nothing, didn’t even struggle as they gripped his arms, forcing him again to his knees. Two others emerged from the shadows behind them. Gavriel, his tawny eyes carefully empty, and Lorcan, face stone-­cold. And in their hands . . .

At the sight of the iron-­tipped whip each bore, Celaena forgot to breathe. Lorcan didn’t hesitate as he ripped Rowan’s jacket and tunic and shirt from him.

“Until she answers me,” Maeve said, as if she had just ordered a cup of tea.

Lorcan unfurled the whip, the iron tip clinking against the stones, and drew back his arm. There was nothing merciful on his rugged face, no glimmer of feeling for the friend on his knees.

“Please,” Celaena whispered. There was a crack, and the world fragmented as Rowan bowed when the whip sliced into his back. He gritted his teeth, hissing, but did not cry out.

“Please,” Celaena said. Gavriel sent his whip flying so fast Rowan had only a breath to recover. There was no remorse on Gavriel’s lovely face, no sign of the male she’d thanked weeks ago.

Across the veranda, Maeve said, “How long this lasts depends entirely on you, niece.”

Celaena did not dare drag her gaze away from Rowan, who took the whipping as if he had done this before—­as if he knew how to pace himself and how much pain to expect. His friends’ eyes ­were dead, as if they, too, had given and received this manner of punishment.

Maeve had harmed Rowan before. How many of his scars had she given him? “Stop it,” Celaena growled.

“Not for all the world, Aelin? But what about for Prince Rowan?”

Another strike, and blood was on the stones. And the sound—­that sound of the whip . . . the sound that echoed in her nightmares, the sound that made her blood run cold . . .

“Tell me where the third Wyrdkey is, Aelin.”

Crack. Rowan jerked against the twins’ iron grip. Was this why he had been praying to Mala that morning? Because he knew what to expect from Maeve?

She opened her mouth, but Rowan lifted his head, teeth bared, his face savage with pain and rage. He knew she could read the word in his eyes, but he still said, “Don’t.”

It was that word of defiance that broke the hold she’d kept on herself for the past day, the damper she’d put on her power as she secretly spiraled down to the core of her magic, pulling up as much as she could gather.

The heat spread from her, warming the stones so swiftly that Rowan’s blood turned to red steam. His companions swore and near-­invisible shields rippled around them and their sovereign.

She knew the gold in her eyes had shifted to flame, because when she looked to Maeve, the queen’s face had gone bone-­white.

And then Celaena set the world on fire.

60

Maeve was not burning, and neither ­were Rowan or his friends, whose shields Celaena tore through with half a thought. But the river was steaming around them, and shouting arose from the palace, from the city, as a flame that did not burn or hurt enveloped everything. The entire island was wreathed in wildfire.

Maeve was standing now, stalking off the dais. Celaena let a little more heat seep through her hold on the flame, warming Maeve’s skin as she moved to meet her aunt. Wide-­eyed, Rowan hung from his friends’ arms, his blood fizzing on the stones.

“You wanted a demonstration,” Celaena said quietly. Sweat trickled down her back, but she gripped the magic with everything she had. “One thought from me, and your city will burn.”

“It is stone,” Maeve snapped.

Celaena smiled. “Your people aren’t.”

Maeve’s nostrils flared delicately. “Would you murder innocents, Aelin? Perhaps. You did it for years, didn’t you?”

Celaena’s smile didn’t falter. “Try me. Just try to push me, Aunt, and see what comes of it. This was what you wanted, ­wasn’t it? Not for me to master my magic, but for you to learn just how powerful I am. Not how much of your sister’s blood flows in my veins—­no, you’ve known from the start that I have very little of Mab’s power. You wanted to know how much I got from Brannon.”

The flames ­rose higher, and the shouts—­of fright, not pain—­rose with them. The flames would not hurt anyone unless she willed it. She could sense other magics fighting against her own, tearing holes into her power, but the conflagration surrounding the veranda burned strong.

“You never gave the keys to Brannon. And you didn’t journey with Brannon and Athril to retrieve the keys from the Valg,” Celaena went on, a crown of fire wreathing her head. “You went to steal them for yourself. You wanted to keep them. Once Brannon and Athril realized that, they fought you. And Athril . . .” Celaena drew Goldryn, its hilt glowing bloodred. “Your beloved Athril, dearest friend of Brannon . . . when Athril fought you, you killed him. You, not the Valg. And in your grief and shame, you ­were weakened enough that Brannon took the keys from you. It ­wasn’t some enemy force who sacked the Sun Goddess’s temple. It was Brannon. He burned any last trace of himself, any clue of where he was going so you would not find him. He left only Athril’s sword to honor his friend—­in the cave where Athril had first carved out the eye of that poor lake creature—­and never told you. After Brannon left these shores, you did not dare follow him, not when he had the keys, not when his magic—my magic—­was so strong.”

It was why Brannon had hidden the Wyrdkey in his ­house­hold’s heirloom—­to give them that extra ounce of power. Not against ordinary enemies, but in case Maeve ever came for them. Perhaps he had not put the keys back in the gate because he wanted to be able to call upon their power should Maeve ever decide to install herself as mistress of all lands.

“That was why you abandoned your land in the foothills and left it to rot. That was why you built a city of stone surrounded by water: so Brannon’s heirs could not return and roast you alive. That was why you wanted to see me, why you bargained with my mother. You wanted to know what manner of threat I would pose. What would happen when Brannon’s blood mixed with Mab’s line.” Celaena opened her arms wide, Goldryn burning bright in one hand. “Behold my power, Maeve. Behold what I grapple with in the deep dark, what prowls under my skin.”

Celaena exhaled a breath and extinguished each and every flame in the city.

The power ­wasn’t in might or skill. It was in the control—­the power lay in controlling herself. She’d known all along how vast and deadly her fire was, and a few months ago, she would have killed and sacrificed and slaughtered anyone and anything to fulfill her vow. But that hadn’t been strength—­it had been the rage and grief of a broken, crumbling person. She understood now what her mother had meant when she had patted her heart that night she’d given her the amulet.

As every light went out in Doranelle, plunging the world into darkness, Celaena stalked over to Rowan. One look and a flash of her teeth had the twins releasing him. Their bloodied whips still in hand, Gavriel and Lorcan made no move toward her as Rowan sagged against her, murmuring her name.

Lights kindled. Maeve remained where she stood, dress soot-­stained, face shining with sweat. “Rowan, come ­here.” Rowan stiffened, grunting with pain, but staggered to the dais, blood trickling from the hideous wounds on his back. Bile stung Celaena’s throat, but she kept her eyes on the queen. Maeve barely gave Celaena a glance as she seethed, “Give me that sword and get out.” She extended a hand toward Goldryn.

Celaena shook her head. “I don’t think so. Brannon left it in that cave for anyone but you to find. And so it is mine, through blood and fire and darkness.” She sheathed Goldryn at her side. “Not very pleasant when someone ­doesn’t give you what you want, is it?”

Rowan was just standing there, his face a mask of calm despite his wounds, but his eyes—­was it sorrow there? His friends ­were silently watching, ready to attack should Maeve give the word. Let them try.

Maeve’s lips thinned. “You will pay for this.”

But Celaena stalked to Maeve again, took her hand, and said, “Oh, I don’t think I will.” She threw her mind open to the queen.

Well, part of her mind—­the vision Narrok had given her as she burned him. He had known. Somehow he had seen the potential, as if he’d figured it out while the Valg princes sorted through her memories. It was not a future ­etched in stone, but she did not let her aunt know that. She yielded the memory as if it ­were truth, as if it ­were a plan.

•

The deafening crowd echoed through the pale stone corridors of the royal castle of Orynth. They ­were chanting her name, almost wailing it. Aelin. A two-­beat pulse that sounded through each step she made up the darkened stairwell. Goldryn was heavy at her back, its ruby smoldering in the light of the sun trickling from the landing above. Her tunic was beautiful yet simple, though her steel gauntlets—­armed with hidden blades—­were as ornate as they ­were deadly.

She reached the landing and stalked down it, past the towering, muscled warriors who lurked in the shadows just beyond the open archway. Not just warriors—her warriors. Her court. Aedion was there, and a few others whose faces ­were obscured by shadow, but their teeth gleamed faintly as they gave her feral grins. A court to change the world.

The chanting increased, and the amulet bounced between her breasts with each step. She kept her eyes ahead, a half smile on her face as she emerged at last onto the balcony and the cries grew frantic, as overpowering as the frenzied crowd outside the palace, in the streets, thousands gathered and chanting her name. In the courtyard, young priestesses of Mala danced to each pulse of her name, worshipping, fanatic.

With this power—­with the keys she’d attained—­what she had created for them, the armies she had made to drive out their enemies, the crops she had grown, the shadows she had chased away . . . these things ­were nothing short of a miracle. She was more than human, more than queen.

Aelin.

Beloved. Immortal. Blessed.

Aelin.

Aelin of the Wildfire. Aelin Fireheart. Aelin Light-­Bringer.

Aelin.

She raised her arms, tipping back her head to the sunlight, and their cries made the entirety of the White Palace tremble. On her brow, a mark—­the sacred mark of Brannon’s line—­glowed blue. She smiled at the crowd, at her people, at her world, so ripe for the taking.

•

Celaena pulled back from Maeve. The queen’s face was pale.

Maeve had bought the lie. She did not see that the vision had been given to Celaena not to taunt her but as a warning—­of what she might become if she did indeed find the keys and keep them. A gift from the man Narrok had once been.

“I suggest,” Celaena said to the Fae Queen, “that you think very, very carefully before threatening me or my own, or hurting Rowan again.”

“Rowan belongs to me,” Maeve hissed. “I can do what I wish with him.”

Celaena looked at the prince, who was standing so stalwart, his eyes dull with pain. Not from the wounds on his back, but from the parting that had been creeping up on them with each step that took them closer to Doranelle.

Slowly, carefully, Celaena pulled the ring from her pocket.

•

It was not Chaol’s ring that she had been clutching these past few days.

It was the simple golden ring that had been left in Goldryn’s scabbard. She had kept it safe all these weeks, asking Emrys to tell story after story about Maeve as she carefully pieced together the truth about her aunt, just for this very moment, for this very task.

Maeve went as still as death while Celaena lifted the ring between two fingers.

“I think you’ve been looking for this for a long time,” Celaena said.

“That does not belong to you.”

“Doesn’t it? I found it, after all. In Goldryn’s scabbard, where Brannon left it after grabbing it off Athril’s corpse—­the family ring Athril would have given you someday. And in the thousands of years since then, you never found it, so . . . I suppose it’s mine by chance.” Celaena closed her fist around the ring. “But who would have thought you ­were so sentimental?”

Maeve’s lips thinned. “Give it to me.”

Celaena barked out a laugh. “I don’t have to give you a damn thing.” Her smile faded. Beside Maeve’s throne, Rowan’s face was unreadable as he turned toward the waterfall.

All of it—­all of it for him. For Rowan, who had known exactly what sword he was picking up that day in the mountain cave, who had thrown it to her across the ice as a future bargaining chip—­the only protection he could offer her against Maeve, if she was smart enough to figure it out.

She had only realized what he’d done—­that he’d known all along—­when she’d mentioned the ring to him weeks ago and he’d told her he hoped she found some use for it. He didn’t yet understand that she had no interest in bargaining for power or safety or alliance.

So Celaena said, “I’ll make a trade with you, though.” Maeve’s brows narrowed. Celaena jerked her chin. “Your beloved’s ring—­for Rowan’s freedom from his blood oath.”

Rowan stiffened. His friends whipped their heads to her.

“A blood oath is eternal,” Maeve said tightly. Celaena didn’t think his friends ­were breathing.

“I don’t care. Free him.” Celaena held out the ring again. “Your choice. Free him, or I melt this right ­here.”

Such a gamble; so many weeks of scheming and planning and secretly hoping. Even now, Rowan did not turn.

Maeve’s eyes remained on the ring. And Celaena understood why—­it was why she’d dared try it. After a long silence, Maeve’s dress rustled as she straightened, her face pale and tight. “Very well. I’ve grown rather bored of his company these past few decades, anyway.”

Rowan faced her—­slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. It was Celaena’s gaze, not Maeve’s, that he met, his eyes shining.

“By my blood that flows in you,” Maeve said. “Through no dishonor, through no act of treachery, I hereby free you, Rowan Whitethorn, of your blood oath to me.”

Rowan just stared and stared at her, and Celaena hardly heard the rest, the words Maeve spoke in the Old Language. But Rowan took out a dagger and spilled his own blood on the stones—­whatever that meant. She had never heard of a blood oath being broken before, but had risked it regardless. Perhaps not in all the history of the world had one ever been broken honorably. His friends ­were wide-­eyed and silent.

Maeve said, “You are free of me, Prince Rowan Whitethorn.”

That was all Celaena needed to hear before she tossed the ring to Maeve, before Rowan rushed to her, his hands on her cheeks, his brow against her own.

“Aelin,” he murmured, and it ­wasn’t a reprimand, or a thank-­you, but . . . a prayer. “Aelin,” he whispered again, grinning, and kissed her brow before he dropped to both knees before her.

And when he reached for her wrist, she jerked back. “You’re free. You’re free now.”

Behind them, Maeve watched, brows high. But Celaena could not accept this—­could not agree to it.

Complete and utter submission, that’s what a blood oath was. He would yield everything to her—­his life, any property, any free will.

Rowan’s face was calm, though—­steady, assured. Trust me.

I don’t want you enslaved to me. I won’t be that kind of queen.

You have no court—­you are defenseless, landless, and without allies. She might let you walk out of ­here today, but she could come after you tomorrow. She knows how powerful I am—­how powerful we are together. It will make her hesitate.

Please don’t do this—­I will give you anything ­else you ask, but not this.

I claim you, Aelin. To what­ever end.

She might have continued to silently argue with him, but that strange, feminine warmth that she’d felt at the campsite that morning wrapped around her, as if assuring her it was all right to want this badly enough that it hurt, telling her that she could trust the prince, and more than that—­more than anything, she could trust herself. So when Rowan reached for her wrist again, she did not fight him.

“Together, Fireheart,” he said, pushing back the sleeve of her tunic. “We’ll find a way together.” He looked up from her exposed wrist. “A court that will change the world,” he promised.

And then she was nodding—­nodding and smiling, too, as he drew the dagger from his boot and offered it to her. “Say it, Aelin.”

Not daring to let her hands shake in front of Maeve or Rowan’s stunned friends, she took his dagger and held it over her exposed wrist. “Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?” She did not know the right words or the Old Language, but a blood oath ­wasn’t about pretty phrases.

“I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To what­ever end.”

She would have paused then, asked him again if he really wanted to do this, but Maeve was still there, a shadow lurking behind them. That was why he had done it now, ­here—­so Celaena could not object, could not try to talk him out of it.

It was such a Rowan thing to do, so pigheaded, that she could only grin as she drew the dagger across her wrist, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. She offered her arm to him.

With surprising gentleness, he took her wrist in his hands and lowered his mouth to her skin.

For a heartbeat, something lightning-­bright snapped through her and then settled—­a thread binding them, tighter and tighter with each pull Rowan took of her blood. Three mouthfuls—­his canines pricking against her skin—­and then he lifted his head, his lips shining with her blood, his eyes glittering and alive and full of steel.

There ­were no words to do justice to what passed between them in that moment.

Maeve saved them from trying to remember how to speak as she hissed, “Now that you have insulted me further, get out. All of you.” His friends ­were gone in an instant, padding off for the shadows, taking those wretched whips with them.

Celaena helped Rowan to his feet, letting him heal the wound on her wrist as his back knitted together. Shoulder to shoulder, they looked at the Fae Queen one last time.

But there was only a white barn owl flapping off into the moonlit night.

•

They hurried out of Doranelle, not stopping until they found a quiet inn in a small, half-­forgotten town miles away. Rowan didn’t even dare to swing by his quarters to collect his belongings, and claimed he had nothing worthwhile to take, anyway. His friends did not come after them, did not try to bid them good-­bye as they slipped across the bridge and into the night-­veiled lands beyond. After hours of running, Celaena tumbled into bed and slept like the dead. But at dawn, she begged Rowan to retrieve his needles and ink from his pack.

She bathed while he readied what he needed, and she scrubbed herself with coarse salt in the tiny inn bathroom until her skin gleamed. Rowan said nothing as she walked back into the bedroom, hardly gave her more than a passing glance as she removed her robe, bare to the waist, and laid on her stomach on the worktable he’d ordered brought in. His needles and ink ­were already on the table, his sleeves had been rolled up to the elbows, and his hair was tied back, making the elegant, brutal lines of his tattoo all the more visible.

“Deep breath,” he said. She obeyed, resting her hands under her chin as she played with the fire, weaving her own flames among the embers. “Have you had enough water and food?”

She nodded. She’d devoured a full breakfast before getting into the bath.

“Let me know when you need to get up,” he said. He gave her the honor of not second-­guessing her decision or warning her of the oncoming pain. Instead, he brushed a steady hand down her scarred back, an artist assessing his canvas. He ran strong, callused fingers along each scar, testing, and her skin prickled.

Then he began the pro­cess of drawing the marks, the guide he would follow in the hours ahead. Over breakfast, he’d already sketched a few designs for her approval. They ­were so perfect it was as if he’d reached into her soul to find them. It hadn’t surprised her at all.

He let her use the bathing room when he’d finished with the outline, and soon she was again facedown on the table, hands under her chin. “Don’t move from now on. I’m starting.”

She gave a grunt of ac­know­ledg­ment and kept her gaze on the fire, on the embers, as the heat of his body hovered over hers. She heard his slight intake of breath, and then—

The first prick stung—­holy gods, with the salt and iron, it hurt. She clamped her teeth together, mastered it, welcomed it. That was what the salt was for with this manner of tattoo, Rowan had told her. To remind the bearer of the loss. Good—­good, was all she could think as the pain spiderwebbed through her back. Good.

And when Rowan made the next mark, she opened her mouth and began her prayers.

They ­were prayers she should have said ten years ago: an even-­keeled torrent of words in the Old Language, telling the gods of her parents’ death, her uncle’s death, Marion’s death—­four lives wiped out in those two days. With each sting of Rowan’s needle, she beseeched the faceless immortals to take the souls of her loved ones into their paradise and keep them safe. She told them of their worth—­told them of the good deeds and loving words and brave acts they’d performed. Never pausing for more than a breath, she chanted the prayers she owed them as daughter and friend and heir.

For the hours Rowan worked, his movements falling into the rhythm of her words, she chanted and sang. He did not speak, his mallet and needles the drum to her chanting, weaving their work together. He did not disgrace her by offering water when her voice turned hoarse, her throat so ravaged she had to whisper. In Terrasen she would sing from sunrise to sunset, on her knees in gravel without food or drink or rest. ­Here she would sing until the markings ­were done, the agony in her back her offering to the gods.

When it was done her back was raw and throbbing, and it took her a few attempts to rise from the table. Rowan followed her into the nearby night-­dark field, kneeling with her in the grass as she tilted her face up to the moon and sang the final song, the sacred song of her ­house­hold, the Fae lament she’d owed them for ten years.

Rowan did not utter a word while she sang, her voice broken and raw. He remained in the field with her until dawn, as permanent as the markings on her back. Three lines of text scrolled over her three largest scars, the story of her love and loss now written on her: one line for her parents and uncle; one line for Lady Marion; and one line for her court and her people.

On the smaller, shorter scars, ­were the stories of Nehemia and of Sam. Her beloved dead.

No longer would they be locked away in her heart. No longer would she be ashamed.

61

The War Games came.

All the Ironteeth Clans ­were granted time to rest the day before, but none took it, instead squeezing in last-­minute drills or going over plans and strategies.

Officials and councilors from Adarlan had been arriving for days, come to monitor the Games from the top of the Northern Fang. They would report back to the King of Adarlan about what the witches and their mounts ­were like—­and who the victor was.

Weeks ago, after Abraxos had made the Crossing, Manon had returned to the Omega to grins and applause. Her grandmother was nowhere to be seen, but that was expected. Manon had not accomplished anything; she had merely done what was expected of her.

She saw and heard nothing of the Crochan prisoner in the belly of the Omega, and no one ­else seemed to know anything about her. She was half tempted to ask her grandmother, but the Matron didn’t summon her, and Manon ­wasn’t in the mood to be beaten again.

These days her own temper was fraying as the Clans closed in tight, kept to their own halls, and hardly spoke to each other. What­ever unity they’d shown on the night of Abraxos’s crossing was long gone by the time the War Games arrived, replaced by centuries’ worth of competition and blood feuding.

The Games ­were to take place in, around, and between the two peaks, including the nearest canyon, visible from the Northern Fang. Each of the three Clans would have its own nest atop a nearby mountain peak—­a literal nest of twigs and branches. In the center of each lay a glass egg.

The eggs ­were to be their source of victory and downfall. Each Clan was to capture the eggs of the two enemy teams, but also leave behind a host to protect their own egg. The winning Clan would be the one who gained possession of the two other eggs by stealing them from the nests, where they could not be touched by their guardians, or from what­ever enemy forces carried them. If an egg shattered, it meant automatic disqualification for whoever carried it.

Manon donned her light armor and flying leathers. She wore metal on her shoulders, wrists, and thighs—­any place that could be hit by an arrow or sliced at by wyverns or enemy blades. She was used to the weight and limited movement, and so was Abraxos, thanks to the training she’d forced the Blackbeaks to endure these past few weeks.

Though they ­were under strict orders not to maim or kill, they ­were allowed to carry two weapons each, so Manon took Wind-­Cleaver and her best dagger. The Shadows, Asterin, Lin, and the demon-­twins would wield the bows. They ­were capable of making kill shots from their wyverns now—­had taken run after run at targets in the canyons and made bulls-­eyes each time. Asterin had swaggered into the mess hall that morning, well aware that she was lethal as all hell.

Each Clan wore braided strips of dyed leather across their brows—­black, blue, yellow—­their wyverns painted with similar streaks on their tails, necks, and sides. When all the covens ­were airborne, they gathered in the skies, presenting the entirety of the host to the little mortal men in the mountains below. The Thirteen rode at the head of the Blackbeak covens, keeping perfect rank.

“Fools, for not knowing what they’ve unleashed,” Asterin murmured, the words carried to Manon on the wind. “Stupid, mortal fools.”

Manon hissed her agreement.

They flew in formation: Manon at the head, Asterin and Vesta flanking behind, then three rows of three: Imogen framed by the green-­eyed demons, Ghislaine flanked by Kaya and Thea, the two Shadows and Lin, then Sorrel solo in the back. A battering ram, balanced and flawless, capable of punching through enemy lines.

If Manon didn’t bring them down, then the vicious swords of Asterin and Vesta got them. If that didn’t stop them, the six in the middle ­were a guaranteed death trap. Most ­wouldn’t even make it to the Shadows and Lin, who would be fixing their keen eyes on their surroundings. Or to Sorrel, guarding their rear.

They would take out the enemy forces one by one, with hands and feet and elbows where weapons would ordinarily do the job. The objective was to retrieve the eggs, not kill the others, she reminded herself and the Thirteen again. And again.

The Games began with the ringing of a mighty bell somewhere in the Omega. The skies erupted with wings and claws and shrieks a heartbeat later.

They went after the Blueblood egg first, because Manon knew the Yellowlegs would go for the Blackbeak nest, which they did immediately. Manon signaled to her witches and one third of her force doubled back, falling behind home lines, putting up a solid wall of teeth and wings for the Yellowlegs to break against.

The Bluebloods, who had probably done the least planning in favor of all their various rituals and prayers, sent their forces to the Blackbeaks as well, to see if extra wings could break that iron-­clad wall. Another mistake.

Within ten minutes, Manon and the Thirteen surrounded the Blueblood nest—­and the home guard yielded their trea­sure.

There ­were whoops and hoots—not from the Thirteen, who ­were stone-­faced, eyes glittering, but from the other Blackbeaks, the back third of whom peeled off, circled around, and joined Manon and her returning force to smash the Bluebloods and Yellowlegs between them.

The witches and their wyverns dove high and low, but this was as much for show as it was to win, and Manon did not yield them one inch as they pushed from the front and behind, an aerial vise that had wyverns nearly bucking off their riders in panic.

This—this was what she had been built for. Even battles she’d waged on a broom hadn’t been this fast, brilliant, and deadly. And once they faced their enemies, once they added in an arsenal of weapons . . . Manon was grinning as she placed the Blueblood egg in the Blackbeak nest on the flat mountaintop.

Moments later, Manon and Abraxos ­were gliding over the fray, the Thirteen coming up from behind to regroup. Asterin, the only one who’d kept close the entire time, was grinning like mad—­and as her cousin and her wyvern swept past the Northern Fang and its gathered observers, the golden-­haired witch sprang up from her saddle and took a running leap right off the wing.

The Yellowlegs witch on the wyvern below didn’t see Asterin until she’d landed on her, a hand on her throat where a dagger would have been. Even Manon gasped in delight as the Yellowlegs witch lifted her hands in surrender.

Asterin let go, lifting her arms to be gathered up into the claws of her own wyvern. After a toss and a harrowing fall, Asterin returned to her own saddle, swooping until she was again beside Manon and Abraxos. He swung toward Asterin’s blue wyvern, swiping with his wing—­a playful, almost flirtatious gesture that made the female mount shriek in delight.

Manon raised her brows at her Second. “You’ve been practicing, it seems,” she called.

Asterin grinned. “I didn’t claw my way to Second by sitting on my ass.”

Then Asterin was swooping low again, but still within formation, a wing-­beat away. Abraxos roared, and the Thirteen fell into formation around Manon, four covens flanking them behind. They just had to capture the Yellowlegs egg and bring it back to the Blackbeak nest, and it would be done.

They dodged and soared over fighting covens, and when they reached the Yellowlegs line, the Thirteen pulled up—­and back, sending the other four covens behind them shooting in like an arrow, punching a line through the barrier that the Thirteen then swept through.

Closest to the Northern Fang, the Yellowlegs nest was circled by not three but four covens, a good chunk of the host to keep behind the lines. They ­rose up from the nest—­not individual units, but as one—­and Manon smiled to herself.

They raced for them, and the Yellowlegs held, held . . .

Manon whistled. She and Sorrel went up and down respectively, and her coven split in three, exactly as they’d practiced. Like the limbs of one creature, they struck the Yellowlegs lines—­lines where every coven had mixed, now next to strangers and wyverns with whom they had never ridden closely before. The confusion got worse as the Thirteen scattered them and pushed them about. Orders ­were shouted, names ­were screamed, but the chaos was complete.

They ­were closing in on the nest when four Blueblood covens swept in out of nowhere, led by Petrah herself on her mount, Keelie. She was nearly free-­falling for the nest, which had been left wide open while the Blackbeaks and the Yellowlegs fought. She’d been waiting for this, like a fox in its hole.

She swept in, and Manon dove after her, swearing viciously. A flash of yellow and a shriek of fury, and Manon and Abraxos ­were back-­flapping, veering away as Iskra flashed past the nest—­and slammed right into Petrah.

The two heirs and their wyverns locked talons and went sprawling, crashing through the air, clawing and biting. Shouts ­rose from the mountain and from the airborne witches.

Manon panted, righting her spinning head as Abraxos leveled out above the nest, swooping back in to seal their victory. She was about to nudge him to dive when Petrah screamed. Not in fury, but pain.

Agonizing, soul-­shredding pain, the likes of which Manon had never heard, as Iskra’s wyvern clamped its jaws on Keelie’s neck.

Iskra let out a howl of triumph, and her bull shook Keelie—­Petrah clinging to the saddle.

Now. Now was the time to grab the egg. She nudged Abraxos. “Go,” she hissed, leaning in, bracing for the dive.

Abraxos did not move, but hovered, watching Keelie fight to no avail, wings barely flapping as Petrah screamed again. Begging—­begging Iskra to stop.

“Now, Abraxos!” She kicked him with her spurs. He again refused to dive.

Then Iskra barked a command to her wyvern . . . and the beast let go of Keelie.

•

There was a second scream then, from the mountain. From the Blueblood Matron, screaming for her daughter as she plummeted down to the rocks below. The other Bluebloods whirled, but they ­were too far away, their wyverns too slow to stop that fatal plunge.

But Abraxos was not.

And Manon didn’t know if she gave the command or thought it, but that scream, that mother’s scream she’d never heard before, made her lean in. Abraxos dove, a shooting star with his glistening wings.

They dove and dove, for the broken wyvern and the still-­living witch upon it.

Keelie was still breathing, Manon realized as they neared, the wind tearing at her face and clothes. Keelie was still breathing, and fighting like hell to keep steady. Not to survive. Keelie knew she would be dead any moment. She was fighting for the witch on her back.

Petrah had passed out, twisted in her saddle, from the plunge or the loss of air. She dangled precariously, even as Keelie fought with her last heartbeats to keep the fall smooth and slow. The wyvern’s wings buckled and she yelped in pain.

Abraxos hurtled in, wings spread as he made one pass and then a second, the canyon appearing too fast below. By the time he finished the second glide, almost close enough to touch that bloodstained leathery hide, Manon understood.

He ­couldn’t stop Keelie—­she was too heavy and he too small. Yet they could save Petrah. He’d seen Asterin make that jump, too. She had to get the unconscious witch out of the saddle.

Abraxos roared at Keelie, and Manon could have sworn that he was speaking some alien language, bellowing some command, as Keelie made one final stand for her rider and leveled out flat. A landing platform.

My Keelie, Petrah had said. Had smiled as she said it.

Manon told herself it was for an alliance. Told herself it was for show.

But all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern’s eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

62

Manon hit Keelie and the beast screamed, but held on as Manon hauled herself against the wind and into the saddle where Petrah dangled. Her hands ­were stiff, her gloves making her even clumsier as she sliced with a blade through the leathers, one after another. Abraxos roared his warning. The canyon mouth loomed closer.

Darkness have mercy on her.

Then Manon had Petrah free, the Blueblood heir a dead weight in her arms, her hair whipping Manon’s face like a thousand small knives. She lashed a length of leather around herself and Petrah. Once. Twice. She tied it, lacing her arms through Petrah’s. Keelie kept steady. The canyon lips closed around them, shadow everywhere. Manon bellowed at the weight as she hauled the witch up out of the stirrups and the saddle.

Rock rushed past, but a shadow blotted out the sun, and there was Abraxos, diving for her, plummeting, small and sleek. He was the only wyvern she’d seen bank at that speed in this canyon.

“Thank you,” she said to Keelie as she flung herself and Petrah into the air.

They fell for a heartbeat, twisting and dropping too fast, but then Abraxos was there, his claws outstretched. He swept them up, banking along the side of the canyon and over the lip, rising into the safety of the air.

Keelie hit the floor of the canyon with a crash that could be heard across the mountains.

She did not rise again.

•

The Blackbeaks won the War Games, and Manon was crowned Wing Leader in front of all those frilly, sweating men from Adarlan. They called her a hero, and a true warrior, and more nonsense like that. But Manon had seen her grandmother’s face when she had set Petrah down on the viewing platform. Seen the disgust.

Manon ignored the Blueblood Matron, who had gotten on her knees to thank her. She did not even see Petrah as she was carried off.

The next day, rumor had it, Petrah would not rise from bed. They said she had been broken in her soul when Keelie died.

An unfortunate accident brought on by uncontrollable wyverns, the Yellowlegs Matron had claimed, and Iskra had echoed. But Manon had heard Iskra’s command to kill.

She might have called Iskra out, might have challenged her, if Petrah hadn’t heard that command, too. The vengeance was Petrah’s to claim.

She should have let the witch die, her grandmother screamed at her that night as she struck Manon again and again for her lack of obedience. Lack of brutality. Lack of discipline.

Manon did not apologize. She could not stop hearing the sound made as Keelie hit the earth. And some part of her, perhaps a weak and undisciplined part, did not regret ensuring the animal’s sacrifice had not been in vain.

From everyone ­else, Manon endured the praise heaped on her and accepted the bows from every gods-­damned coven no matter their bloodline.

Wing Leader. She said it to herself, silently, as she and Asterin, half of the Thirteen trailing behind them, approached the mess hall where the celebration was to be held.

The other half ­were already there, scouting ahead for any possible threat or trap. Now that she was Wing Leader, now that she had humiliated Iskra, others would be even more vicious—­to put her down and claim her position.

The crowd was merry, iron teeth glinting all around and ale—­real, fresh ale brought in by those awful men from Adarlan—­sloshing in mugs. Manon had one shoved into her hand, and Asterin yanked it away, drank a mouthful, and waited a moment before she gave it back.

“They’re not above poisoning you,” her Second said, winking as they made their way to the front of the room where the three Matrons ­were waiting. Those men at the Games had held a small ceremony, but this was for the witches—­this was for Manon.

She hid her smile as the crowd parted, letting her through.

The three High Witches ­were seated in makeshift thrones, little more than ornate chairs they’d found. The Blueblood Matron smiled as Manon pressed two fingers to her brow. The Yellowlegs Matron, on the other end, did nothing. But her grandmother, seated in the center, smiled faintly.

A snake’s smile.

“Welcome, Wing Leader,” her grandmother said, and a cry went up from the witches, save for the Thirteen—­who stayed cool and quiet. They did not need to cheer, for they ­were immortal and infinite and gloriously, wonderfully deadly.

“What gift can we give you, what crown can we bestow, to honor what you shall do for us?” her grandmother mused. “You have a fine blade, a fearsome coven”—­the Thirteen all allowed a hint of a smirk—“what ­else could we give you that you do not possess?”

Manon bowed her head. “There is nothing I wish for, save the honor which you have already given me.”

Her grandmother laughed. “What about a new cloak?”

Manon straightened. She could not refuse, but . . . this was her cloak, it had always been.

“That one is looking rather shabby,” her grandmother went on, waving her hand to someone in the crowd. “So ­here is our gift to you, Wing Leader: a replacement.”

There ­were grunts and curses, but the crowd gasped—­in hunger, in anticipation—­as a brown-­haired, shackled witch was hauled forward by three Yellowlegs cronies and forced to her knees before Manon.

If her broken face, shattered fingers, lacerations, and burns did not give away what she was, then the bloodred cloak she wore did.

The Crochan witch, her eyes the solid color of freshly tilled earth, looked up at Manon. How those eyes ­were so bright despite the horrors written on her body, how she didn’t collapse right there or start begging, Manon didn’t know.

“A gift,” said her grandmother, extending an iron-­tipped hand toward the Crochan. “Worthy of my granddaughter. End her life and take your new cloak.”

Manon recognized the challenge. Yet she drew her dagger, and Asterin stepped in close, eyes on the Crochan.

For a moment, Manon stared down at the witch, her mortal enemy. The Crochans had cursed them, made them eternal exiles. They deserved to die, each and every one of them.

But it was not her voice that said those things in her head. No, for some reason, it was her grandmother’s.

“At your leisure, Manon,” her grandmother cooed.

Choking, her lips cracked and bleeding, the Crochan witch looked up at Manon and chuckled. “Manon Blackbeak,” she whispered in what might have been a drawl had her teeth not been broken, her throat ringed with bruises. “I know you.”

“Kill the bitch!” a witch shouted from the back of the room.

Manon looked into her enemy’s face and raised her brows.

“You know what we call you?” Blood welled as the Crochan’s lips peeled into a smile. She closed her eyes as if savoring it. “We call you the White Demon. You’re on our list—­the list of all you monsters to kill on sight if we ever run into you. And you . . .” She opened her eyes and grinned, defiant, furious. “You are at the top of that list. For all that you have done.”

“It’s an honor,” Manon said to the Crochan, smiling enough to show her teeth.

“Cut out her tongue!” someone ­else called.

“End her,” Asterin hissed.

Manon flipped the dagger, angling it to sink into the Crochan’s heart.

The witch laughed, but it turned into a cough that had her heaving until blue blood splattered on the floor, until tears ­were leaking from her eyes and Manon caught a glimpse of the deep, infected wounds on her chest. When she lifted her head, blood staining the corners of her mouth, she smiled again. “Look all you want. Look at what they did to me, your sisters. How it must pain them to know they ­couldn’t break me in the end.”

Manon stared down at her, at her ruined body.

“Do you know what this is, Manon Blackbeak?” the Crochan said. “Because I do. I heard them say what you did during your Games.”

Manon ­wasn’t sure why she was letting the witch talk, but she ­couldn’t have moved if she wanted to.

“This,” the Crochan said for all to hear, “is a reminder. My death—­my murder at your hands, is a reminder. Not to them,” she breathed, pinning Manon with that soil-­brown stare. “But to you. A reminder of what they made you to be. They made you this way.

“You want to know the grand Crochan secret?” she went on. “Our great truth that we keep from you, that we guard with our lives? It is not where we hide, or how to break your curse. You have known all this time how to break it—­you have known for five hundred years that your salvation lies in your hands alone. No, our great secret is that we pity you.”

No one was speaking now.

But the Crochan did not break Manon’s stare, and Manon did not lower her dagger.

“We pity you, each and every one of you. For what you do to your children. They are not born evil. But you force them to kill and hurt and hate until there is nothing left inside of them—­of you. That is why you are ­here to­night, Manon. Because of the threat you pose to that monster you call grandmother. The threat you posed when you chose mercy and saved your rival’s life.” She gasped for breath, tears flowing unabashedly as she bared her teeth. “They have made you into monsters. Made, Manon. And we feel sorry for you.”

“Enough,” the Matron said from behind. But the ­whole room was silent, and Manon slowly raised her eyes to her grandmother’s.

In them, Manon beheld a promise of the violence and pain that would come if she disobeyed. Beyond that, there gleamed nothing but satisfaction. As if the Crochan had spoken true, but only the Blackbeak Matron knew she had done so.

The Crochan’s eyes ­were still bright with a courage Manon could not comprehend.

“Do it,” the Crochan whispered. Manon wondered if anyone else understood that it was not a challenge, but a plea.

Manon angled her dagger again, flipping it in her palm. She did not look at the Crochan, or her grandmother, or anyone as she gripped the witch by the hair and yanked back her head.

And then spilled her throat on the floor.

•

Legs dangling off a cliff edge, Manon sat on a plateau atop a peak in the Ruhnns, Abraxos sprawled at her side, smelling the night-­blooming flowers on the spring meadow.

She’d had no choice but to take the Crochan’s cloak, to dump her old one atop the body once it fell, once the witches gathered around to rip her apart.

They have made you into monsters.

Manon looked at her wyvern, the tip of his tail waving like a cat’s. No one had noticed when she left the celebration. Even Asterin was drunk on the Crochan’s blood, and had lost sight of Manon slipping through the crowd. She told Sorrel, though, that she was going to see Abraxos. And her Third, somehow, had let her go alone.

They’d flown until the moon was high and she could no longer hear the shrieks and cackles of the witches in the Omega. Together they sat on the last of the Ruhnns, and she gazed across the endless flat expanse between the peaks and the western sea. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, was a home that she had never known.

Crochans ­were liars and insufferably preachy. The witch had probably enjoyed giving her little speech—­making some grand last stand. We feel sorry for you.

Manon rubbed at her eyes and braced her elbows on her knees, peering into the drop below.

She would have dismissed her, ­wouldn’t have thought twice about it, if it hadn’t been for that look in Keelie’s eyes as she fell, fighting with every last scrap of strength to save her Petrah. Or for Abraxos’s wing, sheltering Manon against icy rain.

The wyverns ­were meant to kill and maim and strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. And yet . . .

And yet. Manon looked toward the star-­flecked horizon, leaning her face into a warm spring breeze, grateful for the steady, solid companion lounging behind her. A strange feeling, that gratitude for his existence.

Then there was that other strange feeling that pushed and pulled at her, making her replay the scene in the mess hall again and again.

She had never known regret—­not true regret, anyway.

But she regretted not knowing the Crochan’s name. She regretted not knowing who the new cloak on her shoulders had belonged to—­where she had come from, how she had lived.

Somehow, even though her long life had been gone for ten years . . .

Somehow, that regret made her feel incredibly, heavily mortal.

63

Aedion let out a low whistle and offered Chaol the bottle of wine between them on the rooftop of Celaena’s apartment. Chaol, not feeling at all like drinking, shook his head.

“I wish I had been there to see it.” He gave Chaol a wolfish smile. “I’m surprised you’re not condemning me for saying that.”

“What­ever creatures the king sent with Narrok, I do not think they ­were innocent men,” Chaol said. “Or really men at all anymore.”

She had done it—­had made such a statement that even days later, Aedion was still celebrating. Quietly, of course.

Chaol had come ­here to­night planning to tell Aedion and Ren what he knew of the spell the king had used and how they might destroy it. But he hadn’t yet. He still wondered what Aedion would do with that knowledge. Especially once Chaol left for Anielle in three days.

“When she gets home, you need to lie low in Anielle,” Aedion said, swigging from the bottle. “Once it comes out who she was all these years.”

And it would, Chaol knew. He was already preparing to get Dorian and Sorscha out of the castle. Even if they had done nothing wrong, they had been her friends. If the king knew that Celaena was Aelin, it could be just as deadly as if he discovered that Dorian had magic. When she came home, everything would change.

Yes, Aelin would come home. But not to Chaol. She would come home to Terrasen, to Aedion and Ren and the court that was re­gathering in her name. She would come home to war and bloodshed and responsibility. Part of him still could not fathom what she’d done to Narrok, the battle cry she’d issued from across the sea. He could not accept that part of her, so bloodthirsty and unyielding. Even as Celaena, it had been hard to swallow at times, and he had tried to look past it, but as Aelin . . . He’d known, since the moment he figured out who she was, that while Celaena would always pick him, Aelin would not.

And it would not be Celaena Sardothien who returned to this continent. It would take time, he knew—­for it to stop hurting, to let go. But the pain ­wouldn’t last forever.

“Is there . . .” Aedion clenched his jaw as if debating saying the rest. “Is there anything you want me to tell her, or give her?” At any moment, any time, Aedion might have to flee to Terrasen and to his queen.

The Eye of Elena was warm at his neck, and Chaol almost reached for it. But he ­couldn’t bring himself to send her that message, or to let go of her that completely—­not yet. Just as he ­couldn’t bring himself to tell Aedion about the clock tower.

“Tell her,” Chaol said quietly, “that I had nothing to do with you. Tell her you barely spoke to me. Or Dorian. Tell her I am fine in Anielle, and that we are all safe.”

Aedion was quiet long enough that Chaol got up to leave. But then the general said, “What would you have given—­just to see her again?”

Chaol ­couldn’t turn around as he said, “It ­doesn’t matter now.”

•

Sorscha rested her head on the soft spot between Dorian’s shoulder and chest, breathing in the smell of him. He was already sleeping deeply. Almost—­they had almost taken things over the edge to­night, but she had again hesitated, again let that stupid doubt creep in when he asked her if she was ready, and though she wanted to say yes, she had said no.

She lay awake, stomach tight and mind racing. There was so much she wanted to do and see with him. But she could feel the world shifting—­the wind changing. Aelin Galathynius was alive. And even if Sorscha gave everything to Dorian, the upcoming weeks and months would be trying enough for him without having to worry about her.

If the captain and the prince decided to act on their knowledge, if magic was freed . . . it would be chaos. People might go as mad from its sudden return as they’d gone from its departure. She didn’t want to think what the king would do.

Yet no matter what happened tomorrow, or next week, or next year, she was grateful. Grateful to the gods, to fate, to herself for being brave enough to kiss him that night. Grateful for this little bit of time she’d been given with him.

She still thought about what the captain had said all those weeks ago—­about being queen.

But Dorian needed a true queen if he was to survive this. Someday, perhaps, she’d have to face the choice of letting him go for the greater good. She was still quiet, and small. If she could hardly stand up to Amithy, how could she ever be expected to fight for her country?

No, she could not be queen, for there ­were limits to her bravery, and to what she could offer.

But for now . . . for now, she could be selfish for a little longer.

•

For two days, Chaol continued to plan an escape for Dorian and Sorscha, Aedion working with him. They hadn’t objected when he’d explained—­and there had even been a hint of relief in the prince’s eyes. They would all go tomorrow, when Chaol left for Anielle. It was the perfect excuse to get them out of the castle: they wanted to accompany their friend for a day or two before bidding him farewell. He knew Dorian would try to return to Rifthold, that he’d have to fight him on it, but at least they could both agree that Sorscha was to get out. Some of Aedion’s own belongings ­were already at the apartment, where Ren continued to gather resources for them all.

Just in case. Chaol had turned in his formal suggestions for his replacement to the king, and the announcement would be made tomorrow morning. After all these years, all that planning and hoping and working, he was leaving. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave his sword to his replacement, as he should have done. Tomorrow—­he only had to get through tomorrow.

But there was no way Chaol could prepare for the summons he received from the King of Adarlan to meet him in his private council chamber. When he arrived, Aedion was already inside, surrounded by fifteen guards Chaol did not recognize, all wearing those tunics with the royal wyvern embroidered with black thread.

The King of Adarlan was grinning.

•

Dorian heard within minutes that Aedion and Chaol had been summoned to his father’s private council room. As soon as he heard, he ran—­not for Chaol, but to Sorscha.

He almost collapsed with relief when he found her in her workroom. But he willed strength to his knees as he crossed the room in a few strides and grabbed her hand. “We’re getting out. Now. You are getting out of this castle right now, Sorscha.”

She pulled back. “What happened? Tell me, what—”

“We’re going now,” he panted.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” someone purred from the open doorway.

He turned to find Amithy—­the old healer—­standing there, arms crossed and smiling faintly. Dorian could do nothing as half a dozen unfamiliar guards appeared behind her and she said, “The king wants to see you both in his chambers. Immediately.”

64

In the council room high in the glass castle, Aedion had already marked the exits and considered what furniture he could use as a defense or as a weapon. They’d taken his sword when they’d come for him in his rooms, though they hadn’t shackled him. A lethal mistake. The captain ­wasn’t shackled, either; in fact, the fools had left him armed. The captain was doing his best to look vaguely confused as the king watched them from his glass throne.

“What an interesting night this has turned out to be. What interesting information my spies have brought me,” the king said, looking from Aedion to Chaol to Dorian and his woman.

“My most talented general is found to be sneaking around Rifthold in the dead of night—­after spending so much of my gold on parties he does not even bother attending. And he has somehow, despite years of animosity, become close with my Captain of the Guard. While my son”—­Aedion did not envy the smile the king gave the Crown Prince—“has apparently been dabbling with the rabble. Again.”

To his credit, Dorian snarled and said, “Consider your words carefully, Father.”

“Oh?” The king raised a thick, scarred brow. “I had it on good authority that you ­were planning to run away with this healer. Why would you ever do such a thing?”

The prince’s throat bobbed, but he kept his head high. “Because I ­can’t stand the thought of her spending another minute in this ­festering shithole that you call a court.” Aedion ­couldn’t help but admire him for it—­for yielding nothing until the king showed his hand. Smart man—­brave man. But it might not be enough to get them out of this alive.

“Good,” the king said. “Neither can I.”

He waved a hand, and before Aedion could bark a warning, the guards separated the prince and the girl. Four held Dorian back, and two forced Sorscha to kneel with a kick behind the knees.

She cried out as she hit the marble, but went silent—­the ­whole room went silent—­as a third guard pulled a sword and placed it lightly on the back of her slender neck.

“Don’t you dare,” Dorian growled.

Aedion looked to Chaol, but the captain was frozen. These ­were not his guards. Their uniforms ­were those of the men who had hunted Ren. They had the same dead eyes, the same vileness, that had made him not at all regret killing their colleagues in the alley. He’d taken down six that night with minimal damage—­how many could he cut down now? His gaze met the captain’s, and the captain flicked his eyes to the guard who held Aedion’s sword. That would be one of his first moves—­get Aedion a sword so they could fight.

Because they would fight. They would fight their way out of this, or to their deaths.

The king said to Dorian, “I would choose your next words carefully, Prince.”

•

Chaol ­couldn’t start the fight, not with that sword resting on Sorscha’s neck. That was his first goal: get the girl out alive. Then Aedion. Dorian, the king ­wouldn’t kill—­not ­here, not in this way. But Aedion and Sorscha had to get away. And that could not happen until the king called off the guard. Then Dorian spoke.

“Let her go and I’ll tell you anything.” Dorian took a step toward his father, palms out. “She has nothing to do with—­with what­ever this is. What­ever you think has happened.”

“But you do?” The king was still smiling. There was a carved, round bit of familiar black stone resting on the small table beside the king. From the distance, Chaol ­couldn’t see what it was, but it made his stomach turn over regardless. “Tell me, son: why ­were General Ashryver and Captain Westfall meeting these months?”

“I don’t know.”

The king clicked his tongue, and the guard raised his sword to strike. Chaol started forward as Sorscha sucked in a breath.

“No—stop!” Dorian flung out a hand.

“Then answer the question.”

“I am! You bastard, I am! I don’t know why they ­were meeting!”

The guard’s sword still remained up, ready to fall before Chaol could move an inch.

“Do you know that there has been a spy in my castle for several months now, Prince? Someone feeding information to my enemies and plotting against me with a known rebel leader?”

Shit. Shit. He had to mean Ren—­the king knew who Ren was, had sent those men to hunt him down.

“Just tell me who, Dorian, and you can do what­ever you wish with your friend.”

The king didn’t know, then—­if it was he or Aedion or both of them who had been meeting with Ren. He didn’t know how much they’d learned about his plans, his control over magic. Aedion was somehow still keeping his mouth shut, somehow still looking ready for battle.

Aedion, who had survived for so long without hope, holding together his kingdom as best he could . . . who would never see the queen he so fiercely loved. He deserved to meet her, and she deserved to have him serve in her court.

Chaol took a breath, preparing himself for the words that would doom him.

But it was Aedion who spoke.

“You want a spy? You want a traitor?” the general drawled, and flung his replicated black ring on the floor. “Then ­here I am. You want to know why the captain and I ­were meeting? It was because your stupid bastard of a boy-­captain figured out that I’d been working with one of the rebels. He’s been blackmailing information out of me for months to give to his father to offer you when the Lord of Anielle needed a favor. And you know what?” Aedion grinned at them all, the Northern Wolf incarnate. If the king was shocked about the ring, he didn’t show it. “All you monsters can burn in hell. Because my queen is coming—­and she will spike you to the walls of your gods-­damned castle. And I ­can’t wait to help her gut you like the pigs you are.” He spat at the king’s feet, right on top of the fake ring that had stopped bouncing.

It was flawless—­the rage and the arrogance and the triumph. But as he stared each of them down, Chaol’s heart fractured.

Because for a flicker, as those turquoise eyes met with his, there was none of that rage or triumph. Only a message to the queen that Aedion would never see. And there ­were no words to convey it—­the love and the hope and the pride. The sorrow at not knowing her as the woman she had become. The gift Aedion thought he was giving her in sparing Chaol’s life.

Chaol nodded slightly, because he understood that he could not help, not at this point—­not until that sword was removed from Sorscha’s neck. Then he could fight, and he might still get them out alive.

Aedion didn’t struggle as the guards clapped shackles around his wrists and ankles.

“I’ve always wondered about that ring,” the king said. “Was it the distance, or some true strength of spirit that made you so unresponsive to its suggestions? But regardless, I am so glad that you confessed to treason, Aedion.” He spoke with slow, deliberate glee. “So glad you did it in front of all these witnesses, too. It will make your execution that much easier. Though I think . . .” The king smiled and looked at the fake black ring. “I think I’ll wait. Perhaps give it a month or two. Just in case any last-­minute guests have to travel a long, long way for the execution. Just in case someone gets it into her head that she can rescue you.”

Aedion snarled. Chaol bit back his own reaction. Perhaps the king had never had anything on them—­perhaps this had only been a ruse to get Aedion to confess to something, because the king knew that the general would offer up his own life instead of an innocent’s. The king wanted to savor this, and savor the trap that he had now set for Aelin, even if it cost him a fine general in the pro­cess. Because once she heard that Aedion was captured, once she knew the execution date . . . she would run to Rifthold.

“After she comes for you,” Aedion promised the king, “they’ll have to scrape what’s left of you off the walls.”

The king only smiled. Then he looked to Dorian and Sorscha, who seemed to be hardly breathing. The healer remained on the floor and did not lift her head as the king braced his massive forearms on his knees and said, “And what do you have to say for yourself, girl?”

She trembled, shaking her head.

“That’s enough,” Dorian snapped, sweat gleaming on his brow. The prince winced in pain as his magic was repressed by the iron in his system. “Aedion confessed; now let her go.”

“Why should I release the true traitor in this castle?”

•

Sorscha ­couldn’t stop shaking as the king spoke.

All her years of remaining invisible, all her training, first from those rebels in Fenharrow, then the contacts they’d sent her family to in Rifthold . . . all of it ruined.

“Such interesting letters you send to your friend. Why, I might not ever have read them,” the king said, “if you hadn’t left one in the rubbish for your superior to find. See—­you rebels have your spies, and I have mine. And as soon as you decided to start using my son . . .” She could feel the king smirking at her. “How many of his movements did you report to your rebel friends? What secrets of mine have you given away over the years?”

“Leave her alone,” Dorian growled. It was enough to set her crying. He still thought she was innocent.

And maybe, maybe he could get out of this if he was surprised enough by the truth, if the king saw his son’s shock and disgust.

So Sorscha lifted her head, even as her mouth trembled, even as her eyes burned, and stared down the King of Adarlan.

“You destroyed everything that I had, and you deserve everything that’s to come,” she said. Then she looked at Dorian, whose eyes ­were indeed wide, his face bone-­white. “I was not supposed to love you. But I did. I do. And there is so much I wish . . . I wish we could have done together, seen together.”

The prince just stared at her, then walked to the foot of the dais and dropped to his knees. “Name your price,” he said to his father. “Ask it of me, but let her go. Exile her. Banish her. Anything—say it, and it will be done.”

She began shaking her head, trying to find the words to tell him that she hadn’t betrayed him—­not her prince. The king, yes. She had reported his movements for years, in each carefully written letter to her “friend.” But never Dorian.

The king looked at his son for a long moment. He looked at the captain and Aedion, so quiet and so tall—­beacons of hope for their future.

Then he looked again at his son, on his knees before the throne, on his knees for her, and said, “No.”

•

“No.”

Chaol thought he had not heard it, the word that cleaved through the air just before the guard’s sword did.

One blow from that mighty sword.

That was all it took to sever Sorscha’s head.

The scream that erupted out of Dorian was the worst sound that Chaol had ever heard.

Worse even than the wet, heavy thud of her head hitting the red marble.

Aedion began roaring—­roaring and cursing at the king, thrashing against his chains, but the guards hauled him away, and Chaol was too stunned to do anything other than watch the rest of Sorscha’s body topple to the ground. And then Dorian, still screaming, was scrambling through the blood toward it—­toward her head, as if he could put it back.

As if he could piece her together.

65

Chaol hadn’t been able to move a muscle from the moment the guard cut off Sorscha’s head to the moment Dorian, still kneeling in a pool of her blood, stopped screaming.

“That is what awaits traitors,” the king said to the silent room.

And Chaol looked at the king, at his shattered friend, and drew his sword.

The king rolled his eyes. “Put away your sword, Captain. I’ve no interest in your noble antics. You’re to go home to your father tomorrow. Don’t leave this castle in disgrace.”

Chaol kept his sword drawn. “I will not go to Anielle,” he growled. “And I will not serve you a moment longer. There is one true king in this room—­there always has been. And he is not sitting on that throne.”

Dorian stiffened.

But Chaol went on. “There is a queen in the north, and she has already beaten you once. She will beat you again. And again. Because what she represents, and what your son represents, is what you fear most: hope. You cannot steal it, no matter how many you rip from their homes and enslave. And you cannot break it, no matter how many you murder.”

The king shrugged. “Perhaps. But maybe I can start with you.” He flicked his fingers at the guards. “Kill him, too.”

Chaol whirled to the guards behind him and crouched, ready to fight a path out for himself and Dorian.

Then a crossbow snapped and he realized there had been others in the room—­hidden behind impossibly thick shadows.

He had only enough time to twist—­to see the bolt firing for him with deadly accuracy.

Only enough time to see Dorian’s eyes widen, and the ­whole room plunge into ice.

•

The arrow froze midflight and dropped to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.

Chaol stared at Dorian in mute horror as his friend’s eyes glowed a deep, raging blue, and the prince snarled at the king, “Don’t you touch him.”

The ice spread across the room, up the legs of the shocked guards, freezing over Sorscha’s blood, and Dorian got to his feet. He raised both hands, and light shimmered along his fingers, a cold breeze whipping through his hair.

“I knew you had it, boy—” the king started, standing, but Dorian threw out a hand and the king was blasted into his chair by a gust of frozen wind, the window behind him shattering. Wind roared into the room, drowning out all sound.

All sound except Dorian’s words as he turned to Chaol, his hands and clothes soaked with Sorscha’s blood. “Run. And when you come back . . .” The king was getting to his feet, but another wave of Dorian’s magic slammed into him, knocking him down. There ­were tears staining Dorian’s bloody cheeks now. “When you come back,” the prince said, “burn this place to the ground.”

A wall of crackling black hurtled toward them from behind the throne.

“Go,” Dorian ordered, turning toward the onslaught of his father’s power.

Light exploded from Dorian, blocking out the wave, and the entire castle shook.

People screamed, and Chaol’s knees buckled. For a moment, he debated making a stand with his friend, right there and then.

But he knew that this had been the other trap. One for Aedion and Aelin, one for Sorscha. And this one—­this one to draw out Dorian’s power.

Dorian had known it, too. Known it, and still walked into it so Chaol could escape—­to find Aelin and tell her what had happened ­here today. Someone had to get out. Someone had to survive.

He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known, from the moment they’d met, when he’d understood that the prince was his brother in soul. “I love you.”

Dorian merely nodded, eyes still blazing, and lifted his hands again toward his father. Brother. Friend. King.

As another wave of the king’s power filled the room, Chaol shoved through the still-­frozen guards and fled.

•

Aedion knew everything had gone to hell as the castle shuddered. But he was already on his way to the dungeons, bound from head to toe.

It had been such an easy choice to make. When the captain had been about to take the fall for both of them, he’d thought only of Aelin, what it would do to her if her friend died. Even if he never got to see her, it was still better than having to face her when he explained that the captain was dead.

From the sound of it, it seemed the prince was providing a distraction so the captain could flee—­and because there was no way in hell the prince would let his father go unpunished for that woman’s death. So Aedion Ashryver let himself be led into the darkness.

He did not bother with prayers, for himself or for the captain. The gods had not helped him these past ten years, and they would not save him now.

He did not mind dying.

Though he still wished he’d gotten a chance to see her—­just once.

•

Dorian slammed into the marble floor, where the puddle of Sorscha’s blood had now melted.

Even as his father sent a wave of blinding, burning black power crashing onto him, filling his mouth and his veins; even as he screamed, all he could see was that moment—­when the sword cut through flesh and tendon and bone. He could still see her wide eyes, her hair glimmering in the light as it, too, was severed.

He should have saved her. It had been so sudden.

But when the arrow had fired at Chaol . . . that was the death he could not endure. Chaol had drawn his line—­and Dorian was on his side of it. Chaol had called him his king.

So revealing his power to his father did not frighten him.

No, to save his friend, dying did not scare him one bit.

The blast of power receded, and Dorian was left panting on the stones. He had nothing left.

Chaol had gotten away. It was enough.

He reached out an arm toward where Sorscha’s body lay. His arm burned—­maybe it was broken, or maybe it was his father’s power still branding him—­but he reached for her nonetheless.

By the time his father stood over him, he’d managed to move his hand a few inches.

“Do it,” Dorian rasped. He was choking—­on blood and the gods knew what.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” his father said, digging a knee into his chest. “It won’t be death for you, my gifted son.”

There was something dark and gleaming in his father’s hands.

Dorian fought like hell against the guards now pinning his arms, trying to drag up any ounce of power as his father brought the collar of Wyrdstone toward his neck.

A collar, like the ones worn by those things Chaol had said ­were in the Dead Islands.

No—no.

He was screaming it—­screaming it because he’d seen that creature in the catacombs, and heard what was being done to Roland and Kaltain. He had seen what a mere ring could do. This was an entire collar, with no visible keyhole . . .

“Hold him still,” his father barked, digging his knee in deeper.

The breath was sucked from his chest, and his ribs groaned in agony. But there was nothing Dorian could do to stop it.

He wrenched his arm from one of the guards—­wrenched it free and reached, bellowing.

He had just touched Sorscha’s limp hand when cool stone gripped his throat, there was a faint click and hiss, and the darkness swept in to tear him apart.

•

Chaol ran. He did not have the time to take anything except what he had on him as he sprinted like hell for Dorian’s rooms. Fleetfoot was waiting, as she had been all night, and he scooped her over a shoulder and hauled her to Celaena’s room and into the secret passage. Down and down they went, the dog unusually obedient.

Three blasts shook the castle, shaking dust from the stones above. He kept running, knowing each blast meant Dorian was alive a bit longer, and dreading the silence to come.

Hope—that was what he carried with him. The hope of a better world that Aedion and Sorscha and Dorian had sacrificed themselves for.

He made one stop, with Fleetfoot still gripped over his shoulder.

With a silent prayer to the gods for their forgiveness, Chaol hurtled into the tomb to grab Damaris, shoving the sacred blade through his belt and stuffing a few handfuls of gold into his cloak pockets. And though the skull-­shaped knocker didn’t move, he told Mort precisely where he would be. “Just in case she comes back. In case . . . in case she ­doesn’t know.”

Mort remained stationary, but Chaol had the sense he’d been listening all the same as he grabbed the satchel containing Dorian and Celaena’s magic books and fled to the passage that would take him to the sewer tunnel. A few minutes later, he was raising the heavy iron grate over the sewer stream. The outside beyond was wholly dark and still.

As he heaved Fleetfoot back into his arms to swing them both around the wall and onto the stream bank beyond, the castle went silent. There ­were screams, yes, but silence lurked beneath them. He did not want to know if Dorian was alive or dead.

He ­couldn’t decide which was worse.

•

When Chaol got to the hidden apartment, Ren was pacing. “Where’s—”

There was blood on him, he realized. The spray from Sorscha’s neck. Chaol didn’t know how he found the words, but he told Ren what had happened.

“So it’s just us?” Ren asked quietly. Chaol nodded. Fleetfoot was sniffing around in the apartment, having made her inspection and decided Ren ­wasn’t worth eating—­even after Ren had protested that the dog might draw too much attention. She was staying; that was nonnegotiable.

A muscle feathered in Ren’s jaw. “Then we find a way to free Aedion. As soon as possible. You and me. Between your knowledge of the castle and my contacts, we can find a way.” Then he whispered, “You said Dorian’s woman was—­was a healer?” When Chaol nodded, Ren looked like he was about to be sick, but he asked, “Was she named Sorscha?”

“You ­were the friend she sent those letters to,” Chaol breathed.

“I kept pressing her for information, kept . . .” Ren covered his face and took a shuddering breath. When his eyes at last met Chaol’s, they ­were bright. Slowly, Ren held out a hand. “You and me, we’ll find a way to free them. Both Aedion and your prince.”

Chaol didn’t hesitate as he gripped the rebel’s outstretched hand.

66

“Morath,” Manon said, wondering if she’d heard right. “For battle?”

Her grandmother turned from the desk, eyes flashing. “To serve the duke, just as the king ordered. He wants the Wing Leader in Morath with half the host ready to fly at a moment’s notice. The others are to stay ­here under Iskra’s command to monitor the north.”

“And you—­where will you be?”

Her grandmother hissed, rising. “So many questions now that you’re Wing Leader.”

Manon bowed her head. They had not spoken of the Crochan. Manon had gotten the message: next time, it would be one of the Thirteen on her knees. So she kept her head down as she said, “I only ask because I would not be parted with you, Grandmother.”

“Liar. And a pathetic one.” Her grandmother turned back to the desk. “I shall remain ­here, but come to you in Morath during the summer. We have work to finish ­here.”

Manon lifted her chin, her new red cloak pooling around her, and asked, “And when shall we fly to Morath?”

Her grandmother smiled, iron teeth shining. “Tomorrow.”

•

Even under the cover of darkness, the warm spring breeze was full of new grass and snow-­melted rivers, only disrupted by the booming of wings as Manon led the host south along the Fangs.

They kept to the shadows of the mountains, shifting ranks and dipping out of sight to prevent anyone from getting an accurate count of their numbers. Manon sighed through her nose, and the wind ripped the sound away, just as it streamed her long red cloak behind her.

Asterin and Sorrel flanked her, silent like the rest of the covens for the long hours they’d flown down the mountains. They would cross Oakwald where Morath’s mountains ­were closest, then rise above the cover of the cloud line for the rest of the journey. Unseen and as quiet as possible—­that was how the king wanted them to arrive at the duke’s mountain fortress. They flew all night down the Fangs, swift and sleek as shadows, and the earth below quivered in their wake.

Sorrel was stone-­faced, monitoring the skies around them, but Asterin was smiling faintly. It was not a wild grin, or one that promised death, but a calm smile. To be aloft and skimming the clouds. Where every Blackbeak belonged. Where Manon belonged.

Asterin caught her stare and smiled wider, as if there ­wasn’t a host of witches flying behind them and Morath lying ahead. Her cousin turned her face into the wind, breathing it in, exultant.

Manon did not let herself savor that beautiful breeze or open herself to that joy. She had work to do; they all did. Despite what the Crochan had said, Manon had not been born with a heart, or a soul. She did not need them.

Once they fought the king’s war, when his enemies ­were bleeding out around them . . . only then would they ­ride to reclaim their broken kingdom.

And she would go home at last.

67

The rising sun was staining the Avery River with gold as the cloaked man strode onto a rickety dock in the slums. Fishermen ­were heading out for the day, revelers ­were stumbling in for the night, and Rifthold was still asleep—­unaware of what had happened the night before.

The man pulled out a lovely blade, its ea­gle pommel glinting in the first light of dawn. For a long moment, he stared at the sword, thinking of all that it had once embodied. But there was a new sword at his side—­an ancient king’s blade, from a time when good men had served noble rulers and the world had prospered for it.

He would see that world reborn, even if it took his last breath. Even if he had no name now, no position or title save Oath-­Breaker, Traitor, Liar.

No one noticed when the sword was jettisoned over the river, its pommel catching the sun and burning like golden fire, a flash of light before it was swallowed by the dark water, never to be seen again.

68

It turned out that the “submission” part of a blood oath was something Rowan liked to interpret as it suited him. During their two-­week trek to the nearest port in Wendlyn, he bossed Celaena around even more—­seeming to believe that now he was part of her court, it entitled him to certain nonnegotiable rights regarding her safety, her movements, and her plans.

She was starting to wonder, as they approached the docks at the end of the cobblestone street, if she had made a teensy mistake in binding him to her forever. They’d been arguing for the past three days about her next move—­about the ship she’d hired to take her back to Adarlan.

“This plan is absurd,” Rowan said for the hundredth time, stopping in the shadows of a tavern by the docks. The sea air was light and crisp. “Going back alone seems like suicide.”

“One, I’m going back as Celaena, not Aelin—”

“Celaena, who did not accomplish the king’s mission, and who they are now going to hunt down.”

“The King and Queen of Eyllwe should have gotten their warning by now.” She’d sent it the first time they’d gone into town while investigating the murder of those poor people. Though letters ­were nearly impossible to send into the empire, Wendlyn had certain ways of getting around that. And as for Chaol . . . well, that was another reason why she was ­here, on this dock, about to get onto this ship. She had awoken this morning and slipped the amethyst ring off her finger. It had felt like a blessed release, a final shadow lifted from her heart. But there ­were still words left unsaid between them, and she needed to make sure he was safe—­and would remain that way.

“So you’re going to get the key from your old master, find the captain, and then what?”

Complete submission to her indeed. “Then I go north.”

“And I’m supposed to sit on my ass for the next gods know how many months?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous, Rowan. If your tattoos don’t attract attention, then the hair, the ears, the teeth . . .”

“I have another form, you know.”

“And, just like I said, magic ­doesn’t work there anymore. You’d be trapped in that form. Though I do hear that Rifthold rats are particularly delicious, if you want to eat them for months.”

He glared at her, then scanned the ship—­even though she knew he’d snuck out of their room at the inn last night to inspect it already. “We’re stronger together than apart.”

“If I’d known you would be such a pain in the ass, I never would have let you swear that oath.”

“Aelin.” At least he ­wasn’t calling her “Majesty” or “My Lady.” “Either as yourself or as Celaena, they will try to find you and kill you. They are probably already tracking you down. We could go to Varese right now and approach your mother’s mortal kin, the Ashryvers. They might have a plan.”

“My chance at success in getting the Wyrdkey out of Rifthold lies in stealth as Celaena.”

“Please,” he said.

But she merely lifted her chin. “I am going, Rowan. I will gather the rest of my court—our court—­and then we will raise the greatest army the world has ever witnessed. I will call in every favor, every debt owed to Celaena Sardothien, to my parents, to my bloodline. And then . . .” She looked toward the sea, toward home. “And then I am going to rattle the stars.” She put her arms around him—­a promise. “Soon. I will send for you soon, when the time is right. Until then, try to make yourself useful.” He shook his head, but gripped her in a bone-­crushing embrace.

He pulled back far enough to look at her. “Perhaps I’ll go help repair Mistward.”

She nodded. “You never told me,” she said, “what you ­were praying to Mala for that morning before we entered Doranelle.”

For a moment, it looked like he ­wouldn’t tell her. But then he quietly said, “I prayed for two things. I asked her to ensure you survived the encounter with Maeve—­to guide you and give you the strength you needed.”

That strange, comforting warmth, that presence that had reassured her . . . the setting sun kissed her cheeks as if in confirmation, and a shiver went down her spine. “And the second?”

“It was a selfish wish, and a fool’s hope.” She read the rest of it in his eyes. But it came true.

“Dangerous, for a prince of ice and wind to pray to the Fire-­Bringer,” she managed to say.

Rowan shrugged, a secret smile on his face as he wiped away the tear that escaped down her cheek. “For some reason, Mala likes me, and agreed that you and I make a formidable pair.”

But she didn’t want to know—­didn’t want to think about the Sun Goddess and her agenda as she flung herself on Rowan, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him. The first member of her court—­the court that would change the world. The court that would rebuild it. Together.

She boarded the boat as night fell, herded into the galley with the other passengers to keep them from learning the route through the reef. With little fuss they set sail, and when they ­were at last allowed out of the galley, she emerged onto the deck to find dark, open ocean around them. A white-tailed hawk still flew overhead, and it swooped low to brush its star-­silvered wing against her cheek in farewell before it turned back with a sharp cry.

In the moonless light, she traced the scar on her palm, the oath to Nehemia.

She would retrieve the first Wyrdkey from Arobynn and track down the others, and then find a way to put the Wyrdkeys back in their Gate. She would free magic and destroy the king and save her people. No matter the odds, no matter how long it took, no matter how far she had to go.

She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-­glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen.

She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—­and she would not be afraid.

Acknowledgments

This book would not exist without my friends. Especially my best friend, Jaeger copi­lot, and anam cara, Susan Dennard.

It’s to her that I owe the biggest debt, for the entire days spent brainstorming and figuring out the right way to tell the story, for holding my hand as I walked down the dark paths of this book, for being the voice in my head telling me to keep going, keep going, keep going. There was no one ­else that this book could have been dedicated to; no one ­else who challenges and uplifts and inspires me so greatly. So, thank you, Soozyface, for being the kind of friend I was so sure didn’t exist in this world. Love you, dude.

I also owe a huge debt to my brilliant and im­mensely talented friend Alex Bracken, for the genius feedback, for the bajillion-­page e-mails, and for being so, so incredibly supportive. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that our paths crossed all those years ago—­what an insane journey it’s been.

And none of this would ever have happened without my lovely and badass agent, Tamar Rydzinski, who has been with me from the very beginning, and whose tireless work has made this series reality. I’m so honored to call you my agent, but even more honored to call you my friend.

To the incredible worldwide team at Bloomsbury—­how can I ever fully convey what a joy it is to work with you all? Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do for me and Throne of Glass. To my editor, Margaret Miller—­this book would be a hot mess without you. To Cat Onder, Cindy Loh, and Rebecca McNally—­you guys are the absolute best. To Erica Barmash, Hali Baumstein, Emma Bradshaw, Kathleen Farrar, Cristina Gilbert, Courtney Griffin, Alice Grigg, Natalie Hamilton, Bridget Hartzler, Charli Haynes, Emma Hopkin, Linette Kim, Lizzy Mason, Jenna Pocius, Emily Ritter, Amanda Shipp, Grace Whooley, and Brett Wright: thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your hard work, enthusiasm, and dedication.

To the team at Audible and to the Throne of Glass audiobook narrator, Elizabeth Evans, thank you for making Celaena’s world come to life in a ­whole new way, and for giving her a voice. And thank you to Janet Cadsawan, whose beautiful Throne of Glass jewelry line continues to blow my mind.

To the lovely Erin “Ders” Bowman, for the cheerleading and the unfailing encouragement, for the video chats, and the epic (non-­writing) retreats. Hero Squad Forever.

To Mandy Hubbard, Dan Krokos, Biljana Likic, Kat Zhang, and the Publishing Crawl gang—­thanks so much for being some of the bright lights.

To my parents—­my number-­one fans—­for the many adventures that so often serve as inspiration for these books. To my family, for the love and support, and for pushing this series on your friends and book clubs. Love you all. To my wonderful Grandma Connie—­I miss you and wish you ­were ­here to read this.

To the readers who have picked up and championed this series—­words cannot express my gratitude. I am truly blessed to have you all as fans. You make the hard work worth it.

To my dog, Annie: you ­can’t read (though it ­wouldn’t surprise me if you secretly could), but I want it written ­here—­for eternity—­that you’re the best canine companion anyone could hope for. Thanks for the cuddles, for sitting in my lap while I’m trying to write, and for giving me someone to talk to all day. Sorry I play the music so loudly when you’re trying to snooze. Love you, love you, love you forever and ever and ever.

And to my husband, Josh: You get last billing ­here, but that’s because you’re first in my heart. I’ll never stop being grateful that I get to share this wild journey with you.