Glennis said, “We must move out by midmorning tomorrow. It was decided: we are to return to our home-hearths.”
Manon only sat on the rock nearest the crone, leaving the Thirteen to scrounge up whatever food they could find. Dorian had remained back with the wyverns. The last she’d seen of him minutes ago, a few Crochans had been approaching him. Either for pleasure or information, Manon didn’t know. She doubted he’d share her bed again anytime soon. Especially if he remained hell-bent on going to Morath.
The thought didn’t sit entirely well.
Manon said to Glennis, “Do you think the Ironteeth are capable of change?”
“You would know that answer best.”
She did, and she wasn’t wholly certain she liked the conclusion she reached. “Did Rhiannon think we could be?” Did she think I could be?
Glennis’s eyes softened, a hint of sorrow gracing them as she added another log to the flame. “Your half sister was your opposite, in so many ways. And like your father in many regards. She was open, and honest, and spoke her feelings, regardless of the consequences. Brash, some called her. You might not know it from how they act now,” the crone said, smirking a bit, “but there were more than a few around these various hearths who disliked her. Who didn’t want to hear her lectures on our failing people, on how a better solution existed. How our peoples might find peace. Every day, she spoke loudly and to anyone who might listen about the possibility of a united Witch Kingdom. The possibility of a future where we did not need to hide, or be spread so thin. Many called her a fool. Thought her a fool especially when she went to look for you. To see if you agreed with her, despite what your bloody history suggested.”
She’d died for that dream, that possibility of a future. Manon had killed her for it.
Glennis said, “So did Rhiannon think the Ironteeth capable of change? She might have been the only witch in the Crochans who did, but she believed it with every shred of her being.” Her sagging throat bobbed. “She believed you two could rule it together—the Witch Kingdom. You would lead the Ironteeth, and she the Crochans, and together you would rebuild what fractured long ago.”
“And now there is just me.” Juggling both.
“Now it is just you.” Glennis’s stare turned direct, unforgiving. “A bridge between us.”
Manon accepted the plate of food Asterin handed her before the Second sat beside her.
Asterin said, “The Ironteeth will turn. You’ll see.”
Sorrel grunted from the nearest rock, disagreement written across her face.
Asterin gave Manon’s Third a vulgar gesture. “They’ll turn. I swear it.”
Glennis offered a small smile, but Manon said nothing as she dug into her food.
Hope, she had told Elide all those months ago.
But perhaps there would be none for them after all.
Dorian lingered by the wyverns to answer the questions of the Crochans who either did not want to or were perhaps too skittish to ask the Thirteen what had occurred in the Ferian Gap.
No, a host was not rallying behind them. No, no one had tracked them. Yes, Manon had spoken to the Ironteeth and asked them to join. Yes, they had gotten in and out alive. Yes, she had spoken as both Ironteeth and Crochan.
At least, Asterin had told him so on the long flight back here. Speaking to Manon, discussing their next steps … He didn’t bother. Not yet.
And when Asterin herself had gone quiet, he’d fallen deep into thought. Mulled over all he’d seen in the Ferian Gap, every twisted hall and chamber and pit that reeked of pain and fear.
What his father and Erawan had built. The sort of kingdom he’d inherited.
The Wyrdkeys stirred, whispering. Dorian ignored them and ran a hand over Damaris’s hilt. The gold remained warm despite the bitter cold.
A sword of truth, yes, but also reminder of what Adarlan had once been. What it might become again.
If he did not falter. Did not doubt himself. For whatever time he had left.
He could make it right. All of it. He could make it right.
Damaris heated in silent comfort and confirmation.
Dorian left the small crowd of Crochans and strode to a sliver of land overlooking a deadly plunge to a snow-and-rock-strewn chasm.
Brutal mountains rippled away in every direction, but he cast his gaze to the southeast. To Morath, looming far beyond sight.
He’d been able to shift into a raven that night in the Eyllwe forest. Now he supposed he only needed to learn how to fly.
He reached inward, to that eddy of raw power. Warmth bloomed in him, bones groaning, the world widening.
He opened his beak, and a throaty caw cracked from him.
Stretching out his sooty wings, Dorian began to practice.
CHAPTER 53
Someone had set fire to her thigh.
Not Aelin, because Aelin was gone, sealed in an iron sarcophagus and taken across the sea.
But someone had burned her down to the bone, so thoroughly that the slightest of movements on wherever she lay—a bed? A cot?—sent agony searing through her.
Lysandra cracked open her eyes, a low groan working its way up her parched throat.
“Easy,” a deep voice rumbled.
She knew that voice. Knew the scent—like a clear brook and new grass. Aedion.
She dragged her eyes, heavy and burning, toward the sound.
His shining hair hung limp, matted with blood. And those turquoise eyes were smudged with purple beneath—and utterly bleak. Empty.
A rough tent stood around them, the sole light provided by a lantern swinging in the bitter wind that crept in through the flaps. She’d been piled high with blankets, though he sat on an overturned bucket, still in his armor, with nothing to warm him.
Lysandra peeled her tongue off the roof of her mouth and listened to the world beyond the dim tent.
Chaos. Shouting. Some men screaming.
“We yielded Perranth,” Aedion said hoarsely. “We’ve been on the run for two days now. Another three days, and we’ll reach Orynth.”
Her brows narrowed slightly. She’d been unconscious for that long?
“We had to put you in a wagon with the other wounded. Tonight’s the first we’ve dared to stop.” The strong column of his throat bobbed. “A storm struck to the south. It’s slowed Morath down—just enough.”
She tried to swallow against the dryness in her throat. The last she remembered, she’d been facing those ilken, never so aware of the limitations of a mortal body, of how even Aelin, who seemed so tall as she swaggered through the world, was dwarfed by the creatures. Then those claws had ripped into her leg. And she’d managed to make a perfect swing. To take one of them down.
“You rallied our army,” he said. “We lost the battle, but they didn’t run in shame.”
Lysandra managed to pull a hand from beneath the blankets, and strained for the jug of water set beside the bed. Aedion was instantly in motion, filling a cup.
But as her fingers closed around it, she noted their color, their shape.
Her own hands. Her own arm.
“You … shifted,” Aedion said, noting her widened eyes. “While the healer was sewing up your leg. I think the pain … You shifted back into this body.”
Horror, roaring and nauseating, roiled through her. “How many saw?” Her first words, each as rough and dry as sandpaper.
“Don’t worry about it.”
She gulped down the water. “They all know?”
A solemn nod.
“What did you tell them—about Aelin?”
“That she has been off on a vital quest with Rowan and the others. And that it is so secret we do not dare speak of it.”
“Are the soldiers—”
“Don’t worry about it,” he repeated. But she could see it in his face. The strain.
They had rallied to their queen, only to realize it had been an illusion. That the might of the Fire-Bringer was not with them. Would not shield them against the army at their heels.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed.
Aedion took the empty cup of water before he gripped her hand, squeezing gently. “I am sorry, Lysandra. For all of it.” His throat bobbed again. “When I saw the ilken, when I saw you against them …”
Useless. Lying bitch. The words he’d thrown at her, raged at her, dragged her further from the haze of pain. Sharpened her focus.
“You did this,” he said, voice lowering, “for Terrasen. For Aelin. You were willing to die for it, gods above.”
“I was.” Her words came out cold as steel.
Aedion blinked as she withdrew her hand from his. Her leg ached and throbbed, but she managed to sit up. To meet his stare. “I have been degraded and humiliated in so many ways, for so many years,” she said, voice shaking. Not from fear, but from the tidal wave that swept up everything inside her, burning alongside the wound in her leg. “But I have never felt as humiliated as I did when you threw me into the snow. When you called me a lying bitch in front of our friends and allies. Never.” She hated the angry tears that stung her eyes. “I was once forced to crawl before men. And gods above, I nearly crawled for you these months. And yet it takes me nearly dying for you to realize that you’ve been an ass? It takes me nearly dying for you to see me as human again?”
He didn’t hide the regret in his eyes. She had spent years reading men and knew that every agonized emotion in his face was genuine. But it didn’t erase what had been said, and done.
Lysandra put a hand on her chest, right over her own shredded heart. “I wanted it to be you,” she said. “After Wesley, after all of it, I wanted it to be you. What Aelin asked me to do had no bearing on that. What she asked me to do never felt like a burden, because I wanted it to be you in the end anyway.” She didn’t wipe away the tears that slipped down her cheeks. “And you threw me into the snow.”
Aedion slid to his knees. Reached for her hand. “I will never stop regretting it. Lysandra, I will never forget a second of it, never stop hating myself for it. And I am so—”
“Don’t.” She snatched back her hand. “Don’t kneel. Don’t bother.” She pointed to the tent flaps. “There’s nothing I have left to say to you. Or you to me.”
Agony again rippled across his face, but she shut out what it did to her. What it did to her to see Aedion rise to his feet, groaning softly at some unspecified ache in his powerful body. For a few breaths, he just stared down at her.
Then he said, “I meant every promise I made to you on that beach in Skull’s Bay.”
And then he was gone.
Aedion had spent a good portion of his life hating himself for the various things he’d done.
But seeing the tears on Lysandra’s face because of him … He’d never felt like more of a bastard.
He barely heard the soldiers around him, tense and skittish in the snow that blew between their quickly erected tents. How many more wounded would die tonight?
He’d already pulled rank to get Lysandra care from the best healers they had left. And still it was not good enough, the healers not gifted magically. And despite Lysandra’s quicker healing abilities, they’d still had to stitch up her leg. And now changed the bandages every few hours. The wound had sealed, mercifully, likely fast enough to avoid infection.
Many of the injured amongst them could not say the same. The rotting wounds, the festering blood within their veins … Every morning, more and more bodies had been left behind in the snow, the ground too frozen and with no time to burn them.
Food for Erawan’s beasts, the soldiers murmured when they’d moved out. They might as well offer the enemy a free meal.
Aedion shut down that talk, along with any sort of hissing about their flight and defeat. By the time they’d camped tonight, a good third of the soldiers, members of the Bane included, had been assigned various tasks to keep them busy. To make them so tired after a day’s fleeing that they didn’t have the energy to grumble.
Aedion aimed for his own tent, set just outside the healers’ ring of tents where Lysandra lay. Giving her a private tent had been another privilege he’d used his rank to acquire.
He’d almost reached the small tent—no use in building his full war tent when they’d be running again in a few hours—when he spotted the figures huddled by the fire outside.
He slowed his steps to a stalking gait.
Ren rose to his feet, his face tight beneath his heavy hood.
Yet it was the man beside Ren who made Aedion’s temper hone itself into a dangerous thing.
“Darrow,” he said. “I would have thought you’d be in Orynth by now.”
The lord bundled in furs did not smile. “I came to deliver the message myself. Since my most trusted courier seems inclined to select another allegiance.”
The old bastard knew, then. About Lysandra’s masquerading as Aelin. And Nox Owen’s role in moving their army out of his grasp.
“Let’s get it over with, then,” Aedion said.
Ren tensed, but said nothing.
Darrow’s thin lips curved in a cruel smile. “For your acts of reckless rebellion, for your failure to heed our command and take your troops where they were ordered, for your utter defeat at the border and the loss of Perranth, you are stripped of your rank.”
Aedion barely heard the words.
“Consider yourself now a soldier in the Bane, if they’ll have you. And as for the imposter you’ve paraded around …” A sneer toward the healers’ tents.
Aedion snarled.
Darrow’s eyes narrowed. “If she is again caught pretending to be Princess Aelin”—Aedion almost ripped out his throat at that word, Princess—“then we will have little choice but to sign her execution order.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“I’d like to see you stop us.”
Aedion smirked. “Oh, it’s not me who you’d be dealing with. Good luck to any man who tries to harm a shifter that powerful.”
Darrow ignored the promise and held out a hand. “The Sword of Orynth, if you will.”
Ren started. “You’re out of your mind, Darrow.”
Aedion just stared. The ancient lord said, “That sword belongs to a true general of Terrasen, to its prince-commander. As you are no longer the bearer of that title, the sword shall return to Orynth. Until a new, appropriate bearer can be determined.”
Ren growled, “That sword is in our possession, Darrow, because of Aedion. Had he not won it back, it would still be rusting in Adarlan’s trove.”
“He will always have our gratitude for it. If only in that regard, at least.”
A dull roar filled Aedion’s head. Darrow’s hand remained extended.
He deserved this, he supposed. For his failure on these battlefields, his failure to defend the land he’d promised Aelin he’d save. For what he’d done to the shifter who had held his heart from the moment she’d shredded into those Valg soldiers in the sewers of Rifthold.
Aedion unbuckled the ancient sword from his belt. Ren let out a sound of protest.
But he ignored the lord and tossed the Sword of Orynth to Darrow.
The lightness where that sword had been threw off his balance.
The old man stared at the sword in his hands. Even went so far as to run a finger over the bone pommel, the hateful bastard unable to contain his awe.
Aedion just said, “The Sword of Orynth is only a piece of metal and bone. It always has been. It’s what the sword inspires in the bearer that matters. The true heart of Terrasen.”
“Poetic of you, Aedion,” was Darrow’s reply before he turned on his heel, aiming for wherever his escort waited beyond the camp’s edge. “Your commander, Kyllian, is now general of the Bane. Report to him for orders.”
The swirling snows devoured the old lord within a few steps.
Ren snarled, “Like hell you aren’t general.”
“The Lords of Terrasen decree it, and so it shall be.”
“Why aren’t you fighting this?” Ren’s eyes blazed. “You just handed over that sword—”
“I don’t give a shit.” Aedion didn’t bother to keep his exhaustion, his disappointment and anger, from his voice. “Let him have the sword, and the army. I don’t give a shit.”
Ren didn’t stop him as Aedion ducked into his tent and didn’t emerge until dawn.
The Lords of Terrasen had stripped General Ashryver of his sword.
The word spread from campfire to campfire, rippling through the ranks.
The soldier was new to the Bane, had been accepted into their ranks only this summer. An honor, even with war upon them. An honor, though the soldier’s family had wept to see him depart.
To fight for Prince Aedion, to fight for Terrasen—it had been worth it, the weight of leaving his farmstead home behind. Leaving behind that sweet-faced farmer’s daughter whom he’d never gotten the chance to so much as kiss.
It had been worth it then. But not now.
The friends he’d made in the months of training and fighting were dead.
Huddled around the too-small campfire, the soldier was the last of them, the fresh-faced recruits who’d been so eager to test themselves against the Valg at the start of summer.
In the dead heart of winter, he now called himself a fool. If he bothered to speak at all.
Words had become unnecessary, foreign. As foreign as his half-frozen body, which never warmed, though he slept as close to the fire as he dared. If sleep found him, with the screaming of the wounded and dying. The knowledge of what hunted them northward.
There was no one left to help them. Save them. The queen they’d thought amongst them had been a lie. A shape-shifter’s deception. Where Aelin Galathynius now fought, what she had deemed more important than them, he didn’t know.
The frigid night pressed in, threatening to devour the small fire before him. The soldier inched closer to the flame, shuddering beneath his worn cloak, every ache and scrape from the day throbbing.
He wouldn’t abandon this army, though. Not as some of the others were murmuring. Even with Prince Aedion stripped of his title, even with their queen gone, he wouldn’t abandon this army.
He had sworn an oath to protect Terrasen. To protect his family. He’d hold to it.
Even if he now knew he’d never see them again.
Snow was still falling when they renewed their flight.
It fell for the next two days, chasing them northward for each long mile.
Darrow’s decree had little bearing. Kyllian outright refused to make any calls without Aedion’s approval. Refused to don armor fitting of his rank. Refused to take the war tent.
Aedion knew he’d earned that loyalty long ago. Just as the Bane had earned his. But it didn’t stop him from hating it, just a bit. From wishing Kyllian would take over in full.
Lysandra’s leg was healed enough to ride, but he saw little of her. She kept to Ren’s side, the two of them traveling near the healers, should her stitches pull. When Aedion did glimpse her, she often stared him down until he wanted to vomit.
By the third day, the scouts were rushing to them. Reporting that Morath had gained, and was closing in behind—fast.
Aedion knew how this would go. Saw every trudging step and hunger-tight face around him.
Orynth was half a day off. Were it over easy terrain, they might stand a chance of getting behind its ancient walls. But between them and the city lay the Florine River. Too wide to cross without boats. The nearest bridge too far south to risk.
At this time of the year, it still might not yet have frozen. And even so, with the river so wide and deep, the layer of ice that often coated it only went so far. For their army to cross, they’d have to risk the ice collapsing.
There were other ways to Orynth. To go straight north into the Staghorns, and cut back south to the city nestled at their foot. But each hour delayed allowed Morath’s host to gain ground.
Aedion was riding beside Kyllian when Elgan galloped up beside them, horse puffing curls of hot air into the snow-thick day. “The river is ten miles straight ahead,” Elgan said. “We have to make our decision now.”
To risk the bridge to the south, or the time it’d take to go to the long route northward. Ren, spotting their gathering, urged his horse closer.
Kyllian waited for the order. Aedion arched a brow. “You’re the general.”
“Horseshit,” Kyllian spat.
Aedion only turned to Elgan. “Any word on the status of the ice?”
Elgan shook his head. “No word on it, or the bridge.”
Endless, whirling snow lay ahead. Aedion didn’t dare glance behind at the trudging, stooping lines of soldiers.
Ren, as silently as he’d come, pulled back to where he rode at Lysandra’s side.
Wings fluttered through the wind and snow, and then a falcon was shooting skyward, one leg awkwardly straight beneath it.
“Keep riding,” was all Aedion said to his companions.
Lysandra returned within an hour. She addressed Ren and Ren alone, and then the young lord was galloping to Aedion’s side, where Kyllian and Elgan still rode.
Ren’s face had gone ashen. “There’s no ice on the Florine. And Morath scouts snuck ahead and razed the southern bridge.”
“They’re herding us northward,” Elgan murmured.
Ren nodded. “They’ll be upon us by tomorrow morning.”
They would not have time to consider making a run for the northern entrance to Orynth. And with the Florine mere miles ahead, too wide and deep to cross, too frigid to dare swim, and Morath closing in from behind, they were utterly trapped.
CHAPTER 54
Chaol hand-fed an apple to Farasha, the beautiful black mare skittish after her unprecedented flight.
It seemed even Hellas’s horse could be frightened, though Chaol supposed any wise person would find dangling hundreds of feet in the air to be unnerving.
“Someone else could do that for you.” Leaning against the stable wall of the keep, Yrene watched him work, monitoring each deeply limping step. “You should rest.”
Chaol shook his head. “She doesn’t know what the hell is happening. I’d like to try to calm her before she beds down.”
Before battle tomorrow—before they might stand a chance of actually saving Anielle.
He was still working through all that had transpired these months he’d been gone. The battles and losses. Where Dorian had gone with Manon and the Thirteen. Chaol could only pray his friend was successful—and that he didn’t take it upon himself to forge the Lock.
Needing to unravel all he’d learned, he’d left Aelin and the others near the Great Hall to find whatever food they could, immediately bringing Farasha down here with him. Mostly for the safety of everyone around the Muniqi horse, since Farasha had tried to take a chunk out of the soldier nearest her the moment her hood had come off. Even the hood hadn’t concealed from her what, exactly, was happening to the oversized crate they’d buckled her into.
But Farasha hadn’t bitten off his hand before she nibbled at the apple, so Chaol prayed she’d forgive him for the rough flight. Part of him half wondered if the mare knew that his back ached, that he needed his cane, but that he chose to be here.
He ran a hand down her ebony mane, then patted her strong neck. “Ready to trample some Valg grunts tomorrow, my friend?”
Farasha huffed, angling a dark eye at him as if to say, Are you?
Chaol smiled, and Yrene laughed softly. “I should head back to the hall,” his wife said. “See who needs help.” But she lingered.
Their eyes met over Farasha’s powerful back.
He came around the horse, still mindful of her biting. “I know,” he said quietly.
Yrene angled her head. “Know what?”
Chaol interlaced their fingers. And then laid their hands atop her still-flat abdomen.
“Oh,” was all Yrene said, her mouth popping open. “I—How?”
Chaol’s heart thundered. “It’s true, then.”
Her golden eyes scanned his. “Do you want it to be?”
Chaol slid a hand against her cheek. “More than I ever realized.”
Yrene’s smile was wide and lovely enough to fracture his heart. “It’s true,” she breathed.
“How far along?”
“Almost two months.”
He studied her stomach, the place that would soon swell with the child growing inside her. Their child. “You didn’t tell me, I’m assuming, because you didn’t want me to worry.”
Yrene bit her lip. “Something like that.”
He snorted. “And when you were waddling around, belly near bursting?”
Yrene whacked his arm. “I’m not going to waddle.”
Chaol laughed, and tugged her into his arms. “You’ll waddle beautifully, was what I meant to say.” Yrene’s laughter reverberated into him, and Chaol kissed the top of her head, her temple. “We’re having a child,” he murmured onto her hair.
Her arms came around him. “We are,” she whispered. “But how did you know?”
“My father,” Chaol grumbled, “apparently possesses better observational skills than I do.”
He felt, more than saw, her cringe. “You’re not angry I didn’t tell you?”
“No. I would have appreciated hearing it from your lips first, but I understand why you didn’t want to say anything yet. Stupid as it might be,” he added, nipping at her ear. Yrene jabbed him in the ribs, and he laughed again. Laughed, even though every day they’d fought in this battle, every opponent he’d faced, he’d dreaded making a fatal mistake. Had been unable to forget that should he fall, he’d be taking them both with him.
Her arms tightened around him, and Yrene nestled her head against his chest. “You’ll be a brilliant father,” she said softly. “The most brilliant one to ever exist.”
“High praise indeed, coming from a woman who wanted to toss me from the highest window of the Torre a few months ago.”
“A healer would never be so unprofessional.”
Chaol grinned, and breathed in her scent before he pulled back and brushed his mouth against hers. “I am happier than I can ever express, Yrene, to share this with you. Anything you need, I am yours to command.”
Her lips twitched upward. “Dangerous words.”
But Chaol ran his thumb over her wedding band. “I’ll have to win this war quickly, then, so I can have our house built by the summer.”
She rolled her eyes. “A noble reason to defeat Erawan.”
Chaol stole another kiss from her. “As much as I would like to show you just how much I am at your command,” he said against her mouth, “I have another matter to deal with before bed.”
Yrene’s brows rose.
He grimaced. “I need to introduce Aelin to my father. Before they run into each other.” The man hadn’t been near the hall when they’d arrived, and Chaol had been too worried for Farasha’s well-being to bother hunting him down.
Yrene cringed, though amusement sparked in her eyes. “Is it bad if I want to join you? And bring snacks?”
Chaol slung an arm around her shoulders, giving Farasha a farewell stroke before they left. Despite the cane, each step was limping, and the pain in his back lanced down his legs, but it was secondary. All of it, even the damned war, was secondary to the woman at his side.
To the future they’d build together.
As well as Yrene’s conversation with Chaol had gone, that’s how badly things went between Aelin Galathynius and his father.
Yrene didn’t bring snacks, but that was only because by the time they reached the Great Hall, they had intercepted his father. Storming toward the room where Aelin and her companions had gone for a reprieve.
“Father,” Chaol said, falling into step beside him.
Yrene said nothing, monitoring Chaol’s movements. The pain in his back had to be great, if he was limping this deeply, even while her magic refilled. She had no idea where he’d left his chair—if it had been crushed under falling debris. She prayed it had not.
His father snapped, “You fail to wake me when the Queen of Terrasen arrives at my castle?”
“It wasn’t a priority.” Chaol halted before the door that opened into the small chamber that had been vacated for the queen and knocked.
A grunt was the only confirmation before Yrene’s husband shouldered open the door enough to poke his head inside. “My father,” Chaol said to whoever was inside, presumably the queen, “would like to see you.”
Silence, then the rustling of clothes and steps.
Yrene kept back as Aelin Galathynius appeared, her face and hands clean, but clothes still dirty. At her side stood that towering, silver-haired Fae warrior—Rowan Whitethorn. Whom the royals had spoken of with such fear and respect months ago. In the room, Lady Elide sat against the far wall, a tray of food beside her, and the giant white wolf lay sprawled on the ground, monitoring with half-lidded eyes.
A shock to see the shift, to realize these Fae might be powerful and ancient, but they still had one foot in the forest. The queen, it seemed, preferred the form as well, her delicately pointed ears half-hidden by her unbound hair. Behind her, there was no sign of the golden-haired, melancholy warrior, Gavriel, or the utterly terrifying Lorcan. Thank Silba for that, at least.
Aelin left the door open, though their two court members remained seated. Bored, almost.
“Well, now,” was all the queen said as she stepped into the hall.
Chaol’s father looked over the warrior-prince at her side. Then he turned his head toward Chaol and said, “I assume they met in Wendlyn. After you sent her there.”
Yrene tensed at the taunting in the man’s voice. Bastard. Horrible bastard.
Aelin clicked her tongue. “Yes, yes, let’s get all that out of the way. Though I don’t think your son really regrets it, does he?” Aelin’s eyes shifted to Yrene, and Yrene tried not to flinch under that turquoise-and-gold stare. Different from the fire she’d beheld that night in Innish, but still full of that razor-sharp awareness. Different—they were both different from the girls they’d been. A smile curved the queen’s mouth. “I think he made out rather well for himself.” She frowned up at her consort. “Yrene, at least, doesn’t seem like the sort to hog the blankets and snore in one’s ear all night.”
Yrene coughed as Prince Rowan only smiled at the queen. “I don’t mind your snoring,” he said mildly.
Aelin’s mouth twitched when she turned to Chaol’s father. Yrene’s own laughter died at the lack of light on the man’s face. Chaol was tense as a drawn bowstring as the queen said to his father, “Don’t waste your breath on taunts. I’m tired, and hungry, and it won’t end well for you.”
“This is my keep.”
Aelin made a good show of gaping at the ceiling, the walls, the floors. “Is it really?”
Yrene had to duck her head to hide her grin. So did Chaol.
But Aelin said to the Lord of Anielle, “I trust you’re not going to get in our way.”
A line in the sand. Yrene’s breath caught in her throat.
Chaol’s father said simply, “Last I looked you were not Queen of Adarlan.”
“No, but your son is Hand to the King, which means he outranks you.” Aelin smiled with horrific sweetness at Chaol. “Haven’t you told him that?”
Yrene and Aelin were no longer the girls they’d been in Innish, yes, but that wildfire still remained in the queen’s spirit. Wildfire touched with insanity.
Chaol shrugged. “I figured I’d tell him when the time arose.”
His father glowered.
Prince Rowan, however, said to the man, “You’ve defended and prepared your people admirably. We have no plans to take that from you.”
“I don’t need the approval of Fae brutes,” the lord sneered.
Aelin clapped Rowan on the shoulder. “Brute. I like that. Better than ‘buzzard,’ right?”
Yrene had no idea what the queen was talking about, but she held in her laugh anyway.
Aelin sketched a mocking bow to the Lord of Anielle. “On that lovely parting note, we’re going to finish up our dinners. Enjoy your evening, we’ll see you on the battlements tomorrow, and please do rot in hell.”
Then Aelin was turning away, a hand guiding her husband inside. But not before the queen threw a grin over her shoulder to Yrene and Chaol and said, eyes bright—with joy and warmth this time, “Congratulations.”
How she knew, Yrene had no idea. But the Fae possessed a preternatural sense of smell.
Yrene smiled all the same as she bowed her head—just before Aelin slammed the door in the Lord of Anielle’s face.
Chaol turned to his father, any hint of amusement expertly hidden. “Well, you saw her.”
Chaol’s father shook with what Yrene supposed was a combination of rage and humiliation, and stalked away. It was one of the finest sights Yrene had ever seen.
From Chaol’s smile, she knew her husband felt the same.
“What a horrible man.” Elide finished off her chicken leg before handing the other to Fenrys, who had shifted back into his Fae form. He tore into it with a growl of appreciation. “Poor Lord Chaol.”
Aelin, her aching legs stretched out before her as she leaned against the wall, finished off her own portion of chicken, then dug into a hunk of dark bread. “Poor Chaol, poor his mother, poor his brother. Poor everyone who has to deal with him.”
At the lone, narrow window of the room, monitoring the dark army hundreds of feet below, Rowan snorted. “You were in rare form tonight.”
Aelin saluted him with her hunk of hearty oaten bread. “Anyone who interrupts my dinner risks paying the price.”
Rowan rolled his eyes, but smiled. Just as Aelin had seen him smile when they’d both scented what was on Yrene. The child in her.
She was happy for Yrene—for them both. Chaol deserved that joy, perhaps more than anyone. As much as her own mate.
Aelin didn’t let the thoughts travel further. Not as she finished her bread and came to the window, leaning against Rowan’s side. He slid an arm around her shoulders, casual and easy.
None of them mentioned Maeve.
Elide and Fenrys continued eating in silence, giving them what privacy they could in the small, bare room they’d be sharing, sleeping on bedrolls. The Lord of Anielle, it seemed, did not share her appreciation for luxury. Or basic comforts for his guests. Like hot baths. Or beds.
“The men are terrified,” Rowan said, gazing out at the levels of the keep below. “You can smell it.”
“They’ve held this keep for days now. They know what’s waiting for them at dawn.”
“Their fear,” Rowan said, his jaw tightening, “is proof they do not trust our allies. Proof they don’t trust the khagan’s army to actually save them. It will make for sloppy fighters. Could create a weakness where there shouldn’t be one.”
“Perhaps you should have told Chaol,” Aelin said. “He could give them some motivational speech.”
“I have a feeling Chaol has given them plenty. This sort of fear rots the soul.”
“What’s to be done for it, then?”
Rowan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
But she sensed he did know. Sensed that he wanted to say something else, and either their current company or some sort of hesitation barred him.
So Aelin didn’t push, and surveyed the battlements with their patrolling soldiers, the sprawling, dark army beyond. Baying cries and howls rent the night, the sounds unearthly enough that they dragged a shudder down her spine.
“Is a land battle easier or worse than one at sea?” Aelin asked her husband, her mate, peering at his tattooed face.
She’d only faced the ships in Skull’s Bay, and even that had been over relatively quickly. And against the ilken who’d swarmed them in the Stone Marshes, it had been more an extermination than anything. Not what awaited them tomorrow. Not what her friends had fought on the Narrow Sea while she and Manon had been in the mirror, then with Maeve on the beach.
Rowan considered. “They’re just as messy, but in different ways.”
“I’d rather fight on land,” Fenrys grumbled.
“Because no one likes the smell of wet dog?” Aelin asked over her shoulder.
Fenrys laughed. “Exactly because of that.” At least he was smiling again.
Rowan’s mouth twitched, but his eyes were hard as he surveyed the enemy army. “Tomorrow’s battle will be just as brutal,” he said. “But the plan is sound.”
They’d be on the battlements with Chaol, readying for any desperate maneuvers Morath might attempt when they found themselves being herded and crushed by the khagan’s army. Elide would be with Yrene and the other healers in the Great Hall, helping the injured.
Where Lorcan and Gavriel would be, Aelin could only assume. Both had peeled off upon arriving, the latter taking watch somewhere, and the former likely brooding. But they’d probably be fighting right alongside them.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, Gavriel slipped into the room. “The army looks quiet enough,” he said by way of greeting, then unceremoniously dropped to the floor beside Fenrys and hauled the platter of chicken toward him. “The men are rife with fear, though. Days of defending these walls have worn on them.”
Rowan nodded, not bothering to tell the Lion they’d just discussed this as Gavriel ripped into the food. “We’ll have to make sure they don’t balk tomorrow, then.”
Indeed.
“I was wondering,” Elide said to none of them in particular after a moment. “Since Maeve is an imposter, who would rule Doranelle if she was banished with all the other Valg?”
“Or burned to a crisp,” Fenrys muttered.
Aelin might have smiled grimly, but Elide’s question settled into her.
Gavriel slowly set down the chicken.
Rowan’s arm dropped from Aelin’s shoulders. His pine-green eyes were wide. “You.”
Aelin blinked. “There are others from Mab’s line. Galan, or Aedion—”
“The throne passes through the maternal line—to a female only. Or it should have,” Rowan said. “You’re the sole female with a direct, undiluted claim to Mab’s bloodline.”
“And your household, Rowan,” Gavriel said. “Someone in your household would have a claim on Mora’s half of the throne.”
“Sellene. It would go to her.” Even as a prince, Rowan’s own heritage connecting him to Mora’s bloodline had thinned to the point of being in name only. Aelin was more closely related to Elide, probably to Chaol, too, than she was to Rowan, despite their distant ancestry.
“Well, Sellene can have it,” Aelin said, wiping her hands of dust that was not there. “Doranelle’s hers.”
She wouldn’t set foot in that city again, Maeve or no. She wasn’t sure if that made her a coward. She didn’t dare reach for her magic’s comforting rumble.
“The Little Folk truly knew,” Fenrys mused, rubbing his jaw. “What you were.”
They had always known her, the Little Folk. Had saved her life ten years ago, and saved their lives these past few weeks. They had known her, and left gifts for her. Tribute, she’d thought, to Brannon’s Heir. Not to …
Gavriel murmured, “The Faerie Queen of the West.”
Silence.
Aelin blurted, “Is that an actual title?”
“It is now,” Fenrys muttered. Aelin shot him a look.
“With Sellene as the Fae Queen of the East,” Rowan mused.
No one spoke for a good minute.
Aelin sighed up at the ceiling. “What’s another fancy title, I suppose?”
They didn’t answer, and Aelin tried not to let the weight of that title settle too heavily. All it implied. That she might not only look after the Little Folk on this continent, but with the cadre, begin a new homeland for any Fae who might wish to join them. For any of the Fae who had survived the slaughter in Terrasen ten years ago and might wish to return.
A fool’s dream. One that she would likely not come to see. To create.
“The Faerie Queen of the West,” Aelin said, tasting the words on her tongue.
Wondering how long she’d get to call herself such.
From the heavy quiet, she knew her companions were contemplating the same. And from the pain in Rowan’s eyes, the rage and determination, she knew he was already calculating if it might somehow spare her from the sacrificial altar.
But that would come later. After tomorrow. If they survived.
There was a gate, and eternity lay beyond its black archway.
But not for her. No, there would be no Afterworld for her.
The gods had built another coffin, this time crafting it of that dark, glimmering stone.
Stone her fire could never melt. Never pierce. The only way to escape was to become it—dissolve into it like sea-foam on a beach.
Every breath was thinner than the previous one. They had not put any holes in this coffin.
Beyond her confines, she knew a second coffin sat beside hers. Knew, because the muffled screams within still reached her here.
Two princesses, one golden and one silver. One young and one ancient. Both the cost of sealing that gate to eternity.
The air would run out soon. She’d already lost too much of it in her frantic clawing at the stone. Her fingertips pulsed where she’d broken nails and skin.
Those female screams became quieter.
She should accept it, embrace it. Only when she did would the lid open.
The air was so hot, so precious. She could not get out, could not get out—
Aelin hauled herself into waking. The room remained dark, her companions’ deep breathing holding steady.
Open, fresh air. The stars just visible through the narrow window.
No Wyrdstone coffin. No gate poised to devour her whole.
But she knew they were watching, somehow. Those wretched gods. Even here, they were watching. Waiting.
A sacrifice. That’s all she was to them.
Nausea churned in her gut, but Aelin ignored it, ignored the tremors rippling through her. The heat under her skin.
Aelin turned onto her side, nestling closer into Rowan’s solid warmth, Elena’s muffled screams still ringing in her ears.
No, she would not be helpless again.
CHAPTER 55
Being in a female form wasn’t entirely what Dorian had expected.
The way he walked, the way he moved his hips and legs—strange. So disconcertingly strange. If any of the Crochans had noticed a young witch amongst them pacing in circles, crouching and stretching her legs, they didn’t halt their work as they readied the camp to depart.
Then there was the matter of his breasts, which he’d never imagined to be so … cumbersome. Not unpleasant, but the shock of bumping his arms into them, the need to adjust his posture to accommodate their slight weight, was still fresh after a few hours.
He’d kept the transformation as simple as he could: he’d picked a young Crochan the night before, one of the novices who might not be needed at all hours or noticed very often, and studied her until she likely deemed him a letch.
This morning, the image of her face and form still planted in his mind, he’d come to the edge of the camp, and simply willed it.
Well, perhaps not simply. The shift remained not an entirely enjoyable sensation while bones adjusted, his scalp tingling with the long brown hair that grew out in shining waves, nose tickling as it was reshaped into a delicate curve.
For long minutes, he’d only stared down at himself. At the delicate hands, the smaller wrists. Amazing, how much strength the tiny bones contained. A few subtle pats between his legs had told him enough about the changes there.
And so he’d been here for the past two hours, learning how the female body moved and operated. Wholly different from learning how a raven flew—how it wrangled the wind.
