Thank the gods. Even though they were the last beings Rowan wished to thank.
Aelin halted at the rocky shore, peering across the mirror-flat expanse now choked with debris. She rested a hand atop Goldryn’s hilt, flame dancing at her fingers, seemingly into the red stone itself.
“It would take years,” she observed, “to heal everyone infected by the Valg.”
“Each of those soldiers has a family, friends who would want us to try.”
“I know.” The chill wind whipped her hair across her face, blowing northward.
“Then why the walk out here?” She’d gone contemplative during their meeting in the tent, her brow furrowing.
“Could Yrene heal them? Erawan and Maeve? I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
“Is Erawan’s body made by him, or stolen? Is Maeve’s?” Rowan shook his head. “They might be wholly different.”
“I don’t see how I can ask Yrene to do it. Ask it of Chaol.” Aelin swallowed. “To even put Yrene near Erawan or Maeve … I can’t do it.”
Rowan wouldn’t be able to, either. Not for a thousand different reasons.
“But is it a mistake to put Yrene’s safety above that of this entire world?” Aelin mused, examining one of the enemy daggers she’d pilfered. An unusually fine blade, likely stolen in the first place. “She’s the greatest weapon we have, if the keys are not in play. Are we fools not to push to use it?”
It wasn’t his choice, his call. But he could offer her a sounding board. “Will you be able to live with yourself if something happens to Yrene, to her unborn child?”
“No. But the rest of the world will live, at least. My guilt would be secondary to that.”
“And if you don’t push Yrene to try to destroy them, and Erawan or Maeve wins—what then?”
“There is still the Lock. There’s still me.”
Rowan swallowed. Saw the reason she’d needed to be away from the others, needed to walk. “Yrene is a ray of hope for you. For us. That you might not need to forge the Lock at all. You, or Dorian.”
“The gods demand it.”
“The gods can go to hell.”
Aelin chucked away the dagger. “I hate this. I really do.”
He slid an arm around her shoulders. It was all he could offer her.
Over—she’d said she wanted it to be over. He’d do all he could to make it so.
Aelin leaned her head against his chest, and they stared across the cold lake in silence. “Would you let me do it, if I were Yrene? If I were carrying our child?”
He failed to block out the image of that dream—of Aelin, heavily pregnant, their children around her. “I don’t let you do anything.”
She waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”
He took a moment to answer. “No. Even if the world ended because of it, I couldn’t bear it.”
And with that Lock, he might very well have to make that decision, too.
Rowan ran his fingers over the claiming marks on her neck. “I told you that love was a weakness. It would be far easier if we all hated each other.”
She snorted. “Give it a few weeks on the road with this army, in those mountains, and we might not be such pleasant allies anymore.”
Rowan kissed the top of her head. “Gods help us.”
But Aelin pulled away at the words, the phrase that dropped off his tongue. She frowned toward the camped army.
“What?” he asked.
“I want to see those Wyrdmark books Chaol and Yrene brought with them.”
“What does this say?” Aelin asked Borte, tapping a finger on a scribbled line of text in Halha, the tongue of the southern continent.
Seated beside her at the desk in Prince Sartaq’s war tent, the ruk rider craned her neck to study the handwritten note beside a long column of Wyrdmarks. “A good spell for encouraging your herb beds to grow.”
Across the desk, Rowan snorted. A book lay open before him, his progress through it far slower than Aelin’s.
Most of the tomes were wholly written in Wyrdmarks, but annotations scribbled in the margins had driven her to seek out the young rukhin. Borte, thoroughly bored with helping Yrene, had leaped at the chance to assist them, passing Valg duty onto her scowling betrothed.
But for the two hours that Aelin and Rowan had perused the collection Chaol and Yrene had brought from Hafiza’s forbidden library atop the Torre, nothing had proved useful.
Aelin sighed at the canvas ceiling of the prince’s large tent. Fortunate that Sartaq had brought these trunks with him, rather than leaving them with their armada, but … exhaustion nipped at her, fogging the intricate lattice of symbols on the yellowed pages.
Rowan straightened. “This one opens something,” he said, flipping the book to face her. “I don’t know the other symbols, but that one says ‘open.’ ” Even with the hours of instruction on the journey back to this continent, Rowan and the others had not wholly mastered the language of the half-forgotten marks. But her mate remembered most—as if they’d been planted in his mind.
Aelin carefully studied the line of symbols across the page. Read through them a second time. “It’s not what we’re looking for.” She pulled on her bottom lip. “It’s a spell for opening a portal between locations—just in this world.”
“Like what Maeve can do?” Borte asked.
Aelin shrugged. “Yes, but this is for close traveling. More like what Fenrys can do.” Or had once been able to do, before Maeve had broken it from him.
Borte’s mouth quirked to the side. “What’s the point of it, then?”
“Entertaining people at parties?” Aelin handed the book back to Rowan.
Borte chuckled, and leaned back in her seat, toying with the end of a long braid. “Do you think the spell exists—to find an alternate way to seal the Wyrdgate?” The question was barely more than a whisper, and yet Rowan shot the girl a warning look. Borte just waved him off.
No. Elena would have told her, or Brannon, if such a thing had existed.
Aelin ran a hand over the dry, ancient page, the symbols blurring. “It’s worth a look, isn’t it?”
Rowan indeed resumed his careful browsing and decoding. He’d sit here for hours, she knew. And if they found nothing, she knew he’d sit here and reread them all just to be sure.
A way out—an alternate path. For her, for Dorian. For whichever of them would pay the price to forge the Lock and seal the gate. A desperate, foolish hope.
The hours passed, the stacks of books dwindling. Fenrys joined them after a time, unusually solemn as they searched and searched. And found nothing.
When there were no books left in the trunk, when Borte was nodding off and Rowan was pacing through the tent, Aelin did them all a favor and ordered them to return to the keep.
It had been worth a look, she told herself. Even if the leaden weight in her gut said otherwise.
Chaol found his father where he’d left him, seething in his study.
“You cannot give a single acre of this territory to the wild men,” his father hissed as Chaol wheeled into the room and shut the door.
Chaol crossed his arms, not bothering to look placating. “I can, and I will.”
His father shot to his feet and braced his hands on his desk. “You would spit on the lives of all the men of Anielle who fought and died to keep this territory from their filthy hands?”
“If offering them a small piece of land will mean that future generations of Anielle men and women won’t have to fight or die, then I’d think our ancestors would be pleased.”
“They are beasts, barely fit to be their own masters.”
Chaol sighed, slumping back in his chair. A lifetime of this—that’s what Dorian had laid upon him. As Hand, he’d have to deal with lords and rulers just like his father. If they survived. If Dorian survived, too. The thought was enough for Chaol to say, “Everyone in this war is making sacrifices. Most far, far greater than a few miles of land. Be grateful that’s all we’re asking of you.”
The man sneered. “And what if I was to bargain with you?”
Chaol rolled his eyes, reaching to turn his chair back toward the door.
His father lifted a piece of paper. “Don’t you wish to know what your brother wrote to me?”
“Not enough to stop this alliance,” Chaol said, pivoting his chair away.
His father unfolded the letter anyway, and read, “I hope Anielle burns to the ground. And you with it.” A small, hateful smile. “That’s all your brother said. My heir—that’s how he feels about this place. If he will not protect Anielle, then what shall become of it without you?”
Another approach, to guilt him into relenting. Chaol said, “I’d wager that Terrin’s regard for Anielle is tied to his feelings for you.”
The aging lord lowered himself into his seat once more. “I wish you to know what Anielle will face, should you fail to protect it. I am willing to bargain, boy.” He chuckled. “Though I know how well you hold up your end of things.”
Chaol took the blow. “I am a rich man, and need nothing you could offer me.”
“Nothing?” His father pointed to a trunk by the window. “What about something more priceless than gold?”
When Chaol didn’t speak, his father strode for the trunk, unlocked it with a key from his pocket, and flipped back the heavy lid. Wheeling closer, Chaol peered at its contents.
Letters. The entire trunk was filled with letters bearing his name in an elegant script.
“She discovered the trunk. Right before we got word of Morath marching on us,” his father said, his smile mocking and cold. “I should have burned them, of course, but something prompted me to save them instead. For this exact moment, I think.”
The trunk was piled thick with letters. All written by his mother. To him. “How long,” he said too quietly.
“From the day you left.” His father’s sneer lingered.
Years. Years of letters, from a mother he had not heard from, had believed hadn’t wanted to speak to him, had yielded to his father’s wishes.
“You let her believe I didn’t write back,” Chaol said, surprised to find his voice still calm. “You never sent them, and let her believe I didn’t write back.”
His father shut the trunk and locked it again. “It would appear so.”
“Why.” It was the only question that mattered.
His father frowned. “I couldn’t allow you to walk away from your birthright, from Anielle, without consequences, could I?”
Chaol clamped onto the arms of his chair to keep from wrapping his hands around the man’s throat. “You think showing me this trunk of her letters will make me want to bargain with you?”
His father snorted. “You’re a sentimental man. Watching you with that wife of yours only proves it. I’d think you’d bargain quite a bit to be able to read these letters.”
Chaol only stared at him. Blinked once, as if it would quell the roaring in his head, his heart.
His mother had never forgotten him. Never stopped writing to him.
Chaol smiled slightly.
“Keep the letters,” he said, steering his chair back to the doors. “Now that she’s left you, it might be your only way to remember her.” He opened the study door and looked over his shoulder.
His father remained beside the trunk, stiff as a sword.
“I don’t make bargains with bastards,” Chaol said, smiling again as he entered the hall beyond. “I’m certainly not going to start with you.”
Chaol gave the wild men of the Fangs a small chunk of territory in South Anielle. His father had raged, refusing to acknowledge the trade, but no one had heeded him, to Aelin’s eternal amusement.
Two days later, a small unit of those men arrived at the city’s westernmost edge, near the gaping hole where the dam had been, and beckoned the way.
Each of the bearded men rode a shaggy mountain pony, and though their heavy furs hid much of their bulky bodies, their weapons were on sharp display: axes, swords, knives all gleamed in the gray light.
Cain’s people—or they had been. Aelin decided not to mention him during their brief introduction. And Chaol, wisely, refrained from admitting that he’d killed the man.
Another lifetime. Another world.
Seated atop a fine Muniqi horse Hasar had lent her, Aelin rode at the front of the company, as it marched from Anielle, Chaol on Farasha to her left, Rowan on his own Muniqi horse to her right. Their companions were scattered behind, Lorcan healed enough to be riding, Elide beside him.
And behind them, snaking into the distance, the army of the khagan moved.
Part of it, at least. Half the ruks and Darghan riders would march under Kashin’s banner on the eastern side of the mountains, to draw out the forces from the Ferian Gap into open battle in the valley. While they snuck behind, right through their back door.
Snow lay heavy on the Fangs, the gray sky threatening more, but the rukhin scouts and wild men had assessed that no bad weather would hit them for a while yet—not until they reached the Gap, at least.
Five days’ trek, with the army and mountains. It would be three for the army that marched along the lake’s edge and river.
Aelin tipped her face toward that cold sky as they began the endless series of switchbacks up the mountainsides. The rukhin could carry much of the heavier equipment, thank the gods, but the climb into the mountains would be the first test.
The khagan’s armies had crossed every terrain, though. Mountains and deserts and seas. They did not balk now.
So Aelin supposed she would not, either. For whatever time she had left, until it was over.
This final push north, homeward … She smiled grimly at the looming mountains, at the army stretching away behind them.
And just because she could, just because they were headed to Terrasen at last, Aelin unleashed a flicker of her power. Some of the standard-bearers behind them murmured in surprise, but Rowan only smiled. Smiled with that fierce hope, that brutal determination that flared in her own heart, as she began to burn.
She let the flame encompass her, a golden glow that she knew could be spied even from the farthest lines of the army, from the city and keep they left behind.
A beacon glowing bright in the shadows of the mountains, in the shadows of the forces that awaited them, Aelin lit the way north.
PART TWO
Gods and Gates
CHAPTER 68
The black towers of Morath rose above the smoking forges and campfires of the valley below like a cluster of dark swords raised to the sky.
They jutted into the low clouds, some broken and chipped, some still standing proud. The wrath and final act of Kaltain Rompier written all over them.
Spreading his soot-colored wings wide, Dorian caught a wind that reeked of iron and carrion and banked around the fortress. He’d learned to harness winds during these long days of travel, and though he’d covered much of the journey as a swift, red-tailed hawk, he’d shifted this morning into an ordinary crow.
Flocks of them circled Morath, their caws as plentiful as the ringing of hammers on anvils throughout the valley. Even with hell unleashed in the north, there was still more camped down here. More troops, more witches.
Dorian followed the example of the other crows and gave the wyverns a wide berth, flying low as coven after coven went about their scouting or reporting or training. So many Ironteeth. All waiting.
He circled Morath’s uppermost towers, scanning the keep, the army in the valley, the wyverns in their lofty aeries. With each flap of his wings, the weight of what he’d hidden in a rocky outcropping ten miles north grew heavier.
It would have been madness to bring the two keys here. So he had buried them in the shale rock, not even daring to mark the spot. He could only pray it was far enough away to avoid Erawan’s detection.
At the side of a tower, two servants bearing armloads of laundry emerged from a small door and began winding up the exterior stair, heads bowed as if trying to ignore the army that rippled far below. Or the wyverns whose bellows echoed off the black rock.
There. That door.
Dorian flapped toward it, willing his heart to calm, his scent—the one thing that might doom him—to remain unmarked. But none of the Ironteeth flying overhead noticed the crow-that-did-not-smell-like-a-crow. And the two laundresses winding up the tower stairs didn’t call out as he landed on the small stone railing and folded his wings neatly.
A hop, and he was on the stones.
A shift, muscles and bones burning, and the world had become smaller, infinitely deadlier.
And infinitely less aware of his presence.
Dorian’s whiskers twitched, his oversized ears cocking. The roar of the wyverns rocked through his small, furred body, and he gritted his teeth—large, almost too big for his little mouth. The reek grew near-nauseating.
He could smell … everything. The lingering freshness of the laundry that had passed by. The gamey musk of some sort of broth clinging to the laundresses after their lunch. He’d never thought mice to be extraordinary, yet even soaring as a hawk, he had not felt this alertness, this level of being awake.
In a world designed to kill them, he supposed mice needed such sharpness to survive.
Dorian allowed himself one long breath before he squeezed beneath the shut door. And into Morath itself.
His senses might have been sharper, but he had never realized how daunting a set of stairs truly was without human legs.
He kept to the shadows, willing himself into dust and gloom with every pair of feet that strode by. Some were armored, some were booted, some in worn shoes. All the wearers pale and miserable.
No witches, thank the gods. And no Valg princes or their grunts.
Certainly no sign of Erawan.
The tower he’d entered was a servants’ stair, one Manon had laid out during one of her various explanations to Aelin. It was thanks to her that he followed a mental map, confirmed by his circling overhead for the past few hours.
Erawan’s tower—that’s where he’d begin. And if the Valg king was there … he’d figure it out. Whether he might repay Erawan for all he’d done, regardless of Kaltain’s warning.
His breathing ragged, Dorian reached the bottom of the winding steps, curling his long tail around him as he peered to the dim hallway ahead.
From here, he’d need to cross the entire level, take another staircase up, another hall, and then, if he was lucky, Erawan’s tower would be there.
Manon had never gained access to it. Never known what waited up there. Only that it was guarded by Valg at all hours. A good enough place to begin his hunt.
His ears twitched. No approaching steps. No cats, mercifully.
Dorian turned the corner, his grayish brown fur blending into the rock, and scuttled along the groove where the wall met the floor. A guard stood on watch at the end of the hall, staring at nothing. He loomed, large as a mountain, as Dorian approached.
Dorian had nearly reached the guard and the crossroads he monitored when he felt it—the stir, and then the silence.
Even the guard straightened, glancing to the slit of a window behind him.
Dorian halted, tucking himself into a shadow.
Nothing. No cries or shouts, yet …
The guard returned to his post, but scanned the hall.
Dorian remained still and quiet, waiting. Had they discovered his presence? Sent out a call?
It couldn’t have been as easy as it had seemed. Erawan no doubt had traps to alert him of any enemy presence—
Rushing, light steps sounded around the corner, and the guard turned toward them. “What is it?” the man demanded.
The approaching servant didn’t check his pace. “Who knows these days with the company we keep? I’m not lingering to find out.” Then the man hurried on, rushing past Dorian.
Not rushing toward something, but away.
Dorian’s whiskers flicked as he scented the air. Nothing.
Waiting in a hallway would do no good. But to plunge ahead, to seek out whatever might be happening … Not wise, either.
There was one place he might hear something. Where people were always gossiping, even at Morath.
So Dorian ventured back down the hall. Down another set of stairs, his little legs barely able to move fast enough. Toward the kitchens, hot and bright with the light of the great hearth.
Lady Elide had worked here—had known these people. Not Valg, but people conscripted into service. People who would undoubtedly talk about the comings and goings of this keep. Just as they had at the palace in Rifthold.
The various servants and cooks were indeed waiting. Staring toward the stairs on the opposite side of the cavernous kitchen. As was the lean, green-eyed tabby cat across the room.
Dorian made himself as small as possible. But the beast paid him no mind, its attention fixed on the stairs. As if it knew, too.
And then steps—quick and hushed. Two women entered, empty trays in their hands. Both wan and trembling.
A man who had to be the head cook asked the women, “Did you see anything?”
One of the women shook her head. “They weren’t in the council room yet. Thank the gods.”
Her partner’s hands wobbled as she set down her tray. “They will be soon, though.”
“Lucky you got out before they came,” someone said. “Or you might have found yourself part of lunch, too.”
Lucky, indeed. Dorian lingered, but the kitchen resumed its rhythms, satisfied two of its own had made it back safely.
The council room—perhaps the same Manon had described. Where Erawan preferred to have his meetings. And if Erawan himself was headed there …
Dorian scuttled out, heeding that mental map Manon had crafted. A fool—only a fool would willingly go to see Erawan. Risk it.
Perhaps he had a death wish. Perhaps he truly was a fool. But he wanted to see him. Had to see him, this creature who had ruined so many things. Who stood poised to devour their world.
He had to look at him, this thing who had ordered him enslaved, who had butchered Sorscha. And if he was fortunate—maybe he’d kill him.
He could remain in this form and strike. But it would be so much more satisfying to return to his own body, to draw Damaris, and end him. To let Erawan see the pale band around his throat and know who killed him, that he hadn’t broken him yet.
And then Dorian would find that key.
The silence showed him the way, perhaps more so than the mental map he’d memorized.
Halls emptied out. The air became thick, cold. As if Erawan’s corruption leaked from him.
There were no guards, human or Valg, standing watch before the open doors.
No one to mark the hooded figure who strode in, black cape flowing.
Dorian hurried, skittering after that figure just as the doors shut. His magic swelled, and he willed it to calm, to coil, an asp poised to strike.
One blow to get Erawan down, then he’d shift and draw Damaris.
The figure halted, cloak swaying, and Dorian dashed for the nearest shadow—by the crack between the door and floor.
The chamber was ordinary, save for a table of black glass in its center. And the golden-haired, golden-eyed man seated at it.
Manon had not lied: Erawan had indeed shed Perrington’s skin for something far fairer.
Though still dressed in finery, Dorian realized as the Valg king rose, his gray jacket and pants immaculately tailored. No weapons lay at his side. No hint of the Wyrdkey.
But he could feel Erawan’s power, the wrongness leaking from him. Could feel it, and remember it, the way that power had felt inside him, curdling his soul.
Ice cracked in his veins. Quick—he had to be quick. Strike now.
“This is an unexpected delight,” Erawan said, his voice young and yet not. He gestured to the spread of food—fruits and cured meats. “Shall we?”
Dorian’s magic faltered as two moon-pale, slender hands rose from the folds of the black cloak and pushed back the cowl.
The woman beneath was not beautiful, not in the classical way. Yet with her jet-black hair, her dark eyes, her red lips … She was striking. Mesmerizing.
Those red lips curved, revealing bone-white teeth.
Cold licked down Dorian’s spine at the pointed, delicate ears peeking above the curtain of dark hair. Fae. The woman—female was Fae.
She removed her cloak to reveal a flowing gown of deepest purple before she settled herself across the table from Erawan. Not an ounce of hesitation or fear checked her graceful movements. “You know why I have come, then.”
Erawan smiled as he sat, pouring a goblet of wine for the female, then for himself. And all thoughts of killing vanished from Dorian’s head as the Valg king asked, “Is there any other reason you would deign to visit Morath, Maeve?”
CHAPTER 69
Orynth had not been this quiet since the day Aedion and the remnants of Terrasen’s court had marched to Theralis.
Even then, there had been a hum to the ancient city erected between the mouth of the Florine and the edge of the Staghorns, Oakwald a ripple of wood to the west.
Then, the white walls had still been shining.
Now they lay stained and grayish, as bleak as the sky, while Aedion, Lysandra, and their allies strode through the towering metal doors of the western gate. Here, the walls were six feet thick, the blocks of stone so heavy that legend claimed Brannon had conscripted giants from the Staghorns to heave them into place.
Aedion would give anything for those long-forgotten giants to find their way to the city now. For the ancient Wolf Tribes to come racing down the towering peaks behind the city, the lost Fae of Terrasen with them. For any of the old myths to emerge from the shadows of time, as Rolfe and his Mycenians had done.
But he knew their luck had run out.
Their companions knew it, too. Even Ansel of Briarcliff had gone as silent as Ilias and his assassins, her shoulders bowed. She had been that way since the heads of her warriors had landed amongst their ranks, her wine-red hair dull, her steps heavy. He knew her horror, her guilt. Wished he had a moment to comfort the young queen beyond a swift apology. But Ilias, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to do just that, riding beside Ansel in steady, quiet company.
The city had been laid at the feet of the towering, near-mythic castle built atop a jutting piece of rock. A castle that rose so high its uppermost turrets seemed to pierce the sky. Once, that castle had glowed, roses and creeping plants draped along its sun-warmed stones, the song of a thousand fountains singing in every hall and courtyard. Once, proud banners had flapped from those impossibly high towers, standing watch over the mountains and forest and river and Plain of Theralis below.
It had become a mausoleum.
No one spoke as they trudged up the steep, winding streets. Grim-faced people either stopped to stare or continued rushing to prepare for the siege.
There was no way to outrun it. Not with the Staghorns at their backs, Oakwald to the west, and the army advancing from the south. Yes, they might flee eastward across the plains, but to where? To Suria, where it would only be a matter of time before they were found? To the hinterlands beyond the mountains, where the winters were so brutal they claimed no mortal could survive? The people of Orynth were as trapped as their army.
Aedion knew he should square his shoulders. Should grin at these people—his people—and offer them a shred of courage.
Yet he couldn’t. Couldn’t stop himself from wondering how many had lost family, friends, in the battle by the river. In the weeks of fighting before that. How many were still praying that the streaming lines of soldiers making their way toward the city would reveal a loved one.
His fault, his burden. His choices had led them here. His choices had left so many bodies in the snow, a veritable path of them from the southern border, all the way to the Florine.
The white castle loomed, larger with every hill they ascended. At least they had that—the advantage of higher ground.
At least they had that.
Darrow and the other lords were waiting.
Not in the throne room, but in the spacious council chamber on the other side of the palace.
The last time Aedion had been in the room, a preening Adarlanian prick had presided over the meeting. The Viceroy of Terrasen, he’d called himself.
It seemed the man had taken his finery, chairs and wall hangings included, and run off the moment the king had been killed.
So an ancient worktable now served as their war desk, an assortment of half-rotting chairs from various rooms in the castle around it. Currently occupied by Darrow, Sloane, Gunnar, and Ironwood. Murtaugh, to Aedion’s surprise, was amongst them.
They rose as Aedion and his companions entered. Not out of any respect to Aedion, but for the royals with him.
Ansel of Briarcliff surveyed the piss-poor space, as she’d done for the entirety of the walk through the dim and dreary castle, and let out a low whistle. “You weren’t kidding when you said Adarlan raided your coffers.” Her first words in hours. Days.
Aedion grunted. “To the copper.” He halted before the table.
Darrow demanded, “Where is Kyllian?”
Aedion gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Ren tensed, reading the warning in that smile. “He bade me to go ahead while he led the army here.” Lie.
Darrow rolled his eyes, then fixed them upon Rolfe, who was still frowning at the shabby castle. “We have you to thank for the lucky retreat, I take it.”
Rolfe fixed his sea-green stare upon the man. “That you do.”
Darrow sat again, the other lords following suit. “And you are?”
“Privateer Rolfe,” the pirate said smoothly. “Commander in Her Majesty’s Armada. And Heir to the Mycenian people.”
The other lords straightened. “The Mycenians vanished an age ago,” Lord Sloane said. But the man noted the sword at Rolfe’s side, the sea dragon pommel. Had no doubt spied the fleet creeping up the Florine.
“Vanished, but did not die out,” Rolfe countered. “And we have come to fulfill an old debt.”
Darrow rubbed at his temple. Old—Darrow truly looked his age as he leaned against the table edge. “Well, we have the gods to thank for that.”
Lysandra said, simmering with rage, “You have Aelin to thank for that.”
The man narrowed his eyes, and Aedion’s temper honed itself into something lethal. But Darrow’s voice was exhausted—heavy, as he asked, “Not pretending today, Lady?”
Lysandra only pointed to Rolfe, then Ansel, then Galan. Swept her arm to the windows, to where the Fae royals and Ilias of the Silent Assassins tended to their own on the castle grounds. “All of them. All of them came here because of Aelin. Not you. So before you sneer that there is no Her Majesty’s Armada, allow me to tell you that there is. And you are not a part of it.”
Darrow let out a long sigh, rubbing his temple again. “You are dismissed from this room.”
“Like hell she is,” Aedion growled.
But Murtaugh cut in, “There is someone, Lady, who would like to see you.” Lysandra raised her brows, and the old man winced. “I did not wish to risk leaving her in Allsbrook alone. Evangeline is in the northern tower—in my former granddaughter’s bedroom. She spotted your approach from the window and it was all I could do to convince her to wait.”
A polite, clever way to defuse the brewing storm. Aedion debated telling Lysandra that she could stay, but Lysandra was already moving, dark hair flowing behind her.
When she’d left, Aedion said, “She’s fought on the front lines at every battle. Nearly died against our enemies. I didn’t see any of you bothering to do the same.”
The group of old lords frowned with distaste. Yet it was Darrow who shifted in his seat—slightly. As if Aedion had struck upon a festering wound. “To be too old to fight,” Darrow said quietly, “while younger men and women die is not as easy as you would think, Aedion.” He glanced down, to the nameless sword at Aedion’s side. “It is not easy at all.”
Aedion debated telling him to ask the people who’d died if that wasn’t easy, either, but Prince Galan cleared his throat. “What preparations are under way for a siege?”
The Terrasen lords didn’t seem to appreciate being questioned, but they opened their hateful mouths and spoke.
An hour later, the others seen to their rooms, then to baths and hot meals, Aedion found himself following her scent.
She had gone not to the north tower and the ward who awaited her, but to the throne room.
The towering oak doors were cracked, the two rearing stags carved on them staring him down. Once, gold filigree had covered the immortal flame shining between their proud antlers.
During the past decade, someone had peeled off the gold. Either for spite or quick coin.
Aedion slipped through the doors, the cavernous chamber like the ghost of an old friend.
How many times had he bemoaned being forced to dress in his finery and stand beside the thrones atop the dais at the far back of the pillar-lined room? How many times had he caught Aelin nodding off during an endless day of pageantry?
Then, the banners of all the Terrasen territories had hung from the ceiling. Then, the pale marble floors had been so polished he could see his reflection in them.
Then, an antler throne had sat upon the dais, towering and primal. Built from the shed horns of the immortal stags of Oakwald.
Stags now butchered and burned, as the antler throne had been after the battle of Theralis. The king had ordered it done right on the battlefield.
It was before that empty dais that Lysandra stood. Staring at the white marble as if she could see the throne that had once been there. See the other, smaller thrones that had sat beside it.
“I hadn’t realized that Adarlan wrecked this place so thoroughly,” she said, either scenting him or recognizing the cadence of his footsteps.
“The bones of it are still intact,” Aedion said. “For how much longer that will remain true, I don’t know.”
Lysandra’s green eyes slid toward him, dim with exhaustion and sorrow. “Deep down,” she said quietly, “some part of me thought I’d live to see her sitting here.” She pointed to the dais, to where the antler throne had once been. “Deep down, I thought we might actually make it somehow. Even with Morath, and the Lock, and all of it.”
There was no hope in her face.
It was perhaps because of it that she bothered to speak to him.
“I thought so, too,” Aedion said with equal quiet, though the words echoed in the vast, empty chamber. “I thought so, too.”
CHAPTER 70
The Queen of the Fae had come to Morath.
Dorian forced his heartbeat to calm, his breathing to steady as Maeve sipped from her wine.
“You do not know me, then,” the Fae Queen said, studying the Valg king.
Erawan paused, goblet half-raised to his lips. “Are you not Maeve, Queen of Doranelle?”
Aelin. Had Maeve brought Aelin here? To be sold to Erawan?
Gods, gods—
Maeve tipped back her head and laughed. “Millennia apart, and you have forgotten even your own sister-in-law.”
Dorian was glad he was small and quiet and unmarked. He might have very well swayed.
Erawan went still. “You.”
Maeve smiled. “Me.”
Those golden eyes roved over the Fae Queen. “In a Fae skin. All this time.”
“I’m disappointed you did not figure it out.”
The pulse of Erawan’s power slithered over Dorian. So similar—so terribly similar to the oily power of that Valg prince. “Do you know what you have—” The Valg king silenced himself. Straightened his shoulders.
“I suppose I should thank you, then,” Erawan said, mastering himself. “Without you betraying my brother, I would not have discovered this delightful world. And would not stand primed to conquer it.” He sipped from his goblet. “But the question remains: Why come here? Why reveal yourself now? My ancient enemy—perhaps enemy no longer.”
“I was never your enemy,” Maeve said, her voice unruffled. “Your brothers, however, were mine.”
“And yet you married Orcus knowing full well what he is like.”
“Perhaps I should have married you when you offered.” A small smile—coy and horrible. “But I was so young then. Easily misled.”
Erawan let out a low laugh that made Dorian’s stomach turn. “You were never those things. And now here we are.”
If Aelin was here, if Dorian could find her, perhaps they could take on the Valg queen and king …
“Here we are,” Maeve said. “You, poised to sweep this continent. And me, willing to help you.”
Erawan crossed an ankle over a knee. “Again: Why?”
Maeve’s fingers smoothed over the facets of her goblet. “My people have betrayed me. After all I have done for them, all I have protected them, they rose up against me. The army I had gathered refused to march. My nobles, my servants, refused to kneel. I am Queen of Doranelle no longer.”
“I can guess who might be behind such a thing,” Erawan said.
Darkness flickered in the room, terrible and cold. “I had Aelin of the Wildfire contained. I had hoped to bring her here to you when she was … ready. But the sentinel I assigned to oversee her care made a grave error. I myself will admit that I was deceived. And now she is again free. And took it upon herself to dispatch letters to some influential individuals in Doranelle. She is likely already on this continent.”
Relief shuddered through him.
Erawan waved a hand. “In Anielle. Expending her power carelessly.”
Maeve’s eyes glowed. “She cost me my kingdom, my throne. My circle of trusted warriors. Any neutrality I might have had in this war, any mercy I might have offered, vanished the moment she and her mate left.”
They’d found her. Somehow, they’d found her. And Anielle—did he dare hope Chaol might also be there?
Dorian might have roared his victory. But Maeve continued, “Aelin Galathynius will come for me, if she survives you. I do not plan to allow her the chance to do so.”
Erawan’s smile grew. “So you think to ally with me.”
“Only together can we ensure Brannon’s bloodline is toppled forever. Never to rise again.”
“Then why not kill her, when you had her?”
“Would you have done so, brother? Would you not have tried to turn her?”
Erawan’s silence was confirmation enough. Then the Valg king asked, “You lay a great deal before me, sister. Do you expect me to believe you so readily?”
“I anticipated that.” Her lips curved. “After all, I have nothing left but my own powers.”
Erawan said nothing, as if well aware of the dance the queen led him in.
She extended a moon-white hand toward the center of the room. “There is something else I might bring to the table, should it interest you.”
A flick of her slender fingers, and a hole simply appeared in the heart of the chamber.
Dorian started, curling himself farther into shadow and dust. Not bothering to hide his trembling as a horror only true darkness could craft appeared on the other side of that hole. The portal.
“I had forgotten you’d mastered that gift,” Erawan said, his golden eyes flaring at the thing that now bowed to them, its pincers clicking.
The spider.
“And I’d forgotten that they still bothered to answer to you,” Erawan went on.
“When the Fae cast me aside,” Maeve said, smiling faintly at the enormous spider, “I returned to those who have always been loyal to me.”
“The stygian spiders have become their own creatures,” Erawan countered. “Your list of allies remains short.”
Maeve shook her head, dark hair shining. “These are not the stygian spiders.”
Through the portal, Dorian could make out jagged, ashen rock. Mountains.
“These are the kharankui, as the people of the southern continent call them. My most loyal handmaidens.”
Dorian’s heart thundered as the spider bowed again.
Erawan’s face turned cool and bored. “What use would I have for them?” He gestured to the windows beyond, the hellscape he’d crafted. “I have created armies of beasts loyal to me. I do not need a few hundred spiders.”
Maeve didn’t so much as falter. “My handmaidens are resourceful, their webs long-reaching. They speak to me of the goings-on in the world. And spoke to me of the next … phase of your grand plans.”
Dorian braced himself. Erawan stiffened.
Maeve drawled. “The Valg princesses need hosts. You have had difficulty in securing ones powerful enough to hold them. The khaganate princess managed to survive the one you planted in her, and is mistress of her own body once more.”
Valg princesses. In the southern continent. Chaol—
“I’m listening,” Erawan said.
Maeve pointed to the spider still bowing at the portal—the portal to the southern continent, opened as easily as a window. “Why bother with human hosts for the six remaining princesses when you might create ones far more powerful? And willing.”
Erawan’s gold eyes slid to the spider. “You and your kin would allow this?” His first words to the creature.
The spider’s pincers clicked, her horrible eyes blinking. “It would be our honor to prove our loyalty to our queen.”
Maeve smiled at the spider. Dorian shuddered.
“Immortal, powerful hosts,” Maeve purred to the Valg king. “With their innate gifts, imagine how the princesses might thrive within them. Both spider and princess becoming more.”
Becoming a horror beyond all reckoning.
Erawan said nothing, and Maeve flicked her fingers, the portal and spider vanishing. She rose, graceful as a shadow. “I shall let you consider this alliance, if that is what you wish. The kharankui will do as I bid them—and will happily march under your banner.”
“Yet what shall I say to my brother, when I see him again?”
Maeve angled her head. “Do you plan to see Orcus again?”
“Why do you think I have spent so long building this army, preparing this world, if not to greet my brothers once more? If not to impress them with what I have made here?”
Erawan would bring the Valg kings back to Erilea, if given the chance. And if he did—
Maeve studied the seated king. “Tell Orcus that I grew bored of waiting for him to come home from his conquests.” A spider’s smile. “I would much rather have joined him.”
Erawan blinked, the only sign of his surprise. Then he waved an elegant hand, and the doors opened on a phantom wind. “I shall think on this, sister. For your brazenness in approaching me, I will allow you to stay as my guest until I decide.” Two guards appeared in the hall, and Dorian braced himself, paws tensing on the stones. “They will show you to your room.”
To remain in this chamber for too long might lead to his exposure, but he had not sensed the key on the Valg king. Later—he could keep looking later. Contemplate the best way to kill the king, too. If he was foolish enough to risk it. For now …
Maeve gathered her cloak, sweeping it around her, and Dorian rushed forward, ducking into its shadows once more as the Fae Queen prowled out.
The guards led her down a hall, up a winding stair, and into a tower adjacent to Erawan’s. It was well-appointed in polished oak furniture and crisp linen sheets. Likely a remnant of the years this had been a human stronghold and not a home of horrors.
As the door shut behind Maeve, she leaned into the iron-studded wood and sighed.
“Do you plan to hide in that pathetic form all day?”
Dorian lunged for the gap between the door and the floor, but her black-booted foot slammed down upon his tail.
Pain speared through his bones, but her foot remained in place. His magic surged, lashing, but a dark wind wrapped talons around it, choking. Stifling.
The Fae Queen smiled down at him. “You are not a very skilled spy, King of Adarlan.”
CHAPTER 71
Dorian’s magic struggled, roaring as her dark power held him in its net. If he could turn into a wyvern and rip her head off …
But Maeve smiled, weary and amused, and lifted her foot from his poor tail. Then released her grip on his magic.
He shuddered at the dark, festering power as it caressed talons down his magic, brushed the shimmering, raw core, and vanished.
It was an effort not to gag, not to touch the pale band on his neck just to be sure it was gone.
Maeve’s smile remained on her red mouth, his magic still shivering as the feel of her power lingered. The power to break into minds, to rip apart the psyche. A different sort of enemy. One that would require another route. A reckless, fool’s route. A courtier’s route.
So he shifted, fur becoming skin, paws into hands. When he at last stood before the Fae Queen, man once more, her smile grew. “How handsome you are.”
Dorian sketched a bow. He didn’t dare reach for Damaris at his side. “How did you know?”
“You did not think I beheld you, your scent and the feel of your power, in Aelin’s memories?” She angled her head. “Though my spy did not report your interest in shifting.”
Cyrene. Horror crept through him.
Maeve strode deeper into the chamber and took up a seat on the bench before the foot of the bed, as regally as if she sat upon her throne. “How do you think the Matrons knew where to find you?”
“Cyrene was only at the camp for a day,” he managed to say.
“Do you truly believe that there are no other spiders, up there in the mountains? They all answer to her, and to me. She needed only whisper once, to the right ones, and they found me. And found the Ironteeth.” Maeve ran a hand along the lap of her gown. “Whether Erawan knows of your gifts remains to be seen. Before you killed her, Cyrene certainly informed me that you were … different.”
He did not regret killing her one bit.
“But that is neither here nor there. Cyrene is dead, and you are a long way from the arms of Manon Blackbeak.”
Dorian braced a hand on Damaris’s hilt.
Maeve smiled at the ancient sword. “It seems the Queen of Terrasen learned to share. She’s acquired quite the trove, hasn’t she?” Dorian started. If Maeve knew everything Aelin possessed—
“I know that, too,” Maeve said, her dark eyes depthless. Damaris warmed in his grip. “And know the spider did not guess at that truth, at least.” She scanned him. “Where are they now, Dorian Havilliard?”
Something slithering and sharp slid along his mind. Trying to get in—
Dorian’s magic roared. A sheet of ice slammed into those mental talons. Blasted them away.
Maeve chuckled, and Dorian blinked, finding the room also coated with frost. “A dramatic, but effective method.”
Dorian smirked at her, “You think I would be foolish enough to allow you into my mind?” Still keeping one hand on the sword, he slid the other into a pocket, if only to hide its shaking. “Or to tell you where they are hidden?”
“It was worth the attempt,” Maeve said.
“Why not sound the alarm?” was his only reply.
Maeve leaned back, studying him again. “You want what I want. Erawan has it. Does that not make you and I allies of a sort?”
“You must be mad, to think I would ever give you the keys.”
“Am I? What would you do with them, Dorian? Destroy them?”
“What would you do? Conquer the world?”
Maeve laughed. “Oh, nothing so common as that. I would make sure that Erawan and his brothers can never return.” Damaris remained warm in his hand. The queen spoke the truth. Or some part of it.
“You’ll admit so easily that you plan to betray Erawan?”
“Why do you think I came here?” Maeve asked. “My people have cast me out, and I guessed you would seek out Morath soon enough.”
Damaris’s warmth did not falter, yet Dorian said, “You cannot think I’d believe you came here to win my allegiance. Not when I saw that you plan to offer Erawan your spiders to assist his princesses.” He didn’t want to know what the Valg princesses could do. Why Erawan had delayed his unleashing of them.
“A small sacrifice on my part to win his trust.” Damaris held warm. “We are not so different, you and I. And I have nothing to lose now, thanks to your friend.”
Truth, truth, truth.
And there it was—the opening he’d been waiting for.
Keeping his mind encased in that wall of ice, his magic sizing up the enemy before them, Dorian let his hand slide from Damaris’s hilt. Let her see his thawing distrust as he said, “Aelin seems to be skilled at wrecking the kingdoms of other people while protecting her own.”
“And at letting others pay her debts.”
Dorian stilled, though his magic continued its vigil, monitoring her dark power as it paced the barrier to his mind.
“Isn’t that why you are here?” Maeve asked. “To be the sacrifice so that Aelin need not destroy herself?” She clicked her tongue. “Such a terrible waste—for either of you to pay the price for Elena’s foolishness.”
“It is.” Truth.
“Can I tell you what Aelin revealed to me, during those moments I was able to peer into her mind?”
Dorian didn’t dare reach for Damaris again. “You enslaved her,” he growled. “I don’t want to hear a damn thing about it.”
Maeve brushed her curtain of hair over a shoulder, humming. “Aelin is glad it’s you,” she merely said. “She’s hoping she’ll be too late in returning. That you’ll accomplish what you’ve set out to do and spare her from a terrible choice.”
“She has a mate and a kingdom. I don’t blame her.” The sharpness in his words wasn’t entirely faked.
“Don’t you? Don’t you have a kingdom to look after, one no less powerful and noble than Terrasen?” When he didn’t answer, Maeve said, “Aelin has been freed for weeks now. And she has not come to find you.”
“The continent is a big place.”
A knowing smile. “She could find you, if she wished. And yet she went to Anielle.”
He knew what manner of game she played. His magic slipped a fraction. An opening.
Maeve’s own lashed for it, seeking a way in. She’d barely crossed the threshold when he gritted his teeth and threw her from his mind again, the wall of ice colliding with her.
“If you want me to ally with you, you’re picking one hell of a way to show it.”
Maeve laughed softly. “Can you blame me for trying?”
Dorian didn’t answer, and stared at her for a long minute. Made a show of considering. Every bit of courtly intrigue and training kept his face unreadable. “You think I’d betray my friends that easily?”
“Is it betrayal?” Maeve mused. “To find an alternative to you and Aelin Galathynius paying the ultimate price? It was what I intended for her all along: to keep her from being a sacrifice to unfeeling gods.”
“Those gods are powerful beings.”
“Then where are they now?” She gestured to the room, the keep. Silence answered. “They are afraid. Of me, of Erawan. Of the keys.” She gave him a serpent’s smile. “They are afraid of you. You, and Aelin Fire-Bringer. Powerful enough to send them home—or to damn them.”
