Lysandra pressed a kiss to the top of her red-gold hair. “No harm shall come to you.”
“I am not afraid for myself,” Evangeline said. “But for my friends.”
Those citrine eyes indeed shone with tears of terror, and Lysandra brushed one away before watching the advancing witch towers creep toward them. She had no words to comfort the girl.
“Any minute now,” Aedion murmured, and Lysandra glanced down to the snowy plain.
To the figures that emerged from beneath the snow, clad in white. Flaming arrows nocked in their bows. Morath’s front lines were nearly upon them, but those soldiers were not their target.
Down the wall, Murtaugh gripped the ancient stones as a figure that had to be Ren gave the order. Flaming arrows arched and flew, Morath soldiers ducking under their shields.
They did not bother to look beneath their feet.
Neither did the witches leading their three towers.
The flaming arrows struck the earth with deadly accuracy, thanks to the Silent Assassins who wielded those bows.
Right atop the fuse lines that flowed directly into the pits they’d dug. Just as the witch towers passed over them.
Blinding flashes broke apart the black sea of the army. Then the mighty boom.
And then a rain of stone, all Morath’s forces whirling to see. Providing the right distraction as Ren, Ilias, and the Silent Assassins raced on foot to the white horses hidden behind a snowdrift.
When the flash cleared, when the smoke was gone, a sigh of relief went down the walkway.
Two of those witch towers had been directly over the pits. Pits that they had filled with the chemical reactors and powders that fueled Rolfe’s firelances, then concealed beneath the earth—waiting for a spark to ignite them.
Those two towers now lay in scattered ruin, their wyverns broken beneath them, soldiers squashed under falling stone.
Yet one still stood, the pit it had been closest to exploding too soon. One of the wyverns who had pulled it had been hit by debris from another tower—and lay either dead or injured.
And that third remaining tower had stopped.
A wicked, low horn sounded from the enemy host, and the army halted, too.
“Thank the rutting gods,” Rolfe said, head bowing.
But Aedion was still staring at the plain—at the figures on horseback galloping to Orynth’s walls. Making sure they all returned.
“How long will that stop them?” Evangeline asked.
Everyone, Darrow included, turned to the girl. No one had an answer. No lie to offer.
So they again faced the army gathered on the plain, its farthest reaches now visible.
“One hundred thousand,” Ansel of Briarcliff announced softly.
CHAPTER 76
“It’s possible—to show a different world?” Dorian asked Maeve when they were again in their tower room.
Maeve slid into a chair, her face distant. “Using mirrors, yes.”
Dorian lifted a brow.
“You have seen yourself the power of witch mirrors. What it did to Aelin Galathynius and Manon Blackbeak. Who do you think taught the witches such power? Not the Fae.” A small laugh. “And how do you think I have been able to see so far, hear the voices of my eyes, all the way from Doranelle? There are mirrors to spy, to travel, to kill. Even now, Erawan wields them to his advantage with the Ironteeth.” With the witch towers.
Maeve lounged, a queen with no crown. “I can show him what he wishes to see.”
Dorian opened his mouth, then considered the words.
“An illusion. You don’t plan to show him Orcus or Mantyx at all.”
She cut him a cool stare. “A sleight of hand—while you enter the tower.”
“I can’t get in.”
“I am a world-walker,” Maeve said. “I have traveled between universes. Do you think moving between rooms will be so hard?”
“Something kept you from going to Terrasen all these years.”
Maeve’s jaw tightened. “Brannon Galathynius was aware of my gifts to move between places. The wards around his kingdom prevent me from doing so.”
“So you could not transport Erawan’s armies there for him.”
“No. I can only enter on foot. There are too many of them, anyway, for me to hold the portal that long.”
“Erawan is aware of your gift, so he’ll likely have taken steps to guard his own room.”
“Yes, and I have spent my time here slowly unraveling them. He is not so skilled a spellworker as he thinks.” A smug, triumphant smile.
Yet Dorian asked, “Why not do this from the start?”
“Because I had not yet decided it was worth the risk. Because he had not yet pushed me to bring my handmaidens here, to be mere foot soldiers.”
“You care about them—the spiders.”
“You will find, Your Majesty, that a loyal friend is a rare thing indeed. They are not so easy to sacrifice.”
“You offered up six of them to those princesses.”
“And I shall remember that for as long as I live,” Maeve said, and some kernel of emotion indeed danced over her face. “They went willingly. I tell myself that whenever I look upon them now and see nothing of the creatures I knew. They wished to help me.” Her eyes met his. “Not all Valg are evil.”
“Erawan is.”
“Yes,” she said, and her eyes darkened. “He and his brothers … they are the worst of our kind. Their rule was through fear and pain. They delight in such things.”
“And you do not?”
Maeve twirled an inky strand around a finger. And didn’t answer.
Fine. Dorian went on, “So you shall break past Erawan’s wards on his room, open the portal for me, and I’ll slip in while you distract him with an illusion about his brothers.” He frowned. “As soon as I find the key, he’ll know you’ve deceived him. We’ll have to leave quickly.”
Her mouth curved. “We will. And go to wherever you have hidden the others.”
Dorian kept every expression off his face. “You’re certain he won’t know he’s being tricked?”
“Orcus is his brother. But Orcus was also my husband. The illusion will be real enough.”
Dorian considered. “What time do we make our move?”
Nightfall.
That was when Maeve had told Erawan to meet. That liminal space between light and dark, when one force yielded to another. When she would open the portal for Dorian from rooms away.
As the sun set—not that Dorian could see it with the clouds and gloom of Morath—he found himself staring at the wall of Maeve’s chamber.
She had left minutes ago, with nothing more than a farewell glance. Their escape route had been plotted, an alternative with it. All should go according to plan.
And the body he now wore, the golden hair and golden eyes … Should anyone but Erawan himself stumble into the tower, they would find it occupied by their master.
He did not have room in himself for fear, for doubt. Did not think of the Wyrdstone collars beneath the fortress, or every twisted room and dungeon he’d passed through. Darkness fell beyond the room.
Dorian stepped back as the stones turned dark, dark, dark—then vanished.
The stench of death, of rot, of hate flowed out. Far more putrid than the tomb levels below.
It threatened to buckle his knees, but Dorian drew Damaris. Rallied his power and lifted his left hand, a faint golden light shining from his fingers. Fire.
With a prayer to whatever gods might bother to help him, Dorian stepped through the portal.
CHAPTER 77
Dorian didn’t know what he had expected from a Valg king’s chamber, but the four-poster bed of carved black wood, the washstand and desk, would have been low on his list of guesses.
Nothing extraordinary. No trove of stolen, ancient weapons or heirlooms, no bubbling potions or spellbooks, no snarling beasts in the corner. No additional of Wyrdstone collars.
A bedroom and nothing more.
He scanned the circular room, even going so far as to peer down the stairwell. A straight shot to the iron door and guards posted outside. No closets. No trapdoors.
He opened the armoire to find row after row of clean clothes. None of the drawers contained anything—and there were no hidden compartments.
But he felt it. That otherworldly, terrible presence. Could feel it all around him—
A small noise had him whirling.
Dorian looked at the bed then. At what he had missed, left lying between obsidian sheets, which nearly swallowed her frail, small body.
The young woman. Her face was hollow, vacant. Yet she stared at him. As if she’d awoken.
A pretty, dark-haired girl. No older than twenty. A near-twin to Kaltain.
Bile burned his throat. And as the girl sat up farther, the sheets falling away to reveal a wasted, naked body, to reveal a too-thin arm and the hideous purplish scar near the wrist … He knew why he had felt the key’s presence throughout the keep. Moving about. Vanishing.
It had been walking. Trailing its master. Her enslaver.
A collar of black stone had been clamped around her throat.
And yet she sat there in that rumpled bed. Staring at him.
Hollow and vacant—and in pain.
He had no words. There was only ringing silence.
Kaltain had destroyed the Valg prince inside her, but the Wyrdkey had driven her mad. Had given her terrible power, but ripped apart her mind.
Dorian slowly, carefully, took one step closer to the bed. “You’re awake,” he said, willing his voice to the drawl of the Valg king. Knowing it was her captor she saw.
A blink.
Dorian had witnessed Erawan’s experiments, the horrors of his dungeons. Yet this young woman, so starved, the bruises on her skin, the unholy thing in her arm, the unholy thing he’d known had shared this bed with her …
He dared to unspool a thread of his power. It neared her arm and recoiled.
Yes, the key was there.
He prowled closer, willing her not to look toward the portal in the wall.
The young woman trembled—just slightly.
He willed himself not to vomit. Not to do anything but look at her with cool command as he said, “Give me your arm.”
Her brown eyes scanned his face, but she held out her arm.
He nearly staggered back at the festering wound, the black veins running up from it. Leaking its poison into her. What Kaltain’s wound had no doubt looked like, and why the scar remained, even in death.
But he sheathed Damaris and took her arm in his hands.
Ice. Her skin was like ice. “Lie down,” he told her.
She shook, but obeyed. Bracing herself. For him.
Kaltain. Oh gods, Kaltain. What she’d endured—
Dorian freed the knife at his side—the one Sorrel had gifted him—and angled it over her arm. Kaltain had done the same to free it, Manon had said.
But Dorian sent a flicker of his healing magic to her arm. To numb and soothe. She thrashed, but he held firm. Let his magic flare through her. She gasped, arching, and Dorian took advantage of her sudden stillness to plunge in the knife, fast and deft.
Three movements, his healing magic still working through her, soothing her as best he could, and the bloodied shard was in his fingers. Pulsing its hollow, sickening power through him.
The final Wyrdkey.
He dropped her arm, sliding the Wyrdkey into his pocket, and turned for the portal.
But a hand wrapped around his, feeble and shaking.
He whirled, a hand going to Damaris, and found her staring up at him. Tears slid down her face.
“Kill me,” she breathed. Dorian blinked. “You—you pushed it back.” Not the key, but the demon inside her, he realized. Somehow, with that healing magic— “Kill me,” she said, and began sobbing. “Kill me, please.”
Damaris warmed in his hand. Truth. He gaped at her in horror. “I—I can’t.”
She began clawing at the collar around her throat. As if she’d rip it free. “Please,” she sobbed. “Please.”
He did not have time. To find a way to get that collar off. Wasn’t even certain it could come off, without that golden ring Aelin had used on him. “I can’t.”
Despair and agony flooded her eyes. “Please,” was all she said. “Please.”
Damaris remained warm. Truth. The pleading was nothing but truth.
But he had to go—had to go now. He could not take her with him. Knew that thing inside her, however his magic had pushed it back, would emerge again. And scream to Erawan where he was. What he’d stolen.
She wept, hands ripping at her brutalized body. “Please.”
Would it be a mercy—to kill her? Would it be a worse crime to leave her here, with Erawan? Enslaved to him and the Valg demon inside her?
Damaris did not answer his silent questions.
And he let his hand fall away from the blade entirely as he stared down at the weeping girl.
Manon would have ended it. Freed her in the only way left. Chaol would have taken her with him and damned the consequences. Aelin … He didn’t know what she would have done.
Who do you wish to be?
He was not any of them. He was—he was nothing but himself.
A man who had known loss and pain, yes. But a man who had known friendship and joy.
The loss and pain—they had not broken him wholly. Without them, would the moments of happiness be as bright? Without them, would he fight so hard to ensure it did not happen again?
Who do you wish to be?
A king worthy of his crown. A king who would rebuild what had been shattered, both within himself and in his lands.
The girl sobbed and sobbed, and Dorian’s hand drifted toward Damaris’s hilt.
Then a crack sounded. Bone snapping.
One moment, the girl was weeping. The next, her head twisted to the side, eyes unseeing.
Dorian whirled, a cry on his lips as Maeve stepped into the room. “Consider it a wedding gift, Majesty,” she said, her lips curling. “To spare you from that decision.”
And it was the smile on her face, the predatory gait of her steps that had his magic rallying.
Maeve nodded toward his pocket. “Well done.”
Her dark power leapt upon his mind.
He didn’t have the chance to grab for Damaris before he was snared in her dark web.
CHAPTER 78
He was in Erawan’s room, and yet not.
Maeve purred to him, “The key, if you will.”
Dorian’s hand slid into his pocket. To the sliver inside.
“And then we shall retrieve the others,” she continued, and beckoned to the portal through which they had both come. He followed her, pulling the shard from his pocket. “Such things I have planned for us, Majesty. For our union. With the keys, I could keep you eternally young. And with your power, second to none, not even Aelin Galathynius, you will shield us from any who might try to return to this world again.”
They emerged into their room, and a swipe of Maeve’s hand had the portal fading. “Quickly now,” she ordered him. “We depart. The wyvern awaits.”
Dorian halted in the middle of the chamber. “Don’t you think it’s rude to leave without a note?”
Maeve twisted toward him, but too late.
Too damn late, as the claws she’d hooked into his mind became mired in it. As flame, white-hot and sizzling, closed upon the piece of her she’d unwittingly laid bare in trying to trap him.
A trap within a trap. One he had formed from the moment he’d seen her. It had been a simple trick. To shift his mind, as if he were shifting his body. To make her see one thing when she glimpsed inside it.
To make her see what she wished to believe: his jealousy and resentment of Aelin; his desperation; his naive foolishness. He had let his mind become such things, let it lure her in. And every time she had come close, falling for those slips in his power, his magic had studied her own. Just as it had studied Cyrene’s stolen kernel of shape-shifting, so had it learned Maeve’s ability to creep into the mind, seize it.
It had only been a matter of waiting for her to make her move, to let her lay the trap she’d close to seal him to her forever.
“You—” A smile from him, and Maeve stopped being able to speak.
Dorian said into the dark chasm of her mind, I was a slave once. You didn’t really think I’d allow myself to be so once again, did you?
She thrashed, but he held her firm. You will free me, she hissed, and the voice was not that of a beautiful queen, but something vicious and cold. Starved and hateful.
You’re old as the earth, and yet you thought I would truly fall for your offer. He chuckled, letting a wisp of his fire burn her. Maeve shrieked, silent and endless in their minds. I’m surprised you fell for my trap.
I will kill you for this.
Not if I kill you first. His fire became a living thing, wrapping around her pale throat. In the real world, in the place where their bodies existed.
You hurt my friend, he said with lethal calm. It will not be so very difficult to end you for it.
Is this the king you wish to be? Torturing a helpless female?
He laughed again. You are not helpless. And if I could, I would seal you in an iron box for eternity. Dorian glanced to the windows. To the night beyond. He had to go—quickly. But he still said, The king I wish to be is the opposite of what you are. He gave Maeve a smile. And there is only one witch who will be my queen.
A groan rumbled through the mountain beneath them. Morath shuddered.
Maeve’s eyes widened further.
A crack louder than thunder echoed through the stones. The tower swayed.
Dorian’s mouth curved upward. You didn’t think I spent all those hours merely searching, did you?
He wouldn’t allow it to exist another day—that chamber with the collars. Not one more day.
So he’d bring down the entire damn keep atop it.
It had not been hard. Little bits of magic, of coldest ice, that wormed through the cracks of Morath’s foundation. That ate away at the ancient stone. Bit by bit, a web of instability growing with each hall and room he searched. Until the entire eastern half of the keep was balanced upon his will alone.
Until now. Until half a thought had his magic expanding through those cracks, bearing down upon them.
And so Morath began to crumble.
Smiling at Maeve, Dorian pulled out. Pulled away, even as he held her mind.
The tower shuddered again. Maeve’s breath hitched. You can’t leave me like this. He’ll find me, he’ll take me—
As you would have taken me? Dorian shifted into a crow, flapping in the air of the chamber.
Morath groaned again, and above it rose a screech of rage, so piercing and unearthly that his bones quailed.
Tell Erawan, Dorian said, halting on the windowsill, that I did it for Adarlan.
For Sorscha and Kaltain and all those destroyed by it. As Adarlan itself had been destroyed.
But from utter ruin, it might be built again. If not by him, then by others.
Perhaps that would be his first and only gift to Adarlan as its king: a clean slate, should they survive this war.
Screaming filled the halls. He’d marked where the human servants worked, where they dwelled. They would find, as they fled, that their passageways remained stable. Until every last one of them was out.
Please, Maeve begged, staggering to her knees as the tower swayed again. Please.
He should let Erawan find her. Doom her to the life she’d intended for him. For Aelin.
Maeve curled over her knees, her mind and power contained. Waiting in despair for the dark king whom she’d tried so hard to escape. Or for the shuddering fortress to collapse around her.
He knew he would regret it. Knew he should kill her. But to condemn her to what he’d endured …
He would not wish it upon anyone. Even if it cost them this war.
He did not think it made him weak. Not at all.
Beyond the window, Ironteeth shot to the skies, wyverns shrieking as Morath’s stones began to give way. In the valley below, the army halted to peer at the mountain looming high above them. The shaking tower built atop it.
Please, Maeve said again. Levels beneath them, another bellow of rage thundered from Erawan—closer now.
So Dorian soared into the chaotic night.
Maeve’s silent cry of despair followed on his heels. All the way to the peaks overlooking Morath and that rocky outcropping—to the two Wyrdkeys buried under the shale.
He could barely remember his own name as he slid them into his other pocket. As all three of the Wyrdkeys now lay upon him.
Then he reached back into the mind still tethered to his.
It was simple as an incision. To sever the link between their minds—and to sever another part of her.
To tie off the gift that allowed her to jump between places. To open those portals.
World-walker no longer, he said as his raw magic shifted her own. Changed its very essence. I suggest you invest in a good pair of shoes.
Then he let go of Maeve’s mind.
A hateful, unending scream was the only response.
Dorian shifted again, becoming large and vicious, no more than a pack wyvern flying northward to bring supplies to the aerial legion.
A king—he could be a king to Adarlan in these last days that remained for him. Wipe away the stain and rot of what it had become. So it might start anew. Become who it wished to be.
Dorian caught a swift wind, sailing hard and fast.
And when he looked behind him, at the mountain and valley that reeked of death, at the place where so many terrible things had begun, Dorian smiled and brought Morath’s towers crashing down.
CHAPTER 79
Yrene hated the Ferian Gap. Hated the tight air between the two gargantuan peaks, hated the bones and wyvern refuse littering the rocky floor, hated the reek that slithered from whatever openings had been carved into the mountains.
At least it was empty. Though they had not yet decided if that was a blessing.
The two armies now filled the Gap, Hasar’s soldiers already preparing to make the crossing back over the Avery into the tangle of Oakwald. That trek would take an age, even with the rukhin carrying the wagons and heavier supplies. And then the push northward through the forest, taking the ancient road that lay along the Avery’s northern branch.
“Pass me that knife there,” Yrene said to Lady Elide, pointing with her chin to her supply kit. Spread on a blanket on the bottom of the covered wagon, a Darghan soldier lay unconscious, cold sweat beading his brow. He hadn’t seen a healer after getting a slice to the thigh at the battle for Anielle, and when he’d fallen clean off his horse this morning, he’d been hauled in here.
Elide’s hands remained steady as she plucked up the thin knife and passed it to Yrene.
“Will it wake him?” she asked while Yrene bent over the unconscious warrior and examined the infected wound that was gruesome enough to turn most stomachs.
“My magic has him in a deep sleep.” Yrene angled the knife. “He’ll stay out until I wake him.”
Elide, to her credit, didn’t retch as Yrene began to clean out the wound, scraping away the dead, infected bits.
“No sign of blood poisoning, thank the gods,” Yrene announced as the cloth beside the man became covered in the discarded rot. “But we’ll need to put him on a special brew to make sure.”
“Your magic can’t just do a sweep through him?” Elide tossed the soiled cloth into the nearby waste bucket, and laid down another.
“It can, and I will,” Yrene said, fighting her gag as the reek from the wound stuffed itself up her nostrils, “but that might not be enough, if the infection truly wishes to make an appearance.”
“You talk about illnesses as if they were living creatures.”
“They are, to some degree,” Yrene said. “With their own secrets and temperaments. You sometimes have to outsmart them, just as you would any foe.”
Yrene took the mirrored lantern from beside the bed and adjusted the plates within to shine a beam of light on the infected slice. When the brightness revealed no further signs of rotting skin, she set down both lantern and knife. “That wasn’t as bad as I’d feared,” she admitted, and held out her hands over the bloody wound.
Warmth and light rose within her, like a memory of the summer in this frigid mountain pass, and as her hands glowed, Yrene’s magic guided her within the man’s body. It flowed along blood and sinew and bone, knitting and mending, listening to the aches and fever now running rampant. Soothing them, calming them. Wiping them away.
She was panting when she finished, but the man’s breathing had eased. The sweat on his brow had dried.
“Remarkable,” Elide whispered, gaping at the now-smooth leg of the warrior.
Yrene just turned her head to the side and vomited into the waste bucket.
Elide leapt to her feet.
But Yrene held up a hand, wiping her mouth with the other. “As joyful as it is to know I shall soon be a mother, the realities of the first few months are … not so joyous.”
Elide limped to the ewer of drinking water and poured a cup. “Here. Is there anything I can get you? Can—can you heal your own sickness, or do you need someone else to?”
Yrene sipped at the water, letting it wash away the bitter bile. “The vomiting is a sign that things are progressing with the babe.” A hand drifted to her middle. “It’s not something that can really be cured, not unless I had a healer at my side day and night, easing the nausea.”
“It’s become that bad?” Elide frowned.
“Terrible timing, I know.” Yrene sighed. “The best options are ginger—anything ginger. Which I would rather save for the upset stomachs of our soldiers. Peppermint can help, too.” She gestured toward her satchel. “I have some dried leaves in there. Just put some in a cup with the hot water and I’ll be fine.” Behind them, a small brazier held a steaming kettle, used for disinfecting supplies rather than making tea.
Elide was instantly moving, and Yrene watched in silence while the lady prepared the tea.
“I could heal your leg, you know.”
Elide stilled, a hand reaching for the kettle. “Really?”
Yrene waited until the lady had pressed a cup of the peppermint tea into her hands before she nodded to the lady’s boots. “Can I see the injury?”
Elide hesitated, but took her seat on the stool beside Yrene and tugged off her boot, then the sock beneath.
Yrene surveyed the scarring, the twisted bone. Elide had told her days ago why she had the injury.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get an infection yourself.” Yrene sipped from her tea, deemed it still too hot, and set it aside before patting her lap. Elide obeyed, putting her foot on Yrene’s thigh. Carefully, Yrene touched the scars and mangled bones, her magic doing the same.
The brutality of the injury was enough to take Yrene’s breath away. And to make her grind her teeth, knowing how young Elide had been, how unbearably painful it was—knowing that her very uncle had done this to her.
“What’s wrong?” Elide breathed.
“Nothing—I mean, beyond what you already know.”
Such cruelty. Such terrible, unforgivable cruelty.
Yrene coiled her magic back into herself, but kept her hands on Elide’s ankle. “This injury would require weeks of work to repair, and with our current circumstances, I don’t think either of us can undergo it.” Elide nodded. “But if we survive this war, I can help you, if you wish.”
“What would it entail?”
“There are two roads,” Yrene said, letting some of her magic seep into Elide’s leg, soothing the aching muscles, the spots where bone ground against bone with no buffer. The lady sighed. “The first is the hardest. It would require me to completely restructure your foot and ankle. Meaning, I would have to break apart the bone, take out the parts that healed or fused incorrectly, and then regrow them. You could not walk while I did it, and even with the help I could give you for the pain, the recovery would be agonizing.” There was no way around that truth. “I’d need three weeks to take apart your bones and put them back together, but you’d need at least a month of resting and learning to walk on it again.”
Elide’s face had gone pale. “And the other option?”
“The other option would be to not do the healing, but to give you salve—like the one you said Lorcan gave you—to help with the aches. But I will warn you: the pain will never entirely leave you. With the way your bones grind together here”—she gently touched the spot on Elide’s upper foot, then a spot down by her toes—“arthritis is already setting in. As the bones continue to grind together, the arthritis, that pain you feel when you walk, will only worsen. There may come a point in a few years—maybe five, maybe ten, it’s hard to tell—when you find the pain to be so bad that no salve can help you.”
“So I would need the healing then, regardless.”
“It’s up to you whether you want the healing at all. I only want you to have a better idea of the road ahead.” She smiled at the lady. “It’s up to you to decide how you wish to face it.”
Yrene tapped Elide’s foot, and the lady lowered it back to the floor before putting her sock back on, then her boot. Efficient, easy motions.
Yrene sipped from her tea, cool enough now to drink. The fresh verve of the peppermint zapped through her, clearing her mind and calming her stomach.
Elide said, “I don’t know if I can face that pain again.”
Yrene nodded. “With that sort of injury, it would require facing a great many things inside yourself.” She smiled toward the wagon entrance. “My husband and I just went through one such journey together.”
“Was it hard?”
“Incredibly. But he did it. We did it.”
Elide considered, then shrugged. “We’d have to survive this war first, I suppose. If we live … then we can talk about it.”
“Fair enough.”
Elide frowned at the wagon’s ceiling. “I wonder what they’ve learned up there.”
Up in the Omega and Northern Fang, where Chaol and the others were now meeting with the breeders and wranglers who had been left behind.
Yrene didn’t want to know more than that, and Chaol had not offered any other insight into how they’d be extracting information from the men.
“Hopefully something worth our visit to this awful place,” Yrene muttered, then drained the rest of her tea. The sooner they left, the better.
It was as if the gods were laughing at her—at them both. A knock on the wagon doors had Elide limping toward them, just before Borte appeared. Her face uncharacteristically solemn.
Yrene braced herself, but it was Elide whom the ruk rider addressed.
“You’re to come with me,” Borte said breathlessly. Behind the girl, Arcas waited, a sparrow perched on the saddle. Falkan Ennar. Not a companion, Yrene realized, but an additional guard.
Elide asked, “What’s wrong?”
Borte shifted, with impatience or nerves, Yrene couldn’t tell. “They found someone in the mountain. They want you up there—to decide what to do with him.”
Elide had gone still. Utterly still.
Yrene asked, “Who?”
Borte’s mouth tightened. “Her uncle.”
Elide wondered if the rukhin would shun her forever if she vomited all over Arcas. Indeed, during the swift, steep flight up to the bridge spanning the Omega and Northern Fang, it was all she could do not to hurl the contents of her stomach all over the bird’s feathers.
“They found him hiding in the Northern Fang,” Borte had said before she’d hauled Elide into the saddle, Falkan already flying up the sheer face of the pass. “Trying to pretend to be a wyvern trainer. But one of the other trainers sold him out. Queen Aelin called for you as soon as they had him secure. Your uncle, not the trainer, I mean.”
Elide hadn’t been able to respond. Had only nodded.
Vernon was here. At the Gap. Not in Morath with his master, but here.
Gavriel and Fenrys were waiting when Arcas landed in the cavernous opening into the Northern Fang. The rough-hewn rock loomed like a gaping maw, the reek of what lay within making her stomach turn again. Like rotting meat and worse. Valg, undoubtedly, but also a smell of hate and cruelty and tight, airless corridors.
The two Fae males silently fell into step beside her as they entered. No sign of Lorcan, or Aelin. Or her uncle.
Men lay dead in some of the dim hallways that Fenrys and Gavriel led her through, killed by the rukhin when they’d swept in. None of them leaked black blood, but they still had that reek to them. Like this place had infected their very souls.
“They’re just up here,” Gavriel said quietly—gently.
Elide’s hands began shaking, and Fenrys placed one of his own on her shoulder. “He’s well restrained.”
She knew not with mere ropes or chains. Likely with fire and ice and perhaps even Lorcan’s own dark power.
But it did not stop her from shaking, from how small and brittle she became as they turned a corner and beheld Aelin, Rowan, and Lorcan standing before a shut door. Farther down the hall, Nesryn and Sartaq, Lord Chaol with them, waited. Letting them decide what to do.
Letting Elide decide.
Lorcan’s grave face was frozen with rage, his depthless eyes like frigid pools of night. He said quietly, “You don’t need to go in there.”
“We had you brought here,” Aelin said, her own face the portrait of restrained wrath, “so you could choose what to do with him. If you wish to speak to him before we do.”
One look at the knives at Rowan’s and Lorcan’s sides, at the way the queen’s fingers curled, and Elide knew what their sort of talking would include. “You mean to torture him for information?” She didn’t dare meet Aelin’s eyes.
“Before he receives what is due to him,” Lorcan growled.
Elide glanced between the male she loved and the queen she served. And her limp had never felt so pronounced, so obvious, as she took a step closer. “Why is he here?”
“He has yet to reveal that,” Rowan said. “And though we have not confirmed that you are here, he suspects.” A glance toward Lorcan. “The call is yours, Lady.”
“You will kill him regardless?”
Lorcan asked, “Do you wish us to?” Months ago, she had told him to. And Lorcan had agreed to do it. That had been before Vernon and the ilken had come to abduct her—before the night when she had been willing to embrace death rather than go with him to Morath.
Elide peered inward. They gave her the courtesy of silence. “I would like to speak to him before we decide his fate.”
A bow of Lorcan’s head was his only answer before he opened the door behind him.
Torches flickered, the chamber empty save for a worktable against one wall.
And her uncle, bound in thick irons, seated on a wooden chair.
His finery was worn, his dark hair unkempt, as if he’d struggled while they’d bound him. Indeed, blood crusted one of his nostrils, his nose swollen.
Shattered.
A glance to her right confirmed the blood on Lorcan’s knuckles.
Vernon straightened as Elide stopped several feet away, the door shutting, Lorcan and Aelin mere steps behind. The others remained in the hall.
“What mighty company you keep these days, Elide,” Vernon said.
That voice. Even with the broken nose, that silky, horrible voice raked talons along her skin.
But Elide kept her chin up. Kept her eyes upon her uncle. “Why are you here?”
“First you let the brute at me,” Vernon drawled, nodding to Lorcan, “then you send in the sweet-faced girl to coax answers?” A smile toward Aelin. “A technique of yours, Majesty?”
Aelin leaned against the stone wall, hands sliding into her pockets. Nothing human in her face. Though Elide marked the way her hands, even within their confines, shifted.
Bound in irons. Battered.
Only weeks ago, it had been the queen herself in Vernon’s place. And now it seemed she stood here through sheer will. Stood here, ready to pry the information from Vernon, for Elide’s sake.
It strengthened Elide enough that she said to her uncle, “Your breaths are limited. I would suggest you use them wisely.”
“Ruthless.” Vernon smirked. “The witch-blood in your veins ran true after all.”
She couldn’t stand it. To be in this room with him. To breathe the same air as the man who had smiled while her father had been executed, smiled while he locked her in that tower for ten years. Smiled while he’d touched Kaltain, done far worse perhaps, then tried to sell Elide to Erawan for breeding. “Why?” she asked.
It was the only question she could really think of, that really mattered. “Why do any of it?”
“Since my breaths are limited,” Vernon said, “I suppose it makes no difference what I tell you.” A small smile curled his lips. “Because I could,” her uncle said. Lorcan growled. “Because my brother, your father, was an insufferable brute, whose only qualification to rule was the order of our birth. A warrior-brute,” Vernon spat, sneering toward Lorcan. Then at Elide. “Your mother’s preference seems to have passed to you, too.” A hateful shake of the head. “Such a pity. She was a rare beauty, you know. Such a pity that she was killed, defending Her Majesty.” Heat flared across the room, but Aelin’s face remained unmoved. “There might have been a place for her in Perranth had she not—”
“Enough,” Elide said softly, but not weakly. She took another step toward him. “So you were jealous. Of my father. Jealous of his strength, his talent. Of his wife.” Vernon opened his mouth, but Elide lifted a hand. “I am not done yet.”
Vernon blinked.
Elide kept her breathing steady, shoulders back. “I do not care why you are here. I do not care what they plan to do with you. But I want you to know that once I walk from this room, I will never think of you again. Your name will be erased from Perranth, from Terrasen, from Adarlan. There will never be a whisper of you, nor any reminder. You will be forgotten.”
Vernon paled—just slightly. Then he smiled. “Erased from Perranth? You say that as if you do not know, Lady Elide.” He leaned forward as much as his chains would allow. “Perranth now lies in the hands of Morath. Your city has been sacked.”
The words rippled through her like a blow, and even Lorcan sucked in a breath.
Vernon leaned back, smug as a cat. “Go ahead and erase me, then. With the rubble, it will not be hard to do.”
Perranth had been captured by Morath. Elide didn’t need to glance over a shoulder to know that Aelin’s eyes were near-glowing. Bad—this was far worse than they’d anticipated. They had to move quickly. Get to the North as fast as they could.
So Elide turned toward the door, Lorcan stalking ahead to open it for her.
“That’s it?” Vernon demanded.
Elide paused. Slowly turned. “What else could I have to say to you?”
“You did not ask me for details.” Another snake’s smile. “You still have not learned how to play the game, Elide.”
Elide returned his smile with one of her own. “There is nothing more that I care to hear from you.” She glanced toward Lorcan and Aelin, toward their companions gathered in the hall. “But they still have questions.”
Vernon’s face went the color of spoiled milk. “You mean to leave me in their hands, utterly defenseless?”
“I was defenseless when you let my leg remain unhealed,” she said, a steady sort of calm settling over her. “I was a child then, and I survived. You’re a grown man.” She let her lips curl in another smile. “We’ll see if you do, too.”
She didn’t try to hide her limp as she strode out. As she caught Lorcan’s eye and beheld the pride gleaming there.
Not a whisper—not one whisper from that voice who had guided her. Not from fear, but … Perhaps she did not need Anneith, Lady of Wise Things. Perhaps the goddess had known she herself was not needed.
Not anymore.
Aelin knew that one word from her, and Lorcan would rip out Vernon’s throat. Or perhaps begin with snapping bones.
Or skin him alive, as Rowan had done with Cairn.
As she followed Elide, the Lady of Perranth’s head still high, Aelin forced her own breathing to remain steady. To brace herself for what was to come. She could get through it. Push past the shaking in her hands, the cold sweat down her back. To learn what they needed, she could find some way to endure this next task.
Elide halted in the hall, Gavriel, Rowan, and Fenrys taking a step closer. No sign of Nesryn, Chaol, or Sartaq, though one shout would likely summon them in this festering warren.
Gods, the stench of this place. The feel of it.
She’d been debating for the past hour whether it was worth it to her sanity and stomach to shift back into her human form—to the blessed lesser sense of smell it offered.
Elide said to none of them in particular, “I don’t care what you do with him.”
“Do you care if he walks out alive?” Lorcan said with deadly calm.
Elide studied the male whose heart she held. “No.” Good, Aelin almost said. Elide added, “But make it quick.” Lorcan opened his mouth. Elide shook her head. “My father would wish it so.”
Punish them all, Kaltain had made Aelin once promise. And Vernon, from what Elide had told Aelin, seemed likely to have been at the top of Kaltain’s list.
“We need to question him first,” Rowan said. “See what he knows.”
“Then do it,” Elide said. “But when it’s time, make it quick.”
“Quick,” Fenrys mused, “but not painless?”
Elide’s face was cold, unyielding. “You can decide.”
Lorcan’s brutal smile told Aelin enough. So did the hatchet, twin to Rowan’s, gleaming at his side.
Her palms turned sweaty. Had been sweating since they’d bound up Vernon, since she’d seen the iron chains.
Aelin reached for her magic. Not the raging flame, but the cooling droplet of water. She listened to its silent song, letting it wash through her. And in its wake, she knew what she wished to do.
Lorcan took a step toward the chamber door, but Aelin blocked his path. She said, “Torture won’t get anything out of him.”
Even Elide blinked at that.
Aelin said, “Vernon likes to play games. Then I’ll play.”
Rowan’s eyes guttered. As if he could scent the sweat on her hands, as if he knew that doing it the old-fashioned way … it’d send her puking her guts up over the edge of the Northern Fang.
“Never underestimate the power of breaking a few bones,” Lorcan countered.
“See what you can get out of him,” Rowan said to her instead. Lorcan whirled, mouth opening, but Rowan snarled, “We can decide, here and now, what we wish to be as a court. Do we act like our enemies? Or do we find alternative methods to break them?”
Her mate met her stare, understanding shining there.
Lorcan still seemed ready to argue.
Above the phantom sting of chains on her wrists, the weight of a mask on her face, Aelin said, “We do it my way first. You can still kill him, but we try my way first.” When Lorcan didn’t object, she said, “We need some ale.”
Aelin slid the tankard of chilled ale across the table to where Vernon now sat, chains loosened enough for him to use his hands.
One false move, and her fire would melt him.
Only the Lion and Fenrys stood in the chamber, stationed by the doors.
Rowan and Lorcan had snarled at her order to stay in the hall, but Aelin had declared that they would only hinder her efforts here.
Aelin sipped from her own tankard and hummed. “An odd day, when one has to compliment their enemy’s good taste in ale.”
Vernon frowned at the tankard.
“It’s not poisoned,” Aelin said. “It’d defeat the purpose if it was.”
Vernon took a small sip. “I suppose you think plying me with ale and talking like we’re steadfast friends will get you what you want to know.”
“Would you prefer the alternative?” She smiled slightly. “I certainly don’t.”
“The methods may differ, but the end result will be the same.”
“Tell me something interesting, Vernon, and maybe it will change.”
His eyes swept over her. “Had I known you’d grow into such a queen, perhaps I would not have bothered to kneel for Adarlan.” A sly smile. “So different from your parents. Did your father ever torture a man?”
Ignoring the taunt, Aelin drank, swishing the ale in her mouth, as if it could wash away the taint of this place. “You tried and failed to win power for yourself. First by stealing it from Elide, then by trying to sell her to Erawan. Morath has sacked Perranth, and no doubt marches on Orynth, and yet we find you here. Hiding.” She drank again. “One might think Erawan’s favor had shifted elsewhere.”
“Perhaps he stationed me here for a reason, Majesty.”
Her magic had already felt him out. To make sure no heart of iron or Wyrdstone beat in his chest.
“I think you were cast aside,” she said, leaning back and crossing her arms. “I think you outlived your usefulness, especially after you failed to recapture Elide, and Erawan didn’t feel like entirely ridding himself of a lackey, but also didn’t want you skulking about. So here you are.” She waved a hand to the chamber, the mountain above them. “The lovely Ferian Gap.”
“It’s beautiful in the spring,” Vernon said.
Aelin smiled. “Again, tell me something interesting, and perhaps you’ll live to see it.”
“Do you swear it? On your throne? That you shall not kill me?” A glance toward Fenrys and Gavriel, stone-faced behind her. “Nor any of your companions?”
Aelin snorted. “I was hoping you’d hold out longer before showing your hand.” She drained the rest of her ale. “But yes. I swear that neither me nor any of my companions will kill you if you tell us what you know.”
Fenrys started. All the confirmation Vernon needed that she meant it—that they had not planned it.
Vernon drank deeply from his ale. Then said, “Maeve has come to Morath.”
Aelin was glad she was sitting. She kept her face bored, bland. “To see Erawan?”
“To unite with him.”
CHAPTER 80
The room was spinning slightly. Even the droplet of her mother’s magic couldn’t steady her.
Worse. Worse than anything Aelin had imagined hearing from Vernon’s lips.
“Did Maeve bring her army?” Her cool, unruffled voice sounded far, far away.
“She brought no one but herself.”
“No army—none at all?”
Vernon drank again. “Not that I saw before Erawan packed me off on a wyvern in the dead of night. Claimed I had asked too many questions and I was better suited to be stationed here.”
Erawan or Maeve had to have known. Somehow. That they’d wind up here, and planted Vernon in their path. To tell them this.
“Did she say where her army was?” Not Terrasen—if it had gone ahead to Terrasen …
“She did not, but I assumed her forces had been left near the coast, to await orders on where to sail.”
Aelin shoved aside her rising nausea. “Did you learn what Maeve and Erawan plan to do?”
“Face you, I’d wager.”
She made herself lean back in her seat, her face bored, casual. “Do you know where Erawan keeps the third Wyrdkey?”
“What’s that?”
Not a misleading question. “A sliver of black stone—like the one planted in Kaltain Rompier’s arm.”
Vernon’s eyes shuttered. “She had the fire gift, too, you know. I tremble to think what might happen if Erawan put the stone within your arm.”
She ignored him. “Well?”
Vernon finished his ale. “I don’t know if he had another beyond what was in Kaltain’s arm.”
“He did. He does.”
“Then I don’t know where it is, do I? I only knew of the one my cunning little niece stole.”
Aelin refrained from grinding her teeth. Maeve and Erawan—united. And not a whisper of where Dorian and Manon were with the two other keys.
She didn’t acknowledge the walls that began pressing in, the cold sweat again sliding down her back. “Why did Maeve ally with Erawan?”
“I was not privy to that discussion. I was dispatched here quickly.” A flash of annoyance. “But Maeve somehow has … influence over Erawan.”
“What happened to the Ironteeth stationed here at the Gap?”
“Called northward. To Terrasen. They were given orders to join with the legion already on its way after routing the army at the border, then at Perranth.”
Oh gods. It took all her training to think past the roaring in her head.
“One hundred thousand soldiers march on Orynth,” Vernon said, chuckling. “Will that fire of yours be enough to stop them?”
Aelin put a hand on Goldryn’s hilt, her heart thundering. “How far are they from the city?”
Vernon shrugged. “They were already within a few days’ march when the Ironteeth legion left here.”
Aelin calculated the distance, the terrain, the size of their own army. They were two weeks away at best—if the weather didn’t hinder them. Two weeks through dense forest and enemy territory.
They’d never make it in time.
“Do Maeve and Erawan go to join them?”
“I’d assume so. Not with the initial group, for reasons I was not told, but they will go to Orynth. And face you there.”
Her mouth turned dry. Aelin rose.
Vernon frowned at her. “Don’t you wish to ask if I know of Erawan’s weaknesses, or any surprises in store for you?”
“I have everything I need to know.” She jerked her chin to Fenrys and Gavriel and the former peeled away from the wall to open the door. The latter, however, began tightening Vernon’s chains once more. Anchoring him to the chair, binding his hands to the arms.
“Aren’t you going to unchain me?” Vernon demanded. “I gave you what you wished.”
Aelin took a step into the hall, noting the fury on Lorcan’s face. He’d heard every word—including her oath not to let him slaughter Vernon.
Aelin threw Vernon a crooked smile over her shoulder. “I said nothing about unchaining you.”
Vernon went still.
Aelin shrugged. “I said none of us would kill you. It’s not our fault if you can’t get out of those chains, is it?”
The blood drained from Vernon’s face.
Aelin said quietly, “You chained and locked my friend in a tower for ten years. Let’s see how you enjoy the experience.” She let her smile turn vicious. “Though, once the trainers here are dealt with, I don’t think there will be anyone left to feed you. Or bring you water. Or even hear your screaming. So I doubt you’ll make it to ten years before the end claims you, but two days? Three? I can accept that, I think.”
“Please,” Vernon said as Gavriel reached for the door handle—to seal the man inside.
“Marion saved my life,” Aelin said, holding the man’s gaze. “And you gleefully bowed to the man who killed her. Perhaps even told the King of Adarlan where to find us. All of us.”
“Please!” Vernon shrieked.
“You should have conserved that tankard of ale,” was all Aelin said before she nodded to Gavriel.
Vernon began screaming as the door shut. And Aelin turned the key.
Silence filled the hall.
Aelin met Elide’s wide-eyed stare, Lorcan savagely satisfied at her side.
“It won’t be quick this way,” Aelin said, extending the key to Elide. The rest of the question hung there.
Vernon kept screaming, pleading for them to come back, to unchain him.
Elide studied the sealed door. The desperate man behind it.
The Lady of Perranth took the outstretched key. Pocketed it. “We should find a better way to seal that room.”
“Our worst fears have been confirmed,” Aelin said to Rowan, leaning over a railing of one of the Northern Fang’s balconies, peering to the army gathered on the Gap floor. To where their companions now headed, the task of permanently sealing the chamber in which Vernon sat chained completed. Where they should be headed, too. But she had paused here. Taken a moment.
Rowan laid a hand on her shoulder. “We will face them together. Maeve and Erawan.”
“And the hundred thousand soldiers marching on Orynth?”
“Together, Fireheart,” was all he said.
She found only centuries of training and cool calculation within his face. That unbreakable will.
She rested her head against his shoulder, her temple digging into the light armor. “Will we make it? Will there be anything left at all?”
He brushed the hair from her face. “We will try. That is the best we can do.” The words of a commander who had walked on and off killing fields for centuries.
He joined their hands, and together they gazed at the army below. The shred of salvation it offered.
Had she been a fool, to expend those three hard-won months of descent into her power on that army, rather than Maeve? Maeve and Erawan? Even if she began now, it wouldn’t, could never, be the same.
“Don’t burden yourself with the what-ifs,” Rowan said, reading the words on her face.
I don’t know what to do, she said silently.
He kissed the top of her head. Together.
And as the wind howled through the peaks, Aelin realized that her mate, perhaps, did not have a solution, either.
CHAPTER 81
“One hundred thousand,” Ren breathed, warming his hands before the roaring fire in the Great Hall. They had lost two of the Silent Assassins to Morath archers seeking retaliation for the destruction of the witch towers, but no more than that, mercifully.
Still, the evening meal had been somber. No one had really eaten, not when darkness had fallen and the enemy campfires ignited. More than they could count.
Aedion had lingered here after everyone else had trudged to their own beds. Only Ren had remained, Lysandra escorting a still-trembling Evangeline up to their chamber. What the morning would bring, only the gods knew.
Perhaps the gods had abandoned them again, now that their only way to return home had been locked up in an iron box. Or focused their efforts entirely on Dorian Havilliard.
Ren heaved out a long breath. “This is it, isn’t it. There’s no one left to come to our aid.”
“It won’t be a pretty end,” Aedion admitted, leaning against the mantel. “Especially once they get that third tower operational again.”
They wouldn’t have another chance to surprise Morath now.
He jerked his chin at the young lord. “You should get some rest.”
“And you?”
Aedion just stared into the flame.
“It would have been an honor,” Ren said. “To serve in this court. With you.”
Aedion shut his eyes, swallowing hard. “It would have been an honor indeed.”
Ren clapped him on the shoulder. Then his departing footsteps scuffed through the hall.
Aedion remained alone in the guttering firelight for another few minutes before he made his way toward bed and whatever sleep he might find.
He’d nearly reached the entrance to the eastern tower when he spied her.
Lysandra halted, a cup of what seemed to be steaming milk in her hands. “For Evangeline,” she said. “She can’t sleep.”
The girl had been shaking all day. Had looked like she’d vomit right at the table.
Aedion only asked, “Can I speak to her?”
Lysandra opened her mouth as if she’d say no, and he was willing to let it drop, but she inclined her head.
They walked in silence the entire way to the north tower, then up and up and up. To Rose’s old room. Ren must have seen to it once again. The door was cracked open, golden light spilling onto the landing.
“I brought you some milk,” Lysandra announced, barely winded from the climb. “And some company,” she added to the girl as Aedion stepped into the cozy room. Despite the years of neglect, Rose’s chamber in the royal castle remained unharmed—one of the few rooms to claim such a thing.
Evangeline’s eyes widened at the sight of him, and Aedion offered the girl a smile before he perched on the side of her bed. She took the milk that Lysandra offered as the shifter sat on the other edge of the mattress, and sipped once, hands white-knuckled around the cup.
“Before my first battle,” Aedion said to the girl, “I spent the entire night in the privy.”
Evangeline squeaked, “You?”
Aedion smirked. “Oh yes. Quinn, the old Captain of the Guard, said it was a wonder I had anything left inside me by the time dawn broke.” An old ache filled Aedion’s chest at the mention of his mentor and friend, the man he’d admired so greatly. Who had made his final stand, as Aedion would, on the plain beyond this city.
Evangeline let out a little laugh. “That’s disgusting.”
“It certainly was,” Aedion said, and could have sworn Lysandra was smiling a bit. “So you’re already much braver than I ever was.”
“I threw up earlier,” Evangeline whispered.
Aedion said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Better than shitting your pants, sweetheart.”
Evangeline let out a belly laugh that made her clutch the cup to keep from spilling.
Aedion grinned, and ruffled her red-gold hair. “The battle won’t be pretty,” he said as Evangeline sipped her milk. “And you will likely throw up again. But just remember that this fear of yours? It means you have something worth fighting for—something you care so greatly for that losing it is the worst thing you can imagine.” He pointed to the frost-covered windows. “Those bastards out there on the plain? They have none of that.” He laid his hand on hers and squeezed gently. “They have nothing to fight for. And while we might not have their numbers, we do have something worth defending. And because of that, we can overcome our fear. We can fight against them, to the very end. For our friends, for our family …” He squeezed her hand again at that. “For those we love …” He dared to look up at Lysandra, whose green eyes were lined with silver. “For those we love, we can rise above that fear. Remember that tomorrow. Even if you throw up, even if you spend the whole night in the privy. Remember that we have something to fight for, and it will always triumph.”
Evangeline nodded. “I will.”
Aedion ruffled her hair once more and walked to the door, pausing on the threshold. He met Lysandra’s stare, her eyes emerald-bright. “I lost my family ten years ago. Tomorrow I will fight for the new one I’ve made.”
Not only for Terrasen and its court and people. But also for the two ladies in this room.
I wanted it to be you in the end.
He almost spoke her words then. Almost said them back to Lysandra as something like sorrow and longing entered her face.
But Aedion ducked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
Lysandra barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the expression on Aedion’s face, heard his words.
He didn’t expect to survive this battle. Didn’t expect any of them to.
She should have gone after him. Run down the tower stairs after him.
And yet she didn’t.
Dawn broke, a bright day with it. So they might see the size of the host waiting for them all the more clearly.
Lysandra braided Evangeline’s hair, the girl more straight-backed than she’d been yesterday. She could thank Aedion for that. For the words that had allowed the girl to sleep last night.
They walked in silence, Evangeline’s chin high, down to the Great Hall for what might very well be their last breakfast.
They were nearly there when an old voice said, “I would like a word.”
Darrow.
Evangeline turned before Lysandra did.
The ancient lord stood in the doorway of what seemed to be a study, and beckoned them inside. “It will not take long,” he said upon noting the displeasure still on Lysandra’s face.
She was done making herself appear nice for men whom she had no interest in being nice to.
Evangeline peered at her in silent question, but Lysandra jerked her chin toward the old man. “Very well.”
The study was crammed with stacks of books—piles and piles against the walls, along the floors. Well over a thousand. Many half-crumbling with age.
“The last of the sacred texts from the Library of Orynth,” Darrow said, aiming toward the desk piled with papers before a narrow glass window. “All that the Master Scholars managed to save ten years ago.”
So few. So few compared to what Aelin had said once existed in that near-mythic library.
“I had them brought out of hiding after the king’s demise,” Darrow said, seating himself behind the desk. “A fool’s optimism, I suppose.”
Lysandra strode to one of the piles, peering at a title. In a language she did not recognize.
“The remains of a once-great civilization,” Darrow said thickly.
And it was the slight catch in his voice that made Lysandra turn. She opened her mouth to demand what he wanted, but glimpsed what sat beside his right hand.
Encased in crystal no larger than a playing card, the red-and-orange flower within seemed to glow—just like the power of its namesake.
“The kingsflame,” she breathed, unable to stop herself as she approached.
Aelin and Aedion had told her of the legendary flower, which had bloomed across the mountains and fields the day Brannon had set foot on this continent, proof of the peace he brought with him.
And since those ancient days, only single blossoms had been spotted, so rare that their appearance was deemed a sign that the land had blessed whatever ruler sat on Terrasen’s throne. That the kingdom was truly at peace.
The one entombed in crystal on Darrow’s desk, Aelin had said, had appeared during Orlon’s reign. Orlon, Darrow’s lifelong love.
“The Master Scholars grabbed the books when Adarlan invaded,” Darrow said, smiling sadly at the kingsflame. “I grabbed this.”
The antler throne, the crown—all of it destroyed. Save for this one treasure, as great as any belonging to the Galathynius household.
“It’s very beautiful,” Evangeline said, coming up to the desk. “But very small.”
Lysandra could have sworn the old man’s lips twitched toward a smile. “It is indeed,” Darrow said. “And so are you.”
She didn’t expect the softening of his voice, the kindness. And didn’t expect his next words, either.
“Battle will be upon us before midday,” Darrow said to Evangeline. “I find that I will have need for someone of quick wit and quicker feet to assist me here. To run messages to our commanders in this castle, and fetch me supplies as needed.”
Evangeline angled her head. “You wish me to help?”
“You have trained with warriors during your travels with them, I take it.”
Evangeline glanced up at Lysandra in question, and she nodded to her ward. They had all overseen Evangeline learning the basics of swordplay and archery while on the road.
The girl nodded to the old lord. “I have some ability, but not like Aedion.”
“Few do,” Darrow said wryly. “But I shall need someone with a fearless heart and steady hand to help me. Are you that person?”
Evangeline didn’t look up to Lysandra again. “I am,” she said, chin lifting.
Darrow smiled slightly. “Then head down to the Great Hall. Eat your breakfast, and when you return here, there shall be armor waiting for you.”
Evangeline’s eyes widened at the mention of armor, no trace of fear dimming them at all.
Lysandra murmured to her, “Go. I’ll be down with you in a minute.”
Evangeline dashed out, braid flying behind her.
Only when Lysandra was certain she had gone downstairs did she say, “Why?”
“I assume that question means you are allowing me to commandeer your ward.”
“Why.”
Darrow picked up the kingsflame crystal. “Nox Owen is of no use to me now that his allegiance has been made clear, and apparently has vanished to the gods know where, likely at Aedion’s request.” He turned the crystal over in his thin fingers. “But beyond that, no child should have to watch as her friends are cut down. Keeping her busy, giving her a purpose and some small power will be better than locking her in the north tower, scared out of her wits at every horrible sound and death.”
Lysandra did not smile, did not bow her head. “You would do this for the ward of a whore?”
Darrow set down the crystal. “It’s the faces of the children that I remember the most from ten years ago. Even more than Orlon’s. And Evangeline’s face yesterday as she looked out at that army—it was the same despair I saw back then. So you may think me a champion bastard, as Aedion would say, but I am not so heartless as you might believe.” He nodded toward the open doorway. “I will keep an eye on her.”
She wasn’t entirely certain what to say. If she should spit in his face and tell him to hell with his offer.
Yet the brightness in Evangeline’s eyes, the way she’d run out of here … Purpose. Darrow had offered her purpose and guidance.
So she turned from the room, from the precious trove, the ancient books worth more than gold. Darrow’s silent, mournful companions. “Thank you.”
Darrow waved her off, and went back to studying whatever papers were on his desk—though his eyes did not move along the pages.
The battlement walls of the city were lined with soldiers. Each stone-faced at what marched closer.
The witch tower was still down, thank the gods. But even from the distance, Aedion could spy soldiers toiling to repair its damaged wheel. Yet without another wyvern to replace the one felled yesterday, it would not be moving soon.
It wouldn’t make today any easier, though. No, today would hurt.
“They’ll be within the archers’ range in about an hour,” Elgan reported. Darrow’s orders be damned. Kyllian was still general, yes, but every report his friend received, Aedion got as well.
“Remind them to make their shots count. Pick targets.”
The Bane knew that without being told. The others—they had proved their mettle in these battles, but a reminder never hurt.
Elgan aimed for the sections of the city walls that Ren and the Fae nobles had deemed the best advantage for their archers. Against a hundred thousand troops, they might only stand to thin the lines, but to let the enemy charge unchallenged at the walls would be utter folly. And break the spirit of these people before they met their end.
“What is that?” Ren murmured. Pointing to the horizon.
Sharp—Ren’s eyes had to be sharper than most humans, since it was still just a smudge on the horizon to Aedion.
A breath passed. The dark smudge began to take form, rising into the blue sky.
Flying toward them.
“Ilken?” Ren squinted as he shielded his eyes against the glare.
“Too big,” Aedion breathed.
Closer, the mass flying above the teeming army became clearer. Larger.
“Wyverns,” Aedion said, dread curdling in his stomach.
The Ironteeth aerial legion had been unleashed at last.
“Oh gods,” Ren whispered.
Against a terrestrial siege, Orynth might have held out—a few days or weeks, but they could have lasted.
But with the thousand or so Ironteeth witches who soared toward them on those wyverns … They would not need their infernal towers to destroy this city, the castle. To rip open the city gates and walls and let in Morath’s hordes.
The soldiers began to spot the wyverns. People cried out, along the battlements. Up in the castle looming behind them.
This siege would not even get the chance to be a siege.
It would end today. Within a few hours.
Racing feet skidded to a halt, and then Lysandra was there, panting. “Tell me what to do, where to go.” Her emerald eyes were wide with terror—helpless terror and despair. “I can change into a wyvern, try to keep them—”
“There are over a thousand Ironteeth,” Aedion said, his voice hollow in his ears. Her fear whetted something sharp and dangerous in him, but he refrained from reaching for her. “There is nothing you or we can do.”
A few dozen of the Ironteeth had sacked Rifthold in a matter of hours.
This host …
Aedion focused on his breathing, on keeping his head high as soldiers began to step away from their positions along the walls.
Unacceptable.
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE,” he bellowed. “HOLD THE LINE, AND DO NOT BALK.”
The roared command halted those who’d looked prone to bolt, at least. But it didn’t stop the shaking swords, the stench of their rising fear.
Aedion turned to Lysandra and Ren. “Get Rolfe’s firelances up on the higher towers and buildings. See if they can burn the Ironteeth from the sky.”
When Ren hesitated, Aedion snarled, “Do it now.”
Then Ren was racing toward where the Pirate Lord stood with his Mycenian soldiers.
“It won’t do anything, will it?” Lysandra said softly.
Aedion just said, “Take Evangeline and go. There is a small tunnel in the bottom level of the castle that leads into the mountains. Take her and go.”
She shook her head. “To what end? Morath will find us all anyway.”
His commanders were sprinting toward him, and for the first time since he’d known them, there was true dread shining in the eyes of the Bane. In Elgan’s eyes.
But Aedion kept his attention fixed on Lysandra. “Please. I am begging you. I am begging you, Lysandra, to go.”
Her chin lifted. “You are not asking our other allies to run.”
“Because I am not in love with our other allies.”
For a heartbeat, she blinked at him.
Then her face crumpled, and Aedion only stared at her, unafraid of the words he’d spoken. Only afraid of the dark mass that swept toward them, staying within formation above that endless army. Afraid of what that legion would do to her, to Evangeline.
“I should have told you,” Aedion said, voice breaking. “Every day after I realized it, all these months. I should have told you every day.”
Lysandra began to cry, and he brushed away her tears.
His commanders reached him, ashen and panting. “Orders, General?”
He didn’t bother to tell them that he wasn’t their general. It wouldn’t matter what the hell he was called in a few hours anyway.
Yet Lysandra remained at his side. Made no move to run.
“Please,” he said to her.
Lysandra only linked her fingers through his in silent answer. And challenge.
His heart cracked at that refusal. At the hand, shaking and cold, that clung to his.
He squeezed her fingers tightly, and did not let go as he faced his commanders. “We—”
“Wyverns from the north!”
The screamed warning shattered down the battlements, and Aedion and Lysandra ducked as they whirled toward the attack coming at their backs.
Thirteen wyverns raced from the Staghorns, plunging toward the city walls.
And as they shot toward Orynth, people and soldiers screaming and fleeing before them, the sun hit the smaller wyvern leading the attack.
Lighting up wings like living silver.
Aedion knew that wyvern. Knew the white-haired rider atop it.
“HOLD FIRE,” he bellowed down the lines. His commanders echoed the order, and all the arrows that had been pointed upward now halted.
“It’s …,” Lysandra breathed, her hand dropping from his while she walked forward a step, as if in a daze. “It …”
Soldiers still fell back from the city walls as Manon Blackbeak and her Thirteen landed along them, right before Aedion and Lysandra.
It was not the witch he had last seen on a beach in Eyllwe.
No, there was nothing of that cold, strange creature in the face that smiled grimly at him. Nothing of her in that remarkable crown of stars atop her brow.
A crown of stars.
For the last Crochan Queen.
Panting, rasping breaths neared, and Aedion glanced away from Manon Blackbeak to see Darrow hurry onto the city walls, gaping at the witch and her wyvern, at Aedion for not firing at her—her, whom Darrow believed to be an enemy come to parley before their slaughter.
“We will not surrender,” Darrow spat.
Asterin Blackbeak, her blue wyvern beside Manon’s, let out a low laugh.
Indeed, Manon’s lips curved in cool amusement as she said to Darrow, “We have come to ensure that you don’t, mortal.”
Darrow hissed, “Then why has your master sent you to speak with us?”
Asterin laughed again.
“We have no master,” Manon Blackbeak said, and it was indeed a queen’s voice that she spoke with, her golden eyes bright. “We come to honor a friend.”
There was no sign of Dorian amongst the Thirteen, but Aedion was reeling enough that he didn’t have the words to ask.
“We came,” Manon said, loud enough that all on the city walls could hear, “to honor a promise made to Aelin Galathynius. To fight for what she promised us.”
Darrow said quietly, “And what was that?”
Manon smiled then. “A better world.”
Darrow took a step back. As if disbelieving what stood before him, in defiance of the legion that swept toward their city.
Manon only looked to Aedion, that smile lingering. “Long ago, the Crochans fought beside Terrasen, to honor the great debt we owed the Fae King Brannon for granting us a homeland. For centuries, we were your closest allies and friends.” That crown of stars blazed bright upon her head. “We heard your call for aid.” Lysandra began weeping. “And we have come to answer it.”
“How many,” Aedion breathed, scanning the skies, the mountains. “How many?”
Pride and awe filled the Witch-Queen’s face, and even her golden eyes were lined with silver as she pointed toward the Staghorns. “See for yourself.”
And then, breaking from between the peaks, they appeared.
