A different sort of shackle. It always had been.
Aelin reined in the urge to recoil, to shake the thing from her head.
“Mab’s crown,” Maeve said. “Your crown, by blood and birthright. Her true Heir.”
Aelin ignored the words. Stared toward the circle of glass shards.
“Oh, that,” Maeve said, noting her attention. “I think you know how this shall go, Aelin of the Wildfire.”
Aelin said nothing.
Maeve gave a nod.
Cairn shoved her forward, right into the glass.
Her bare feet sliced open, new skin shrieking as it ripped.
She inhaled sharply through her teeth, swallowing her cry just as Cairn pushed her onto her knees.
The breath slammed from her at the impact. At each shard that sliced and dug in deep.
Breathe—breathing was key, was vital.
She pulled her mind out, away, inhaling and exhaling. A wave sweeping back from the shore, then returning.
Warmth pooled beneath her knees, her calves and ankles, the coppery scent of her blood rising to blend into the mists.
Her breath turned jagged as she began shaking, as a scream surged within her.
She bit her lip, canines piercing flesh.
She would not scream. Not yet.
Breathe—breathe.
The tang of her blood coated her mouth as she bit down harder.
“A pity that there’s no audience to witness this,” said Maeve, her voice far away and yet too near. “Aelin Fire-Bringer, wearing her proper Faerie Queen’s crown at last. Kneeling at my feet.”
A tremor shuddered through Aelin, rocking her body enough that the glass found new angles, new entries.
She drifted further back, away. Each breath tugged her out to sea, to a place where words and feelings and pain became a distant shore.
Maeve snapped her fingers. “Fenrys.”
The wolf padded past and sat himself beside her throne. But not before he glanced at the black wolf. Just a turn of the head.
The black wolf returned the look, bland and cold. And that was enough for Maeve to say, “Connall, you may finally tell your twin what you wish to say.”
A flash of light.
Aelin inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, over and over. Barely registered the beautiful dark-haired male who now stood in place of the wolf. Bronze-skinned like his twin, but without the wildness, without the mischief shining from his face. He wore a warrior’s layered clothes, black to Fenrys’s usual gray, twin knives hanging at his sides.
The white wolf stared up at his twin, rooted to the spot by that invisible bond.
“Speak freely, Connall,” Maeve said, her faint smile remaining. The barn owl perched on the back of her throne watched with solemn, unblinking eyes. “Let your brother know these words are your own and not of my command.”
A booted foot nudged Aelin’s spine, a subtle jab forward. Harder into the glass.
No amount of breathing could draw her far enough away to rein in the muffled whimper.
She hated it—hated that sound, as much as she hated the queen before her and the sadist at her back. But it still made its way out, barely audible over the thundering falls.
Fenrys’s dark eyes shot toward her. He blinked four times.
She could not bring herself to blink back. Her fingers curled and uncurled in her lap.
“You brought this upon yourself,” Connall said to Fenrys, drawing his brother’s attention once more. His voice was as icy as Maeve’s. “Your arrogance, your unchecked recklessness—was this what you wanted?” Fenrys didn’t answer. “You couldn’t let me have this—have any part of this for myself. You took the blood oath not to serve our queen, but so you couldn’t be bested by me for once in your life.”
Fenrys bared his teeth, even as something like grief dimmed his stare.
Another burning wave washed through her knees, across her thighs. Aelin closed her eyes against it.
She would endure this, would bear down on this.
Her people had suffered for ten years. Were likely suffering now. For their sake, she would do this. Embrace it. Outlast it.
Connall’s rumbling voice rippled past her.
“You are a disgrace to our family, to this kingdom. You whored yourself to a foreign queen, and for what? I begged you to control yourself when you were sent to hunt Lorcan. I begged you to be smart. You might as well have spat in my face.”
Fenrys snarled, and the sound must have been some secret language between them, because Connall snorted. “Leave? Why would I ever want to leave? And for what? That?” Even with her eyes shut, Aelin knew he pointed toward her. “No, Fenrys. I will not leave. And neither will you.”
A low whine cut the damp air.
“That will be all, Connall,” Maeve said, and light flashed, penetrating even the darkness behind Aelin’s lids.
She breathed and breathed and breathed.
“You know how quickly this can end, Aelin,” Maeve said. Aelin kept her eyes shut. “Tell me where you hid the Wyrdkeys, swear the blood oath … The order doesn’t matter, I suppose.”
Aelin opened her eyes. Lifted her bound hands before her.
And gave Maeve an obscene gesture, as filthy and foul as she’d ever made.
Maeve’s smile tightened—just barely. “Cairn.”
Before Aelin could inhale a bracing breath, hands slammed onto her shoulders. Pushed down.
She couldn’t stop her scream then.
Not as he shoved her into a burning pit of agony that raced up her legs, her spine.
Oh gods—oh gods—
From far away, Fenrys’s snarl sliced through her screaming, followed by Maeve’s lilting, “Very well, Cairn.”
The pressure on her shoulders lightened.
Aelin bowed over her knees. A full breath—she needed to get a full breath down.
She couldn’t. Her lungs, her chest, only heaved in shallow, rasping pants.
Her vision blurred, swimming, the blood that had spread beyond her knees rippling with it.
Endure; outlast—
“My eyes told me an interesting tidbit of information this morning,” Maeve drawled. “An account that you were currently in Terrasen, readying the little army you gathered for war. You, and Prince Rowan, and my two disgraced warriors. Along with your usual group.”
Aelin hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to it.
That sliver of hope, foolish and pathetic. That sliver of hope that he’d come for her.
She had told him not to, after all. Had told him to protect Terrasen. Had arranged everything for him to make a desperate stand against Morath.
“Useful, to have a shape-shifter to play your part as queen,” Maeve mused. “Though I wonder how long the ruse can last without your special gifts to incinerate Morath’s legions. How long until the allies you collected start asking why the Fire-Bringer does not burn.”
It was no lie. The details, her plan with Lysandra … There was no way for Maeve to know them unless they were truth. Could Maeve have made a lucky guess in lying about it? Yes—yes, and yet …
Rowan had gone with them. They’d all gone to the North. And had reached Terrasen.
A small mercy. A small mercy, and yet …
The glass around her sparkled in the mist and moonlight, her blood a thick stain wending through it.
“I do not wish to wipe away this world, as Erawan does,” said Maeve, as if they were no more than two friends conversing at one of Rifthold’s finest tea courts. If any still existed after the Ironteeth had sacked the city. “I like Erilea precisely the way it is. I always have.”
