Rowan shut out the thought. He didn’t let himself think of what had been done to her.
He’d do that tomorrow, when he saw Cairn. When he repaid him for every moment of pain.
Overhead, the stars shone clear and bright, and though Mala had only once appeared to him at dawn, on the foothills across this very city, though she might be little more than a strange, mighty being from another world, he offered up a prayer anyway.
Then, he had begged Mala to protect Aelin from Maeve when they entered Doranelle, to give her strength and guidance, and to let her walk out alive. Then, he had begged Mala to let him remain with Aelin, the woman he loved. The goddess had been little more than a sunbeam in the rising dawn, and yet he had felt her smile at him.
Tonight, with only the cold fire of the stars for company, he begged her once more.
A curl of wind sent his prayer drifting to those stars, to the waxing moon silvering the camp, the river, the mountains.
He had killed his way across the world; he had gone to war and back more times than he cared to remember. And despite it all, despite the rage and despair and ice he’d wrapped around his heart, he’d still found Aelin. Every horizon he’d gazed toward, unable and unwilling to rest during those centuries, every mountain and ocean he’d seen and wondered what lay beyond … It had been her. It had been Aelin, the silent call of the mating bond driving him, even when he could not feel it.
They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here.
CHAPTER 24
The Crochans ignored her. And ignored the Thirteen. A few hissed insults as they passed, but one glance from Manon and the Thirteen kept their fists balled at their sides.
The Crochans remained in the camp for a week to tend to their wounded, and so Manon and the Thirteen had remained as well, ignored and hated.
“What is this place?” Manon asked Glennis as she found the crone polishing the handle of a gold-bound broom beside the fire. Two others lay on a cloak nearby. Menial work for the witch in charge of this camp.
“This is an ancient camp—one of the oldest we claim.” Glennis’s knobbed fingers flew over the broom handle. “Each of the seven Great Hearths has a fire here, as do many others.” Indeed, there were far more than seven in the camp. “It was a gathering place for us after the war, and since then, it had become a place to usher in some of our younger witches to adulthood. It is a rite we’ve developed over the years—to send them into the deep wilds for a few weeks to hunt and survive with only their brooms and a knife. We remain here while they do so.”
Manon asked quietly, “Do you know what our initiation rite is?”
Glennis’s face tightened. “I do. We all do.” Which hearth had the witch she’d killed at age sixteen belonged to? What had her grandmother done with the Crochan heart she’d brought back in a box to Blackbeak Keep, wearing her enemy’s cloak as a trophy?
But Manon asked, “When do you head to Eyllwe?”
“Tomorrow. Those who were the most gravely wounded in the skirmish have healed enough to travel—or survive here on their own.”
Manon’s gut tightened, but she shut out the regret.
Glennis extended one of the brooms to Manon, its base bound with ordinary metal threads. “Do you fly south with us?”
Manon took the broom, the wood zinging against her hand. The wind whispered at her ear of the fast, wicked current between the peaks above.
She and the Thirteen had already decided days ago. If south was where the Crochans went, then south was where they would go. Even if each passing day might spell doom for those in the North.
“We fly with you,” Manon said.
Glennis nodded. “That broom belongs to a black-haired witch named Karsyn.” The crone jerked her chin toward the tents behind Manon. “She’s on duty by your wyverns.”
Dorian decided he didn’t need a hidden place to practice. Which was lucky, since there was no such thing as privacy in the Crochans’ camp. Not inside the camp, and certainly not around it, not with the sharp eyes of their sentinels patrolling day and night.
Which is how he wound up sitting before Vesta at Glennis’s hearth, the red-haired witch half asleep with boredom. “Learning shifting,” she groused, yawning for the tenth time that hour, “seems like a colossal waste of time.” She flicked a snow-white hand toward the makeshift training ring where the Thirteen kept up their honed bodies and instincts. “You could be sparring with Lin right now.”
“I just watched Lin nearly knock Imogen’s teeth down her throat. Forgive me if I’m in no mood to get into the ring with her.”
Vesta arched an auburn brow. “No male swaggering from you, then.”
“I like my teeth where they are.” He sighed. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
None of the witches, even Manon, had questioned why he practiced. He’d only mentioned, nearly a week ago, that the spider had made him wonder if he might be able to shift, using his raw magic, and they’d shrugged.
Their focus was on the Crochans. On the trip to Eyllwe that would likely happen any day now.
He hadn’t heard any mention of a war band gathering, but if it could divide Morath’s forces even slightly to venture south to deal with them, if it distracted Erawan when Dorian went to the Valg king’s stronghold … He’d accept it.
He’d already offered Manon and Glennis what he knew regarding the kingdom and its rulers. Nehemia’s parents and two younger brothers. Adarlan’s empire had done its work thoroughly in decimating Eyllwe’s army, so any hope on that front was impossible, but if they mustered a few thousand soldiers to head northward … It’d be a boon for his friends.
If they could survive, it would be enough.
Dorian closed his eyes, and Vesta fell silent. For days, she’d sat with him when her training and scouting permitted it, watching for any of the shifting that he attempted: changing his hair, his skin, his eyes.
None of it occurred.
His magic had touched that stolen shifter’s power—had learned it just enough before he’d killed the spider.
It was now a matter of convincing his magic to become like that shifter’s power. Whether it had ever been done with raw magic before, he did not know.
Be what you wish, Cyrene had told him.
Nothing. He wished to be nothing.
But Dorian kept peering inward. Into every hollow, empty corner. He need only do it long enough. To master the shifting. To sneak into Morath and find the third key. To then offer up all he was and had been to the Lock and the gate.
And then it would be over. For Erawan, yes, and for him.
Even if it would leave Hollin with the right to the throne. Hollin, who had been sired by a Valg-infested man as well. Had the demon passed any traits to his brother?
The boy had been beastly—but had he been human?
Hollin had not killed their father. Shattered the castle. Let Sorscha die.
Dorian hadn’t dared ask Damaris. Wasn’t certain what he’d do should the sword reveal what he was, deep down.
So Dorian peered inward, to where his magic flowed in him, to where it could move between flame and water and ice and wind.
But no matter how he willed it, how he pictured brown hair or paler skin or freckles, nothing happened.
