He didn’t answer. She wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Why not defy them? Why bow to their wishes? What have they ever done for you?”
Sorscha’s pained face flashed before his eyes.
“There is no other way,” he said at last. “To end this.”
“The keys could end it.”
To wield them, rather than seal them back into the gate.
“They could do anything,” Maeve went on. “Destroy Erawan, banish those gods back to their home if that’s what they want.” She angled her head. “Open another door to realms of peace and resting.”
To the woman who would undoubtedly be there.
The dark, predatory power stalking his mind faded away, pulled back to its mistress.
Aelin had done it once. Opened a door to see Nehemia. It was possible. The encounters with Gavin and Kaltain only confirmed it.
“What if you didn’t only ally with me,” he asked at last, “but with Adarlan itself?”
Maeve didn’t answer. As if she were surprised by the offer.
“A bigger alliance than merely working together to find the key,” Dorian mused, and shrugged. “You have no kingdom, and clearly want another. Why not lend your gifts to Adarlan, to me? Bring your spiders to our side.”
“A breath ago, you were livid that I enslaved your friend.”
“Oh, I still am. Yet I am not so proud to refuse to consider the possibility. You want a kingdom? Then join mine. Ally with me, work with me to get what we need from Erawan, and I shall make you queen. Of a far bigger territory, with a people who will not rise up against you. A new start, I suppose.”
When she still did not speak, Dorian leaned against the door. The portrait of courtly nonchalance. “You think I’m trying to trick you. Perhaps I am.”
“And Manon Blackbeak? What of your promises to her?”
“I have made her no promises regarding my throne, and she wants nothing to do with them, anyway.” He didn’t hide the bitterness as he shrugged again. “Marriages have been built on far more volatile foundations than this one.”
“Aelin of the Wildfire might very well mark you as an enemy, should we make a true union.”
“Aelin will not risk killing an ally—not right now. And she will discover that she is not the only one capable of saving this world. Perhaps she’ll even come to thank me, if she’s as eager to avoid being sacrificed as you claim.”
Maeve’s red mouth curved upward. “You are young, and brash.”
Dorian sketched a bow again. “I am also exceedingly handsome and willing to offer up my throne in a gesture of good faith.”
“I could sell you to Erawan right now and he would reward me handsomely.”
“Reward you—as if you are a hound bringing back a pheasant to its master.” Dorian laughed, and her eyes flashed. “It was you who just posed this alliance between us, not me. But consider this: Shall you kneel, or shall you rule, Maeve?” He tapped his neck, right over the pale band across it. “I have knelt, and found I have no interest in doing so again. Not for Erawan, or for Aelin, or anyone.” Another shrug. “The woman I love is dead. My kingdom is in pieces. What do I have to lose?” He let some of the old ice, the hollowness in his chest, rise to his face. “I’m willing to play this game. Are you?”
Maeve fell silent again. And slowly, those phantom hands crept into the corners of his mind.
He let her see. See the truth she sought.
He withstood it, that probing touch.
At last, Maeve loosed a breath through her nose. “You came to Morath for a key and will leave with a bride.”
He nearly sagged with relief. “I will leave with both. And quickly.”
“And how do you propose we are to find what we seek?”
Dorian smiled at the Fae Queen. The Valg Queen. “Leave that to me.”
Atop Morath’s highest tower hours later, Dorian peered at the army campfires littering the valley floor, his raven’s feathers ruffled in the frozen wind off the surrounding peaks.
The screams and snarling had quieted, at least. As if even Morath’s dungeon-masters maintained ordinary hours of working. He might have found the idea darkly funny, if he didn’t know what manner of thing was being broken and bred here.
His cousin, Roland, had wound up here. He knew it, though no one had ever confirmed it. Had he survived the transition to Valg prince, or had he merely been a meal for one of the terrors who prowled this place?
He lifted his head, scanning the cloudy sky. The moon was a pale blur behind them, a trickle of light that seemed keen to remain hidden from Morath’s watchful eyes.
A dangerous game. He was playing one hell of a dangerous game.
Did Gavin watch him now, from wherever he rested? Had he learned what manner of monster Dorian had allied himself with?
He didn’t dare to summon the king here. Not with Erawan so close.
Close enough that Dorian might have attacked. Perhaps he’d been a fool not to. Perhaps he’d be a fool to attempt it, as Kaltain had warned, when it might reveal their mission. When Erawan had those collars on hand.
Dorian cast a glance to the adjacent tower, where Maeve slept. A dangerous, dangerous game.
The dark tower beyond hers seemed to throb with power. The council room down the hall from it was still lit, however. And in the hall—motion. People striding past the torches. Hurrying.
Stupid. Utterly stupid, and yet he found himself flapping into the frigid night. Found himself banking, then swooping to a cracked window along the hallway.
He pushed the window open a bit farther with his beak, and listened.
“Months I’ve been here, and now he refuses my counsel?” A tall, thin man stomped down the hall. Away from Erawan’s council room. Toward the tower door at the end of the hall and the blank-faced guards stationed there.
At his side, two shorter men struggled to keep up. One of them said, “Erawan’s motives are mysterious indeed, Lord Vernon. He does nothing without reason. Have faith in him.”
Dorian froze.
Vernon Lochan. Elide’s uncle.
His magic surged, ice cracking over the windowsill.
Dorian tracked the lanky lord while he stormed past, his dark fur cape drooping to the stones. “I have had faith in him beyond what could be expected,” Vernon snapped.
The lord and his lackeys gave the tower door a wide berth as they passed it, turned the corner, and vanished, their voices fading with them.
Dorian surveyed the empty hall. The council room at the far end. The door still ajar.
He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t give himself time to reconsider as he crafted his plan. And waited.
Erawan emerged an hour later.
Dorian’s heart thundered through him, but he kept his position in the hall, kept his shoulders straight and hands behind his back. Precisely how he’d appeared to the guards when he’d rounded the corner, having flown off to a quiet hall before shifting and striding here.
The Valg king surveyed him once, and his mouth tightened. “I thought I’d dismissed you for the night, Vernon.”
Dorian bowed his head, willing his breathing steady with each step Erawan made toward him. His magic stirred, recoiling in terror at the creature who approached, but he forced it down deep. To a place where Erawan would not detect it.
As he had not detected Dorian earlier. Perhaps the raw magic in him also erased any traceable scent.
Dorian bowed his head. “I had returned to my chambers, but I realized I had a lingering question, milord.”
He prayed Erawan didn’t notice the different clothes. The sword that he kept half-hidden beneath his cloak. Prayed Erawan decided that Vernon had gone back to his room, changed, and returned. And prayed that he spoke enough like the Lord of Perranth to be convincing.
A sniveling, groveling man—the sort who’d sell his own niece to a demon king.
“What is it.” Erawan stalked down the hall to his tower, a nightmare wrapped in a beautiful body.
Strike him now. Kill him.
And yet Dorian knew he hadn’t come here for that. Not at all.
He kept his head down, voice low. “Why?”
Erawan slid golden, glowing eyes toward him. Manon’s eyes. “Why what?”
“You might have made yourself lord of a dozen other territories, and yet you graced us with this one. I have long wondered why.”
Erawan’s eyes narrowed to slits, and Dorian kept his face the portrait of groveling curiosity. Had Vernon asked this before?
A stupid gamble. If Erawan noticed the sword at his side—
“My brothers and I planned to conquer this world, to add it to the trove that we’d already taken.” Erawan’s golden hair danced with the light of the torches as he walked the long hall. Dorian had a feeling that when they reached the tower at the far end, the conversation would be through. “We arrived at this one, encountered a surprising amount of resistance, and they were banished back. I could do nothing less while trapped here than to repay this world for the blow they dealt us. So I will make this world into a mirror of our homeland—to honor my brothers, and to prepare it for their return.”
Dorian sifted through countless lessons on the royal houses of their lands and said, “I, too, know what it is to have a brotherly rivalry.” He gave the king a simpering smile.
“You killed yours,” Erawan said, bored already. “I love my brothers dearly.”
The idea was laughable.
Half the hallway remained until the tower door. “Will you truly decimate this world, then? All who dwell in it?”
“Those who do not kneel.”
Maeve, at least, wished to preserve it. To rule, but to preserve it.
“Would they receive collars and rings, or a clean death?”
Erawan surveyed him sidelong. “You have never wondered for the sake of your people. Not even the sake of your niece, failure that she was.”
Dorian made himself cringe, and bowed his head. “I apologize again for that, milord. She is a clever girl.”
“So clever, it seems, that one confrontation with you and you were scared away.”
Dorian again bowed his head. “I will go hunt for her, if that is what you wish.”
“I am aware that she no longer has what I seek, and it is now lost to me. A loss you brought about.” The Wyrdkey Elide had carried, given to her by Kaltain.
Dorian wondered if Vernon had indeed been lying low for months now—avoiding this conversation. He cringed again. “Tell me how to rectify it, milord, and it will be done.”
Erawan halted, and Dorian’s mouth went dry. His magic coiled within him, bracing.
But he made himself look the king in the face. Meet the eyes of the creature who had brought about so much suffering.
“Your bloodline proved useless to me, Vernon,” Erawan said a shade too softly. “Shall I find another use for you here at Morath?”
Dorian knew precisely what sort of uses the man would have. He lifted supplicating hands. “I am your servant, milord.”
Erawan stared at him for long heartbeats. Then he said, “Go.”
Dorian straightened, letting Erawan stride a few more feet toward the tower. The blank-faced guards posted at its door stepped aside as he approached.
“Do you truly hate them?” Dorian blurted.
Erawan half-turned toward him.
Dorian asked, “The humans. Aelin Galathynius. Dorian Havilliard. All of them. Do you truly hate them?” Why do you make us suffer so greatly?
Erawan’s golden eyes guttered. “They would keep me from my brothers,” he said. “I will let nothing stand in the way of my reunion with them.”
“Surely there might be another way to reunite you. Without such a great war.”
Erawan’s stare swept over him, and Dorian held still, willing his scent to remain unremarkable, the shift to keep its form. “Where would the fun be in that?” the Valg king asked, and turned back toward the hall.
“Did the former King of Adarlan ask such questions?” The words broke from him.
Erawan again paused. “He was not so faithful a servant as you might believe. And look what it cost him.”
“He fought you.” Not quite a question.
“He never bowed. Not completely.” Dorian was stunned enough that he opened his mouth. But Erawan began walking again and said without looking back, “You ask many questions, Vernon. A great many questions. I find them tiresome.”
Dorian bowed, even with Erawan’s back to him. But the Valg king continued on, opening the tower door to reveal a lightless interior, and shut it behind him.
A clock chimed midnight, off-kilter and odious, and Dorian strode back down the hall, finding another route to Maeve’s chambers. A quick shift in a shadowed alcove had him scuttling along the floor again, his mouse’s eyes seeing well enough in the dark.
Only embers remained in the fireplace when he slid beneath the door.
In the dark, Maeve said from the bed, “You are a fool.”
Dorian shifted again, back into his own body. “For what?”
“I know where you went. Who you sought.” Her voice slithered through the darkness. “You are a fool.” When he didn’t reply, she asked, “Did you plan to kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You couldn’t face him and live.” Casual, stark words. Dorian didn’t need to touch Damaris to know they were true. “He would have put another collar around your throat.”
“I know.” Perhaps he should have learned where the Valg king kept them and destroyed the cache.
“This alliance shall not work if you are sneaking off and acting like a reckless boy,” Maeve hissed.
“I know,” he repeated, the words hollow.
Maeve sighed when he didn’t say more. “Did you at least find what you were seeking?”
Dorian lay down before the fire, curling an arm beneath his head. “No.”
CHAPTER 72
From a distance, the Ferian Gap did not look like the outpost for a good number of Morath’s aerial legion.
Nor did it look, Nesryn decided, like it had been breeding wyverns for years.
She supposed that the lack of any obvious signs of a Valg king’s presence was part of why it had remained secret for so long.
Sailing closer to the towering twin peaks that flanked either side—the Northern Fang on one, the Omega on the other—and separated the White Fangs from the Ruhnn Mountains, Nesryn could barely make out the structures built into either one. Like the Eridun aerie, and yet not at all. The Eridun’s mountain home was full of motion and life. What had been built in the Gap, connected by a stone bridge near its top, was silent. Cold and bleak.
Snow half blinded Nesryn, but Salkhi swept toward the peaks, staying high. Borte and Arcas came in from the north, little more than dark shadows amid the whipping white.
Far behind them, out in the valley plain beyond the Gap, one half of their army waited, the ruks with them. Waited for Nesryn and Borte, along with the other scouts who had gone out, to report back that the time was ripe to attack. They’d made the river crossing under cover of darkness last night, and those the ruks could not carry had been brought over on boats.
A precarious position to be in, on that plain before the Gap. The Avery forked at their backs, effectively hemming them in. Much of it had been frozen, but not nearly thick enough to risk crossing on foot. Should this battle go poorly, there would be nowhere to run.
Nesryn nudged Salkhi, coming around the Northern Fang from the southern side. Far below, the whirling snows cleared enough to reveal what seemed to be a back gate into the mountain. No sign of sentries or any wyverns.
Perhaps the weather had driven them all inside.
She glanced southward, into the Fangs. But there was no sign of the second half of their army, marching north through the peaks themselves to come at the Gap from the western entrance. A far more treacherous journey than the one they’d made.
But if they timed it right, if they drew out the host in the Gap onto the plain just before the others arrived from the west, they might crush Morath’s forces between them. And that was without the unleashed power of Aelin Galathynius. And her consort and court.
Salkhi arced around the Northern Fang. Distantly, Nesryn could make out Borte doing the same around the Omega. But there was no sign of their enemy.
And when Nesryn and Borte did another pass through the Ferian Gap, even going so far as to soar between the two peaks, they found no sign, either.
As if the enemy had vanished.
The White Fangs were utterly unforgiving.
The wild men who led them kept the mountains from being fatal, knowing which passes might be wiped out by snow, which might have an unsteady ice shelf, which were too open to any eyes flying overhead. Even with the army trailing behind, Chaol marveled at the speed of their travel, at how, after three days, they cleared the mountains themselves and stepped onto the flat, snow-blasted western plains beyond.
He’d never set foot in the territory, though it was technically his. The official border of Adarlan claimed the plains past the Fangs for a good distance before they yielded to the unnamed territories of the Wastes. But it still felt like the Wastes, eerily quiet and sprawling, a strange expanse that stretched, unbreaking, to the horizon.
Even the stoic khaganate warriors did not look too long toward the Wastes at their left as they rode northward. At night, they huddled closer to their fires.
All of them did. Yrene clung a bit tighter at night, whispering about the strangeness of the land, its hollow silence. As if the land itself does not sing, she’d said a few times now, shuddering as she did.
A far better place, Chaol thought as they rode northward, skirting the edge of the Fangs on their right, for Erawan to make his empire. Hell, they might have given it to him if he’d set up his fortress deep on the plain and kept to it.
“We’re a day out from the Gap,” one of the wild men—Kai—said to Chaol as they rode through an unusually sunny morning. “We’ll camp south of the Northern Fang tonight, and tomorrow morning’s march will take us into the Gap itself.”
There was another reason the wild men had allied with them, beyond the territory they stood to gain. Witches had hunted their kind this spring—entire clans and camps left in bloody ribbons. Many had been reduced to cinders, and the few survivors had whispered of a dark-haired woman with unholy power. Chaol was willing to bet it had been Kaltain, but had not told the wild men that particular threat, at least, had been erased. Or had incinerated herself in the end.
It wouldn’t matter to them anyway. Of the two hundred or so wild men who had joined their army since they’d left Anielle, all had come to the Ferian Gap to extract vengeance on the witches. On Morath. Chaol refrained from mentioning that he himself had killed one of their kind almost a year ago.
It might as well have been a decade ago, for all that had happened since he’d killed Cain during his duel with Aelin. Yulemas was still weeks away—if they survived long enough to celebrate it.
Chaol said to the slim, bearded man, who made up for his lack of his clansmen’s traditional bulk with quick wit and sharp eyes, “Is there a place that might hide an army this large tonight?”
Kai shook his head. “Not this close. Tonight will be the greatest risk.”
Chaol glanced to the distant healers’ wagons where Yrene rode, working on any soldiers who had fallen ill or injured on the trek. He hadn’t seen her since they’d awoken, but he’d known she’d spent their ride today healing—the tightness in his spine grew with each mile.
“We’ll just have to pray,” said Chaol, turning to the towering mountain taking shape before them.
“The gods don’t come to these lands,” was all Kai said before he fell back with a group of his own people.
A horse eased up beside his own, and he found Aelin bundled in a fur-lined cloak, a hand on Goldryn’s hilt. Gavriel rode behind her, Fenrys at his side. The former kept an eye upon the western plains; the latter monitoring the wall of peaks to their right. Both golden-haired Fae males remained silent, however, as Aelin frowned at Kai’s disappearing form. “That man has a flair for the dramatic that should have earned him a place on some of Rifthold’s finest stages.”
“Fine praise indeed, coming from you.”
She winked, patting Goldryn’s ruby pommel. The stone seemed to flare in response. “I know a kindred spirit when I see one.”
Despite the battle that waited ahead, Chaol chuckled.
But then Aelin said, “Rowan and the cadre have been tunneling into their power for the past few days.” She nodded over her shoulder to Fenrys and Gavriel, then to where Rowan rode at the head of the company, the Fae Prince’s silver hair bright as the sun-on-snow around them. “So have I. We’ll make sure nothing harms this army tonight.” A knowing glance toward the healers’ wagons. “Certain areas will be especially guarded.”
Chaol nodded his thanks. Having Aelin able to use her powers, having her companions wielding them, too, would make the battle far, far easier. Wyverns might not even be able to get close enough to touch their soldiers if Aelin could blast them from the skies, or Rowan could snap their wings with a gust of wind. Or just rip the air from their lungs.
He’d seen enough of Fenrys’s and Gavriel’s fighting in Anielle to know that even without as much magic, they’d be lethal. And Lorcan … Chaol didn’t look over his shoulder to where Lorcan and Elide rode. The dark warrior’s powers weren’t anything Chaol ever wished to face.
With an answering nod, Aelin trotted to Rowan’s side, the ruby in Goldryn’s hilt like a small sun. Fenrys followed, guarding the queen’s back even amongst allies. Yet Gavriel remained, guiding his horse beside Farasha. The black mare eyed the warrior’s roan gelding, but made no move to bite him. Thank the gods.
The Lion gave him a slight smile. “I did not have the chance to congratulate you on your happy news.”
An odd thing for the warrior to say, given that they’d barely spoken beyond councils, but Chaol bowed his head. “Thank you.”
Gavriel stared toward the snow and mountains—toward the distant north. “I was not granted the opportunity you have, to be present from the start. To see my son grow into a man.”
Chaol thought of it—of the life growing in Yrene’s womb, of the child they’d raise. Thought of what Gavriel had not experienced. “I’m sorry.” It was the only thing, really, to say.
Gavriel shook his head, tawny eyes glowing golden, flecks of emerald emerging in the blinding sun. “I did not tell you for sympathy.” The Lion looked at him, and Chaol felt the weight of every one of Gavriel’s centuries weighing upon him. “But rather to tell you what you perhaps already know: to savor every moment of it.”
“Yes.” If they survived this war, he would. Every damn second.
Gavriel angled the reins, as if to lead his horse back to his companions, but Chaol said, “I’m guessing that Aedion has not made it easy for you to appear in his life.”
Gavriel’s grave face tightened. “He has every reason not to.”
And though Aedion was Gavriel’s son, Chaol said, “I’m sure you already know this, but Aedion is as stubborn and hotheaded as they come.” He jerked his chin toward Aelin, riding ahead, saying something to Fenrys that made Rowan snicker—and Fenrys bark a laugh. “Aelin and Aedion might as well be twins.” That Gavriel didn’t stop him told Chaol he’d read the lingering wound in the Lion’s eyes well enough. “Both of them will often say one thing, but mean something else entirely. And then deny it until their last breath.” Chaol shook his head. “Give Aedion time. When we reach Orynth, I have a feeling that Aedion will be happier to see you than he lets on.”
“I am bringing back his queen, and riding with an army. I think he’d be happy to see his most hated enemy, if they did that for him.” Worry paled the Lion’s tanned features. Not for the reunion, but for what his son might be facing in the North.
Chaol considered. “My father is a bastard,” he said quietly. “He has been in my life from my conception. Yet he never once bothered to ask the questions you pose,” Chaol said. “He never once cared enough to do so. He never once worried. That will be the difference.”
“If Aedion chooses to forgive me.”
“He will,” Chaol said. He’d make Aedion do it.
“Why are you so certain?”
Chaol considered his words carefully before he again met Gavriel’s striking gaze. “Because you are his father,” he said. “And no matter what might lie between you, Aedion will always want to forgive you.” There it was, his own secret shame, still warring within him after all his father had done. Even after the trunk full of his mother’s letters. “And Aedion will realize, in his own way, that you went to save Aelin not for her sake or Rowan’s, but for his. And that you stayed with them, and march in this army, for his sake, too.”
The Lion gazed northward, eyes flickering. “I hope you are right.” No attempt at denial—that all Gavriel had done and would do was for Aedion alone. That he was marching north, into sure hell, for Aedion.
The warrior began to edge his horse past him again, but Chaol found himself saying, “I wish—I wish I had been so lucky to have you as my father.”
Surprise and something far deeper passed across Gavriel’s face. His tattooed throat bobbed. “Thank you. Perhaps it is our lot—to never have the fathers we wish, but to still hope they might surpass what they are, flaws and all.”
Chaol refrained from telling Gavriel he was already more than enough.
Gavriel said quietly, “I shall endeavor to be worthy of my son.”
Chaol was about to mutter that Aedion had better deem the Lion worthy when two forms took shape in the skies high above. Large, dark, and moving fast.
Chaol grabbed for the bow strapped across his back as soldiers cried out, Gavriel’s own bow already aimed skyward, but Rowan shouted above the fray, “Hold your fire!” Galloping hooves thundered toward them, then Aelin and the Fae Prince were there, the latter announcing, “It’s Nesryn and Borte.”
Within minutes, the two women had descended, their ruks crusted with ice from the air high above the peaks.
“How bad is it?” Aelin asked, now joined by Fenrys, Lorcan, and Elide.
Borte winced. “It makes no sense. None of it.”
Nesryn explained before Chaol could tell the girl to get to the point, “We’ve gone through the Gap thrice now. Even landed in the Omega.” She shook her head. “It’s empty.”
“Empty?” Chaol asked. “Not a soul there?”
The Fae warriors glanced to one another at that.
“A few of the furnaces were still going, so someone must be there,” Borte said, “but there wasn’t one witch or wyvern. Whoever remains behind is minimal—likely no more than trainers or breeders.”
The Ferian Gap was empty. The Ironteeth legion gone.
Rowan scanned the peak ahead. “We need to learn what they know, then.”
Nesryn’s nod was grim. “Sartaq already has people on it.”
CHAPTER 73
Dorian hunted through Morath in a hundred different skins.
On the silent feet of a cat, or scuttling along the floors as a cockroach, or hanging from a rafter as a bat, he spent the better part of a week listening. Looking.
Erawan still remained unaware of his presence. Perhaps the nature of his raw magic indeed provided him with anonymity—and Maeve had only known to recognize it thanks to whatever she’d pried from Aelin’s mind.
At night, Dorian returned to Maeve’s tower chamber, where they would go over all he had seen. What she did during the day to keep Erawan from noticing the small, ever-changing presence hunting through his halls, she did not reveal.
She’d brought the spiders, though. Dorian had heard the servants’ terrified whispers about the fleeting portal that the queen had opened to allow in six of the creatures to the catacombs. Where they, through some terrible magic, allowed in the Valg princesses.
Dorian couldn’t decide whether it was a relief that he had not encountered these hybrids yet. Though he’d seen the emaciated human bodies, mere husks, that were occasionally hauled down the corridors. Dinner, the guards carrying them had hissed to the petrified servants. To feed a bottomless hunger. To prime them for battle.
What the spider-princess creations could do, what they would do to his friends in the North … Dorian couldn’t stop recalling what Maeve had said to Erawan. That the Valg princesses had been held here for the second phase of whatever he was planning. Perhaps to ensure that they were well and truly destroyed once the bulk of his armies came through.
It honed his focus as he hunted. Pushed and nudged him onward, even when reason and instinct told him to flee this place. But he would not. Could not. Not without the key.
Sometimes, he could have sworn he felt it. The key. The horrible, otherworldly presence.
But when he’d chase after that wretched power down stairwells and along ancient corridors, only dust and shadows would greet him.
Often, it led him back to Erawan’s tower. To the locked iron door and Valg guards posted outside. One of the few remaining places he had not dared to search. Though other possibilities did still remain.
The reek from the subterranean chamber reached Dorian long before he soared down the winding stair, the dim passageway cavernous and looming to his fly’s senses. It had been the safest form for the day. The kitchen cat had been on the prowl earlier, and the Ironteeth witches hurried about the keep, readying for what he could only assume was an order to march north.
He’d been hunting for the key since dawn, Maeve occupying Erawan’s attention in the western catacombs across the keep. Where those spider-princesses tested their new bodies.
He’d never gone so deep under the keep. Beneath the storage rooms. Beneath the dungeons. He’d only found the stair by the smell that had leaked from behind the ordinary door at its top, the scent detected by the fly’s remarkable sense of smell. He’d passed the door so many times now on his fruitless hunting, deeming it a mere supply closet—until chance had intervened today.
Dorian rounded the last turn of the spiral stairs, and nearly tumbled from the air as the smell fully hit him. A thousand times worse in this form, with these senses.
A reek of death, of rot, of hate and despair. The scent that only the Valg could summon.
He’d never forget it. Had never quite left it behind.
Turn back. The warning was a whisper through his mind. Turn back.
The lower hall was lit with only a few torches in rusted iron brackets. No guards were posted along its length, or by the lone iron door at its far end.
The reek pulsed along the corridor, emanating from that door. Beckoning.
Would Erawan leave the key so unguarded? Dorian sent his magic skittering along the hall, testing for any hidden traps.
It found none. And when it reached the iron door, it recoiled. It fled.
He spooled his power back into himself, tucking it closer.
The iron door was dented and scratched with age. Nine locks lay along its edge, each more complicated than the last. Ancient, strange locks.
He didn’t hesitate. He aimed for the slight gap between the stones and the iron door, and shifted. The fly shrank into a gnat, so small it was nearly a dust mote. He flew beneath the door, blocking out the smell, the terrible pulsing against his blood.
It took him a moment to understand what he looked at in the rough-hewn chamber, illuminated by a small lantern dangling from the arched ceiling. A lick of greenish flame danced within. Not a flame of this world.
Its light slid over the heap of black stone in the center of the room. Pieces of a sarcophagus.
And all around it, built into shelves carved from the mountain itself, gleamed Wyrdstone collars.
Only the instincts of his small, inconsequential body kept Dorian in the air. Kept him circling the lightless chamber. The rubble in the center of the space.
Erawan’s tomb—directly beneath Morath. The site where Elena and Gavin trapped him, and then built the keep atop the sarcophagus that could not be moved.
Where all this mess had begun. Where, centuries later, his father had claimed he and Perrington ventured in their youth, using the Wyrdkey to unlock both door and sarcophagus, and unwittingly freed Erawan.
The demon king had seized the duke’s body. His father …
Dorian’s heart raced as he passed collar after collar, around and around the room. Erawan hadn’t needed one to contain his father, not when the man possessed no magic in his veins.
Yet Erawan had said that the man hadn’t bowed—not wholly. Had fought him for decades.
He hadn’t let himself think on it this past week. On whether his father’s final words atop the glass castle had indeed been true. How he’d killed him, without the excuse of the collar to justify it.
His head pounded as he continued to circle the tomb. The collars leaked their unholy stench into the world, pulsing in time with his blood.
They seemed to sleep. Seemed to wait.
Did a prince lurk within each one? Or were these shells, ready to be filled?
Kaltain had warned him of this chamber. This place where Erawan would bring him, should he be caught. Why Erawan had chosen this place to store his collars … Perhaps it was a sanctuary, if such a thing could exist for a Valg king. Where Erawan might come to gaze upon the method of his own imprisonment, and remind himself that he would not be contained again. That he’d use these collars to enslave those who’d attempt to seal him back into the sarcophagus.
Dorian’s magic thrashed, impatient and frantic. Was there a collar in here designated for him? For Aelin?
Around and around, he flew past the sarcophagus and the collars. No sign of the key.
He knew how the collars would feel against his skin. The icy bite of the Wyrdstone.
Kaltain had fought it. Destroyed the demon within.
He could still feel the weight of his father’s knee digging into his chest as he’d pinned him to the marble floor in a glass castle that no longer existed. Still feel the slick stone of the collar against his neck as it sealed. Still see Sorscha’s limp hand as he tried to reach for her one last time.
The room spun and spun, his blood throbbing with it.
Not a prince, not a king.
The collars reached for him with invisible, clawing fingers.
He was no better than them. Had learned to enjoy what the Valg prince had shown him. Had shredded apart good men, and let the demon feed off his hate, his rage.
The room began to eddy, spiraling, dragging him into its depths.
Not human—not entirely. Perhaps he didn’t want to be. Perhaps he would stay in another form forever, perhaps he’d just submit—
A dark wind snapped through the room. Snatched him in its gaping maw and dragged him.
He thrashed, screaming silently.
He wouldn’t be taken. Not like this, not again—
But it hauled him away from the collars. Under the door and out of the room.
Into the palm of a pale hand. Dark, depthless eyes peered down at him. An enormous red mouth parted to reveal bone-white teeth.
“Stupid boy,” Maeve hissed. The words were a thunderclap.
He panted, the gnat’s body shaking from wingtip to wingtip. One press of her finger and he’d be gone.
He braced himself, waiting for it.
But Maeve kept her palm open. And as she began to walk down the hall, away from the sealed chamber, she said, “What you felt in there—that is why I left their world.” She gazed ahead, a shadow darkening her face. “Every day, that was what I felt.”
Kneeling on the floor in a corner of Maeve’s chamber, Dorian hurled the contents of his stomach into the wooden bucket.
Maeve watched from the chair by the fire, cruel amusement on her red lips.
“You saw the horrors of the dungeons and did not fall ill,” she said when he vomited again. The unspoken question shone in her eyes. Why today?
Dorian lifted his head, wiping his mouth on the shoulder of his jacket. “Those collars …” He ran a hand over his neck. “I didn’t think it would affect me like that. To see them again.”
“You were reckless in entering that chamber.”
“Would I have been able to get out, if you hadn’t found me?” He didn’t ask how she’d done so, how she’d sensed the peril. That power of hers no doubt kept track of him wherever he went.
“The collars can do nothing without being attached to a host. But that room is a place of hatred and pain, the memory of it etched into the stones.” She examined her long nails. “It snared you. You let yourself be snared.”
Hadn’t Kaltain said nearly the same thing regarding the collars? “It took me by surprise.”
Maeve let out a hum, well aware of his lie. But she said, “The collars are one of his more brilliant creations. Neither of his brothers was clever enough to come up with it. But Erawan—he always had a gift for ideas.” She leaned back in the chair, crossing her legs. “But that gift also made him arrogant.” She nodded to him. “That he let you remain in Rifthold with your father, rather than bring you here, only proves it. He thought he could control you both from afar. Had he been more cautious, he would have brought you to Morath immediately. Begun work on you.”
The collars flashed before his eyes, leaking their poisoned, oily scent into the world, beckoning, waiting for him—
Dorian heaved again.
Maeve let out a low laugh that raked talons down his spine. His temper.
Dorian mastered himself and twisted toward her. “You gave over those spiders for his princesses, knowing what they’d endure, knowing how it would feel to be trapped like that, albeit in a different manner.” How, he didn’t say. How could you do that, when you knew that sort of terror?
Maeve fell silent for a moment, and he could have sworn something like regret passed over her face. “I would not have done it, unless my need to prove my loyalty compelled me.” Her attention drifted to where Damaris hung at his side. “You do not wish to verify my claim?”
Dorian didn’t touch the golden hilt. “Do you want me to?”
She clicked her tongue. “You are different indeed. I wonder if some of the Valg did cross over when your father bred your mother.”
Dorian cringed. He still hadn’t dared to ask Damaris about it—whether he was human. Whether it mattered now.
“Why?” he asked, gesturing to the keep around them. “Why does Erawan do any of this?” A week after he’d asked the Valg king himself, Dorian still wanted to—needed to know.
“Because he can. Because Erawan delights in such things.”
“You made it sound as if he was the mildest of all three brothers.”
“He is.” She ran a hand over her throat. “Orcus and Mantyx are the ones who taught him all he knows. Should they return here, what Erawan creates in these mountains will seem like lambs.”
He’d heeded that warning from Kaltain, at least. He hadn’t dared venture into the caverns beyond the valley. To the stone altars and the monstrosities Erawan crafted upon them.
He asked, “You never had children? With Orcus?”
“Does my future husband truly wish to know?”
Dorian settled back on his heels. “I wish to understand my enemy.”
She weighed his words. “I did not allow my body to ripen, to ready for children. A small rebellion, and my first, against Orcus.”
“Are the Valg princes and princesses the offspring of the other kings?”
“Some are, some are not. No worthy heir has stepped forward. Though who knows what has occurred in their world in these millennia.” Their world. Not her own. “The princes Erawan summoned have not been strong—not as they were. I am certain it annoys Erawan to no end.”
“Which is why he has brought over the princesses?”
A nod. “The females are the deadliest. But harder to contain within a host.”
The white band of skin on his neck seemed to burn, but he kept his stomach down: this time. “Why did you leave your world?”
She blinked at him, as if surprised.
“What?” he asked.
She angled her head. “It has been a long, long time since I conversed with someone who knows me for what I am. And with someone whose mind remained wholly their own.”
“Even Aelin?”
A muscle in her slim jaw feathered. “Even Aelin of the Wildfire. I could not infiltrate her mind entirely, but little things … those, I could convince her to see.”
“Why did you capture and torture her?” Such a simple way of describing what had happened in Eyllwe and after it.
“Because she would never agree to work with me. And she would never have protected me from Erawan or the Valg.”
“You’re strong—why not protect yourself? Use those spiders to your advantage?”
“Because our kind only fears certain gifts. Mine, alas, are not those things.” She toyed with a strand of her black hair. “I usually keep another Fae female with me. One who has powers that work against the Valg. Different from those Aelin Galathynius possesses.” That she didn’t specify what those powers were told Dorian not to waste his breath in asking her. “She swore the blood oath to me long ago, and has rarely left my side since. But I did not dare bring her to Morath. To have her here would not have convinced Erawan that I came in good faith.” She twirled the strand of hair around a finger. “So you see, I am as defenseless against Erawan as you.”
Dorian highly doubted that, but he rose to his feet at last, aiming for the table where water and food had been laid out. A fine spread, for a demon king’s castle in the dead of winter. He poured himself a glass of water and gulped down the contents. “Is this Erawan’s true form?”
“In a manner of speaking. We are not like the human and Fae, where your souls are invisible, unseen. Our souls have a shape to them. We have bodies that we can fashion around them—adorn them, like jewelry. The form you see on Erawan was always his preferred decoration.”
“What do your souls look like beneath?”
“You would find them displeasing.”
He suppressed a shudder.
“I suppose that makes us shape-shifters, too,” Maeve mused as Dorian aimed for the chair beside hers. He’d spent his nights sleeping on the floor before the fire, one eye watching the queen dozing in the canopied bed behind him. But she had made no move to harm him. Not one.
“Do you feel Valg, or Fae?”
“I am what I am.” For a heartbeat, he could almost glimpse the weight of her eons of existence in her eyes.
“But who do you wish to be?” A careful question.
“Not like Erawan. Or his brothers. I never have.”
“That’s not exactly an answer.”
“Do you know who and what you wish to be?” A challenge—and genuine question.
“I’m figuring it out,” he said. Strange. So strange, to have this conversation. Sparing them both for the time being, Dorian rubbed at his face. “The key is in his tower. I’m sure of it.”
Maeve’s mouth tightened.
Dorian said, “There is no way in—not with the guards. And I’ve flown the exterior enough to know there are no windows, no cracks for me to even creep through.” He held her otherworldly stare. Did not shrink from it. “We need to get in. If only to confirm that it’s there.” She’d once held the keys—she knew what they felt like. That she had come so close then …
“And I suppose you expect me to do that?”
He crossed his arms. “I can think of no one else that Erawan would admit inside.”
Maeve’s solitary blink was her only sign of surprise. “To seduce and betray a king—one of the oldest tricks in the book, as you humans say.”
“Can Erawan be seduced by anyone?”
He could have sworn disgust flitted over her pale face before she said, “He can.”
They did not waste time. Did not wait.
And even Dorian found himself unable to look away as Maeve flicked a hand at herself and her purple gown melted away, replaced by a sheer, flowing black dress. Little more than a robe. Golden thread had been woven through it, artfully concealing the parts of her that only the one who removed the garment would see, and when she turned from the mirror, her face was grave.
“You will not like what you are about to witness.” Then she slung her cloak around her, hiding that lush body and sinful gown, and swept out the door.
He shifted into a slithering insect, swift and flexible, and trailed her, lingering at her heels as Maeve wound through the halls. To the base of that tower.
He tucked into a crack in the black wall as Maeve said to the Valg posted outside, “You know who I am. What I am. Tell him I have come.”
He could have sworn Maeve’s hands trembled slightly.
But one of the guards—whom Dorian had never once seen so much as blink—turned to the door, knocked once, and strode inside.
He emerged moments later, resumed his post, and said nothing.
Maeve waited. Then strolling footsteps sounded from the tower interior.
And when the door opened again, the putrid wind and swirling darkness within threatened to send him running. Erawan, still clad in his clothes despite the late hour, lifted his brows. “We have a meeting tomorrow, sister.”
Maeve took a step closer. “I did not come to discuss war.”
Erawan stilled. And then said to the guards, “Leave us.”
CHAPTER 74
As one, the guards outside Erawan’s tower walked away.
Alone, the Valg king blocking the doorway to his tower, Maeve said, “Does that mean I am welcome?” She loosened her grip on her cloak, the front folds falling open to reveal the sheer gown.
Erawan’s golden eyes surveyed every inch. Then her face. “Though you may not believe so, you are my brother’s wife.”
Dorian blinked at that. At the honor of the demon within the male body.
“I do not have to be,” Maeve murmured, and Dorian knew, then, why she had warned him before they’d left.
A shake of her head, and her thick black hair turned golden. Her moon-white skin darkened slightly, to a sun-kissed tan. The angular face rounded slightly, dark eyes lightening to turquoise and gold. “We could play like this, if you’d prefer.”
Even the voice belonged to Aelin.
Erawan’s eyes flared, his chest rising in an uneven breath.
“Would that appeal to you?” Maeve gave a half-smile that Dorian had only seen on the Queen of Terrasen’s face.
Disgust and horror roiled through him. He knew—knew there was no true lust in Erawan’s eyes for Aelin. No true desire beyond the claiming, the pain.
Maeve’s glamour changed again. Golden hair paled to white, turquoise eyes burning to gold.
Icy rage, pure and undiluted, tore through Dorian as Manon now stood before the Valg king. “Or maybe this form, beautiful beyond all reckoning.” She peered down at herself, smiling. “Was she your intended queen when this war was over, the Wing Leader? Or merely a prize breeding mare?”
Erawan’s nostrils flared, and Dorian focused upon his breathing, on the stones beneath him, anything to keep his magic from erupting at the desire—true desire—that tightened Erawan’s face.
But if it got Maeve inside that tower—
Erawan blinked, and that desire winked out. “You are my brother’s wife,” he said. “No matter whose skin you wear. Should you need release, I’ll send someone to your chambers.”
With that, he shut the door. And did not emerge again.
Maeve brought Dorian to her meeting the next morning.
In her cloak pocket, as a field mouse, Dorian kept still and listened.
“After all that fuss last night,” Erawan was saying, “you turned away what I sent you.”
Indeed, not fifteen minutes after they’d returned to Maeve’s tower, a knock had sounded. A blank-faced young man had stood there, beautiful and cold. Not a prince—not with the ring he wore. Just an enslaved human. Maeve had sent him away, though not from any kindness.
No, Dorian knew the man had been spared his duties because of his presence, and nothing more. Maeve had told him as much before falling asleep.
“I had hoped for wine,” Maeve said smoothly, “not watered-down ale.”
Erawan chuckled, and paper rustled. “I have been considering further details of this alliance, sister.” The title was a barb, a taunt of last night’s rejection. “And I have been wondering: what else shall you bring to it? You stand to gain more than I do, after all. And offering up six of your spiders is relatively little, even if they have been receptive hosts to the princesses.”
Dorian’s ears strained as he waited for Maeve’s reply. She said quietly, more tensely than he’d heard her speak before, “What is it that you want, brother?”
“Bring the rest of the kharankui. Open a portal and transport them here.”
“Not all will be such willing hosts.”
“Not hosts. Soldiers. I do not intend to take chances. There will be no second phase.”
Dorian’s stomach twisted. Maeve hesitated. “There is a chance, you know, that even with all of this, even if I summon the kharankui, you might face Aelin Galathynius and fail.” A pause. “Anielle has confirmed your darkest fears. I heard what occurred. The power she summoned to halt that river.” Maeve hummed. “That was meant for me, you know. The blast. But should she summon it again, let’s say against you on a field of battle … Would you be able to walk away, brother?”
“That is why this press northward with your spiders shall be vital,” was Erawan’s only reply.
“Perhaps,” Maeve countered. “But do not forget that you and I together could win. Without the spiders. Without the princesses. Even Aelin Galathynius could not stand against us both. We can go to the North, and obliterate her. Keep the spiders in reserve for other kingdoms. Other times.”
She did not wish to sacrifice them. As if she held some fondness for the beings who had remained loyal for millennia.
“And beyond that,” Maeve went on, “You know much about walking between worlds. But not everything.” Her hand slid into the pocket, and Dorian braced himself as her fingers ran over his back. As if telling him to listen.
“And I suppose I will only find out when you and I have won this war,” Erawan said at last.
“Yes, though I am willing to give you a display. Tomorrow, once I have prepared.” Again, that horrible silence. Maeve said, “They are too strong, too mighty, for me to open a portal between realms to allow them through. They would destabilize my magic too greatly in the effort to bring all that they are into this world. But I could show them to you—just for a moment. I could show you your brothers. Orcus and Mantyx.”
CHAPTER 75
Darrow and the other Terrasen lords had spent their time wisely these past few months, thank the gods, and Orynth was well stocked against the siege marching closer with each passing hour.
Food, weapons, healing supplies, plans for where the citizens might sleep should they flee into the castle, reinforcements at the places along the city and castle walls where the ancient stone had weakened—Aedion had found little at fault.
Yet after a fitful night’s sleep in his old room in the castle—awful and strange and cold—he was prowling one of the lower turrets as dawn broke. Up here, the wind was so much wilder, icier.
Stalking, steady footsteps sounded from the archway behind him. “I spotted you up here on the way down to breakfast,” Ren said by way of greeting. The Allsbrook court’s quarters had always been in the tower adjacent to Aedion’s—when they’d been boys, they’d once spent a summer devising a signaling system to each other’s rooms using a lantern.
It was the last summer they had spent in friendship, once it had started to become clear to Ren’s father that Aedion was favored to take the blood oath. And then the rivalry had begun.
One summer: thick as thieves and as wild. The next: endless pissing contests, everything from footraces through the courtyards to shoving in the stairwells to outright brawling in the Great Hall. Rhoe had tried to defuse it, but Rhoe had never been a comfortable liar. Had refused to deny to Ren’s father that Aedion was the one who’d swear that oath. And by the end of that summer, even the Crown Prince had begun to look the other way when the two boys launched into yet another fight in the dirt. Not that it mattered now.
Would his own father, would Gavriel, have encouraged the rivalry? He supposed it didn’t matter, either. But for a heartbeat, Aedion tried to picture it—Gavriel here, presiding over his training. His father and Rhoe, teaching him together. And he knew that Gavriel would have found some way to calm the competition, much in the way he held the peace in the cadre. What manner of man would he have become, had the Lion been here? Gavriel likely would have been butchered with the rest of the court, but … he would have been here.
A fool’s path, to wander down that road. Aedion was who he was, and most of the time, didn’t mind that one bit. Rhoe had been his father in the ways that counted. Even if there had been times when Aedion had looked at Rhoe and Evalin and Aelin and still felt like a guest.
Aedion shook the thought from his head. Being here, in this castle, had addled him. Dragged him into a realm of ghosts.
“Don’t expect Darrow to put out a breakfast spread like the ones we used to have,” Aedion said. Not that he expected or wanted one. He ate only because his body demanded he do so, ate because it was strength, and he would need it, his people would need it, before long.
Ren surveyed the city, then the Plain of Theralis beyond. The still-empty horizon. “I’ll get the archers sorted today. And ensure the soldiers at the gates know how to wield that boiling oil.”
“Do you know how to wield it?” Aedion arched a brow.
Ren snorted. “What’s to learn? You dump a giant cauldron over the side of the walls. Damage done.”
It certainly required a bit more skill than that, but it was better than nothing. At least Darrow had made sure they had such supplies.
Aedion prayed they’d get the chance to use them. With Morath’s witch towers, the odds were that they’d be blasted into rubble before the enemy host even reached either of the two gates into the city.
“What we could really use is some hellfire,” Ren muttered. “That’d keep them from the gates.”
And potentially melt everyone around them, too.
Aedion opened his mouth to agree when his brows narrowed.
He surveyed the plain, the horizon.
“Out with it,” Ren said.
Aedion steered Ren back toward the tower entrance. “We need to talk to Rolfe.”
Not about hellfire at the southern and western gates. Not at all.
They waited until cover of darkness, when Morath’s spies might not spot the small band of them who crept, mile after mile, across the Plain of Theralis.
Clad in battle-black, they moved over the field that would once more become bathed in blood. When they reached the landmarks that Aedion and Ren had used the daylight hours to plan out, Aedion held up a hand.
The Silent Assassins lived up to their name as Ilias signaled back and they spread out. Amongst them moved Rolfe’s Mycenians, bearing their heavy loads.
But it was the shape-shifter who began to work first. Turning herself into a giant badger, bigger than a horse, who scooped out the frozen earth with skilled, strong paws.
The scent of her blood filled the air, but Lysandra didn’t stop digging.
And when she’d finished the first pit, she moved on to the next, leaving the group of Silent Assassins and Mycenians to lay their trap, then bury it once more.
The brutal wind moaned past them. Yet they worked through the night, used every minute given to them. And when they were done, they vanished back to the city, invisible once more.
Morath appeared on the horizon a day later.
From the castle’s highest towers and walkways, every marching line could be counted. One after another after another.
Her hands still bruised and bandaged from digging through frozen earth, Lysandra stood with an assortment of their allies on one of those walkways, Evangeline clinging to her.
“That’s fifteen thousand,” Ansel of Briarcliff announced as yet another line emerged. No one said anything. “Twenty.”
“Morath must be empty to now have so many here,” Prince Galan murmured.
Evangeline trembled, not entirely from the cold, and Lysandra tightened her arm around the girl. Down the wall of the walkway, Darrow and the other Terrasen lords spoke quietly. As if sensing Lysandra’s attention, Darrow threw a narrow glance her way—that then dipped to the pale-faced, shaking Evangeline. Darrow said nothing, and Lysandra didn’t bother to look pleasant, before he turned back to his companions.
“That’s thirty,” Ansel said.
“We can count,” Rolfe snipped.
Ansel lifted a wine-red brow. “Can you really?”
Despite the army marching on them, Lysandra’s mouth twitched upward.
Rolfe just rolled his eyes and went back to watching the approaching army.
“They won’t arrive until dawn at the earliest,” Aedion observed, his face grim.
She had not yet decided what form to take. Where to fight. If ilken still flew in their ranks, then it would be a wyvern, but if closer quarters were required, then … she hadn’t decided. No one had asked her to be anywhere in particular, though Aedion’s request the other night to assist in their wild plan had been a rare reprieve from these days of waiting and dreading.
She’d gladly take days of pacing instead of what approached them.
“Fifty thousand,” Ansel said, throwing a wry glance to Rolfe.
Lysandra swallowed against the tightness in her throat. Evangeline pressed her face into Lysandra’s side.
And then the witch towers took form.
Like massive lances jutting from the horizon, they appeared through the gray morning light. Three of them, spread out equally amid the army that continued to flow behind them.
Even Ansel stopped counting now.
“I did not think it would be so terrible,” Evangeline whispered, hands digging into Lysandra’s heavy cloak. “I did not think it would be so wretched.”
