Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.”
She gazed at him, at the life she saw in his face. All that he offered.
All that she might have, too.
“I need to ask you to do something.”
Aelin’s voice roused Dorian from a fitful sleep. He sat up on his cot. From the silence of the camp, it had to be the dead of night. “What?”
Rowan was standing guard behind her, watching the army camp beneath the trees. Dorian caught his emerald gaze—saw the answer he already needed.
The prince had come through on his silent promise earlier.
Aelin’s throat bobbed. “Together,” she said, her voice cracking. “What if we forged the Lock together?”
Dorian knew her plan, her desperate hope, before she laid it out. And when she finished, Aelin only said, “I am sorry to even ask you.”
“I am sorry I didn’t think of it,” he replied, and pushed to his feet, tugging on his boots.
Rowan turned toward them now. Waiting for an answer that he knew Dorian would give.
So Dorian said to them both, “Yes.”
Aelin closed her eyes, and he couldn’t tell if it was from relief or regret. He laid a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t want to know what the argument had been like between her and Rowan to get her to agree, to accept this. For Aelin to have even said yes …
Her eyes opened, and only bleak resolve lay within. “We do it now,” she said hoarsely. “Before the others. Before good-byes.”
Dorian nodded. She only asked, “Do you want Chaol to be there?”
He thought about saying no. Thought about sparing his friend from another good-bye, when there was such joy on Chaol’s face, such peace.
But Dorian still said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER 93
The four of them strode in silence through the trees. Down the ancient road to the salt mines.
It was the only place the scouts weren’t watching.
Every step closer made her queasy, a slow sweat breaking down her spine. Rowan kept his hand gripped around hers, his thumb brushing over her skin.
Here, in this horrible, dead place of so much suffering—here was where she would face her fate. As if she had never escaped it, not really.
Under the cover of darkness, the mountains in which the mines were carved were little more than shadows. The great wall that surrounded the death camp was nothing but a stain of blackness.
The gates had been left open, one broken on its hinges. Perhaps the freed slaves had tried to rip it down on their way out.
Aelin’s fingers tightened on Rowan’s as they passed beneath the archway and entered the open grounds of the mines. There, in the center—there stood the wooden posts where she had been whipped. On her first day, on so many days.
And there, in the mountain to her left—that was where the pits were. The lightless pits they’d shoved her into.
The buildings of the mines’ overseers were dark. Husks.
It took all her self-control to keep from looking at her wrists, where the shackle scars had been. To not feel the cold sweat sliding down her back and know no scars lay there, either. Just Rowan’s tattoo, inked over smooth skin.
As if this place were a dream—some nightmare conjured by Maeve.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d escaped shackles twice now—only to wind up back here. A temporary freedom. Borrowed time.
She’d left Goldryn in their tent. The sword would be of little use where they were going.
“I never thought we’d see this place again,” Dorian murmured. “Certainly not like this.” None of the king’s steps faltered, his face somber as he gripped Damaris’s hilt. Ready to meet whatever awaited them.
The pain she knew was coming.
No, she had not ever really escaped at all, had she?
They halted near the center of the dirt yard. Elena had walked her through forging the Lock, putting the keys back into the gate. Though there would be no great display of magic, no threat to any around them, she had wanted to be away. Far from anyone else.
In the moonlight, Chaol’s face was pale. “What do you need us to do?”
“Be here,” Aelin said simply. “That is enough.”
It was the only reason she was still able to endure standing here, in this hateful place.
She met Dorian’s inquiring stare and nodded. No use in wasting time.
Dorian embraced Chaol, the two of them speaking too quietly for Aelin to hear.
Aelin only began to sketch a Wyrdmark in the dirt, large enough for her and Dorian to stand in. There would be two, overlapping with each other: Open. Close.
Lock. Unlock.
She’d learned them from the start. Had used them herself.
“No sweet farewells, Princess?” Rowan asked as she traced the mark with her foot.
“They seem dramatic,” Aelin said. “Far too dramatic, even for me.”
But Rowan halted her, the second symbol half-finished. Tipped back her chin. “Even when you’re … there,” he said, his pine-green eyes so bright under the moon. “I am with you.” He laid a hand on her heart. “Here. I am with you here.”
She laid her own hand on his chest, and breathed his scent deep into her lungs, her heart. “As I am with you. Always.”
Rowan kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered onto her mouth. “Come back to me.”
Then Rowan retreated, just beyond the unfinished marks.
The absence of his scent, his heat, filled her with cold. But she kept her shoulders back. Kept her breathing steady as she memorized the lines of Rowan’s face.
Dorian, eyes shining bright, stepped onto the marks. Aelin said to Rowan, “Seal the last one when we’re done.”
Her prince, her mate, nodded.
Dorian drew out a folded bit of cloth from his jacket. Opened it to reveal two slivers of black stone. And the Amulet of Orynth.
Her stomach roiled, nausea at their otherworldliness threatening to bring her to her knees. But she took the Amulet of Orynth from him.
“I thought you might be the one who wished to open it,” Dorian said quietly.
Here in the place where she’d suffered and endured, here in the place where so many things had begun.
Aelin weighed the ancient amulet in her palms, ran her thumbs along the golden seam of its edges. For a heartbeat, she was again in that cozy room in a riverside estate, her mother beside her, bequeathing the amulet into her care.
Aelin traced her fingers over the Wyrdmarks on the back. The runes that spelled out her hateful fate: Nameless is my price.
Written here, all this time, for so many centuries. A warning from Brannon, and a confirmation. Their sacrifice. Her sacrifice.
Brannon had raged at those gods, had marked the amulet and laid all those clues for her to one day find. So she might understand. As if she could somehow defy this fate. A fool’s hope.
Aelin turned the amulet back over, brushing her fingers along the immortal stag on its front.
Borrowed time. It had all been borrowed time.
The gold sealing the amulet melted away in her hands, hissing as it dropped onto the icy dirt. With a twist, she pulled apart the two sides of the amulet.
The unearthly reek of the third key hit her, beckoning. Whispered in languages that did not exist in Erilea and never would.
Aelin only dumped the sliver of Wyrdkey into Dorian’s awaiting hand. It clinked against the other two, and the sound might have echoed into eternity, into all worlds.
Dorian shuddered, Chaol and Rowan flinching.
Aelin just pocketed the two halves of the amulet. A piece of Terrasen to take with her. Wherever they were about to go.
Aelin met Rowan’s stare one last time. Saw the words there. Come back to me.
She’d take those words, that face with her, too. Even when the Lock demanded everything, that would remain. Would always remain.
She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. Broke Rowan’s piercing stare. And then sliced open her palm. Then Dorian’s.
The stars seemed to shift closer, the mountains peering over Aelin’s and Dorian’s shoulders, as she sliced her knife a third time, down her forearm. Deep and wide, skin splitting.
To open the gate, she must become the gate.
Erawan had begun the process of turning Kaltain Rompier into that gate—had put the stone within her arm not for safekeeping, but to prepare her body for the other stones. To turn her into a living Wyrdgate that he might control.
Just one sliver in her body had destroyed Kaltain. To put all three in her own …
My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, and I will not be afraid.
I will not be afraid.
I will not be afraid.
“Ready?” Aelin breathed.
Dorian nodded.
With a final look at the stars, one final look at the Lord of the North standing guard over Terrasen mere miles away, Aelin took the shards from Dorian’s outstretched palm.
And as she and Dorian joined bloodied hands, as their magic roared through them and wove together, blinding and eternal, Aelin slammed the three Wyrdkeys into the open wound of her arm.
Rowan sealed the Wyrdmarks with a swipe of his foot through the icy earth.
Just as Aelin clapped her palm upon her arm, sealing the three Wyrdkeys into her body while her other hand gripped Dorian’s.
It had to work. It had to have been why their paths had crossed, why Aelin and Dorian had found each other twice now, in this exact place. He could accept no other alternative. He couldn’t have let her go otherwise.
Rowan didn’t breathe. Beside him, he wasn’t sure if Chaol did, either.
But while Aelin and Dorian still stood there, heads high despite the fear he scented coursing through them, their faces had gone vacant. Empty.
No flash of light.
No flare of power.
Aelin and Dorian simply stood, hands united, and stared ahead.
Blank. Unseeing. Frozen.
Gone.
Here, but gone. As if their bodies were shells.
“What happened?” Chaol breathed.
Aelin’s hand fell from where it had been clapped onto her arm and dangled limply at her side. Revealing that open wound. The black slivers of rock shoved inside it.
Something in Rowan’s chest, intricate and essential, began to strain. Began to go taut.
The mating bond.
Rowan lurched forward a step, a hand on his chest.
No. The mating bond writhed, as if in agony, as if in terror. He halted, Aelin’s name on his lips.
Rowan fell to his knees as the three Wyrdkeys within Aelin’s arm dissolved into her blood.
Like dew in the sun.
CHAPTER 94
As it had been once before, so it was again.
The beginning and end and eternity, a torrent of light, of life that flowed between them, two halves of a cleaved bloodline.
Mist swirled, veiling the solid ground beneath. An illusion, perhaps—for their minds to bear where they now stood. A place that was not a place, in a chamber of many doors. More doors than they could ever hope to count. Some made of air, some of glass, some of flame and gold and light.
A new world beyond each; a new world beckoning.
But they remained there, in the crossroads of all things.
In bodies that were not their bodies, they stood amid all those doorways, their power pouring out, pooling before them. Blending and merging, a ball of light, of creation, hovering in midair.
Every ember that flowed from them into the growing sphere before them, into the Lock taking form, would not return. It would not replenish.
A well running dry. Forever.
More and more and more, ripping from them with each breath. Creation and destruction.
The sphere swirled, its edges warping, shrinking. Forming into the shape they’d chosen, a thing of gold and silver. The Lock that would seal all these infinite doors forever.
Still they gave over their power, still the forming of the Lock demanded more.
And it began to hurt.
She was Aelin and yet she was not.
She was Aelin and yet she was infinite; she was all worlds, she was—
She was Aelin.
She was Aelin.
And by letting the keys into her, they had entered the true Wyrdgate. A step, or a thought, or a wish would allow them to access any world they desired. Any possibility.
An archway lingered behind them. An archway that would smell of pine and snow.
Slowly, the Lock formed, light turning to metal—to gold and silver.
Dorian was panting, his jaw stretched tight, as they gave and gave and gave their power toward it. Never to see it again.
It was agony. Agony like nothing she had known.
She was Aelin. She was Aelin and not the things that she’d set in her arm, not this place that existed beyond reason. She was Aelin; she was Aelin; and she had come here to do something, had come here promising to do something—
She fought her rising scream as her power rippled away, like peeling skin from her bones. Precisely how Cairn had done it, delighted in it. She had outlasted him, though. Had escaped Maeve’s clutches. She had outlasted them both. To do this. To come here.
But she had been wrong.
She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stomach it, this loss and pain and growing madness as a new truth became clear:
They would not leave this place. Would have nothing left anyway. They would dissolve, mist to float into the fog around them.
It was agony like Dorian had never known. His very self, unraveled thread by thread.
The shape of the Lock, Elena had told Aelin, did not matter. It could have been a bird or a sword or a flower for all this place, this gate, cared. But their minds, what was left of them as they frayed, chose the shape they knew, the one that made the most sense. The Eye of Elena, born again—the Lock once more.
Aelin began screaming. Screaming and screaming.
His magic ripped away from that sacred, perfect place inside him.
It would kill them to forge it. It’d kill them both. They had come here out of the desperate hope they’d both leave.
And if they did not halt, if they did not stop this, neither would.
He tried to move his head. Tried to tell her. Stop.
His magic tore out of him, the Lock drinking it down, a force not to be leashed. An insatiable hunger that devoured them.
Stop. He tried to speak. Tried to pull back.
Aelin was sobbing now—sobbing through her teeth.
Soon. Soon now, the Lock would take everything. And that final destruction would be the most brutal and painful of all.
Would the gods make them watch as they claimed Elena’s soul? Would he even have the chance, the ability, to try to help her, as he had promised Gavin? He knew the answer.
Stop.
Stop.
“Stop.”
Dorian heard the words and for a heartbeat did not recognize the speaker.
Until a man appeared from one of those impossible-yet-possible doorways. A man who looked of flesh and blood, as they were, and yet shimmered at his edges.
His father.
CHAPTER 95
His father stood there. The man he had last seen on a bridge in a glass castle, and yet not.
There was kindness on his face. Humanity.
And sorrow. Such terrible, pained sorrow.
Dorian’s magic faltered.
Even Aelin’s magic slowed in surprise, the torrent thinning to a trickle, a steady and agonizing drain.
“Stop,” the man breathed, staggering toward them, glancing at the ribbon of power, blinding and pure, feeding the Lock’s formation.
Aelin said, “This cannot be stopped.”
His father shook his head. “I know. What has begun can’t be halted.”
His father.
“No,” Dorian said. “No, you cannot be here.”
The man only looked down—to Dorian’s side. To where a sword might be. “Did you not summon me?”
Damaris. He had been wearing Damaris within that ring of Wyrdmarks. In their world, their existence, he still did.
The sword, the unnamed god it served, apparently thought he had one truth left to face. One more truth, before his end.
“No,” Dorian repeated. It was all he could think to say as he looked upon him, the man who had done such terrible things to all of them.
His father lifted his hands in supplication. “My boy,” he only breathed.
Dorian had nothing to say to him. Hated that this man was here, at the end and beginning.
Yet his father looked to Aelin. “Let me do this. Let me finish this.”
“What?” The word snapped from Dorian.
“You were not chosen,” Aelin said, though the coldness in her voice faltered.
“Nameless is my price,” the king said.
Aelin went still.
“Nameless is my price,” his father repeated. The warning of an ancient witch, the damning words written on the back of the Amulet of Orynth. “For the bastard-born mark you bear, you are Nameless, yet am I not so as well?” He glanced between them, his eyes wide. “What is my name?”
“This is ridiculous,” Dorian said through his teeth. “Your name is—”
But where there should have been a name, only an empty hole existed.
“You …,” Aelin breathed. “Your name is … How is it that you don’t have one, that we don’t know it?”
Dorian’s rage slipped. And the agony of having his magic, his soul, shredded from him became secondary as his father said, “Erawan took it. Wiped it from history, from memory. An ancient, terrible spell, so powerful it could only be used once. All so I might be his most faithful servant. Even I do not know my name, not anymore. I lost it.”
“Nameless is my price,” Aelin murmured.
Dorian looked then. At the man who had been his father. Truly looked at him.
“My boy,” his father whispered again. And it was love—love and pride and sorrow that shone in his face.
His father who had been possessed as he had, who had tried to save them in his own way and failed. His father, who had everything taken from him, but had never bowed to Erawan—not entirely.
“I want to hate you,” Dorian said, his voice breaking.
“I know,” his father said.
“You destroyed everything.” He couldn’t stop his tears. Aelin’s hand only tightened in his.
“I am sorry,” his father breathed. “I am sorry for all of it, Dorian.”
And even the way his father said his name—he had never heard him speak it like that.
Dismiss him. Throw him into some hell-world. That’s what he should do.
And yet Dorian knew for whom he had really brought down Morath. For whom he’d buried that room of collars, the hateful tomb around them.
“I’m sorry,” his father said again.
He did not need Damaris to tell him the words were true.
“Let me pay this debt,” his father said, stepping closer. “Let me pay this, do this. Does Mala’s blood not flow through my veins as well?”
“You don’t have magic—not like we do,” Aelin said, her eyes sorrowful.
His father met Aelin’s stare. “I have enough—just enough in my blood. To help.”
Dorian glanced over his shoulder, toward the archway that opened to Erilea. To home. “Then let him,” he said, though the words did not come out with the iciness he wished. Only heaviness and exhaustion.
Aelin said softly to his father, “I had planned to before it got to the end.”
“Then you will not be alone now,” his father replied. Then the man smiled at him—a vision of the king, the father, he might have been. Had always been, despite what had befallen him. “I am grateful—that I got to see you again. One last time.”
Dorian had no words, couldn’t find them. Not as Aelin turned to him, tears sliding down her face as she said, “One of us has to rule.”
Before Dorian could understand, before he could realize the agreement she’d just made, Aelin ripped her hand from his.
And shoved him through that gateway behind them. Back into their own world.
Roaring, Dorian fell.
As the Wyrdgate’s misty realm vanished, Dorian saw Aelin take his father’s hand.
CHAPTER 96
Rowan had not moved for the hours they’d stood beside Aelin and Dorian and watched them stare at nothing. Chaol had not so much as shifted, either.
The night passed, the stars wheeling over this hateful, cold place.
And then Dorian arched, gulping down air—and collapsed to his knees.
Aelin remained where she was. Remained standing and simply let go of Dorian’s hand.
Rowan’s very soul halted.
“No,” Dorian rasped, scrambling toward her, trying to grip her hand again, to join her.
But the wound on Aelin’s hand had sealed.
“No, no!” Dorian shouted, and Rowan knew then.
Knew what she had done.
The final deceit, the last lie.
“What happened?” Chaol demanded, reaching to hoist Dorian to his feet. The king sobbed, unbuckling the ancient sword from his side and hurling it away. Damaris thunked hollowly as it hit the earth.
Rowan just stared at Aelin.
At his mate, who had lied to him. To all of them.
“It wasn’t enough—the two of us together. It would have destroyed us both,” Dorian wept. “Yet Damaris somehow summoned my father, and … he took my place. He offered to take my place so she …” Dorian lunged, reaching for Aelin’s hand, but he’d left the ring of Wyrdmarks.
They now kept him out.
A wall that sealed in Aelin.
The mating bond stretched thinner and thinner.
“She and him—they’re going to end it,” Dorian said, shaking.
Rowan barely heard the words.
He should have known. Should have known that if their plan failed, Aelin would never willingly sacrifice a friend. Even for this. Even for her own future.
She had known he’d try to keep her from forging the Lock if she’d mentioned that possibility, what she would do if it all went to hell. Had agreed to let Dorian help her only to get herself here. Would likely have dropped Dorian’s hand without his father appearing.
Over—she had said so many times that she wished if to be over. He should have listened.
Chaol gripped Dorian, and the young lord said to Rowan, softly and sadly, “I’m sorry.”
She had lied.
His Fireheart had lied.
And he would now watch her die.
Hand in hand with her enemy, Aelin allowed the magic to flow again. Allowed it to rage out of her.
The nameless king’s power was nothing compared to Dorian’s. But it was just enough, as he said. Just enough to help.
She had never intended for Dorian to destroy himself for this. Only for him to give just enough. And then she would have tossed him back into Erilea. So she might finish this alone.
Payment for ten years of selfishness, ten years away from Terrasen, ten years of running.
The agony became a numbing roar. Even the old king was panting through the pain.
Close now. The gold loops and circles of the Lock solidified.
Still more was needed. To bind this place, to bind all worlds.
He would never forgive her.
Her mate.
She had needed him to let her go, needed him to accept it. She would never have been able to do it, to come here, had he been begging her not to, had he been weeping as she had wanted to weep when she had kissed him one last time.
Come back to me, he had whispered.
She knew he’d wait. Until he faded into the Afterworld, Rowan would wait for her to return. To come back to him.
Aelin’s magic tore out of her, a piece so vital and deep that she cried out, swaying. Only the king’s grip kept her from falling.
The Lock was nearly finished, the two overlapping circles of the Eye almost complete.
Her magic writhed, begging her to stop. But she could not. Would not.
“Soon now,” the king promised.
She found the man smiling.
“I was given a message for you,” he said softly. His edges blurred, as the last of his power drained away. But he still smiled. Still looked at peace. “Your parents are … They are so very proud of you. They asked me to tell you that they love you so very much.” He was nearly invisible now, his words little more than a whisper of wind. “And that the debt has been paid enough, Fireheart.”
Then he was gone. The last of him flowed into the Lock. Wiped from existence.
She barely felt the tears on her face as she fell to her knees. As she gave and gave her magic, her very self. My name is Aelin Ashryver Galath—
A choking scream tore out of her as the last of the Lock sealed.
As the Lock became forged once more, as real as her own flesh.
As Aelin’s magic completely vanished.
CHAPTER 97
She could barely move. Barely think.
Gone. Where light and life had flowed within her, there was nothing.
Not an ember. Only a droplet, just one, of water.
She clung to it, shielded it as they appeared, twelve figures through the portal behind her. Filtering into this place of places, this crossroads of eternity.
“It is done, then,” said the one with many faces, approaching the Lock that hovered in midair. A flick of a ghostly, ever-changing hand and the Lock floated toward Aelin. Landed on her lap, gold and glittering.
“Summon us our world, girl,” said the one with a voice like steel and screams. “And let us go home at last.”
The final breaking. To send them back, to seal the gate. She’d use her last kernel of self, the final droplet, to seal the gate shut with the Lock. And then she would be gone.
Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …
“Now,” one with a voice like crashing waves ordered. “We have waited enough.”
Aelin managed to lift her head. To look at their shimmering figures. Things from another world.
But amongst them, pressed into their ranks as if they held her captive …
Elena’s eyes were wide. Agonized.
Who loved her kingdom …
One of them snapped their ghostly fingers at Aelin. “Enough of this.”
Aelin looked up at her, at the goddess who had spoken. She knew that voice. Deanna.
Silently, Aelin surveyed them. Found the one like a shimmering dawn, the heart of a flame.
Mala did not look at her. Or at Elena, her own daughter.
Aelin turned away from the Fire-Bringer. And said to none of them in particular, “I should like to make a bargain with you.”
The gods stilled. Deanna hissed, “A bargain? You dare to ask for a bargain?”
“I would hear it,” said one whose voice was kind and loving.
The thing in her arm writhed, and Aelin willed it to reveal what they sought.
The portal to their realm. Sunlight over a rolling green country nearly blinded her. They whirled toward it, some sighing at the sight.
But Aelin said, “A trade. Before you fulfill your end.”
Words were distant, so difficult and pained. But she forced them out.
The gods halted. Aelin only looked at Elena. Smiled softly.
“You have sworn to take Erawan with you. To destroy him,” Aelin said, and the one with a voice like death faced her. As if remembering they had indeed promised such an outrageous thing.
“I would like to trade,” she said again. And managed to point, with that arm that held all of eternity within it. “Erawan’s soul for Elena’s.”
Mala turned toward her now. And stared.
Aelin said into their silence, “Leave Erawan to Erilea. But in exchange, leave Elena. Let her soul remain in the Afterworld with those she loves.”
“Aelin,” Elena whispered, and tears like silver flowed down her cheeks.
Aelin smiled at the ancient queen. “The debt has been paid enough.”
She had wanted them to debate it—her friends. Had asked for a vote on the gate not just to ease the burden of the choice, but to hear it from them, to hear them say that they could defeat Erawan on their own. That Yrene Towers might stand a chance to destroy him.
So she could make this bargain, this trade, and not seal their doom entirely.
“Don’t do it,” Elena begged. Begged all those cold, impassive gods. “Don’t agree to it.”
Aelin said to them, “Leave her be, and go.”
“Aelin, please,” Elena said, weeping now.
Aelin smiled. “You bought me that extra time. So I might live. Let me buy this for you.”
Elena covered her face with her hands and wept.
The gods looked among themselves. Then Deanna moved, graceful as a stag through a wood.
Aelin loosed a breath, bowing over her knees, as the goddess approached Elena.
No one but herself. She would allow no one but herself to be sacrificed in this final task.
Deanna laid her hands on either side of Elena’s face. “I had hoped for this.”
Then she pressed her hands together, Elena’s head clasped between them.
A flare of light from Mala, in warning and pain, as Elena’s eyes went wide. As Deanna squeezed.
And then Elena ruptured. Into a thousand shimmering pieces that faded as they fell.
Aelin’s scream died in her throat, her body unable to rise as Deanna wiped her ghostly hands, and said, “We do not make bargains with mortals. Not any longer. Keep Erawan, if that is what you wish.”
Then the goddess strode through the archway into her own world.
Aelin stared at the empty place where Elena had been only heartbeats before.
Nothing remained.
Not even a shimmering ember to send back into the Afterworld, to the mate left behind.
Nothing at all.
CHAPTER 98
It was breaking apart.
The mating bond.
Bowed over his knees, Rowan panted, a hand on his chest as the bond frayed.
He clung to it, wrapped his magic, his soul around it, as if it might keep her, wherever she was, from going to a place he could not follow.
He did not accept it. Would never accept this fate. Never.
Distantly, he heard Dorian and Chaol debating something. He didn’t care.
The mating bond was breaking.
And there was nothing he could do but hold on.
One by one, the gods strode through the archway into their own world. Some sneered down at her as they passed.
They would not take Erawan.
Would not … would not do anything.
Her chest was hollow, her soul gutted out, and yet this …
And yet this …
Aelin clawed at the mist-shrouded ground-that-was-not-ground as the last of them vanished. Until only one remained.
A pillar of light and flame. Shining in the mists.
Mala lingered on the threshold of her world.
As if she remembered.
As if she remembered Elena, and Brannon, and who knelt before her. Blood of her blood. The recipient of her power. Her Heir.
“Seal the gate, Fire-Bringer,” Mala said softly.
But the Lady of Light still hesitated.
And from far away, Aelin heard another woman’s voice.
Make sure that they’re punished someday. Every last one of them.
They will be, she’d sworn to Kaltain.
They had lied. Had betrayed Elena and Erilea, as they had believed themselves betrayed.
Their green sun-drenched world rippled away ahead.
Groaning, Aelin climbed to her feet.
She was no lamb to slaughter. No sacrifice on an altar of the greater good.
And she was not done yet.
Aelin met Mala’s burning stare.
“Do it,” Mala said quietly.
Aelin looked past her, toward that pristine world they had sought to return to for so long. And realized that Mala knew—saw the thoughts in her own head.
“Aren’t you going to stop me?”
Mala only held out a hand.
In it lay a kernel of white-hot power. A fallen star.
“Take it. One last gift to my bloodline.” She could have sworn Mala smiled. “For what you offered on her behalf. For fighting for her. For all of them.”
Aelin staggered the few steps to the goddess, to the power she offered in her hand.
“I remember,” Mala said softly, and the words were joy and pain and love. “I remember.”
Aelin took the kernel of power from her palm.
It was the sunrise contained in a seed.
“When it is done, seal the gate and think of home. The marks will guide you.”
Aelin blinked, the only sign of confusion she could convey as that power filled and filled and filled her, melding into the broken spots, the empty places.
Mala held out her hand again, and an image formed within it. Of the tattoo across Aelin’s back.
The new tattoo, of spread wings, the story of her and Rowan written in the Old Language amongst the feathers.
A flick of Mala’s fingers and symbols rose from it. Hidden within the words, the feathers.
Wyrdmarks.
Rowan had hidden Wyrdmarks in her tattoo.
Had inked Wyrdmarks all over it.
“A map home,” Mala said, the image fading. “To him.”
He’d suspected, somehow. That it might come to this. Had asked her to teach him so he might make this gamble.
And when Aelin looked behind her, to the archway into her own world, she indeed could … feel them. As if the Wyrdmarks he’d secretly inked onto her were a rope. A tether home.
A lifeline into eternity.
One last deceit.
Another voice whispered past then, a fragment of memory, spoken on a rooftop in Rifthold. What if we go on, only to more pain and despair?
Then it is not the end.
That power flowed and flowed into Aelin. Her lips curved upward.
It was not the end. And she was not finished.
But they were.
“To a better world,” Mala said, and walked through the doorway into her own.
A better world.
A world with no gods. No masters of fate.
A world of freedom.
Aelin approached the archway to the gods’ realm. To where Mala now walked across the shimmering grass, little more than a shaft of sunlight herself.
The Lady of Light halted—and lifted an arm in farewell.
Aelin smiled and bowed.
Far out, striding over the hills, the gods paused.
Aelin’s smile turned into a grin. Wicked and raging.
It did not falter as she found the world she sought. As she dipped into that eternal, terrible power.
She had been a slave and a pawn once before. She would never be so again.
Not for them. Never for them.
The gods began shouting, running toward her, as Aelin ripped open a hole in their sky.
Right into a world she had seen only once. Had accidentally opened a portal into one night in a stone castle. Distant, baying howls cracked from the bleak gray expanse.
A portal into a hell-realm. A door now thrown open.
Aelin was still smiling when she closed the archway into the gods’ world.
And left them to it, the sounds of their outraged, frightened screams ringing out.
There was still one last task to seal the gate forever.
Aelin unfurled her palm, studying the Lock she had forged. She let it float into the heart of this misty, door-filled space.
She was not afraid. Not as she opened her other palm, and power poured forth.
Mala’s final gift. And defiance.
The force of a thousand exploding suns ruptured from Aelin’s palm.
Lock. Close. Seal.
She willed it, willed it, and willed it. Willed it to close as she offered over her power.
But not that last bit of self.
The debt has already been paid enough.
A map home, a map inked in the words of universes, would lead the way.
More and more and more. But not all.
She would not give it up. Her innermost self.
She would not surrender.
They would not take this lingering kernel of her.
She would not yield it.
Light flowed through the Lock, fracturing like a prism, shooting to all those infinite doorways.
Closing and sealing and shutting. An archway to everywhere now sealing.
They would not destroy her. They would not be allowed to take this.
Come back to me.
More and more and more, Mala’s last power funneling out of her and into the Lock.
They would not win. They couldn’t take it—couldn’t have her.
She refused.
She was screaming now. Screaming and roaring her defiance.
A beam of light shot to the archway behind her. Beginning to seal it, too.
She would live. She would live, and they could all go to hell.
A better world. With no gods, no fates.
A world of their own making.
Aelin bellowed and bellowed, the sound ringing out across all worlds.
They would not beat her. They would not get to take this, this most essential kernel of self. Of soul.
Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom.…
Her kingdom. Her home. She would see it again.
It was not over.
Behind her, the archway slowly sealed.
The odds were slim; the odds were insurmountable. She had not been destined to escape this—to reach this point and still be breathing.
Aelin’s hand drifted to her heart and rested there.
It is the strength of this that matters, her mother had said, long ago. Wherever you go, Aelin, no matter how far, this will lead you home.
No matter where she was.
No matter how far.
Even if it took her beyond all known worlds.
Aelin’s fingers curled, palm pressing into the pounding heart beneath. This will lead you home.
The archway to Erilea inched closed.
World-walker. Wayfarer.
Others had done it before. She would find a way, too. A way home.
No longer the Queen Who Was Promised. But the Queen Who Walked Between Worlds.
She would not go quietly.
She was not afraid.
So Aelin ripped out her power. Ripped out a chunk of what Mala had given her, a force to level a world, and flung it toward the Lock.
The final bit. The last bit.
And then Aelin leaped through the gate.
CHAPTER 99
She was falling.
Falling and being thrown.
The Wyrdgate sealed behind her, and yet she was not home.
As it closed, all worlds overlapped.
And she now fell through them.
One after another after another. Worlds of water, worlds of ice, worlds of darkness.
She slammed through them, faster than a shooting star, faster than light.
Home.
She had to find home—
Worlds of lights, worlds of towers that stretched to the skies, worlds of silence.
So many.
There were so many worlds, all of them miraculous, all of them so precious and perfect that even as she fell through them, her heart broke to see them.
Home. The way home—
She fumbled for the tether, the bond in her soul. Inked into her flesh.
Come back to me.
Aelin plunged through world after world after world.
Too fast.
She would hit her own world too fast, and miss it completely.
But she could not slow. Could not stop.
Tumbling, flipping over herself, she passed through them one by one by one by one by one.
It is the strength of this that matters. Wherever you go, Aelin, no matter how far, this will lead you home.
Aelin roared, a spark of self flashing through the sky.
The tether grew stronger. Tighter. Reeling her in.
Too fast. She had to slow—
She plummeted into the last of herself, into what remained, grappling for any sort of power to slow her racing.
She passed through a world where a great city had been built along the curve of a river, the buildings impossibly tall and glimmering with lights.
Passed through a world of rain and green and wind.
Roaring, she tried to slow.
She passed through a world of oceans with no land to be seen.
Close. Home was so close she could nearly smell the pine and snow. If she missed it, if she passed by it—
She passed through a world of snowcapped mountains under shining stars. Passed over one of those mountains, where a winged male stood beside a heavily pregnant female, gazing at those very stars. Fae.
They were Fae, but this was not her world.
She flung out a hand, as if she might signal them, as if they might somehow help her when she was nothing but an invisible speck of power—
The winged male, beautiful beyond reason, snapped his head toward her as she arced across his starry sky.
He lifted a hand, as if in greeting.
A blast of dark power, like a gentle summer night, slammed into her.
Not to attack—but to slow her down.
A wall, a shield, that she tore and plunged through.
But it slowed her. That winged male’s power slowed her, just enough.
Aelin vanished from his world without a whisper.
And there it was.
There it was, the pine and the snow, the snaking spine of the mountains up her continent, the tangle of Oakwald to the right, the Wastes to the left. A land of many peoples, many beings.
She saw them all, familiar and foreign, fighting and at peace, in sprawling cities or hidden deep within the wilds. So many people, revealed to her. Erilea.
She threw herself into it. Grabbed the tether and bellowed as she hauled herself toward it. Down it.
Home.
Home.
Home.
It was not the end. She was not finished.
She willed herself, willed the world to halt. Just as the Wyrdgate slammed shut with a thunderous crack, all other doors with it.
And Aelin plunged back into her own body.
The Wyrdmarks faded into the rocky ground as the sun rose over Endovier.
Rowan was on his knees before Aelin, readying for her last breaths, for the end that he hoped would somehow take him, too.
He’d make it his end. When she went, he’d go.
But then he’d felt it. As the sun rose, he’d felt it, that surge down the frayed mating bond.
A blast of heat and light that welded the broken strands.
He didn’t dare to breathe. To hope.
Even as Aelin collapsed to her knees where the Wyrdmarks had been.
Rowan was instantly there, reaching for her limp body.
A heartbeat echoed in his ears, into his own soul.
And that was her chest, rising and falling. And those were her eyes, opening slowly.
The scent of Dorian’s and Chaol’s tears replaced the salt of Endovier as Aelin stared up at Rowan and smiled.
Rowan held her to his chest and wept in the light of the rising sun.
A weak hand landed on his back, running over the tattoo he’d inked. As if tracing the symbols he’d hidden there, in a desperate, wild hope. “I came back,” she rasped.
She was warm, but … cold, somehow. A stranger in her own body.
Aelin sat up, groaning at the ache along her bones.
“What happened?” Dorian asked, held upright by the arm Chaol had around his waist.
Aelin cupped her palms before her. A small lick of flame appeared within them.
Nothing more.
She looked at Rowan, then Chaol, and Dorian, their faces so haggard in the rising light of day.
“It’s gone,” she said quietly. “The power.” She turned her hands, the flame rolling over them. “Only an ember remains.”
They didn’t speak.
But Aelin smiled. Smiled at the lack of that well within her, that churning sea of fire. And what did remain—a significant gift, yes, but nothing beyond the ordinary.
All that remained of what Mala had given her, in thanks for Elena.
But—
Aelin reached inward, toward that place inside her soul.
She put a hand to her chest. Put a hand there and felt the heart beating within.
The Fae heart. The cost.
She had given all of herself. Had given up her life.
The human life. Her mortality. Burned away, turned to nothing but dust between worlds.
There would be no more shifting. Only this body, this form.
She told them so. And told them what had occurred.
And when she was done, when Rowan remained holding her, Aelin held out her hand once more, just to see.
Perhaps it had been a final gift of Mala’s, too. To preserve this piece of her that now formed in her hand—this droplet of water.
Her mother’s gift.
What Aelin had saved until the end, had not wanted to part with until the very last dregs of her were given to the Lock, to the Wyrdgate.
Aelin held out her other hand, and the kernel of flame sputtered to life within it.
An ordinary gift. A Fire-Bringer no more.
But Aelin all the same.
CHAPTER 100
A prodding kick from Kyllian had Aedion awake before dawn.
He groaned as he stretched out on the cot in the Great Hall, the space still dim. Countless other soldiers slumbered around him, their heavy breathing filling the room.
He squinted at the small lantern that Kyllian held above him.
“It’s time,” Kyllian said, his eyes weary and red-rimmed.
They’d all looked better. Been better.
But they were still alive. A week after the Thirteen had sacrificed themselves and pushed back Morath’s tide, they were alive. The witches’ lives had bought them a full day of rest. One day, and then Morath had marched on Orynth’s walls again.
Aedion slung the heavy fur cloak he’d been using for a blanket over his shoulders, wincing at the throbbing ache in his left arm. A careless wound, when he’d taken his attention off his shield for a moment and a Valg foot soldier had managed to slice him.
But at least he wasn’t limping. And at least the wound the Valg prince had given him had healed.
Slinging his shield over that same shoulder, he scooped up his sword and belted it at his waist as he picked his way through the labyrinth of sleeping, exhausted bodies. A nod to Kyllian had the man striding for the city walls.
But Aedion turned left upon leaving the Great Hall, aiming for the north tower.
It was a lonely, cold walk to the room he sought. As if the entire castle were a tomb.
He knocked lightly on the wooden door near the top of the tower, and it immediately opened and shut, Lysandra slipping into the hall before Evangeline could stir in her bed.
In the flickering light of Aedion’s candle, the shadows etched on Lysandra’s face from a week of fighting from sunup to sundown were starker, deeper. “Ready?” he asked softly, turning back down the stairs.
It had become their tradition—for him to see Lysandra upstairs at night, then come to meet her in the morning. The only bright point in their long, horrible days. Sometimes, Evangeline accompanied them, narrating her time running messages and errands for Darrow. Sometimes, it was only the two of them trudging along.
Lysandra was silent, her graceful gait heavier with each step they descended.
“Breakfast?” Aedion asked as they neared the bottom.
A nod. The eggs and cured meats had given way to gruel and hot broth. Two nights ago, Lysandra had flown off in wyvern form after the fighting had ceased for the day, and returned an hour later with a hart clutched in each taloned foot.
That precious meat had been gone too soon.
They hit the bottom of the tower stairwell, and Aedion made to aim for the dining hall when she stopped him with a hand on his arm. In the dimness, he turned toward her.
But Lysandra, that beautiful face so tired, only slid her arms around his waist and pressed her head to his chest. She leaned enough of her weight into him that Aedion set down his candle on a nearby ledge and wrapped his arms tightly around her.
Lysandra sagged, leaning on him further. As if the weight of exhaustion was unbearable.
Aedion rested his chin atop her head and closed his eyes, breathing in her ever-changing scent.
Her heartbeat thundered against his own as he ran a hand down her spine. Long, soothing strokes.
They hadn’t shared a bed. There was no place to do so anyway. But this, holding each other—she’d initiated it the night the Thirteen had sacrificed themselves. Had stopped him at this very spot and just held him for long minutes. Until whatever pain and despair eased enough that they could make the trek upstairs.
Lysandra pulled away, but not wholly out of his arms. “Ready?”
“We’re running low on arrows,” Petrah Blueblood said to Manon in the blue-gray light just before dawn. They strode through the makeshift aerie atop one of the castle’s towers. “We might want to consider assigning some of the lesser covens to stay behind today to craft more.”
“Do it,” Manon said, surveying the still-unfamiliar wyverns who shared the space with Abraxos. Her mount was already awake. Staring out, solitary and cold, toward the battlefield beyond the city walls. Toward the blasted stretch of earth that no snow had been able to wipe away entirely.
She’d spent hours staring at it. Could barely pass over it during the endless fighting each day.
Her chest, her body, had been hollowed out.
Only moving, going through every ordinary motion, kept her from curling up in a corner of this aerie and never emerging.
She had to keep moving. Had to.
Or else she would cease to function at all.
She didn’t care if it was obvious to others. Ansel of Briarcliff had sought her out in the Great Hall last night because of it. The red-haired warrior had slid onto the bench beside her, her wine-colored eyes missing none of the food that Manon had barely eaten.
“I’m sorry,” Ansel had said.
Manon had only stared at her mostly untouched plate.
The young queen had surveyed the solemn hall around them. “I lost most of my soldiers,” she said, her freckled face pale. “Before you arrived. Morath butchered them.”
It had been an effort for Manon to draw her face toward Ansel. To meet her heavy stare. She blinked once, the only confirmation she could bother to make.
Ansel reached for Manon’s slice of bread, pulling off a chunk and eating it. “We can share it, you know. The Wastes. If you break that curse.”
Down the long table, some of the witches tensed, but did not look toward them.
Ansel went on, “I’ll honor the old borders of the Witch Kingdom, but keep the rest.” The queen rose, taking Manon’s bread with her. “Just something to consider, should the opportunity arise.” Then she was gone, swaggering off to her own cluster of remaining soldiers.
Manon hadn’t stared after her, but the words, the offer, had lingered.
To share the land, reclaim what they’d had but not the entirety of the Wastes … Bring our people home, Manon.
The words had not stopped echoing in her ears.
“You could stay off the battlefield today, too,” Petrah Blueblood now said, a hand on her mount’s flank. “Use the day to help the others. And rest.”
Manon stared at her.
Even with two Matrons dead, Iskra with them, and no sign of Petrah’s mother, the Ironteeth had managed to remain organized. To keep Manon, Petrah, and the Crochans busy.
Every day, fewer and fewer walked off the battlefield.
“No one else rests,” Manon said coldly.
“Everyone else manages to sleep, though,” Petrah said. When Manon held the witch’s gaze, Petrah said unblinkingly, “You think I do not see you, lying awake all night?”
“I do not need to rest.”
“Exhaustion can be as deadly as any weapon. Rest today, then rejoin us tomorrow.”
Manon bared her teeth. “The last I looked, you were not in charge.”
Petrah didn’t so much as lower her head. “Fight, then, if that is what you wish. But consider that many lives depend on you, and if you fall because you are so tired that you become sloppy, they will all suffer for it.”
It was sage advice. Sound advice.
Yet Manon gazed out over the battlefield, the sea of darkness just becoming visible. In an hour or so, the bone drums would beat again, and the screaming din of war would renew.
She could not stop. Would not stop.
“I am not resting.” Manon turned to seek out Bronwen in the Crochans’ quarters. She, at least, would not have such ridiculous notions. Even if Manon knew Glennis would side with Petrah.
Petrah sighed, the sound grating down Manon’s spine. “Then I shall see you on the battlefield.”
The roar and boom of war had become a distant buzz in Evangeline’s ears by midday. Even with the frigid wind, sweat ran down her back beneath her heavy layers of clothes as she made yet another sprint up the battlement stairs, message in hand. Darrow and the other old lords stood as they had these past two weeks: along the castle’s walls, monitoring the battle beyond the city.
The message she’d received, straight from a Crochan who had landed so briefly that her feet had hardly touched the ground, had come from Bronwen.
Rare, Evangeline had learned, for either the Ironteeth or the Crochans to report anything to the humans. That the Crochan soldier had found her, had known who she was … It was pride, more than fear, that had Evangeline running up the stairs, then across the battlements to Lord Darrow.
Lord Darrow, Murtaugh at his side, had already stretched out a hand by the time Evangeline slid to a stop.
“Careful,” Murtaugh warned her. “The ice can be treacherous.”
Evangeline nodded, though she fully planned to ignore him. Even if she’d taken a spill down the stairs yesterday that thankfully no one had witnessed. Especially Lysandra. If she’d glimpsed the bruise that now bloomed over Evangeline’s leg, the matching one on her forearm, she’d have locked her in the tower.
Lord Darrow read the message and frowned toward the city. “Bronwen reports they’ve spotted Morath hauling a siege tower to the western wall. It will reach us in an hour or two.”
Evangeline looked past the chaos on the city walls, where Aedion and Ren and the Bane fought so valiantly, out beneath the melee in the skies, where witches fought witches and Lysandra flew in wyvern form.
Sure enough, a massive shape was lumbering toward them.
Evangeline’s stomach dropped to her feet. “Is—is it one of those witch towers?”
“A siege tower is different,” Darrow said with his usual gruffness. “Thank the gods.”
“Still deadly,” Murtaugh said. “Just in a different way.” The old man frowned at Darrow. “I’ll head down there.”
Evangeline blinked at that. None—none of the older lords had gone to the front.
“To warn them?” Darrow asked carefully.
Murtaugh patted the hilt of his sword. “Aedion and Ren are stretched thin. Kyllian, too, if you want to keep telling yourself that he’s the one leading them.” Murtaugh didn’t so much as lower his chin to Darrow, who stiffened. “I’ll handle the western wall. And that siege tower.” A wink at Evangeline. “We can’t all be brave messengers, can we?”
Evangeline made herself smile, even though dread pooled in her. “Should—should I warn Aedion that you’ll be there?”
“I’ll tell him myself,” Murtaugh said, and ruffled her hair as he walked by. “Be careful on the ice,” he warned her again.
Darrow didn’t try to stop him as Murtaugh walked off the battlements. Slow. He looked so slow, and old, and frail. And yet he kept his chin high. Back straight.
If she’d been able to choose a grandfather for herself, it would have been him.
Darrow’s face was tight when Murtaugh disappeared at last.
“Old fool,” Darrow said, worry in his eyes as he turned to the battle raging ahead.
CHAPTER 101
Human no more.
Aelin’s breath rasped in her ears—her permanently arched, immortal ears—with each step back toward the camped army. Rowan remained at her side, a hand around her waist.
He hadn’t let go of her once. Not once, since she’d come back.
Since she’d walked through worlds.
She could see them still. Even walking in silence under the trees, the darkness yielding toward the grayish light before dawn, she could see each and every one of those worlds she’d broken through.
Perhaps she’d never stop seeing them. Perhaps she alone in this world and all others knew what lay beyond the invisible walls separating them. How much life dwelled and thrived. Loved and hated and struggled to claw out a living.
So many worlds. More than she could contemplate. Would her dreams forever be haunted by them? To have glimpsed them, but been unable to explore—would that longing take root?
Oakwald’s branches formed a skeletal lattice overhead. Bars of a cage.
As her body, and this world, might be.
She shook off the thought. She had lived—lived, when she should have died. Even if her mortal self … that had been killed. Melted away.
The outer edges of the camp neared, and Aelin peered down at her hands. Cold—that was a trace of cold now biting into them.
Altered in every way.
Dorian said as they approached the first of the rukhin, “What are you going to tell them?”
The first words any of them had spoken since they’d begun the trek back here.
“The truth,” Aelin said.
She supposed it was all she had to offer them, after what she’d done.
She said to Dorian, “I’m sorry—about your father.”
The chill wind brushed the strands of Dorian’s hair off his brow. “So am I,” he said, resting a hand atop Damaris’s hilt.
At his side, Chaol kept silent, though he glanced at the king every now and then. He’d look out for Dorian. As he always had, Aelin supposed.
They passed the first of the ruks, the birds eyeing them, and found Lorcan, Fenrys, Gavriel, and Elide waiting by the edge of the tents.
Chaol and Dorian murmured something about gathering the other royals, and peeled away.
Aelin remained close to Rowan as they approached their court. Fenrys scanned her from head to toe, nostrils flaring as he scented her. He staggered a step closer, horror creeping across his face. Gavriel only paled.
Elide gasped. “You did it, didn’t you?”
But it was Lorcan who answered, stiffening, as if sensing the change that had come over her, “You—you’re not human.”
Rowan snarled in warning. Aelin just looked at them, the people who’d given so much and chosen to follow her here, their doom still remaining. To succeed, and yet to utterly fail.
Erawan remained. His army remained.
And there would be no Fire-Bringer, no Wyrdkeys, no gods to assist them.
“They’re gone?” Elide asked softly.
Aelin nodded. She’d explain later. Explain it to all of them.
God-killer. That’s what she was. A god-killer. She didn’t regret it. Not one bit.
Elide asked Lorcan, “Do you—do you feel any different?” The lack of the gods who’d watched over them.
Lorcan peered up at the trees overhead, as if reading the answer in their entangled branches. As if searching for Hellas there. “No,” he admitted.
“What does it mean,” Gavriel mused, the first rays of sun beginning to gild his golden hair, “for them to be gone? Is there a hell-realm whose throne now sits vacant?”
“It’s too early for that sort of philosophical bullshit,” Fenrys said, and offered Aelin a half smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. Reproach lay there—not for her choice, but in not telling them. Yet he still tried to make light of it.
Doomed—that lovely, wolfish grin might be in its final days of existence.
They might all be in their last days of existence now. Because of her.
Rowan read it in her eyes, her face. His hand tightened on her waist. “Let’s find the others.”
Standing inside one of the khagan’s fine war tents, Dorian held his hands out before a fire of his own making and winced. “That meeting could have gone better.”
Chaol, seated across the fire, Yrene in his lap, toyed with the end of his wife’s braid. “It really could have.”
Yrene frowned. “I don’t know how she didn’t walk out and leave everyone to rot. I would have.”
“Never underestimate the power of guilt when it comes to Aelin Galathynius,” Dorian said, and sighed. The fire he’d summoned fluttered.
“She sealed the Wyrdgate.” Yrene scowled. “The least they could do is be grateful for it.”
“Oh, I have no doubt they are,” Chaol said, frowning now as well. “But the fact remains that Aelin promised one thing, and did the opposite.”
Indeed. Dorian didn’t quite know what to think of Aelin’s choice. Or that she’d even told them about it—about trading Erawan for Elena. The gods betraying her in turn.
And then Aelin destroying them for it.
“Typical,” Dorian said, trying for humor and failing. Some part of him still felt as if he were in that place-of-places.
Especially when some part of him had been given up.
The magic that had felt bottomless only yesterday now had a very real, very solid stopping point. A mighty gift, yes, but he did not think he’d ever again be capable of shattering glass castles or enemy strongholds.
He hadn’t yet decided whether it was a relief.
It was more power, at least, than Aelin had been left with. Gifted with, it sounded like. Aelin had burned through every ember of her own magic. What she now possessed was all that remained of what Mala had given her to seal the gate—to punish the gods who had betrayed them both.
The idea of it still made Dorian queasy. And the memory of Aelin choosing to throw him out of that non-place still made him grind his teeth. Not at her choice, but that his father—
He’d think about his father later. Never.
His nameless father, who had come for him in the end.
Chaol hadn’t asked about it, hadn’t pushed. And Dorian knew that whenever he was ready to talk about it, his friend would be waiting.
Chaol said, “Aelin didn’t kill Erawan. But at least Erawan can never bring over his brothers. Or use the keys to destroy us all. We have that. She—you both did that.”
There would be no more collars. No more rooms beneath a dark fortress to hold them.
Yrene ran her fingers through Chaol’s brown hair, and Dorian tried to fight the ache in his chest at the sight. At the love that flowed so freely between them.
He didn’t resent Chaol for his happiness. But it didn’t stop the sharp slicing in his chest every time he saw them. Every time he saw the Torre healers, and wished Sorscha had found them.
“So the world was only partly saved,” Yrene said. “Better than nothing.”
Dorian smiled at that. He adored his friend’s wife already. Likely would have married her, too, if he’d had the chance.
Even if his thoughts still drifted northward—to a golden-eyed witch who walked with death beside her and did not fear it. Did she think of him? Wonder what had become of him in Morath?
“Aelin and I still have magic,” Dorian said. “Not like it was before, but we still have it. We’re not entirely helpless.”
“Enough to take on Erawan?” Chaol said, his bronze eyes wary. Well aware of the answer. “And Maeve?”
“We’ll have to figure out a way,” Dorian said. He prayed it was true.
But there were no gods left to pray to at all.
Elide kept one eye on Aelin while they washed themselves in the queen’s tent. One eye on the deliciously warm water that had been brought in.
And kept warm by the woman in the tub beside her own.
As if in defiance of the horrible meeting they’d had with the khaganate royals upon Aelin’s unexpected return.
Triumphant. But only in some regards.
One threat defeated. The other fumbled.
Aelin had hid it well, but the queen had her tells, too. Her utter stillness—the predatory angle of her head. The former had been present this morning. Utter stillness while she’d been questioned, criticized, shouted at.
The queen had not been this quiet since the day she’d escaped Maeve.
And it was not trauma that bowed her head, but guilt. Dread. Shame.
Nearly shoulder-deep in the high, long tubs, Elide had been the one to suggest a bath. To give Prince Rowan a chance to fly high and wide and take some of the edge off his temper. To give Aelin a moment to settle herself.
She’d planned to bathe this morning anyway. Though she’d imagined a different partner in the bath beside hers.
Not that Lorcan knew that. He’d only kissed her temple before striding off into the morning—to join Fenrys and Gavriel in readying the army to move out. Keep plunging northward.
Aelin scrubbed at her long hair, the flowing mass of it draped over her body. In the light of the braziers, the tattoos on the queen’s back seemed to flow like a living black river.
“So your magic is still there?” Elide blurted.
Aelin slid turquoise eyes over to her. “Is your water warm?”
Elide snorted, dragging her fingers through the water. “Yes.”
“You wish to know how much, exactly.”
“Am I allowed to know?”
“I wasn’t lying in the meeting,” Aelin said, voice still hollow. She’d stood there and taken every shouted question from Princess Hasar, every frown of disapproval from Prince Sartaq. “It’s …” She lifted her arms, and positioned her hands in the air above each other, a foot of space between them. “Here’s where the bottom was before,” she said, wriggling her lower fingers. She lifted her bottom hand until it hovered two inches from her top hand. “Here’s where it is now.”
“You’ve tested it?”
“I can feel it.” Those turquoise eyes, despite all she’d done, were heavy. Solemn. “I’ve never felt a bottom before. Felt it without having to look for it.” Aelin dunked her sudsy scalp in the water, scrubbing free the bubbles and oils. “Not so impressive, is it?”
“I never cared if you had magic or not.”
“Why? Everyone else did.” A flat question. Yes, when they’d been children, so many had feared what manner of power Aelin possessed. What she’d grow into.
“Who you are isn’t your magic,” Elide said simply.
“Isn’t it?” Aelin rested her head on the back of the tub. “I liked my magic. Loved it.”
“And being human?” Elide knew she shouldn’t have dared ask, but it slipped out.
Aelin glanced sidelong at her. “Am I still human, deep down, without a human body to possess?”
Elide considered. “I suppose you’re the only person who can decide that.”
Aelin hummed, dunking under the water again.
When she emerged, Elide asked, “Are you afraid? Of facing Erawan in battle?”
Aelin hugged her knees, her tattoo flexing across her back. She was quiet for a long while.
“I am afraid of not reaching Orynth in time,” she said at last. “If Erawan chooses to drag his carcass up there to fight me, I’ll deal with it then.”
“And Maeve? What if she arrives with Erawan, too?”
But Elide knew the answer. They would die. All of them.
There had to be some way—some way to defeat both of them. She supposed Anneith would be of no help now. And perhaps it was time for her to rely upon herself anyway. Even if the timing could have been far better.
“So many questions, Lady of Perranth.”
Elide blushed, and reached for the soap, scrubbing her arms down. “Sorry.”
“Do you now see why I didn’t have you take the blood oath?”
“The Fae males challenge you all the time.”
“Yes, but I like having you not bound to me.” A soft sigh. “I didn’t plan for any of this.”
“For what?”
“To survive the Lock. The gate. To actually have to … rule. To live. I’m in uncharted territory, it seems.”
Elide considered. Then pulled the golden ring from her finger. Silba’s ring—not Mala’s.
“Here,” she said, extending the ring between their tubs, suds dripping off her fingers.
Aelin blinked at the ring. “Why?”
“Because between the two of us, you’re more likely to face Erawan or Maeve.”
Aelin didn’t reach for it. “I’d rather you keep it.”
“And I’d rather you have it,” Elide challenged, holding the queen’s stare. She asked softly, “Haven’t you given enough, Aelin? Won’t you let one of us do something for you?”
Aelin glanced down to the ring. “I failed. You realize that, don’t you?”
“You put the keys back in the gate. That is not failure. And even if you had failed in that, I would give this ring to you.”
“I owe it to your mother to see that you survive this.”
Elide’s chest tightened. “You owe it to my mother to live, Aelin.” She leaned closer, practically pushing the ring into Aelin’s face. “Take it. If not for me, then for her.”
Aelin stared at the ring again. And then took it.
Elide tried not to sigh as the queen slid it onto her finger.
“Thank you,” Aelin murmured.
Elide was about to answer when the tent flaps opened, icy air howling in—along with Borte. “You didn’t invite me for a bath?” the rukhin asked, frowning dramatically at the queen.
Aelin’s lips curved upward. “I thought rukhin were too tough for baths.”
“Do you see how nice the men keep their hair? You think that doesn’t imply an obsession with cleanliness?” Borte strode across the royal tent and plopped onto the stool beside the queen’s tub. Not at all seeming to care that the queen or Elide were naked.
It took all of Elide’s will not to cover herself up. At least with Aelin in the adjacent tub, the lip of the bath was high enough to offer them privacy. But with Borte sitting above them like this—
“Here are my thoughts,” Borte declared, flicking the end of one of her braids.
Aelin smiled slightly.
“Hasar is cranky and cold. Sartaq is used to these conditions and doesn’t care. Kashin is trying to make the best of it, because he’s so damned nice, but they’re all just a little nervous that we’re marching on a hundred thousand soldiers, potentially more on the way, and that Erawan is not out of commission. Neither is Maeve. So they’re pissed. They like you, but they’re pissed.”
“I’d gathered as much,” Aelin said drily, “when Hasar called me a stupid cow.”
It had taken all of Elide’s restraint not to lunge for the princess. And from the growl that had come from the Fae males, even Lorcan, gods above, she knew it had been just as difficult for them.
Aelin had only inclined her head to the princess and smiled. Just as she was smiling now.
Borte waved off Aelin’s words. “Hasar calls everyone a stupid cow. You’re in good company.” Another smile from Aelin at that. “But I’m not here to talk about that. I want to talk about you and me.”
“My favorite subject,” Aelin said, chuckling slightly.
Borte grinned. “You’re alive. You made it. We all thought you’d be dead.” She drew a line across her neck for emphasis, and Elide cringed. “Sartaq is probably going to have me leading one of the flanks into battle, but I’ve done that. Been good at that.” That grin widened. “I want to lead your flank.”
“I don’t have a flank.”
“Then who shall you ride with into battle?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far,” Aelin said, lifting a brow. “Since I expected to be dead.”
“Well, when you do, expect me to be in the skies above you. I’d hate for the battle to be dull.”
Only the fierce-eyed rukhin would have the nerve to call marching on a hundred thousand soldiers dull.
But before Aelin could say anything, or Elide could ask Borte whether the ruks were ready against the wyverns, the ruk rider was gone.
When Elide looked to Aelin, the queen’s face was somber.
Aelin nodded toward the tent flaps. “It’s snowing.”
“It’s been snowing with little rest for days now.”
Aelin’s swallow was audible. “It’s a northern snow.”
The storm slammed into the camp, so fierce that Nesryn and Sartaq had given the ruks orders to hunker down for the day and night.
As if crossing into Terrasen days earlier had officially put them into brutal winter.
“We keep going north,” Kashin was saying, lounging by the fire in Hasar’s sprawling tent.
“Like there is another option,” Hasar snipped, sipping from her mulled wine. “We’ve come this far. We might as well go all the way to Orynth.”
Nesryn, seated on a low sofa with Sartaq, still wondered what, exactly, she was doing in these meetings. Wondered at the fact that she sat with the royal siblings, the Heir to the khaganate at her side.
Empress. The word seemed to hang over her every breath, every movement.
Sartaq said, “Our people have faced odds like this before. We’ll face them again.”
Indeed, Sartaq had stayed up long into the night these weeks reading the accounts and journals of khaganate warriors and leaders from generations past. They’d brought a trunk of them from the khaganate—for this reason. Most Sartaq had already read, he’d told her. But it never hurt to refresh one’s mind.
If it bought them a shot against a hundred thousand soldiers, she wouldn’t complain.
“We won’t be facing them at all if this storm doesn’t let up,” Hasar said, frowning toward her sealed tent flaps. “When I return to Antica, I am never leaving again.”
