The Yellowlegs Matron had been here for a reason. Aedion was willing to bet good money that whatever monstrosities or weapons the king was creating, they would see them soon enough, perhaps with the witches in tow. Men didn’t build more armies and forge more weapons without having plans to use them. And they certainly didn’t hand out bits of mind-controlling jewelry unless they wanted absolute dominion. But he would face what was coming just as he had every other trial in his life: precisely, unyieldingly, and with lethal efficiency.
He spotted the two figures waiting in the shadows of a ramshackle building by the docks, the fog off the Avery making them little more than wisps of darkness.
“Well?” Ren demanded as Aedion leaned against a damp brick wall. Ren’s twin swords were out. Good Adarlanian steel, nicked and scratched enough to show they’d been used, and well-oiled enough to show Ren knew how to care for them. They seemed to be the only things Ren cared about—his hair was shaggy, and his clothes looked a bit worse for wear.
“I already told you: we can trust the captain.” Aedion looked at Murtaugh. “Hello, old man.”
He couldn’t see Murtaugh’s face beneath the shadows of his hood, but his voice was too soft as he said, “I hope the information is worth the risks you are taking.”
Aedion snarled. He wouldn’t tell them the truth about Aelin, not until she was back at his side and could tell them herself.
Ren took a step closer. He moved with the self-assurance of someone who was used to fighting. And winning. Still, Aedion had at least three inches and twenty pounds of muscle on him. Should Ren attack, he’d find himself on his ass in a heartbeat. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Aedion,” Ren said, “but if you don’t tell us where she is, how can we can trust you? And how does the captain know? Does the king have her?”
“No,” Aedion said. It wasn’t a lie, but it felt like one. As Celaena, she’d signed her soul to him. “The way I see it, Ren, you and your grandfather have little to offer me—or Aelin. You don’t have a war band, you don’t have lands, and the captain told me all about your affiliation with that piece of shit Archer Finn. Do I need to remind you what happened to Nehemia Ytger on your watch? So I’m not going to tell you; you’ll receive information on a need-to-know basis.”
Ren started. Murtaugh put an arm between them. “It’s better we don’t know, just in case.”
Ren wouldn’t back down, and Aedion’s blood raced at the challenge. “What are we going to tell the court, then?” Ren demanded. “That she’s not some imposter as we were led to believe, but actually alive—yet you won’t tell us where?”
“Yes,” Aedion breathed, wondering just how badly he could bloody up Ren without hurting Murtaugh in the process. “That’s exactly what you’ll tell them. If you can even find the court.”
Silence. Murtaugh said, “We know Ravi and Sol are still alive and in Suria.”
Aedion knew the story. Their family’s trade business had been too important to the king to warrant executing both their parents. So their father had chosen the execution block, and their mother had been left to keep Suria running as a vital trade port. The two Surian boys would be twenty and twenty-two by now, and since his mother’s death, Sol had become Lord of Suria. In his years leading the Bane, Aedion had never set foot in the coastal city. He didn’t want to know if they’d damn him. Adarlan’s Whore.
“Will they fight,” Aedion said, “or will they decide they like their gold too much?”
Murtaugh sighed. “I’ve heard Ravi is the wilder one—he might be the one to convince.”
“I don’t want anyone that we have to convince to join us,” Aedion said.
“You’ll want people who aren’t afraid of Aelin—or you,” Murtaugh snapped. “You’ll want levelheaded people who won’t hesitate to ask the hard questions. Loyalty is earned, not given.”
“She doesn’t have to do a damn thing to earn our loyalty.”
Murtaugh shook his head, his cowl swaying. “For some of us, yes. But others might not be so easily convinced. She has ten years to account for—and a kingdom in ruin.”
“She was a child.”
“She is a woman now, and has been for a few years. Perhaps she will offer an explanation. But until then, Aedion, you must understand that others might not share your fervor. And others might take a good amount of convincing about you as well—about where your true loyalties lie and how you have demonstrated them over the years.”
He wanted to bash Murtaugh’s teeth down his throat, if only because he was right. “Who else of Orlon’s inner circle is still alive?”
Murtaugh named four. Ren quickly added, “We heard they were in hiding for years—always moving around, like us. They might not be easy to find.”
Four. Aedion’s stomach dropped. “That’s it?” He’d been in Terrasen, but he’d never looked for an exact body count, never wanted to know who made it through the bloodshed and slaughter, or who had sacrificed everything to get a child, a friend, a family member out. Of course he’d known deep down, but there had always been some fool’s hope that most were still alive, still waiting to return.
“I’m sorry, Aedion,” Murtaugh said softly. “Some minor lords escaped, and even managed to hold onto their lands and keep them thriving.” Aedion knew and hated most of them—self-serving pigs. Murtaugh went on. “Vernon Lochan survived, but only because he was already the king’s puppet, and after Cal was executed, Vernon seized his brother’s mantle as Lord of Perranth. You know what happened to Lady Marion. But we never learned what happened to Elide.” Elide—Lord Cal and Lady Marion’s daughter and heir, almost a year younger than Aelin. If she were alive, she would be at least seventeen by now. “Lots of children vanished in the initial weeks,” Murtaugh finished. Aedion didn’t want to think about those too-small graves.
He had to look away for a moment, and even Ren stayed quiet. At last, Aedion said, “Send out feelers to Ravi and Sol, but hold off on the others. Ignore the minor lords for now. Small steps.”
To his surprise, Ren said, “Agreed.” For a heartbeat, their eyes met, and he knew that Ren felt what he often did—what he tried to keep buried. They had survived, when so many had not. And no one else could understand what it was like to bear it, unless they had lost as much.
Ren had escaped at the cost of his parents’ lives—and had lost his home, his title, his friends, and his kingdom. He had hidden and trained and never lost sight of his cause.
They were not friends now; they never really had been. Ren’s father hadn’t particularly liked that Aedion, not Ren, was favored to take the blood oath to Aelin. The oath of pure submission—the oath that would have sealed Aedion as her lifelong protector, the one person in whom she could have absolute trust. Everything he possessed, everything he was, should have belonged to her.
Yet the prize now was not just a blood oath but a kingdom—a shot at vengeance and rebuilding their world. Aedion made to walk away, but looked back. Just two cloaked figures, one hunched, the other tall and armed. The first shred of Aelin’s court. The court he’d raise for her to shatter Adarlan’s chains. He could keep playing the game—for a little longer.
“When she returns,” Aedion said quietly, “what she will do to the King of Adarlan will make the slaughtering ten years ago look merciful.” And in his heart, Aedion hoped he spoke true.
25
A week passed without any further attempts to skin Celaena alive, so even though she made absolutely no progress with Rowan, she considered it to be a success. Rowan lived up to his word about her pulling double duty in the kitchens—the only upside of which was that she was so exhausted when she tumbled into bed that she did not remember dreaming. Another benefit, she supposed, was that while she was scrubbing the evening dishes, she could listen to Emrys’s stories—which Luca begged for every night, reg
ardless of rain.
Despite what had happened with the skinwalkers, Celaena was no closer to mastering her shift. Even though Rowan had offered his cloak that night beside the river, the next morning had brought them back to their usual vitriolic dislike. Hatred felt like a strong word, as she couldn’t quite hate someone who had saved her, but dislike fit pretty damn well. She didn’t particularly care what side of the hatred-dislike line Rowan was on. But gaining his approval to enter Doranelle was undoubtedly a long, long way off.
Every day, he brought her to the temple ruins—far enough away that if she did manage to shift and lost control of her magic in the process, she wouldn’t incinerate anyone. Everything—everything—depended on that command: shift. But the memory of what the magic had felt like as it seared out of her, when it threatened to swallow her and the whole world, plagued her, waking and asleep. It was almost as bad as the endless sitting.
Now, after two miserable hours of it, she groaned and stood, stalking around the ruins. It was unusually sunny that day, making the pale stones seem to glow. In fact, she could have sworn that the whispered prayers of long-gone worshippers still resonated. Her magic had been flickering oddly in response—strange, in her human form, where it was normally so bolted down.
As she studied the ruins, she braced her hands on her hips: anything to keep from ripping out her hair. “What was this place, anyway?” Only slabs of broken stone remained to show where the temple had stood. A few oblong stones—pillars—were tossed about as if a hand had scattered them, and several stones grouped together indicated what had once been a road.
Rowan dogged her steps, a thundercloud closing in around her as she examined a cluster of white stones. “The Sun Goddess’s temple.”
Mala, Lady of Light, Learning, and Fire. “You’ve been bringing me here because you think it might help with mastering my powers—my shifting?”
A vague nod. She put a hand on one of the massive stones. If she felt like admitting it, she could almost sense the echoes of the power that had dwelled here long ago, a delicious heat kissing its way up her neck, down her spine, as if some piece of that goddess were still curled up in the corner. It explained why today, in the sun, the temple felt different. Why her magic was jumpy. Mala, Sun Goddess and Light-Bringer, was sister and eternal rival to Deanna, Keeper of the Moon.
“Mab was immortalized into godhood thanks to Maeve,” Celaena mused as she ran a hand down the jagged block. “But that was over five hundred years ago. Mala had a sister in the moon long before Mab took her place.”
“Deanna was the original sister’s name. But you humans gave her some of Mab’s traits. The hunting, the hounds.”
“Perhaps Deanna and Mala weren’t always rivals.”
“What are you getting at?”
She shrugged and kept running her hands along the stone, feeling, breathing, smelling. “Did you ever know Mab?”
Rowan was quiet for a long moment—contemplating the usefulness of telling her, no doubt. “No,” he said at last. “I am old, but not that old.”
Fine—if he didn’t want to give her an actual number . . . “Do you feel old?”
He gazed into the distance. “I am still considered young by the standards of my kind.”
It wasn’t an answer. “You said that you once campaigned in a kingdom that no longer exists. You’ve been off to war several times, it seems, and seen the world. That would leave its mark. Age you on the inside.”
“Do you feel old?” His gaze was unflinching. A child—a girl, he’d called her.
She was a girl to him. Even when she became an old woman—if she lived that long—she’d still be a child in comparison to his life span. Her mission depended upon his seeing her otherwise, but she still said, “These days, I am very glad to be a mortal, and to only have to endure this life once. These days, I don’t envy you at all.”
“And before?”
It was her turn to stare toward the horizon. “I used to wish I had a chance to see it all—and hated that I never would.”
She could feel him forming a question, but she started moving again, examining the stones. As she dusted the block off, an image emerged of a stag with a glowing star between its antlers, so like the one in Terrasen. She’d heard Emrys tell the story of the sun stags, who held an immortal flame between their massive antlers and who had once been stolen from a temple in this land . . . “Is this where the stags were kept—before this place was destroyed?”
“I don’t know. This temple wasn’t destroyed; it was abandoned when the Fae moved to Doranelle, and then ruined by time and weather.”
“Emrys’s stories said destroyed, not abandoned.”
“Again, what are you getting at?”
But she didn’t know, not yet, so she just shook her head and said, “The Fae on my continent—in Terrasen . . . they weren’t like you. At least, I don’t remember them being that way. There weren’t many, but . . .” She swallowed hard. “The King of Adarlan hunted and killed them, so easily. Yet when I look at you, I don’t understand how he did it.” Even with the Wyrdkeys, the Fae had been stronger, faster. More should have survived, even if some had been trapped in their animal forms when magic vanished.
She looked over her shoulder at him, one hand still pressed against the warm carving. A muscle flickered in Rowan’s jaw before he said, “I’ve never been to your continent, but I heard that the Fae there were gentler—less aggressive, very few trained in combat—and they relied heavily on magic. Once magic was gone from your lands, many of them might not have known what to do against trained soldiers.”
“And yet Maeve wouldn’t send aid.”
“The Fae of your continent long ago severed ties with Maeve.” He paused again. “But there were some in Doranelle who argued in favor of helping. My queen wound up offering sanctuary to any who could make it here.”
She didn’t want to know more—didn’t want to know how many had made it, and whether he had been one of the few who argued to save their western brethren. So she moved away from the carving of the mythical stag, instantly cold as she severed contact with the delightful heat living within the stone. Part of her could have sworn that ancient, strange power was sad to see her go.
The next day, Celaena finished her breakfast shift in the kitchens achy and more drained than usual, as Luca hadn’t been there to help, which meant she’d spent the morning chopping, washing, and then running the food upstairs.
Celaena passed a sentry she’d marked as Luca’s friend and a frequent listener to Emrys’s stories—young, leanly muscled, with no evidence of Fae ears or grace. Bas, the leader of the fortress scouts. Luca prattled about him endlessly. Celaena gave him a small smile and nod. Bas blinked a few times, gave a tentative smile back, and sauntered on, probably to his watch on the wall. She frowned. She’d said a civilized hello to plenty of them by now, but . . . She was still puzzling over his reaction when she reached her room and shrugged on her jacket.
“You’re already late,” Rowan said from the doorway.
“There were extra dishes this morning,” she said, rebraiding her hair as she turned to where he lounged in the doorway. “Can I expect to do something useful with you today, or will it be more sitting and growling and glaring? Or will I just wind up chopping wood for hours on end?”
He merely started into the hall and she followed, still braiding her hair. They passed another two sentries. This time, she looked them both in the eye and smiled her greeting. Again, that blink, and a shared look between them, and a returned grin. Had she really become so unpleasant that a mere smile was surprising? Gods—when had she smiled last, at anyone or anything?
They were well away from the fortress, headed south and up into the mountains, when Rowan said, “They’ve all been keeping their distance because of the scent you put out.”
“Excuse me?” She didn’t want to know how he’d read her thoughts.
Rowan stalked through the trees, not even out of breath as he said, “There are more males than females here—and they’re fairly isolated from the world. Haven’t you wondered why they haven’t approached you?”
“They stayed away because I . . . smell?” She didn’t think she would have cared enough to be embarrassed, but her face was burning.
“Your scent says that you don’t want to be approached. The males smell it more than the females, and have been staying the hell away. They don’t want their faces clawed off.”
She had forgotten how primal the Fae were, with their scents and mating and territorial nature. Such a strange contrast to the civilized world beyond the wall of the mountains. “Good,” she wound up saying, though the idea of her having her emotions so easily identifiable was unsettling. It made lying and pretending almost worthless. “I’m not interested in men . . . males.”
His tattoo was vivid in the dappled sunlight that streamed through the canopy as he stared pointedly at her ring. “What happens if you become queen? Will you refuse a potential alliance through marriage?”
An invisible hand seemed to wrap around her throat. She had not let herself consider that possibility, because the weight of a crown and a throne were enough to make her feel like she was in a coffin. The thought of marrying like that, of someone else’s body on hers, someone who was not Chaol . . . She shoved the thought away.
Rowan was baiting her, as he always did. And she still had no plans to take up her uncle’s throne. Her only plan was to do what she’d promised Nehemia. “Nice try,” she said.
His canines gleamed as he smirked. “You’re learning.”
“You get baited by me every now and then, too, you know.”
He gave her a look that said, I let you bait me, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m not some mortal fool.