Rowan strode into the gaping maw of the cave mouth, his pale-gray cloak flapping behind him. “Hurry up.”
Pulling her own cloak tighter around her, she staggered after him. This was a bad sign. A horrible sign, actually, because whatever was in that cave . . .
She walked into the dark, following Rowan by the light on his hair, letting her eyes adjust. The ground was rocky, the stones small and worn smooth. And littered with rusted weapons, armor, and—clothes. No skeletons. Gods, it was so cold that she could see her breath, see—
“Tell me I’m hallucinating.”
Rowan had stopped at the edge of an enormous frozen lake, stretching into the gloom. Sitting on a blanket in its center, the chains around his wrists anchored under the ice, was Luca.
Luca’s chains clanked as he raised a hand in greeting. “I thought you’d never show. I’m freezing,” he called, and tucked his hands back under his arms. The sound echoed throughout the chamber.
The thick sheet of ice covering the lake was so clear that she could see the water beneath—pale stones on the bottom, what looked to be old roots from trees long dead, and no sign of life whatsoever. An occasional sword or dagger or lance poked up from the stones. “What is this place?”
“Go get him,” was Rowan’s answer.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Rowan gave her a smile that suggested he was, in fact, insane. She stepped toward the ice, but he blocked her path with a muscled arm. “In your other form.”
Luca’s head was angled, as if trying to hear. “He doesn’t know what I am,” she murmured.
“You’ve been living in a fortress of demi-Fae, you know. He won’t care.”
That was the least of her concerns, anyway. “How dare you drag him into this?”
“You dragged him in yourself when you insulted him—and Emrys. The least you can do is retrieve him.” He blew out a breath toward the lake, and the ice thawed by the shore, then hardened. Holy gods. He’d frozen the whole damn lake. He was that powerful?
“I hope you brought snacks!” Luca said. “I’m starving. Hurry up, Elentiya. Rowan said you had to do this as part of your training, and . . .” He prattled on and on.
“What is the gods-damned point of this? Just punishment for acting like an ass?”
“You can control your power in human form—keep it dormant. But the moment you switch, the moment you get agitated or angry or afraid, the moment you remember how much your power scares you, your magic rises up to protect you. It doesn’t understand that you are the source of those feelings, not some external threat. When there is an outside threat, when you forget to fear your power long enough, you have control. Or some control.” He pointed again to the sheet of ice between her and Luca. “So free him.”
If she lost control, if her fire got out of her . . . well, fire and ice certainly went well together, didn’t they? “What happens to Luca if I fail?”
“He’ll be very cold and very wet. And possibly die.” From the smile on his face, she knew he was enough of a sadist to let the boy go under with her.
“Were the chains really necessary? He’ll go right to the bottom.” A stupid, bleating kind of panic was starting to fill her veins.
When she held out her hand for the key to Luca’s chains, Rowan shook his head. “Control is your key. And focus. Cross the lake, then figure out how to free him without drowning the both of you.”
“Don’t give me a lesson like you’re some mystical-nonsense master! This is the stupidest thing I have ever had to—”
“Hurry,” Rowan said with a wolfish grin, and the ice gave a collective groan. As if it was melting. Though some small voice in her head told her he wouldn’t let the boy drown, she couldn’t trust him, not after last night.
She took one step closer to the ice. “You are a bastard.” When Luca was safely home, she would start finding ways to make Rowan’s life a living hell. She punched through her inner veil, the pain barely registering as her features shifted.
“I was waiting to see your Fae form!” Luca said. “We were all taking bets on when—” And on and on.
She scowled at Rowan, his tattoo even more detailed now that she was seeing it with Fae eyes. “It gives me comfort to know that people like you have a special place in hell waiting for them.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
She gave him a particularly vulgar gesture as she stepped onto the ice.
As she took each tentative step—small ones at first—she could see the lake bottom sloping away into darkness, swallowing the spread of lost weapons. Luca had finally shut up.
It was only when she stepped past the visible edge of the rocky shelf and hovered over the dark depths that her breath hitched. She slid her foot, and the ice groaned.
Groaned, and cracked, spiderwebbing under her foot. She froze, gaping like a fool as the cracks spread wider and wider, and then—she kept moving. There was another crack beneath her boots. Did the ice move? “Stop it,” she hissed at Rowan, but didn’t dare look behind her.
Her magic shuddered awake, and she went still as death. No.
But there it was, filling up the spaces in her.
The ice emitted a deep groan that could only mean something cold and wet was coming her way really damn soon, and she took another step, if only because the way back seemed like it would shatter. She was sweating now—the magic, the fire was warming her from the inside out.
“Elentiya?” Luca asked, and she held out a hand toward him—a silent gesture to shut his stupid mouth as she closed her eyes and breathed, imagining the cold air around them filling her lungs, freezing over the well of power. Magic—it was magic. In Adarlan it was a death trap.
She clenched her hands into fists. Here it was not a death trap. In this land, she could have it, could wear whatever form she wished.
The ice stopped groaning, but it had clouded and thinned around her. She started sliding her feet, keeping as balanced and fluid as she could, humming a melody—a bit of a symphony that used to calm her. She let the beat anchor her, dull the edge of her panic.
The magic simmered to embers, pulsing with each breath. I am safe, she told it. Relatively safe. If Rowan was right, and it was just a reaction to protect her from some enemy . . .
Fire was the reason she’d been banned from the Library of Orynth when she was eight, after accidentally incinerating an entire bookcase of ancient manuscripts when she grew irritated with the Master Scholar lecturing her about decorum. It had been a beautiful, horrible relief to wake up one day not too many months after that and know magic was gone. That she could hold a book—hold what she adored most—and not worry about turning it to ash if she became upset or tired or excited.
Celaena Sardothien, gloriously mortal Celaena, never had to worry about accidentally scorching a playmate, or having a nightmare that might incinerate her bedroom. Or burning all of Orynth to the ground. Celaena had been everything Aelin wasn’t. She had embraced that life, even if Celaena’s accomplishments were death and torture and pain.
“Elentiya?” She’d been staring at the ice. Her magic flickered again.
Burning a city to the ground. That was the fear she overheard Melisande’s emissary hiss at her parents and uncle. She’d been told he had come to see about an alliance, but she later understood he’d really come to gather information on her. Melisande had a young queen on its throne, and she wanted to assess the threat she might face from the heir of Terrasen one day. Wanted to know if Aelin Galathynius would become a weapon of war.
The ice fogged over, and a crack splintered through the air. The magic was pulsing its way out of her, snapping its jaws at every breath she took.
“You are in control now,” Rowan said from the shore. “You are its master.”
She was halfway there. She took
one more step toward Luca, and the ice cracked further. His chains rustled—impatience, or fear?
She had never been in control. Even as Celaena, control had been an illusion. Other masters had held her reins.
“You are the keeper of your own fate,” Rowan said softly from the shore, as if he knew exactly what was flowing through her head.
She hummed some more, the music wending its way from her memory. And somehow . . . somehow the flame grew quiet. Celaena took a step forward, then another. The power smoldering in her veins would never go away; she was far more likely to hurt someone if she didn’t master it.
She scowled over her shoulder at Rowan, who was now striding along the shore, examining some of the fallen blades. There was a hint of triumph in his usually hollow eyes, but he turned away and approached a small crevice in the cave wall, feeling for something inside. She kept walking, the watery abyss deepening. She had mastered her mortal body as an assassin. Mastering her immortal power was just another task.
Luca’s eyes were wide as she came at last within touching distance. “You have nothing to hide, you know. We all knew you could shift, anyway,” he said. “And if it makes you feel any better, Sten’s animal form is a pig. He won’t even shift for shame.”
She would have laughed—actually felt her insides tighten to bark out the sound that had been buried for months, but then she remembered the chains around his wrists. The magic had quieted down, but now . . . melt through them, or melt the ice where they were anchored and let him drag the chains back? If she went for the ice, she could easily send them right to the bottom of this ancient lake. And if she went for the chains . . . Well, she could lose control and send them to the bottom, but she could also wind up burning him. At best, branding him where the manacles were. At worst, melting his bones. Better to risk the ice.
“Erm,” Luca said. “I’ll forgive every awful thing you said earlier if we can go eat something right now. It smells awful in here.” His senses had to be sharper than hers—the cave had only a faint hint of rust, mold, and rotting things.
“Just hold still and stop talking,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended. But he shut up as she eased to the spot where Rowan had frozen the chains. As carefully as she could, she knelt, spreading her weight out evenly.
She slid one palm against the ice, eyeing the chain’s path to the hanging length swaying in the water beneath.
Swaying—there must be a current. Which meant Rowan had to be constantly sealing the ice . . . The cold bit into her palm, and she eyed Luca on the fur blanket before she turned back to the anchor. If the ice broke, she’d have to grab him. Rowan was out of his damned mind.
She took several long breaths, letting the magic calm and cool and gutter. Then, hand pressed flat against the ice, she crooked an inner finger at her power and pulled out a tiny, burning thread. It flowed down her arm, snaked around her wrist, and then settled in her palm, her skin warming, the ice . . . glowing a bright red. Luca yelped as the ice splintered around them.
“Control,” Rowan barked from the shore, pulling free a discarded sword from where it had been knocked into the little crevice in the wall, its golden hilt glinting. Celaena clamped on the magic so hard it suffocated. A small hole had melted where her palm had been—but not all the way through. Not big enough to free the chain.
She could master this. She could master herself again. The well inside of her filled up and she pushed back, willing only that thread to squeeze free and into the ice, burrowing like a worm, gnawing away at the cold . . . There was a clank of metal, and a hiss, and then— “Oh, thank the gods,” Luca moaned, hauling the length of chain out of the hole.
She spooled the thread of power back into herself, into that well, and was suddenly cold.
“Please tell me you brought food,” Luca said again.
“Is that why you came? Rowan promised you snacks?”
“I’m a growing boy.” He winced when he looked at Rowan. “And you don’t say no to him.”
No, indeed, no one ever said no to him, and that was probably why Rowan thought a scheme like this was acceptable. Celaena sighed through her nose and looked at the small hole she’d made. A feat—a miracle. As she was about to stand and help Luca navigate the way back to shore, she glanced at the ice once more. No, not the ice—the water beneath.
Where a giant red eye was staring right at her.
35
The next four words that came out of Celaena’s mouth were so vulgar that Luca choked. But Celaena didn’t move as a massive, jagged, white line gleamed unnervingly far from that red eye.
“Get off the ice now,” she breathed to Luca.
Because that jagged white line—those were teeth. Big, rip-your-arm-off-in-one-bite teeth. And they were floating up from the depths, toward the hole she’d made. That was why there were no skeletons—only the weapons that had failed the fools who’d wandered into this cave.
“Holy gods,” Luca said, peering from behind her. “What is that?”
“Shut up and go,” she hissed. On the shore, Rowan’s eyes were wide, his face strained beneath his tattoo. He hadn’t realized this lake wasn’t empty.
“Now, Luca,” Rowan growled, his sword out, the blade he’d swiped from the ground still sheathed in his other hand.
It was swimming toward them, lazily. Curious. As it neared, she could make out a snaking body as pale as the stones on the bottom of the lake. She’d never seen anything so huge, so ancient, and—and there was only a thin layer of ice keeping her separated from it.
When Luca started trembling, his tan skin going pale, Celaena surged to her feet, the ice groaning. “Don’t look down,” she said, gripping his elbow. A patch of thicker ice hardened under their feet and spread—a path for the shore. “Go,” she told the boy, giving him a light shove. He started into a swift shuffle-slide. She let him get ahead, giving him time so she could guard his back, and glanced down again.
She swallowed her shout as a scaled, massive head stared up at her. Not a dragon or a wyvern, not a serpent or a fish, but something in between. It was missing an eye, the flesh scarred around the empty socket. What in hell had done that? Was there something worse down there, swimming at the belly of the mountain? Of course—of course she’d be left unarmed in the center of a lake lined with weapons.
“Faster,” Rowan barked. Luca was already halfway to the shore.
Celaena broke into Luca’s same shuffle-slide, not trusting herself to stay upright if she ran. Just as she took her third step, a flash of bone-white snapped up through the depths, twisting like a striking asp.
The long tail whipped against the ice and the world bounced.
She went up, legs buckling as the ice lifted from the blow, and then slammed onto her hands and knees. Celaena shoved down the magic that arose to protect and burn and maim. She scrambled and veered aside as the scaly, horned head hurtled toward the ice near her feet.
The surface jolted. Farther out, but getting closer, the ice was breaking. As if all of Rowan’s concentration was now spent on keeping a thin bridge of ice frozen between her and the shore. “Weapon,” she gasped out, not daring to take her attention off the creature.
“Hurry,” Rowan barked, and Celaena lifted her head long enough to see him slide the blade he’d found across the ice, a brisk wind spinning it toward her. Luca abandoned the blanket, shuffle-running, and Celaena scooped up the golden-hilted sword as she followed him. A ruby the size of a chicken egg was embedded in the hilt, and despite the age of the scabbard, the blade shone when she whipped it free, as if it had been freshly polished. Something clattered from the scabbard onto the ice—a plain golden ring. She grabbed it, shoving it into her pocket, and ran faster, as—
The ice lifted again, the boom of that mighty tail as horrific as the moving surface beneath her. Celaena stayed up this ti
me, sinking onto her haunches as she clutched the sword, part of her marveling at the balance and beauty if it; but Luca, slipping and sliding, went down. She reached him in a few heartbeats, hauling him up by the back of his tunic and gripping him tight as the ice lifted again and again and again.
They got past the drop-off, and she almost groaned with relief at the sight of the pale stone shelf beneath their feet. The ice behind them exploded up, freezing water showering them, and then—
She didn’t stop as those nostrils huffed. Didn’t stop hauling Luca toward Rowan, whose brow gleamed with sweat as massive talons scraped over the ice, gouging four deep lines.
She dragged the boy the last ten yards, then five, then they were on the shore and to Rowan, who let out a shuddering breath. Celaena turned in time to see something out of a nightmare trying to crawl onto the ice, its one red eye wild with hunger, its massive teeth promising a brutal and cold kind of death. As Rowan’s sigh finished sounding, the ice melted, and the creature plunged below.
Back on solid ground, suddenly aware that the ice had also been a barrier, Celaena again grabbed Luca, who was looking ready to vomit, and bolted from the cave. There was nothing keeping that creature from climbing out of the water, and the sword was about as useful as a toothpick against it. Who knew how fast it could move on land?
Luca was chanting a steady stream of prayers to various gods as Celaena yanked him down the rocky path and into the glaring afternoon sun, stumbling near-blind until they hit the murky woods, dodging trees mostly by luck, faster and faster downhill, and then—
A roar that shook the stones and sent the birds scattering into the air, the leaves rustling. But a roar of rage and hunger—not of triumph. As if the creature had reached the edge of the cave and, after millennia in the watery dark, could not withstand the sunshine. She didn’t want to consider, as they kept running from the echoing roar, what might have happened if it had been night. What still might happen at nightfall.
After a while, she sensed Rowan behind them. Yet she cared only for her young charge, who panted and cursed all the way back to the fortress.