Empire of Storms

  He surveyed the hanging orbs, the woven carpet, the black tablecloth, and then her hands, scarred and calloused and small, gripping the edge of the table. “Wouldn’t it ruin your ruse if I slipped off into the night with someone else? You’d be expected to throw me out on my ass—to be heartbroken and raging for the rest of your time here.”

  “You might as well enjoy yourself,” she said. “You’re going to leave soon anyway.”

  “So are you,” he reminded her.

  Elide tapped a finger on the tablecloth, the rough fabric scratching against her skin.

  “What is it?” he demanded. As if it were an inconvenience to be polite.

  “Nothing.”

  It wasn’t nothing, though. She knew why she’d been delaying that turn northward, the inevitable departure from this group and final trek on her own.

  She could barely make an impact at a backwater carnival. What the hell would she do in a court of such powerful people—especially without being able to read? While Aelin could destroy kings and save cities, what the hell would she do to prove her worth? Wash their clothes? Clean their dishes?

  “Marion,” he said roughly.

  She looked up, surprised to find him still there. Lorcan’s dark eyes were unreadable in the dimness. “You had plenty of young men unable to stop staring at you tonight. Why not have some fun with them?”

  “Why?” she snapped. The thought of a stranger touching her, of some faceless, nameless man pawing at her in the dark…

  Lorcan stilled. He said too calmly, “When you were in Morath, did someone—”

  “No.” She knew what he meant. “No—it didn’t get that far.” But the memory of those men touching her, laughing at her nakedness … She shoved it away. “I’ve never been with a man. Never had the chance or the interest.”

  He cocked his head, his dark, silken hair sliding over his face. “Do you prefer women?”

  She blinked at him. “No—I don’t think so. I don’t know what I prefer. Again, I’ve never … I’ve never had the opportunity to feel … that.” Desire, lust, she didn’t know. And she didn’t know how or why they’d wound up talking about this.

  “Why?” And with all of Lorcan’s considerable focus honed in on her, with the way he’d glanced at her red-painted mouth, Elide wanted to tell him. About the tower, and Vernon, and her parents. About why, if she were to ever feel desire, it’d be a result of trusting someone so much that those horrors faded away, a result of knowing they would fight tooth and claw to keep her free and never lock her up or hurt her or leave her.

  Elide opened her mouth. Then the screaming started.

  Lorcan didn’t know why the hell he was in Marion’s ridiculous little oracle’s tent. He needed to wash, needed to clean away the sweat and oil and feel of all those ogling eyes on him.

  But he’d spotted Marion in the crowd while he’d finished up his piss-poor performance. He hadn’t seen her earlier in the evening before she’d put on that headdress and those robes, but … maybe it was the cosmetics, the heavy kohl around her eyes, the way the red-painted lips made her mouth look like a fresh piece of fruit, but … he’d noticed her.

  Noticed the way the men had spotted her, too. Some had outright gawked, wonder and lust written across their bodies, as Marion lingered, oblivious, at the edge of the crowd and watched Lorcan instead.

  Beautiful. After a few weeks of eating, of safety, the terrified, gaunt young woman had somehow gone from pretty to beautiful. He’d ended his performance sooner than he’d intended, and by the time he looked up again, Marion was gone.

  Like a gods-damned dog, he’d picked up her scent among the crowd and followed her back to this tent.

  In the shadows and glowing lights within, with the headdress and dangling beads and dark red robes … the oracle incarnate. Serene, exquisite … and utterly forbidden.

  And he’d been so focused on cursing himself for staring at that ripe, sinful mouth while she admitted she was still untouched, that he hadn’t detected anything amiss until the screaming started.

  No, he’d been too busy contemplating what sounds might come from that full mouth if he slowly, gently, taught her the art of the bedroom.

  The attack, Lorcan supposed, was Hellas’s way of telling him to keep his cock in his pants and mind out of the gutter.

  “Get under a wagon and stay there,” he snapped before hurtling out of the tent. He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed. Marion was smart—she knew she’d stand a better chance at survival if she listened to him and found shelter.

  Lorcan loosed his gift through the panicking carnival site—a wave of dark, terrible power sweeping out in a ripple, then rushing back to tell him what it sensed. His power was gleeful, breathless in a way he knew too well: death.

  At one end of the field lay the outskirts of the little town. At the other, a copse of trees and endless night—and wings.

  Towering, sinewy forms plunged down from the skies—his magic picked up four. Four ilken as they landed, claws out and baring those flesh-shredding teeth. The leathery wings, it seemed, marked them as some slight variation of the ones who had tracked them in Oakwald. A variation—or a refining of an already ruthless hunter.

  People ran, screaming—toward the town, toward the cover of the dark fields beyond.

  Those distant fires had not been set by farmers to burn their idle fields.

  They had been set to cloud the skies, to hide the scent of these beasts. From him. Or any other gifted warriors.

  Marion. They were hunting Marion.

  The carnival was in chaos, the horses were shrieking and bucking. Lorcan plunged toward where the four ilken had landed in the heart of the camp, right where he’d been performing minutes before, in time to see one land atop a fleeing young man and flip him onto his back.

  The young man was still screaming for gods who would not answer as the ilken leaned down, flicking free a long talon, and opened up his belly in a smooth swipe. He was still screaming when the ilken lowered his mutilated face and feasted.

  “What in burning hell are those beasts?” It was Ombriel, a long-sword out—and gripped in a way that told him she knew how to wield it. Nik came thundering up behind her, two rough, near-rusted blades in his meaty hands.

  “Soldiers from Morath,” was all Lorcan supplied. Nik was eyeing the blade and hatchet Lorcan had drawn, and he didn’t think to pretend to not know how to use either, to be a simple man from the wilds, as he said with cold precision, “They’re naturally able to cut through most magic—and only beheading will keep them down.”

  “They’re nearly eight feet,” Ombriel said, face pale.

  Lorcan left them to their assessments and fear, stepping into the ring of light in the heart of the camp as the four ilken finished playing with the young man. The human was still alive, silently mouthing pleas for help.

  Lorcan lashed out with his power and could have sworn the young man had gratitude in his eyes as death kissed him in greeting.

  The ilken looked up as one, hissing softly. Blood slid from their teeth.

  Lorcan tunneled into his power, preparing to distract and addle them, if their resistance to magic held true. Perhaps Marion would have time to run. The ilken who had ripped open the belly of the young man said to him, laughter dancing on its gray tongue, “Are you the one in charge?”

  Lorcan simply said, “Yes.”

  It told him enough. They did not know who he was, his role in Marion’s escape.

  The four ilken smiled. “We seek a girl. She murdered our kin—and several others.”

  They blamed her for the ilken’s death those weeks ago? Or was it an excuse to further their own ends? “We tracked her to the Acanthus crossing … She may be hiding here, among your people.” A sneer.

  Lorcan willed Nik and Ombriel to keep their mouths shut. If they so much as started to reveal them, the hatchet in his hands would move.

  “Check another carnival. We’ve had this crew for months.”

  “She is sma
ll,” it went on, those too-human eyes flickering. “Crippled on one leg.”

  “We don’t know anyone like that.”

  They’d hunt her to the ends of the earth.

  “Then line up your crew so we might … inspect them.”

  Make them walk. Look them over. Look for a dark-haired young woman with a limp and whatever other markers her uncle had provided.

  “You’ve scared them all away. It might be days before they return. And, again,” Lorcan said, hatchet flicking a bit higher, “there is no one in my caravan who matches such a description.” Behind him, Nik and Ombriel were silent, their terror a reek that shoved itself up his nose. Lorcan willed Marion to remain hidden.

  The ilken smiled—the most hideous smile Lorcan had beheld in all his centuries. “We have gold.” Indeed, the ilken beside it had a hip-pouch sagging with it. “Her name is Elide Lochan. Her uncle is Lord of Perranth. He will reward you handsomely to turn her over.”

  The words hit Lorcan like stones. Marion—Elide had … lied. Had managed to keep him from even sniffing the lie on her, had used enough truths and her own general fear to keep the scent of it hidden—

  “We know no one by such a name,” Lorcan said again.

  “Pity,” the sentinel crooned. “For if you had her in your company, we would have taken her and left. But now…” The ilken smiled at its three companions, and their dark wings rustled. “Now it seems we have flown a very long way for nothing. And we are very hungry.”

  41

  Elide had squeezed herself into a hidden floor compartment in the largest of the wagons and prayed that no one discovered her. Or began burning things. Her frantic breathing was the only sound. The air grew tight and hot, her legs trembled and cramped from staying curled in a ball, but still she waited, still she kept hidden.

  Lorcan had run out—he’d just run into the fray. She’d fled the tent in time to see four ilken—winged ilken—descend upon the camp. She had not lingered long enough to see what happened after.

  Time passed—minutes or perhaps hours, she couldn’t tell.

  She had done this. She had brought these things here, to these people, to the caravan…

  The screaming grew louder, then faded. Then nothing.

  Lorcan might be dead. Everyone might be dead.

  Her ears strained, and she tried to quiet her breathing to listen for any sounds of life, of action beyond her small, hot hiding space. No doubt, it was usually reserved for smuggling contraband—not at all intended for a human being.

  She couldn’t stay hidden much longer. If the ilken slaughtered them all, they’d search for any survivors. Could likely sniff her out.

  She would have to make a run for it. Have to break out, observe what she could, and sprint for the dark fields and pray no others waited out there. Her feet and calves had gone numb minutes before and now tingled incessantly. She might very well not even be able to walk, and her stupid, useless leg—

  She listened again, praying to Anneith to turn the ilken’s attention elsewhere.

  Only silence greeted her. No more screaming.

  Now. She should go now, while she had the cover of darkness.

  Elide did not give her fear another heartbeat to whisper its poison into her blood. She had survived Morath, survived weeks alone. She’d make it, she had to make it, and she wouldn’t at all mind being the queen’s gods-damned dishwasher if it meant she could live—

  Elide uncoiled, shoulders aching as she quietly eased the trapdoor up, the little area rug sliding back. She scanned the interior of the wagon—the empty benches on either side—then studied the night beckoning beyond. Light spilled from the camp behind her, but ahead … a sea of blackness. The field was perhaps thirty feet away.

  Elide winced as the wood groaned while she hefted the trapdoor high enough for her to slither, belly-down, over the floorboards. But her robe snagged, yanking her into a stop. Elide gritted her teeth, tugging blindly. But it had caught inside the crawl space. Anneith save her—

  “Tell me,” drawled a deep male voice behind her, from near the driver’s seat. “What would you have done if I were an ilken soldier?”

  Relief turned her bones to liquid, and Elide held in her sob. She twisted to find Lorcan covered in black blood, sitting on the bench behind the driver’s seat, legs spread before him. His axe and sword lay discarded beside him, coated in that black blood as well, and Lorcan idly chewed on a long stalk of wheat as he gazed at the canvas wall of the wagon.

  “The first thing I might have done in your place,” Lorcan mused, still not looking at her, “would have been to ditch the robe. You’d fall flat on your face if you ran—and the red would be as good as ringing the dinner bell.”

  She tugged at the robe again, and the fabric ripped at last. Scowling, she patted where it had come free and found a loose bit of wood paneling.

  “The second thing I might have done,” Lorcan went on, not even bothering to wipe away the blood splattered on his face, “is tell me the gods-damned truth. Did you know those ilken beasts love to talk with the right encouragement? And they told me some very, very interesting things.” Those dark eyes at last slid to her, utterly vicious. “But you didn’t tell me the truth, did you, Elide?”

  Her eyes were wide, her face leeched of color beneath the cosmetics. She’d lost the headdress somewhere, and her dark sheet of hair slid free of some of its pins as she climbed from the hidden compartment. Lorcan watched every movement, assessing and weighing and debating what, exactly, to do with her.

  Liar. Cunning little liar.

  Elide Lochan, rightful Lady of Perranth, crawled out, slamming the trapdoor shut and glaring at him from where she knelt on the floor. He glared right back. “Why should I have trusted you,” she said with impressive coldness, “when you were stalking me for days in the forest? Why should I have told you a thing about me when you could have sold me to the highest bidder?”

  His body ached; his head throbbed from the slaughter he’d barely managed to survive. The ilken had gone down—but not willingly. And the one he’d kept alive, the one Nik and Ombriel had begged him to kill and be done with, had told him very little, actually.

  But Lorcan had decided his wife didn’t need to know that. Decided it was time to see what she might reveal if he let some lies of his own fool her.

  Elide glanced at his weapons, at the reeking blood coating him like oil. “You killed them all?”

  He lowered the wheat stalk from his mouth. “Do you think I’d be sitting here if I hadn’t?”

  Elide Lochan wasn’t some mere human trying to return to her homeland and serve her queen. She was a royal-blooded lady who wanted to get back to that fire-breathing bitch in the North to offer whatever aid she could. She and Aelin would be well suited for each other, he decided. The sweet-faced liar and the insufferable, haughty princess.

  Elide slumped onto the bench, massaging her feet and calves.

  “I’m risking my neck for you,” he said too quietly, “and yet you decided not to tell me that your uncle isn’t just a mere commander at Morath, but Erawan’s right hand—and you are his prized possession.”

  “I told you enough of the truth. Who I am makes no difference. And I am no one’s possession.”

  His temper yanked at the leash he’d been careful to keep short before tracking her scent to this wagon. Outside, the others were hurriedly packing, readying to flee into the night before the villagers decided to blame them for the disaster. “It does make a difference who you are. With your queen on the move, your uncle knows she’d pay a steep price to get you back. You are not a mere breeding asset—you are a negotiation tool. You might very well be what brings that bitch to her knees.”

  Rage flashed in her fine-boned face. “You keep plenty of secrets, too, Lorcan.” She spat his name like a curse. “And I still haven’t been able to decide if I find it insulting or amusing that you think I’m too stupid to notice. That you thought I was some fear-addled girl, too grateful for the presence of
such a strong, brooding warrior to even question why you were there or what you wanted or what your stake in all this is. I gave you exactly what you wanted to see: a lost young woman in need of help, perhaps a bit skilled at lying and deceit, but ultimately not worth more than a few seconds’ consideration. And you, in all your immortal arrogance, didn’t think twice. Why should you, when humans are so useless? Why should you even bother, when you planned to abandon me the moment you got what you needed?”

  Lorcan blinked, bracing his feet on the floor. She didn’t back down an inch.

  He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him like that. “I would be careful what you say to me.”

  Elide gave him a hateful little smile. “Or what? You’ll sell me to Morath? Use me as your ticket in?”

  “I hadn’t thought to do that, but thank you for the idea.”

  Her throat bobbed, the only sign of her fear. And she said clearly and without a hint of hesitation, “If you try to bring me to Morath, I will end my own life before you can carry me over the Keep’s bridge.”

  It was the threat, the promise, that checked his anger, his utter rage that … that she had indeed played into his expectations of her, his arrogance and prejudices. He said carefully, “What is it that you’re carrying that makes them hunt you so relentlessly? Not your royal blood, not your magic and use for breeding. The object you carry with you—what is it?”

  Perhaps it was a night for truth, perhaps death hovered close enough to make her a bit reckless, but Elide said, “It’s a gift—for Celaena Sardothien. From a woman kept imprisoned in Morath, who had waited a long time to repay her for a past kindness. More than that, I don’t know.”

  A gift for an assassin—not the queen. Perhaps nothing of note, but— “Let me see it.”

  “No.”

  They stared each other down again. And Lorcan knew that if he wanted, he could wait until she was asleep, take it for himself, and vanish. See what might make her so protective of it.

  But he knew … some small, stupid part of him knew that if he took from this woman who had already had too much stolen from her … He didn’t know if there was any coming back from that. He’d done such despicable, vicious things over the centuries and hadn’t thought twice. He’d reveled in them, relished them, the cruelty.