Queen of Shadows
Aelin found herself saying, “Thank you.”
Florine’s mouth quirked to the side. “Now there’s something you never learned from your master.”
The dancers at the front of the line reached the guards, and Florine sighed loudly and strutted toward them, bracing her hands on her narrow hips, power and grace lining every step closer to the black-uniformed guard studying a long list.
One by one, he looked over the dancers, comparing them with the list he bore. Checking rosters—detailed ones.
But thanks to Ress having broken into the barracks last night and adding a fake name along with her description, Aelin would be on the list.
They inched closer, Aelin keeping toward the back of the group to buy time to note details.
Gods, this castle—the same in every possible way, but different. Or maybe it was she who was different.
One by one the dancers were allowed between the blank-faced guards and hurried down the narrow castle hallway, giggling and whispering to one another.
Aelin rose up onto her toes to study the guards at the doors, no more than the novice scrunching her face in impatient curiosity.
Then she saw them.
Written across the threshold stones in dark paint were Wyrdmarks. They’d been beautifully rendered, as though merely decorative, but—
They must be at every door, every entrance.
Sure enough, even the windows a level up had small, dark symbols on them, no doubt keyed to Aelin Galathynius, to alert the king to her presence or to trap her in place long enough to be captured.
A dancer elbowed Aelin in the stomach to get her to stop leaning on her shoulder to peer over their heads. Aelin gaped at the girl—and then let out an oomph of pain.
The dancer glared over her shoulder, mouthing to shut up.
Aelin burst into tears.
Loud, blubbering, hu-hu-hu tears. The dancers froze, the one ahead of her stepping back, glancing to either side.
“T-that hurt,” Aelin said, clutching her stomach.
“I didn’t do anything,” the woman hissed.
Aelin kept crying.
Ahead, Florine ordered her dancers to step aside, and then her face was in Aelin’s. “What in the name of every god in the realm is this nonsense about?”
Aelin pointed a shaking finger at the dancer. “She h-hit me.”
Florine whirled on the wide-eyed dancer who was already proclaiming her innocence. Then followed a series of accusations, insults, and more tears—now from the dancer, weeping over her surely ruined career.
“W-water,” Aelin blubbered to Florine. “I need a glass of waaater.” The guards had begun pushing toward them. Aelin squeezed Florine’s arm hard. “N-now.”
Florine’s eyes sparked, and she faced the guards who approached, barking her demands. Aelin held her breath, waiting for the strike, the slap … but there was one of Ress’s friends—one of Chaol’s friends, wearing a red flower pinned to his breast, as she’d asked—running off to get water. Exactly where Chaol had said he’d be, just in case something went wrong. Aelin clung to Florine until the water appeared—a bucket and ladle, the best the man could come up with. He wisely didn’t meet her gaze.
With a little sob of thanks, Aelin grabbed both from his hands. They were shaking slightly.
She gave Florine a subtle nudge with her foot, urging her forward.
“Come with me,” seethed Florine, dragging her to the front of the line. “I’ve had enough of this idiocy, and you’ve nearly wrecked your makeup.”
Careful not to spill the water, Aelin allowed Florine to pull her to the stone-faced guard at the doors. “My foolish, useless understudy, Dianna,” she said to the guard with flawless steel in her voice, unfazed by the black-eyed demon looking out at her.
The man studied the list in his hands, scanning, scanning—
And crossed off a name.
Aelin took a shivering sip of water from the ladle, and then dunked it back into the bucket.
The guard looked once more at Aelin—and she willed her lower lip to wobble, the tears to well again as the demon inside devoured her with his eyes. As if all these lovely dancers were dessert.
“Get in,” the man grunted, jerking his chin to the hall behind him.
With a silent prayer, Aelin stepped toward the Wyrdmarks written over the threshold stones.
And tripped, sending the bucket of water spraying over the marks.
She wailed as she hit the ground, knees barking in genuine pain, and Florine was instantly upon her, demanding she stop being so clumsy and such a crybaby, and then shoving her in—shoving her over the ruined marks.
And into the glass castle.
CHAPTER
17
Once Florine and the rest of the dancers were allowed in, they were all stuffed down a narrow servants’ hallway. In a matter of moments, the door at the far end would open into the side of the ballroom and they would flutter out like butterflies. Black, glittering butterflies, here to perform the “Handmaidens of Death” dance from one of the more popular symphonies.
They weren’t stopped or questioned by anyone else, though the guards in every hall watched them like hawks. And not the shape-shifting Fae Prince kind.
So few of Chaol’s men were present. No sign of Ress or Brullo. But everyone was where Chaol had promised they would be, based on Ress and Brullo’s information.
A platter of honey-roasted ham with crackling sage was carried past on a servant’s shoulder, and Aelin tried not to appreciate it, to savor the scents of the food of her enemy. Even if it was damn fine food.
Platter after platter went by, hauled by red-faced servants, no doubt winded from the trek up from the kitchens. Trout with hazelnuts, crisped asparagus, tubs of freshly whipped cream, pear tarts, meat pies—
Aelin cocked her head, watching the line of servants. A half smile grew on her face. She waited for the servants to return with empty hands, on their return journey to the kitchens. Finally the door opened again, and a slim servant in a crisp white apron filed into the dim hall, the loose strands of her inky hair falling out of her braid as she hurried to retrieve the next tray of pear tarts from the kitchen.
Aelin kept her face blank, disinterested, as Nesryn Faliq glanced her way.
Those dark, upturned eyes narrowed slightly—surprise or nerves, Aelin couldn’t tell. But before she could decide how to deal with it, one of the guards signaled to Florine that it was time.
Aelin kept her head down, even as she felt the demon within the man rake its attention over her and the others. Nesryn was gone—vanished down the stairs—when Aelin turned back.
Florine strode down the line of dancers waiting by the door, her hands clasped behind her. “Backs straight, shoulders back, necks uplifted. You are light, you are air, you are grace. Do not disappoint me.”
Florine took up the basket of black glass flowers she’d had her steadiest dancer carry in, each exquisite bloom flickering like an ebony diamond in the dim hall light. “If you break these before it is time to throw them down, you are finished. They cost more than you’re worth, and there are no extras.”
One by one, she handed the flowers down the line, each of them sturdy enough not to snap in the next few minutes.
Florine reached Aelin, the basket empty. “Watch them, and learn,” she said loud enough for the demon guard to hear, and put a hand on Aelin’s shoulder, ever the consoling teacher. The other dancers, now shifting on their feet, rolling their heads and shoulders, didn’t look in her direction.
Aelin nodded demurely, as if trying to hide bitter tears of disappointment, and ducked out of line to stand at Florine’s side.
Trumpets blasted in through the cracks around the door, and the crowd cheered loud enough to make the floor rumble.
“I peeked into the Great Hall,” Florine said so quietly Aelin could barely hear her. “To see how the general is faring. He is gaunt and pale, but alert. Ready—for you.”
Aelin went still.
r /> “I always wondered where Arobynn found you,” Florine murmured, staring at the door as if she could see through it. “Why he took such pains to break you to his will, more so than all the others.” The woman closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, steel gleamed there. “When you shatter the chains of this world and forge the next, remember that art is as vital as food to a kingdom. Without it, a kingdom is nothing, and will be forgotten by time. I have amassed enough money in my miserable life to not need any more—so you will understand me clearly when I say that wherever you set your throne, no matter how long it takes, I will come to you, and I will bring music and dancing.”
Aelin swallowed hard. Before she could say anything, Florine left her standing at the back of the line and strolled to the door. She paused before it, looking down the line at each dancer. She spoke only when her eyes met Aelin’s. “Give our king the performance he deserves.”
Florine opened the door, flooding the hallway with light and music and the scent of roasted meats.
The other dancers sucked in a collective breath and sprang forward, one by one, waving those dark glass flowers overhead.
As she watched them go, Aelin willed the blood in her veins into black fire. Aedion—her focus was on Aedion, not on the tyrant seated at the front of the room, the man who had murdered her family, murdered Marion, murdered her people. If these were her last moments, then at least she would go down fighting, to the sound of exquisite music.
It was time.
One breath—another.
She was the heir of fire.
She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.
Aelin squared her shoulders and slipped into the bejeweled crowd.
Aedion had been watching the guards in the hours he’d been chained to the stool, and had figured out who best to attack first, who favored a certain side or leg, who might hesitate when faced with the Wolf of the North, and, most importantly, who was impulsive and stupid enough to finally run him through despite the king’s command.
The performances had begun, drawing the attention of the crowd that had been shamelessly gawking at him, and as the two dozen women floated and leaped and twirled into the wide space between the dais and his execution platform, for a moment Aedion felt … bad for interrupting. These women had no cause to be caught up in the bloodshed he was about to unleash.
It did seem fitting, though, that their sparkling costumes were of darkest black, accented with silver—Death’s Handmaidens, he realized. That was who they portrayed.
It was as much a sign as anything. Perhaps the dark-eyed Silba would offer him a kind death instead of a cruel one at the blood-drenched hands of Hellas. Either way, he found himself smiling. Death was death.
The dancers were tossing fistfuls of black powder, coating the floor with it—representing ashes of the fallen, probably. One by one, they made pretty little spins and bowed before the king and his son.
Time to move. The king was distracted by a uniformed guard whispering in his ear; the prince was watching the dancers with bored disinterest, and the queen was chatting with whichever courtier she favored that day.
The crowd clapped and cooed over the unfolding performance. They’d all come in their finery—such careless wealth. The blood of an empire had paid for those jewels and silks. The blood of his people.
An extra dancer was moving through the crowd: some understudy, no doubt trying to get a better view of the performance. And he might not have thought twice about it, had she not been taller than the others—bigger, curvier, her shoulders broader. She moved more heavily, as if somehow rooted innately to the earth. The light hit her, shining through the lace of the costume’s sleeves to reveal swirls and whorls of markings on her skin. Identical to the paint on the dancers’ arms and chests, save for her back, where the paint was a little darker, a little different.
Dancers like that didn’t have tattoos.
Before he could see more, between one breath and the next, as a cluster of ladies in massive ball gowns blocked her from sight, she vanished behind a curtained-off doorway, walking right past the guards with a sheepish smile, as if she were lost.
When she emerged again not a minute later, he only knew it was her from the build, the height. The makeup was gone, and her flowing tulle skirt had disappeared—
No—not disappeared, he realized as she slipped back through the doorway without the guards so much as looking at her. The skirt had been reversed into a silken cape, its hood covering her ruddy brown hair, and she moved … moved like a swaggering man, parading for the ladies around him.
Moved closer to him. To the stage.
The dancers were still tossing their black powder everywhere, circling around and around, flitting their way across the marble floor.
None of the guards noticed the dancer-turned-noble prowling toward him. One of the courtiers did—but not to cry an alarm. Instead, he shouted a name—a man’s name. And the dancer in disguise turned, lifting a hand in greeting toward the man who’d called and giving a cocky grin.
She wasn’t just in disguise. She’d become someone else completely.
Closer and closer she strutted, the music from the gallery orchestra rising into a clashing, vibrant finale, each note higher than the last as the dancers raised their glass roses above their heads: a tribute to the king, to Death.
The disguised dancer stopped outside the ring of guards flanking Aedion’s stage, patting herself down as if checking for a handkerchief that had gone missing, muttering a string of curses.
An ordinary, believable pause—no cause for alarm. The guards went back to watching the dancers.
But the dancer looked up at Aedion beneath lowered brows. Even disguised as an aristo man, there was wicked, vicious triumph in her turquoise-and-gold eyes.
Behind them, across the hall, the dancers shattered their roses on the floor, and Aedion grinned at his queen as the entire world went to hell.
CHAPTER
18
It wasn’t just the glass flowers that had been rigged with a reactive powder, quietly purchased by Aelin at the Shadow Market. Every bit of sparkling dust the dancers had tossed about had been full of it. And it was worth every damned silver she’d spent as smoke erupted through the room, igniting the powder they’d been scattering everywhere.
The smoke was so thick she could barely see more than a foot ahead, and blended perfectly with the gray cloak that had doubled as the skirt of her costume. Just as Arobynn had suggested.
Screaming halted the music. Aelin was already moving for the nearby stage as the clock tower—that clock tower that would save or damn them all—struck noon.
There was no black collar around Aedion’s neck, and that was all she needed to see, even as relief threatened to wobble her knees. Before the clock’s first strike finished, she had drawn the daggers built into the bodice of her costume—all the silver thread and beading masking the steel on her—and slashed one across the throat of the nearest guard.
Aelin spun and shoved him into the man closest to him as she plunged her other blade deep into the gut of a third.
Florine’s voice rose above the crowd, ushering her dancers out-out-out.
The second strike of the clock tower sounded, and Aelin yanked her dagger from the belly of the groaning guard, another surging at her from the smoke.
The rest would go to Aedion on instinct, but they’d be slowed by the crowds, and she was already close enough.
The guard—one of those black-uniformed nightmares—stabbed with his sword, a direct attack to her chest. Aelin parried the thrust aside with one dagger, spinning into his exposed torso. Hot, reeking blood shot onto her hand as she shoved her other blade into his eye.
He was still falling as she ran the last few feet to the wooden platform and hurled herself onto it, rolling, keeping low until she was right up under two other guards who wer
e still trying to wave away the veils of smoke. They screamed as she disemboweled them both in two swipes.
The fourth strike of the clock sounded, and there was Aedion, the three guards around him impaled by shards of his stool.
He was huge—even bigger up close. A guard charged for them out of the smoke, and Aelin shouted “Duck!” before throwing her dagger at the man’s approaching face. Aedion barely moved fast enough to avoid the blow, and the guard’s blood splattered on the shoulder of her cousin’s tunic.
She lunged for the chains around Aedion’s ankles, sheathing her remaining blade at her side.
A jolt shocked through her, and blue light seared her vision as the Eye flared. She didn’t dare pause, not even for a heartbeat. Whatever spell the king had put on Aedion’s chains burned like blue fire as she sliced open her forearm with her dagger and used her blood to draw the symbols she’d memorized on the chains: Unlock.
The chains thudded to the ground.
Seventh strike of the clock.
The screaming shifted into something louder, wilder, and the king’s voice boomed over the panicking crowd.
A guard rushed at them, his sword out. Another benefit of the smoke: too risky to start firing arrows. But she’d only give Arobynn credit if she got out of this alive.
She unsheathed another blade, hidden in the lining of her gray cloak. The guard went down clutching at his throat, now split ear to ear. Then she whirled to Aedion, pulled the long chain of the Eye from around her neck, and threw it over his head. She opened her mouth, but he gasped out, “The sword.”
And that’s when she noticed the blade displayed behind his stool. The Sword of Orynth.
Her father’s blade.
She’d been too focused on Aedion, on the guards and the dancers, to realize what blade it was.
“Stay close,” was all she said as she grabbed the sword from the stand and shoved it into his hands. She didn’t let herself think too much about the weight of that blade, or about how it had even gotten there. She just grasped Aedion by the wrist and raced across the platform toward the patio windows, where the crowd was shrieking and guards were trying to establish a line.