The clock issued its ninth strike. She’d unlock Aedion’s hands as soon as they got to the garden; they didn’t have another second to spend in the suffocating smoke.
Aedion staggered but kept upright, close behind as she leaped off the platform into the smoke, right where Brullo claimed two guards would hold their position. One died with a dagger to the spine, the other a blow to the side of the neck. She squeezed the hilts of her daggers against the slippery blood now coating them—and every inch of her.
His sword gripped in both hands, Aedion jumped down beside her, and his knees buckled.
He was injured, but not from any wound she could see. She’d discerned as much in the moments she’d weaved through the crowd, altering her demeanor as Lysandra had instructed. The paleness of Aedion’s face had nothing to do with fear, nor did his shallow breaths. They’d hurt him.
It made killing these men very, very easy.
The crowd was bottlenecking by the patio doors, just as she had calculated. All it took was her shouting “Fire! Fire!” and the screaming turned frantic.
The crowd began shattering the windows and the glass doors, trampling one another and the guards. People grabbed buckets to douse the flames, water spraying everywhere and splashing away the Wyrdmarks on the thresholds.
The smoke billowed out ahead, leading the way into the garden. Aelin pushed Aedion’s head down as she shoved him into the mass of fleeing courtiers and servants. Thrashing, squeezing, shouting, ripping at her clothes, until—until the noontime sun blinded her.
Aedion hissed. Weeks in the dungeons had probably wrecked his eyes. “Just hold on to me,” she said, putting his massive hand on her shoulder. He gripped her hard, his chains knocking against her as she waded through the crowd and into open, clear air beyond.
The clock tower bellowed its twelfth and final strike as Aelin and Aedion skidded to a halt before a line of six guards blocking the entrance to the garden hedges.
Aelin stepped out of Aedion’s grip, and her cousin swore as his eyes adjusted enough to see what now lay between them and escape. “Don’t get in my way,” she said to him, then launched herself at the guards.
Rowan had taught her a few new tricks.
She was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of shadows, and these men were already carrion.
Slashing and ducking and twirling, Aelin gave herself completely to that killing calm, until the blood was a mist around her and the gravel was slick with it. Four of Chaol’s men came racing up—then ran the other way. Allies or just smart, she didn’t care.
And when the last of those black-uniformed guards had slumped to the bloody ground, she surged for Aedion. He’d been gaping—but he let out a low, dark laugh as he stumbled into a sprint beside her, into the hedges.
Archers—they had to clear the archers who were sure to begin firing as soon as the smoke vanished.
They dashed around and between the hedges she’d traversed dozens of times during her stay here, when she’d run every morning with Chaol. “Faster, Aedion,” she breathed, but he was already lagging. She paused and sliced into her blood-soaked wrist with a dagger before sketching the unlocking Wyrdmarks on each of his manacles. Again, light flared and burned. But then the cuffs sprang open silently.
“Nice trick,” he panted, and she yanked the chains off him. She was about to chuck the metal aside when the gravel crunched behind them.
Not the guards, and not the king.
It was with no small amount of horror that she found Dorian strolling toward them.
CHAPTER
19
“Going somewhere?” Dorian said, his hands in the pockets of his black pants.
The man who spoke those words was not her friend—she knew that before he’d even opened his mouth. The collar of his ebony tunic was unbuttoned, revealing the glimmering Wyrdstone torque at the base of his throat.
“Unfortunately, Your Highness, we have another party to get to.” She marked the slender red maple to the right, the hedges, the glass palace towering beyond them. They were too deep in the garden to be shot at, but every wasted second was as good as signing her own death sentence. And Aedion’s.
“Pity,” said the Valg prince inside Dorian. “It was just getting exciting.”
He struck.
A wave of black lashed for her, and Aedion shouted in warning. Blue flared before her, deflecting the assault from Aedion, but she was shoved back a step, as if by a hard, dark wind.
When the black cleared, the prince stared. Then he gave a lazy, cruel smile. “You warded yourself. Clever, lovely human thing.”
She’d spent all morning painting every inch of her body with Wyrdmarks in her own blood, mixed with ink to hide the color.
“Aedion, run for the wall,” she breathed, not daring to take her eyes off the prince.
Aedion did no such thing. “He’s not the prince—not anymore.”
“I know. Which is why you need to—”
“Such heroics,” said the thing squatting in her friend. “Such foolish hope, to think you can get away.”
Like an asp, he struck again with a wall of black-tainted power. It knocked her clean into Aedion, who grunted in pain but set her upright. Her skin began tickling beneath her costume, as if the blood-wards were flaking off with each assault. Useful, but short-lived. Precisely why she hadn’t wasted them on getting into the castle.
They had to get out of here—now.
She shoved the chains into Aedion’s hands, took the Sword of Orynth from him, and stepped toward the prince.
Slowly, she unsheathed the blade. Its weight was flawless, and the steel shone as brightly as it had the last time she’d seen it. In her father’s hands.
The Valg prince snapped another whip of power at her, and she stumbled but kept walking, even as the blood-wards beneath her costume crumbled away.
“One sign, Dorian,” she said. “Just give me one sign that you’re in there.”
The Valg prince laughed low and harsh, that beautiful face twisted with ancient brutality. His sapphire eyes were empty as he said, “I am going to destroy everything you love.”
She raised her father’s sword in both hands, advancing still.
“You’d never do it,” the thing said.
“Dorian,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “You are Dorian.” Seconds—she had seconds left to give him. Her blood dripped onto the gravel, and she let it pool there, her eyes fixed on the prince as she began tracing a symbol with her foot.
The demon chuckled again. “Not anymore.”
She gazed into those eyes, at the mouth she’d once kissed, at the friend she’d once cared for so deeply, and begged, “Just one sign, Dorian.”
But there was nothing of her friend in that face, no hesitation or twinge of muscle against the attack as the prince lunged.
Lunged, and then froze as he passed over the Wyrdmark she’d drawn on the ground with her foot—a quick and dirty mark to hold him. It wouldn’t last for more than a few moments, but that was all she needed as he was forced to his knees, thrashing and pushing against the power. Aedion quietly swore.
Aelin raised the Sword of Orynth over Dorian’s head. One strike. Just one to cleave through flesh and bone, to spare him.
The thing was roaring with a voice that didn’t belong to Dorian, in a language that did not belong in this world. The mark on the ground flared, but held.
Dorian looked up at her, such hatred on his beautiful face, such malice and rage.
For Terrasen, for their future, she could do this. She could end this threat here and now. End him, on his birthday—not a day past twenty. She would suffer for it later, grieve later.
Not one more name would she etch into her flesh, she’d promised herself. But for her kingdom … The blade dipped as she decided, and—
Impact slammed into her father’s sword, knocking her off balance as Aedion shouted.
The arrow ricocheted into the garden, hissing against the gravel as it landed.
Nesryn was already approaching, another arrow drawn, pointed at Aedion. “Strike the prince, and I’ll shoot the general.”
Dorian let out a lover’s laugh.
“You’re a shit spy,” Aelin snapped at her. “You didn’t even try to remain hidden when you watched me inside.”
“Arobynn Hamel told the captain you were going to try to kill the prince today,” Nesryn said. “Put your sword down.”
Aelin ignored the command. Nesryn’s father makes the best pear tarts in the capital. She supposed Arobynn had tried to warn her—and she’d been too distracted by everything else to contemplate the veiled message. Stupid. So profoundly stupid of her.
Only seconds left before the wards failed.
“You lied to us,” Nesryn said. The arrow remained pointed at Aedion, who was sizing up Nesryn, his hands curling as if he were imagining his fingers wrapped around her throat.
“You and Chaol are fools,” Aelin said, even as a part of her heaved in relief, even as she wanted to admit that what she’d been about to do made her a fool as well. Aelin lowered the sword to her side.
The thing inside Dorian hissed at her, “You will regret this moment, girl.”
Aelin just whispered, “I know.”
Aelin didn’t give a shit what happened to Nesryn. She sheathed the sword, grabbed Aedion, and ran.
Aedion’s breath was like shards of glass in his lungs, but the blood-covered woman—Aelin—was tugging him along, cursing at him for being so slow. The garden was enormous, and shouts rose over the hedges behind them, closing in.
Then they were at a stone wall already Wyrdmarked in blood, and there were strong hands reaching down to help him up and over. He tried to tell her to go first, but she was shoving at his back and then his legs, pushing him up as the two men atop the wall grunted with his weight. The wound in his ribs stretched and burned in agony. The world grew bright and spun as the hooded men eased him down to the quiet city street on the other side. He had to brace a hand against the wall to keep from slipping in the pooled blood of the downed royal guards beneath. He recognized none of their faces, some still set in silent screams.
There was the hiss of a body on stone, and then his cousin swung down beside him, wrapping her gray cloak around her bloody costume, slinging the hood over her blood-spattered face. She had another cloak in her hands, courtesy of the wall patrol. He could hardly stand upright as she wrapped it around him and shoved the hood over his head.
“Run,” she said. The two men atop the wall remained there, bows groaning as they were drawn. No sign of the young archer from the garden.
Aedion stumbled, and Aelin swore, darting back to wrap an arm around his middle. And damn his strength for failing him now, he put his arm around her shoulders, leaning on her as they hurried down the too-quiet residential street.
Shouts were now erupting behind, accented by the whiz and thud of arrows and the bleating of dying men.
“Four blocks,” she panted. “Just four blocks.”
That didn’t seem nearly far enough away to be safe, but he had no breath to tell her. Keeping upright was task enough. The stitches in his side had split, but—holy gods, they’d cleared the palace grounds. A miracle, a miracle, a mir—
“Hurry, you hulking ass!” she barked.
Aedion forced himself to focus and willed strength to his legs, to his spine.
They reached a street corner bedecked in streamers and flowers, and Aelin glanced in either direction before rushing through the intersection. The clash of steel on steel and the screams of wounded men shattered through the city, setting the throngs of merry-faced revelers around them to murmuring.
But Aelin continued down the street, and then down another. At the third, she slowed her steps and rocked into him, beginning to sing a bawdy tune in a very off-key, drunken voice. And thus they became two ordinary citizens out to celebrate the prince’s birthday, staggering from one tavern to the next. No one paid them any heed—not when all eyes were fixed on the glass castle towering behind them.
The swaying made his head spin. If he fainted … “One more block,” she promised.
This was all some hallucination. It had to be. No one would actually have been stupid enough to try to rescue him—and especially not his own queen. Even if he’d seen her cut down half a dozen men like so many stalks of wheat.
“Come on, come on,” she panted, scanning the decorated street, and he knew she wasn’t talking to him. People were milling about, pausing to ask what the palace commotion was about. Aelin led them through the crowd, mere cloaked and stumbling drunks, right up to the black carriage-for-hire that pulled along the curb as though it had been waiting. The door sprang open.
His cousin shoved him inside, right onto the floor, and shut the door behind her.
“They’re already stopping every carriage at the major intersections,” Lysandra said as Aelin pried open the hidden luggage compartment beneath one of the benches. It was big enough to fit a very tightly curled person, but Aedion was absolutely massive, and—
“In. Get in, now,” she ordered, and didn’t wait for Aedion to move before she heaved him into the compartment. He groaned. Blood had started seeping from his side, but—he’d live.
That is, if any of them lived through the next few minutes. Aelin shut the panel beneath the cushion, wincing at the thud of wood on flesh, and grabbed the wet rag Lysandra had pulled from an old hatbox.
“Are you hurt?” Lysandra asked as the carriage started into a leisurely pace through the reveler-clogged streets.
Aelin’s heart was pounding so wildly that she thought she would vomit, but she shook her head as she wiped her face. So much blood—then the remnants of her makeup, then more blood.
Lysandra handed her a second rag to wipe down her chest, neck, and hands, and then held out the loose, long-sleeved green dress she’d brought. “Now, now, now,” Lysandra breathed.
Aelin ripped her bloodied cloak away and tossed it to Lysandra, who rose to shove it into the compartment beneath her own seat as Aelin shimmied into the dress. Lysandra’s fingers were surprisingly steady as she buttoned up the back, then made quick work of Aelin’s hair, handed her a pair of gloves, and slung a jeweled necklace around her throat. A fan was pressed into her hands the moment the gloves were on, concealing any trace of blood.
The carriage halted at the sound of harsh male voices. Lysandra had just rolled up the curtains when stomping steps approached, followed by four of the king’s guard peering into the carriage with sharp, merciless eyes.
Lysandra thrust open the window. “Why are we being stopped?”
The guard yanked open the door and stuck his head in. Aelin noticed a smudge of blood on the floor a moment before he did and flinched back, covering it with her skirts.
“Sir!” Lysandra cried. “An explanation is necessary at once!”
Aelin waved her fan with a lady’s horror, praying that her cousin kept quiet in his little compartment. On the street beyond, some revelers had paused to watch the inspection—wide-eyed, curious, and not at all inclined to help the two women inside the carriage.
The guard looked them over with a sneer, the expression deepening as his eyes alighted on Lysandra’s tattooed wrist. “I owe you nothing, whore.” He spat out another filthy word at both of them, and then shouted, “Search the compartment in the back.”
“We are on our way to an appointment,” Lysandra hissed, but he slammed the door in her face. The carriage jostled as the men leaped onto the back and opened the rear compartment. After a moment, someone slammed a hand onto the side of the carriage and shouted, “Move on!”
They didn’t dare stop looking offended, didn’t dare stop fanning themselves for the next two blocks, or the two after that, until the driver thumped the top of the carriage twice. All clear.
Aelin jumped off the bench and flung open the compartment. Aedion had vomited, but he was awake and looking more than a bit put out as she beckoned him to emerge. “One more stop, and
then we’re there.”
“Quick,” said Lysandra, peering casually out the window. “The others are almost here.”
The alley was barely wide enough to fit both of the carriages that ambled toward each other, no more than two large vehicles slowing to avoid colliding as they passed. Lysandra flung open the door just as they were aligned with the other carriage, and Chaol’s tight face appeared across the way as he did the same.
“Go, go, go,” she said to Aedion, shoving him over the small gap between the coaches. He stumbled, grunting as he landed against the captain. Lysandra said behind her, “I’ll be there soon. Good luck.”
Aelin leaped into the other carriage, shutting the door behind her, and they continued on down the street.
She was breathing so hard that she thought she’d never get enough air. Aedion slumped onto the floor, keeping low.
Chaol said, “Everything all right?”
She could only manage a nod, grateful he didn’t push for any other answers. But it wasn’t all right. Not at all.
The carriage, driven by one of Chaol’s men, took them another few blocks, right to the border of the slums, where they got out on a deserted, decrepit street. She trusted Chaol’s men—but only so far. Taking Aedion right to her apartment seemed like asking for trouble.
With Aedion sagging between them, she and Chaol hurried down the next several blocks, taking the long way back to the warehouse to dodge any tail, listening so hard they barely breathed. But then they were at the warehouse, and Aedion managed to stand long enough for Chaol to slide the door open before they rushed inside, into the dark and safety at last.
Chaol took Aelin’s place at Aedion’s side as she lingered by the door. Grunting at the weight, he managed to get her cousin up the stairs. “He’s got an injury along his ribs,” she said as she forced herself to wait—to monitor the warehouse door for any signs of pursuers. “It’s bleeding.” Chaol gave her a confirming nod over his shoulder.