Queen of Shadows

  He should have thought of pitfalls like this, should have considered what might happen when Aelin Galathynius made a fool of the king and his men.

  He should have considered the cost.

  Maybe he was the fool.

  There was a numbness in his blood as he emerged from the sewers onto a quiet street. It was the thought of sitting in his ramshackle apartment, utterly alone with that numbness, that sent him southward, trying to avoid the streets that still teemed with panicked people. Everyone demanded to know what had happened, who had been killed, who had done it. The decorations and baubles and food vendors had been entirely forgotten.

  The sounds eventually died away, the streets clearing out as he reached a residential district where the homes were of modest size but elegant, well kept. Little streams and fountains of water from the Avery flowed throughout, lending themselves to the surplus of blooming spring flowers at every gate, windowsill, and tiny lawn.

  He knew the house from the smell alone: fresh-baked bread, cinnamon, and some other spice he couldn’t name. Taking the alley between the two pale-stoned houses, he kept to the shadows as he approached the back door, peering through the pane of glass to the kitchen within. Flour coated a large worktable, along with baking sheets, various mixing bowls, and—

  The door swung open, and Nesryn’s slim form filled the entryway. “What are you doing here?”

  She was back in her guard’s uniform, a knife tucked behind her thigh. She’d no doubt spotted an intruder approaching her father’s house and readied herself.

  Chaol tried to ignore the weight pushing down on his back, threatening to snap him in two. Aedion was free—they’d accomplished that much. But how many other innocents had they doomed today?

  Nesryn didn’t wait for his reply before she said, “Come in.”

  “The guards came and went. My father sent them on their way with pastries.”

  Chaol glanced up from his own pear tart and scanned the kitchen. Bright tiles accented the walls behind the counters in pretty shades of blue, orange, and turquoise. He’d never been to Sayed Faliq’s house before, but he’d known where it was—just in case.

  He’d never let himself consider what that “just in case” might entail. Showing up like a stray dog at the back door hadn’t been it.

  “They didn’t suspect him?”

  “No. They just wanted to know whether he or his workers saw anyone who looked suspicious before Aedion’s rescue.” Nesryn pushed another pastry—this one almond and sugar—toward him. “Is the general all right?”

  “As far as I know.”

  He told her about the tunnels, the Valg.

  Nesryn only said, “So we’ll find them again. Tomorrow.”

  He waited for her to pace, to shout and swear, but she remained steady—calm. Some tight part of him uncoiled.

  She tapped a finger on the wooden table—lovingly worn, as if the kneading of a thousand loaves of bread had smoothed it out. “Why did you come here?”

  “For distraction.” There was a suspicious gleam in those midnight eyes of hers—enough so that he said, “Not for that.”

  She didn’t even blush, though his own cheeks burned. If she had offered, he probably would have said yes. And hated himself for it.

  “You’re welcome here,” she said, “but surely your friends at the apartment—the general, at least—would provide better company.”

  “Are they my friends?”

  “You and Her Majesty have done a great job trying to be anything but.”

  “It’s hard to be friends without trust.”

  “You are the one who went to Arobynn again, even after she warned you not to.”

  “And he was right,” Chaol said. “He said she would promise not to touch Dorian, and then do the opposite.” And he would be forever grateful for the warning shot Nesryn had fired.

  Nesryn shook her head, her dark hair glimmering. “Let’s just imagine that Aelin is right. That Dorian is gone. What then?”

  “She’s not right.”

  “Let’s just imagine—”

  He slammed his fist on the table hard enough to rattle his glass of water. “She’s not right!”

  Nesryn pursed her lips, even as her eyes softened. “Why?”

  He scrubbed at his face. “Because then it’s all for nothing. Everything that happened … it’s all for nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I wouldn’t?” A cold question. “You think that I don’t understand what’s at stake? I don’t care about your prince—not the way you do. I care about what he represents for the future of this kingdom, and for the future of people like my family. I won’t allow another immigrant purge to happen. I don’t ever want my sister’s children coming home with broken noses again because of their foreign blood. You told me Dorian would fix the world, make it better. But if he’s gone, if we made the mistake today in keeping him alive, then I will find another way to attain that future. And another one after that, if I have to. I will keep getting back up, no matter how many times those butchers shove me down.”

  He’d never heard so many words from her at once, had never … never even known she had a sister. Or that she was an aunt.

  Nesryn said, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stay the course, but also plot another one. Adapt.”

  His mouth had gone dry. “Were you ever hurt? For your heritage?”

  Nesryn glanced toward the roaring hearth, her face like ice. “I became a city guard because not a single one of them came to my aid the day the other schoolchildren surrounded me with stones in their hands. Not one, even though they could hear my screaming.” She met his stare again. “Dorian Havilliard offers a better future, but the responsibility also lies with us. With how common people choose to act.”

  True—so true, but he said, “I won’t abandon him.”

  She sighed. “You’re even more hardheaded than the queen.”

  “Would you expect me to be anything else?”

  A half smile. “I don’t think I would like you if you were anything but a stubborn ass.”

  “You actually admit to liking me?”

  “Did last summer not tell you enough?”

  Despite himself, Chaol laughed.

  “Tomorrow,” Nesryn said. “Tomorrow, we continue on.”

  He swallowed. “Stay the course, but plot a new path.” He could do that; he could try it, at least.

  “See you in the sewers bright and early.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  Aedion rose to consciousness and took in every detail that he could without opening his eyes. A briny breeze from a nearby open window tickled his face; fishermen were shouting their catches a few blocks away; and—and someone was breathing evenly, deeply, nearby. Sleeping.

  He opened an eye to find that he was in a small, wood-paneled room decorated with care and a penchant for the luxurious. He knew this room. Knew this apartment.

  The door across from his bed was open, revealing the great room beyond—clean and empty and bathed in sunshine. The sheets he slept between were crisp and silken, the pillows plush, the mattress impossibly soft. Exhaustion coated his bones, and pain splintered through his side, but dully. And his head was infinitely clearer as he looked toward the source of that even, deep breathing and beheld the woman asleep in the cream-colored armchair beside the bed.

  Her long, bare legs were sprawled over one of the rolled arms, scars of every shape and size adorning them. She rested her head against the wing, her shoulder-length golden hair—the ends stained a reddish brown, as if a cheap dye had been roughly washed out—strewn across her face. Her mouth was slightly open as she dozed, comfortable in an oversized white shirt and what looked to be a pair of men’s undershorts. Safe. Alive.

  For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

  Aelin.

  He mouthed her name.

  As if she heard it, she opened her eyes—coming fully alert as she scanned the doorway, the room beyond, then the bedroom itself for any dan
ger. And then finally, finally she looked at him and went utterly still, even as her hair shifted in the gentle breeze.

  The pillow beneath his face had become damp.

  She just stretched out her legs like a cat and said, “I’m ready to accept your thanks for my spectacular rescue at any time, you know.”

  He couldn’t stop the tears leaking down his face, even as he rasped, “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

  A smile tugged at her lips, and her eyes—their eyes—sparkled. “Hello, Aedion.”

  Hearing his name on her tongue snapped something loose, and he had to close his eyes, his body barking in pain as it shook with the force of the tears trying to get out of him. When he’d mastered himself, he said hoarsely, “Thank you for your spectacular rescue. Let’s never do it again.”

  She snorted, her eyes lined with silver. “You’re exactly the way I dreamed you’d be.”

  Something in her smile told him that she already knew—that Ren or Chaol had told her about him, about being Adarlan’s Whore, about the Bane. So all he could say was, “You’re a little taller than I’d imagined, but no one’s perfect.”

  “It’s a miracle the king managed to resist executing you until yesterday.”

  “Tell me he’s in a rage the likes of which have never been seen before.”

  “If you listen hard enough, you can actually hear him shrieking from the palace.”

  Aedion laughed, and it made his wound ache. But the laugh died as he looked her over from head to toe. “I’m going to throttle Ren and the captain for letting you save me alone.”

  “And here we go.” She looked at the ceiling and sighed loudly. “A minute of pleasant conversation, and then the territorial Fae bullshit comes raging out.”

  “I waited an extra thirty seconds.”

  Her mouth quirked to the side. “I honestly thought you’d last ten.”

  He laughed again, and realized that though he’d loved her before, he’d merely loved the memory—the princess taken away from him. But the woman, the queen—the last shred of family he had …

  “It was worth it,” he said, his smile fading. “You were worth it. All these years, all the waiting. You’re worth it.” He’d known the moment she had looked up at him as she stood before his execution block, defiant and wicked and wild.

  “I think that’s the healing tonic talking,” she said, but her throat bobbed as she wiped at her eyes. She lowered her feet to the floor. “Chaol said you’re even meaner than I am most of the time.”

  “Chaol is already on his way to being throttled, and you’re not helping.”

  She gave that half smile again. “Ren’s in the North—I didn’t get to see him before Chaol convinced him to go there for his own safety.”

  “Good,” he managed to say, and patted the bed beside him. Someone had stuffed him into a clean shirt, so he was decent enough, but he managed to haul himself halfway into a sitting position. “Come here.”

  She glanced at the bed, at his hand, and he wondered whether he’d crossed some line, assumed some bond between them that no longer existed—until her shoulders slumped and she uncoiled from the chair in a smooth, feline motion before plopping down on the mattress.

  Her scent hit him. For a second, he could only breathe it deep into his lungs, his Fae instincts roaring that this was his family, this was his queen, this was Aelin. He would have known her even if he were blind.

  Even if there was another scent entwined with hers. Staggeringly powerful and ancient and—male. Interesting.

  She plumped up the pillows, and he wondered if she knew how much it meant to him, as a demi-Fae male, to have her lean over to straighten his blankets, too, then run a sharp, critical eye down his face. To fuss over him.

  He stared right back, scanning for any wounds, any sign that the blood on her the other day hadn’t belonged only to those men. But save for a few shallow, scabbed cuts on her left forearm, she was unharmed.

  When she seemed assured that he wasn’t about to die, and when he was assured the wounds on her arm weren’t infected, she leaned back on the pillows and folded her hands over her abdomen. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

  Outside, gulls were crying to each other, and that soft, briny breeze kissed his face. “You,” he whispered. “Tell me everything.”

  So she did.

  They talked and talked, until Aedion’s voice became hoarse, and then Aelin bullied him into drinking a glass of water. And then she decided that he was looking peaky, so she padded to the kitchen and dug up some beef broth and bread. Lysandra, Chaol, and Nesryn were nowhere to be seen, so they had the apartment to themselves. Good. Aelin didn’t feel like sharing her cousin right now.

  As Aedion devoured his food, he told her the unabridged truth of what had happened to him these past ten years, just as she’d done for him. And when they were both finished telling their stories, when their souls were drained and grieving—but gilded with growing joy—she nestled down across from Aedion, her cousin, her friend.

  They’d been forged of the same ore, two sides of the same golden, scarred coin.

  She’d known it when she spied him atop the execution platform. She couldn’t explain it. No one could understand that instant bond, that soul-deep assurance and rightness, unless they, too, had experienced it. But she owed no explanations to anyone—not about Aedion.

  They were still sprawled on the bed, the sun now settling into late afternoon, and Aedion was just staring at her, blinking, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Are you ashamed of what I’ve done?” she dared to ask.

  His brow creased. “Why would you ever think that?”

  She couldn’t quite look him in the eye as she ran a finger down the blanket. “Are you?”

  Aedion was silent long enough that she lifted her head—but found him gazing toward the door, as though he could see through it, across the city, to the captain. When he turned to her, his handsome face was open—soft in a way she doubted many ever saw. “Never,” he said. “I could never be ashamed of you.”

  She doubted that, and when she twisted away, he gently grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes to him.

  “You survived; I survived. We’re together again. I once begged the gods to let me see you—if only for a moment. To see you and know you’d made it. Just once; that was all I ever hoped for.”

  She couldn’t stop the tears that began slipping down her face.

  “Whatever you had to do to survive, whatever you did from spite or rage or selfishness … I don’t give a damn. You’re here—and you’re perfect. You always were, and you always will be.”

  She hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear that.

  She flung her arms around him, careful of his injuries, and squeezed him as tightly as she dared. He wrapped an arm around her, the other bracing them, and buried his face in her neck.

  “I missed you,” she whispered onto him, breathing in his scent—that male warrior’s scent she was just learning, remembering. “Every day, I missed you.”

  Her skin grew damp beneath his face. “Never again,” he promised.

  It was honestly no surprise that after Aelin had trashed the Vaults, a new warren of sin and debauchery had immediately sprung up in the slums.

  The owners weren’t even trying to pretend it wasn’t a complete imitation of the original—not with a name like the Pits. But while its predecessor had at least provided a tavern-like atmosphere, the Pits didn’t bother. In an underground chamber hewn from rough stone, you paid for your alcohol with your cover charge—and if you wanted to drink, you had to brave the casks in the back and serve yourself. Aelin found herself somewhat inclined to like the owners: they operated by a different set of rules.

  But some things remained the same.

  The floors were slick and reeking of ale and piss and worse, but Aelin had anticipated that. What she hadn’t expected, exactly, was the deafening noise. The rock walls and close quarters magnified the wild cheers
from the fighting pits the place had been named after, where onlookers were betting on the brawls within.

  Brawls like the one she was about to participate in.

  Beside her, Chaol, cloaked and masked, shifted on his feet. “This is a terrible idea,” he murmured.

  “You said you couldn’t find the Valg nests, anyway,” she said with equal quiet, tucking a loose strand of her hair—dyed red once more—back under her hood. “Well, here are some lovely commanders and minions, just waiting for you to track them home. Consider it Arobynn’s form of an apology.” Because he knew that she would bring Chaol with her tonight. She’d guessed as much, debated not bringing the captain, but in the end she needed him here, needed to be here herself, more than she needed to upend Arobynn’s plans.

  Chaol sliced a glare in her direction, but then shifted his attention to the crowd around them, and said again, “This is a terrible idea.”

  She followed his stare toward Arobynn, who stood across the sandy pit in which two men were fighting, now so bloodied up she couldn’t tell who was in worse shape. “He summons, I answer. Just keep your eyes open.”

  It was the most they’d said to each other all night. But she had other things to worry about.

  It had taken just one minute in this place to understand why Arobynn had summoned her.

  The Valg guards flocked to the Pits—not to arrest and torture, but to watch. They were interspersed among the crowd, hooded, smiling, cold.

  As if the blood and rage fueled them.

  Beneath her black mask, Aelin focused on her breathing.

  Three days after his rescue, Aedion was still injured badly enough that he remained bedridden, one of Chaol’s most trusted rebels watching over the apartment. But she needed someone at her back tonight, so she’d asked Chaol and Nesryn to come. Even if she knew it would play into Arobynn’s plans.

  She’d tracked them down at a covert rebel meeting, to no one’s delight.

  Especially when, apparently, the Valg had vanished with their victims and couldn’t be found despite days of tracking them. One look at Chaol’s pursed lips had told her exactly whose antics he thought were to blame for it. So she was glad to talk to Nesryn instead, if only to take her mind off the new task pressing on her, its chiming now a mocking invitation from the glass castle. But destroying the clock tower—freeing magic—had to wait.