Queen of Shadows

  “If she’s caught?” Asterin asked. Sorrel glanced sharply at her. Manon didn’t feel like reprimanding. It was on Sorrel to sort out the dominance between them now.

  “If she’s caught, then we’ll find another way.”

  “And you have no qualms about them killing her? Or using that shadowfire on her?”

  “Stand down, Asterin,” Sorrel ground out.

  Asterin did no such thing. “You should be asking these questions, Second.”

  Sorrel’s iron teeth snapped down. “It is because of your questioning that you’re now Third.”

  “Enough,” Manon said. “Elide is the only one who might get into that chamber and report. The duke has his grunts under orders not to let a single witch near. Even the Shadows can’t get close enough. But a servant girl, cleaning up whatever mess …”

  “You were the one waiting in her room,” Asterin said.

  “A dose of fear goes a long way in humans.”

  “Is she human, though?” Sorrel asked. “Or do we count her among us?”

  “It makes no difference if she’s human or witch-kind. I’d send whoever was the most qualified down into those chambers, and at this moment, only Elide can gain access to them.”

  Cunning—that was how she would get around the duke, with his schemes and his weapons. She might work for his king, but she would not tolerate being left ignorant.

  “I need to know what’s happening in those chambers,” Manon said. “If we lose one life to do that, then so be it.”

  “And what then?” Asterin asked, despite Sorrel’s warning. “Once you learn, what then?”

  Manon hadn’t decided. Again, that phantom blood coated her hands.

  Follow orders—or else she and the Thirteen would be executed. Either by her grandmother or by the duke. After her grandmother read her letter, maybe it would be different. But until then—

  “Then we continue as we’ve been commanded,” Manon said. “But I will not be led into this with a blindfold over my eyes.”

  Spy.

  A spy for the Wing Leader.

  Elide supposed it was no different than being a spy for herself—for her own freedom.

  But learning about the supply wagons’ arrival and trying to get into that chamber while also going about her duties … Maybe she would get lucky. Maybe she could do both.

  Manon had a pallet of hay brought up to her room, setting it near the fire to warm Elide’s mortal bones, she’d said. Elide hardly slept that first night in the witch’s tower. When she stood to use the privy, convinced that the witch was asleep, she’d made it two steps before Manon had said, “Going somewhere?”

  Gods, her voice. Like a snake hidden up a tree.

  She’d stammered out an explanation about needing the bathing room. When Manon hadn’t replied, Elide had stumbled out. She’d returned to find the witch asleep—or at least her eyes were closed.

  Manon slept naked. Even with the chill. Her white hair cascaded down her back, and there wasn’t a part of the witch that didn’t seem lean with muscle or flecked with faint scarring. No part that wasn’t a reminder of what Manon would do to her if she failed.

  Three days later, Elide made her move. The exhaustion that had tugged relentlessly on her vanished as she clutched the armful of linens she’d taken from the laundry and peered down the hallway.

  Four guards stood at the door to the stairwell.

  It had taken her three days of helping in the laundry, three days of chatting up the laundresses, to learn if linens were ever needed in the chamber at the bottom of those stairs.

  No one wanted to talk to her the first two days. They just eyed her and told her where to haul things or when to singe her hands or what to scrub until her back hurt. But yesterday—yesterday she had seen the torn, blood-soaked clothes come in.

  Blue blood, not red.

  Witch-blood.

  Elide kept her head down, working on the soldiers’ shirts she’d been given once she’d proved her skill with a needle. But she noted which laundresses intercepted the clothes. And then she kept working through the hours it took to clean and dry and press them, staying later than most of the others. Waiting.

  She was nobody and nothing and belonged to no one—but if she let Manon and the Blackbeaks think she accepted their claim on her, she might very well still get free once those wagons arrived. The Blackbeaks didn’t care about her—not really. Her heritage was convenient for them. She doubted they would notice when she vanished. She’d been a ghost for years now, anyway, her heart full of the forgotten dead.

  So she worked, and waited.

  Even when her back was aching, even when her hands were so sore they shook, she marked the laundress who hauled the pressed clothes out of the chamber and vanished.

  Elide memorized every detail of her face, of her build and height. No one noticed when she slipped out after her, carrying an armful of linens for the Wing Leader. No one stopped her as she trailed the laundress down hall after hall until she reached this spot.

  Elide peered down the hall again just as the laundress came up out of the stairwell, arms empty, face drawn and bloodless.

  The guards didn’t stop her. Good.

  The laundress turned down another hall, and Elide loosed the breath she’d been holding.

  Turning toward Manon’s tower, she silently thought through her plan over and over.

  If she was caught …

  Perhaps she should throw herself from one of the balconies rather than face one of the dozens of awful deaths awaiting her.

  No—no, she would endure. She had survived when so many—nearly everyone she’d loved—had not. When her kingdom had not. So she would survive for them, and when she left, she would build herself a new life far away in their honor.

  Elide hobbled up a winding stairwell. Gods, she hated stairs.

  She was about halfway up when she heard a man’s voice that stopped her cold.

  “The duke said you spoke—why will you not say a word to me?”

  Vernon.

  Silence greeted him.

  Back down the stairs—she should go right back down the stairs.

  “So beautiful,” her uncle murmured to whomever it was. “Like a moonless night.”

  Elide’s mouth went dry at the tone in his voice.

  “Perhaps it’s fate that we ran into each other here. He watches you so closely.” Vernon paused. “Together,” he said quietly, reverently. “Together, we shall create wonders that will make the world tremble.”

  Such dark, intimate words, filled with such … entitlement. She didn’t want to know what he meant.

  Elide took as silent a step as she could down the stairs. She had to get away.

  “Kaltain,” her uncle rumbled, a demand and a threat and a promise.

  The silent young woman—the one who never spoke, who never looked at anything, who had such marks on her. Elide had seen her only a few times. Had seen how little she responded. Or fought back.

  And then Elide was walking up the stairs.

  Up and up, making sure her chains clanked as loudly as possible. Her uncle fell silent.

  She rounded the next landing, and there they were.

  Kaltain had been shoved up against the wall, the neck of that too-flimsy gown tugged to the side, her breast nearly out. There was such emptiness on her face—as if she weren’t even there at all. Vernon stood a few paces away. Elide clutched her linens so hard she thought she’d shred them. Wished she had those iron nails, for once.

  “Lady Kaltain,” she said to the young woman, barely a few years older than she.

  She did not expect her own rage. Did not expect herself to go on to say, “I was sent to find you, Lady. This way, please.”

  “Who sent for her?” Vernon demanded.

  Elide met his gaze. And did not bow her head. Not an inch. “The Wing Leader.”

  “The Wing Leader isn’t authorized to meet with her.”

  “And you are?” Elide set herself between the
m, though it would do no good should her uncle decide to use force.

  Vernon smiled. “I was wondering when you’d show your fangs, Elide. Or should I say your iron teeth?”

  He knew, then.

  Elide stared him down and put a light hand on Kaltain’s arm. She was as cold as ice.

  She didn’t even look at Elide.

  “If you’d be so kind, Lady,” Elide said, tugging on that arm, clutching the laundry with her other hand. Kaltain mutely started into a walk.

  Vernon chuckled. “You two could be sisters,” he said casually.

  “Fascinating,” Elide said, guiding the lady up the steps—even as the effort to keep balanced made her leg throb in agony.

  “Until next time,” her uncle said from behind them, and she didn’t want to know who he meant.

  In silence, her heart pounding so wildly that she thought she might vomit, Elide led Kaltain up to the next landing, and let go of her long enough to open the door and guide her into the hall.

  The lady paused, staring at the stone, at nothing.

  “Where do you need to go?” Elide asked her softly.

  The lady just stared. In the torchlight, the scar on her arm was gruesome. Who had done that?

  Elide put a hand on the woman’s elbow again. “Where can I take you that is safe?”

  Nowhere—there was nowhere here that was safe.

  But slowly, as if it took her a lifetime to remember how to do it, the lady slid her eyes to Elide.

  Darkness and death and black flame; despair and rage and emptiness.

  And yet—a kernel of understanding.

  Kaltain merely walked away, that dress hissing on the stones. There were bruises that looked like fingerprints around her other arm. As if someone had gripped her too hard.

  This place. These people—

  Elide fought her nausea, watching until the woman vanished around a corner.

  Manon was seated at her desk, staring at what appeared to be a letter, when Elide entered the tower. “Did you get into the chamber?” the witch said, not bothering to turn around.

  Elide swallowed hard. “I need you to get me some poison.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  Standing in a wide clearing among the stacks of crates, Aedion blinked against the late-morning sun slanting through the windows high up in the warehouse. He was already sweating, and in dire need of water as the heat of the day turned the warehouse suffocating.

  He didn’t complain. He’d demanded to be allowed to help, and Aelin had refused.

  He’d insisted he was fit to fight, and she had merely said, “Prove it.”

  So here they were. He and the Fae Prince had been going through a workout routine with sparring sticks for the past thirty minutes, and it was thoroughly kicking his ass. The wound on his side was one wrong move away from splitting, but he gritted through it.

  The pain was welcome, considering the thoughts that had kept him up all night. That Rhoe and Evalin had never told him, that his mother had died to conceal the knowledge of who sired him, that he was half Fae—and that he might not know for another decade how he would age. If he would outlast his queen.

  And his father—Gavriel. That was a whole other path to be explored. Later. Perhaps it’d be useful, if Maeve made good on the threat she posed, now that one of his father’s legendary companions was hunting Aelin in this city.

  Lorcan.

  Shit. The stories he’d heard about Lorcan had been full of glory and gore—mostly the latter. A male who didn’t make mistakes, and who was ruthless with those who did.

  Dealing with the King of Adarlan was bad enough, but having an immortal enemy at their backs … Shit. And if Maeve ever saw fit to send Gavriel over here … Aedion would find a way to endure it, as he’d found a way to endure everything in his life.

  Aedion was finishing a maneuver with the stick that the prince had shown him twice now when Aelin paused her own exercising. “I think that’s enough for today,” she said, barely winded.

  Aedion stiffened at the dismissal already in her eyes. He’d been waiting all morning for this. For the past ten years, he had learned everything he could from mortals. If warriors came to his territory, he’d use his considerable charms to convince them to teach him what they knew. And whenever he’d ventured outside of his lands, he’d made a point to glean as much as he could about fighting and killing from whoever lived there. So pitting himself against a purebred Fae warrior, direct from Doranelle, was an opportunity he couldn’t waste. He wouldn’t let his cousin’s pity wreck it.

  “I heard a story,” Aedion drawled to Rowan, “that you killed an enemy warlord using a table.”

  “Please,” Aelin said. “Who the hell told you that?”

  “Quinn—your uncle’s Captain of the Guard. He was an admirer of Prince Rowan’s. He knew all the stories.”

  Aelin slid her eyes to Rowan, who smirked, bracing his sparring stick on the floor. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “What—you squashed him to death like a pressed grape?”

  Rowan choked. “No, I didn’t squash him like a grape.” He gave the queen a feral smile. “I ripped the leg off the table and impaled him with it.”

  “Clean through the chest and into the stone wall,” Aedion said.

  “Well,” said Aelin, snorting, “I’ll give you points for resourcefulness, at least.”

  Aedion rolled his neck. “Let’s get back to it.”

  But Aelin gave Rowan a look that pretty much said, Don’t kill my cousin, please. Call it off.

  Aedion gripped the wooden sparring stick tighter. “I’m fine.”

  “A week ago,” Aelin said, “you had one foot in the Afterworld. Your wound is still healing. We’re done for today, and you’re not coming out.”

  “I know my limits, and I say I’m fine.”

  Rowan’s slow grin was nothing short of lethal. An invitation to dance.

  And that primal part of Aedion decided it didn’t want to flee from the predator in Rowan’s eyes. No, it very much wanted to stand its ground and roar back.

  Aelin groaned, but kept her distance. Prove it, she’d said. Well, he would.

  Aedion gave no warning as he attacked, feinting right and aiming low. He’d killed men with that move—sliced them clean in half. But Rowan dodged him with brutal efficiency, deflecting and positioning to the offensive, and that was all that Aedion managed to see before he brought up his stick on pure instinct. Bracing himself against the force of Rowan’s blow had his side bleating in pain, but he kept focused—even though Rowan had almost knocked the stick from his hands.

  He managed to strike the next blow himself. But as Rowan’s lips tugged upward, Aedion had the feeling that the prince was toying with him.

  Not for amusement—no, to prove some point. Red mist coated his vision.

  Rowan went to sweep his legs out, and Aedion stomped hard enough on Rowan’s stick that it snapped in two. As it did, Aedion twisted, lunging to bring his own stick straight into Rowan’s face. Gripping the two pieces in either hand, the Fae warrior dodged, going low, and—

  Aedion didn’t see the second blow coming to his legs. Then he was blinking at the wooden beams of the ceiling, gasping for breath as the pain from his wound arced through his side.

  Rowan snarled down at him, one piece of the stick angled to cut his throat while the other pushed against his abdomen, ready to spill his guts.

  Holy burning hell.

  Aedion had known he’d be fast, and strong, but this … Having Rowan fight alongside the Bane might very well decide battles in any sort of war.

  Gods, his side hurt badly enough he thought he might be bleeding.

  The Fae Prince spoke so quietly that even Aelin couldn’t hear. “Your queen gave you an order to stop—for your own good. Because she needs you healthy, and because it pains her to see you injured. Do not ignore her command next time.”

  Aedion was wise enough not to snap a retort, nor to move as the prince dug in the tips of
his sticks a little harder. “And,” Rowan added, “if you ever speak to her again the way you did last night, I’ll rip out your tongue and shove it down your throat. Understand?”

  With the stick at his neck, Aedion couldn’t nod without impaling himself on the jagged end. But he breathed, “Understood, Prince.”

  Aedion opened his mouth again as Rowan backed away, about to say something he would surely regret, when a bright hello sounded.

  They all whirled, weapons up, as Lysandra closed the rolling door behind her, boxes and bags in her arms. She had an uncanny way of sneaking into places unnoticed.

  Lysandra took two steps, that stunning face grave, and stopped dead as she beheld Rowan.

  Then his queen was suddenly moving, snatching some of the bags from Lysandra’s arms and steering her into the apartment a level above.

  Aedion eased from where he’d been sprawled on the ground.

  “Is that Lysandra?” Rowan asked.

  “Not too bad on the eyes, is she?”

  Rowan snorted. “Why is she here?”

  Aedion gingerly prodded the wound in his side, making sure it was indeed intact. “She probably has information about Arobynn.”

  Whom Aedion would soon begin hunting, once his gods-damned wound was finally healed, regardless of whether Aelin deemed him fit. And then he’d cut the King of the Assassins into little, tiny pieces over many, many days.

  “Yet she doesn’t want you to hear it?”

  Aedion said, “I think she finds everyone but Aelin boring. Biggest disappointment of my life.” A lie, and he didn’t know why he said it.

  But Rowan smiled a bit. “I’m glad she found a female friend.”

  Aedion marveled for a heartbeat at the softness in the warrior’s face. Until Rowan shifted his eyes toward him and they were full of ice. “Aelin’s court will be a new one, different from any other in the world, where the Old Ways are honored again. You’re going to learn them. And I’m going to teach you.”

  “I know the Old Ways.”

  “You’re going to learn them again.”

  Aedion’s shoulders pushed back as he rose to his full height. “I’m the general of the Bane, and a prince of both Ashryver and Galathynius houses. I’m not some untrained foot soldier.”