Queen of Shadows

  When Aelin got within a few feet, the woman lifted her hands—delicate but scarred, her skin tan even in the pale glow from the streetlights in the avenue above. If she’d managed to sneak up this close, she had to be trained—in combat or stealth or both. Of course she was skilled, if Chaol had her watching his back at the Vaults. But where had he gone now?

  “Disreputable pleasure halls and sewers,” Aelin said, keeping her knives out. “You certainly live the good life, don’t you?”

  The young woman pushed off the wall, her curtain of inky hair swaying in the shadows of her hood. “Not all of us are blessed enough to be on the king’s payroll, Champion.”

  She recognized her, then. The real question was whether she’d told Chaol—and where he now was. “Dare I ask why I shouldn’t throw stones down that tunnel?”

  The guard pointed toward the tunnel closest behind her—bright, open air. “Come with me.”

  Aelin chuckled. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  The slender woman stepped nearer, the moonlight illuminating her hooded face. Pretty, if grave, and perhaps two or three years older.

  The stranger said a bit flatly, “You’ve got twenty guards on your ass, and they’re cunning enough to start looking down here very soon. I’d suggest you come along.”

  Aelin was half tempted to suggest she go to hell, but smiled instead. “How’d you find me?” She didn’t care; she just needed to feel her out a bit more.

  “Luck. I’m on scouting duty, and popped onto the street to discover that you’d made new friends. Usually, we have a strike-first, ask-questions-later policy about people wandering the sewers.”

  “And who is this ‘we’?” Aelin said sweetly.

  The woman just began walking down the bright tunnel, completely unconcerned with the knives Aelin still held. Arrogant and stupid, then. “You can come with me, Champion, and learn some things you probably want to know, or you can stay here and wait to see what answers that rock you threw.”

  Aelin weighed the words—and what she’d heard and seen so far that night. Despite the shiver down her spine, she fell into step beside the guard, sheathing her knives at her thighs.

  With each block they trudged through the sewer muck, Aelin used the quiet to gather her strength.

  The woman strode swiftly but smoothly down another tunnel, and then another. Aelin marked each turn, each unique feature, each grate, forming a mental map as they moved.

  “How did you recognize me?” Aelin said at last.

  “I’ve seen you around the city—months ago. The red hair was why I didn’t immediately identify you at the Vaults.”

  Aelin watched her from the corner of her eye. The stranger might not know who Chaol really was. He could have used a different name, despite what the woman claimed to know about whatever it was she thought Aelin was seeking.

  The woman said in that cool, calm voice, “Are the guards chasing you because they recognized you, or because you picked the fight you were so desperate to have at the Vaults?”

  Point for the stranger. “Why don’t you tell me? Do the guards work for Captain Westfall?”

  The woman laughed under her breath. “No—those guards don’t answer to him.” Aelin bit back her sigh of relief, even as a thousand more questions rattled in her skull.

  Her boots squished something too soft for comfort, and she repressed a shudder as the woman stopped before the entrance to another long tunnel, the first half illuminated by moonlight streaming in through the scattered grates. Unnatural darkness drifted out from the far end. A predatory stillness crept over Aelin as she peered into the gloom. Silence. Utter silence.

  “Here,” the stranger said, approaching an elevated stone walkway built into the side of the tunnel. Fool—fool for exposing her back like that. She didn’t even see Aelin slide free a knife.

  They’d gone far enough.

  The woman stepped onto the small, slick staircase leading to the walkway, her movements long-limbed and graceful. Aelin calculated the distance to the nearest exits, the depth of the little stream of filth running through the tunnel’s center. Deep enough to dump a body, if need be.

  Aelin angled her knife and slipped up behind the woman, as close as a lover, and pressed the blade against her throat.

  CHAPTER

  6

  “You get one sentence,” Aelin breathed in the woman’s ear as she pressed the dagger harder against her neck. “One sentence to convince me not to spill your throat on the ground.”

  The woman stepped off the stairs and, to her credit, wasn’t stupid enough to go for the concealed weapons at her side. With her back against Aelin’s chest, her weapons were beyond reach, anyway. She swallowed, her throat bobbing against the dagger Aelin held along her smooth skin. “I’m taking you to the captain.”

  Aelin dug the knife in a bit more. “Not all that compelling to someone with a blade at your throat.”

  “Three weeks ago, he abandoned his position at the castle and fled. To join our cause. The rebel cause.”

  Aelin’s knees threatened to buckle.

  She supposed she should have included three parties in her plans: the king, Arobynn, and the rebels—who might very well have a score to settle with her after she’d gutted Archer Finn last winter. Even if Chaol was working with them.

  She shut the thought down before its full impact hit her. “And the prince?”

  “Alive, but still at the castle,” the rebel hissed. “Is that enough for you to put the knife down?”

  Yes. No. If Chaol was now working with the rebels … Aelin lowered her knife and stepped back into a pool of moonlight trickling in from an overhead grate.

  The rebel whirled and reached for one of her knives. Aelin clicked her tongue. The woman’s fingers paused on the well-polished hilt.

  “I decide to spare you, and that’s how you repay me?” Aelin said, tugging back her hood. “I don’t particularly know why I’m surprised.”

  The rebel let go of her knife and pulled off her own hood, revealing her pretty, tanned face—solemn and wholly unafraid. Her dark eyes fixed on Aelin, scanning. Ally or enemy?

  “Tell me why you came here,” the rebel said quietly. “The captain says you’re on our side. Yet you hid from him at the Vaults tonight.”

  Aelin crossed her arms and leaned against the damp stone wall behind her. “Let’s start with you telling me your name.”

  “My name is not your concern.”

  Aelin lifted a brow. “You demand answers but refuse to give me any in return. No wonder the captain had you sit out the meeting. Hard to play the game when you don’t know the rules.”

  “I heard what happened this winter. That you went to the warehouse and killed so many of us. You slaughtered rebels—my friends.” That cool, calm mask didn’t so much as flinch. “And yet I’m now supposed to believe you were on our side all along. Forgive me if I’m not forthright with you.”

  “Should I not kill the people who kidnap and beat my friends?” Aelin said softly. “Am I not supposed to react with violence when I receive notes threatening to kill my friends? Am I not supposed to gut the self-serving prick who had my beloved friend assassinated?” She pushed off the wall, stalking toward the woman. “Would you like me to apologize? Should I grovel on my knees for any of that?” The rebel’s face showed nothing—either from training or genuine iciness. Aelin snorted. “I thought so. So why don’t you take me to the captain and save the self-righteous bullshit for later?”

  The woman glanced toward the darkness again and shook her head slightly. “If you hadn’t put a blade to my throat, I would have told you that we’d arrived.” She pointed to the tunnel ahead. “You’re welcome.”

  Aelin debated slamming the woman into the filthy, wet wall just to remind her who, exactly, the King’s Champion was, but then ragged breathing scraped past her ears, coming from that darkness. Human breathing—and whispers.

  Boots sliding and thumping against stone, more whispers—hushed demands f
rom voices she didn’t recognize to hurry, and quiet now, and—

  Aelin’s muscles locked up as one male voice hissed, “We’ve got twenty minutes until that ship leaves. Move.”

  She knew that voice.

  But she still couldn’t brace herself for the full impact of Chaol Westfall staggering out of the darkness at the end of the tunnel, holding a limp, too-thin man between himself and a companion, another armed man guarding their backs.

  Even from the distance, the captain’s eyes locked onto Aelin’s.

  He didn’t smile.

  CHAPTER

  7

  There were two injured people in total, one held between Chaol and his companion, the other sagging between two men she didn’t recognize. Three others—two men and another woman—guarded the rear.

  The rebel they dismissed with a glance. A friend.

  Aelin held each of their gazes as they hurried toward her, their weapons out. Blood was splattered on them all—red blood and black blood that she knew too well. And the two nearly unconscious people …

  She also knew that emaciated, dried-out look. The hollowness on their faces. She’d been too late with the ones in Wendlyn. But somehow Chaol and his allies had gotten these two out. Her stomach flipped. Scouting—the young woman beside her had been scouting the path ahead, to make sure it was safe for this rescue.

  The guards in this city weren’t corrupted just by ordinary Valg, as Arobynn had suggested.

  No, there was at least one Valg prince here. In these tunnels, if the darkness was any indicator. Shit. And Chaol had been—

  Chaol paused long enough for a companion to step in to help carry the injured man away. Then he was striding ahead. Twenty feet away now. Fifteen. Ten. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, and his bottom lip was split open. They’d fought their way out—

  “Explain,” she breathed to the woman at her side.

  “It’s not my place,” was the woman’s response.

  She didn’t bother to push it. Not with Chaol now in front of her, his bronze eyes wide as he took in the blood on Aelin herself.

  “Are you hurt?” His voice was hoarse.

  Aelin silently shook her head. Gods. Gods. Without that hood, now that she could see his features … He was exactly as she remembered—that ruggedly handsome, tan face perhaps a bit more gaunt and stubbly, but still Chaol. Still the man she’d come to love, before … before everything had changed.

  There were so many things she had thought she’d say, or do, or feel.

  A slender white scar slashed down his cheek. She’d given him that. The night Nehemia had died, she’d given him that, and tried to kill him.

  Would have killed him. If Dorian hadn’t stopped her.

  Even then, she’d understood that what Chaol had done, whom he had chosen, had forever cleaved what was between them. It was the one thing she could not forget, could not forgive.

  Her silent answer seemed enough for the captain. He looked to the woman beside Aelin—to his scout. His scout—who reported to him. As though he were leading them all.

  “The path ahead is clear. Stick to the eastern tunnels,” she said.

  Chaol nodded. “Keep moving,” he said to the others, who had now reached his side. “I’ll catch up in a moment.” No hesitation—and no softness, either. As if he’d done this a hundred times.

  They wordlessly continued on through the tunnels, casting glances Aelin’s way as they swept past. Only the young woman lingered. Watching.

  “Nesryn,” Chaol said, the name an order in itself.

  Nesryn stared at Aelin—analyzing, calculating.

  Aelin gave her a lazy grin.

  “Faliq,” Chaol growled, and the woman slid her midnight eyes toward him. If Nesryn’s family name didn’t give away her heritage, it was those eyes, slightly uptilted at the corners and lightly lined with kohl, that revealed at least one of her parents was from the Southern Continent. Interesting that the woman didn’t try to hide it, that she chose to wear the kohl even while on a mission, despite Rifthold’s less-than-pleasant policies toward immigrants. Chaol jerked his chin toward their vanishing companions. “Get to the docks.”

  “It’s safer to have one of us remain here.” Again that cool voice—steady.

  “Help them get to the docks, then get the hell back to the craftsman district. Your garrison commander will notice if you’re late.”

  Nesryn looked Aelin up and down, those grave features never shifting. “How do we know she didn’t come here on his orders?”

  Aelin knew very well who she meant. She winked at the young woman. “If I’d come here on the king’s orders, Nesryn Faliq, you’d have been dead minutes ago.”

  No flicker of amusement, no hint of fear. The woman could give Rowan a run for his money for sheer iciness.

  “Sunset tomorrow,” Chaol said sharply to Nesryn. The young woman stared him down, her shoulders tight, before she headed into the tunnel. She moved like water, Aelin thought.

  “Go,” Aelin said to Chaol, her voice a thin rasp. “You should go—help them.” Or whatever he was doing.

  Chaol’s bloodied mouth formed a thin line. “I will. In a moment.”

  No invitation for her to join. Maybe she should have offered.

  “You came back,” he said. His hair was longer, shaggier than it’d been months ago. “It—Aedion—it’s a trap—”

  “I know about Aedion.” Gods, what could she even say?

  Chaol nodded distantly, blinking. “You … You look different.”

  She fingered her red hair. “Obviously.”

  “No,” he said, taking one step closer, but only one. “Your face. The way you stand. You …” He shook his head, glancing toward the darkness they’d just fled. “Walk with me.”

  She did. Well, it was more like walking-as-fast-as-they-could-without-running. Ahead, she could just make out the sounds of his companions hurrying through the tunnels.

  All the words she’d wanted to say rushed around in her head, fighting to get out, but she pushed back against them for a moment longer.

  I love you—that’s what he’d said to her the day she left. She hadn’t given him an answer other than I’m sorry.

  “A rescue mission?” she said, glancing behind them. No whisper of pursuit.

  Chaol grunted in confirmation. “Former magic-wielders are being hunted and executed again. The king’s new guards bring them into the tunnels to hold until it’s time for the butchering block. They like the darkness—seem to thrive on it.”

  “Why not the prisons?” They were plenty dark enough, even for the Valg.

  “Too public. At least for what they do to them before they’re executed.”

  A chill snaked down her spine. “Do they wear black rings?” A nod. Her heart nearly stopped. “I don’t care how many people they take into the tunnels. Don’t go in again.”

  Chaol gave a short laugh. “Not an option. We go in because we’re the only ones who can.”

  The sewers began to reek of brine. They had to be nearing the Avery, if she’d correctly counted the turns. “Explain.”

  “They don’t notice or really care about the presence of ordinary humans—only people with magic in their bloodline. Even dormant carriers.” He glanced sidelong at her. “It’s why I sent Ren to the North—to get out of the city.”

  She almost tripped over a loose stone. “Ren … Allsbrook?”

  Chaol nodded slowly.

  The ground rocked beneath her. Ren Allsbrook. Another child of Terrasen. Still alive. Alive.

  “Ren’s the reason we learned about it in the first place,” Chaol said. “We went into one of their nests. They looked right at him. Ignored Nesryn and me entirely. We barely got out. I sent him to Terrasen— to rally the rebels there—the day after. He wasn’t too happy about it, believe me.”

  Interesting. Interesting, and utterly insane. “Those things are demons. The Valg. And they—”

  “Drain the life out of you, feed on you, until they mak
e a show of executing you?”

  “It’s not a joke,” she snapped. Her dreams were haunted by the roaming hands of those Valg princes as they fed on her. And every time she would awaken with a scream on her lips, reaching for a Fae warrior who wasn’t there to remind her that they’d made it, they’d survived.

  “I know it’s not,” Chaol said. His eyes flicked to where Goldryn peeked over her shoulder. “New sword?”

  She nodded. There were perhaps only three feet between them now—three feet and months and months of missing and hating him. Months of crawling out of that abyss he’d shoved her into. But now that she was here … Everything was an effort not to say she was sorry. Sorry not for what she’d done to his face, but for the fact that her heart was healed—still fractured in spots, but healed—and he … he was not in it. Not as he’d once been.

  “You figured out who I am,” she said, mindful of how far ahead his companions were.

  “The day you left.”

  She monitored the darkness behind them for a moment. All clear.

  He didn’t move closer—didn’t seem at all inclined to hold her or kiss her or even touch her. Ahead, the rebels veered into a smaller tunnel, one she knew led directly toward the ramshackle docks in the slums.

  “I grabbed Fleetfoot,” he said after a moment of silence.

  She tried not to exhale too loudly. “Where is she?”

  “Safe. Nesryn’s father owns a few popular bakeries in Rifthold, and has done well enough that he’s got a country house in the foothills outside the city. He said his staff there would care for her in secret. She seemed more than happy to torture the sheep, so—I’m sorry I couldn’t keep her here, but with the barking—”

  “I understand,” she breathed. “Thank you.” She cocked her head. “A land-owning man’s daughter is a rebel?”

  “Nesryn is in the city guard, despite her father’s wishes. I’ve known her for years.”

  That didn’t answer her question. “She can be trusted?”

  “As you said, we’d all be dead already if she was here on the king’s orders.”