Queen of Shadows

  Perhaps that was why she had agreed to come.

  Perhaps it was because of the scream Asterin had issued from the other side of the ravine.

  It had been so like the scream of the Blueblood heir, Petrah, when her wyvern had been ripped to shreds. Like the scream of Petrah’s mother when Petrah and her wyvern, Keelie, had tumbled into thin air.

  Asterin walked to the edge of the plateau, the wildflowers swaying about her calves, her riding leathers shining in the bright sun. She unbraided her hair, shaking out the golden waves, then unbuckled her sword and daggers and let them thud to the ground. “I need you to listen, and not talk,” she said as Manon came to stand beside her.

  A high demand to make of her heir, but there was no challenge, no threat in it. And Asterin had never spoken to her like that. So Manon nodded.

  Asterin stared out across the mountains—so vibrant here, now that they were far from the darkness of Morath. A balmy breeze flitted between them, ruffling Asterin’s curls until they looked like sunshine given form.

  “When I was twenty-eight, I was off hunting Crochans in a valley just west of the Fangs. I had a hundred miles to go before the next village, and when a storm rolled in, I didn’t feel like landing. So I tried to outrace the storm on my broom, tried to fly over it. But the storm went on and on, up and up. I don’t know if it was the lightning or the wind, but suddenly I was falling. I managed to get control of my broom long enough to land, but the impact was brutal. Before I blacked out, I knew my arm was broken in two different places, my ankle twisted beyond use, and my broom shattered.”

  Over eighty years ago—this had been over eighty years ago, and Manon had never heard of it. She’d been off on her own mission—where, she couldn’t remember now. All those years she’d spent hunting Crochans had blurred together.

  “When I awoke, I was in a human cabin, my broom in pieces beside the bed. The man who had found me said he’d been riding home through the storm and saw me fall from the sky. He was a young hunter—mostly of exotic game, which was why he had a cabin out in the deep wild. I think I would have killed him if I’d had any strength, if only because I wanted his resources. But I faded in and out of consciousness for a few days while my bones knitted together, and when I awoke again … he fed me enough that he stopped looking like food. Or a threat.”

  A long silence.

  “I stayed there for five months. I didn’t hunt a single Crochan. I helped him stalk game, found ironwood and began carving a new broom, and … And we both knew what I was, what he was. That I was long-lived and he was human. But we were the same age at that moment, and we didn’t care. So I stayed with him until my orders bade me report back to Blackbeak Keep. And I told him … I said I’d come back when I could.”

  Manon could hardly think, hardly breathe over the silence in her head. She’d never heard of this. Not a whisper. For Asterin to have ignored her sacred duties … For her to have taken up with this human man …

  “I was a month pregnant when I arrived back at Blackbeak Keep.”

  Manon’s knees wobbled.

  “You were already gone—off on your next mission. I told no one, not until I knew that the pregnancy would actually survive those first few months.”

  Not unexpected, as most witches lost their offspring during that time. For the witchling to grow past that threshold was a miracle in itself.

  “But I made it to three months, then four. And when I couldn’t hide it anymore, I told your grandmother. She was pleased, and ordered me on bed rest in the Keep, so nothing disturbed me or the witchling in my womb. I told her I wanted to go back out, but she refused. I knew better than to tell her I wanted to return to that cabin in the forest. I knew she’d kill him. So I remained in the tower for months, a pampered prisoner. You even visited, twice, and she didn’t tell you I was there. Not until the witchling was born, she said.”

  A long, uneven breath.

  It wasn’t uncommon for witches to be overprotective of those carrying witchlings. And Asterin, bearing the Matron’s bloodline, would have been a valued commodity.

  “I made a plan. The moment I recovered from the birth, the moment they looked away, I’d take the witchling to her father and present her to him. I thought maybe a life in the forest, quiet and peaceful, would be better for my witchling than the bloodshed we had. I thought maybe it would be better … for me.”

  Asterin’s voice broke on the last two words. Manon couldn’t bring herself to look at her cousin.

  “I gave birth. The witchling almost ripped me in two coming out. I thought it was because she was a fighter, because she was a true Blackbeak. And I was proud. Even as I was screaming, even as I was bleeding, I was so proud of her.”

  Asterin fell silent, and Manon looked at her at last.

  Tears were rolling down her cousin’s face, gleaming in the sunshine. Asterin closed her eyes and whispered into the wind. “She was stillborn. I waited to hear that cry of triumph, but there was only silence. Silence, and then your grandmother …” She opened her eyes. “Your grandmother struck me. She beat me. Again and again. All I wanted was to see my witchling, and she ordered them to have her burned instead. She refused to let me see her. I was a disgrace to every witch who had come before me; I was to blame for a defective witchling; I had dishonored the Blackbeaks; I had disappointed her. She screamed it at me again and again, and when I sobbed, she … she …”

  Manon didn’t know where to stare, what to do with her arms.

  A stillborn was a witch’s greatest sorrow—and shame. But for her grandmother …

  Asterin unbuttoned her jacket and shrugged it off into the flowers. She removed her shirt, and the one beneath, until her golden skin glowed in the sunlight, her breasts full and heavy. Asterin turned, and Manon fell to her knees in the grass.

  There, branded on Asterin’s abdomen in vicious, crude letters was one word:

  UNCLEAN

  “She branded me. Had them heat up the iron in the same flame where my witchling burned and stamped each letter herself. She said I had no business ever trying to conceive a Blackbeak again. That most men would take one look at the word and run.”

  Eighty years. For eighty years she had hidden this. But Manon had seen her naked, had—

  No. No, she hadn’t. Not for decades and decades. When they were witchlings, yes, but …

  “In my shame, I told no one. Sorrel and Vesta … Sorrel knew because she was in that room. Sorrel fought for me. Begged your grandmother. Your grandmother snapped her arm and sent her out. But after the Matron chucked me into the snow and told me to crawl somewhere and die, Sorrel found me. She got Vesta, and they brought me to Vesta’s aerie deep in the mountains, and they secretly took care of me for the months that I … that I couldn’t get out of bed. Then one day, I just woke up and decided to fight.

  “I trained. I healed my body. I grew strong—stronger than I’d been before. And I stopped thinking about it. A month later I went hunting for Crochans, and walked back into the Keep with three of their hearts in a box. If your grandmother was surprised I hadn’t died, she didn’t show it. You were there that night I came back. You toasted in my honor, and said you were proud to have such a fine Second.”

  Still on her knees, the damp earth soaking into her pants, Manon stared at that hideous brand.

  “I never went back to the hunter. I didn’t know how to explain the brand. How to explain your grandmother, or apologize. I was afraid he’d treat me as your grandmother had. So I never went back.” Her mouth wobbled. “I’d fly overhead every few years, just … just to see.” She wiped at her face. “He never married. And even when he was an old man, I’d sometimes see him sitting on that front porch. As if he were waiting for someone.”

  Something … something was cracking and aching in Manon’s chest, caving in on itself.

  Asterin sat among the flowers and began pulling on her clothes. She was weeping silently, but Manon didn’t know if she should reach out. She didn’t know how to comfort, ho
w to soothe.

  “I stopped caring,” Asterin said at last. “About anything and everything. After that, it was all a joke, and a thrill, and nothing scared me.”

  That wildness, that untamed fierceness … They weren’t born of a free heart, but of one that had known despair so complete that living brightly, living violently, was the only way to outrun it.

  “But I told myself”—Asterin finished buttoning her jacket—“I would dedicate my life wholly to being your Second. To serving you. Not your grandmother. Because I knew your grandmother had hidden me from you for a reason. I think she knew you would have fought for me. And whatever your grandmother saw in you that made her afraid … It was worth waiting for. Worth serving. So I have.”

  That day Abraxos had made the Crossing, when her Thirteen had looked ready to fight their way out should her grandmother give the order to kill her …

  Asterin met her stare. “Sorrel, Vesta, and I have known for a very long time what your grandmother is capable of. We never said anything because we feared that if you knew, it could jeopardize you. The day you saved Petrah instead of letting her fall … You weren’t the only one who understood why your grandmother made you slaughter that Crochan.” Asterin shook her head. “I am begging you, Manon. Do not let your grandmother and these men take our witches and use them like this. Do not let them turn our witchlings into monsters. What they’ve already done … I am begging you to help me undo it.”

  Manon swallowed hard, her throat achingly tight. “If we defy them, they will come after us, and they will kill us.”

  “I know. We all know. That’s what we wanted to tell you the other night.”

  Manon looked at her cousin’s shirt, as if she could see through to the brand beneath. “That is why you’ve been behaving this way.”

  “I am not foolish enough to pretend that I don’t have a weak spot where witchlings are concerned.”

  This was why her grandmother had pushed for decades to have Asterin demoted.

  “I don’t think it’s a weak spot,” Manon admitted, and glanced over her shoulder to where Abraxos was sniffing at the wildflowers. “You’re to be reinstated as Second.”

  Asterin bowed her head. “I am sorry, Manon.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” She dared add, “Are there others whom my grandmother treated this way?”

  “Not in the Thirteen. But in other covens. Most let themselves die when your grandmother cast them out.” And Manon had never been told. She had been lied to.

  Manon gazed westward across the mountains. Hope, Elide had said—hope for a better future. For a home.

  Not obedience, brutality, discipline. But hope.

  “We need to proceed carefully.”

  Asterin blinked, the gold flecks in her black eyes glittering. “What are you planning?”

  “Something very stupid, I think.”

  CHAPTER

  64

  Rowan barely remembered anything of the agonizing trip back to Rifthold. By the time they had snuck across the city walls and through the alleys to reach the warehouse, he was so exhausted that he’d hardly hit the mattress before unconsciousness dragged him under.

  He awoke that night—or was it the next?—with Aelin and Aedion sitting on the side of the bed, talking.

  “Solstice is in six days; we need to have everything lined up by then,” she was saying to her cousin.

  “So you’re going to ask Ress and Brullo to just leave a back door open so you can sneak in?”

  “Don’t be so simpleminded. I’m going to walk in through the front door.”

  Of course she was. Rowan let out a groan, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth.

  She whirled to him, half lunging across the bed. “How are you feeling?” She brushed a hand over his forehead, testing for fever. “You seem all right.”

  “Fine,” he grunted. His arm and shoulder ached. But he’d endured worse. The blood loss had been what knocked his feet out from under him—more blood than he’d ever lost at once, at least so quickly, thanks to his magic being stifled. He ran an eye over Aelin. Her face was drawn and pale, a bruise kissed her cheekbone, and four scratches marred her neck.

  He was going to slaughter that witch.

  He said as much, and Aelin smiled. “If you’re in the mood for violence, then I suppose you’re just fine.” But the words were thick, and her eyes gleamed. He reached out with his good arm to grip one of her hands and squeezed tightly. “Please don’t ever do that again,” she breathed.

  “Next time, I’ll ask them not to fire arrows at you—or me.”

  Her mouth tightened and wobbled, and she rested her brow on his good arm. He lifted the other arm, sending burning pain shooting through him as he stroked her hair. It was still matted in a few spots with blood and dirt. She must not have even bothered with a full bath.

  Aedion cleared his throat. “We’ve been thinking up a plan for freeing magic—and taking out the king and Dorian.”

  “Just—tell me tomorrow,” Rowan said, a headache already blooming. The mere thought of explaining to them again that every time he’d seen hellfire used it had been more destructive than anyone could anticipate made him want to go back to sleep. Gods, without his magic … Humans were remarkable. To be able to survive without leaning on magic … He had to give them credit.

  Aedion yawned—the lousiest attempt at one Rowan had ever seen—and excused himself.

  “Aedion,” Rowan said, and the general paused in the doorway. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime, brother.” He walked out.

  Aelin was looking between them, her lips pursed again.

  “What?” he said.

  She shook her head. “You’re too nice when you’re wounded. It’s unsettling.”

  Seeing the tears shine in her eyes just now had nearly unsettled him. If magic had already been freed, those witches would have been ashes the moment that arrow hit him. “Go take a bath,” he growled. “I’m not sleeping next to you while you’re covered in that witch’s blood.”

  She examined her nails, still slightly lined with dirt and blue blood. “Ugh. I’ve washed them ten times already.” She rose from her seat on the side of the bed.

  “Why,” he asked. “Why did you save her?”

  She dragged a hand through her hair. A white bandage around her upper arm peeked through her shirt with the movement. He hadn’t even been conscious for that wound. He stifled the urge to demand to see it, assess the injury himself—and tug her close against him.

  “Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin … ,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.”

  Rowan stilled. His queen gazed at the floor, as if recalling the moment.

  “How can I take away somebody who means the world to someone else? Even if she’s my enemy.” A little shrug. “I thought you were dying. It seemed like bad luck to let her die out of spite. And …” she snorted. “Falling into a ravine seemed like a pretty shitty way to die for someone who fights that spectacularly.”

  Rowan smiled, drinking in the sight of her: the pale, grave face; the dirty clothes; the injuries. Yet her shoulders were back, chin high. “You make me proud to serve you.”

  A jaunty slant to her lips, but silver lined her eyes. “I know.”

  “You look like shit,” Lysandra said to Aelin. Then she remembered Evangeline, who stared at her wide-eyed, and winced. “Sorry.”

  Evangeline refolded her napkin in her lap, every inch the dainty little queen. “You said I’m not to use such language—and yet you do.”

  “I can curse,” Lysandra said as Aelin suppressed a smile, “because I’m older, and I know when it’s most effective. And right now, our friend looks like absolute shit.”

  Evangeline lifted her eyes to Aelin, her red-gold hair bright in the morning sun through the kitchen window. “You look even worse in the morning, Lysandra.”

  Aelin choked out a laugh. “Careful, Lysandra. You’ve got a hellion on your hands.”
>
  Lysandra gave her young ward a long look. “If you’ve finished eating the tarts clean off our plates, Evangeline, go onto the roof and raise hell for Aedion and Rowan.”

  “Take care with Rowan,” Aelin added. “He’s still on the mend. But pretend that he isn’t. Men get pissy if you fuss.”

  A wicked gleam in her eye, Evangeline bounded for the front door. Aelin listened to make sure the girl did indeed go upstairs, and then turned to her friend. “She’s going to be a handful when she’s older.”

  Lysandra groaned. “You think I don’t know that? Eleven years old, and she’s already a tyrant. It’s an endless stream of Why? and I would prefer not to and why, why, why and no, I should not like to listen to your good advice, Lysandra.” She rubbed her temples.

  “A tyrant, but a brave one,” Aelin said. “I don’t think there are many eleven-year-olds who would do what she did to save you.” The swelling had gone down, but bruises still marred Lysandra’s face, and the small, scabbed cut near her lip remained an angry red. “And I don’t think there are many nineteen-year-olds who would fight tooth and nail to save a child.” Lysandra stared down at the table. “I’m sorry,” Aelin said. “Even though Arobynn orchestrated it—I’m sorry.”

  “You came for me,” Lysandra said so quietly that it was hardly a breath. “All of you—you came for me.” She had told Nesryn and Chaol in detail of her overnight stay in a hidden dungeon beneath the city streets; already, the rebels were combing the sewers for it. She remembered little of the rest, having been blindfolded and gagged. Wondering if they would put a Wyrdstone ring on her finger had been the worst of it, she said. That dread would haunt her for a while.

  “You thought we wouldn’t come for you?”

  “I’ve never had friends who cared what happened to me, other than Sam and Wesley. Most people would have let me be taken—dismissed me as just another whore.”