Queen of Shadows

  Aedion gritted his teeth against the weight he held so delicately between his hands. It was going to be a damn long trek to the castle. Especially when they had to ease across waterways and over crumbling bits of stone that made even their Fae balance unsteady.

  But this was the way the Wyrdhounds had come. Even if Aelin and Nesryn hadn’t provided a detailed path, the lingering stench would have led the way.

  “Careful,” Rowan said over his shoulder as he hoisted the vat he carried higher and edged around a loose bit of rock. Aedion bit back his retort at the obvious order. But he couldn’t blame the prince. One tumble, and they’d risk the various substances mixing inside.

  A few days ago, not trusting Shadow Market quality, Chaol and Aedion had found an abandoned barn outside the city to test an urn barely a tenth the size of the ones they carried.

  It had worked too well. As they’d hurried back to Rifthold before curious eyes could see them, the smoke could be seen for miles.

  Aedion shuddered to think about what a vat this size—let alone two of them—might do if they weren’t careful.

  But by the time they rigged up the triggering mechanisms and ignited the wicks they would trail a long, long distance away … Well, Aedion just prayed he and Rowan were swift enough.

  They entered a sewer tunnel so dark that it took even his eyes a moment to adjust. Rowan just continued ahead. They were damn lucky that Lorcan had killed those Wyrdhounds and cleared the way. Damn lucky that Aelin had been ruthless and clever enough to trick Lorcan into doing it for them.

  He didn’t stop to consider what might happen if that ruthlessness and cleverness failed her today.

  They turned down another pathway, the reek now smothering. Rowan’s sharp sniff was the only sign of his mutual disgust. The gateway.

  The iron gates were in shambles, but Aedion could still make out the markings etched in them.

  Wyrdmarks. Ancient, too. Perhaps this had once been a path Gavin had used to visit the Sin-Eater’s temple unseen.

  The otherworldly stench of the creatures pushed and pulled at Aedion’s senses, and he paused, scanning the darkness of the looming tunnel.

  Here the water ended. Past the gates, a broken, rocky path that looked more ancient than any they’d yet seen sloped up into the impenetrable gloom.

  “Watch where you step,” Rowan said, scanning the tunnel. “It’s all loose stone and debris.”

  “I can see just as well as you,” Aedion said, unable to stop the retort this time. He rotated his shoulder, the cuff of his tunic slipping up to reveal the Wyrdmarks Aelin had instructed them to paint in their own blood all over their torsos, arms, and legs.

  “Let’s go,” was Rowan’s only reply as he hauled his vat along as if it weighed nothing.

  Aedion debated snapping a response, but … perhaps that was why the warrior-prince kept giving him stupid warnings. To piss him off enough to distract him—and maybe Rowan himself—from what was happening above them. What they carried between them.

  The Old Ways—to look out for their queen and their kingdom—but also for each other.

  Damn, it was almost enough to make him want to embrace the bastard.

  So Aedion followed Rowan through the iron gates.

  And into the castle catacombs.

  Chaol’s chains clanked, the manacles already rubbing his skin raw as Aelin tugged him down the crowded street, a dagger poised to sink into his side. One block remained until they reached the iron fence that surrounded the sloping hill on which the castle perched.

  Crowds streamed past, not noticing the chained man in their midst or the black-cloaked woman who hauled him closer and closer to the glass castle.

  “You remember the plan?” Aelin murmured, keeping her head down and her dagger pressed against his side.

  “Yes,” he breathed. It was the only word he could manage.

  Dorian was still in there—still holding on. It changed everything. And nothing.

  The crowds quieted near the fence, as if wary of the black-uniformed guards that surely monitored the entrance. The first obstacle they’d encounter.

  Aelin stiffened almost imperceptibly and paused so suddenly that Chaol almost slammed into her. “Chaol—”

  The crowd shifted, and he beheld the castle fence.

  There were corpses hanging from the towering wrought-iron bars.

  Corpses in red and gold uniforms.

  “Chaol—”

  He was already moving, and she swore and walked with him, pretending to lead him by the chains, keeping the dagger tight to his ribs.

  He didn’t know how he hadn’t heard the crows jabbering as they picked at the dead flesh tied along each iron post. With the crowd, he hadn’t thought to notice. Or maybe he’d just gotten used to the cawing in every corner of the city.

  His men.

  Sixteen of them. His closest companions, his most loyal guards.

  The first one had the collar of his uniform unbuttoned, revealing a chest crisscrossed with welts and cuts and brands.

  Ress.

  How long had they tortured him—tortured all the men? Since Aedion’s rescue?

  He racked his mind to think of the last time they’d had contact. He’d assumed the difficulty was because they were lying low. Not because—because they were being—

  Chaol noticed the man strung up beside Ress.

  Brullo’s eyes were gone, either from torture or the crows. His hands were swollen and twisted—part of his ear was missing.

  Chaol had no sounds in his head, no feeling in his body.

  It was a message, but not to Aelin Galathynius or Aedion Ashryver.

  His fault. His.

  He and Aelin didn’t speak as they neared the iron gates, the death of those men lingering over them. Every step was an effort. Every step was too fast.

  His fault.

  “I’m sorry,” Aelin murmured, nudging him closer to the gates, where black-uniformed guards were indeed monitoring every face that passed on the street. “I’m so sorry—”

  “The plan,” he said, his voice shaking. “We change it. Now.”

  “Chaol—”

  He told her what he needed to do. When he finished, she wiped away her tears as she gripped his hand and said, “I’ll make it count.”

  The tears were gone by the time they broke from the crowd, nothing between them and those familiar gates but open cobblestones.

  Home—this had once been his home.

  He did not recognize the guards standing watch at the gates he had once protected so proudly, the gates he had ridden through not even a year ago with an assassin newly freed from Endovier, her chains tied to his saddle.

  Now she led him in chains through those gates, an assassin one last time.

  Her walk became a swagger, and she moved with fluid ease toward the guards who drew their swords, their black rings gobbling up the sunlight.

  Celaena Sardothien halted a healthy distance away and lifted her chin. “Tell His Majesty that his Champion has returned—and she’s brought him one hell of a prize.”

  CHAPTER

  69

  Aelin’s black cloak flowed behind her as she led the fallen Captain of the Guard through the shining halls of the palace. Hidden at her back was her father’s sword, its pommel wrapped in black cloth. None of their ten-guard escort bothered to take her weapons.

  Why would they, when Celaena Sardothien was weeks early for her expected return, and still loyal to king and crown?

  The halls were so quiet. Even the queen’s court was sealed and silent. Rumor had it the queen had been cloistered in the mountains since Aedion’s rescue and had taken half her court with her. The rest had vanished as well, to escape either the rising summer heat—or the horrors that had come to rule their kingdom.

  Chaol said nothing, though he put on a good show of looking furious, like a pursued man desperate to find a way back to freedom. No sign of the devastation that had been on his face upon finding his men hanging from the gat
es.

  He jerked against the chains, and she leaned in close. “I don’t think so, Captain,” she purred. Chaol didn’t deign a response.

  The guards glanced at her. Wyrdmarks written in Chaol’s blood covered her beneath her clothes, its human scent hopefully masking any hints of her heritage that the Valg might otherwise pick up. There were only two demons in this group—a small mercy.

  So they went, up and up, into the glass castle itself.

  The halls seemed too bright to contain such evil. The few servants they passed averted their eyes and scurried along. Had everyone fled since Aedion’s rescue?

  It was an effort to not look too long at Chaol as they neared the massive red-and-gold glass doors, already open to reveal the crimson-marbled floor of the king’s council room.

  Already open to reveal the king, seated on his glass throne.

  And Dorian standing beside him.

  Their faces.

  They were faces that tugged at him.

  Human filth, the demon hissed.

  The woman—he recognized that face as she yanked back her dark hood and knelt before the dais on which he stood.

  “Majesty,” she said. Her hair was shorter than he remembered.

  No—he did not remember. He did not know her.

  And the man in chains beside her, bloodied and filthy …

  Screaming, wind, and—

  Enough, the demon snapped.

  But their faces—

  He did not know those faces.

  He did not care.

  The King of Adarlan, the murderer of her family, the destroyer of her kingdom, lounged in his glass throne. “Isn’t this an interesting turn of events, Champion.”

  She smiled, hoping the cosmetics she’d dabbed around her eyes would mute the turquoise and gold of her irises, and that the drab shade of blond she’d dyed her hair would disguise its near-identical hue with Aedion’s. “Do you want to hear an interesting story, Your Majesty?”

  “Does it involve my enemies in Wendlyn being dead?”

  “Oh, that, and much, much more.”

  “Why has word not arrived, then?”

  The ring on his finger seemed to suck in the light. But she could spy no sign of the Wyrdkeys, couldn’t feel them here, as she’d felt the presence of the one in the amulet.

  Chaol was pale, and kept glancing at the floor of the room.

  This was where everything had happened. Where they’d murdered Sorscha. Where Dorian had been enslaved. Where, once upon a time, she’d signed her soul away to the king under a fake name, a coward’s name.

  “Don’t blame me for the piss-poor messengers,” she said. “I sent word the day before I left.” She pulled out two objects from her cloak and looked over her shoulder at the guards, jerking her chin at Chaol. “Watch him.”

  She strode to the throne and extended her hand to the king. He reached forward, the reek of him—

  Valg. Human. Iron. Blood.

  She dropped two rings into his palm. The clink of metal on metal was the only sound.

  “The seal rings of the King and Crown Prince of Wendlyn. I’d have brought their heads, but … Immigration officials can get so pissy.”

  The king plucked up one of the rings, his face stony. Lysandra’s jeweler had yet again done a stunning job of re-creating the royal crest of Wendlyn and then wearing down the rings until they looked ancient, like heirlooms. “And where were you during Narrok’s attack on Wendlyn?”

  “Was I supposed to be anywhere but hunting my prey?”

  The king’s black eyes bored into hers.

  “I killed them when I could,” she went on, crossing her arms, careful of the hidden blades in the suit. “Apologies for not making it the grand statement you wanted. Next time, perhaps.”

  Dorian hadn’t moved a muscle, his features stone-cold above the collar around his neck.

  “And how did you wind up with my Captain of the Guard in chains?”

  Chaol was only gazing at Dorian, and she didn’t think his distraught, pleading face was an act.

  “He was waiting for me at the docks, like a good dog. When I saw that he was without his uniform, I got him to confess to everything. Every last little conspiratorial thing he’s done.”

  The king eyed the captain. “Did he, now.”

  Aelin avoided the urge to check the grandfather clock ticking in the far corner of the room, or the position of the sun beyond the floor-to-ceiling window. Time. They needed to bide their time a bit longer. But so far, so good.

  “I do wonder,” the king mused, leaning back on his throne, “who has been conspiring more: the captain, or you, Champion. Or should I call you Aelin?”

  CHAPTER

  70

  This place smelled like death, like hell, like the dark spaces between the stars.

  Centuries of training kept Rowan’s steps light, kept him focused on the lethal weight he carried as he and the general crept through the dry, ancient passageway.

  The ascending stone path had been gouged by brutal claws, the space so dark that even Rowan’s eyes were failing him. The general trailed close behind, making no sound save for the occasional pebble skittering from beneath his boots.

  Aelin would be in the castle by now, the captain in tow as her ticket into the throne room.

  Only a few minutes more, if they’d calculated right, and then they could ignite their deadly burden and get the hell out.

  Minutes after, he’d be at her side, rife with magic that he’d use to choke the air clean out of the king’s lungs. And then he’d enjoy watching as she burned him alive. Slowly.

  Though he knew his satisfaction would pale in comparison to what the general would feel. What every child of Terrasen would feel.

  They passed through a door of solid iron that had been peeled back as if massive, clawed hands had ripped it off its hinges. The walkway beyond was smooth stone.

  Aedion sucked in a breath at the same moment the pounding struck Rowan’s brain, right between his eyes.

  Wyrdstone.

  Aelin had warned him of the tower—that the stone had given her a headache, but this …

  She had been in her human body then.

  It was unbearable, as if his very blood recoiled at the wrongness of the stone.

  Aedion cursed, and Rowan echoed it.

  But there was a wide sliver in the stone wall ahead, and open air beyond it.

  Not daring to breathe too loudly, Rowan and Aedion eased through the crack.

  A large, round chamber greeted them, flanked by eight open iron doors. The bottom of the clock tower, if their calculations were correct.

  The darkness of the chamber was nearly impenetrable, but Rowan didn’t dare light the torch he’d brought with them. Aedion sniffed, a wet sound. Wet, because—

  Blood dribbled down Rowan’s lip and chin. A nosebleed.

  “Hurry,” he whispered, setting down his vat at the opposite end of the chamber.

  Just a few more minutes.

  Aedion stationed his vat of hellfire across from Rowan’s at the chamber entrance. Rowan knelt, his head pounding, worse and worse with each throb.

  He kept moving, shoving the pain down as he set the fuse wire and led it over to where Aedion crouched. The dripping of their nosebleeds on the black stone floor was the only sound.

  “Faster,” Rowan ordered, and Aedion snarled softly—no longer willing to be annoyed with warnings as a distraction. He didn’t feel like telling the general he’d stopped doing it minutes ago.

  Rowan drew his sword, making for the doorway through which they’d entered. Aedion backed toward him, unspooling the joined fuses as he went. They had to be far enough away before they could light it, or else they’d be turned to ash.

  He sent up a silent prayer to Mala that Aelin was biding her time—and that the king was too focused on the assassin and the captain to consider sending anyone below.

  Aedion reached him, unrolling inch after inch of fuse, the line a white streak through the d
ark. Rowan’s other nostril began bleeding.

  Gods, the smell of this place. The death and reek and misery of it. He could hardly think. It was like having his head in a vise.

  They retreated into the tunnel, that fuse their only hope and salvation.

  Something dripped onto his shoulder. An ear bleed.

  He wiped it away with his free hand.

  But it was not blood on his cloak.

  Rowan and Aedion went rigid as a low growling filled the passage.

  Something on the ceiling moved, then.

  Seven somethings.

  Aedion dropped the spool and drew his sword.

  A piece of fabric—gray, small, worn—dropped from the maw of the creature clinging to the stone ceiling. His cloak—the missing corner of his cloak.

  Lorcan had lied.

  He hadn’t killed the remaining Wyrdhounds.

  He’d just given them Rowan’s scent.

  Aelin Ashryver Galathynius faced the King of Adarlan.

  “Celaena, Lillian, Aelin,” she drawled, “I don’t particularly care what you call me.”

  None of the guards behind them stirred.

  She could feel Chaol’s eyes on her, feel the relentless attention of the Valg prince inside Dorian.

  “Did you think,” the king said, grinning like a wolf, “that I could not peer inside my son’s mind and ask what he knows, what he saw the day of your cousin’s rescue?”

  She hadn’t known, and she certainly hadn’t planned on revealing herself this way. “I’m surprised it took you this long to notice who you’d let in by the front door. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed.”

  “So your people might say of you. What was it like, Princess, to climb into bed with my son? Your mortal enemy?” Dorian didn’t so much as blink. “Did you end it with him because of the guilt—or because you’d gained a foothold in my castle and no longer needed him?”

  “Is that fatherly concern I detect?”

  A low laugh. “Why doesn’t the captain stop pretending that he’s stuck in those manacles and come a bit closer.”

  Chaol stiffened. But Aelin gave him a subtle nod.

  The king didn’t bother glancing at his guards as he said, “Get out.”