Queen of Shadows

  As one, the guards left, sealing the door behind them. The heavy glass groaned shut, the floor shuddering. Chaol’s shackles clattered to the ground, and he flexed his wrists.

  “Such traitorous filth, dwelling in my own home. And to think I once had you in chains—once had you so close to execution, and had no idea what prize I instead sentenced to Endovier. The Queen of Terrasen—slave and my Champion.” The king unfurled his fist to look at the two rings in his palm. He chucked them aside. They bounced on the red marble, pinging faintly. “Too bad you don’t have your flames now, Aelin Galathynius.”

  Aelin tugged the cloth from the pommel of her father’s blade and drew the Sword of Orynth.

  “Where are the Wyrdkeys?”

  “At least you’re direct. But what shall you do to me, heir of Terrasen, if I do not tell you?” He gestured to Dorian, and the prince descended the steps of the dais, stopping at the bottom.

  Time—she needed time. The tower wasn’t down yet. “Dorian,” Chaol said softly.

  The prince didn’t respond.

  The king chuckled. “No running today, Captain?”

  Chaol leveled his stare at the king, and drew Damaris—Aelin’s gift to him.

  The king tapped a finger on the arm of his throne. “What would the noble people of Terrasen say if they knew Aelin of the Wildfire had such a bloody history? If they knew that she had signed her services over to me? What hope would it give them to know that even their long-lost princess was corrupted?”

  “You certainly like to hear yourself speak, don’t you?”

  The king’s finger stilled on the throne. “I’ll admit that I don’t know how I didn’t see it. You’re the same spoiled child who strutted about her castle. And here I was, thinking I’d helped you. I saw into your mind that day, Aelin Galathynius. You loved your home and your kingdom, but you had such a wish to be ordinary, such a wish for freedom from your crown, even then. Have you changed your mind? I offered you freedom on a platter ten years ago, and yet you wound up a slave anyway. Funny.”

  Time, time, time. Let him talk …

  “You had the element of surprise then,” Aelin said. “But now we know what power you wield.”

  “Do you? Do you understand the cost of the keys? What you must become to use one?”

  She tightened her grip on the Sword of Orynth.

  “Would you like to go head-to-head with me, then, Aelin Galathynius? To see if the spells you learned, the books you stole from me, will hold out? Little tricks, Princess, compared to the raw power of the keys.”

  “Dorian,” Chaol said again. The prince remained fixated on her, a hungry smile now on those sensuous lips.

  “Let me demonstrate,” the king said. Aelin braced herself, her gut clenching.

  He pointed at Dorian. “Kneel.”

  The prince dropped to his knees. She hid her wince at the impact of bone on marble. The king’s brows knotted. A darkness began to build, cracking from the king like forks of lightning.

  “No,” Chaol breathed, stepping forward. Aelin grabbed the captain by the arm before he could do something incredibly stupid.

  A tendril of night slammed into Dorian’s back and he arched, groaning.

  “I think there is more that you know, Aelin Galathynius,” the king said, that too-familiar blackness growing. “Things that perhaps only the heir of Brannon Galathynius might have learned.”

  The third Wyrdkey.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Aelin said. The prince’s neck was taut as he panted, as the darkness whipped him.

  Once—twice. Lashings.

  She knew that pain. “He’s your son—your heir.”

  “You forget, Princess,” the king said, “that I have two sons.”

  Dorian screamed as another whip of darkness slashed his back. Black lightning flitted across his exposed teeth.

  She lunged—and was thrown back by the very wards she’d drawn on her body. An invisible wall of that black pain lay around Dorian now, and his screams became unending.

  Like a beast snapped from its leash, Chaol flung himself against it, roaring Dorian’s name, the blood crumbling from the cuff of his jacket with each attempt.

  Again. Again. Again.

  Dorian was sobbing, darkness pouring out of his mouth, shackling his hands, branding his back, his neck—

  Then it vanished.

  The prince sagged to the floor, chest heaving. Chaol halted midstrike, his breathing ragged, face drawn.

  “Rise,” the king said.

  Dorian got to his feet, his black collar gleaming as his chest heaved. “Delicious,” the thing inside the prince said. Bile burned Aelin’s throat.

  “Please,” Chaol said hoarsely to the king, and her heart cracked at the word, at the agony and desperation. “Free him. Name your price. I’ll give you anything.”

  “Would you hand over your former lover, Captain? I see no use in losing a weapon if I don’t gain one in return.” The king waved a hand toward her. “You destroyed my general and three of my princes. I can think of a few other Valg who are aching to get their claws into you for that—who would very much enjoy the chance to slip into your body. It’s only fair.”

  Aelin dared a glance toward the window. The sun climbed higher.

  “You came into my family’s home and murdered them in their sleep,” Aelin said. The grandfather clock began chiming twelve. A heartbeat later, the miserable, off-kilter clanging of the clock tower sounded. “It’s only fair,” she said to the king as she backed a step toward the doors, “that I destroy you in return.”

  She tugged the Eye of Elena from under her suit. The blue stone glowed like a small star.

  Not just a ward against evil.

  But a key in its own right, that could be used to unlock Erawan’s tomb.

  The king’s eyes went wide and he rose from his throne. “You’ve just made the mistake of your life, girl.”

  He might have a point.

  The noontime bells were ringing.

  Yet the clock tower still stood.

  CHAPTER

  71

  Rowan swung his sword and the Wyrdhound fell back, howling as his blade pierced through stone and into the tender flesh beneath. But not enough to keep it down, to kill it. Another Wyrdhound leaped. Where they lunged, Rowan struck.

  Side by side, he and Aedion had been pushed against a wall, conceding foot after foot of the passage—driven farther and farther from the spool of fuse Aedion had been forced to drop.

  A clanging, miserable noise rang out.

  In the span between clangs, Rowan slashed for two different Wyrdhounds, blows that would have disemboweled most creatures.

  The clock tower. Noon.

  The Wyrdhounds were herding them back, dodging sure-kill blows, keeping out of their reach.

  To keep them from getting to the fuse.

  Rowan swore and launched into an assault that engaged three of them at once, Aedion flanking him. The Wyrdhounds held their line.

  Noon, he had promised Aelin. As the sun began to reach its apex on the solstice, they’d bring the tower crashing down.

  The final clang of the clock tower sounded.

  Noon had come and gone.

  And his Fireheart, his queen, was in that castle above them—left with only her mortal training and wits to keep her alive. Perhaps not for much longer.

  The thought was so abhorrent, so outrageous, that Rowan roared his fury, louder than the shrieks of the beasts.

  The bellow cost his brother. One creature shot past Rowan’s guard, leaping, and Aedion barked out a curse and staggered back. Rowan smelled Aedion’s blood before he saw it.

  It must have been a dinner bell to the Wyrdhounds, that demi-Fae blood. Four of them leaped for the general as one, their maws revealing flesh-shredding stone teeth.

  The three others whirled for Rowan, and there was nothing he could do to get to that fuse.

  To save the queen who held his heart in her scarred hands.

  A few steps
ahead of him, Chaol watched Aelin back toward the glass doors, just as they’d planned after seeing his men dead.

  The king’s attention was fixed on the Eye of Elena around her neck. She removed it, holding it in a steady hand. “Been looking for this, have you? Poor Erawan, locked in his little tomb for so long.”

  It was an effort to hold his position as Aelin kept retreating.

  “Where did you find that?” the king seethed.

  Aelin reached Chaol, brushing against him, a comfort and a thank-you and a good-bye as she continued past. “Turns out your ancestor didn’t approve of your hobbies. We Galathynius women stick together, you know.”

  For the first time in his life, Chaol saw the king’s face go slack. But then the man said, “And did that ancient fool tell you what will happen if you wield the other key you already possess?”

  She was so close to the doors. “Let the prince go, or I’ll destroy this right here, and Erawan can stay locked up.” She slid the chain into her pocket.

  “Very well,” the king said. He looked at Dorian, who showed no sign of even remembering his own name, despite what the witch had written on the walls of their city. “Go. Retrieve her.”

  Darkness surged from Dorian, leaking like blood in water, and Chaol’s head gave a burst of pain as—

  Aelin ran, exploding through the glass doors.

  Faster than he should be, Dorian raced after her, ice coating the floor, the room. The cold of it knocked the breath from him. But Dorian didn’t glance once in his direction before he was gone.

  The king took a step down the dais, his breath clouding in front of him.

  Chaol lifted his sword, holding his position between the open doors and the conqueror of their continent.

  The king took another step. “More heroic antics? Don’t you ever get bored of them, Captain?”

  Chaol did not yield. “You murdered my men. And Sorscha.”

  “And a good many more.”

  Another step. The king stared over Chaol’s shoulder to the hallway where Aelin and Dorian had vanished.

  “It ends now,” Chaol said.

  The Valg princes had been lethal in Wendlyn. But when inhabiting Dorian’s body, with Dorian’s magic …

  Aelin hurtled down the hallway, glass windows flanking her, marble beneath—nothing but open sky around her.

  And behind, charging after her like a black storm, was Dorian.

  Ice spread from him, hoarfrost splintering along the windows.

  The moment that ice hit her, Aelin knew she would not run another step.

  She’d memorized every hallway and stairwell thanks to Chaol’s maps. She pushed herself harder, praying that Chaol bought her time as she neared a narrow flight of stairs and hurled herself up, taking the steps by twos and threes.

  Ice cracked along the glass right behind her, and cold bit at her heels.

  Faster—faster.

  Around and around, up and up she flew. It was past noon. If something had gone wrong with Rowan and Aedion …

  She hit the top of the stairs, and ice made the landing so slick that she skidded, going sideways, going down—

  She caught herself with a hand against the floor, her skin ripping open on the ice. She slammed into a glass wall and rebounded, then she was running again as the ice closed in around her.

  Higher—she had to get higher.

  And Chaol, facing the king—

  She didn’t let herself think about that. Spears of ice shot out from the walls, narrowly missing her sides.

  Her breath was a flame in her throat.

  “I told you,” a cold male voice said from behind, not at all winded. Ice spiderwebbed across the windows on either side. “I told you that you would regret sparing me. That I would destroy everything you love.”

  She reached a glass-covered bridge that stretched between two of the highest spires. The floor was utterly transparent, so clear that she could see every inch of the plunge to the ground far, far below.

  Hoarfrost coated the windows, groaning—

  Glass exploded, and a cry shattered from her throat as it sliced into her back.

  Aelin veered to the side, for the now-broken window, its too-small iron frame, and the drop beyond.

  She flung herself through it.

  CHAPTER

  72

  Bright, open air, the wind roaring in her ears, then—

  Aelin landed on the open glass bridge a level below, her knees popping as she absorbed the impact and rolled. Her body shrieked in agony at the slices in her arms and back where bits of glass stuck clean through her suit, but she was already sprinting for the tower door at the other end of the bridge.

  She looked in time to see Dorian hurtle right through the space she’d cleared, his eyes fixed on her.

  Aelin flung open the door as the boom of Dorian hitting the bridge sounded.

  She slammed the door behind her, but even that couldn’t seal out the growing cold.

  Just a little farther.

  Aelin raced up the spiraling tower stairs, half sobbing through her gritted teeth.

  Rowan. Aedion. Chaol.

  Chaol—

  The door shattered off its hinges at the base of the spire and cold exploded through, stealing her breath.

  But Aelin had reached the top of the tower. Beyond it, another glass footbridge, thin and bare, stretched far across to one of the other spires.

  It was still shaded as the sun crept across the other side of the building, the uppermost turrets of the glass castle surrounding and smothering her like a cage of darkness.

  Aelin had gotten out, and taken Dorian with her.

  Chaol had bought her that time, in one final attempt to save his friend and his king.

  When she had burst into his house this morning, sobbing and laughing, she’d explained what the Wing Leader had written, the payment the witch had given in exchange for saving her life. Dorian was still in there, still fighting.

  She had planned to take them both on at once, the king and the prince, and he had agreed to help her, to try to talk Dorian back into humanity, to try to convince the prince to fight. Until that moment he’d seen his men hanging from the gates.

  Now he had no interest in talking.

  If Aelin were to stand a chance—any chance—of freeing Dorian from that collar, she needed the king out of the picture. Even if it cost her the vengeance for her family and kingdom.

  Chaol was glad to settle that score on her behalf—and on the behalf of many more.

  The king looked at Chaol’s sword, then at his face, and laughed.

  “You’ll kill me, Captain? Such dramatics.”

  They’d gotten away. Aelin had gotten Dorian out, her bluff so flawless even Chaol had believed the Eye in her hands was the real thing, with the way she’d angled it into the sun so the blue stone glowed. He had no idea where she’d put the real one. If she was even wearing it.

  All of it—all that they had done, and lost, and fought for. All of it for this moment.

  The king kept approaching, and Chaol held his sword before him, not yielding one step.

  For Ress. For Brullo. For Sorscha. For Dorian. For Aelin, and Aedion, and their family, for the thousands massacred in those labor camps. And for Nesryn—who he’d lied to, who would wait for a return that wouldn’t come, for time they wouldn’t have together.

  He had no regrets but that one.

  A wave of black slammed into him, and Chaol staggered back a step, the marks of protection tingling on his skin.

  “You lost,” Chaol panted. The blood was flaking away beneath his clothes, itching.

  Another wave of black, identical to the one that had struck Dorian—which Dorian hadn’t been able to stand against.

  Chaol felt it that time: the throb of unending agony, the whisper of pain to come.

  The king approached. Chaol lifted his sword higher.

  “Your wards are failing, boy.”

  Chaol smiled, tasting blood in his mouth. “Good t
hing steel lasts longer.”

  The sun through the windows warmed Chaol’s back—as if in an embrace, as if in comfort. As if it to tell him it was time.

  I’ll make it count, Aelin had promised him.

  He had bought her time.

  A wave of black reared up behind the king, sucking the light out of the room.

  Chaol spread his arms wide as the darkness hit him, shattered him, obliterated him until there was nothing but light—burning blue light, warm and welcoming.

  Aelin and Dorian had gotten away. It was enough.

  When the pain came, he was not afraid.

  CHAPTER

  73

  It was going to kill her.

  He wanted it to.

  Her face—that face—

  He neared the woman, step by step across the narrow, shaded bridge, the turrets high above them gleaming with blinding light.

  Blood covered her arms, and she panted as she backed away from him, her hands out before her, a gold ring shining on her finger. He could smell her now—the immortal, mighty blood in her veins.

  “Dorian,” she said.

  He did not know that name.

  And he was going to kill her.

  CHAPTER

  74

  Time. She needed to buy more time, or steal it, while the bridge still lay in shadow, while the sun slowly, slowly moved.

  “Dorian,” Aelin pleaded again.

  “I’m going to rip you apart from the inside out,” the demon said.

  Ice spread across the bridge. The glass in her back shifted and ripped into her with each step she retreated toward the tower door.

  Still the clock tower had not come down.

  But the king had not yet arrived.

  “Your father is currently in his council room,” she said, fighting the pain splintering through her. “He is in there with Chaol—with your friend—and your father has likely already killed him.”

  “Good.”

  “Chaol,” Aelin said, her voice breaking. Her foot slid against a patch of ice, and the world tilted as she steadied her balance. The drop to the ground hundreds of feet below hit her in the gut, but she kept her eyes on the prince even as agony rippled down her body again. “Chaol. You sacrificed yourself. You let them put that collar on you—so he could get out.”