“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 them, 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.”
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.