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?”
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 dark. 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.”
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.”