Groaned, and cracked, spiderwebbing under her foot. She froze, gaping like a fool as the cracks spread wider and wider, and then—she kept moving. There was another crack beneath her boots. Did the ice move? “Stop it,” she hissed at Rowan, but didn’t dare look behind her.
Her magic shuddered awake, and she went still as death. No.
But there it was, filling up the spaces in her.
The ice emitted a deep groan that could only mean something cold and wet was coming her way really damn soon, and she took another step, if only because the way back seemed like it would shatter. She was sweating now—the magic, the fire was warming her from the inside out.
“Elentiya?” Luca asked, and she held out a hand toward him—a silent gesture to shut his stupid mouth as she closed her eyes and breathed, imagining the cold air around them filling her lungs, freezing over the well of power. Magic—it was magic. In Adarlan it was a death trap.
She clenched her hands into fists. Here it was not a death trap. In this land, she could have it, could wear whatever form she wished.
The ice stopped groaning, but it had clouded and thinned around her. She started sliding her feet, keeping as balanced and fluid as she could, humming a melody—a bit of a symphony that used to calm her. She let the beat anchor her, dull the edge of her panic.
The magic simmered to embers, pulsing with each breath. I am safe, she told it. Relatively safe. If Rowan was right, and it was just a reaction to protect her from some enemy . . .
Fire was the reason she’d been banned from the Library of Orynth when she was eight, after accidentally incinerating an entire bookcase of ancient manuscripts when she grew irritated with the Master Scholar lecturing her about decorum. It had been a beautiful, horrible relief to wake up one day not too many months after that and know magic was gone. That she could hold a book—hold what she adored most—and not worry about turning it to ash if she became upset or tired or excited.
Celaena Sardothien, gloriously mortal Celaena, never had to worry about accidentally scorching a playmate, or having a nightmare that might incinerate her bedroom. Or burning all of Orynth to the ground. Celaena had been everything Aelin wasn’t. She had embraced that life, even if Celaena’s accomplishments were death and torture and pain.
“Elentiya?” She’d been staring at the ice. Her magic flickered again.
Burning a city to the ground. That was the fear she overheard Melisande’s emissary hiss at her parents and uncle. She’d been told he had come to see about an alliance, but she later understood he’d really come to gather information on her. Melisande had a young queen on its throne, and she wanted to assess the threat she might face from the heir of Terrasen one day. Wanted to know if Aelin Galathynius would become a weapon of war.
The ice fogged over, and a crack splintered through the air. The magic was pulsing its way out of her, snapping its jaws at every breath she took.
“You are in control now,” Rowan said from the shore. “You are its master.”
She was halfway there. She took one more step toward Luca, and the ice cracked further. His chains rustled—impatience, or fear?
She had never been in control. Even as Celaena, control had been an illusion. Other masters had held her reins.
“You are the keeper of your own fate,” Rowan said softly from the shore, as if he knew exactly what was flowing through her head.
She hummed some more, the music wending its way from her memory. And somehow . . . somehow the flame grew quiet. Celaena took a step forward, then another. The power smoldering in her veins would never go away; she was far more likely to hurt someone if she didn’t master it.
She scowled over her shoulder at Rowan, who was now striding along the shore, examining some of the fallen blades. There was a hint of triumph in his usually hollow eyes, but he turned away and approached a small crevice in the cave wall, feeling for something inside. She kept walking, the watery abyss deepening. She had mastered her mortal body as an assassin. Mastering her immortal power was just another task.
Luca’s eyes were wide as she came at last within touching distance. “You have nothing to hide, you know. We all knew you could shift, anyway,” he said. “And if it makes you feel any better, Sten’s animal form is a pig. He won’t even shift for shame.”
She would have laughed—actually felt her insides tighten to bark out the sound that had been buried for months, but then she remembered the chains around his wrists. The magic had quieted down, but now . . . melt through them, or melt the ice where they were anchored and let him drag the chains back? If she went for the ice, she could easily send them right to the bottom of this ancient lake. And if she went for the chains . . . Well, she could lose control and send them to the bottom, but she could also wind up burning him. At best, branding him where the manacles were. At worst, melting his bones. Better to risk the ice.
“Erm,” Luca said. “I’ll forgive every awful thing you said earlier if we can go eat something right now. It smells awful in here.” His senses had to be sharper than hers—the cave had only a faint hint of rust, mold, and rotting things.
“Just hold still and stop talking,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended. But he shut up as she eased to the spot where Rowan had frozen the chains. As carefully as she could, she knelt, spreading her weight out evenly.
She slid one palm against the ice, eyeing the chain’s path to the hanging length swaying in the water beneath.
Swaying—there must be a current. Which meant Rowan had to be constantly sealing the ice . . . The cold bit into her palm, and she eyed Luca on the fur blanket before she turned back to the anchor. If the ice broke, she’d have to grab him. Rowan was out of his damned mind.
She took several long breaths, letting the magic calm and cool and gutter. Then, hand pressed flat against the ice, she crooked an inner finger at her power and pulled out a tiny, burning thread. It flowed down her arm, snaked around her wrist, and then settled in her palm, her skin warming, the ice . . . glowing a bright red. Luca yelped as the ice splintered around them.
“Control,” Rowan barked from the shore, pulling free a discarded sword from where it had been knocked into the little crevice in the wall, its golden hilt glinting. Celaena clamped on the magic so hard it suffocated. A small hole had melted where her palm had been—but not all the way through. Not big enough to free the chain.