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But she was her own champion now. And she would not add another name of her beloved dead to her flesh.
Usually though, especially in these wretched meetings, the duke’s attention was fixed upon the beautiful, raven-haired woman who was never far from his side, as though tethered to him by an invisible chain.
She never said anything, never looked at anyone. A dark collar was clasped around her moon-white throat, a collar that made Manon keep her distance. Such a wrong scent around all these people. Human, but also not human. And on this woman, the scent was strongest and strangest. Like the dark, forgotten places of the world. Like tilled soil in a graveyard.
And then there was the thick red scar just before the dip of her elbow, two inches long, slightly raised. It had to be recent.
Aelin stepped under the narrow awning and drawled, “As far as memory serves me, Lysandra, I warned you that if I ever saw you again, I’d kill you.”
“Why have you been carrying a letter to me from Wesley for almost two years?” Lysandra wouldn’t look up, and her voice broke as she said, “Because I loved him very much.”
Clarisse was so mad that she beat Lysandra in the courtyard, but Lysandra didn’t cry—not once. And when the healer said my face couldn’t be fixed, Clarisse made Lysandra buy me for the amount I would have cost if I had been a full courtesan, like her.” Aelin had no words. Evangeline said, “That’s why she’s still working for Clarisse, why she’s still not free and won’t be for a while. I thought you should know.”
Though the prince didn’t move, Aedion could have sworn he recoiled, as if someone yanked on a leash, as if there was still someone in need of leashing.
Aelin snorted. “I think I rather like you, Nesryn Faliq.”
“To determine whether they are compatible for breeding with our allies from another realm—the Valg.”
Manon hit the stairs to her personal tower. “The only person who objects to anything these days, Asterin, is you.”
“If you have need of me, just call for Elide. The guards will know where to find me.”
But anyone with witch-blood in their veins was worth keeping an eye on.
“And more than any of us, Asterin has never for a second forgotten what your grandmother is capable of.”
“The Lysandra I knew used to wear far less clothing,” Aelin said. Lysandra’s green eyes flickered. “The Lysandra you knew died a long time ago.”
Aelin said, “The other night, you didn’t just come to warn me about Arobynn.” When Lysandra raised her head, her eyes were frozen. “No,” she said with soft savagery. “I came to help you destroy him.”
“I’m sorry,” Aelin said. “For the years I spent being a monster toward you, for whatever part I played in your suffering. I wish I’d been able to see myself better. I wish I’d seen everything better. I’m sorry.” Lysandra blinked. “We were both young and stupid, and should have seen each other as allies. But there’s nothing to prevent us from seeing each other that way now.” Lysandra gave her a grin that was more wolfish than refined. “If you’re in, I’m in.”
“Please,” Lysandra said, waving a manicured hand, “you and I are nothing but wild beasts wearing human skins. Don’t even try to deny it.”
“I always wondered where Arobynn found you,” Florine murmured, staring at the door as if she could see through it. “Why he took such pains to break you to his will, more so than all the others.” The woman closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, steel gleamed there. “When you shatter the chains of this world and forge the next, remember that art is as vital as food to a kingdom. Without it, a kingdom is nothing, and will be forgotten by time. I have amassed enough money in my miserable life to not need any more—so you will understand me clearly when I say that wherever you set
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She was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of shadows, and these men were already carrion.
She gazed into those eyes, at the mouth she’d once kissed, at the friend she’d once cared for so deeply, and begged, “Just one sign, Dorian.”
Making people see and hear what they wanted to: one of the many weapons in her arsenal. A gift from Anneith, the Lady of Wise Things,
If she didn’t wind up with those poor people, caged inside the surrounding mountains, screaming for salvation every night. She’d overheard the other servants whisper about the dark, fell things that went on under those mountains: people being splayed open on black stone altars and then forged into something new, something other.
He could not remember her name—refused to remember her name, even as the man on the throne questioned him about the incident.
Even if there was another scent entwined with hers. Staggeringly powerful and ancient and—male. Interesting.
Elide had long ago noted how quick she was to grin, and had marked the moments when Asterin thought no one was looking and gazed across the horizon, her face tight. Secrets—Asterin was a witch with secrets. And secrets made people deadly.
“Blue,” she whispered. “My blood runs blue.” “Good choice, witchling,” Manon said, and the word was a challenge and an order. She turned away, but glanced over her shoulder. “Welcome to the Blackbeaks.”
Rowan was the most powerful full-blooded Fae male alive. And his scent was all over her. Yet she had no gods-damned idea.
These things took time, he reminded himself. She was used to a lifetime of secrecy; learning to depend on him would take a bit of adjustment.
At least he couldn’t hate himself any more than he already did.
Aedion palmed his fighting knives as the male’s scent hit him—unwashed, but with a hint of pine and snow. And then he smelled
Aelin on the stranger, the scent complex and layered, woven into the male himself.
She mutely handed him her favorite lavender-scented soap, which he sniffed at, sighed in resignation, and then began using.
ok this hurts my feelings
“Yes, but—” He sighed. “You met his father. A few weeks ago. Gavriel.”
then a silken female voice breathed, “Shadowfire.”
But for a heartbeat she felt warm, sticky blue blood on her hands, felt the hilt of her knife imprinted against her palm as she gripped it hard and slashed it across the throat of that Crochan.
Two weapons—Kaltain, and whatever her grandmother was making.
Rowan gave a little grin that usually sent Aelin running. “Are you studying them so you can replicate them when you take my form, shape-shifter?”
“No. And what kills me is that I can’t remember what my real face was.
“Even before I knew who you were, Aelin, I knew that what you were working toward … It was worth it.” “What is?” Her throat tightened. “A world where people like me don’t have to hide.”
Rowan shook his head. “I don’t know whether to throttle you or clap you on the back.”
She opened her fist of pebbles and picked out the three loveliest—two for the years since he’d been taken from her, one for what they’d been together.
“I miss you,” she said. “Every day, I miss you. And I wonder what you would have made of all this. Made of me. I think—I think you would have been a wonderful king. I think they would have liked you more than me, actually.” Her throat tightened. “I never told you—how I felt. But I loved you, and I think a part of me might always love you. Maybe you were my mate, and I never knew it. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering about that. Maybe I’ll see you again in the Afterworld, and then I’ll know for sure. But until then … until then I’ll miss you, and I’ll wish you were here.”
“I know who he was to you,” Rowan said softly, and held out his hand. Not to take hers, but for a stone.
Asterin whirled toward the Second, and something like hurt flashed across her face. Manon blinked. Those feelings …
The Wing Leader said from behind her, “Do you believe monsters are born, or made?” From what she’d seen today, she would say some creatures were very much born evil. But what Manon was asking … “I’m not the one who needs to answer that question,” Elide said.
“You said you wanted to see me in this dress,” she said a bit hoarsely. “I hadn’t realized the effect would be so …” He shook his head. He took in her face, her hair, the combs. “You look like—” “A queen?” “The fire-breathing bitch-queen those bastards claim you are.”
“You can call me Rowan. That’s all you need to know.” He cocked his head to the side, a predator assessing prey. “Thank you for the oil,” he added. “My skin was a little dry.”
So I picked the Valg commander who seemed to have the least amount of control over the human’s body, out of hope that the man might be in there, wishing for redemption in some form.” Redemption for what the demon had made him do, hoping to die knowing he’d done one good thing.
For Wesley. For Sam. For Aelin. And for herself. For the child she’d been, for the seventeen-year-old on her Bidding night, for the woman she’d become, her heart in shreds, her invisible wound still bleeding. It was so very easy to sit up and slice the knife across Arobynn’s throat.
