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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.”
“He was—” “I know who he was to you,” Rowan said softly, and held out his hand. Not to take hers, but for a stone.
She opened her fist, and he sorted through the pebbles until he found one—smooth and round, the size of a hummingbird’s egg. With a gentleness that cracked her heart, he set it on the headstone beside her own pebbles.
“The thing that opened the door was a beautiful man—a man with golden hair and a collar around his neck. But he was not a man. There was nothing human in his eyes.” One of the princes—it had to be.
Roland
When he saw me on the ground, he smiled at me—and this darkness leaked out of him …”
“You said they were to be … implanted.” “Yes,” Manon said. “Did you know how many times?”
“From what I saw, they’ve delivered at least one baby each. And are already about to give birth to another.”
“They are not witchlings. They are not babies,” Elide spat, covering her face with her hands as if to rip out her eyes. “They are creatures. They are demons. Their skin is like black diamond, and they—they have these snouts, with teeth. Fangs. Already, they have fangs. And not like yours.” She lowered her hands. “They have teeth of black stone. There is nothing of you in them.”
“They have them chained to tables. Altars. And they were sobbing. They were begging the man to let them go. But they’re … they’re so close to giving birth.
“My kingdom was conquered by the King of Adarlan, and everyone I loved was executed. My father’s lands and my title were stolen from me by my uncle, and my best chance of safety now lies in sailing to the other end of the world. I understand what it is like to wish—to hope.”
“It is hope for your homeland that guides you, that makes you obey.”
“Ten years ago, my parents were murdered. My father was executed on a butchering block in front of thousands. But my mother … My mother died defending Aelin Galathynius, the heir to the throne of Terrasen. She bought Aelin time to run. They followed Aelin’s tracks to the frozen river, where they said she must have fallen in and drowned. “But you see, Aelin had fire magic. She could have survived the cold. And Aelin … Aelin never really liked me or played with me because I was so shy, but … I never believed them when they said she was dead. Every day since then, I’ve told myself that she got
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“Even though … even though she never came, even though I’m here now, I can’t let go of that. And I think that is why you obey. Because you have been hoping every day of your miserable, hideous life that you’ll get to go home.”
“If this Aelin Galathynius were indeed alive, would you try to run to her? Fight with her?” “I would fight with tooth and claw to get to her. But there are lines I would not cross. Because I don’t think I could face her if … if I couldn’t face myself for what I’d done.”
“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.
Rowan turned to her. He went completely and utterly still as he took in the dress.
The black velvet hugged every curve and hollow before pooling at her feet, revealing each too-shallow breath as Rowan’s eyes grazed over her body. Down, then up—to the hair she’d swept back with golden bat-wing-shaped combs that rose above either side of her head like a primal headdress; to the face she’d kept mostly clean, save for a sweep of kohl along her upper eyelid and the deep red lips she’d painstakingly colored.
Slowly, his gaze lifted to hers. And she could have sworn that hunger—ravenous hunger—flickered there.
“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.”
“I’d say likewise, but I think you’d enjoy seeing men bursting into flames as you strutted by.”
“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.”
He never specified that only you had to wear it.
What? he seemed to ask. You just … She shook her head again. Surprise me sometimes. Good. I’d hate for you to get bored.
“Shouldn’t I be concerned about who my protégée is living with?” “You weren’t concerned about who I was living with when you had me shipped off to Endovier.”
You really threw a dagger at her head?
was a tad hotheaded. I’m beginning to admire Lysandra more and more. Seventeen-year-old Aelin must have been a delight to deal with.
I would pay good money to see seventeen-year-old Aelin meet seventeen-year-old Rowan.
Seventeen-year-old Rowan wouldn’t have known what to do with you. He could barely speak to females outside his family. Liar...
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It’s true. You would have scandalized him with your nightclothes—even with that dress you have on. She sucked on her teeth. He would probably have been even more scandalized to learn I’m not wearing any undergarments beneath ...
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You can’t be serious, Rowan seemed to say. Did you see any place where this dress might hide them? Every line and wrinkle would show.
Do you delight in shocking me? She couldn’t stop her smile. How else am I supposed to keep a cranky immortal entertained?
“You mean to tell me that when you wrecked the Vaults beyond repair, it wasn’t a move against my investment in that property—and my monthly cut of their profits? Don’t pretend it was just vengeance for Sam.”
“And I suppose it was an accident that the lockbox was hacked open so its contents could be snatched up by the crowd.”
“You deliberately disguised yourself as Hinsol Cormac, one of my most loyal clients and investors, when you freed your cousin,” Arobynn snapped. Aedion’s eyes widened slightly. “I could dismiss it as coincidence, except a witness says he called out Cormac’s name at the prince’s party, and Cormac waved to him. The witness told the king that, too—that he saw Cormac heading toward Aedion right before the explosions happened. And what a coincidence that the very day Aedion disappeared, two carriages, belonging to a business that Cormac and I own together, went missing—carriages Cormac then told
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You wicked, clever fox. And here you were, thinking the red hair was just for vanity. I shall never doubt again.
“I am what I am. But it doesn’t erase the fact that you knew very well who I was when you found me. You took my family necklace off me, and told me that anyone who came looking for me would wind up killed by my enemies.”
Lies and truth, as he’d always taught her.
The amulet was exactly as she remembered it. It had been with a child’s hands that she’d last held it, and with a child’s eyes that she’d last seen the cerulean blue front with the ivory stag and the golden star between its antlers. The immortal stag of Mala Fire-Bringer, brought over to these lands by Brannon himself and set free in Oakwald Forest. The amulet glinted in Arobynn’s hands as he removed it from his neck. The third and final Wyrdkey.
It had made her ancestors mighty queens and kings; had made Terrasen untouchable, a powerhouse so lethal no force had ever breached its borders. Until she’d fallen into the Florine River that night—until this man had removed the amulet from around her neck, and a conquering army had swept through.
Arobynn had risen from being a local lord of assassins to crown himself this continent’s unrivaled king of their Guild. Perhaps his power and influence derived solely from the neck...
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Not right, her blood sang, her bones groaned. Not right, not right, not right.
How Arobynn hadn’t felt it, noticed it … Unless you needed magic in your veins to feel it. Unless it never … called to him as it did to her now, its raw power brushing up against her senses like a cat rubbing along her legs. How had her mother, her father—any of them—never felt it?
It was an effort to lift a brow as he came close enough to kiss her, embrace her. But he just took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her palm. “I’m going to enjoy having you back,” he purred. Then, faster than she could react, he slid the Wyrdstone ring onto her finger.
had to know.” “Know what? That Arobynn is a monster?” “That there was no redeeming him. I knew, but … It was his final test. To show his hand.”
“In the past, people must have assumed that feeling came from the magic of whoever was wearing it,” she said. “With my mother, with Brannon … it would never have been noticed.”
“And your father and uncle? They had little to no magic, you said.” The ivory stag seemed to stare at her, the immortal star between its horns flickering like molten gold. “But they had presence. What better place to hide this thing than around the neck of a swaggering royal?”
There, exactly as she’d remembered, were carved three Wyrdmarks.
“That one,” Rowan said, pointing to the first one. “I’ve seen that one. It burned on your brow that day.” “Brannon’s mark,” she breathed. “The mark of the bastard-born—the nameless.”
There was a loose floorboard in her closet under which she stashed money, weapons, and jewelry.
She had picked up the amulet to drop it into the little space when a thread tugged inside her—no, not a thread, but … a wind, as if some force barreled from Rowan into her, as if their bond were a living thing, and she could feel what it was to be him—
