Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

Lorcan was before her, no more than a lethal shadow himself. Even the sun seemed to avoid the broad planes of his tan face, though the wind dared ruffle the silken black strands of his hair across it.

“Marion,” he growled. That name. She looked up at his harsh, wild face—a face born in a different age, a different world. “Take your hand off me.” Lorcan, to her surprise, did so immediately.

“I am nothing,” she said, voice hollow. Maybe once she found Aelin and Aedion, she’d find some purpose, some way to be of use to the world. For now, she was a messenger, a courier of this stone—to Celaena Sardothien. However Elide might find one person in such an endless, vast world. She had to get north—and quickly.

“Celaena Sardothien is in the queen’s service,” he said. “Your two paths are one. Find one and you’ll find the other.”

Would this be her life, then? Wretched people, always looking out for themselves, every kindness coming at a cost? Would her own queen at least gaze at her with warmth in her eyes? Would Aelin even remember her?

Her mother’s name. Her mother—and her father. The last people who had looked at her with true affection. Even Finnula, all those years locked in that tower, had always watched her with some mixture of pity and fear.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been held. Or comforted. Or smiled at with any genuine love for who she was.

Manon had come for her, she reminded herself with each step. Manon, and Asterin, and Sorrel. But even they had left her alone in the woods.

Pity, she reminded herself—self-pity would do her no good.

But even when she arrived, handed over her burden, and found Aelin … what could she offer? She couldn’t even read, gods above. The mere thought...

She’d wash the queen’s clothes if she had to. At least she didn’t need to...

Lorcan had trained enough warriors to know when not to push. He’d tortured enough enemies to know when they were one slice or snap away from breaking in ways that would make them useless.

Marion, when her scent had changed, when he’d felt even the strange, otherworldly power hidden in her blood shift to sorrow … worse, to hopelessness …

He’d wanted to tell her not to bother wit...

Perhaps hope, foolish as it was, had gotten her out of Morath. At least her cleve...

He’d dealt with enough people, killed and bedded and fought alongside enough people, to know Marion wasn’t wicked, or conniving, or wholly selfish. He wished she was, because i...

Creature comforts—to get her to trust him, be grateful to him, to want to help him. To ease that dangerous brittleness.

“You are very young,” he said carefully. “And I am very old.” “How old?” She’d never asked. “Old.”

A test—not driven by any desire or logic, but … to see if he’d listen to her. Who was in control. Get her a bath, do as she asked … Let her get a sense of control over the situation.

He was curious; he wanted to know how and when and why. Marion was beautiful—surely marring her like that had been done with some ill intent. Or to prevent something worse.

Marion and the queen were about the same age—one dark, one golden.

Gods-damned Whitethorn had been his most effective general, assassin, and executioner for centuries. They had laid waste to kingdoms and then drunk and bedded themselves into stupors in the following days-long celebrations on the ruins.

Lorcan had known, as he’d pinned Rowan into the grass outside Mistward, the prince thrashing and screaming for Aelin Galathynius, that everything was about to change. Knew that the commander he’d valued was altered irrevocably. No longer would they glut themselves on wine and women; no longer would Rowan gaze toward a horizon without some glimmer of longing in his eyes.

Love had broken a perfect killing tool. Lorcan wondered if it would take him centuries more to stop being so pissed about it.

But she’d chosen Rowan. A prince with no crown, no army, no allies. They deserved to perish together.

Her skin was so pale. He’d never seen such white unmarred skin. As if she’d never been let outside.

Marion either didn’t notice the surge of his dark power, the magic kissed by Death himself, or didn’t care.

“His name is Vernon, and he is clever and cruel, and he will likely try to keep you alive if you are caught. He wields people to gain power for himself. He has no mercy, no soul. There is no moral code that guides him.”

Lorcan said quietly, “Would you like me to kill him for you?” Her limpid, dark eyes rose to his face. And for a moment, he could see the woman she’d become—was already becoming. Someone who, regardless of where she’d been born, any queen would prize at her side.

Lorcan hid his smile. Smart, cunning little witch.

“I was only in the dungeon for a week. The ankle, the chain … He did that to me long before.” “What chain.”

But now that he looked … he could make out, among the mass of scars, a white band. And there, around her perfect, lovely other ankle, was its twin. A wind laced with the dust and coldness of a tomb gnawed through the field. Marion merely said, “When you kill my uncle, ask him yourself.”

She knew enough about it—the transition pureblooded Fae, and some demi-Fae, went through once their bodies locked into immortal youth. It was a rough process, their bodies and magic needing months to adjust to the sudden freezing and reordering of their aging process. Some Fae had no control over their power—some lost it entirely during the time it took to Settle.

And demi-Fae … some might be longer-lived, some might have the true immortal gift given to them. Like Lorcan. And possibly Aedion. They’d find out in the next few years if he’d take after his mother … or the male sitting across the room from her. If they survived the war.

“Fenrys was the one who … volunteered to train you when Maeve told us you’d come to Wendlyn.”

“You two would have stayed on that rooftop in Varese and drunk yourselves to death,” Rowan said. “And as for training … You’re alive today because of that training, boyo.”

Fenrys rolled his eyes. Younger, she realized. Still old by human standards, but Fenrys was and felt younger. Wilder.

“How does she do it?” Aelin asked baldly. “With Rowan, it’s not … Every order I give him, even casual ones, are his to decide what to do with. Only when I actively pull on the bond can I get him to … yield. And even then it’s more of a suggestion.”

“It is different with her,” Gavriel said softly. “Dependent on the ruler it is sworn to. You two took the oath to each other with love in your hearts. You had no desire to own or rule him.”

Aelin tried not to flinch at the truth of that word—love. That day … when Rowan had looked into her eyes as he drank her blood … she’d started to realize what it was. That the feeling that passed between them, so powerful there was no language to describe it … It ...

“Maeve,” Fenrys added, “offers it with those things in mind. And so the bond itself is born of obedience to her—no matter what. She orders, we submit. For whatever she wishes.” Shadows danced in those eyes, and Aelin’s fingers curled into fists. That Maeve felt the need to force any of them into her bed … Rowan had told her their familial bloodline, while...

“So you couldn’t break it on your own.” “Never—if we did so, the magic that binds us to her would kill us in the process,” Fenrys said. She ...

“They’re called firelances. Alchemists in the southern continent developed them for their own territory wars. More than that, we don’t know, but the device can be wielded by one man—to devastating effect.”

“We’re playing a game against two monarchs who have ruled and schemed longer than most kingdoms have existed.” And even for her, the odds of outsmarting and outmaneuvering them

“Even if Maeve had kept me enslaved, I would have fought her. Every day, every hour, every breath.” He kissed her softly and said onto her lips, “I would have fought for the rest of my life to find a way to return to you again. I knew it the moment you emerged from the Valg’s darkness and smiled at me through your flames.”

They could burn the entire world to ashes with it. He was hers and she was his, and they had found each other across centuries of bloodshed and loss, across oceans and kingdoms and war.

“Even when you’re in another kingdom, Aelin, your fire is still in my blood, my mouth.”

Aelin was the other side of his fair coin, but Gavriel was a murky reflection. The honed, broad features; the harsh mouth—that was where he’d gotten them from. The cropped golden hair was different; more sunshine to Aedion’s shoulder-length honey gold. And Aedion’s skin was Ashryver golden—not the sun-kissed, deep tan. Slowly, Gavriel stood. Aedion wondered if he’d also inherited that grace, the predatory stillness, the unreadable, intent face—or if they’d both been trained that way. The Lion incarnate.

“You look …,” Gavriel breathed, sinking into his chair. “You look so much like her.” Aedion knew Gavriel didn’t mean Aelin.

“Who, exactly, do you think you are?” She frowned at him. “Adarlan’s Whore? Is that what you still think of yourself? The general who held his kingdom together, who saved his people when they were forgotten even by their own queen—that’s the man I know.”