Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

“I would sooner die tomorrow than live for a thousand years with a coward’s shame.”

“My father’s power is failing. He is close—decades now—from the fading. Mala’s light dims inside him with every passing day. He cannot stand against Erawan and win.” Her father’s last words before she’d set out on this doomed quest months ago: My sun is setting, Elena. You must find a way to ensure yours still rises.

But perhaps, when that third movement comes … perhaps the players in our unfinished game will be different. Perhaps it will be a future in which Fae and humans fight side by side, ripe with power. Maybe they will find a way to end this. So we will lose this battle, Gavin,” she said. “Our friends will die on that killing field come dawn, and we will use it as our distraction to contain Erawan so that Erilea might have a future.” His lips tightened, his sapphire eyes wide. “No one must know,” she said, her voice breaking. “Even if we succeed, no one must know what we do.”

Elena sent up a final prayer on a pillar of smoke rising from the valley floor that the unborn, faraway scions of this night, heirs to a burden that would doom or save Erilea, would forgive her for what she was about to do.

those final moments in Morath: the guards who had tried to drag her to be implanted with Valg offspring, the Wing Leader’s complete massacre of them, and Kaltain Rompier’s final act—carving the strange, dark stone from where it had been sewn into her arm and ordering Elide to take it to Celaena Sardothien. Right before Kaltain turned Morath into a smoldering ruin.

Her heart strained, and she pulled back to lift a hand to his face. Rowan read the softness in her eyes, her body, and his own inherent fierceness slipped into a gentleness that so few would ever see. Her throat ached with the effort of keeping the words in. She’d been in love with him for a while now. Longer than she wanted to admit.

Her family—and her kingdom. Two dreams long believed lost, she realized as the northern wind ruffled her hair. That she would do anything—ruin herself, sell herself—to protect. Aelin was about to head for the camp to spare Evangeline from Rowan’s cooking when she noticed the object atop the boulder across the stream. She cleared the stream in one bound and carefully studied what the faerie had left. Fashioned with twigs, cobwebs, and fish scales, the tiny wyvern was unnervingly accurate, its wings spread wide and thorn-fanged mouth roaring. Aelin left the wyvern where it was, but her eyes shifted southward, toward the ancient flow of Oakwald, and Morath looming far beyond it. To Erawan reborn, waiting for her with his host of Ironteeth witches and Valg foot soldiers. And Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen, knew the time would soon come to prove just how much she’d bleed for Erilea.

“How convenient, Wing Leader, that you complain about the duke’s breeding experiments—only for the Yellowlegs to be incinerated days later.” Good riddance, Manon almost said. Despite the covens lost in the blast, good rutting riddance that the breeding of those Yellowlegs-Valg witchlings had stopped. But Manon felt, rather than saw or heard, her Thirteen’s attention fix on her grandmother’s back.

And perhaps something like fear went through Manon. At the Matron’s accusation—and the line her Thirteen were drawing. Had drawn for some time now. Defiance. That’s what it had been these past months. If the High Witch learned of it, she’d tie Manon to a post and whip her back until her skin was hanging in strips. She’d make the Thirteen watch, to prove their powerlessness to defend their heir, and then give them the same treatment. Perhaps chucking salted water on them when she was done. Then do it again, day after day.

And a golden-haired man, his skin pale as ivory. No sign of the duke. The stranger twisted toward them. Even her grandmother gave pause. Not at the man’s beauty, not at the strength in his sculpted body or the fine black clothes he wore. But at those gold eyes. Twin to Manon’s. The eyes of the Valg kings.

“My enemies know who I am. My allies might as well, too.” Vernon bowed his head and murmured, “My Lord Erawan, if it would please you, allow me to fetch the Matron refreshments. Her journey has been long.”

No darkness, no corruption leaked from him—as if he were powerful enough to keep it contained, unnoticed, save for those eyes. Her eyes.

“Bellhaven remains under my control—its lords and merchants love their gold too much. Melisande …” The demon king’s golden eyes fixed on the western country across the mountains. “Eyllwe lies shattered beneath her, Fenharrow in barren shambles to the east. It remains in Melisande’s best interest to continue allying her forces with my own, especially when Terrasen hasn’t a copper to its name.” The king’s stare roamed northward. “Aelin Galathynius will have reached her seat by now. And when Rifthold is gone, she will also find how very alone she is in the North. Brannon’s heir has no allies on this continent. Not anymore.” But Manon noted the way the demon king’s eyes darted to Eyllwe—just for a flicker.

“He was one of the three Valg kings who invaded this world at the dawn of time. The other two were either killed or sent back to their dark world. He was stranded here, with a small army. He fled to this continent after Maeve and Brannon squashed his forces, and spent a thousand years rebuilding his numbers in secret, deep beyond the White Fangs. When he was ready, when he noticed that King Brannon’s flame was dimming, Erawan launched his attack to claim this continent. Legend has it that he was defeated by Brannon’s own daughter and her human mate.”

The other old man, though … while wrinkled, his face was strong—hard. Without amusement or joy or warmth. A man used to getting his way, to being obeyed without question. His body was thin and wiry, but his spine was still straight. Not a warrior of the sword, but of the mind. Her great-uncle, Orlon, had been both. And kind—she’d never heard a stern or raging word from Orlon. This man, though … Aelin held Darrow’s gray-eyed gaze, predator recognizing predator.

“Lysandra,” Aedion answered, unbuckling his shield and setting it on the floor behind them with a heavy thunk. “Lady of Caraverre.” “There is no Caraverre,” Darrow said. Aelin shrugged. “There is now.” Lysandra had settled on the name a week ago, whatever it meant, bolting upright in the middle of the night and practically shouting it at Aelin once she’d mastered herself long enough to shift back into her human form.

Rowan leaned back in his chair with a faint smile—and it was a horrifying, terrible thing. “I have known many princesses with kingdoms to inherit, Lord Darrow, and I can tell you that absolutely none of them were ever stupid enough to allow a male to manipulate them that way, least of all my queen. But if I were going to scheme my way onto a throne, I’d pick a far more peaceful and prosperous kingdom.” He shrugged. “But I do not think my brother and sister in this room would allow me to live for very long if they suspected I meant their queen ill—or their kingdom.” Aedion gave a grim nod, but beside him, Lysandra straightened—not in anger or surprise, but pride. It broke Aelin’s heart as much as it lightened it.

“I will tell my people,” Aelin said quietly but not weakly, “the entire truth. I will show them the scars on my back from Endovier, the scars on my body from my years as Celaena Sardothien, and I will tell them that the new King of Adarlan is not a monster. I will tell them that we have one enemy: the bastard down in Morath. And Dorian Havilliard is the only chance for survival—and future peace between our two kingdoms.”

“I do not recognize your right to rule; I do not recognize you as the rightful Queen of Terrasen. Neither do the Lords Sloane, Ironwood, and Gunnar, who make up the remaining surviving majority of what was once your uncle’s court. Even if the Allsbrook family sides with you, that is still one vote against four. General Ashryver has no lands or title here—and no say as a result. As for Lady Lysandra, Caraverre is not a recognized territory, nor do we recognize her lineage or your purchase of those lands.” Formal words, for a formal declaration. “Should you return to Orynth and seize your throne without our invitation, it will be considered an act of war and treason.” Darrow pulled a piece of paper from his jacket—lots of fancy writing and four different signatures on the bottom. “As of this moment, until it is otherwise decided, you shall remain a princess by blood—but not queen.”

But Aelin looked to Ren, his face tight. And over the roaring in her head, she said, “Whether or not you vote in my favor, there is a spot for you in this court. For what you helped Aedion and the captain do. For Nehemia.” Nehemia, who had worked with Ren, fought with him. Something like pain rippled in Ren’s eyes, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Darrow cut him off. “What a waste of a life that was,” Darrow spat. “A princess actually dedicated to her people, who fought until her last breath for—”

“Rifthold,” he panted as he skidded to a stop, flinging rain on them. “One of the scouts from the Ferian Gap just raced past. The Ironteeth host flies for Rifthold. They mean to sack the city.”

The Ironteeth host lingering in the Ferian Gap were now flying for Rifthold. Dorian Havilliard would be their target. Dead or alive. They’d be upon the city by nightfall tomorrow, and once Rifthold was taken … Erawan’s net across the middle of the continent would be complete. No forces from Melisande, Fenharrow, or Eyllwe could reach them—and none of Terrasen’s forces could get to them, either. Not without wasting months to trek around the mountains.

Aelin said to Aedion, “If Ren is to be trusted, you tell him to get to the Bane, and to be ready to march and press from the North. If we are not to lead them, then they will have to work around Darrow’s orders as best they can.” Aedion’s brows rose. “What are you thinking?” Aelin jerked her chin at Rowan. “Get a boat and travel south with Dorian. Land is too risky, but your winds on the seas can get you there in a few days. To Skull’s Bay.” “Shit,” Aedion breathed. But Aelin pointed with a thumb over a shoulder to Ren and Murtaugh as she said to her cousin, “You told me that they were in communication with Captain Rolfe. Get one of them to write a letter of recommendation for us. Right now.”

Aedion finished for her, “Then we’d have a small fleet that could unite North and South—brave the blockades.” And it was a good thing she’d taken all that gold from Arobynn to pay for it. “Skull’s Bay might be the only safe place for us to hide— to contact the other kingdoms.” She didn’t dare tell them that Rolfe might have far more than a fleet of blockade runners to offer them, if she played it right. She said to Rowan, “Wait for us there. We’ll strike out for the coast tonight, and sail to the Dead Islands. We’ll be two weeks behind you.”

“Come back to me.” The thought of what awaited him down in Rifthold struck her again. Gods—oh, gods. If anything happened to him … He brushed a knuckle down her wet cheek, tracing her mouth with his thumb. She put a hand on his muscled chest, right where those two vials of poison were now hidden. For a heartbeat, she debated turning the deadly liquid within into steam.

“I promise you that no matter how far I go, no matter the cost, when you call for my aid, I will come. I promise you on my blood, on my family’s name, that I will not turn my back on Terrasen as you have turned your back on me. I promise you, Darrow, that when the day comes and you crawl for my help, I will put my kingdom before my pride and not kill you for this. I think the true punishment will be seeing me on the throne for the rest of your miserable life.”

The Little Folk had known about the wyvern attack this morning. So she’d supposed that this little effigy, already falling apart under the torrent of rain, was another message of sorts. One just for her. Brannon’s temple on the coast had been rendered carefully—a clever little contraption of twigs and rocks to form the pillars and altar … And on the sacred rock in its center, they’d created a white stag from raw sheep’s wool, his mighty antlers no more than curling thorns. An order—where to go, what she needed to obtain. She was willing to listen, play along. Even if it had meant telling the others only half the truth. Aelin broke apart the temple reconstruction but left the stag in her palm, the wool deflating in the rain. Horses nickered as Aedion and Lysandra hauled them closer, but Aelin felt him a heartbeat before he emerged between the distant, night-veiled trees. Too far in the wood to be anything but a ghost, a figment of an ancient god’s dream. Barely breathing, she watched him for as long as she dared, and when Aelin mounted her horse, she wondered if her companions could tell that it was not rain gleaming on her face as she tugged on her black hood. Wondered if they, too, had spied the Lord of the North standing watch deep in the forest, the white stag’s immortal glow muted in the rain, come to bid Aelin Galathynius farewell.

He had always known he would one day be king. He had not expected to inherit a shattered throne and vacant stronghold.

Dorian panted as he stared down at her and breathed, “Hello, witchling.” Some ancient, predatory part of her awoke at the half smile. It sat up, cocking its ears toward him. Not a whiff of fear. Interesting. Manon purred back, “Hello, princeling.”

“Perrington is not as he seems. He is a demon in a mortal body, and has shed his former skin to don a new one. A golden-haired man. He breeds evil in Morath that he plans to unleash any day now. This is a taste.” She flicked an iron-tipped hand to the destruction around them. “A way to break your spirits and win favor from other kingdoms by casting you as the enemy. Rally your forces before he is given a chance to grow his numbers to an unconquerable size. He means to take not just this continent, but the whole of Erilea.” “Why would his crowned rider tell me this?” “My reasons are none of your concern. Flee.” Again, that mighty wind blasted the castle, shoving back any approaching forces, setting the stones groaning. A wind that smelled of pine and snow—a familiar, strange scent. Ancient and clever and cruel. “You killed that witch.” Indeed, the sentinel’s blood freckled the stones. It coated Wind-Cleaver and her discarded helmet. Witch Killer. Manon shoved the thought away, along with his implied question. “You owe me a life debt, King of Adarlan. Prepare yourself for the day I come to claim it.” His sensuous mouth tightened. “Fight with us. Now—fight with us now against him.”

She yanked him off the wall and shoved him into the stairwell. His legs buckled, and he braced a tan hand against the ancient stone wall as he shot her a glare over a broad shoulder. A glare. “Do you not know death when you see it?” she hissed, low and vicious. “I have seen death, and worse,” he said, those sapphire eyes frozen as he surveyed her from head to armored boot-tip and back again. “The death you’d offer is kind compared to that.” It struck something in her, but the king was already limping down the stairs, a hand braced on the wall. Moving so damn slowly while that poison worked its way out of him, his magic surely battling with everything it had to keep him on this side of life. The door at the base of the tower shattered. Dorian halted at the four Yellowlegs sentinels who rushed in, snarling up the hollow center of the tower. The witches paused, blinking at their Wing Leader. Wind-Cleaver twitched in her hand. Kill him—kill him now, before they could spread the word that she’d been spotted with him … Shit, shit, shit. Manon didn’t have to decide. In a whirlwind of steel, the Yellowlegs died before they could turn toward the warrior who exploded through the doorway. Silver hair, tattooed face and neck, and slightly pointed ears. The source of that wind.

Dorian swore, staggering down a step, but the Fae warrior’s eyes were on her. Only lethal rage flickered there. The air in Manon’s throat choked away into nothing. A strangled sound came out of her, and she stumbled back, clawing at her throat as if she could carve an airway. But the male’s magic held firm. He’d kill her for what she’d tried to do to his queen. For the arrow Asterin had shot, meaning to strike the queen’s heart. An arrow he had jumped in front of. Manon crashed to her knees. The king was instantly at her side, studying her for a heartbeat before he roared down the stairs, “NO!” That was all it took. Air flooded her mouth, her lungs, and Manon gasped, back arching as she drank it in. Her kind had no magical shields against attacks like that. Only when most desperate, most enraged, could a witch summon the core of magic in her—with devastating consequences. Even the most bloodthirsty and soulless of them only whispered of that act: the Yielding. Dorian’s face swam in her watery vision. Manon still gasped for that fresh, lifesaving air as he said, “Find me when you change your mind, Blackbeak.” Then the king was gone.

“I wouldn’t trust her,” Rowan said after Dorian had finished, “but perhaps the gods will throw us a bone. Perhaps the Blackbeak heir will join our cause.”

He’d scented the despair on her, though her face had hidden it, when Darrow had spoken. And he knew her fiery soul: she would do it. Consider marriage to a foreign prince or lord. Even if this thing between them … even if he knew it was not mere lust, or even just love. This thing between them, the force of it, could devour the world. And if they picked it, picked them, it might very well cause the end of it. It was why he had not uttered the words he’d meant to tell her for some time, even when every instinct was roaring for him to do it as they parted. And maybe having Aelin only to lose her was his punishment for letting his mate die; his punishment for finally letting go of that grief and loathing.

The lap of waves was barely audible over the roar of wyverns and the innocents screaming for help that would never come. He shut out the ache in his chest, the urge to turn around. This was war. These lands would endure far worse in the coming days and months. His queen, no matter how he tried to shield her, would endure far worse. By the time the boat drifted down the little river snaking toward the Avery delta, a white-tailed hawk soaring high above it, the walls of the stone castle were bathed in blood.

But a warrior was crouched across the stream, a long, wicked knife balanced on his knee. His black eyes devoured her, his face harsh beneath equally dark, shoulder-length hair as he said in a voice like granite, “Unless you want to be lunch, girl, I suggest you come with me.” A small, ancient voice whispered in her ear that she’d at last found her relentless hunter. And they’d now both become someone else’s prey.

Human—the cinnamon-and-elderberries scent of her was utterly human—and yet that other smell remained, that tinge of darkness fluttering about her like a hummingbird’s wings. He might have suspected she’d summoned the beasts were it not for the tang of fear staining the air. And for the fact that he’d been tracking her for three days now, letting her lose herself in the tangled labyrinth of Oakwald, and had found little to indicate she was under Valg thrall.

A chill wind edged in black mist danced between the fingers of his other hand. Not wind like Whitethorn’s, and not light and flame like Whitethorn’s bitch-queen. Not even raw magic like the new King of Adarlan. No, Lorcan’s magic was that of will—of death and thought and destruction. There was no name for it. Not even his queen had known what it was, where it had come from. A gift from the dark god, from Hellas, Maeve had mused—a dark gift, for her dark warrior. And left it at that. A wild smile danced on Lorcan’s lips as he let his magic rise to the surface, let its black roar fill his veins. He had crumbled cities with this power.

Maybe he should have killed the girl. Death at his hand would be a mercy compared to what snarled before him, crouching low on massive, flesh-shredding claws. Not a Wyrdhound. No, these things were far worse. Their skin was a mottled blue, so dark as to be almost black. Each long, lightly muscled limb had been ruthlessly crafted and honed. For the long claws at the end of their hands—five-fingered hands—now curled as if in anticipation of a strike. But it was not their bodies that stunned him. It was the way the creatures halted, smiling beneath their smashed in, bat-like noses to reveal double rows of needlelike teeth, and then stood on their hind legs. Stood to their full height, as a crawling man might rise. They dwarfed him by a foot at least.

And as for Athril’s golden ring … Lorcan had no doubt Erawan would destroy the ring forged by Mala herself—the one object in Erilea that granted immunity to its bearer against Wyrdstone … and the Valg.

“We are hunters for His Dark Majesty,” the leader said with a mock bow. “We are the ilken. And we have been sent to retrieve our quarry.” Those witches had dispatched these beasts for him? Cowards, not to do their own hunting. The ilken went on, stepping toward him on legs that bent backward. “We were going to let you have a quick death—a gift.” Its broad nostrils flared, scenting the silent forest. “But as you have stood between us and our prey … we will savor your long end.” Not him. He was not what the wyverns had been stalking these days, what these creatures had come to claim. They had no idea what he bore—who he was.

“She is important to our king. Retrieve her, and he will fill you with power far greater than feeble shields.” Was that the price for the humans they’d once been—magic that was somehow immune to what flowed naturally in this world? Or had the choice been taken from them, as surely as their souls had been stolen, too? “Why is she important?” They were now within spitting range. He wondered how long it’d take to replenish the supply of whatever power allowed them to cleave through magic. Perhaps they were buying themselves time, too. The ilken said, “She is a thief and a murderer. She must be brought to our king for justice.” Lorcan could have sworn an invisible hand touched his shoulder. He knew that touch—had trusted it his entire life. It had kept him alive this long. A touch on his back to go forward, to fight and kill and breathe in death. A touch on his shoulder to instead run. To know that only doom waited ahead, and life lay behind. The ilken smiled once more, its teeth bright in the gloom of the wood. As if in answer, a scream shattered from the forest behind him.

What would Manon do before such a creature? Manon, she remembered, came equipped with claws and fangs of her own. But a small voice whispered in her ear, So do you. Use what you have. There were other weapons than those made of iron and steel.

He had not asked why she’d been brought to Morath. He didn’t particularly care to hear her sad story. Everyone had one, he’d found.

The girl’s face tightened. “I owe a debt to a friend—someone who helped me get out of Morath. She bade me to find someone named Celaena Sardothien. So that is my first task: learning who she is, where she is. Terrasen seems like a better place to start than Adarlan.” No guile, no whisper of this meeting being anything but chance. “And then,” the girl went on, the brightness in her eyes growing, “I need to find Aelin Galathynius, the Queen of Terrasen.” It was an effort not to go for his sword. “Why?” Marion glanced toward him, as if she’d somehow even forgotten he was there. “I heard a rumor that she’s raising an army to stop the one in Morath. I plan to offer my services.” “Why?” he said again. Aside from the wits that had kept her out of the ilken’s claws, he saw no other reason for the bitch-queen to need the girl. Marion’s full mouth tightened. “Because I am from Terrasen and believed my queen dead. And now she is alive, and fighting, so I will fight with her. So that no other girls will be taken from their homes and brought to Morath and forgotten.” Lorcan debated telling her what he knew: that her two quests were one and the same. But that would lead to questions from her, and he was in no mood—

“Why travel with me at all?” “There are more details regarding Morath’s interior that I want from you. I’ll keep you from danger, and you’ll provide them for me.” The sun began its final descent, bathing the woods in gold. Marion frowned slightly. “You swear it? That you will protect me?” “I didn’t leave you to the ilken today, did I?” She eyed him with a clarity and frankness that made him pause. “Swear it.” He rolled his eyes. “I promise.” The girl had no idea that for the past five centuries, promises were the only currency he really traded in. “I will not abandon you.” She nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. “Then I will tell you what I know.”

“But you, Wing Leader …” That smile grew and she reined her wyvern, preparing to take to the skies. “You are a liar, Witch Killer.”

Manon said to her Second and Third, “This will be messy.” Sorrel said quietly, “We’ll deal with it.” Manon clenched the helmet a bit harder. “If it goes poorly, you are to take the Thirteen and leave.” Asterin breathed, “You cannot go in there, Manon, accepting defeat. Deny it until your last breath.” Whether Sorrel had realized Manon had killed that witch to save their enemy, she didn’t let on. Asterin demanded, “Where would we even go?” Manon said, “I don’t know or care. But when I am dead, the Thirteen will be targeted by anyone with a score to settle.” A very, very long list. She held her Second’s stare. “You get them out. At any cost.”

But there was a hollowness in Petrah’s face that had not been there months ago. Rumor had claimed that losing her wyvern had broken the heir—that she had not gotten out of bed for weeks. Witches did not mourn, because witches did not love enough to allow it to break them. Even if Asterin, now taking up her place by the Blackbeak Matron’s Second, had proved otherwise.

Her grandmother’s black-and-gold gaze was hard. Unforgiving. “Petrah Blueblood has spoken true.” That tense, tight string between Manon and Asterin loosened, too. “It would be a waste to lose our obedient, faithful Wing Leader.”