Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

by Sarah J. Maas

The khagan was a living myth. As much of a deity as the thirty-six gods who ruled over this city and empire. There were as many temples to those gods in Antica as there were tributes to the various khagans. More. They called it the god-city for them—and for the living god seated on the ivory throne atop that golden dais.

Atop his snowy head sat no crown. For gods among mortals did not need markers of their divine rule.

“She was young, guileless—she rode with me amongst the Darghan, our mother-clans. Had no sulde of her own yet.” At Chaol’s narrowed brows, the prince clarified, “It is a spear all Darghan warriors carry. We bind strands of our favored horse’s hair to the shaft, beneath the blade. Our ancestors believed that where those hairs waved in the wind, there our destinies waited. Some of us still believe in such things, but even those who think it mere tradition … we bring them everywhere. There is a courtyard in this palace where my sulde and those of my siblings are planted to feel the wind while we remain at our father’s palace, right beside his own. But in death …” Again, that shadow of grief. “In death, they are the only object that we keep. They bear the soul of a Darghan warrior for eternity, and are left planted atop a steppe in our sacred realm.” The prince closed his eyes. “Now her soul will roam with the wind.”

The magic helped. Glorious, lovely magic that could make her breathless or so tired she couldn’t get out of bed for days. Magic demanded a cost—to both healer and patient. But Yrene was willing to pay it. She had never minded the aftermath of a brutal healing. If it meant saving a life … Silba had granted her a gift—and a young stranger had given her another gift, that final night in Innish two years ago. Yrene had no plans to waste either.

Yet magic could not cure all things. Could not halt death, or bring someone back from it. She’d learned it again and again these past two years, and earlier.

Yet another clever thing the khaganate had done upon patching together the kingdoms and territories during their years of conquest: keep and adapt the gods of everyone. Including Silba, whose dominance over the healers had been established in these lands long ago. History was written by the victors, apparently. Or so Eretia, Yrene’s direct tutor, had once told her. Even the gods seemed no more immune to it than mere mortals.

was drained after a hard healing. Smoke from that fire those Adarlanian soldiers had built—and burned her mother upon. She still heard her mother’s screaming and felt the wood of that tree trunk dig beneath her nails as she’d hidden at the edge of Oakwald. As she watched them burn her mother alive. After her mother had killed that soldier to buy Yrene time to run. It had been ten years since then. Nearly eleven. And though she had crossed mountains and oceans … there were some days when Yrene felt as if she were still standing in Fenharrow, smelling that fire, splinters slicing under her nails, watching as the soldiers took their torches and burned her cottage, too. The cottage that had housed generations of Towers healers. Yrene supposed it was fitting, somehow, she’d wound up in a tower herself. With only the ring on her left hand as proof that once, for hundreds of years, there had existed a line of prodigally gifted female healers in the south of Fenharrow. A ring she now toyed with, that last shred of proof that her mother and mother’s mother and all the mothers before them had once lived and healed in peace. It was the first of only two objects Yrene would not sell—even before selling herself.

“It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. But I remembered. I remembered that oath I had taken, and remembered that they had asked me to heal him so that he would live—so that justice might be found for his victims. And their families.” She met Yrene’s eyes. “It was not my death to dole out.”

“So I am to heal this man—so he may find justice elsewhere?” “You do not know his story, Yrene. I suggest listening to it before contemplating such things.” Yrene shook her head. “There will be no justice for him—not if he served the old and new king. Not if he’s cunning enough to remain in power. I know how Adarlan works.”

Hafiza watched her for a long moment. “The day you walked into this room, so terribly thin and covered with the dust of a hundred roads … I had never sensed such a gift. I looked into those beautiful eyes of yours, and I nearly gasped at the uncut power in you.” Disappointment. It was disappointment on the Healer on High’s face, in her voice. “I thought to myself,” Hafiza went on, “Where has this young woman been hiding? What god reared you, guided you to my doorstep? Your dress was in tatters around your ankles, and yet you walked in, straight-backed as any noble lady. As if you were the heir to Kamala herself.” Until Yrene had dumped the money on the desk and fallen apart moments later. She doubted the very first Healer on High had ever done such a thing. “Even your family name: Towers. A hint at your foremothers’ long-ago association with the Torre, perhaps. I wondered in that moment if I had at last found my heir—my replacement.” Yrene felt the words like a blow to the gut. Hafiza had never so much as hinted … Stay, the Healer on High had offered. To not only continue the training, but to also take up the mantle now laid before her. But it had not been Yrene’s own ambition, to one day claim this room as her own. Not when her sights had always been set across the Narrow Sea. And even now … it was an honor beyond words, yes. But one that rang hollow. “I asked what you wanted to do with the knowledge I would give you,” Hafiza went on. “Do you remember what you said to me?...

A note, written by a stranger who had saved her life and granted her freedom in a matter of hours. Yrene had never learned her name, that young woman who had worn her scars like some ladies wore their finest jewelry. The young woman who was a trained killer, but had purchased a healer’s education. So many things, so many good things, had come from that night. Yrene sometimes wondered if it had actually happened—might have believed she’d dreamed it if not for the note in her pocket, and the second object Yrene had never sold, even when the gold had thinned. The ornate gold-and-ruby brooch, worth more than entire blocks of Antica. Adarlan’s colors. Yrene had never learned where the young woman had come from, who had bestowed the beating that had left lingering bruises on her pretty face, but she had spoken of Adarlan as Yrene did. As all the children who had lost everything to Adarlan did—those children with their kingdoms left in ash and blood and ruin. Yrene ran a thumb over the note, the words inked there: For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.

“Are you from the Torre Cesme?” Nesryn asked in Chaol’s own tongue. The healer only stared at him. Something like surprise and anger lighting those remarkable eyes. She slid a hand into the pocket of her gown, and he waited for her to withdraw something, but it remained there. As if she was grasping an object within. Not a doe ready to bolt, but a stag, weighing the options of fighting or fleeing, of standing its ground, lowering its head, and charging. Chaol held her gaze, cool and steady. He’d taken on plenty of young bucks during the years of being captain—had gotten them all to heel.

That surprise in the healer’s eyes turned wary. But she again gazed at him. She knew who he was. The look conveyed it—the analysis. She knew he’d once held that title, and now was something else. So the name, the age … the questions were bullshit. Or some bureaucratic nonsense. He doubted it was the latter. A woman from Fenharrow, meeting with two members from Adarlan’s court … It didn’t take much to read her. What she saw. Where that mark on her throat might have come from. “If you don’t want to be here,” Chaol said roughly, “then send someone else.”

But Nesryn straightened, then dashed out—to the sitting room. Rustling paper, and then— Nesryn halted in the doorway to his room, brows crossed, Yrene’s paper in her hands. She handed it to him. “What does this even mean?” There were four names written on the paper, her handwriting messy. Olgnia. Marte. Rosana. Josefin. It was the final name that had been written down several times. The final name that had been underlined, over and over. Josefin. Josefin. Josefin.

Chaol studied the paper again. The fervent underlining of that final name. As if Yrene had needed to remind herself while here. In his presence. As if she needed whoever they were to know that she remembered them. He had met another talented young healer from Fenharrow. His king had loved her enough to consider fleeing with her, to seek a better life for them. Chaol knew what had gone on in Fenharrow during their youth. Knew what Sorscha had endured there—and what she’d endured in Rifthold. He’d ridden through Fenharrow’s scarred grasslands over the years. Had seen the burned or abandoned stone cottages, their thatched roofs long since gone. Owners either enslaved, dead, or fled elsewhere. Far, far away. No, Chaol realized as he held that piece of paper, Yrene Towers would not be returning.

It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek. She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.

She wondered if the lord had noticed how often she’d grabbed that stranger’s note. If he’d thought she was reaching for a weapon. He’d seen everything, been aware of her every breath. A man trained for it. He had to be, if he’d served the dead king. Just as Nesryn Faliq, a child of this continent, now served the king of a territory that had not treated outsiders very well at all. Yrene could not make sense of it. There was some romantic bond, she knew from both the tension and comfort between them. But to what degree … It didn’t matter. Save for the emotional healing the lord would need as well. A man not used to voicing his feelings, his fears and hopes and hurts—that much was obvious.

“It was hard—hard to look at him, hear his accent, and …” She stilled her hand. “But you are right. I shall … try. If only so Adarlan may never hold it against me.” “Do you expect them to?” “He has powerful friends who might remember. His companion is the new Captain of the Guard. Her family hails from here, yet she serves them.” “And what does that tell you?” Always a lesson, always a test. “It tells me …” Yrene blew out a breath. “It tells me I don’t know as much as I assumed.” She straightened. “But it also doesn’t forgive them of any sins.” Yet she had met plenty of bad people in her life. Lived among them, served them, in Innish. She had taken one look at Lord Westfall’s brown eyes and had known, deep down, he was not one of them. Neither was his companion. And with his age … He had been a boy when so many of those atrocities had been committed. He still could have played some part, and plenty more had been done in recent years—enough to make her ill at the thought—but …

“The injury to his spine,” Yrene said. “He claims some foul magic did it.” Her magic had recoiled against the splattered mark. Curved away. “Oh?” She shivered. “I’ve never … I’ve never felt anything like that. As if it was rotted, yet empty. Cold as the longest winter night.”

They had made no promises, she reminded herself. She knew his tendencies drove him to want to do right by her, to honor her, and this summer, when that castle had collapsed and she’d thought him dead … She had never known such fear. She had never prayed as she had in those moments—until Aelin’s flame spared her from death, and Nesryn had prayed that she had spared him, too.

Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier. And somehow Chaol knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.

Yrene crossed her arms, distributing her weight evenly between her feet, just as she had been taught and now instructed others to do. A steady, defensive stance. Ready to take on anyone.

“Is it inside me?” That was fear—genuine fear in his eyes. Oh, he knew. Knew what manner of power had dealt this wound, what might be lurking within it. Knew enough about it to be afraid. If such a power existed in Adarlan … Yrene swallowed. “I think … I think it’s only—only the echo of something bigger. Like a tattoo or a brand. It is not living, and yet …” She flexed her fingers. If a mere probing of the darkness with her magic had triggered such a response, then a full-on onslaught …

“Captain Faliq and I are not the sort of people who would hold a grudge against you—try to punish you for it.” “You served a man who did such things.” And likely acted on his behalf. “Would you believe me if I told you that he left his dirty work to others beyond my command, and I was often not told?” Her expression told him enough. She reached for the doorknob. “I knew,” he said quietly. “That he had done and was doing unspeakable things. I knew that forces had tried to fight against him when I was a boy, and he had smashed them to bits. I—to become captain, I had to yield certain … privileges. Assets. I did so willingly, because my focus was on protecting the future. On Dorian. Even as boys, I knew he was not his father’s son. I knew a better future lay with him, if I could make sure Dorian lived long enough. If he not only lived, but also survived—emotionally. If he had an ally, a true friend, in that court of vipers. Neither of us was old enough, strong enough to challenge his father. We saw what happened to those who whispered of rebellion. I knew that if I, if he set one foot out of line, his father would kill him, heir or no. So I craved the stability, the safety of the status quo.” Yrene’s face had not altered, not softened or hardened. “What happened?” He reached for his shirt at last. Fitting, he thought, that he’d laid some part of himself bare while sitting here mostly naked. “We met someone. Who set us all down a path I fought against until it cost me and othe...

You must enter where you fear to tread.

I can’t. You won’t, the lovely darkness challenged.

“Why do you think I come home so often, sister, if not for the good food?” “To plot and scheme?” Hasar asked sweetly. Sartaq’s smile turned subdued. “If only I had time for such things.” A shadow seemed to pass over Sartaq’s face—and Chaol marked where the prince’s gaze drifted. The white banners still streamed from the windows set high in the walls of the hall, now caught in what was surely the heralding wind of a thunderstorm. A man who perhaps wished he’d possessed extra time for more vital parts of his life.

You wouldn’t owe me anything if you’d used some common sense. The young stranger had snapped that at her that fateful night—after she’d saved Yrene’s life. The words had lingered, biting deep.

her shoulders back and head high. Just as the girl had told her. Look like you’d put up a fight—be more trouble than you’re worth.

Not rape, not theft—not something that cowards would rather hide from. Yell fire, the stranger had instructed her. A threat to all. If you are attacked, yell about a fire. Yrene had repeated the instructions so many times these past two and a half years. To so many women. Just as the stranger had ordered her to. Yrene had not thought she’d ever again need to recite them for herself.

She had sensed, shoving against that wall, that the darkness had also showed him things on the other side of it. Glimmers had sometimes shivered past her. Nothing she could make out, but they felt … they had felt like memories. Nightmares. Perhaps both. Yet he had not asked her to stop. And part of Yrene wondered, as she trudged through the palace, if Lord Chaol had not asked her to stop not just because he’d learned how to manage pain, but also because he somehow felt he deserved it.

But Nesryn’s aunt gave her a knowing look, steel in her brown eyes, as if she, too, did not forget for one moment the family who remained in Adarlan and perhaps now tried to flee to these shores. Her aunt simply said, “The ruks will not fear wyverns.”

And from those shadows of his memory, he heard Aedion Ashryver’s voice. What do you suppose the people on other continents, across all those seas, think of us? Do you think they hate us or pity us for what we do to each other? Perhaps it’s just as bad there. Perhaps it’s worse. But … I have to believe it’s better. Somewhere, it’s better than this. He wondered if he’d ever get to tell Aedion that he’d found such a place. Perhaps he would tell Dorian what he’d seen here. Help rebuild the ruins of Rifthold, of his kingdom, into something like this.

“They’re Wyrdmarks.” And from what he had told her, Yrene knew there was much more. So much more he had not divulged. She stroked a hand over the dark cover of The Song of Beginning. “This book … It mentioned a gate. And keys. And three kings to wield them.” She wasn’t certain he was breathing. Then Chaol said, voice low, “You read that. In that book.” Yrene opened the pages, flipping to the illustration of the three figures before that otherworldly gate. Approaching, she held the book open for him to see. “I couldn’t read much of it—it’s in an ancient form of Eyllwe—but …” She flipped to the other illustration, of the young man being infested by that dark power on the altar. “Is that … is that what they truly do?” His hands slackened at the sides of his chair as he stared and stared at the panel featuring the young man’s cold, dark eyes. “Yes.” The word held more pain and fear than she’d expected. She opened her mouth, but he sliced a warning glare at her, mastering himself. “Hide it, Yrene. Hide all of it. Now.”

“You only talk of Erawan.” His eyes flashed in warning at the name. “But what of Orcus and Mantyx?” “Who?” Yrene began another set of the exercises on his legs and hips and lower back. “The other two kings. They are named in that book.” Chaol stopped wriggling his toes; she flicked them in reminder. The air whooshed from him as he resumed. “They were defeated in the first war. Sent back to their realm or slain, I can’t recall.” Yrene considered as she lowered his leg to the couch, nudging him to flip onto his stomach. “I’m sure you and your companions are adept at this whole saving-the-world thing,” she mused, earning a snort from him, “but I would make sure you know for certain. Which one it is.” She took up a perch on the thin lip of golden sofa cushion that his body did not cover. Chaol twisted his head toward her, the muscles in his back bunching. “Why?” “Because if they were merely banished to their realm, who is to say they aren’t still waiting to be let back into our world?”

Yrene studied his jaw and cheek again, the brimming anger and fear. Not a good state to begin a healing session. So she tried, “Who gave you that scar?” Wrong question. His back stiffened, his fingers digging into the throw pillow beneath his chin. “Someone who deserved to give it to me.” Not an answer.

He had chosen, and it had cost him. He had picked and he had endured the consequences. A body on a bed. A dagger poised above his heart. A head rolling on stone. A collar around a neck. A sword sinking to the bottom of the Avery. The pain in his body was secondary. Worthless. Useless. Anyone he had tried to help … it had made it worse. The body on the bed … Nehemia. She had lost her life. And perhaps she had orchestrated it, but … He had not told Celaena—Aelin—to be alert. Had not warned Nehemia’s guards of the king’s attention. He had as good as killed her. Aelin might have forgiven him, accepted that he was not to blame, but he knew. He could have done more. Been better. Seen better. And when Nehemia had died, those slaves had risen up in defiance. A rallying cry as the Light of Eyllwe was extinguished. The king had extinguished them as well. Calaculla. Endovier. Women and men and children. And when he had acted, when he had chosen his side … Blood and black stone and screaming magic. You knew you knew you knew You will never be my friend my friend my friend

But she shook her head again and at last looked at him. There was a … clarity to her face. Those eyes. And it did not falter as she said, “I know who gave you that wound.” Chaol went wholly still. The man who had taken away the mother she so deeply loved; the man who had sent her fleeing across the world. He managed to nod. “The old king,” Yrene breathed, studying the pool again. “He was—he was possessed, too?” The words were hardly more than a whisper, barely audible even to him. “Yes,” he managed to say. “For decades. I—I’m sorry I did not tell you. We’ve deemed that information … sensitive.” “For what it might mean about the suitability of your new king.” “Yes, and open the door to questions that are best kept unasked.” Yrene rubbed at her chest, her face haunted and bleak. “No wonder my magic recoils so.” “I’m sorry,” he said again. It was all he could think to offer. Those eyes slid to him, any lingering fog clouding them clearing away. “It gives me further reason to fight it. To wipe away that last stain of him—of it forever. Just now, it was waiting for me. Laughing at me again. I managed to get to you, but then the darkness around you was too thick. It had made a … shell. I could see it—everything it showed you. Your memories, and his.” She rubbed her face. “I knew then. What it was—who gave you the wound. And I saw what it was doing to you, and all I could think to stop it, to blast it away …” She pursed her lips, as if they might start trembling again. “A bit of ...

She had not told Chaol. That she’d seen his toes move last night. She’d seen them curl and flex in his sleep. She had cried, silent tears of joy sliding onto the pillow. She hadn’t told him. And when he’d awoken … Let’s have an adventure, Nesryn Faliq, he’d promised her in Rifthold. She had cried then, too. But perhaps … perhaps neither of them had seen. The path ahead. The forks in it. She could see down one path clearly. Honor and loyalty, still unbroken. Even if it stifled him. Stifled her. And she … she did not want to be a consolation prize. Be pitied or a distraction. But this other path, the fork that had appeared, branching away across grasslands and jungles and rivers and mountains … This path toward answers that might help them, might mean nothing, might change the course of this war, all carried on a ruk’s golden wings … She would have an adventure. For herself. This one time. She would see her homeland, and smell it and breathe it in. See it from high above, see it racing as fast as the wind. She owed herself that much. And owed it to Chaol as well.

“But healers—we have no power to use in battle. Nothing beyond what you see from me.” Chaol was utterly still as he stared at her. “I think you might have something they want very badly.” The hair along her arms rose. “Or want to keep you from knowing too much about.” She swallowed, feeling the blood leave her face. “Like—your wound.” A nod. She blew out a shaky breath, going to the stack before her. The scrolls. His fingers grazed her own. “I will not let any harm come to you.” Yrene felt him waiting for her to tell him otherwise. But she believed him.

“Neith’s Arrow,” Sartaq said after uncounted minutes, leaning back against the rock. Nesryn dragged her gaze from the stars to find his face limned in moonlight, silver dancing along the pure onyx of his braid. He rested his forearms on his knees. “That’s what my spies called you, what I called you until you arrived. Neith’s Arrow.” The Goddess of Archery—and the Hunt, originally hailing from an ancient sand-swept kingdom to the west, now enfolded into the khaganate’s vast pantheon. A corner of his mouth tugged upward. “So don’t be surprised if there’s now a story or two about you already finding its way across the world.”

“I took my first life … just after Yulemas last year.” Her brows narrowed. “But—you—” “I trained for it. Had fought before. But never killed someone.” “You were the Captain of the Guard.” “I told you,” he said with a bitter smile, “it was complicated.” Yrene nestled down at last. “But you have done it since.” “Yes. But not enough to grow used to it. Against the Valg, yes, but the humans they infest … Some are lost forever. Some are still there, beneath the demon. Figuring out who to kill, who can be spared—I still don’t know where the bad choices lie. The dead do not speak.” Her head slid against the pillow. “I took an oath before my mother. When I was seven. Never to kill a human being. Some healings … she told me offering death could be a mercy. But that it was different from slaughter.” “It is.” “I think—I might have tried to kill whoever it was tonight. I was that …” He waited for her to say frightened. Frightened, with my only defender in a chair. “I was that decided against running. You told me you’d buy me time, but … I can’t do it. Not again.”

He fell quiet. After a moment, he said, “I hope you never have to use that dagger—or any other, Yrene. Even as a mercy.” The sorrow in her eyes was enough to knock the breath from him. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For being willing to take that death upon yourself.” No one had ever said such a thing. Even Dorian. But it had been expected. Celaena—Aelin had been grateful when he’d killed Cain to save her, but she had expected him to one day make a kill. Aelin had made more than he could count by that point, and his own lack of it had been … embarrassing. As if such a thing were possible. He had killed plenty since then. In Rifthold. With those rebels against the Valg. But Yrene … she made that number smaller. He hadn’t looked at it that way. With pride. Relief.

“I’m sorry Nesryn left,” Yrene murmured into the dim light. I hold you to no promises. And I will hold to none of my own. “I promised her an adventure,” Chaol admitted. “She deserved to go on one.” Yrene was quiet enough that he turned from the garden doors. She had snuggled deep into his bed, her attention fixed wholly on him. “What about you? What do you deserve?” “Nothing. I deserve nothing.” Yrene studied him. “I don’t agree at all,” she murmured, eyelids drooping. He monitored the exits again. After a few minutes, he said, “I was given enough and squandered it.” Chaol looked over at her, but Yrene’s face was softened with sleep, her breathing steady. He watched her for a long while.

The queen would show up when and where she wished—at precisely the moment she intended. Nesryn supposed that was why she liked the queen: there were plans so long in the making that for someone who let the world deem her unchecked and brash, Aelin showed a great deal of restraint in keeping it all hidden.

Houlun murmured, “It is starting anew, isn’t it?” Those dark eyes slid to Nesryn, the fire gilding the whites. “The One Who Sleeps has awoken.” “Erawan,” Nesryn breathed. She could have sworn the great fire banked in answer. “You know of him, Ej?” Sartaq moved to sit on the woman’s other side, allowing Nesryn to scoot closer down the stone bench. But the hearth-mother swept her sharp stare over Nesryn. “You have faced them. His beasts of shadow.” Nesryn clamped down on the memories that surfaced. “I have. He’s built an army of terrors on the northern continent. In Morath.” Houlun turned toward Sartaq. “Does your father know?” “Bits and pieces. His grief …” Sartaq watched the fire. Houlun placed a hand on the prince’s knee. “There was an attack in Antica. On a healer of the Torre.” Houlun swore, as filthily as her hearth-son. “We think one of Erawan’s agents might be behind it,” Sartaq went on. “And rather than waste time convincing my father to listen to half-formed theories, I remembered your tales, Ej, and thought to see if you might know anything.” “And if I told you?” A searching, sharp look—fierce as a ruk’s gaze. “If I told you what I know of the threat, would you empty every aerie and nest? Would you fly across the Narrow Sea to face them—to never return?” Sartaq’s throat bobbed. And Nesryn realized that he had not come here for answers. Perhaps Sartaq already knew enough about the Valg to decide for himself about how to face the threat. He had come here to win over...

“Long ago,” Houlun continued, “before the khaganate, before the horse-lords on the steppes and the Torre by the sea, before any mortal ruled these lands … A rip appeared in the world. In these very mountains.” Sartaq’s face was unreadable as his hearth-mother spoke, but Nesryn swallowed. A rip in the world—an open Wyrdgate. Here.

“But that was all that was needed. For the horrors to enter. The kharankui, and other beasts of shadow.” The words echoed through Nesryn. The kharankui—the stygian spiders … and other infiltrators. None of them ordinary beasts at all. But Valg.

“Most of the Valg left, summoned northward when more hordes appeared there. But this place … perhaps the Valg that arrived here were a vanguard, who assessed this land and did not find what they were seeking. So they moved out. But the kharankui remained in the mountain passes, servants to a dark crown. They did not leave. The spiders learned the tongues of men as they ate the fools stupid enough to venture into their barren realm. Some who made it out claimed they remained because the Fells reminded them of their own, blasted world. Others said the spiders lingered to guard the way back—to wait for that door to open up again. And to go home. “War waged in the east, in the ancient Fae realms. Three demon kings against a Fae Queen and her armies. Demons that passed through a door between worlds to conquer our own.” And so she went on, describing the story Nesryn knew well. She let the hearth-mother narrate as her mind spun. The stygian spiders—actually Valg hiding in plain sight all this time. Houlun went on, and Nesryn reeled herself back together until, “And yet, even when the Valg were banished to their realm, even when the final remaining demon king slithered into the dark places of the world to hide, the Fae came here. To these mountains. They taught the ruks to fight the kharankui, taught the ruks the languages of Fae and men. They built watchtowers along these mountains, erected warning beacons throughout the land. Were they a distant guard against the kharankui? Or ...

“Is there … is there anything on how the Valg might be defeated—beyond mere battle? Any power to help us fight these new hordes Erawan has built?” Houlun slid her gaze to Nesryn. “Ask her,” she said to the prince. “She already knows.” Sartaq barely hid his ripple of shock as he leaned forward. Nesryn breathed, “I cannot tell you. Any of you. If Morath hears a whisper of it, the sliver of hope we have is gone.” The Wyrdkeys … she couldn’t risk saying it. Even to them. “You brought me down here on a fool’s errand, then.” Sharp, cold words. “No,” Nesryn insisted. “There is much we still don’t know. That these spiders hail from the Valg’s world, that they were part of the Valg army and have an outpost here as well as in the Ruhnn Mountains in the northern continent … Perhaps it is tied, somehow. Perhaps there is something we have not yet learned, some weakness amongst the Valg we might exploit.” She studied the hall, calming her thundering heart. Fear helped no one. Houlun glanced between them. “Most of the Fae watchtowers are gone, but some still stand in partial ruin. The closest is perhaps half a day’s flight from here. Begin there—see if anything remains. Perhaps you might find an answer or two, Nesryn Faliq.” “No one has ever looked?” “The Fae set them with traps to keep the spiders at bay. When they abandoned the towers, they left them intact. Some tried to enter—to loot, to learn. None returned.” “Is it worth the risk?” A cool question from a captain to the hearth-mothe...