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Rowan smirked. “That for once, you are the one who gets knocked on your ass by a surprise.” Aelin stuck out her tongue.
“They do not answer to Erawan,” Nesryn said quietly, and Aelin knew. Knew from the look Chaol gave her, the sympathy and fear, knew in her bones before Nesryn even finished. “The stygian spiders, the kharankui, answer to their Valg queen. The only Valg queen. To Maeve.”
“But I have never felt as humiliated as I did when you threw me into the snow. When you called me a lying bitch in front of our friends and allies. Never.” She hated the angry tears that stung her eyes. “I was once forced to crawl before men. And gods above, I nearly crawled for you these months. And yet it takes me nearly dying for you to realize that you’ve been an ass? It takes me nearly dying for you to see me as human again?”
And with the Florine mere miles ahead, too wide and deep to cross, too frigid to dare swim, and Morath closing in from behind, they were utterly trapped.
Elena’s muffled screams still ringing in her ears. No, she would not be helpless again.
“Rhiannon Crochan held the gates for three days and three nights, and she did not kneel before you, even at the end.” A slash of a smile. “I think I shall do the same.”
The Crochan Queen, crowned anew. The sacred fire leaped and danced, as if in joyous welcome.
Manon was glowing, as if the stars atop her head pulsed through her body. A wondrous and mighty beauty, like no other in the world. Like no one had ever been, or would be again.
The queen has come. Goldryn unfaltering, her shield an extension of her arm, Aelin glowed like the sun that now broke over the khagan’s army as she engaged each soldier that hurtled her way.
She had made him a promise. She had sworn him an oath, all those months ago. I will always find you.
Arcas, Borte’s ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons. Aelin. Aelin was— Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying. Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet. Right in the path of that wave. “Oh gods,” Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too. They all saw her. The queen on the plain. The endless wall of water surging for her.
“Three months,” he said again, his knees wobbling. “She’s been making the descent into her power for three months.” Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they’d freed her because she had kept making the plunge.
Dorian had gone to Morath. And had taken the two Wyrdkeys with him.
Lorcan didn’t breathe as Elide gently reached out her hand. And interlaced their fingers. “I love you,” she whispered. He was glad he was lying down. The words would have knocked him to his knees. Even now, he was half inclined to bow before her, the true owner of his ancient, wicked heart.
Anything she asked, he’d give her. Anything at all. Too shaken by that soft, beautiful kiss to bother with words, he lay back down.
Until Glennis said to Manon, “Long ago, Rhiannon Crochan rode at King Brannon’s side into battle. So has her likeness been reborn, so shall the old alliances be forged anew.” She gestured to the eternal flame. “Light the Flame of War, Queen of Witches, and rally your host.”
“Keep the letters,” he said, steering his chair back to the doors. “Now that she’s left you, it might be your only way to remember her.” He opened the study door and looked over his shoulder. His father remained beside the trunk, stiff as a sword. “I don’t make bargains with bastards,” Chaol said, smiling again as he entered the hall beyond. “I’m certainly not going to start with you.”
Maeve tipped back her head and laughed. “Millennia apart, and you have forgotten even your own sister-in-law.”
The Fae Queen smiled down at him. “You are not a very skilled spy, King of Adarlan.”
“Yes, though I am willing to give you a display. Tomorrow, once I have prepared.” Again, that horrible silence. Maeve said, “They are too strong, too mighty, for me to open a portal between realms to allow them through. They would destabilize my magic too greatly in the effort to bring all that they are into this world. But I could show them to you—just for a moment. I could show you your brothers. Orcus and Mantyx.”
It was simple as an incision. To sever the link between their minds—and to sever another part of her. To tie off the gift that allowed her to jump between places. To open those portals. World-walker no longer, he said as his raw magic shifted her own. Changed its very essence. I suggest you invest in a good pair of shoes. Then he let go of Maeve’s mind.
“Erawan took it. Wiped it from history, from memory. An ancient, terrible spell, so powerful it could only be used once. All so I might be his most faithful servant. Even I do not know my name, not anymore. I lost it.” “Nameless is my price,” Aelin murmured.
“No,” Dorian rasped, scrambling toward her, trying to grip her hand again, to join her. But the wound on Aelin’s hand had sealed. “No, no!” Dorian shouted, and Rowan knew then. Knew what she had done. The final deceit, the last lie.
She had lied. His Fireheart had lied. And he would now watch her die.
A choking scream tore out of her as the last of the Lock sealed. As the Lock became forged once more, as real as her own flesh. As Aelin’s magic completely vanished.
Gone. Where light and life had flowed within her, there was nothing. Not an ember. Only a droplet, just one, of water.
Aelin said into their silence, “Leave Erawan to Erilea. But in exchange, leave Elena. Let her soul remain in the Afterworld with those she loves.”
Make sure that they’re punished someday. Every last one of them. They will be, she’d sworn to Kaltain.
And when Aelin looked behind her, to the archway into her own world, she indeed could … feel them. As if the Wyrdmarks he’d secretly inked onto her were a rope. A tether home. A lifeline into eternity. One last deceit.
Aelin’s smile turned into a grin. Wicked and raging. It did not falter as she found the world she sought. As she dipped into that eternal, terrible power. She had been a slave and a pawn once before. She would never be so again. Not for them. Never for them. The gods began shouting, running toward her, as Aelin ripped open a hole in their sky. Right into a world she had seen only once. Had accidentally opened a portal into one night in a stone castle. Distant, baying howls cracked from the bleak gray expanse. A portal into a hell-realm. A door now thrown open. Aelin was still smiling when she
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She passed through a world of snowcapped mountains under shining stars. Passed over one of those mountains, where a winged male stood beside a heavily pregnant female, gazing at those very stars. Fae.
The winged male, beautiful beyond reason, snapped his head toward her as she arced across his starry sky. He lifted a hand, as if in greeting. A blast of dark power, like a gentle summer night, slammed into her. Not to attack—but to slow her down. A wall, a shield, that she tore and plunged through. But it slowed her. That winged male’s power slowed her, just enough. Aelin vanished from his world without a whisper.
Her mount was already awake. Staring out, solitary and cold, toward the battlefield beyond the city walls. Toward the blasted stretch of earth that no snow had been able to wipe away entirely. She’d spent hours staring at it. Could barely pass over it during the endless fighting each day. Her chest, her body, had been hollowed out.
So many worlds. More than she could contemplate. Would her dreams forever be haunted by them? To have glimpsed them, but been unable to explore—would that longing take root? Oakwald’s branches formed a skeletal lattice overhead. Bars of a cage. As her body, and this world, might be.
“So I would choose to fight. Until the very end. For my home, new as it is. I choose to fight.” Darrow was silent for so long that she peered up at him. She’d never seen his eyes so sad, as if the weight of all his years truly settled upon them. Then he only said, “Come with me.”
Darrow smiled slightly. “I know that, too. But I should like to say one more thing, on this perhaps final night of ours.” He inclined his head to Evangeline. “I never fathered any offspring, nor did I adopt any. It would be an honor to name such a wise, brave young lady as my heir.” Absolute silence. Evangeline blinked—and blinked again.
So Aedion leaned in, and kissed Lysandra, kissed the woman who should have been his wife, his mate, one last time. “I love you.” Sorrow filled her beautiful face. “And I you.” She gestured to the western gate, to the soldiers waiting for its final cleaving. “Until the end?” Aedion hefted his shield, flipping the Sword of Orynth in his hand, freeing the stiffness that had seized his fingers. “I will find you again,” he promised her. “In whatever life comes after this.” Lysandra nodded. “In every lifetime.”
That immortal flame between his antlers didn’t so much as flutter.
Wide-eyed, the three Fae warriors blinked. “That’s where Aelin is,” was all Fenrys said.
Gavriel smiled at him. “Close the gate, Aedion,” was all his father said. And then Gavriel stepped beyond the gates. That golden shield spreading thin.
Stopped seeing everything but the fallen warrior, who gazed toward the darkening sky with sightless eyes. His tattooed throat ripped out. His sword still gripped in his hand. Gavriel. His father.
Rowan looked at his fallen friend. His closest friend. Who had gone with him into so many wars and dangers. Who had deserved this new home as much as any of them. Rowan closed Gavriel’s unseeing eyes. “I will see you in the Afterworld.”
But she had not remained outside the southern gate to defeat them. Only to buy time.
said his silent farewell, sending what remained of his heart on the wind to the woman who had saved him in every way that mattered.
The ice and wind stopped. The other magic within the darkness stopped. Like it had been swallowed. And then they began screaming. Rowan began screaming.
“In my world, your kind exists, too. Not healers to us, but executioners. Death-maidens. Capable of healing—but also unhealing. Unbinding the very fabric of life. Of worlds.” Erawan smirked. “So we took your kind. Used them to unbind the Wyrdgate. To rip the three pieces of it from its very essence. Maeve never learned it—and never shall.” His jagged breathing deepened as he savored each word, each step closer. “It took all of them to hew the keys from the gate—every one of the healers amongst my kind. But you, with your gifts—it would only take you to do it again. And with the keys now
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She didn’t feel the sting of her palm cutting open. Barely felt the pressure of the callused hand that linked with hers. But when Dorian Havilliard’s raw magic barreled into her, Yrene gasped. Gasped and turned into starlight, into warmth and strength and joy.
Her flame danced over the battlefield. And the lost Fae of Terrasen, the fabled Wolf Tribe who had welcomed and protected them at their sides, charged through the portals. Right into Morath’s unsuspecting ranks.
“Together,” she said quietly. Rowan’s thumb brushed against hers. In love and farewell.
Aelin drew close. Just as she slid something onto Maeve’s finger. And whispered in Maeve’s ear, “Then go to hell.” Maeve reared back, but too late. Too late, as the golden ring—Silba’s ring, Athril’s ring—shone on her pale hand.
