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She would never forget the sight of him crawling after Maeve once the queen had severed the blood oath. Crawling after Maeve like a shunned lover, like a broken dog desperate for its master. Aelin had been brutalized, their very location betrayed by Lorcan to Maeve, and still he tried to follow. Right through the sand still wet with Aelin’s blood.
the queen’s ship, the Nightingale,
“The key is at Morath.”
Hellas damn him, he’d had to resort to giving his cut-up shirt to Whitethorn and Gavriel to hand to her for her cycle. He’d threatened to skin them alive if they’d said it was his, and Elide, with her human sense of smell, hadn’t scented him on the fabric.
Even the severed blood oath, still gaping wide within his soul, didn’t come close to the hole in his chest when he looked at her.
“I crawled …” His throat bobbed. “I crawled after Aelin.”
And tell him thank you—for walking that dark path with me back to the light. It had been his honor. From the very beginning, it had been his honor, the greatest of his immortal life. An immortal life they would share together—somehow. He’d allow no other alternative. Rowan silently swore it to the stars. He could have sworn the Lord of the North flickered in response.
She didn’t tell the Healer on High that she wasn’t entirely sure how much longer she’d be a help—not yet. Hadn’t whispered a word of that doubt to anyone, even Chaol. Yrene’s hand drifted across her abdomen and lingered.
the spider from whom she’d stolen the silk to reinforce Abraxos’s wings had found her.
Cyrene.”
“If you want someone to warm your bed who cowers at your every word and obeys every command, look elsewhere.”
The blade plunged down. Not into Fenrys. But Connall’s own heart.
A shard of glass plunged into the side of his neck. He staggered back, cursing as blood sprayed.
It missed by a hairsbreadth. Scraping Maeve’s pale cheek before clattering off the throne behind her. The owl perched just above it screeched.
Silently, he slid his hand into hers.
Her stomach turned over. What he’d undoubtedly had to do afterward, with his twin’s body still lying on the veranda tiles behind him …
Salt overpowered the tang of her blood, and she knew he was crying. The scent of their tears filled the tiny room as he worked. Neither of them said a word.
Two hundred at most.”
Not bad
“Nox Owen.” The messenger bowed at the waist. “From Perranth.” “I’ve heard of you,” Ren said, scanning the man anew. “You’re a thief.”
Lord Darrow’s most trusted messenger.”
Elgan, one of the Bane captains,
“It was real, Aedion,” she said. “All of it. I don’t care if you believe me or not. But it was real for me.”
It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.
You do not yield. Then she was gone, like dew under the morning sun. But the words lingered. Blossomed within Aelin, bright as a kindled ember. You do not yield.
The top of the lid had been warped. A great hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin. As if it had come so very close to breaking entirely.
I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.
Glennis.
“I was her great-grandmother.” Even the whipping wind quieted. “As I am yours.”
“Asterin is my Second.” “And what am I, then?” The smooth question ran a hand down her spine, as if he’d caressed her with those invisible hands of his. “You are the King of Adarlan.” “Shall I be a part of the discussions, then?” “If you feel like it.”
Dorian’s voice dropped into a low purr. “Do you know what I feel like doing?” She twisted her head to glare at him incredulously. And found the king smirking.
The Thirteen closed ranks around Manon, weapons drawn. The Ironteeth had found them. Far sooner than Manon had planned.
“I wish you were my great-grandmother,” Dorian muttered, and readied his next blow.
The wyvern swept down, and darkness yawned wide as those jaws closed around him.
The body he’d turned into solid flame, so hot it had melted through the wyvern’s jaws, its throat, and he had passed through the beast’s mouth as if it were nothing but a cobweb.
A lie. Manon had lied. She arched a brow at him, but Dorian turned away. Let the knowledge settle into him. What she’d done.
All would bleed; too many would die.
Had soared off on her own earlier that day, to where she knew Ironteeth would be patrolling nearby, waited until the great northern wind carried her scent southward. And then bided her time.
Tristan.
“Bronwen,”
“You are not our queen, despite what your blood might suggest. Despite this little skirmish. We do not, and will never, answer to you.”
“If you wish to be something, king-with-no-crown, then be it. That is the secret to the shifting. Be what you wish.”
Valg. The spider, somehow, was Valg. And not possessed, but born.
He’d find his way into Morath. Once he mastered the shifting.
“Shut me up, then,”
“Only a Crochan Queen may ignite the Flame of War, to summon every witch from her hearth.”
“Erawan sends his regards.” And unleashed a blast of black wind right at her.
The message that might doom them: Aelin Galathynius was not here.
“So, Erawan knows you’re not Aelin.”
And when they all awoke the next day, there was only whipping snow beyond their tents. The camp was gone. The army with it.
She’d never forget the memory she’d witnessed of the father who had thrown him down the stone steps a few levels below, granting Chaol the hidden scar just past his hairline. A child. He’d hurled a child down those stairs and forced him to make his way to Rifthold on foot. She doubted her second impression of her father-in-law would be any better.
