Tower of Dawn

29

Storms waylaid Nesryn and Sartaq on their way out of the northern Asimil Mountains.

Upon awakening, the prince had taken one look at the bruised clouds and ordered Nesryn to secure everything she could on their rocky outcropping. Kadara shifted from clawed foot to clawed foot, rustling her wings as her golden eyes monitored the storm galloping in.

That high up, the crack of thunder echoed off every rock and crevice, and as Nesryn and Sartaq sat pressed against the stone wall beneath the overhang, winds lashing them, she could have sworn even the mountain beneath shuddered. But Kadara held fast against the storm, settling herself in front of them, a veritable wall of white and golden feathers.

Still the icy rain managed to find them, freezing Nesryn down to her bones even with the thick ruk leathers and heavy wool blanket Sartaq insisted she wrap around herself. Her teeth chattered violently enough to make her jaw hurt, and her hands were so numb and raw that she kept them tucked beneath her armpits just to savor any scrap of warmth.

Even before magic had vanished, Nesryn had never longed for magical gifts. And after magic had disappeared, after the decrees banning it and the terrible hunts for those who had once wielded it, Nesryn hadn’t dared to even think about magic. She’d been content to practice her archery, to learn how to wield knives and swords, to master her body until it, too, was a weapon. Magic had failed, she’d told her father and sister whenever they asked. Good steel would not.

Yet sitting on that cliff, whipped by the wind and rain until she couldn’t remember what warmth felt like, Nesryn found herself wishing for a spark of flame in her veins. Or at least for a certain Fire-Bringer to come swaggering around the corner of the cliff to warm them.

But Aelin was far away—unaccounted for, if Hasar’s report was to be believed, which Nesryn did. The true question was whether Aelin and her court’s vanishing were due to some awful play by Morath, or some scheme of the queen herself.

Having seen what Aelin was capable of in Rifthold, the plans she’d laid out and enacted without any of them knowing … Nesryn’s money was on Aelin. 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.

And as that storm raged around Nesryn and Sartaq, she wondered if Aelin Galathynius might yet have some card up her sleeve that even her court might not know about. She prayed Aelin did. For all their sakes.

But magic had failed before, Nesryn reminded herself as her teeth clacked against each other. And she’d do everything she could to find a way to fight Morath without it.

It was hours before the storm at last lumbered off to terrorize other parts of the world, Sartaq only easing to his feet when Kadara fanned her feathers, shaking off the rain. Spraying them in the process, but Nesryn was in no position to complain, when the ruk had taken the brunt of the storm’s wrath for them.

Of course, it also left the saddle damp, which in turn led to a fairly uncomfortable ride as they soared down the brisk, clean winds from the mountains and into the sprawling grasslands below.

With the delay, they were forced to camp for another night, this time in a copse of trees, again with not so much as an ember to warm them. Nesryn kept her mouth shut about it—the cold that lingered along her bones, the roots that dug into her back through the bedroll, the empty pit in her stomach that fruit and dried meat and day-old bread couldn’t fill.

Sartaq, to his credit, gave her his blankets and asked if she wanted a change of his clothes. But she barely knew him, she realized. This man she’d flown off with, this prince with his sulde and sharp-eyed ruk … He was little more than a stranger.

Such things didn’t usually bother her. Working for the city guard, she’d dealt with strangers every day, in various states of awfulness or panic. The pleasant encounters had been few and far between, particularly in the past six months, when darkness had crept over the city and hunted beneath it.

But with Sartaq … As Nesryn shivered all night long, she wondered if she’d perhaps been a tad hasty in coming here, possible alliance or no.

Her limbs ached and eyes burned when the gray light of dawn trickled through the slim pines. Kadara was already stirring, eager to be off, and Nesryn and Sartaq exchanged less than a half-dozen sentences before they were airborne for the last leg of their journey.

They’d been flying for two hours, the winds growing crisper the farther south they sailed, when Sartaq said in her ear, “That way.” He pointed due east. “Fly half a day in that direction, and you will reach the northern edges of the steppes. The heartland of the Darghan.”

“Do you visit often?”

A pause. He said over the wind, “Kashin holds their loyalty. And—Tumelun.” The way he spoke his sister’s name implied enough. “But the rukhin and the Darghan were once one and the same. We chased down the ruks atop our Muniqi horses, tracked them deep into the Tavan Mountains.” He pointed to the southeast as Kadara shifted, aiming for the towering, jagged mountains that clawed at the sky. They were peppered with forests, some peaks capped in snow. “And when we tamed the ruks, some of the horse-lords chose not to return down to the steppes.”

“Which is why so many of your traditions remain the same,” Nesryn observed, glancing down at the sulde strapped to the saddle. The drop far, far below loomed, dried grasses swaying like a golden sea, carved by thin, twining rivers.

She quickly looked ahead toward the mountains. Though she’d grown mostly accustomed to the idea of how very little stood between her and death atop this ruk, reminding herself of it did nothing to settle her stomach.

“Yes,” Sartaq said. “It is also why our riders often band with the Darghan in war. Our fighting techniques differ, but we mostly know how to work together.”

“A cavalry below and aerial coverage above,” Nesryn said, trying not to sound too interested. “Have you ever gone to war?”

The prince was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Not on the scale of what is being unleashed in your land. Our father ensures that the territories within our empire are well aware that loyalty is rewarded. And resistance is answered with death.”

Ice skittered down her spine.

Sartaq went on, “So I have been dispatched twice now to remind certain restless territories of that cold truth.” A hot breath at her ear. “Then there are the clans within the rukhin themselves. Ancient rivalries that I have learned to navigate, and conflicts I have had to smooth over.”

The hard way, he didn’t add. He instead said, “As a city guard, you must have dealt with such things.”

She snorted at the thought. “I was mostly on patrol—rarely promoted.”

“Considering your skill with a bow, I would have thought you ran the entire place.”

Nesryn smiled. Charmer. Beneath that unfailingly sure exterior, Sartaq was certainly a shameless flirt. But she considered his implied question, though she had known the answer for years. “Adarlan is not as … open as the khaganate when it comes to embracing the role of women in the ranks of its guards or armies,” she admitted. “While I might be skilled, men usually were promoted. So I was left to rot on patrol duty at the walls or busy streets. Handling the underworld or nobility was left for more important guards. And ones whose families hailed from Adarlan.”

Her sister had raged anytime it happened, but Nesryn had known that if she’d exploded to her superiors, if she’d challenged them … They were the sort of men who would tell her to be grateful to be admitted at all, then demand she turn in her sword and uniform. So she’d figured it was better to remain, to be passed over, not for mere pay, but for the fact that there were so few other guards like her, helping those who needed it most. It was for them she stayed on, kept her head down while lesser men were appointed.

“Ah.” Another beat of quiet from the prince. “I’ve heard they were not so welcoming toward people from other lands.”

“To say the least.” The words were colder than she’d meant. And yet that was where her father had insisted they live, thinking it offered some sort of better life. Even when Adarlan had launched its wars to conquer the northern continent, he’d stayed—though her mother had tried to convince him to return to Antica, the city of her heart. Yet for whatever reason, perhaps stubbornness, perhaps defiance against the people who wanted to throw him out again, he’d stayed.

And Nesryn tried not to fault him for it, she really did. Her sister couldn’t understand it—Nesryn’s occasional, simmering anger on the topic. No, Delara had always loved Rifthold, loved the bustle of the city and thrived on winning over its hard-edged people. It had been no surprise that she’d married a man born and raised in the city itself. A true child of Adarlan—that’s what her sister was. At least, of what Adarlan had once been and might one day again become.

Kadara caught a swift wind and coasted along it, the world below passing in a blur as those towering mountains grew closer and closer. Sartaq asked quietly, “Were you ever—”

“It’s not worth talking about.” Not when she could sometimes still feel that rock as it collided with her head, hear the taunts of those children. She swallowed and added, “Your Highness.”

A low laugh. “So my title makes an appearance again.” But he didn’t press further. He only said, “I’m going to beg you not to call me Prince or Your Highness around the other riders.”

“You’re going to beg me, or you are?”

His arms tightened around her in mock warning. “It took me years to get them to stop asking if I needed my silk slippers or servants to brush my hair.” Nesryn chuckled. “Amongst them, I am simply Sartaq.” He added, “Or Captain.”

“Captain?”

“Another thing you and I have in common, it seems.”

Shameless flirt indeed. “But you rule all six ruk clans. They answer to you.”

“They do, and when we all gather, I am Prince. But amongst my family’s own clan, the Eridun, I captain their forces. And obey the word of my hearth-mother.” He squeezed her again for emphasis. “Which I’d advise you doing as well, if you don’t want to be stripped and tied to a cliff face in the middle of a storm.”

“Holy gods.”

“Indeed.”

“Did she—”

“Yes. And as you said, it’s not worth talking about.”

But Nesryn chuckled again, surprised to find her face aching from smiling so often these past few minutes. “I appreciate the warning, Captain.”

The Tavan Mountains turned mammoth, a wall of dark gray stone higher than any she’d ever beheld in her own lands. Not that she’d seen many mountains up close. Her family had rarely ventured inland into Adarlan or its surrounding kingdoms—mostly because her father had been busy, but partially because the rural people in those areas did not take so well to outsiders. Even when their children had been born on Adarlanian soil, with an Adarlanian mother. Sometimes that latter fact had been more enraging to them.

Nesryn only prayed that the rukhin would be more welcoming.

In all her father’s stories, the descriptions of the aeries of the rukhin somehow still did not convey the sheer impossibility of what had been built into the sides and atop three towering peaks clustered in the heart of the Tavan Mountains.

It was no assortment of gir—framed, wide tents—that the horse-clans moved about the steppes. No, the Eridun aerie had been hewn into the stone, houses and halls and chambers, many of them originally nests for the ruks themselves.

Some of those nests remained, usually near a ruk’s rider and their family, so the birds could be summoned at a moment’s notice. Either through a whistled command or by someone climbing the countless rope ladders anchored to the stone itself, allowing movement between various homes and caves—though internal stairwells had also been built within the peaks themselves, mostly for the elderly and children.

The homes themselves each came equipped with a broad cave mouth for the ruks to land, the living quarters hewn behind them. A few windows dotted the rock face here and there, markers of rooms hidden behind the stone, and drawing fresh air to the chambers within.

Not that they needed much more fresh air here. The wind was a river between the three close-knit peaks that housed Sartaq’s hearth-clan, full of ruks of various sizes soaring or flapping or diving. Nesryn tried and failed to count the dwellings carved into the mountains. There had to be hundreds here. And perhaps more lay within the mountains themselves.

“This—this is only one clan?” Her first words in hours.

Kadara soared up the face of the centermost peak. Nesryn slid back in the saddle, Sartaq’s body a warm wall behind her as he leaned forward, guiding her to do so as well. His thighs bracketed hers, the muscles shifting beneath as he kept their balance with the stirrups. “The Eridun is one of the largest—the oldest, if we’re to be believed.”

“You’re not?” The aerie around them had indeed seemed to have existed for untold ages.

“Every clan claims it is the oldest and first among riders.” A laugh that rumbled into her body. “When there is a Gathering, you should only hear the arguments about it. You’re better off to insult a man about his wife than to tell him to his face that your clan is the eldest.”

Nesryn smiled, even as she squeezed her eyes shut against the sheer drop behind her. Kadara aimed, swift and unfaltering, for the broadest of overhangs—a veranda, she realized as the ruk banked toward it. People were already standing just beneath the enormous arch of the cave mouth, arms raised in greeting.

She felt Sartaq’s smile at her ear. “There lies the Mountain-Hall of Altun, the home of my hearth-mother and my family.” Altun—Windhaven, was the rough translation. It was indeed larger than any other dwelling amid the three peaks: the Dorgos, or Three Singers, they were called—the cave itself at least forty feet tall and thrice as wide. Far within, she could just make out pillars and what indeed seemed to be a massive hall.

“The reception court—where we host our meetings and celebrations,” Sartaq explained, his arms tightening around her just as Kadara back-flapped. Squeezing her eyes shut again in front of the awaiting people would certainly not win her any admiration, but—

Nesryn gripped the saddle horn with one hand, the other clenching Sartaq’s knee, braced behind hers. Hard enough to bruise.

The prince only laughed quietly. “So the famed archer does have a weakness, then.”

“I’ll find out yours soon enough,” Nesryn countered, earning another soft laugh in reply.

The ruk mercifully made a smooth landing on the polished dark stone of the almost-balcony, those waiting at the entrance bracing themselves against the wind off her wings.

Then they were still, and Nesryn quickly straightened, releasing her death-grip on both saddle and prince to behold a hall full of pillars of carved, painted wood. The braziers burning throughout cast the gold paint glinting amongst the green and red, and thick carpets in bold, striking patterns covered much of the stone floor, interrupted only by a round table and what seemed to be a small dais against one of the far walls. And beyond it, the gloom brightened by bracketed torches, a hallway flowed into the mountain itself. Lined with doors.

But in the very center of the Mountain-Hall of Altun: a fire.

The pit had been carved into the floor, so deep and wide that layers of broad steps led down to it. Like a small amphitheater—the main entertainment not a stage but the flame itself. The hearth.

It was indeed a domain fit for the Winged Prince.

Nesryn squared her shoulders as people young and old pressed forward, smiling broadly. Some were clad in familiar riding leathers, some wore beautifully colored, heavy wool coats that flowed to their knees. Most possessed Sartaq’s silken onyx hair and wind-chapped, golden-brown skin.

“Well, well,” drawled a young woman in a cobalt-and-ruby coat, tapping her booted foot on the smooth rock floor as she peered up at them. Nesryn forced herself to keep still, to endure that sweeping stare. The young woman’s twin braids, tied with bands of red leather, fell well past her breasts, and she brushed one over a shoulder as she said, “Look who decided to give up his fur muff and oiled baths to join us once more.”

Nesryn schooled her face into careful calm. But Sartaq just dropped Kadara’s reins, the prince giving Nesryn a distinct I told you so look before he said down to the girl, “Don’t pretend that you haven’t been praying I bring back more of those pretty silk slippers for you, Borte.”

Nesryn bit her lip to keep from smiling, though the others certainly showed no such restraint as their chuckles rumbled off the dark stones.

Borte crossed her arms. “I suppose you’d know where to buy them, since you’re so fond of wearing them yourself.”

Sartaq laughed, the sound rich and merry.

It was an effort not to gawk. He had not made such a laugh, not once, at the palace.

And when had she last made such a bright sound? Even with her aunt and uncle, her laughter had been restrained, as if some invisible damper lay over her. Perhaps long before that, stretching back to days when she was only a city guard with no idea what crawled through the sewers of Rifthold.

Sartaq smoothly dismounted Kadara and offered a hand to help Nesryn down.

It was the hand he lifted that made the dozen or so gathered notice her—study her. None more closely than Borte.

Another shrewd, weighing look. Seeing the leathers, but none of the features that marked her as one of them.

She’d dealt with the judgment of strangers long before now—this was nothing new. Even if she now stood in the gilded halls of Altun, amongst the rukhin.

Ignoring Sartaq’s offered hand, Nesryn forced her stiff body to smoothly slide one leg over the saddle and dismounted herself. Her knees popped at the impact, but she managed to land lightly, and didn’t let herself touch her hair—which she was certain was a rat’s nest despite her short braid.

A faint gleam of approval entered Borte’s dark eyes just before the girl jerked her chin toward Nesryn. “A Balruhni woman in the leathers of a rukhin. Now, there’s a sight.”

Sartaq didn’t answer. He only glanced in Nesryn’s direction. An invitation. And challenge.

So Nesryn slipped her hands into the pockets of her close-fitting pants and sauntered to the prince’s side. “Will it be improved if I tell you I caught Sartaq filing his nails this morning?”

Borte stared at Nesryn, blinking once.

Then she tipped back her head and howled.

Sartaq threw an approving yet beleaguered glance in Nesryn’s direction before saying, “Meet my hearth-sister, Borte. Granddaughter and heir of my hearth-mother, Houlun.” He reached between them to tug one of Borte’s braids. She batted his hand away. “Borte, meet Captain Nesryn Faliq.” He paused for a breath, then added, “Of the Royal Guard of Adarlan.”

Silence. Borte’s arched dark brows rose.

An aging man in rukhin leathers pressed forward. “But what is more unusual: that a Balruhni woman is their captain, or that a captain of Adarlan has ventured so far?”

Borte waved the man off. “Always the idle chatter and questions with you,” she scolded him. And to Nesryn’s shock, the man winced and shut his mouth. “The real question is …” A sly grin at Sartaq. “Does she come as emissary or bride?”

Any attempt at a steady, cool, calm appearance vanished as Nesryn gaped at the girl. Right as Sartaq snapped, “Borte.”

Borte gave a downright wicked grin. “Sartaq never brings such pretty ladies home—from Adarlan or Antica. Be careful walking around the cliff edges, Captain Faliq, or some of the girls here might give you a shove.”

“Will you be one of them?” Nesryn’s voice remained unruffled, even if her face had heated.

Borte scowled. “I should think not.” Some of the others laughed again.

“As my hearth-sister,” Sartaq explained, leading Nesryn toward the cluster of low-backed chairs near the lip of the fire pit, “I consider Borte a blood relative. Like my own sister.”

Borte’s devilish grin faded as she fell into step alongside Sartaq. “How fares your family?”

Sartaq’s face was unreadable, save for the faint flicker in those dark eyes. “Busy,” was all he said. A nonanswer.

But Borte nodded, as if she knew his moods and inclinations well, and kept quiet while Sartaq escorted Nesryn into a carved and painted wooden chair. The heat from the blazing fire was delicious, and she nearly groaned as she stretched out her frozen feet toward it.

Borte hissed. “You couldn’t get your sweetheart a proper pair of boots, Sartaq?”

Sartaq growled in warning, but Nesryn frowned at her supple leather boots. They’d been more expensive than any she’d ever dared purchase for herself, but Dorian Havilliard had insisted. Part of the uniform, he’d told her with a wink.

She wondered if he still smiled so freely, or spent as generously, wherever he was.

But she glanced toward Borte, whose boots were leather, yet thicker—lined with what seemed to be thickest sheepskin. Definitely better-equipped for the chilly altitudes.

“I’m sure you can dig up a pair somewhere,” Sartaq said to his hearth-sister, and Nesryn twisted in her chair while the two of them drifted back toward where Kadara waited.

The people pressed in around Sartaq, murmuring too softly for Nesryn to hear from across the hall. But the prince spoke with easy smiles, talking while he unloaded their packs, handing them off to whoever was closest, and then unsaddled Kadara.

He gave the golden ruk a stroke down her neck, then a solid thump on her side—and then Kadara was gone, flapping into the open air beyond the cave mouth.

Nesryn debated going over to them, offering to help with the packs that were now being hauled through the chamber and into the hallway beyond, but the heat creeping up her body had sapped the strength from her legs.

Sartaq and Borte appeared, the others dispersing, just as Nesryn noticed the man sitting near a brazier across the hall. A cup curling with steam sat on the small, wooden table beside his chair, and though there seemed to be an open scroll in his lap, his eyes remained fixed on her.

She didn’t know what to remark upon: that while his skin was tan, it was clear that he did not hail from the southern continent; that his short brown hair was far from the long, silken braids of the ruk riders; or that his clothes seemed more akin to Adarlan’s jackets and pants.

Only a dagger hung at his side, and while he was broad-shouldered and fit, he didn’t possess the self-assured swagger, the pitiless surety of a warrior. He was perhaps in his late forties, pale white lines etched at the corner of his eyes, where he’d squinted in the sun or wind.

Borte led Sartaq around the fire pit, past the various pillars, and right to the man, who got to his feet and bowed. He stood roughly at Sartaq’s height, and even from across the hall, with the crackling fire and groaning wind, Nesryn could make out his shoddy Halha: “It is an honor, Prince.”

Borte snorted.

Sartaq just gave a curt nod and replied in the northern language, “I’m told you have been a guest of our hearth-mother for the past few weeks.”

“She was gracious enough to welcome me here, yes.” The man sounded slightly relieved to be using his native tongue. A glance toward Nesryn. She didn’t bother to pretend she wasn’t listening. “I couldn’t help but overhear what I thought was mention of a captain from Adarlan.”

“Captain Faliq oversees the royal guard.”

The man didn’t take his eyes off Nesryn as he murmured, “Does she, now.”

Nesryn only held his stare from across the room. Go ahead. Gawk all you like.

Sartaq asked sharply, “And your name?”

The man dragged his gaze back to the prince. “Falkan Ennar.”

Borte said to Sartaq in Halha, “He is a merchant.”

And if he’d come from the northern continent … Nesryn slid to her feet, her steps near-silent as she approached. She made sure they were, as Falkan watched her the entire way, running an eye over her from foot to head. Made sure he noted that the grace with which she moved was not some feminine gift, but from training that had taught her how to creep up on others undetected.

Falkan stiffened as if he finally realized it. And understood that the dagger at his side would be of little use against her, if he was stupid enough to pull something.

Good. It made him smarter than a great number of men in Rifthold. Stopping a casual distance away, Nesryn asked the merchant, “Have you any news?”

Up close, the eyes she’d mistaken for dark were a midnight sapphire. He’d likely been moderately handsome in his youth. “News of what?”

“Of Adarlan. Of … anything.”

Falkan stood with remarkable stillness—a man perhaps used to holding his ground in a bargain. “I wish that I could offer you any, Captain, but I have been in the southern continent for over two years now. You probably have more news than I do.” A subtle request.

And one that would go unanswered. She was not about to blab her kingdom’s business for all to hear. So Nesryn just shrugged and turned back toward the fire pit across the hall.

“Before I left the northern continent,” Falkan said as she strode away, “a young man named Westfall was the Captain of the Royal Guard. Are you his replacement?”

Careful. She indeed had to be so, so careful not to reveal too much. To him, to anyone. “Lord Westfall is now Hand to King Dorian Havilliard.”

Shock slackened the merchant’s face. She marked it—every tick and flicker. No joy or relief, but no anger, either. Just … surprise. Honest, bald surprise. “Dorian Havilliard is king?”

At Nesryn’s raised brows, Falkan explained, “I have been in the deep wilds for months now. News does not come swiftly. Or often.”

“An odd place to be selling your goods,” Sartaq murmured. Nesryn was inclined to agree.

Falkan merely gave the prince a tight smile. A man with secrets of his own, then.

“It has been a long journey,” Borte cut in, looping her arm through Nesryn’s and turning her toward the dim hallway beyond. “Captain Faliq needs refreshment. And a bath.”

Nesryn wasn’t certain whether to thank the young woman or begrudge her for interrupting, but … Her stomach was indeed an aching pit. And it had been a long while since she’d bathed.

Neither Sartaq nor Falkan stopped them, though their murmuring resumed as Borte escorted her into the hallway that shot straight into the mountain itself. Wooden doors lined it, some open to reveal small bedchambers—even a little library.

“He is a strange man,” Borte said in Halha. “My grandmother refuses to speak of why he came here—what he seeks.”

Nesryn lifted a brow. “Trade, perhaps?”

Borte shook her head, opening a door halfway down the hall. The room was small, a narrow bed tucked against one wall, the other occupied by a trunk and a wooden chair. The far wall held a washbasin and ewer, along with a pile of soft-looking cloths. “We have no goods to sell. We are usually the merchants—ferrying goods across the continent. Our clan here, not so much, but some of the others … Their aeries are full of treasures from every territory.” She toed the rickety bed and frowned. “Not this old junk.”

Nesryn chuckled. “Perhaps he wishes to assist you in expanding, then.”

Borte turned, braids swaying. “No. He doesn’t meet with anyone, or seem interested in that.” A shrug. “It matters little. Only that he is here.”

Nesryn folded away the tidbits of information. He didn’t seem like one of Morath’s agents, but who knew how far the arm of Erawan now stretched? If it had reached Antica, then it was possible it had delved into the continent. She’d be on her guard—had no doubt Sartaq already was.

Borte twirled the end of a braid around a finger. “I saw the way you sized him up. You don’t think he’s here for business, either.”

Nesryn weighed the merits of admitting the truth, and opted for, “These are strange days for all of us—I have learned not to take men on their word. Or appearance.”

Borte dropped her braid. “No wonder Sartaq brought you home. You sound just like him.”

Nesryn hid her smile, not bothering to say that she found such a thing to be a compliment.

Borte sniffed, waving to the room. “Not as fine as the khagan’s palace, but better than sleeping on one of Sartaq’s shitty bedrolls.”

Nesryn smiled. “Any bed is better than that, I suppose.”

Borte smirked. “I meant what I said. You need a bath. And a comb.”

Nesryn at last raised a hand to her hair and winced. Tangles and knots and more tangles. Just getting it out of the braid would be a nightmare.

“Even Sartaq braids better than that,” Borte teased.

Nesryn sighed. “Despite my sister’s best efforts to teach me, I’m useless when it comes to such things.” She offered the girl a wink. “Why do you think I keep my hair so short?”

Indeed, her sister had practically fainted when Nesryn had come home one afternoon at age fifteen with hair cut to her collarbone. She’d kept the hair that length ever since—in part to piss off Delara, who still pouted about it, and partially because it was far easier to deal with. Wielding blades and arrows was one thing, but styling hair … She was hopeless. And showing up at the guards’ barracks with a pretty hairstyle would not have been well received.

Borte only gave Nesryn a curt nod—as if she seemed to realize that. “Before you fly the next time, I’ll braid it properly for you.” Then she pointed down the hall, to a set of narrow stairs that led into the gloom. “Baths are this way.”

Nesryn sniffed herself and cringed. “Oh, that’s awful.”

Borte snickered as Nesryn entered the hall. “I’m surprised Sartaq’s eyes weren’t watering.”

Nesryn chuckled as she followed her toward what she prayed was a boiling-hot bath. She again felt Borte’s sharp, assessing gaze and asked, “What?”

“You grew up in Adarlan, didn’t you?”

Nesryn considered the question, why it might be asked. “Yes. I was born and raised in Rifthold, though my father’s family comes from Antica.”

Borte was quiet for a few steps. But as they reached the narrow stairwell and stepped into the dim interior, Borte smiled over a shoulder at Nesryn. “Then welcome home.”

Nesryn wondered if those words might be the most beautiful she’d ever heard.

The baths were ancient copper tubs that had to be filled kettle by kettle, but Nesryn didn’t object as she finally slid into one.

An hour later, hair finally detangled and brushed out, she found herself seated at the massive round table in the great hall, shoveling roast rabbit into her mouth, nestled in thick, warm clothes that had been donated by Borte herself. The flashes of embroidered cobalt and daffodil on the sleeves snared Nesryn’s attention as much as the platters of roast meats before her. Beautiful clothes—layered and toasty against the chill that permeated the hall, even with the fires. And her toes … Borte had indeed found a pair of those fleece-lined boots for her.

Sartaq sat beside Nesryn at the empty table, equally silent and eating with as much enthusiasm. He had yet to bathe, though his windblown hair had been rebraided, the long plait falling down the center of his muscled back.

As her belly began to fill and her fingers slowed their picking, Nesryn glanced toward the prince. She found him smiling faintly. “Better than grapes and salted pork?”

She jerked her chin toward the bones littering her plate in silent answer, then to the grease on her fingers. Would it be uncouth to lick it off? The seasonings had been exquisite.

“My hearth-mother,” he said, that smile fading, “is not here.”

Nesryn paused her eating. They’d come here to seek the counsel of this woman—

“According to Borte, she will be returning tomorrow or the day after.”

She waited for more. Silence could be just as effective as spoken questions.

Sartaq pushed back his plate and braced his arms on the table. “I’m aware that you’re pressed for time. If I could, I’d go look for her myself, but even Borte wasn’t sure where she’d gone off to. Houlun is … adrift like that. Sees her sulde waving in the wind and takes her ruk out to chase it. And will whack us with it if we try to stop her.” A gesture toward the rack of spears near the cave mouth, Sartaq’s own sulde among them.

Nesryn smiled at that. “She sounds like an interesting woman.”

“She is. In some ways, I’m closer to her than …” The words trailed off, and he shook his head. Than his own mother. Indeed, Nesryn hadn’t witnessed him being nearly so open, so teasing with his own siblings, as he was with Borte.

“I can wait,” Nesryn said at last, trying not to wince. “Lord Westfall still needs time to heal, and I told him I’d be gone three weeks. I can wait a day or two more.” And please, gods, not another moment after it.

Sartaq nodded, tapping a finger on the ancient wood of the table. “Tonight, we will rest, but tomorrow …” A hint of a smile. “How would you like a tour tomorrow?”

“It would be an honor.”

Sartaq’s smile grew. “Perhaps we could also do a bit of archery practice.” He looked her over with a frankness that made her shift in her seat. “I’m certainly keen to match myself against Neith’s Arrow, and I’m sure the young warriors are, too.”

Nesryn pushed back her own plate, brows lifting. “They’ve heard of me?”

Sartaq grinned. “I might have told a story or two the last time I came here. Why do you think there were so many people gathered when we arrived? They certainly don’t usually bother to drag themselves here to see me.”

“But Borte seemed like she’d never—”

“Does Borte seem like a person who gives anyone an easy time?”

Something deeper in her warmed. “No. But how could they have known I was coming?”

His answering grin was the portrait of princely arrogance. “Because I sent word a day before that you were likely to join me.”

Nesryn gaped at him, unable to maintain that mask of calm.

Rising, Sartaq scooped up their plates. “I told you that I was praying you’d join me, Nesryn Faliq. If I’d shown up empty-handed, Borte would have never let me hear the end of it.”

30

Within the interior chamber of the hall, Nesryn had no way of telling how long she’d slept or what hour of the morning it was. She’d dozed fitfully, awakening to comb through the sounds beyond her door, to detect if anyone was astir. She doubted Sartaq was the type to scold her for sleeping in, but if the rukhin indeed teased the prince about his courtly life, then lazing about all morning was perhaps not the best way to win them over.

So she’d tossed and turned, catching a few minutes of sleep here and there, and gave up entirely when she noticed shadows interrupting the light cracking beneath the door. Someone, at least, was awake in the Hall of Altun.

She’d dressed, pausing only to wash her face. The room was warm enough that the water in the ewer wasn’t icy, though she certainly could have used a freezing splash on her gritty eyes.

Thirty minutes later, seated in the saddle before Sartaq, she regretted that wish.

He’d indeed been awake and saddling Kadara when she’d emerged into the still-quiet great hall. The fire pit burned brightly, as if someone tended to it all night, but save for the prince and his ruk, the pillar-filled hall was empty. It was still empty when he hauled her up into the saddle and Kadara leaped from the cave mouth.

Freezing air slammed into her face, whipping at her cheeks as they dove.

A few other ruks were aloft. Likely out for their breakfasts, Sartaq told her, his voice soft in the emerging dawn. And it was in pursuit of Kadara’s own meal that they went, sailing out of the three peaks of the Eridun’s aerie and deep into the fir-crusted mountains beyond.

It was only after Kadara had snatched half a dozen fat silver salmon from a rushing turquoise river, hurling them each in the air before swallowing them in a slicing bite, that Sartaq steered them toward a cluster of smaller peaks.

“The training run,” he said, pointing. The rocks were smoother, the drops between peaks less sharp—more like smooth, rounded gullies. “Where the novices learn to ride.”

Though less brutal than the three brother-peaks of the Dorgos, it didn’t seem any safer. “You said you raised Kadara from a hatchling. Is that how it is done for all riders?”

“Not when we are first learning to ride. Children take out the seasoned, more docile ruks, ones too old to make long flights. We learn on them until we are thirteen, fourteen, and then find our hatchling to raise and train ourselves.”

“Thirteen—”

“We take our first rides at four. Or the others do. I was, as you know, a few years late.”

Nesryn pointed to the training run. “You let four-year-olds ride alone through that?”

“Family members or hearth-kin usually go on the first several rides.”

Nesryn blinked at the little mountain range, trying and failing to imagine her various nieces and nephews, who were still prone to running naked and shrieking through the house at the mere whisper of the word bath, responsible for not only commanding one of the beasts beneath her, but staying in the saddle.

“The horse-clans on the steppes have the same training,” Sartaq explained. “Most can stand atop the horses by six, and begin learning to wield bows and spears as soon as their feet can reach the stirrups. Aside from the standing”—a chuckle at the thought—“our children have an identical process.” The sun peeked out, warming the skin she’d left exposed to the biting wind. “It was how the first khagan conquered the continent. Our people were already well trained as a cavalry, disciplined and used to carrying their own supplies. The other armies they faced … Those kingdoms did not anticipate foes who knew how to ride across thick winter ice they believed would guard their cities during the cold months. And they did not anticipate an army that traveled light, engineers amongst them to craft weapons from any materials they found when they reached their destinations. To this day, the Academy of Engineers in Balruhn remains the most prestigious in the khaganate.”

Nesryn knew that—her father still mentioned the Academy every now and then. A distant cousin had attended and gone on to earn a small degree of fame for inventing some harvesting machine.

Sartaq steered Kadara southward, soaring high above the snowcapped peaks. “Those kingdoms also didn’t anticipate an army that conquered from behind, by taking routes that few would risk.” He pointed to the west, toward a pale band along the horizon. “The Kyzultum Desert lies that way. For centuries, it was a barrier between the steppes and the greener lands. To attempt to conquer the southern territories, everyone had always taken the long way around it, giving plenty of time for the defenders to rally a host. So when those kingdoms heard the khagan and his hundred thousand warriors were on the move, they positioned their armies to intercept them.” Pride limned his every word. “Only to discover that the khagan and his armies had directly crossed the Kyzultum, befriending local nomads long sneered at by the southern kingdoms to guide them. Allowing the khagan to creep right behind them and sack their unguarded cities.”

She felt his smile at her ear and found herself settling a little farther into him. “What happened then?” She’d only heard fragments of the stories—never such a sweeping account, and certainly not from the lips of one born to this glorious bloodline. “Was it open war?”

“No,” Sartaq said. “He avoided outright combat whenever he could, actually. Made a brutal example of a few key leaders, so that terror would spread, and by the time he reached many of those cities or armies, most laid down their arms and accepted his terms of surrender in exchange for protection. He used fear as a weapon, just as much as he wielded his sulde.”

“I heard he had two—sulde, I mean.”

“He did. And my father still does. The Ebony and the Ivory, we call them. A sulde with white horsehair to carry in times of peace and one with black horsehair to wield in war.”

“I assume he brought the Ebony with him on those campaigns.”

“Oh, he certainly did. And by the time he’d crossed the Kyzultum and sacked that first city, word of what awaited resistance, word that he was indeed carrying the Ebony sulde, spread so quick and so far that when he arrived at the next kingdom, they didn’t even bother to raise an army. They just surrendered. The khagan rewarded them handsomely for it—and made sure other territories heard of that, too.” He was quiet for a moment. “Adarlan’s king was not so clever or merciful, was he?”

“No,” Nesryn said, swallowing. “He was not.” The man had destroyed and pillaged and enslaved. Not the man—the demon within him.

She added, “The army that Erawan has rallied … He began amassing it long before Dorian and Aelin matured and claimed their birthrights. Chaol—Lord Westfall told me of tunnels and chambers beneath the palace in Rifthold that had been there for years. Places where human and Valg had been experimented upon. Right under the feet of mindless courtiers.”

“Which raises the question of why,” Sartaq mused. “If he’d conquered most of the northern continent, why gather such a force? He thought Aelin Galathynius was dead—I assume he did not anticipate that Dorian Havilliard would turn rebel, too.”

She hadn’t told him of the Wyrdkeys—and still couldn’t bring herself to divulge them. “We’ve always believed that Erawan was hell-bent on conquering this world. It seemed motive enough.”

“But you sound doubtful now.”

Nesryn considered. “I just don’t understand why. Why all this effort, why want to conquer more when he’d secretly controlled the northern continent anyway. Erawan got away with plenty of horrors. Is it only that he wishes to plunge our world into further darkness? Does he wish to call himself master of the earth?”

“Perhaps things like motives and reason are foreign to demons. Perhaps he only has the drive to destroy.”

Nesryn shook her head, squinting against the sun as it rose higher, the light turning blinding.

Sartaq returned to the Eridun aerie, left Kadara in the great hall, and continued Nesryn’s tour. He spared her the embarrassment of begging not to use the rope ladders along the cliff face and led her through the internal stairwells and passageways of the mountain. To get to the other two peaks, he claimed, they’d need to either fly across or take one of the two bridges strung between them. One glance at the rope and wood and Nesryn announced she could wait for another day to try.

Riding on Kadara was one thing. Nesryn trusted the bird, and trusted her rider. But the swaying bridge, however well built … She might need a drink or two before trying to cross.

But there was plenty to see within the mountain itself—Rokhal, the Whisperer, he was called. The other two brother-peaks that made up the Dorgos were Arik, the Lilter; and Torke, the Roarer—all three named for the way the wind itself sang as it passed over and around them.

Rokhal was the biggest of them, the most delved, his crown jewel being the Hall of Altun near the top. But even in the chambers below Altun, Nesryn hardly knew where to look as the prince showed her through the winding corridors and spaces.

The various kitchens and small gathering halls; the ruk riders’ houses and workshops; the nests of various ruks, who ranged in color from Kadara’s gold to dark brown; the smithies where armor was forged from ore mined within the mountain; the tanneries where the saddles were meticulously crafted; the trading posts where one might barter for household goods and small trinkets. And lastly, atop Rokhal himself, the training rings.

There was no wall or fence along the broad, flat-topped summit. Only the small, round building that provided a reprieve from the wind and cold, as well as access to the stairwell beneath.

Nesryn was out of breath by the time they opened the wooden door to the rasping wind—and the sight that stretched before her certainly snatched away any remaining air in her lungs.

Even flying above and amongst the mountains felt somehow different from this.

Snowcapped, dominating peaks surrounded them, ancient as the earth, untouched and slumbering. Nearby, a long lake sparkled between twin ridges, ruks mere shadows over the teal surface.

She’d never seen anything so great and unforgiving, so vast and beautiful. And even though she was as insignificant as a mayfly compared with the size of the mountains around them, some piece of her felt keenly a part of it, born from it.

Sartaq stood at her side, following where her attention drifted, as if their gazes were bound together. And when Nesryn’s stare landed upon a lonely, broad mountain on the other end of the lake, he drew in a swift breath. No trees grew on its dark sides; only snow provided a cape over its uppermost crags and summit.

“That is Arundin,” Sartaq said softly, as if fearful of even the wind hearing. “The fourth Singer amid these peaks.” The wind indeed seemed to flow from the mountain, cold and swift. “The Silent One, we call him.”

Indeed, a heavy sort of quiet seemed to ripple around that peak. In the turquoise waters of the lake at his feet lay a perfect mirror image, so clear that Nesryn wondered if one might dive beneath the surface and find another world, a shadow-world, beneath. “Why?”

Sartaq turned, as if the sight of Arundin was not one to be endured for long. “It is upon his slopes that the rukhin bury our dead. If we fly closer, you’ll see sulde covering his sides—the only markers of the fallen.”

It was an entirely inappropriate and morbid question, but Nesryn asked, “Will you one day be laid there, or out in the sacred land of the steppes with the rest of your family?”

Sartaq toed the smooth rock beneath them. “That choice remains before me. The two parts of my heart shall likely have a long war over it.”

She certainly understood it—that tug between two places.

Shouts and clanging metal drew her attention from the beckoning, eternal silence of Arundin to the real purpose of the space atop Rokhal: the training rings.

Men and women in riding leathers stood at various circles and stations. Some fired arrows at targets with impressive accuracy, some hurled spears, some sparred sword to sword. Older riders barked orders or corrected aim and posture, stalking amongst the warriors.

A few turned in Sartaq’s direction as he and Nesryn approached the training ring at the far end of the space. The archery circuit.

With the wind, the cold … Nesryn found herself calculating those factors. Admiring the archers’ skill all the more. And she was somehow not surprised to find Borte among the three archers aiming at stuffed dummies, her long braids snapping in the wind.

“Here to have your ass handed to you again, brother?” Borte’s smirk was full of that wicked delight.

Sartaq let out his rich, pleasant laugh again, taking up a longbow and shouldering a quiver from the stand nearby. He nudged his hearth-sister aside with a bump of the hip, nocking an arrow with ease. He aimed, fired, and Nesryn smiled as the arrow found its mark, right in the neck of the dummy.

“Impressive, for a princeling,” Borte drawled. She turned to Nesryn, her dark brows high. “And you?”

Well, then. Swallowing her smile, Nesryn shrugged out of the heavier wool overcoat, gave Borte an incline of her head, and approached the rack of arrows and bows. The mountain wind was bracing with only her riding leathers for warmth, but she blocked out Rokhal’s whispering as she ran her fingers down the carved wood. Yew, ash … She plucked up one of the yew bows, testing its weight, its flexibility and resistance. A solid, deadly weapon.

Yet familiar. As familiar as an old friend. She had not picked up a bow until her mother’s death, and during those initial years of grief and numbness, the physical training, the concentration and strength required, had been a sanctuary, and a reprieve, and forge.

She wondered if any of her old tutors had survived the attack on Rifthold. If any of their arrows had brought down wyverns. Or slowed them enough to save lives.

Nesryn let the thought settle as she moved to the quivers, pulling out arrows. The metal tips were heavier than those she’d used in Adarlan, the shaft slightly thicker. Designed to cut through brutal winds at racing speeds. Perhaps, if they were lucky, take out a wyvern or two.

She selected arrows from various quivers, setting them into her own before she strapped it across her back and approached the line where Borte, Sartaq, and a few others were silently watching.

“Pick a mark,” Nesryn told Borte.

The woman smirked. “Neck, heart, head.” She pointed to each of the three dummies, a different mark for each one. Wind rattled them, the aim and strength needed to hit each utterly different. Borte knew it—all the warriors here did.

Nesryn lifted an arm behind her head, dragging her fingers along the fletching, the feathers rippling against her skin as she scanned the three targets. Listened to the murmur of the winds racing past Rokhal, that wild summons she heard echoed in her own heart. Wind-seeker, her mother had called her.

One after another, Nesryn withdrew an arrow and fired.

Again, and again, and again.

Again, and again, and again.

Again, and again, and again.

And when she finished, only the howling wind answered—the wind of Torke, the Roarer. Every training ring had stopped. Staring at what she’d done.

Instead of three arrows distributed amongst the three dummies, she’d fired nine.

Three rows of perfectly aligned shots on each: heart, neck, and head. Not an inch of difference. Even with the singing winds.

Sartaq was grinning when she turned to him, his long braid drifting behind him, as if it were a sulde itself.

But Borte elbowed past him, and breathed to Nesryn, “Show me.”

For hours, Nesryn stood atop the Rokhal training ring and explained how she’d done it, how she calculated wind and weight and air. And as much as she showed the various rotations that came through, they also demonstrated their own techniques. The way they twisted in their saddles to fire backward, which bows they wielded for hunting or warfare.

Nesryn’s cheeks were wind-chapped, her hands numb, but she was smiling—wide and unfailingly—when Sartaq was approached by a breathless messenger who had burst from the stairwell entrance.

His hearth-mother had returned to the aerie at last.

Sartaq’s face revealed nothing, though a nod from him had Borte ordering all the onlookers to go back to their various stations. They did so with a few grins of thanks and welcome to Nesryn, which she returned with an incline of her head.

Sartaq set his quiver and bow on the wooden rack, extending a hand for Nesryn’s. She passed him both, flexing her fingers after hours of gripping bow and string.

“She’ll be tired,” Borte warned him, a short sword in her hand. Her training, apparently, was not over for the day. “Don’t pester her too much.”

Sartaq threw an incredulous look at Borte. “You think I want to get smacked with a spoon again?”

Nesryn choked at that, but shrugged into the embroidered cobalt-and-gold wool coat, belting it tightly. She trailed the prince as he headed into the warm interior, straightening her wind-tossed hair as they descended the dim stairwell.

“Even though Borte is to one day lead the Eridun, she trains with the others?”

“Yes,” Sartaq said without glancing over his shoulder. “Hearth-mothers all know how to fight, how to attack and defend. But Borte’s training includes other things.”

“Like learning the different tongues of the world.” Her use of the northern language was as impeccable as Sartaq’s.

“Like that. And history, and … more. Things even I am not told of by either Borte or her grandmother.”

The words echoed off the stones around them. Nesryn dared ask, “Where’s Borte’s mother?”

Sartaq’s shoulders tensed. “Her sulde stands on Arundin’s slopes.”

Just the way he spoke it, the cold cut of his voice …“I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” was all Sartaq said.

“Her father?”

“A man her mother met in distant lands, and whom she did not care to hold on to for longer than a night.”

Nesryn considered the fierce, wicked young woman who’d fought with no small skill in the training rings. “I’m glad she has you, then. And her grandmother.”

Sartaq shrugged. Dangerous, strange territory—she’d somehow waded into a place where she had no right to pry.

But then Sartaq said, “You’re a good teacher.”

“Thank you.” It was all she could think to say. He’d kept close to her side while she walked the others through her various positions and techniques, but had said little. A leader who did not need to constantly be filling the air with talking and boasting.

He blew out a breath, shoulders loosening. “And I’m relieved to see that the reality lives up to the legend.”

Nesryn chuckled, grateful to be back on safer ground. “You had doubts?”

They reached the landing that would take them to the great hall. Sartaq let her fall into step beside him. “The reports left out some key information. It made me doubt their accuracy.”

It was the sly gleam in his eye that made Nesryn angle her head. “What, exactly, did they fail to mention?”

They reached the great hall, empty save for a cloaked figure just barely visible on the other side of the fire pit—and someone sitting beside her.

But Sartaq turned to her, examining her from head to toe and back again. There was little that he missed. “They didn’t mention that you’re beautiful.”

Nesryn opened and closed her mouth in what she was sure was an unflattering impression of a fish on dry land.

With a wink, Sartaq strode ahead, calling, “Ej.” The rukhin’s term for mother, he’d told her this morning. Nesryn hurried after him. They rounded the massive fire pit, the figure sitting atop the uppermost stair pulling back her hood.

She’d expected an ancient crone, bent with age and toothless.

Instead, a straight-backed woman with braided, silver-streaked onyx hair smiled grimly at Sartaq. And though age had indeed touched her features … it was Borte’s face. Or Borte’s face in forty years.

The hearth-mother wore a rider’s leathers, though her dark blue cloak—actually a jacket she’d left hanging over her shoulders—covered much of them.

But at her side … Falkan. His face equally grave, those dark sapphire eyes scanning them. Sartaq checked his pace at the sight of the merchant, either irritated that he hadn’t been first to claim her attention or simply that the merchant was present for this reunion.

Manners or self-preserving instincts kicked in, and Sartaq continued his approach, hopping down onto the first ledge of the pit to stride the rest of the way.

Houlun rose when he was near, enfolding him in a swift, hard embrace. She cupped his shoulders when she was done, the woman nearly as tall as him, shoulders strong and thighs well muscled, and surveyed Sartaq with a shrewd eye.

“Sorrow weighs heavily on you still,” she observed, running a scar-flecked hand over Sartaq’s high cheekbone. “And worry.”

Sartaq’s eyes shuttered before he ducked his head. “I have missed you, Ej.”

“Sweet-talker,” Houlun chided, patting his cheek.

To Nesryn’s delight, she could have sworn the prince blushed.

The firelight cast the few strands of silver in Houlun’s hair with red and gold as she peered around Sartaq’s broad shoulders to where Nesryn stood atop the lip of the pit. “And the archer from the north arrives at last.” An incline of her head. “I am Houlun, daughter of Dochin, but you may call me Ej, as the others do.”

One glance into the woman’s brown eyes and Nesryn knew Houlun was not one who missed much. Nesryn bowed her head. “It is an honor.”

The hearth-mother stared at her for a long moment. Nesryn met her gaze, remaining as still as she could. Letting the woman see what she wanted.

At last, Houlun’s eyes slid toward Sartaq. “We have matters to discuss.”

Absent that fierce gaze, Nesryn loosed a breath but kept her spine ramrod straight.

Sartaq nodded, something like relief on his face. But he glanced toward Falkan, watching all from his seat. “They are things that should be told privately, Ej.”

Not rude, but certainly not warm. Nesryn refrained from echoing the prince’s sentiment.

Houlun waved a hand. “Then they may wait.” She pointed to the stone bench. “Sit.”

“Ej—”

Falkan shifted, as if he’d do them all a favor and go.

But Houlun pointed to him in silent warning to remain. “I would have you all listen.”

Sartaq dropped onto the bench, the only sign of his discontent being the foot he tapped on the floor. Nesryn sat beside him, the stern woman reclaiming her perch between them and Falkan.

“An ancient malice is stirring deep in these mountains,” Houlun said. “It is why I have been gone these past few days—to seek it out.”

“Ej.” Warning and fear coated the prince’s voice.

“I am not so old that I cannot wield my sulde, boy.” She glowered at him. Indeed, nothing about this woman seemed old at all.

Sartaq asked, frowning, “What did you go in pursuit of?”

Houlun glanced around the hall for any stray ears. “Ruk nests have been pillaged. Eggs stolen in the night, hatchlings vanishing.”

Sartaq swore, filthy and low. Nesryn blinked at it, even as her stomach tightened. “Poachers have not dared tread in these mountains for decades,” the prince said. “But you should not have pursued them alone, Ej.”

“It was not poachers I sought. But something worse.”

Shadows lined the woman’s face, and Nesryn swallowed. If the Valg had come here—

“My own ej called them the kharankui.”

“It means shadow—darkness,” Sartaq murmured to Nesryn, dread tightening his face.

Her heart thundered. Should the Valg be here already—

“But in your lands,” Houlun went on, glancing between Nesryn and Falkan, “they call them something different, don’t they?”

Nesryn sized up Falkan as he swallowed, wondering herself how to lie or deflect revealing anything about the Valg—

But Falkan nodded. And he replied, voice barely audible above the flame, “We call them the stygian spiders.”

31

“The stygian spiders are little more than myths,” Nesryn managed to say to Houlun. “Spidersilk is so rare some even doubt it exists. You might be chasing ghosts.”

But it was Falkan who replied with a grim smile, “I would beg to differ, Captain Faliq.” He reached into the breast of his jacket, and Nesryn tensed, hand shooting for the dagger at her waist—

It was no weapon he pulled out.

The white fabric glittered, the iridescence like starfire as Falkan shifted it in his hand. Even Sartaq whistled at the handkerchief-sized piece of cloth.

“Spidersilk,” Falkan said, tucking the piece back into his jacket. “Straight from the source.”

As Nesryn’s mouth popped open, Sartaq said, “You have seen these terrors up close.” Not quite a question.

“I bartered with their kin in the northern continent,” Falkan corrected, that grim smile remaining. Along with shadows. So many shadows. “Nearly three years ago. Some might deem it a fool’s bargain, but I walked away with a hundred yards of Spidersilk.”

The handkerchief in his jacket alone could fetch a king’s ransom. A hundred yards of it …“You must be wealthy as the khagan,” she blurted.

A shrug. “I have learned that true wealth is not all glittering gold and jewels.”

Sartaq asked quietly, “What was the cost, then?” For the stygian spiders traded not in material goods, but dreams and wishes and—

“Twenty years. Twenty years of my life. Taken not from the end, but the prime.”

Nesryn scanned the man, his face just beginning to show the signs of age, the hair still without gray—

“I am twenty-seven,” Falkan said to her. “And yet I now appear to be a man of nearly fifty.”

Holy gods. “What are you doing at the aerie, then?” Nesryn demanded. “Do the spiders here produce the silk, too?”

“They are not so civilized as their sisters in the north,” Houlun said, clicking her tongue. “The kharankui do not create—only destroy. Long have they dwelled in their caves and passes of the Dagul Fells, in the far south of these mountains. And long have we maintained a respectful distance.”

“Why do you think they now come to steal our eggs?” Sartaq glanced to the few ruks lingering at the cave mouth, waiting for their riders. He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs.

“Who else?” the hearth-mother countered. “No poachers have been spotted. Who else might sneak upon a ruk’s nest, so high in the world? I flew over their domain these past few days. The webs indeed have grown from the peaks and passes of the Fells down to the pine forests in the ravines, choking off all life.” A glance toward Falkan. “I do not believe it mere coincidence that the kharankui have again begun preying upon the world at the same time a merchant seeks out our aerie for answers regarding their northern kin.”

Falkan raised his hands at Sartaq’s sharp look. “I have not sought them out nor provoked them. I heard whispers of your hearth-mother’s trove of knowledge and thought to seek her counsel before I dared anything.”

“What do you want with them?” Nesryn asked, angling her head.

Falkan examined his hands, flexing the fingers as if they were stiff. “I want my youth back.”

Houlun said to Sartaq, “He sold his hundred yards but still thinks he can reclaim the time.”

“I can reclaim it,” Falkan insisted, earning a warning glare from Houlun at his tone. He checked himself, and clarified, “There are … things that I still have left to do. I should like to accomplish them before old age interferes. I was told that slaying the spider who ate my twenty years was the only way to return those lost years to me.”

Nesryn’s brows narrowed. “Why not go hunt that spider back home, then? Why come here?”

Falkan didn’t answer.

Houlun said, “Because he was also told that only a great warrior can slay a kharankui. The greatest in the land. He heard of our close proximity to the terrors and thought to try his luck here first—to learn what we know about the spiders; perhaps how to kill them.” A faintly bemused look. “Perhaps also to find some backdoor way of reclaiming his years, an alternate route here, to spare him the confrontation there.”

A sound enough plan for a man insane enough to barter away his life in the first place.

“What does any of this have to do with the stolen eggs and hatchlings, Ej?” Sartaq, too, apparently possessed little sympathy for the merchant who’d traded his youth for kingly wealth. Falkan turned his face toward the fire, as if well aware of that.

“I want you to find them,” Houlun said.

“They have likely already died, Ej.”

“Those horrors can keep their prey alive long enough in their cocoons. But you are right—they have likely already been consumed.” Rage flickered in the woman’s face, a vision of the warrior beneath; the warrior her granddaughter was becoming as well. “Which is why I want you to find them the next time it happens. And remind those unholy piles of filth that we do not take kindly to theft of our young.” She jerked her chin to Falkan. “When they go, you will go, too. See if the answers you seek are there.”

“Why not go now?” Nesryn asked. “Why not seek them out and punish them?”

“Because we have no proof still,” Sartaq answered. “And if we attack unprovoked …”

“The kharankui have long been the enemies of the ruks,” Houlun finished. “They warred once, long ago. Before the riders climbed up from the steppes.” She shook her head, chasing away the shadow of memory, and declared to Sartaq, “Which is why we shall keep this quiet. The last thing we need is for riders and ruks to fly out there in a rage, or fill this place with panic. Tell them to be on their guard at the nests, but do not say why.”

Sartaq nodded. “As you will it, Ej.”

The hearth-mother turned to Falkan. “I would have a word with my captain.”

Falkan understood the dismissal and rose. “I am at your disposal, Prince Sartaq.” With a graceful bow, he strode off into the hall.

When Falkan’s steps had faded, 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 his people—this woman. He might command the ruks in the eyes of his father, the empire. But in these mountains, Houlun’s word was law.

And in that fourth peak, on Arundin’s silent slopes … Her daughter’s sulde stood in the wind. A woman who understood the cost of life—deeply. Who might not be so eager to let her granddaughter ride with the legion. If she allowed the Eridun rukhin to leave at all.

“If the kharankui are stirring, if Erawan has risen in the north,” Sartaq said carefully, “it is a threat for all to face.” He bowed his head. “But I would hear what you know, Ej. What perhaps even the kingdoms in the north might have lost to time and destruction. Why it is that our people, tucked away in this land, know such stories when the ancient demon wars never reached these shores.”

Houlun surveyed them, her long, thick braid swaying. Then she braced a hand on the stone and rose, groaning. “I must eat first, and rest awhile. Then I shall tell you.” She frowned toward the cave mouth, the silvery sheen of sunlight staining the walls. “A storm is coming. I outran it on the flight back. Tell the others to prepare.”

With that, the hearth-mother strode from the warmth of the pit and into the hall beyond. Her steps were stiff, but her back was straight. A warrior’s pace, clipped and unfaltering.

But instead of aiming for the round table or the kitchens, Houlun entered a door that Nesryn had marked as leading into the small library.

“She is our Story Keeper,” Sartaq explained, following Nesryn’s attention. “Being around the texts helps to tunnel into her memory.”

Not just a hearth-mother who knew the rukhin’s history, but a sacred Story Keeper—a rare gift for remembering and telling the legends and histories of the world.

Sartaq rose, groaning himself as he stretched. “She’s never wrong about a storm. We should spread the word.” He pointed to the hall behind them. “You take the interior. I’ll go to the other peaks and let them know.”

Before Nesryn could ask who, exactly, she should approach, the prince stalked for Kadara.

She frowned. Well, it would seem that she’d only have her own thoughts for company. A merchant hunting for spiders that might help him reclaim his youth, or at least learn how he might take it back from their northern kin. And the spiders themselves … Nesryn shuddered to think of those things crawling here, of all places, to feed on the most vulnerable. Monsters out of legend.

Perhaps Erawan was summoning all the dark, wicked things of this world to his banner.

Rubbing her hands as if she could implant the heat of the flame into her skin, Nesryn headed into the aerie proper.

A storm was coming, she was to tell any who crossed her path.

But she knew one was already here.

The storm struck just after nightfall. Great claws of lightning ripped at the sky, and thunder shuddered through every hall and floor.

Seated around the fire pit, Nesryn glanced to the distant cave mouth, where mighty curtains had been drawn across the space. They billowed and puffed in the wind, but remained anchored to the floor, parting only slightly to allow glimpses of the rain-lashed night.

Just inside them, three ruks sat curled in what seemed to be nests of straw and cloth: Kadara, a fierce brown ruk that Nesryn had been told belonged to Houlun, and a smaller ruk with a reddish-dun coloring. The tiniest ruk belonged to Borte—a veritable runt, the girl had called her at dinner, even as she’d beamed with pride.

Nesryn stretched out her aching legs, grateful for the heat of the fire and the blanket Sartaq had dropped in her lap. She’d spent hours going up and down the aerie stairs, telling whoever she encountered that Houlun had said a storm approached.

Some had given her thankful nods and hurried off; others had offered hot tea and small samplings of whatever they were cooking in their hearths. Some asked where Nesryn had come from, why she was here. And whenever she explained that she had come from Adarlan but that her people hailed from the southern continent, their replies were all the same: Welcome home.

The trek up and down the various stairs and sloped halls had taken its toll, along with the hours of training that morning. And by the time Houlun settled herself on the bench between Nesryn and Sartaq—Falkan and Borte having drifted off to their own rooms after dinner—Nesryn was near nodding off.

Lightning cracked outside, limning the hall with silver. For long minutes, as Houlun stared into the fire, there was only the grumble of thunder and the howl of the wind and the patter of the rain, only the crackle of the fire and rustling of ruk’s wings.

“Stormy nights are the domain of Story Keepers,” Houlun intoned in Halha. “We can hear one approaching from a hundred miles away, smell the charge in the air like a hound on a scent. They tell us to prepare, to ready for them. To gather our kin close and listen carefully.”

The hair on Nesryn’s arms rose beneath the warmth of her wool coat.

“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.

“It opened and closed swiftly, no more than a flash of lightning.”

As if in answer, veins of forked lightning lit the sky beyond.

“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.

Nesryn was grateful she was already sitting. “The Valg were here?” Her voice was too loud, too ordinary in the storm-filled silence.

Sartaq gave Nesryn a warning look, but Houlun only nodded, a jab of the chin. “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 were the Fae, too, like the spiders, waiting for that rip in the world to open again? By the time anyone thought to ask why, they had left those watchtowers and faded into memory.”

Houlun paused, and Sartaq asked, “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-mother of his aerie.

Houlun’s jaw clenched. “I have told you what I can—and even this is mere scraps of knowledge that have passed beyond most memories in this land. But if the kharankui are stirring again … Someone should go to that watchtower. Maybe you will discover something of use. Learn how the Fae fought these terrors, how they kept them at bay.” A long, assessing look at Nesryn as thunder rattled the caves again. “Perhaps it will make that sliver of hope just a bit larger.”

“Or get us killed,” Sartaq said, frowning toward the ruks half asleep in their nests.

“Nothing valuable comes without a cost, boy,” Houlun countered. “But do not linger in the watchtower after dark.”

32

“Good,” said Yrene, the heavy, solid weight of Chaol’s leg braced against her shoulder while she slowly rotated it.

Spread below her on the floor of the workroom in the physicians’ compound of the Torre several days later, Chaol watched her in silence. The day was already burning enough that Yrene was drenched in sweat; or would have been, if the arid climate didn’t dry up the sweat before it could really soak her clothes. She could feel it, though, on her face—see it gleaming on Chaol’s own, his features tight with concentration while she knelt over him.

“Your legs are responding well to the training,” she observed, fingers digging into the powerful muscle of his thighs.

Yrene hadn’t asked what had changed. Why he’d started going to the guards’ courtyard at the palace. He hadn’t explained, either.

“They are,” Chaol merely answered, scrubbing his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that morning. When she’d entered his suite after he’d returned from this morning’s practice with the guard, he’d said he wanted to go for a ride—and to get a change in scenery for the day.

That he was so eager, so willing to see the city, to adapt to his surroundings … Yrene hadn’t been able to say no. So they’d come here, after a meandering ride through Antica, to work in one of the quiet rooms down this hall. The rooms were all the same, each occupied by a desk, cot, and wall of cabinets, and each adorned with a solitary window that overlooked the neat rows of the sprawling herb garden. Indeed, despite the heat, the scents of rosemary, mint, and sage filled the chamber.

Chaol grunted as Yrene lowered his left leg to the cool stone floor and started on his right. Her magic was a low thrum flowing through her and into him, careful to avoid the black stain that slowly—so, so slowly—receded down his spine.

They fought against it every day. The memories devoured him, fed on him, and Yrene shoved back against them, chipping away at the darkness that pushed in to torment him.

Sometimes, she glimpsed what he endured in that whirling black pit. The pain, the rage and guilt and sorrow. But only flickers, as if they were tendrils of smoke drifting past her. And though he did not discuss what he saw, Yrene managed to push back against that dark wave. So little at a time, mere chips of stone off a boulder, but … better than nothing.

Closing her eyes, Yrene let her power seep into his legs like a swarm of white fireflies, finding those damaged pathways and congregating, surrounding the frayed bits that went silent during these exercises, when they should have been lit up like the rest of him.

“I’ve been researching,” she said, opening her eyes as she rotated his leg in his hip socket. “Things ancient healers did for people with spinal injuries. There was one woman, Linqin—she was able to make a magical brace for the entire body. An invisible sort of exoskeleton that allowed the person to walk, until they could reach a healer, or if the healing was somehow unsuccessful.”

Chaol cocked a brow. “I’m assuming you don’t have one?”

Yrene shook her head, lowering his leg and again picking up the other to begin the next set. “Linqin only made about ten, all connected to talismans that the user could wear. They’ve been lost to time, along with her method of creating them. And there was another healer, Saanvi, who legend says was able to bypass the healing entirely by planting some sort of tiny, magical shard of stone in the brain—”

He cringed.

“I wasn’t suggesting I experiment on you,” she said, slapping his thigh. “Or need to.”

A half smile tugged on his mouth. “So how did this knowledge become lost? I thought the library here contained all your records.”

Yrene frowned. “Both were healers working at outposts far from the Torre. There are four throughout the continent—small centers for Torre healers to live and work. To help the people who can’t make the trip here. Linqin and Saanvi were so isolated that by the time anyone remembered to fetch their records, they’d been lost. All we have now is rumor and myth.”

“Do you keep records? Of all this?” He gestured between them.

Yrene’s face heated. “Parts of it. Not when you’re acting like a stubborn ass.”

Again, that smile tugged on his face, but Yrene set down his leg and pulled back, though she remained kneeling on the tiles. “My point,” she said, steering conversation from the journals in her room levels and levels above, “is that it has been done. I know it’s taking us a long while, and I know you’re anxious to return—”

“I am. But I’m not rushing you, Yrene.” He sat up in a smooth movement. On the floor like this, he towered over her, the sheer size of him nearly overwhelming. He rotated his foot slowly—fighting for each movement as the muscles in the rest of his legs objected.

Chaol lifted his head, meeting her stare. Reading it easily. “Whoever is hunting you won’t get the chance to hurt you—whether you and I finish tomorrow, or in six months.”

“I know,” she breathed. Kashin and his guards hadn’t caught or found traces of whoever had tried to attack her. And though it had been quiet these last few nights, she’d barely slept, even in the safety of the Torre. Only exhaustion from healing Chaol granted her any measure of reprieve.

She sighed. “I think we should see Nousha again. Take another visit to the library.”

His gaze turned wary. “Why?”

Yrene frowned at the open window behind them, the bright gardens and lavender bushes swaying in the sea breeze, the bees bobbing amongst them all. No sign of anyone listening nearby. “Because we still haven’t asked how those books and scrolls wound up here.”

“There are no records for acquisitions dating that far back,” Nousha said in Yrene and Chaol’s own tongue, her mouth a tight line of disapproval as she gazed at them over her desk.

Around them, the library was a dim hive of activity, healers and assistants flowing in and out, some whispering hello to Yrene and Nousha as they passed. Today, an orange Baast Cat lounged by the massive hearth, her beryl eyes tracking them from her spot draped over the rolled arm of a sofa.

Yrene offered Nousha her best attempt at a smile. “But maybe there’s some record of why those books were even needed here?”

Nousha braced her dark forearms on the desk. “Some people might be wary of what knowledge they’re seeking if they’re being hunted—which started around the time you began poking into the topic.”

Chaol leaned forward in his chair, teeth flashing. “Is that a threat?”

Yrene waved him off. Overprotective man. “I know it is dangerous—and likely tied to it. But it is because of that, Nousha, that any additional information about the material here, where it came from, who acquired it … It could be vital.”

“For getting him to walk again.” A dry, disbelieving statement.

Yrene didn’t dare glance at Chaol.

“You can see that our progress is slow,” Chaol answered tightly. “Perhaps the ancients have some sort of advice for how to make it go faster.”

Nousha gave them both a look that said she wasn’t buying it for a minute, but sighed at the ceiling. “As I said, there are no records here dating that far back. But,” she added when Chaol opened his mouth, “there are rumors that out in the desert, caves exist with such information—caves this information came from. Most have been lost, but there was one in the Aksara Oasis …” Nousha’s look turned knowing as Yrene winced. “Perhaps you should start there.”

Yrene chewed on her lip as they walked from the library, Chaol keeping pace beside her.

When they were close to the Torre’s main hallway, to the courtyard and horse that would take him home for the evening, he asked, “Why are you cringing?”

Yrene crossed her arms, scanning the halls around them. Quiet at this time of day, right before the dinner rush. “That oasis, Aksara. It’s not exactly … easy to get to.”

“Far?”

“No, not that. It’s owned by the royals. No one is allowed there. It’s their private refuge.”

“Ah.” He scratched at the shadow of stubble on his jaw. “And asking to access it outright will lead to too many questions.”

“Exactly.”

He studied her, eyes narrowing.

“Don’t you dare suggest I use Kashin,” she hissed.

Chaol lifted his hands, eyes dancing. “I wouldn’t dare. Though he certainly ran the moment you snapped your fingers the other night. He’s a good man.”

Yrene braced her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you invite him to a romantic interlude in the desert, then.”

Chaol chuckled, trailing her as she started for the courtyard again. “I’m not versed in court intrigue, but you do have another palace connection.”

Yrene grimaced. “Hasar.” She toyed with a curl at the end of her hair. “She hasn’t asked me to play spy recently. I’m not sure if I want to … open that door again.”

“Perhaps you could convince her that a trip to the desert—an outing—would be … fun?”

“You want me to manipulate her like that?”

His gaze was steady. “We can find another way, if you’re uncomfortable.”

“No—no, it might work. It’s just Hasar was born into this sort of thing. She might see right through me. And she’s powerful enough that … Is it worth risking her entanglement, her anger, if we’re just going on a suggestion from Nousha?”

He considered her words. In a way that only Hafiza really did. “We’ll think on it. With Hasar, we’ll need to proceed carefully.”

Yrene stepped into the courtyard, motioning to one of the awaiting Torre guards that the lord needed his horse brought around from the stables. “I’m not a very good accomplice in intrigue,” she admitted to Chaol with an apologetic smile.

He only brushed his hand against hers. “I find it refreshing.”

And from the look in his eyes … she believed him. Enough that her cheeks heated, just a bit.

Yrene turned toward the Torre looming over them, just to buy herself some breathing room. Looked up, up, up to where her own little window gazed toward the sea. Toward home.

She lowered her gaze from the Torre to find his face grim. “I’m sorry to have brought all this upon you—all of you,” Chaol said quietly.

“Don’t be. Perhaps that’s what it wants. To use fear and guilt to end this—stop us.” She studied him, the proud lift of his chin, the strength he radiated in every breath. “Though … I do worry that time is not on our side.” Yrene amended, “Take all the time you need to heal. Yet …” She rubbed at her chest. “I have a feeling we have not seen the last of that hunter.”

Chaol nodded, his jaw tight. “We’ll deal with it.”

And that was that. Together—they’d deal with it together.

Yrene smiled slightly at him as the light steps of his horse approached on the pale gravel.

And the thought of climbing back to her room, the thought of hours spent fretting …

Maybe it made her pathetic, but Yrene blurted, “Would you like to stay for dinner? Cook will mope that you didn’t say hello.”

She knew it was not mere fear that spurred her. Knew that she just wanted to spend a few more minutes with him. Talk to him in a way that she so rarely did with anyone else.

For a long moment, Chaol only watched her. As if she were the only person in the world. She braced herself for the refusal, the distance. Knew she should have just let him ride off into the night.

“What if we ventured out for dinner instead?”

“You mean—in the city?” She pointed toward the open gates.

“Unless you think the chair in the streets—”

“The walkways are even.” Her heart hammered. “Do you have any preference for what to eat?”

A border—this was some strange border that they were crossing. To leave their neutral territories and emerge into the world beyond, not as healer and patient, but woman and man—

“I’ll try anything,” Chaol said, and she knew he meant it. And from the way he looked to the open gates of the Torre, to the city just starting to glow beyond … She knew he wanted to try anything; was as eager for a distraction from that shadow looming over them as she herself was.

So Yrene signaled to the guards that they didn’t need his horse. Not for a while yet. “I know just the place.”

Some people stared; some were too busy going about their business or journeys home to remark on Chaol as he wheeled his chair alongside Yrene.

She had to step in only a few times, to help him over the bump of a curve, or down one of the steep streets. She led him to a place five blocks away, the establishment like nothing he’d seen in Rifthold. He’d visited a few private dining rooms with Dorian, yes, but those had been for the elite, for members and their guests.

This place … it was akin to those private clubs, in that it was only for eating, full of tables and carved wooden chairs, but this was open to anyone, like the public rooms at an inn or tavern. The front of the pale-stoned building had several sets of doors that were open to the night, leading out onto a patio full of more tables and chairs under the stars, the space jutting into the street itself so that diners could watch the passing city bustle, even glimpse down the sloping street to the dark sea sparkling under the moonlight.

And the enticing smells coming from within: garlic, something tangy, something smoky …

Yrene murmured to the woman who came to greet them, which must have amounted to a table for two and without one chair, because within a moment, he was being led to the street-patio, where a servant discreetly removed one of the chairs at a small table for him to pull up to the edge.

Yrene claimed a seat opposite him, more than a few heads turning their way. Not to gawk at him, but her.

The Torre healer.

She didn’t seem to notice. The servant returned to rattle off what had to be the menu, and Yrene ordered in her halting Halha.

She bit her lower lip, glancing to the table, the public dining room. “Is this all right?”

Chaol took in the open sky above them, the color bleeding to a sapphire blue, the stars beginning to blink awake. When had he last relaxed? Eaten a meal not to keep his body healthy and alive, but to enjoy it?

He grappled for the words. Grappled to settle into the ease. “I’ve never done anything like this,” he at last admitted.

His birthday this past winter, in that greenhouse—even then, with Aelin, he’d been half there, half focused on the palace he’d left behind, on remembering who was in charge and where Dorian was supposed to be. But now …

“What—eaten a meal?”

“Had a meal when I wasn’t … Had a meal when I was just … Chaol.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d explained it right, if he could articulate it—

Yrene angled her head, her mass of hair sliding over a shoulder. “Why?”

“Because I was either a lord’s son and heir, or Captain of the Guard, or now Hand to the King.” Her gaze was unflinching as he fumbled to explain. “No one recognizes me here. No one has ever even heard of Anielle. And it’s …”

“Liberating?”

“Refreshing,” he countered, giving Yrene a small smile at the echo to his earlier words.

She blushed prettily in the golden light from the lanterns within the dining room behind them. “Well … good.”

“And you? Do you go out with friends often—leave the healer behind?”

Yrene watched the people streaming by. “I don’t have many friends,” she admitted. “Not because I don’t want them,” she blurted, and he smiled. “I just—at the Torre, we’re all busy. Sometimes, a few of us will go for a meal or drink, but our schedules rarely align, and it’s easier to eat at the mess hall, so … we’re not really a lively bunch. Which was why Kashin and Hasar became my friends—when they’re in Antica. But I’ve never really had the chance to do much of this.”

He almost asked, Go out to dinner with men? But said, “You had your focus elsewhere.”

She nodded. “And maybe one day—maybe I’ll have the time to go out and enjoy myself, but … there are people who need my help. It feels selfish to take time for myself, even now.”

“You shouldn’t feel that way.”

“And you’re any better?”

Chaol chuckled, leaning back as the servant came, bearing a pitcher of chilled mint tea. He waited until the man left before saying, “Maybe you and I will have to learn how to live—if we survive this war.”

It was a sharp, cold knife between them. But Yrene straightened her shoulders, her smile small and yet defiant as she lifted her pewter glass of tea. “To living, Lord Chaol.”

He clinked his glass against hers. “To being Chaol and Yrene—even just for a night.”

Chaol ate until he could barely move, the spices like small revelations with every bite.

They talked as they dined, Yrene explaining her initial months at the Torre, and how demanding her training had been. Then she’d asked about his training as captain, and he’d balked—balked at talking of Brullo and the others, and yet … He couldn’t refuse her joy, her curiosity.

And somehow, talking about Brullo, the man who had been a better father to him than his own … It did not hurt, not as much. A lower, quieter ache, but one he could withstand.

One he was glad to weather, if it meant honoring a good man’s legacy by telling his story.

So they talked, and ate, and when they finished, he escorted her to the glowing white walls of the Torre. Yrene herself seemed glowing as she smiled when they stopped within the gates while his horse was readied.

“Thank you,” she said, her cheeks flushed and gleaming. “For the meal—and company.”

“It was my pleasure,” Chaol said, and meant it.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning—at the palace?”

An unnecessary question, but he nodded.

Yrene shifted from one foot to another, still smiling, still shining. As if she were the last, vibrant ray of the sun, staining the sky long after it had vanished over the horizon.

“What?” she asked, and he realized he’d been staring.

“Thank you for tonight,” Chaol said, stifling what tried to leap off his tongue: I can’t take my eyes off you.

She bit her lip again, the crunch of hooves on gravel approaching. “Good night,” she murmured, and took a step away.

Chaol reached out. Just to brush his fingers over hers.

Yrene paused, her fingers curling, as if they were the petals of some shy flower.

“Good night,” he merely said.

And as Chaol rode back to the illuminated palace across the city, he could have sworn that some weight in his chest, on his shoulders, had vanished. As if he’d lived with it his entire life, unaware, and now, even with all that gathered around him, around Adarlan and those he cared for … How strange it felt.

That lightness.

33

The Watchtower of Eidolon jutted up from the mist-shrouded pines like the shard of a broken sword. It had been situated atop a low-lying peak that overlooked a solid wall of gargantuan mountains, and as Nesryn and Sartaq swept near the tower, sailing along the tree-crusted hills, she had the sense of racing toward a tidal wave of hard stone.

For a heartbeat, a wave of lethal glass swept for her instead. She blinked, and it was gone.

“There,” Sartaq whispered, as if fearful that any might hear while he pointed toward the enormous mountains lurking beyond. “Over that lip, that is the start of kharankui territory, the Dagul Fells. Those in the watchtower would have been able to see anyone coming down from those mountains, especially with their Fae sight.”

Fae sight or not, Nesryn scanned the barren slopes of the Fells—a wall of boulders and shards of rock. No trees, no streams. As if life had fled. “Houlun flew over that?”

“Believe me,” Sartaq grumbled, “I am not pleased. Borte got an earful about it this morning.”

“I’m surprised your kneecaps still function.”

“Didn’t you notice my limp earlier?”

Despite the nearing watchtower, despite the wall of mountain that rose up beyond it, Nesryn chuckled. She could have sworn Sartaq leaned closer, his broad chest pushing into the quiver and bow she had strapped across her back, along with the twin long knives courtesy of Borte.

They hadn’t told anyone where they were going or what they sought, which had earned no shortage of glares from Borte over breakfast, and curious glances from Falkan across the round table. But they had agreed last night, when Sartaq left Nesryn at her bedroom door, that secrecy was vital—for now.

So they’d departed an hour after dawn, armed and bearing a few packs of supplies. Even though they planned to be headed home well before sunset, Nesryn had insisted on bringing their gear. Should the worst happen, should anything happen, it was better to be prepared.

Borte, despite her ire at being left in the dark, had braided Nesryn’s hair after breakfast—a tight, elegant plait starting at the crown of her head and landing just where her cape fell to cover her flying leathers. The braid was tight enough that Nesryn had avoided the urge to loosen it these hours that they’d flown, but now that the tower was in sight and her hair had barely shifted, Nesryn supposed the braid could stay.

Kadara circled the watchtower twice, dropping lower with each pass.

“No signs of webs,” Nesryn observed. The upper levels of the watchtower had been destroyed by weather or some long-ago passing army, leaving only two floors above the ground. Both were exposed to the elements, the winding stairwell in the center coated in pine needles and dirt. Broken beams and blocks of stone also littered it, but no indications of life. Or any sort of miraculously preserved library.

With Kadara’s size, the ruk had to find a clearing nearby to land, since Sartaq didn’t trust the watchtower walls to hold her. The bird leaped into the air as soon as they’d begun the climb up the small incline to the watchtower proper. She’d circle overhead until Sartaq whistled for her, apparently.

Another trick of the rukhin and the Darghan on the steppes: the whistling, along with their whistling arrows. They had long allowed both peoples to communicate in a way that few noticed or bothered to comprehend, passing messages through enemy territory or down army lines. The riders had trained the ruks to understand the whistles, too—to know a call for help from a warning to flee.

Nesryn prayed with each grueling step through the thick pine trees and granite boulders that they would only need the whistle to summon the bird. She was no great tracker, but Sartaq, it seemed, was deftly reading the signs around them.

A shake of the prince’s head told Nesryn enough: no hint of a presence, arachnid or otherwise. She tried not to look too relieved. Despite the tall trees, the Fells were a solid, looming presence to her right, drawing the eye even as it repelled every instinct.

Blocks of stone greeted them first. Great, rectangular chunks, half buried in the pine needles and soil. The full weight of summer lay upon the land, yet the air was cool, the shade beneath the trees outright chilly.

“I don’t blame them for abandoning it if it’s this cold in the summer,” Nesryn muttered. “Imagine it in winter.”

Sartaq smiled but pressed a finger to his lips as they cleared the last of the trees. Blushing that he’d needed to remind her, Nesryn unslung her bow and nocked an arrow, letting it hang limply while they tipped back their heads to take in the tower.

It must have been enormous, thousands of years ago, if the ruins were enough to make her feel small. Any barracks or living quarters had long since tumbled away or rotted, but the stone archway into the tower itself remained intact, flanked by twin statues of some sort of weather-worn bird.

Sartaq approached, his long knife gleaming like quicksilver in the watery light as he studied the statues. “Ruks?” The question was a mere breath.

Nesryn squinted. “No—look at the face. The beak. They’re … owls.” Tall, slender owls, their wings tucked in tight. The symbol of Silba, of the Torre.

Sartaq’s throat bobbed. “Let’s be swift. I don’t think it’s wise to linger.”

Nesryn nodded, one eye behind them as they slipped through the open archway. It was a familiar position, the rearguard—in Rifthold’s sewers, she’d often let Chaol stalk ahead while she covered behind, arrow aimed into the darkness at their backs. So her body acted on pure muscle memory while Sartaq took the first steps through the archway and she twisted back, arrow aimed at the pine forest, scanning the trees.

Nothing. Not a bird or rustle of wind through the pines.

She turned a heartbeat later, assessing efficiently, as she had always done, even before her training: marking exits, pitfalls, possible sanctuaries. But there wasn’t much to note in the ruin.

The tower floor was well lit thanks to the vanished ceiling above, the crumbling staircase leading into the gray sky. Slits in the stone revealed where archers might have once positioned themselves—or watched from within the warmth of a tower on a freezing day. “Nothing up,” Nesryn observed perhaps a bit uselessly, facing Sartaq just as he took a step toward an open archway leading down into a dark stairwell. She grabbed his elbow. “Don’t.”

He gave her an incredulous look over his shoulder.

Nesryn kept her own face like stone. “Your ej said these towers were laid with traps. Just because we have yet to see one does not mean they are not still here.” She pointed with her arrow toward the open archway to the levels belowground. “We keep quiet, tread carefully. I go first.”

To hell with being the rearguard, if he was prone to plunging into danger.

The prince’s eyes flared, but she didn’t let him object. “I faced some of the horrors of Morath this spring and summer. I know how to mark them—and where to strike.”

Sartaq looked her over again. “You really should have been promoted.”

Nesryn smiled, releasing his muscled bicep. Wincing as she realized the liberties she’d taken by grabbing him, touching a prince without permission—

“Two captains, remember?” he said, noting the cringe she failed to hide.

Indeed. Nesryn inclined her head and stepped in front of him—and into the archway of the stairs leading below.

Her arm strained as she pulled the bowstring taut, scanning the darkness immediately beyond the stairwell entrance. When nothing leaped out, she slackened the bow, placed her arrow back in the quiver, and plucked up a handful of rocks from the ground, shards and chips from the felled blocks of stone around them.

A step behind, Sartaq did the same, filling his pockets with them.

Listening carefully, Nesryn rolled one of the rocks down the spiral stairs, letting it bounce and crack and—

A faint click, and Nesryn hurled herself back, slamming into Sartaq and sending them both sprawling to the ground. A thud sounded within the stairwell below, then another.

In the quiet that followed, her heavy breathing the only sound, she listened again. “Hidden bolts,” she observed, wincing as she found Sartaq’s face mere inches away. His eyes were upon the stairwell, even as he kept a hand on her back, the other angling his long knife toward the archway.

“Seems I owe you my life, Captain,” Sartaq said, and Nesryn quickly peeled back, offering a hand to help him rise. He clasped it, his hand warm around hers as she hauled him to his feet.

“Don’t worry,” Nesryn said drily. “I won’t tell Borte.” She plucked up another handful of rocks and sent them rolling and scattering down the gloom of the stairs. A few more clicks and thumps—then silence.

“We go slow,” she said, all amusement fading, and didn’t wait for his nod as she prodded the first step down with the tip of her bow.

She tapped and pushed along the stair, watching the walls, the ceiling. Nothing. She did it to the second, third, and fourth steps—as far as her bow could reach. And only when she was satisfied that no surprises waited did she allow them to step onto the stairs.

Nesryn repeated it with the next four steps, finding nothing. But when they reached the first turn of the spiral stairs …“I really owe you my life,” Sartaq breathed as they beheld what had been fired from a slit in the wall at the ninth step.

Barbed iron spikes. Designed to slam into flesh and stay there—unless the victim wanted to rip out more of their skin or organs on the curved, vicious hooks on the way out.

The spike had been fired so hard that it had sunk deep into the mortar between the stones. “Remember that these traps were not for human assailants,” she breathed.

But for spiders as large as horses. Who could speak, and plan, and remember.

She tapped the steps ahead, the wood of her bow a hollow echo through the dark chamber, prodding the slit where the bolt had been fired. “The Fae must have memorized what stairs to avoid while living here,” she observed as they cleared another few feet. “I don’t think they were stupid enough to do an easy pattern, though.”

Indeed, the next bolt had emerged three steps down. The one after that, five apart. But after that … Sartaq reached into his pocket and pulled out another handful of stones. They both squatted as he rolled a few down the stairs.

Click.

Nesryn was so focused on the wall ahead that she didn’t consider where the click had come from. Not in front, but below.

One heartbeat, she was crouched on a step.

The next, it had slid away beneath her feet, a black pit yawning open beneath—

Strong hands wrapped around her shoulder, her collar, a blade clattering on stone—

Nesryn scrabbled for the lip of the nearest stair as Sartaq held her, grunting at her weight, his long knife tumbling into the blackness beneath.

Metal hit metal. Bounced off it again and again, the clanking filling the stairwell.

Spikes. Likely a field of metal spikes—

Sartaq hauled her up, and her nails cracked on stone as she grappled for purchase on the smooth step. But then she was up, half sprawled on the stairs between Sartaq’s legs, both of them panting as they peered to the gap beyond.

“I think we’re even,” Nesryn said, fighting and failing to master her shaking.

The prince clasped her shoulder, while his other hand brushed down the back of her head. A comforting, casual touch. “Whoever built this place had no mercy for the kharankui.”

It took her another minute to stop trembling. Sartaq patiently waited, stroking her hair, fingers rippling over the ridges of Borte’s braid. She let him, leaned into the touch while she studied the gap they’d now have to jump, the stairs still beyond.

When she could at last stand without her knees clacking together, they carefully jumped the hole—and made it several more steps before another one appeared, this time accompanied by a bolt. But they kept going, the minutes dripping by, until they at last reached the level below.

Shafts of pale light shone from carefully hidden holes in the ground above, or perhaps through some mirror contraption in the passageways high above. She didn’t care, so long as the light was bright enough to see by.

And see they did.

The bottom level was a dungeon.

Five cells lay open, the doors ripped off, prisoners and guards long gone. A rectangular stone table lay in the center.

“Anyone who thinks the Fae are prancing creatures given to poetry and singing needs a history lesson,” Sartaq murmured as they lingered on the bottom step, not daring to touch the floor. “That stone table was not used for writing reports or dining.”

Indeed, dark stains still marred the surface. But a worktable lay against the nearby wall, scattered with an assortment of weapons. Any papers had long ago melted away in the snow and rain, and any leather-bound books … also gone.

“Do we risk it, or leave?” Sartaq mused.

“We’ve come this far,” Nesryn said. She squinted toward the far wall. “There—there is some writing there.” Near the floor, in dark lettering—a tangle of script.

The prince just reached into his pockets, casting more stones throughout the space. No clicks or groans answered. He chucked a few at the ceiling, at the walls. Nothing.

“Good enough for me,” Nesryn said.

Sartaq nodded, though they both tested each block of stone with the tip of the bow or his fine, thin sword. They made it past the stone table, and Nesryn did not bother to examine the various instruments that had been discarded.

She’d seen Chaol’s men hanging from the castle gates. Had seen the marks on their bodies.

Sartaq paused at the worktable, sorting through the weapons there. “Some of these are still sharp,” he observed, and Nesryn approached as he pulled a long dagger from its sheath. The watery sunlight caught in the blade, dancing along the markings carved down the center.

Nesryn reached for a short-sword, the leather scabbard nearly crumbling beneath her hand. She brushed away the ancient dirt from the hilt, revealing shining dark metal inlaid with swirls of gold, the cross-guard curving slightly at its ends.

The scabbard was indeed so old that it fell apart as she lifted the sword, its weight light despite its size, the balance perfect. More markings had been engraved down the fuller of the blade. A name or a prayer, perhaps.

“Only Fae blades could remain this sharp after a thousand years,” said Sartaq, setting down the knife he’d been inspecting. “Likely forged by the Fae smiths in Asterion, to the east of Doranelle—perhaps even before the first of the demon wars.”

A prince who had studied not only his own empire’s history, but that of many others.

History was certainly not her strongest subject, so she asked, “Asterion—like the horses?”

“One and the same. Great smiths and horse-breeders. Or so it once was—before borders closed and the world darkened.”

Nesryn studied the short-sword in her hand, the metal shining as if imbued with starlight, interrupted only by the carvings down the fuller. “I wonder what the markings say.”

Sartaq examined another blade, shards of light bouncing over the planes of his handsome face. “Likely spells against enemies; perhaps even against the—” He halted at the word.

Nesryn nodded all the same. The Valg. “Half of me hopes we never have to find out.” Leaving Sartaq to pick one for himself, she fastened the short-sword to her belt as she approached the far wall and the scribbled dark writing along the bottom.

She tested each block of stone on the floor, but found nothing.

At last, she peered at the script in flaking black letters. Not black, but—

“Blood,” Sartaq said, coming up beside her, an Asterion knife now at his side.

No sign of a body, or any lingering effects of whoever had written it, perhaps while they lay dying.

“It’s in the Fae tongue,” Nesryn said. “I don’t suppose your fancy tutors taught you the Old Language during your history lessons?”

A shake of the head.

She sighed. “We should find a way to write it down. Unless your memory is the sort that—”

“It’s not.” He swore, turning toward the stairs. “I have some paper and ink in Kadara’s saddlebags. I could—”

It wasn’t his cut-off words that made her whirl. But the way he went utterly still.

Nesryn slid that Fae blade free from where she’d tied it.

“There is no need to translate it,” said a light female voice in Halha. “It says, Look up. Pity you didn’t heed it.”

Nesryn indeed looked up at what emerged from the stairwell, crawling along the ceiling toward them, and swallowed her scream.

34

It was worse than Nesryn had ever dreamed.

The kharankui that slid from the ceiling and onto the floor was so much worse.

Bigger than a horse. Her skin was black and gray, mottled with splotches of white, her multiple eyes depthless pools of obsidian. And despite her bulk, she was slender and sleek—more black widow than wolf spider.

“Those Fae morsels forgot to look up when they built this place,” the spider said, her voice so lovely despite her utter monstrosity. Her long front legs clicked against the ancient stone. “To remember who they laid these traps for.”

Nesryn sized up the stairwell behind the spider, the light shafts, for any exits. Found none.

And this watchtower had now become a veritable web. Fool; utter fool for lingering—

The claws at the tops of the spider’s legs scraped over the rock.

Nesryn sheathed her sword again.

“Good,” the spider purred. “Good that you know how useless that Fae rubbish will be.”

Nesryn drew her bow, nocking an arrow.

The spider laughed. “If Fae archers did not halt me long ago, human, you will not now.”

Beside her, Sartaq’s sword lifted a fraction.

Dying here, now, had not occurred to her at breakfast while Borte braided her hair.

But there was nothing to do as the spider advanced, fangs slipping from her jaws.

“When I am done with you, rider, I shall make your bird scream.” Drops of liquid plopped from those fangs. Venom.

Then the spider lunged.

Nesryn fired an arrow, another aimed before her first found its mark. But the spider moved so swiftly that the blow intended for an eye hit the hard shell of her abdomen, barely embedding. The spider slammed into the stone torture table, as if she’d leap off to pounce on them—

Sartaq struck, a brutal slash toward the nearest clawed leg.

The spider shrieked, black blood spurting, and they hurtled for that distant doorway—

The kharankui intercepted them first. Slammed her legs between the wall and the stone table, blocking their path. So close, the reek of death leaking from those fangs—

“Human filth,” the spider spat, venom spraying onto the stones at their feet.

From the corner of her eye, Nesryn saw Sartaq fling an arm in her path, to shove her away, to leap in front of those deadly jaws—

She didn’t know what happened at first.

What the blur of motion was, what made the kharankui scream.

One heartbeat, she’d been ready to fight past Sartaq’s self-sacrificing idiocy, the next … the spider was crashing through the room, tumbling over and over.

Not Kadara, but something large, armed with claws and fangs—

A gray wolf. As large as a pony, and utterly ferocious.

Sartaq wasted no time, and neither did Nesryn. They sprinted for the archway and stairs beyond, not caring how many bolts or arrows shot from the walls as they outraced even the traps. Tearing up the stairs, leaping the gaps between them, they did not stop at the crashing and screeching below—

A canine yelp sounded, then silence.

Nesryn and Sartaq hit the top of the stairs, running for the trees beyond the open doorway. The prince had a hand on her back, shoving her along, both of them half turned toward the tower.

The spider exploded from the gloom, aiming not for the trees, but the upper stairs of the watchtower. As if she’d climb up to ambush the wolf when it chased after her.

And exactly as she’d planned, the wolf flew from the stairwell, heading for the open archway to the woods, not even looking behind.

The spider leaped. Gold flashed from the skies.

Kadara’s war cry sent the pines trembling, her claws ripping right into the abdomen of the kharankui and sending her toppling off the stairs.

The wolf darted away as Sartaq’s roar of warning to his ruk was swallowed by the screaming of bird and spider. The kharankui landed on her back, precisely where Kadara wanted her.

Leaving her underbelly exposed to the ruk’s talons. And her blade-sharp beak.

A few vicious slashes, black blood spraying and sleek limbs flailing, and—silence.

Nesryn’s bow dangled from her shaking hands as Kadara dismembered the twitching spider. She whirled to Sartaq, but his eyes were turned away. To the wolf.

She knew. Right as the wolf limped toward them, a deep gash in its side, and she beheld its dark sapphire eyes.

Knew what it was, who it was, as the edges of his gray coat shimmered, his entire body filling with light that shrank and flowed.

And when Falkan waved on his feet before them, a hand pressed to the bloody wound in his ribs, Nesryn breathed, “You’re a shape-shifter.”

35

Falkan dropped to his knees, pine needles scattering, blood dribbling between his tan fingers.

Nesryn made to rush to him, but Sartaq blocked her with an arm. “Don’t,” he warned.

Nesryn shoved his arm out of her way and ran to the injured man, kneeling before him. “You followed us here.”

Falkan lifted his head, pain lining his eyes. “I listened last night. At your fire.”

Sartaq snarled, “No doubt as some rat or insect.”

Something like shame indeed filled Falkan’s face. “I flew here as a falcon—saw you go in. Then saw her creep up the hill after you.” He shuddered as he glanced to where Kadara had finished ripping apart the spider and now sat atop the tower, studying him as if he were her next meal.

Nesryn waved toward the bird to hop down with their saddlebags. Kadara pointedly ignored her. “He needs help,” she hissed to Sartaq. “Bandages.”

“Does my ej know?” was all the prince demanded.

Falkan tried and failed to remove his blood-soaked hand from his side, panting through his teeth. “Yes,” he managed to say. “I told her everything.”

“And what court paid you to come here?”

“Sartaq.” She’d never heard him speak that way, never seen him so furious. She grabbed the prince’s arm. “He saved our lives. Now we return the favor.” She pointed to the ruk. “Bandages.”

Sartaq turned those livid eyes on her. “His kind are assassins and spies,” he snarled. “Better to let him die.”

“I am neither,” Falkan panted. “I am what I said: a merchant. In Adarlan, growing up, I didn’t even know I had the gift. It—it ran in my family, but by the time magic vanished, I’d assumed I hadn’t gotten it. Was glad for it. But I must not have matured enough, because when I set foot in these lands as a man, as this …” A gesture to his body. To the twenty years he’d given up. He winced against what the movement did to his wound. “I could use it. I could change. Badly, and not often, but I can manage it, if I concentrate.” He said to the prince, “It is nothing to me, this heritage. It was my brother’s gift, my father’s—I never wanted it. I still don’t.”

“Yet you can change from bird to wolf to man as easily as if you trained.”

“Trust me, it’s more than I’ve done in my—” Falkan groaned, swaying.

Nesryn caught him before he could eat dirt, and snapped at Sartaq, “If you don’t get him bandages and supplies right now, I’ll give you a wound to match.”

The prince blinked at her, mouth falling open.

Then he whistled through his teeth, sharp and swift, while he strode for Kadara, his steps clipped.

The ruk hopped from the tower to land upon one of the owl statues anchored into the archway walls, stone cracking beneath her.

“I am no assassin,” Falkan insisted, still shaking. “I’ve met a few, but I’m not one.”

“I believe you,” Nesryn said, and meant it. Sartaq hauled the packs off Kadara, searching through them. “The left one,” she barked. The prince threw her another look over his shoulder, but obeyed.

“I wanted to kill her myself,” Falkan panted, his eyes glazing, no doubt from blood loss. “To see if … that might return the years. Even … even if she is not the one who took my youth, I thought maybe there was some … joint system between them, even across oceans. A web, as it were, of all that their kind has taken.” A bitter, strained laugh. “But it seems my death blow was taken, too.”

“I think we can all forgive Kadara for doing it instead,” Nesryn said, noting the black blood splattered over the ruk’s beak and feathers.

Another pained laugh. “You are not scared—of what I am.”

Sartaq strode over with the bandages and salve. And what seemed to be a jar of a honey-like substance, to likely seal the wound until they could reach a healer. Good.

“One of my friends is a shifter,” Nesryn admitted—just as Falkan fainted in her arms.

They were airborne within minutes of Nesryn cleaning out the gash down Falkan’s ribs and Sartaq indeed packing the wound with what seemed to be some sort of leaves and a coating of honey. To keep infection away and stave the blood loss as they swiftly soared back to the aerie.

She and the prince barely spoke, though with Falkan propped behind them, the ride didn’t afford much opportunity. It was a tight, perilous flight, Falkan’s dead weight occasionally listing far enough to the side that Sartaq had to grunt at holding him in the saddle. There were only two sets of buckles, he’d told Nesryn when they climbed onto the saddle. He wasn’t wasting either of their lives on a shifter, life debt or no.

But they made it, just as the sun was setting and the three peaks of the Dorgos were aglow with countless fires, like the mountains were crusted in fireflies.

Kadara loosed a shrill scream as they neared the Mountain-Hall of Altun. Some sort of signal, apparently, because by the time they landed, Borte, Houlun, and countless others were gathered, armed with supplies.

No one asked what happened to Falkan. No one wondered how he’d gotten out there. Either under order from Houlun not to pester them or simply from the chaos of getting him off the ruk and into a healer’s care. No one, except Borte.

Sartaq was still fuming enough that he led his ej to a corner of the hall to begin demanding answers about the shifter. Or that’s what it seemed like, with his set jaw and crossed arms.

Houlun only squared off against him, feet braced on the floor, her jaw as tight as his.

Alone with Kadara, Nesryn set to unbuckling the packs while Borte observed from a few feet away, “That he has the balls to lecture her tells me something went very wrong. And that she is allowing him to do so tells me she feels just a smidge guilty.”

Nesryn didn’t answer, grunting as she hauled down a particularly heavy pack.

Borte strode around Kadara, looking the bird over. Carefully.

“Black blood on her talons, her beak, and chest. Lots of black blood.”

Nesryn dumped the pack against the wall.

“And your back is crusted in red blood.”

From where Falkan had leaned against her during the ride.

“And that is a new blade. A Fae blade,” Borte breathed, stepping up to examine the naked blade dangling from her sword belt. Nesryn backed up a step.

Borte’s mouth tightened. “Whatever you know, I want to know it.”

“It’s not my call.”

They glanced toward Sartaq, who was still seething, Houlun simply letting him vent.

Borte began rattling off items on her fingers. “Ej sails off on her own for days. Then you go, returning with a man who did not leave with you and who took no ruk. And poor Kadara returns covered in this … foulness.” A sniff toward the black blood. The ruk clicked her beak in answer.

“It’s mud,” Nesryn lied.

Borte laughed. “And I’m a Fae Princess. Either I can start asking around, or—”

Nesryn dragged her to the wall with the packs. “Even if I tell you, you are not to breathe a word of it to anyone. Or be involved in any way.”

Borte put a hand on her heart. “I swear it.”

Nesryn sighed toward the distant, rocky ceiling, Kadara giving her a warning look as if to ask her to reconsider her judgment. But Nesryn told Borte everything.

She should have listened to Kadara. Borte, to her credit, did not tell anyone else. Other than Sartaq, who at last stalked over from Houlun, only to receive an earful and a smack on the shoulder for not informing his hearth-sister where he was going. And worse, for not inviting her along.

Sartaq had glared at Nesryn when he realized who’d told Borte, but she was too tired to care. Instead she only strode for her room, weaving between the pillars. She knew Sartaq was on her heels thanks to Borte’s shouted, “You will bring me next time, you stubborn ass!”

And just before Nesryn reached the door to her room, to the sanctuary of a soft bed, the prince gripped her elbow. “I would have words with you.”

Nesryn just shoved into the room, Sartaq stalking in behind her. Shutting the door and leaning against it. He crossed his arms at the same moment she did.

“Borte threatened to ask pointed questions around the aerie if I didn’t tell her.”

“I don’t care.”

Nesryn blinked. “Then what—”

“Who has the Wyrdkeys?” The question echoed between them.

Nesryn swallowed. “What’s a Wyrdkey?”

Sartaq pushed off the door. “Liar,” he breathed. “While we were gone, my ej recalled some of the other stories, dragged them up from whatever collective memory she possesses as Story Keeper. Tales of a Wyrdgate that the Valg and their kings passed through—could open at will with three keys when wielded together. Remembered that those keys went missing, after Maeve herself stole them and used them to send the Valg back. Hidden, she says. Throughout the world.”

Nesryn only lifted a brow. “And what of it?”

A cold snort. “It is how Erawan has raised an army so quickly, why even Aelin of the Wildfire cannot take him on without assistance. He must have at least one. Not all, or we’d be calling Erawan our master already. But at least one, maybe two. So where is the third?”

She honestly had not a clue. Whether Aelin and the others possessed an inkling, they’d never told her. Only that their ultimate path, beyond war and death, was to retrieve the ones Erawan held. But even telling him that …

“Perhaps now you understand,” Nesryn said with equal cold, “why we are so desperate for your father’s armies.”

“To be slaughtered.”

“When Erawan is done slaughtering us, he will come to your doorstep next.”

Sartaq swore. “What I saw today, that thing …” He scrubbed his face with shaking hands. “The Valg once used those spiders as foot soldiers. Legions of them.” He lowered his hands. “Houlun has learned of three other watchtowers in ruin—to the south. We’ll fly to the first as soon as the shifter is healed.”

“We’re taking Falkan?”

Sartaq yanked open the door, hard enough that she was surprised he didn’t rip it clean off its hinges. “As piss-poor of a shifter as he claims to be, a man who can change into a wolf that big is too good a weapon not to bring into danger.” A sharp glare. “He rides with me.”

“And where will I be?”

Sartaq gave her a humorless smile before entering the hall. “You’ll be flying with Borte.”

36

The atrophying in his legs … It was reversing.

Three weeks later, Yrene marveled at it. They’d regained movement up through his knee, but not higher. Chaol could bend his legs now, but couldn’t move his thighs. Couldn’t stand on them.

But the morning workouts with the guards, the afternoons spent healing, tangled in darkness and memory and pain …

That was muscle, packing back onto his legs. Filling out those already-broad shoulders and that impressive chest. Thanks to training in the morning sun, his tan had deepened to a rich brown, the color lying well over arms rippling with muscle.

They worked every day in easy rhythm, settling into a routine that became as much a part of Yrene as washing her face and cleaning her teeth and craving a cup of kahve when she woke.

He’d joined her again at the defense lessons, the youngest acolytes still hopelessly giggly around him, but at least they’d never once been late since he’d arrived. He’d even taught Yrene herself new maneuvers regarding taking on larger assailants. And while there were often smiles aplenty in the Torre courtyard, he and Yrene were grave as he walked her through those methods, as they considered when she might need them.

But there had been no whisper of whoever had attacked her—no confirmation that it was indeed one of the Valg. A small mercy, Yrene supposed.

But still she paid attention in his lessons, and still Chaol carefully trained her.

The royal siblings had come and gone and come back again, and she had seen nothing of Kashin beyond the dinner where she’d sought him out to thank him for his help and generosity the night of the attack. He’d said it was unnecessary, but she had touched his shoulder in thanks anyway. Before taking her seat at the safety of Chaol’s side.

Chaol’s own, separate cause with the khagan … Chaol and Yrene didn’t risk talking about the war—the need for armies. And the Aksara Oasis and well of knowledge, which might be hidden away beneath the palms, regarding why this place had such information on the Valg … Neither of them had come up with a way to manipulate Hasar into bringing them without raising her suspicions. Without risking the princess becoming aware of those scrolls Yrene and Chaol still had hidden in his room.

But Yrene knew time pressed on him. Saw how his eyes sometimes turned distant, as if staring toward a far-off land. Remembering the friends who fought there. For their people. He’d always push himself harder after that—and each inch of movement gained in his legs was as much due to himself as it was to her own magic.

But Yrene pushed herself, too. Wondered if the battles had begun; wondered if she’d ever make it in time to even help. Wondered what might be left for her to return to.

The darkness they encountered when she did heal him, from the demon that had dwelled inside the man who had destroyed so much of the world … They worked through that, too. She had not been dragged into his memories as she had before, had not been forced to witness the horrors of Morath or endure the attentions of the thing that lingered in him, but her magic still shoved against that wound, swarming it like a thousand dots of white light, eating and gobbling and clawing at it.

He endured the pain, wading through whatever that darkness showed him. Never recoiling from it, day after day. Only stopping when her own strength flagged and he insisted Yrene break for food or a nap on the gold couch or just some conversation over chilled tea.

Yrene supposed that their steady pace had to end at some point.

She thought it’d likely be due to an argument between them. Not news from afar.

The khagan returned to the nightly formal dinner, after two weeks away at a seaside estate to escape the summer heat, ensconced with his still-mourning wife. A merry gathering—or so it had seemed from afar. With no further attacks in the palace or Torre, the hushed watchfulness had lifted considerably these last few weeks.

But as Yrene and Chaol entered the great hall, as she read the simmering tension along those seated at the high table, she debated telling him to leave. Viziers shifted in their seats. Arghun, who had certainly not been missed while he’d joined his parents at the seaside, smirked.

Hasar smiled broadly at Yrene—knowingly. Not good.

They got perhaps fifteen minutes into dinner before the princess pounced. Hasar leaned forward and said to Chaol, “You must be pleased tonight, Lord Westfall.”

Yrene kept perfectly straight in her chair, her fork unfaltering as she lifted a bite of lemon-kissed sea bass to her mouth and forced herself to swallow.

Chaol countered smoothly, drinking from his goblet of water, “And why might that be, Your Highness?”

Hasar’s smiles could be awful. Deadly. And the one she wore when she spoke next made Yrene wonder why she had ever bothered to answer the princess’s summons. “Well, if one does the calculations, Captain Faliq should be returning with my brother tomorrow.”

Yrene’s hand tightened around her fork as she tallied the days.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since Nesryn and Sartaq had left for the Tavan Mountains.

Nesryn would return tomorrow. And though nothing—nothing—had happened between Yrene and Chaol …

Yrene could not stop the sensation of her chest caving in. Couldn’t halt the sense that there was about to be a door very permanently slammed in her face.

They hadn’t spoken of Nesryn. Of whatever was between them. And he’d never touched Yrene more than was necessary, never looked at her as he had that night of the party.

Because of course—of course he was waiting for Nesryn. The woman he … he was loyal to.

Yrene made herself eat another bite, even as the fish turned sour in her mouth.

Fool. She was a fool, and—

“Didn’t you hear the news?” Chaol drawled, just as irreverently as the princess. He set down his goblet, his knuckles brushing Yrene’s where she’d rested her hand on the table.

To any, it might have been an accidental brush, but with Chaol … His every movement was controlled. Focused. The brush of his skin against hers, a whisper of reassurance, as if he could sense that the walls were indeed closing in around her—

Hasar shot Yrene a displeased look. Why did you not inform me of this?

Yrene gave her an innocent wince back. I did not know. It was the truth.

“I suppose you shall tell us?” Hasar replied coolly to the lord.

Chaol shrugged. “I received word today—from Captain Faliq. She and your brother have decided to extend their trip by another three weeks. It turns out, her skill with a bow and arrow was in high demand amongst his rukhin. They have begged to keep her for a while longer. She obliged them.”

Yrene schooled her face into neutrality. Even as relief and shame washed through her.

A good woman—a brave woman. That was who she was so relieved to hear was not returning. Not … interrupting.

“Our brother is wise,” Arghun said from down the table, “to keep such a skilled warrior for as long as possible.”

The barb was there, buried deep.

Chaol again shrugged. “He is wise indeed, to know how special she is.” The words were spoken with truth, yet …

She was inventing things. Reading into it, assuming his tone had no affection beyond pride.

Arghun leaned forward to say to Hasar, “Well, then there’s the matter of the other news, sister. Which I assume Lord Westfall has also heard.”

A few places down, the khagan’s conversation with his closest viziers faltered.

“Oh, yes,” Hasar said, swirling her wine as she sprawled in her chair. “I’d forgotten.”

Yrene tried to catch Renia’s eye, to get the princess’s lover to reveal something about what she now felt building, the wave about to crash. The reason the room was so charged. But Renia only watched Hasar, a hand on her arm as if to say, Caution.

Not for what she was to reveal, but how Hasar was to reveal it.

Chaol glanced between Arghun and Hasar. From the prince and princess’s smirking, it was clear enough they were aware he hadn’t heard. But Chaol still seemed to be debating the merits of appearing knowledgeable, or admitting the truth—

Yrene spared him from the choice. “I have not heard it,” she said. “What has happened?”

Under the table, Chaol’s knee brushed hers in thanks. She told herself it was merely pleasure at the fact he could move that knee that coursed through her. Even as dread coiled in her gut.

“Well,” Hasar began, the opening chords to a dance she and Arghun had coordinated before this meal, “there have been some … developments on the neighboring continent, it seems.”

Yrene now pressed her knee into Chaol’s, a silent solidarity. Together, she tried to say through touch alone.

Arghun said to Yrene, to Chaol, and then down to his father, “So many developments up north. Royals gone missing, now revealing themselves once more. Both Dorian Havilliard and the Terrasen Queen. The latter did it in such dramatic fashion, too.”

“Where,” Yrene whispered, because Chaol could not. Indeed, the breath had gone out of him at the mention of his own king.

Hasar smiled at Yrene—that pleased smile she’d given her upon arrival.

“Skull’s Bay.”

The lie, the guess that Chaol had given her to feed to the princess … It had proved true.

She felt Chaol tense, though his face revealed nothing but bland interest. “A pirate port in the south, Great Khagan,” Chaol explained to Urus, seated down the table, as if he were indeed aware of this news—and a part of this conversation. “In the middle of a large archipelago.”

The khagan glanced to his visibly displeased viziers, and frowned with them. “And why would they appear in Skull’s Bay?”

Chaol had no answer, but Arghun was more than happy to supply it. “Because Aelin Galathynius thought to go head-to-head against the army Perrington had camped at the edge of the archipelago.”

Yrene slid her hand off the table—to grip Chaol’s knee. Tension radiated through every hard line of his body.

Duva asked, a hand on her growing belly, “Was the win in her favor, or Perrington’s?” As if it were a sporting match. Her husband was indeed peering down the table to see the heads swivel.

“Oh, in hers,” Hasar said. “We had eyes in the town already, so they were able to dispatch a full report.” That smug, secret smile again in Yrene’s direction. Spies she had sent using Yrene’s information. “Her power is considerable,” she added to her father. “Our sources say it burned the sky itself. And then wiped out most of the fleet assembled against her. In a single blow.”

Holy gods.

The viziers shifted, and the khagan’s face hardened. “The rumors of the glass castle’s destruction were not exaggerated, then.”

“No,” Arghun said mildly. “And her powers have grown since then. Along with her allies. Dorian Havilliard travels with her court. And Skull’s Bay and its Pirate Lord now kneel before her.”

Conqueror.

“They fight with her,” Chaol cut in. “Against Perrington’s forces.”

“Do they?” Hasar took up the assault, parrying with ease. “For it is not Perrington who is now sailing down Eyllwe’s coast, burning villages as he pleases.”

“That is a lie,” Chaol said too softly.

“Is it?” Arghun shrugged, then faced his father, the portrait of the concerned son. “No one has seen her, of course, but entire villages have been left in ash and ruin. They say she sails for Banjali, intent on strong-arming the Ytger family into mustering an army for her.”

“That is a lie,” Chaol snapped. His teeth flashed, viziers tittered and gasped, but he said to the khagan, “I know Aelin Galathynius, Great Khagan. It’s not her style, not in her nature. The Ytger family …” He stalled.

Is important to her. Yrene felt the words on his tongue, as if they were on her own. The princess and Arghun leaned forward, waiting for confirmation. Proof of Aelin Galathynius’s potential weakness.

Not in magic, but in who was vital to her. And Eyllwe, lying between Perrington’s forces and the khaganate … She could see the wheels turning in their heads.

“The Ytger family would be better used as an ally from the south,” Chaol corrected, shoulders stiff. “Aelin is clever enough to know this.”

“And I’d suppose you know,” Hasar said, “since you were her lover at some point. Or was that King Dorian? Or both? The spies were never accurate on who was in her bed and when.”

Yrene swallowed her surprise. Chaol—and Aelin Galathynius?

“I know her well, yes,” Chaol said tightly.

His knee pressed into her own, as if to say, Later. I will explain later.

“But this is war,” Arghun countered. “War makes people do things they might not ordinarily consider.”

The condescension and mockery were enough to make Yrene grind her teeth. This was a planned attack, a temporary alliance between two siblings.

Kashin cut in, “Does she set her sights on these shores?” It was a soldier’s question. Meant to assess the threat to his land, his king.

Hasar picked at her nails. “Who knows? With such power … Perhaps we’re all hers for the taking.”

“Aelin has one war to fight already,” Chaol ground out. “And she is no conqueror.”

“Skull’s Bay and Eyllwe would suggest otherwise.”

A vizier whispered in the khagan’s ear. Another leaned in to listen. Already calculating.

Chaol said to Urus, “Great Khagan, I know some might spin these tidings to appear to Aelin’s disadvantage, but I swear to you the Queen of Terrasen means only to liberate our land. My king would not ally with her if it were otherwise.”

“Would you swear it, though?” Hasar mused. “Swear on Yrene’s life?”

Chaol blinked at the princess.

“From all you have seen,” Hasar went on, “all you’ve witnessed of her character … would you swear it upon Yrene Towers’s life that Aelin Galathynius might not use such tactics? Might not try to take armies, rather than raise them? Including our own?”

Say yes. Say yes.

Chaol didn’t so much as look at Yrene as he stared down Hasar, then Arghun. The khagan and his viziers pulled apart.

Chaol said nothing. Swore nothing.

Hasar’s small smile was nothing short of triumphant. “I thought so.”

Yrene’s stomach turned.

The khagan took Chaol’s measure. “If Perrington and Aelin Galathynius are rallying armies, perhaps they’ll destroy each other and spare me the trouble.”

A muscle flickered in Chaol’s jaw.

“Perhaps if she’s so powerful,” Arghun mused, “she can take on Perrington by herself.”

“Don’t forget King Dorian,” Hasar chimed in. “Why, I’d bet the two of them could handle Perrington and whatever army he’s built without much assistance. Better to let them deal with it, than waste our blood on foreign soil.”

Yrene was shaking. Trembling with—with rage at the careful play of words, the game Hasar and her brother had constructed to keep from sailing to war.

“But,” Kashin countered, seeming to note Yrene’s expression, “it might also be said that if we do assist such powerful royals, the benefits in years of peace might be far worth the risks now.” He twisted to the khagan. “If we go to their aid, Father, should we ever face such a threat, imagine that power turned against our enemies.”

“Or turned against us, if she finds it easier to break her oaths,” Arghun cut in.

The khagan studied Arghun, his eldest son now frowning with distaste at Kashin. Duva, a hand still on her pregnant belly, only watched. Unnoted and unasked for, even by her husband.

Arghun turned back to his father. “Our people’s magic is minimal. The Eternal Sky and the thirty-six gods blessed our healers mostly.” A frown at Yrene. “Against such power, what is steel and wood? Aelin Galathynius took Rifthold, then took Skull’s Bay, and now seems poised to take Eyllwe. A wise ruler would have gone north, fortified her kingdom, then pushed south from the borders. Yet she stretches her forces thin, dividing them between north and south. If she is not a fool, then her advisors are.”

“They are well-trained warriors, who have seen more war and battle than you ever will,” Chaol said coldly.

The eldest prince stiffened. Hasar laughed quietly.

The khagan again weighed the words around him. “This remains a matter to discuss in council rooms, not dinner tables,” he said, though there was no reassurance in it. Not for Chaol, not for Yrene. “Though I am inclined to agree with what the bare facts offer.”

To his credit, Chaol did not argue further. Did not flinch or scowl. He only nodded once. “I thank you for the honor of your continued consideration, Great Khagan.”

Arghun and Hasar swapped sneering looks. But the khagan just returned to his meal.

Neither Yrene nor Chaol touched the rest of their food.

Bitch. The princess was a bitch, and Arghun was as fine a bastard as any Chaol had ever encountered.

There was some truth to their reluctance—their fear of Aelin’s powers and the threat she might pose. But he read them. Knew Hasar simply did not want to leave the comforts of her home, her lover’s arms, to sail to war. Did not want the messiness of it.

And Arghun … The man dealt in power, in knowledge. Chaol had no doubt Arghun’s arguing against him was more to force Chaol into a spot where he’d be desperate.

Even more than he was. Willing to offer anything up for their aid.

Kashin would do whatever his father told him. And as for the khagan …

Hours later, Chaol was still grinding his teeth as he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Yrene had left him with a squeeze to his shoulder, promising to see him the next day.

Chaol had barely been able to reply.

He should have lied. Should have sworn he trusted Aelin with his life.

Because Hasar had known that if she asked him to swear upon Yrene’s life …

Even if their thirty-six gods did not care about him, he couldn’t risk it.

He had seen Aelin do terrible things.

He still dreamed of her gutting Archer Finn in cold blood. Still dreamed of what she’d left of Grave’s body in that alley. Still dreamed of her butchering men like cattle, in Rifthold and in Endovier, and knew just how unfeeling and brutal she could turn. He had quarreled with her earlier this summer about it—the checks on her power. The lack of them.

Rowan was a good male. Utterly unafraid of Aelin, her magic. But would she listen to his counsel? Aedion and Aelin were as likely to come to blows as they were to agree, and Lysandra … Chaol didn’t know the shifter well enough to judge whether she’d keep Aelin in line.

Aelin had indeed changed—grown into a queen. Was still growing into one.

But he knew that there were no restraints, no inner ones, on how far Aelin would go to protect those she loved. Protect her kingdom. And if someone stood in her way, barred her from protecting them … No lines existed to cross within Aelin in regard to that. No lines at all.

So he had not been able to swear it, on Yrene’s life, that he believed Aelin might be above those sorts of methods. With her fraught history with Rolfe, she likely had used the might of her magic to intimidate him into joining their cause.

But with Eyllwe … Had they given some sign of resistance, to prompt her to terrorize them? He couldn’t imagine it, that Aelin would consider hurting innocent people, let alone the people of her beloved friend. And yet she knew the risks that Perrington—Erawan posed. What he’d do to them all, if she did not band them together. By whatever means necessary.

Chaol rubbed his face. If Aelin had kept herself in check, if she’d played the part of distressed queen … It would have made his task far easier.

Perhaps Aelin had cost them this war. This one shot at a future.

At least Dorian was accounted for—undoubtedly as safe as could be expected with Aelin’s court for companions.

Chaol sent a silent prayer of thanks into the night for that small mercy.

A soft knock had him shooting up. Not from the foyer, but the glass doors to the garden.

His legs twitched, bending slightly at the knee—more reaction than controlled movement. He and Yrene had been going through the grueling leg routines twice a day, the various therapies buying him movement inch by inch. Along with the magic she poured into his body while he endured the darkness’s horde of memories. He never told her what he saw, what left him screaming.

There was no point. And telling Yrene how badly he’d failed, how wrongly he’d judged, it made him just as nauseated. But what stood in the night-veiled garden … Not a memory.

Chaol squinted into the dark at the tall male figure standing there, a hand raised in quiet greeting—Chaol’s own hand drifting to the knife beneath his pillow. But the figure stepped closer to the lantern light, and Chaol blew out a breath and waved the prince in.

With a flick of a small knife, Kashin unlocked the garden door and slipped in.

“Lock-picking isn’t a skill I’d expect a prince to possess,” Chaol said by way of greeting.

Kashin lingered just inside the doorway, the lantern from outside illuminating enough of his face for Chaol to make out a half smile. “Learned more for sneaking in and out of ladies’ bedrooms than stealing, I’m afraid.”

“I thought your court was a bit more open in regard to that sort of thing than my own.”

That smile grew. “Perhaps, but cranky old husbands remain the same on either continent.”

Chaol chuckled, shaking his head. “What can I do for you, Prince?”

Kashin studied the door to the suite, Chaol doing the same—searching for any flickering shadows on the other side. When they both found none, Kashin said, “I assume you have discovered nothing within my court about who might be tormenting Yrene.”

“I wish I could say otherwise.” But with Nesryn gone, he’d had little chance to hunt through Antica for any signs of a would-be Valg agent. And things had indeed been quiet enough these three weeks that part of him had hoped they’d just … left. A considerably calmer atmosphere had settled over the palace and Torre since then, as if the shadows were indeed behind them all.

Kashin nodded. “I know Sartaq departed with your captain to seek answers regarding this threat.”

Chaol didn’t dare confirm or deny. He wasn’t entirely certain where Sartaq had left things with his family, if he’d received his father’s blessing to go.

Kashin went on, “That might just be why my siblings mounted such a unified front against you tonight. If Sartaq himself takes this threat seriously, they know they might have a limited window to convince our father not to join this cause.”

“But if the threat is real,” Chaol said, “if it might spill into these lands, why not fight? Why not stop it before it can reach these shores?”

“Because it is war,” Kashin said, and the way he spoke, the way he stood, it somehow made Chaol feel young indeed. “And though the manner in which my siblings presented their argument was unpleasant, I suspect Arghun and Hasar are aware of the costs that joining your cause requires. Never before has the entire might of the khaganate’s armies been sent to a foreign land. Oh, some legions, whether it be the rukhin or the armada or my own horse-lords. Sometimes united, but never all, never what you require. The cost of life, the sheer drain on our coffers … it will be great. Don’t make the mistake of believing my siblings don’t understand that very, very well.”

“And their fear of Aelin?”

Kashin snorted. “I cannot speak to that. Perhaps it is well founded. Perhaps it is not.”

“So you snuck into my room to tell me?” He should speak with more respect, but—

“I came to tell you one more piece of information, which Arghun chose not to mention.”

Chaol waited, wishing he weren’t sitting in bed, bare from the waist up.

Kashin said, “We received a report from our vizier of foreign trade that a large, lucrative order had been placed for a relatively new weapon.”

Chaol’s breathing snagged. If Morath had found some way—

“It is called a firelance,” Kashin said. “Our finest engineers made it by combining various weapons from across our continent.”

Oh, gods. If Morath had it in its arsenal—

“Captain Rolfe ordered them for his fleet. Months ago.”

Rolfe—“And when news arrived of Skull’s Bay falling to Aelin Galathynius, it also came with an order for even more firelances to be shipped northward.”

Chaol sorted through the information. “Why wouldn’t Arghun say this at dinner?”

“Because the firelances are very, very expensive.”

“Surely that’s good for your economy.”

“It is.” And not good for Arghun’s attempt to avoid this war.

Chaol fell silent for a heartbeat. “And you, Prince? Do you wish to join this war?”

Kashin didn’t answer immediately. He scanned the room, the ceiling, the bed, and finally Chaol himself. “This will be the great war of our time,” Kashin said quietly. “When we are dead, when even our grandchildren’s grandchildren are dead, they will still be talking about this war. They will whisper of it around fires, sing of it in the great halls. Who lived and died, who fought and who cowered.” His throat bobbed. “My sulde blows northward—day and night, the horsehairs blow north. So perhaps I will find my destiny on the plains of Fenharrow. Or before the white walls of Orynth. But it is northward that I shall go—if my father will order me.”

Chaol mulled it over. Looked to the trunks against the wall near the bathing chamber.

Kashin had turned to leave when Chaol asked, “When does your father next meet with his foreign trade vizier?”

37

Nesryn had run out of time.

Falkan required ten days to recover, which had left her and Sartaq with too little time to visit the other watchtower ruins to the south. She’d tried to convince the prince to go without the shape-shifter, but he’d refused. Even with Borte now intent on joining them, he was taking no risks.

But Sartaq found other ways to fill their time. He’d taken Nesryn to other aeries to the north and west, where he met with the reigning hearth-mothers and the captains, both male and female, who led their forces.

Some were welcoming, greeting Sartaq with feasts and revels that lasted long into the night.

Some, like the Berlad, were aloof, their hearth-mothers and other various leaders not inviting them to stay for longer than necessary. Certainly not bringing out jugs of the fermented goat’s milk that they drank—and that was strong enough to put hair on Nesryn’s chest, face, and teeth. She’d nearly choked to death the first time she’d tried it, earning hearty claps on the back and a toast in her honor.

It was the warm welcome that still surprised her. The smiles of the rukhin who asked, some shyly, some boldly, for demonstrations with her bow and arrow. But for all she showed them, she, too, learned. Went soaring with Sartaq through the mountain passes, the prince calling out targets and Nesryn striking them, learning how to fire into the wind, as the wind.

He even let her ride Kadara alone—just once, and enough for her to again wonder how they let four-year-olds do it, but … she’d never felt so unleashed.

So unburdened and unbridled and yet settled in herself.

So they went, clan to clan, hearth to hearth. Sartaq checking up on the riders and their training, stopping to visit new babes and ailing old folk. Nesryn remained his shadow—or tried to.

Anytime she lingered a step back, Sartaq nudged her forward. Anytime there was a task to be done with the others, he asked her to do it. The washing-up after a meal, the returning of arrows from target practice, the cleaning-out of the ruk droppings from halls and nests.

The last task, at least, the prince joined her in. No matter his rank, no matter his status as captain, he did every chore without a word of complaint. No one was above work, he told her when she’d asked one night.

And whether she was scraping crusted droppings from the ground or teaching young warriors how to string a bow, something restless in her had settled.

She could no longer picture it—the quiet meetings at the palace in Rifthold where she had given solemn guards their orders and then parted ways amongst marble floors and finery. Could not remember the city barracks, where she’d lurked in the back of a crowded room, gotten her orders, and then stood on a street corner for hours, watching people buy and eat and argue and walk about.

Another lifetime, another world.

Here in the deep mountains, breathing in the crisp air, seated around the fire pit to hear Houlun narrate tales of rukhin and the horse-lords, tales of the first khagan and his beloved wife, whom Borte had been named after … She could not remember that life before.

And did not want to go back to it.

It was at one such fire, Nesryn combing out the tight braid that Borte had taught her to plait, that she surprised even herself.

Houlun had settled in, a whetstone in hand as she honed a dagger, preparing to work while she talked to the small gathering—Sartaq, Borte, a gray-faced and limping Falkan, and six others who Nesryn had learned were Borte’s cousins of sorts. The hearth-mother scanned their faces, golden and flickering with the flame, and asked, “What of a tale from Adarlan instead?”

All eyes had turned to Nesryn and Falkan.

The shape-shifter winced. “I’m afraid mine are rather dull.” He considered. “I did have an interesting visit to the Red Desert once, but …” He gestured as much as he could to Nesryn. “I should like to hear one of your stories first, Captain.”

Nesryn tried not to fidget under the weight of so many stares. “The stories I grew up with,” she admitted, “were mostly of you all, of these lands.” Broad smiles at that. Sartaq only winked. Nesryn ducked her head, face heating.

“Tell a story of the Fae, if you know them,” Borte suggested. “Of the Fae Prince you met.”

Nesryn shook her head. “I don’t have any of those—and I do not know him that well.” As Borte frowned, Nesryn added, “But I can sing for you.”

Silence.

Houlun set down her whetstone. “A song would be appreciated.” A scowl at Borte and Sartaq. “Since neither of my children can carry a tune to save their lives.” Borte rolled her eyes at her hearth-mother, but Sartaq bowed his head in apology, a crooked grin now on his mouth.

Nesryn smiled, even as her heart pounded at her bold offer. She’d never really performed for anyone, but this … It was not performing, as much as it was sharing. She listened to the wind whispering outside the cave mouth for a long moment, the others falling quiet.

“This is a song of Adarlan,” she said at last. “From the foothills north of Rifthold, where my mother was born.” An old, familiar ache filled her chest. “She used to sing this to me—before she died.”

A glimmer of sympathy in Houlun’s steely gaze. But Nesryn glanced to Borte as she spoke, finding the young woman’s face unusually soft—staring at Nesryn as if she had not seen her before. Nesryn gave her a small, subtle nod. It is a weight we both bear.

Borte offered a small, quiet smile in return.

Nesryn listened to the wind again. Let herself drift back to her pretty little bedroom in Rifthold, let herself feel her mother’s silken hands stroking her face, her hair. She had been so taken with her father’s stories of his far-off homeland, of the ruks and horse-lords, that she had rarely asked for anything about Adarlan itself, despite being a child of both lands.

And this song of her mother’s … One of the few stories she had, in the form she loved best. Of her homeland in better days. And she wanted to share it with them—that glimpse into what her land might again become.

Nesryn cleared her throat. Took a bracing breath.

And then she opened her mouth and sang.

The crackle of the fire her only drum, Nesryn’s voice filled the Mountain-Hall of Altun, wending through the ancient pillars, bouncing off the carved rock.

She had the sense of Sartaq going very still, had the sense that there was nothing hard or laughing on his face.

But she focused on the song, on those long-ago words, that story of distant winters and speckles of blood on snow; that story of mothers and their daughters, how they loved and fought and tended to each other.

Her voice soared and fell, bold and graceful as a ruk, and Nesryn could have sworn that even the howling winds paused to listen.

And when she finished, a gilded, high note of the spring sun breaking across cold lands, when silence and the crackling fire filled the world once more …

Borte was crying. Silent tears streaming down her pretty face. Houlun’s hand was tightly wrapped around her granddaughter’s, the whetstone set aside. A wound still healing—for both of them.

And perhaps Sartaq, too—for grief limned his face. Grief, and awe, and perhaps something infinitely more tender as he said, “Another tale to spread of Neith’s Arrow.”

She ducked her head again, accepting the praise of the others with a smile. Falkan clapped as best he could manage and called for another song.

Nesryn, to her surprise, obliged them. A merry, bright mountain song her father had taught her, of rushing streams amid blooming fields of wildflowers.

But even as the night moved on, as Nesryn sang in that beautiful mountain-hall, she felt Sartaq’s stare. Different from any he’d given before.

And though she told herself she should, Nesryn did not look away.

A few days later, when Falkan had at last healed, they dared venture down to the three other watchtowers Houlun had discovered.

They found nothing at the first two, both far enough to require separate trips. Houlun had forbidden them from camping in the wilds—so rather than risk her wrath, they returned each night, then stayed a few days to let Kadara and Arcas, Borte’s sweet ruk, rest from being pushed so hard.

Sartaq warmed only a fraction to the shape-shifter. He watched Falkan as carefully as Kadara did, but at least attempted to make conversation now and then.

Borte, on the other hand, peppered Falkan with an endless stream of questions while they combed through ruins that were little more than rubble. What does it feel like to be a duck, paddling beneath water but gliding so smoothly over the surface?

When you eat as an animal, does the meat all fit in your human stomach?

Do you have to wait between eating as an animal and shifting back into a human because of it?

Do you defecate as an animal?

The last one earned a sharp laugh from Sartaq at least. Even if Falkan had gone red and avoided answering the question.

But after visiting two watchtowers, they had found nothing on why they had been built and who those long-ago guardians had battled—or how they had defeated them.

And with one tower left … Nesryn had done a tally of the days and realized that the three weeks she had promised Chaol were over.

Sartaq had known, too. Had sought her out as she stood in one of the ruk nests, admiring the birds resting or preening or sailing out. She often came here during quieter afternoons, just to observe the birds: their sharp-eyed intelligence, their loving bonds.

She was leaning against the wall beside the door when he emerged. For several minutes, they stood watching a mated pair nuzzle each other before one hopped to the edge of the massive cave mouth and dropped into the void below.

“That one over there,” the prince said at last, pointing to a reddish-brown ruk sitting by the opposite wall. She’d seen the ruk often—mostly noting that he was alone, never visited by a rider, unlike some of the others. “His rider died a few months back. Clutched at his chest in a meal and died. The rider was old, but the ruk …” Sartaq smiled sadly at the bird. “He’s young—not yet four.”

“What happens to the ones whose riders die?”

“We offer them freedom. Some fly off to the wilds. Some remain.” Sartaq crossed his arms. “He remained.”

“Do they ever get new riders?”

“Some do. If they accept them. It is the ruk’s choice.”

Nesryn heard the invitation in his voice. Read it in the prince’s eyes.

Her throat tightened. “Our three weeks are up.”

“Indeed they are.”

She faced the prince fully, tilting her head back to see his face. “We need more time.”

“So what did you say?”

A simple question.

But she’d taken hours to figure out how to word her letter to Chaol, then given it to Sartaq’s fastest messenger. “I asked for another three weeks.”

He angled his head, watching her with that unrelenting intensity. “A great deal can happen in three weeks.”

Nesryn made herself keep her shoulders squared, chin high. “Even so, at the end of it, I must return to Antica.”

Sartaq nodded, though something like disappointment guttered his eyes. “Then I suppose the ruk in the aerie will have to wait for another rider to come along.”

That had been a day ago. The conversation that left her unable to look too long in the prince’s direction.

And during the hours-long flight this morning, she’d snuck a glance or two over to where Kadara sailed, Sartaq and Falkan on her back.

Now Kadara swung wide, spying the final tower far below, located on a rare plain amid the hills and peaks of the Tavan Mountains. This late in the summer, it was awash with emerald grasses and sapphire streams—the ruin little more than a heap of stone.

Borte steered Arcas with a whistle through her teeth and a tug on the reins, the ruk banking left before leveling out. She was a skilled rider, bolder than Sartaq, mostly thanks to her ruk’s smaller size and agility. She’d won the past three annual racing contests between all the clans—competitions of agility, speed, and quick thinking.

“Did you pick Arcas,” Nesryn asked over the wind, “or did she pick you?”

Borte leaned forward to pat the ruk’s neck. “It was mutual. I saw that fuzzy head pop out of the nest, and I was done. Everyone told me to pick a bigger chick; my mother herself scolded me.” A sad smile at that. “But I knew Arcas was mine. I saw her, and I knew.”

Nesryn fell silent while they aimed for the pretty plain and ruin, the sunlight dancing on Kadara’s wings.

“You should take that ruk in the aerie for a flight sometime,” Borte said, letting Arcas descend into a smooth landing. “Test him out.”

“I’m leaving soon. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”

“I know. But perhaps you should, anyway.”

Borte loved finding the traps hidden by the Fae.

Which was fine by Nesryn, since the girl was far better at sussing them out.

This tower, to Borte’s disappointment, had suffered a collapse at some point, blocking the lower levels. And above them, only a chamber open to the sky remained.

Which was where Falkan came in.

As the shifter’s form blended and shrank, Sartaq did not bother to hide his shudder. And he shuddered once more when the fallen block of stone Falkan had been sitting on now revealed a millipede. Who promptly stood up and waved to them with its countless little legs.

Nesryn cringed with distaste, even as Borte laughed and waved back.

But off Falkan went, slithering between the fallen stones, to glean what might remain below.

“I don’t know why it bothers you so,” Borte said to Sartaq, clicking her tongue. “I think it’s delightful.”

“It’s not what he is,” Sartaq admitted, watching the pile of rock for the millipede’s return. “It’s the idea of bone melting, flesh flowing like water …” He shivered and turned to Nesryn. “Your friend—the shifter. It never bothered you?”

“No,” Nesryn answered plainly. “I didn’t even see her shift until that day your scouts reported on.”

“The Impossible Shot,” Sartaq murmured. “So it truly was a shifter that you saved.”

Nesryn nodded. “Her name is Lysandra.”

Borte nudged Sartaq with an elbow. “Don’t you wish to go north, brother? To meet all these people Nesryn talks of? Shifters and fire-breathing queens and Fae Princes …”

“I’m beginning to think your obsession with anything related to the Fae might be unhealthy,” Sartaq grumbled.

“I only took a dagger or two,” Borte insisted.

“You carried so many back from the last watchtower that poor Arcas could barely get off the ground.”

“It’s for my trading business,” Borte huffed. “Whenever our people get their heads out of their asses and remember that we can have a profitable one.”

“No wonder you’ve taken so much to Falkan,” Nesryn said, earning a jab in the ribs from Borte. Nesryn batted her away, chuckling.

Borte put her hands on her hips. “I will have you both know—”

The words were cut off by a scream.

Not from Falkan below.

But from outside. From Kadara.

Nesryn had an arrow drawn and aimed before they rushed out onto the field.

Only to find it filled with ruks. And grim-faced riders.

Sartaq sighed, shoulders slumping. But Borte shoved past them, cursing filthily as she kept her sword out—indeed an Asterion-forged blade from the arsenal at the last watchtower.

A young man of around Nesryn’s age had dismounted from his ruk, the bird a brown so dark it was nearly black, and he now swaggered toward them, a smirk on his handsome face. It was to him that Borte stormed, practically stomping through the high grasses.

The unit of rukhin looked on, imperious and cold. None bowed to Sartaq.

“What in hell are you doing here?” Borte demanded, a hand on her hip as she stopped a healthy distance from the young man.

He wore leathers like hers, but the colors of the band around his arm … The Berlad. The least welcoming of all the aeries they’d visited, and one of the more powerful. Its riders had been meticulously trained, their caves immaculately clean.

The young man ignored Borte and called to Sartaq, “We spotted your ruks while flying overhead. You are far from your aerie, Captain.”

Careful questions.

Borte hissed, “Be gone, Yeran. No one invited you here.”

Yeran lifted a cool brow. “Still yapping, I see.”

Borte spat at his feet. The other riders tensed, but she glared at them.

They all lowered their stares.

Behind them, stone crunched, and Yeran’s eyes flared, his knees bending as if he’d lunge for Borte—to hurl her behind him as Falkan emerged from the ruin.

In wolf form.

But Borte stepped out of Yeran’s reach and declared sweetly, “My new pet.”

Yeran gaped between girl and wolf as Falkan sat beside Nesryn. She couldn’t resist scratching his fuzzy ears.

To his credit, the shape-shifter let her, even turning his head into her palm.

“Strange company you keep these days, Captain,” Yeran managed to say to Sartaq.

Borte snapped her fingers in his face. “You cannot address me?”

Yeran gave her a lazy smile. “Do you finally have something worth hearing?”

Borte bristled. But Sartaq, smiling faintly, strolled to his hearth-sister’s side. “We have business in these parts and stopped for refreshment. What brings you so far south?”

Yeran wrapped a hand around the hilt of a long knife at his side. “Three hatchlings went missing. We thought to track them, but have found nothing.”

Nesryn’s stomach tightened, imagining those spiders scuttling through the aeries, between the ruks, to the fuzzy chicks so fiercely guarded. To the human families sleeping so close by.

“When were they taken?” Sartaq’s face was hard as stone.

“Two nights ago.” Yeran rubbed his jaw. “We suspected poachers, but there was no human scent, no tracks or camp.”

Look up. The bloody warning at the Watchtower of Eidolon rang through her mind.

Through Sartaq’s, if the tightening of his jaw was any indication.

“Go back to your aerie, Captain,” Sartaq said to Yeran, pointing to the wall of mountains beyond the plain, the gray rock so bare compared to the life humming around them. Always—the Dagul Fells always seemed to be watching. Waiting. “Do not track any farther than here.”

Wariness flooded Yeran’s brown eyes as he glanced between Borte and Sartaq, then over to Nesryn and Falkan. “The kharankui.”

The riders stirred. Even the ruks rustled their wings at the name, as if they, too, knew it.

But Borte declared, loud for all to hear, “You heard my brother. Crawl back to your aerie.”

Yeran gave her a mocking bow. “Go back to yours, and I will return to mine, Borte.”

She bared her teeth at him.

But Yeran mounted his ruk with easy, powerful grace, the others flapping away at a jerk of his chin. He waited until they had all soared into the skies before saying to Sartaq, “If the kharankui have begun to stir, we need to muster a host to drive them back. Before it is too late.”

A wind tugged at Sartaq’s braid, blowing it toward those mountains. Nesryn wished she could see his face, what might be on it at the mention of a host.

“It will be dealt with,” Sartaq said. “Be on your guard. Keep children and hatchlings close.”

Yeran nodded gravely, a soldier receiving an order from a commander—a captain ordered by his prince. Then he looked over to Borte.

She gave him a vulgar gesture.

Yeran only winked at her before he whistled to his ruk and shot into the skies, leaving a mighty breeze behind that set Borte’s braids swinging.

Borte watched Yeran until he was sailing toward the mass of the others, then spat on the ground where his ruk had stood. “Bastard,” she hissed, and whirled, storming to Nesryn and Falkan.

The shifter changed, swaying as his human form returned. “Nothing down below worth seeing,” he announced as Sartaq prowled over to where they had gathered.

Nesryn frowned at the Fells. “I think it’s time we craft a different strategy anyway.”

Sartaq followed her gaze, coming close enough to her side that the heat from his body leaked into hers. Together, they stared toward that wall of mountains. What waited beyond.

“That young captain, Yeran,” Falkan said carefully to Borte. “You seem to know him well.”

Borte scowled. “He’s my betrothed.”

38

Though Kashin might have been loath to push his father in public or private, he certainly was not without his resources. And as Chaol approached the sealed doors to the khagan’s trade meeting, he hid his grin when he discovered Hashim, Shen, and two other guards he’d trained with stationed outside. Shen winked at him, his armor glinting in the watery morning sunlight, and swiftly knocked with his artificial hand before opening the door.

Chaol didn’t dare give Shen, Hashim, or the other guards so much as a nod of gratitude or acknowledgment. Not as he wheeled his chair into the sun-drenched council room and found the khagan and three golden-robed viziers around a long table of black polished wood.

They all stared at him in silence. But Chaol kept approaching the table, his head high, face set in a pleasant, subdued smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting, but there is a matter I should like to discuss.”

The khagan’s lips pressed into a tight line. He wore a light green tunic and dark trousers, cut close enough to reveal the warrior’s body still lurking beneath the aged exterior. “I have told you time and again, Lord Westfall, that you should speak to my Chief Vizier”—a nod to the sour-faced man across from him—“if you wish to arrange a meeting.”

Chaol halted before the table, flexing and shifting his feet. He’d gone through as much of his leg exercises as he could this morning after his workout with the palace guard, and though he’d regained movement up to his knees, placing weight on them, standing …

He cast the thought from his mind. Standing or sitting had nothing to do with it—this moment.

He could still speak with dignity and command whether he stood on his feet or was laid flat on his back. The chair was no prison, nothing that made him lesser.

So Chaol bowed his head, smiling faintly. “With all due respect, Great Khagan, I am not here to meet with you.”

Urus blinked, his only show of surprise as Chaol inclined his head to the man in sky-blue robes whom Kashin had described. “I am here to speak to your foreign trade vizier.”

The vizier glanced between his khagan and Chaol, as if ready to proclaim his innocence, even as interest gleamed in his brown eyes. But he did not dare speak.

Chaol held the khagan’s stare for long seconds.

He didn’t remind himself that he had interrupted a private meeting of perhaps the most powerful man in the world. Didn’t remind himself that he was a guest in a foreign court and the fate of his friends and countrymen depended on what he accomplished here. He just stared at the khagan, man to man, warrior to warrior.

He had fought a king before and lived to tell.

The khagan at last jerked his chin to an empty spot at the table. Not a ringing welcome, but better than nothing.

Chaol nodded his thanks and approached, keeping his breathing even while he looked all four men in the eye and said to the vizier of foreign trade, “I received word that two large orders of firelances have been placed by Captain Rolfe’s armada, one prior to Aelin Galathynius’s arrival in Skull’s Bay, and an even larger one afterward.”

The khagan’s white brows flicked up. The foreign trade vizier shifted in his seat, but nodded. “Yes,” he said in Chaol’s tongue. “That is true.”

“How much, exactly, would you say each firelance costs?”

The viziers glanced among one another, and it was another man, whom Chaol presumed to be the domestic trade vizier, that named the sum.

Chaol only waited. Kashin had told him the astronomical number last night. And, just as he’d gambled, the khagan whipped his head to the vizier at that cost.

Chaol asked, “And how many are now being sent to Rolfe—and thus to Terrasen?”

Another number. Chaol let the khagan do the math. Watched from the corner of his eye as the khagan’s brows rose even higher.

The Chief Vizier braced his forearms on the table. “Are you trying to convince us of Aelin Galathynius’s good or ill intentions, Lord Westfall?”

Chaol ignored the barb. He simply said to the foreign trade vizier, “I would like to place another order. I would like to double the Queen of Terrasen’s order, actually.”

Silence.

The foreign trade vizier looked like he’d flip over in his chair.

But the Chief Vizier sneered, “With what money?”

Chaol turned a lazy grin on the man. “I came here with four trunks of priceless treasure.” A kingdom’s ransom, as it were. “I think it should cover the cost.”

Utter quiet once more.

Until the khagan asked his foreign trade vizier, “And will it cover the cost?”

“The treasure would have to be assessed and weighed—”

“It is already being done,” Chaol said, leaning back in his chair. “You shall have the number by this afternoon.”

Another beat of silence. Then the khagan murmured in Halha to the foreign trade vizier, who gathered up his papers and scurried out of the room with a wary glance at Chaol. A flat word from the khagan to his Chief Vizier and the domestic trade vizier, and both men also left, the former throwing another cold sneer Chaol’s way before departing.

Alone with the khagan, Chaol waited in silence.

Urus rose from his chair, stalking to the wall of windows that overlooked a blooming, shaded garden. “I suppose you think you are very clever, to use this to get an audience with me.”

“I spoke true,” Chaol said. “I wished to discuss the deal with your foreign trade vizier. Even if your armies will not join us, I don’t see how anyone can object to our purchase of your weapons.”

“And no doubt, this was meant to make me realize how lucrative this war might be, if your side is willing to invest in our resources.”

Chaol remained silent.

The khagan turned from the garden view, the sunlight making his white hair glow. “I do not appreciate being manipulated into this war, Lord Westfall.”

Chaol held the man’s stare, even as he gripped the arms of his chair.

The khagan asked quietly, “Do you even know what warfare is?”

Chaol clenched his jaw. “I suppose I’m about to find out, aren’t I.”

The khagan didn’t so much as smile. “It is not mere battles and supplies and strategy. Warfare is the absolute dedication of one army against their enemies.” A long, weighing look. “That is what you stand against—Morath’s rallied, solid front. Their conviction in decimating you into dust.”

“I know that well.”

“Do you? Do you understand what Morath is doing to you already? They build and plan and strike, and you can barely keep up. You are playing by the rules Perrington sets—and you will lose because of it.”

His breakfast turned over in his stomach. “We might still triumph.”

The khagan shook his head once. “To do that, your triumph must be complete. Every last bit of resistance squashed.”

His legs itched—and he shifted his feet just barely. Stand, he willed them. Stand.

He pushed his feet down, muscles barking in protest.

“Which is why,” Chaol snarled as his legs refused to obey, “we need your armies to aid us.”

The khagan glanced toward Chaol’s straining feet, as if he could see the struggle waging in his body. “I do not appreciate being hunted like some prize stag in a wood. I told you to wait; I told you to grant me the respect of grieving for my daughter—”

“And what if I told you that your daughter might have been murdered?”

Silence, horrible and hollow, filled the space between them.

Chaol snapped, “What if I told you that agents of Perrington might be here, and might already be hunting you, manipulating you into or out of this?”

The khagan’s face tightened. Chaol braced himself for the roaring, for Urus to perhaps draw the long, jeweled knife at his side and slam it into his chest. But the khagan only said quietly, “You are dismissed.”

As if the guards had listened to every word, the doors cracked open, a grim-faced Hashim beckoning Chaol toward the wall.

Chaol didn’t move. Footsteps approached from behind. To physically remove him.

He slammed his feet into the pedals of his chair, pushing and straining, gritting his teeth. Like hell they’d haul him out of here; like hell he’d let them drag him away—

“I came to not only save my people, but all peoples of this world,” Chaol growled at the khagan.

Someone—Shen—gripped the handles of his chair and began to turn him.

Chaol twisted, teeth bared at the guard. “Don’t touch it.”

But Shen didn’t release the handles, even as apology shone in his eyes. He knew—Chaol realized the guard knew just how it felt to have the chair touched, moved, without being asked. Just as Chaol knew what defying the khagan’s order to escort him from the room might mean for Shen.

So Chaol again fixed his stare on the khagan. “Your city is the greatest I have ever laid eyes upon, your empire the standard by which all others should be measured. When Morath comes to lay waste to it, who will stand with you if we are all carrion?”

The khagan’s eyes burned like coals.

Shen kept pushing his chair toward that door.

Chaol’s arms shook with the effort to keep from shoving the guard away, his legs trembling as he tried and tried to rise. Chaol looked over his shoulder and growled, “I stood on the wrong side of the line for too damn long, and it cost me everything. Do not make the same mistakes that I—”

“Do not presume to tell a khagan what he must do,” Urus said, his eyes like chips of ice. He jerked his chin to the guards shifting on their feet at the door. “Escort Lord Westfall back to his rooms. Do not allow him into my meetings again.”

The threat lay beneath the calm, cold words. Urus had no need to raise his voice, to roar to make his promise of punishment clear enough to the guards.

Chaol pushed and pushed against his chair, arms straining as he fought to stand, to even rise slightly.

But then Shen had his chair through the doors, and down the gleaming bright hallways.

Still his body did not obey. Did not answer.

The doors to the khagan’s council chamber shut with a soft click that reverberated through Chaol’s every bone and muscle, the sound more damning than any word the khagan had uttered.

Yrene had left Chaol to his thoughts the night before.

Left them as she stormed back to the Torre and decided that Hasar … Oh, she did not mind manipulating the princess one bit. And realized precisely how she’d get the princess to invite her to that damned oasis.

But it seemed that even a morning in the training ring with the guards had not soothed the jagged edge in Chaol’s own temper. The temper still simmering as he waited in the sitting room while Yrene sent Kadja off on another fool’s errand—twine, goat’s milk, and vinegar—and at last readied to work on him.

Summer was boiling toward a steamy close, the wild winds of autumn beginning to lash at the waters of the turquoise bay. It was always warm in Antica, but the Narrow Sea turned rough and unwieldy from Yulemas to Beltane. If an armada did not sail from the southern continent before then … Well, Yrene supposed that after last night, one wouldn’t sail anyway.

Sitting near their usual gold couch, Chaol didn’t greet her with more than a cursory glance. Not at all like his usual grim smile. And the shadows under his eyes … Any thought of rushing in here to tell him of her plan flowed out of Yrene’s head as she asked, “Were you up all night?”

“For parts of it,” he said, his voice low.

Yrene approached the couch but did not sit. Instead, she simply watched him, folding her arms across her abdomen. “Perhaps the khagan will consider. He’s aware of how his children scheme. He’s too smart not to have seen Arghun and Hasar working in tandem—for once—and to not be suspicious.”

“And you know the khagan so well?” A cold, biting question.

“No, but I’ve certainly lived here a good deal longer than you have.”

His brown eyes flashed. “I don’t have two years to spare. To play their games.”

And she did, apparently.

Yrene stifled her irritation. “Well, brooding about it won’t fix anything.”

His nostrils flared. “Indeed.”

She hadn’t seen him like this in weeks.

Had it been so long already? Her birthday was in a fortnight. Sooner than she’d realized.

It wasn’t the time to mention it, or the plan she’d hatched. It was inconsequential, really, given everything swarming around them. The burdens he bore. The frustration and despair she now saw pushing on those shoulders.

“Tell me what happened.” Something had—something had shifted since they’d parted ways last night.

A cutting glance her way. She braced herself for his refusal as his jaw tightened.

But then he said, “I went to see the khagan this morning.”

“You got an audience?”

“Not quite.” His lips thinned.

“What happened?” Yrene braced a hand on the arm of the sofa.

“He had me hauled out of the room.” Cold, flat words. “I couldn’t even try to get around the guards. Try to make him listen.”

“If you’d been standing, they’d have hauled you away all the same.” Likely hurt him in the process.

He glared. “I didn’t want to fight them. I wanted to beg him. And I couldn’t even get onto my knees to do it.”

Her heart strained as he looked toward the garden window. Rage and sorrow and fear all crossed over his face. “You’ve made remarkable progress already.”

“I want to be able to fight alongside my men again,” Chaol said quietly. “To die beside them.”

The words were an icy slice of fear through her, but Yrene said stiffly, “You can do that from a horse.”

“I want to do it shoulder-to-shoulder,” he snarled. “I want to fight in the mud, on a killing field.”

“So you’d heal here only so you can go die somewhere else?” The words snapped from her.

“Yes.”

A cold, hard answer. His face equally so.

This storm brewing in him … She wouldn’t see their progress ruined by it.

And war was truly breaking across their home. Regardless of what he wished to do with himself, he did not—they did not have time. Her people in Fenharrow did not have time.

So Yrene stepped up to him, gripped him under a shoulder, and said, “Then get up.”

Chaol was in a shit mood, and he knew it.

The more he’d thought about it, the more he realized how easily the prince and princess had played him, toyed with him last night … It didn’t matter what move Aelin had made. Anything she had done, they would have turned against her. Against him. Had Aelin played the damsel, they would have called her a weak and uncertain ally. There was no way to win.

The meeting with the khagan had been folly. Perhaps Kashin had played him, too. For if the khagan had been willing to hear him out before, he certainly was not going to now. And even if Nesryn returned with Sartaq’s rukhin in tow … Her note yesterday had been carefully worded.

The rukhin are deft archers. They find my own skills intriguing, too. I should like to keep instructing. And learning. They fly free here. I’ll see you in three weeks.

He didn’t know what to make of it. The penultimate line. Was it an insult to him, or a coded message that the rukhin and Sartaq might disobey the commands of their khagan if he refused to let them leave? Would Sartaq truly risk treason to aid them? Chaol didn’t dare leave the message unburned.

Fly free. He had never known such a feeling. It would never be his to discover. These weeks with Yrene, dining in the city under the stars, talking to her about everything and nothing … It had come close, perhaps. But it did not change what lay ahead.

No—they were still very much alone in this war. And the longer he lingered, with his friends now in combat, now on the move …

He was still here. In this chair. With no army, no allies.

“Get up.”

He slowly faced Yrene as she repeated her command, a hand tightly gripped under his shoulder, her face full of fiery challenge.

Chaol blinked at her. “What.” Not quite a question.

“Get. Up.” Her mouth tightened. “You want to die in this war so badly, then get up.”

She was in a mood, too. Good. He’d been aching for a fight—the clashes with the guards still unsatisfactory in this gods-damned chair. But Yrene …

He hadn’t allowed himself to touch her these weeks. Had made himself keep a distance, despite her unintentional moments of contact, the times when her head dipped close to his and all he could do was watch her mouth.

Yet he’d seen the tension in her at dinner last night, when Hasar had taunted about Nesryn’s return. The disappointment she’d tried so hard to keep hidden, then the relief when he’d revealed Nesryn’s extended trip.

He was a champion bastard. Even if he’d managed to convince the khagan to save their asses in this war … He would leave here. Empty handed or with an army, he’d leave. And despite Yrene’s plans to return to their continent, he wasn’t certain when he’d see her again. If ever.

None of them might make it anyway.

And this one task, this one task that his friends had given him, that Dorian had given him …

He’d failed.

Even with all he’d endured, all he’d learned … It was not enough.

Chaol gave a pointed look to his legs. “How?” They’d made more progress than he could have dreamed, yet this—

Her grip tightened to the point of pain. “You said it yourself: you don’t have two years. I’ve repaired enough now that you should be able to stand. So get up.” She even went so far as to tug on him.

He stared at her beneath lowered brows, letting his temper slip its leash by a few notches. “Let go.”

“Or what?” Oh, she was pissed.

“Who knows what the spies will feed to the royals?” Cold, hard words.

Yrene’s mouth tightened. “I have nothing to fear from their reports.”

“Don’t you? You didn’t seem to mind the privileges that came when you snapped your fingers and Kashin ran here. Perhaps he’ll grow tired of you stringing him along.”

“That is nonsense and you know it.” She tugged on his arm. “Get up.”

He did no such thing. “So a prince is not good enough for you, but the disowned son of a lord is?”

He’d never even voiced the thought. Even to himself.

“Just because you’re pissed off that Hasar and Arghun outmaneuvered you, that the khagan still won’t listen to you, doesn’t give you the right to try to drag me into a fight.” Her lips curled back from her teeth. “Now get up, since you’re so eager to rush off into battle.”

He yanked his shoulder out of her grip. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“I’m not going to answer the question.” Yrene didn’t grab his shoulder again, but slid her entire arm under him and grunted, as if she’d lift him herself, when he was nearly double her weight.

Chaol gritted his teeth, and just to avoid her injuring herself, he shook her off again and set his feet on the floor. Braced his hands on the arms of the chair and hauled himself forward as far as he could manage. “And?”

He could move his knees and below, and his thighs had been tingling this past week every now and then, yet …

“And you remember how to stand, don’t you?”

He only shot back, “Why did you look so relieved when I said Nesryn would be delayed a few more weeks?”

Color bloomed on her freckled skin, but she reached for him again, looping her arms through his. “I didn’t want it to distract you from our progress.”

“Liar.” Her scent wrapped around him as she tugged, the chair groaning as he began to push down on the arms.

And then Yrene parried and went on the offensive, sleek as a snake. “I think you were relieved,” she seethed, her breath hot against his ear. “I think you were glad for her to remain away, so you can pretend that you are honor-bound to her and let that be a wall. So that when you are here, with me, you don’t need to see her watching, don’t need to think about what she is to you. With her away, she is a memory, a distant ideal, but when she is here, and you look at her, what do you see? What do you feel ?”

“I had her in my bed, so I think that says enough about my feelings.”

He hated the words, even as the temper, the sharpness … it was a relief, too.

Yrene sucked in a breath, but didn’t back down. “Yes, you had her in your bed, but I think she was likely a distraction, and was sick of it. Perhaps sick of being a consolation prize.”

His arms strained, the chair wobbling as he pushed and pushed upward, if only so he could stand long enough to glare into her face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She had not mentioned Aelin at all, hadn’t asked after last night’s dinner. Until—

“Did she pick Dorian, then? The queen. I’m surprised she could stomach either of you, given your history. What your kingdom did to hers.”

Roaring filled his ears as he began shifting his weight onto his feet, willing his spine to hold while he spat at her, “You didn’t seem to mind it one bit, that night at the party. I had you practically begging me.” He didn’t know what the hell was coming out of his mouth.

Her nails dug into his back. “You’d be surprised the people that opiate makes you consider. Who you’ll find yourself willing to sully yourself with.”

“Right. A son of Adarlan. An oath-breaking, faithless traitor. That’s what I am, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know—you rarely even attempt to talk about it.”

“And you are so good at it, I suppose?”

“This is about you, not me.”

“Yet you were assigned to me because your Healer on High saw otherwise. Saw that no matter how high you climbed in that tower, you’re still that girl in Fenharrow.” A laugh came out of him, icy and bitter. “I knew another woman who lost as much as you. And do you know what she did with it—that loss?” He could barely stop the words from pouring out, could barely think over the roar in his head. “She hunted down the people responsible for it and obliterated them. What the hell have you bothered to do these years?”

Chaol felt the words hit their mark.

Felt the stillness shudder through her body.

Right as he pushed up—right as his weight adjusted and knees bent, and he found himself standing.

Too far. He’d gone too far. He’d never once believed those things. Even thought them.

Not about Yrene.

Her chest rose in a jagged breath that brushed against his, and she blinked up at him, mouth closing. And with the movement, he could see a wall rising up. Sealing.

Never again. She’d never again forgive him, smile at him, for what he’d said.

Never forget it. Standing or no.

“Yrene,” he rasped, but she slid her arms from him and backed away a step, shaking her head. Leaving him standing—alone. Alone and exposed as she retreated another step and the sunlight caught in the silver starting to line her eyes.

It ripped his chest wide open.

Chaol put a hand on it, as if he could feel the caving within, even as his legs wavered beneath him. “I am no one to even mention such things. I am nothing, and it was myself that I—”

“I might not have battled kings and shattered castles,” she said coldly, voice shaking with anger as she continued her retreat, “but I am the heir apparent to the Healer on High. Through my own work and suffering and sacrifice. And you’re standing right now because of that. People are alive because of that. So I may not be a warrior waving a sword about, may not be worthy of your glorious tales, but at least I save lives—not end them.”

“I know,” he said, fighting the urge to grip the arms of the chair now seeming so far below him as his balance wavered. “Yrene, I know.” Too far. He had gone too far, and he had never hated himself more, for wanting to pick a fight and being so gods-damned stupid, when he’d really been talking about himself—

Yrene backed away another step.

“Please,” he said.

But she was heading for the door. And if she left …

He had let them all go. Had walked out himself, too, but with Aelin, with Dorian, with Nesryn, he had let them go, and he had not gone after them.

But that woman backing toward the door, trying to keep the tears from falling—tears from the hurt he’d caused her, tears of the anger he so rightfully deserved—

She reached the handle. Fumbled blindly for it.

And if she left, if he let her walk out …

Yrene pushed down on the handle.

And Chaol took a step toward her.

39

Chaol did not think.

He did not marvel at the sensation of being so high. At the weight of his body, the sway of it as he took that staggering step.

There was only Yrene, and her hand on the doorknob, and the tears in her furious, lovely eyes. The most beautiful he’d ever seen.

They widened as he took that step toward her.

As he lurched and swayed. But he managed another.

Yrene stumbled toward him, studying him from head to toe, a hand rising to cover her open mouth. She stopped a few feet away.

He hadn’t realized how much smaller she was. How delicate.

How—how the world looked and seemed and tasted this way.

“Don’t go,” he breathed. “I’m sorry.”

Yrene surveyed him again, from his feet to his face. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she tipped her head back.

“I’m sorry,” Chaol said again.

Still she did not speak. Tears only rolled and rolled.

“I meant none of it,” he rasped, his knees beginning to ache and buckle, his thighs trembling. “I was spoiling for a fight and—I meant none of it, Yrene. None of it. And I’m sorry.”

“A kernel of it must have been in you, though,” she whispered.

Chaol shook his head, the motion making him sway. He gripped the back of a stuffed armchair to stay upright. “I meant it about myself. What you have done, Yrene, what you are willing to still do … You did this—all this not for glory or ambition, but because you believe it is the right thing to do. Your bravery, your cleverness, your unfaltering will … I do not have words for it, Yrene.”

Her face did not change.

“Please, Yrene.”

He reached for her, risking a staggering, wobbling step.

She took a step back.

Chaol’s hands curled around empty air.

He clenched his jaw as he fought to remain upright, his body swaying and strange.

“Perhaps it makes you feel better about yourself to associate with meek, pathetic little people like me.”

“I do not …” He ground his teeth, and lurched another step toward her, needing to just touch her, to take her hand and squeeze it, to just show her he wasn’t like that. Didn’t think like that. He swayed left, throwing out a hand to balance him as he bit out, “You know I didn’t mean it.”

Yrene backed away, keeping out of reach. “Do I?”

He pushed forward another step. Another.

She dodged him each time.

“You know it, damn you,” he growled. He forced his legs into another jerking step.

Yrene sidled out of the way.

He blinked, pausing.

Reading the light in her eyes. The tone.

The witch was tricking him into walking. Coaxing him to move. To follow.

She paused, meeting his stare, not a trace of that hurt in them, as if to say, It took you long enough to figure it out. A little smile bloomed on her mouth.

He was standing. He was … walking.

Walking. And this woman before him …

Chaol made it another step.

Yrene retreated.

Not a hunt, but a dance.

He did not remove his eyes from hers as he staggered another step, and another, his body aching, trembling. But he gritted through it. Fought for each inch toward her. Each step that had her backing up to the wall.

Her breath came in shallow pants, those golden eyes so wide as he tracked her across the room. As she led him one foot after another.

Until her back hit the wall, the sconce on it rattling. As if she’d lost track of where she was.

Chaol was instantly upon her.

He braced one hand upon the wall, the wallpaper smooth beneath his palm as he put his weight upon it. To keep his body upright as his thighs shook, back straining.

They were smaller, secondary concerns.

His other hand …

Yrene’s eyes were still bright with those tears he’d caused.

One still clung to her cheek.

Chaol wiped it away. Another one he found down by her jaw.

He didn’t understand—how she could be so delicate, so small, when she had overturned his life entirely. Worked miracles with those hands and that soul, this woman who had crossed mountains and seas.

She was trembling. Not with fear, not as she looked up at him.

And it was only when Yrene settled her hand on his chest, not to push him away but to feel the raging, thunderous heartbeat beneath, that Chaol lowered his head and kissed her.

He was standing. He was walking.

And he was kissing her.

Yrene could barely breathe, barely keep inside her skin, as Chaol’s mouth settled over hers.

It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.

Her hands curled into his shirt, fingers wrapping around fistfuls of fabric, tugging him closer.

His lips caressed hers in patient, unhurried movements, as if tracing the feel of her. And when his teeth grazed her lower lip … She opened her mouth to him.

He swept in, pressing her farther into the wall. She barely felt the molding digging into her spine, the sleekness of the wallpaper against her back as his tongue slid into her mouth.

Yrene moaned, not caring who heard, who might be listening. They could all go to hell for all she cared. She was burning, glowing—

Chaol laid a hand against her jaw, angling her face to better claim her mouth. She arched, silently begging him to take—

She knew he hadn’t meant what he said, knew it had been himself he’d been raging at. She’d goaded him into that fight, and even if it had hurt … She’d known the moment he stood, when her heart had stopped dead, that he hadn’t meant it.

That he would have crawled.

This man, this noble and selfless and remarkable man …

Yrene dragged her hands around his shoulders, fingers slipping into his silken brown hair. More, more, more—

But his kiss was thorough. As if he wanted to learn every taste, every angle of her.

She brushed her tongue against his, and his growl had her toes curling in her slippers—

She felt the tremor go through him before she registered what it was.

The strain.

Still he kissed her, seemed intent to do so, even if it brought him crashing to the floor.

Small steps. Small measures.

Yrene broke away, putting a hand on his chest when he made to claim her mouth again. “You should sit.”

His eyes were wholly black. “I—let me—please, Yrene.”

Each word was a broken rasp. As if he’d freed some tether on himself.

She fought to keep her breathing steady. To gather her wits. Too long on his feet and he might strain his back. And before she could encourage the walking and—more, she needed to go into his wound to look around. Perhaps it had receded enough on its own.

Chaol brushed his mouth against hers, the silken heat of his lips enough to make her willing to ignore common sense.

But she shoved back against it. Gently slid out of his reach. “Now I’ll have ways to reward you,” she said, trying for humor.

He didn’t smile back. Didn’t do anything but watch her with near-predatory intent as she backed away a step and offered her arm to him. To walk back to the chair.

To walk.

He was walking—

He did so. Pushed off the wall, and swayed—

Yrene caught him, steadied him.

“I thought you never stepped in to help me,” he said drily, raising a brow.

“In the chair, yes. You have much farther to fall now.”

Chaol huffed a laugh, then leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Will it be the bed or the couch now, Yrene?”

She swallowed, daring a sidelong look up at him. His eyes were still dark, his face flushed and lips swollen. From her.

Yrene’s blood heated, her core near-molten. How the hell would she have him nearly naked before her now?

“You are still my patient,” she managed to say primly, and guided him into his chair. Nearly shoved him onto it—and nearly leaped atop him, too. “And while there is no official vow about such things, I plan to keep things professional.”

Chaol’s answering smile was anything but. So was the way he growled, “Come here.”

Yrene’s heartbeat pounded through every inch of her as she closed the foot of space between them. As she held his burning gaze and settled into his lap.

His hand slid beneath her hair to cup the back of her neck, drawing her face to his as he brushed a kiss over the corner of her mouth. Then the other. She gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into the hard muscle beneath, her breathing turning jagged as he nipped at her bottom lip, as his other hand began to explore up her torso—

A door opened in the hallway, and Yrene was instantly up, striding across the sitting room for the desk—to the vials of oil there. Just as Kadja slipped through the door, a tray in her hands.

The servant girl had found the “ingredients” Yrene needed. Twine, goat’s milk, and vinegar.

Yrene could barely remember words to thank the servant as the girl set the tray on the desk.

Whether Kadja saw their faces, their hair and clothes, and could read the white-hot line of tension between them, she said nothing. Yrene had no doubt she might suspect, would no doubt report it to whoever held her leash, but … Yrene found herself not caring as she leaned against the desk, Kadja departing as silently as she had come.

Found Chaol still watching her, chest heaving.

“What do we do now?” Yrene asked quietly.

For she didn’t know—how to go back—

Chaol didn’t reply. He just stretched out one leg wholly in front of him. Then the other. Did it again, marveling.

“We don’t look back,” he said, meeting her stare. “It helps no one and nothing to look back.” The way he said it … It seemed as if it meant something more. To him, at least.

But Chaol’s smile grew, his eyes lighting as he added, “We can only go on.”

Yrene went to him, unable to stop herself, as if that smile were a beacon in the dark.

And when Chaol wheeled himself to the couch and peeled off his shirt, when he lay down and she set her hands on his warm, strong back … Yrene smiled as well.

40

Standing and walking a few steps wasn’t the same as being back to full capacity.

The next week proved it. Yrene still battled with whatever lurked in Chaol’s spine, still clinging—down to the very base, she explained—and still keeping him from full motion. Running, most jumping, kicking: out of the question. But thanks to the sturdy wooden cane she procured for him, he could stand, and he could walk.

And it was a gods-damned miracle.

He brought the cane and the chair to his morning training with Hashim and the guards, for the moments when he pushed himself too hard and couldn’t manage the return trip to his rooms. Yrene joined him during the early lessons, instructing Hashim on where to focus in his legs. To rebuild more muscle. To stabilize him further. She’d done the same for Shen, Hashim had confided one morning—had come to supervise most of his initial training sessions after his injury.

So Yrene had been there, watching from the sidelines, that first day Chaol had taken up a sword against Hashim and dueled. Or did it as best he could with the cane in one hand.

His balance was shit, his legs unreliable, but he managed to get in a few good hits against the man. And a cane … not a bad weapon, if the fight called for it.

Yrene’s eyes had been wide as saucers when they stopped and Chaol approached her spot on the wall, leaning heavily on the cane as his body trembled.

The color on her face, he realized with no small amount of male satisfaction, was from far more than the heat. And when they’d eventually left, walking slowly into the cool shadows of the halls, Yrene had tugged him into a curtained-off alcove and kissed him.

Leaning against a supply shelf for support, his hands had roved all over her, the generous curves and small waist, tangling into her long, heavy hair. She’d kissed and kissed him, breathless and panting, and then licked—actually licked the sweat from his neck.

Chaol had groaned so loudly that it was no surprise a servant appeared a heartbeat later, ripping the curtain away, as if to chide two workers for shirking their duties.

Yrene had blanched as she’d righted herself and asked the bowing and scraping male servant not to say anything. He assured her that he wouldn’t, but Yrene had been shaken. She’d kept her distance for the rest of the walk back.

And maintained it every day since. It was driving him mad.

But he understood. With her position, both in the Torre and within the palace, they should be smarter. More careful.

And with Kadja always in his rooms …

Chaol kept his hands to himself. Even when Yrene laid her own hands upon his back and healed him, pushed and pushed herself, to break through that final wall of darkness.

He wanted to tell her, debated telling her, that it was already enough. He would gladly live with the cane for the rest of his life. She had given him more than he could ever hope for.

For he saw the guards every morning. The weapons and shields.

And he thought of that war, unleashing itself at last upon his friends. His homeland.

Even if he did not bring an army with him when he returned, he’d find some way to stand on those battlefields. Riding, at least, was now a viable option while fighting alongside them.

Fighting for—her.

He was thinking of it as they walked to dinner one night, over a week later. With the cane, it took him longer than usual, but he did not mind any extra moment spent in her company.

She was wearing her purple gown—his favorite—her hair half up and curling softly from the unusually humid day. But she was jumpy, unsettled.

“What is it?”

The royals hadn’t cared the first night he’d walked on his own two legs to dinner. Another everyday miracle of the Torre, though the khagan himself had commended Yrene. She’d beamed at the praise. Even as the khagan had ignored Chaol—as he had done since that ill-fated meeting.

Yrene rubbed at the scar on her neck as if it ached. He hadn’t asked about it—didn’t want to know. Only because if he did … Even with a war upon them, he might very well take the time to hunt down whoever had done it and bury them.

“I convinced Hasar to throw me a party,” Yrene said quietly.

He waited until they’d passed a cluster of servants before asking, “For what reason?”

She blew out a breath. “It’s my birthday. In three days.”

“Your birthday?”

“You know, the celebration of the day of your birth—”

He nudged her with an elbow, though his spine slipped and shifted with the movement. The cane groaned as he pressed his weight upon it. “I had no idea that she-devils actually had them.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Yes, even my kind has them.”

Chaol grinned. “So you asked her to throw one for you?” Considering how the last party had gone … He might very well wind up one of those people slipping away into a darkened bedroom. Especially if Yrene wore that dress again.

“Not exactly,” Yrene said wryly. “I mentioned that my birthday was coming up, and how dull your plans for it were …”

He chuckled. “Presumptuous of you.”

She batted her eyelashes. “And I might have mentioned that in all my years here, I’ve never been to the desert and was debating a trip of my own, but that I’d be sad to not celebrate with her …”

“And I’m guessing that she suggested an oasis owned by her family instead?”

Yrene hummed. “A little overnight excursion to Aksara—half a day’s ride to the east, to their permanent tented camp within the oasis.”

So the healer could scheme after all. But—“It’ll be boiling in this heat.”

“The princess wants a party in the desert. So she shall have one.” She chewed on her lip, those shadows dancing again. “I also managed to ask her about it—Aksara. The history.” Chaol braced himself. “Hasar grew bored before she told me much, but she said that she’d once heard that the oasis grew atop a city of the dead. That the ruins now there were merely the gateway inside. They don’t like to risk disturbing the dead, so they never leave the spring itself—to venture into the jungle around it.”

No wonder she’d seemed concerned. “Not only caves to be found, then.”

“Perhaps Nousha means something different; perhaps there are also caves there with information.” She blew out a breath. “I suppose we’ll see. I made sure to yawn while Hasar told me, enough that I doubt she’ll wonder why I asked at all.”

Chaol kissed her temple, a swift brush of his mouth that no one might see. “Clever, Yrene.”

“I meant to tell you the other week, but then you stood, and I forgot. Some court schemer I am.”

He caressed his free hand down the length of her spine. A bit lower. “We’ve been otherwise engaged.” Her face flushed a beautiful shade of pink, but a thought settled into him. “What do you really want for your birthday? And which one is it?”

“Twenty-two. And I don’t know. If it wasn’t for this, I wouldn’t have brought it up at all.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

She gave him a guilty frown. “I figured that with everything pressing on you, birthdays were inconsequential.” Her hand slid into her pocket—to hold that thing he’d never inquired about.

They neared the clamor of dinner in the great hall. He brushed his fingers against hers. She halted at the silent request, the hall spreading away before them, servants and viziers striding past.

Chaol leaned on his cane while they rested, letting it stabilize his weight. “Am I invited to this desert party, at least?”

“Oh, yes. You, and all my other favorite people: Arghun, Kashin, and a handful of delightful viziers.”

“I’m glad I made the cut, considering that Hasar hates me.”

“No.” Yrene’s eyes darkened. “If Hasar hated you, I don’t think you’d be alive right now.”

Gods above. This was the woman she’d befriended.

Yrene went on, “At least Renia will be there, but Duva shouldn’t be in the heat in her condition and her husband won’t leave her side. I’m sure that once we get there, information or no, I’ll probably wish I could have made a similar excuse.”

“We’ve got a few days. We could, technically, make the same one if we need to leave.”

The words settled in. The invitation and implication. Yrene’s face went delightfully red, and she smacked his arm. “Rogue.”

Chaol chuckled, and eyed the hallway for a shadowed corner. But Yrene breathed, “We can’t.”

Not about his sorry joke, but about the want she no doubt saw building in his eyes. The want he beheld simmering in hers.

He adjusted his jacket. “Well, I’ll attempt to find you a suitable present that can compare to an entire desert retreat, but don’t hold me to it.”

Yrene looped her arm through Chaol’s free one, no more than a healer escorting her patient to the table. “I have everything I need,” was all she said.

41

It took over a week to plan it.

Over a week alone for Sartaq and Houlun to dig up ancient maps of the Dagul Fells.

Most were vague and useless. What riders had assessed from the air but not dared get too close to detail. The kharankui’s territory was small, but had grown larger, bolder these last few years.

And it was into the dark heart of their territory that they would go.

The hardest part was convincing Borte to remain behind.

But Nesryn and Sartaq left that up to Houlun. And one sharp word from the hearth-mother had the girl falling in line. Even as Borte’s eyes simmered with outrage, she bowed to her grandmother’s wishes. As heir, Houlun had snapped, Borte’s first obligation was to their people. The bloodline ended with her. Should Borte head into the dim tangle of Dagul, she might as well spit upon where her mother’s sulde stood on the slopes of Arundin.

Borte had insisted that if she, as Houlun’s heir, was to stay, then Sartaq, as the khagan’s potential successor, should remain as well.

To that, Sartaq had merely stalked off into the interior hallways of Altun, saying that if being his father’s successor meant sitting idly by while others fought for him, then his siblings could have the damn crown.

So only the three of them would go, Nesryn and Sartaq flying on Kadara, Falkan tucked away as a field mouse in Nesryn’s pocket.

There had been a final debate last night about bringing a legion. Borte had argued for it, Sartaq against it. They did not know how many kharankui dwelled in the barren peaks and forested vales between them. They could not risk needlessly losing many lives, and did not have the time to waste on thorough reconnaissance. Three could sneak in—but an army of ruks would be spotted long before they arrived.

The argument had raged over the fire pit, but Houlun had settled it: the small company would go. And if they did not return within four days, an army would follow. Half a day to fly down, a day to survey the area, a day to go in, and then return with the stolen hatchlings. Perhaps even learn what the Fae had feared from the spiders, how they’d fought them. If they were lucky.

They’d been flying for hours now, the high wall of the Fells growing closer with every flap of Kadara’s wings. Soon, now, they’d cross that first ridge of the gray mountains and enter into the spiders’ territory. Nesryn’s breakfast sat heavy in her stomach with each mile closer, her mouth as dry as parchment.

Behind her, Sartaq had been silent for most of the ride. Falkan dozed in her breast pocket, emerging only now and then to poke out his whiskered snout, sniff at the air, and then duck back inside. Conserving his strength while he could.

The shifter was still sleeping when Nesryn said to Sartaq, “Did you mean what you said last night—about refusing the crown if it meant not fighting?”

Sartaq’s body was a warm wall at her back. “My father has gone to war—all khagans have. He possesses the Ebony and Ivory sulde precisely for that. But if it somehow became the case that I would be denied such things in favor of the bloodline surviving … Yes. A life confined to that court is not what I want.”

“And yet you are favored to become khagan one day.”

“So the rumors say. But my father has never suggested or spoken of it. For all I know, he could crown Duva instead. The gods know she’d certainly be a kind ruler. And is the only one of us to have produced offspring.”

Nesryn chewed her lip. “Why—why is it that you haven’t married?” She’d never had the nerve to ask. Though she’d certainly found herself wondering it during these weeks.

Sartaq’s hands flexed on the reins before he answered. “I’ve been too busy. And the women who have been presented as potential brides … They were not for me.”

She had no right to pry, but she asked, “Why?”

“Because whenever I showed them Kadara, they either cowered, or pretended to be interested in her, or asked just how much time I’d be spending away.”

“Hoping for frequent absences, or because they’d miss you?”

Sartaq chuckled. “I couldn’t tell. The question itself felt like enough of a leash that I knew they were not for me.”

“So your father allows you to wed where you will?” Dangerous, strange territory. She waited for him to tease her about it, but Sartaq fell quiet.

“Yes. Even Duva’s arranged marriage … She was all for it. Said she didn’t want to have to sort through a court of snakes to find one good man and still pray he hadn’t deceived her. I wonder if there’s something to be said for it. She lucked out, anyway—quiet as he is, her husband adores her. I saw his face the moment they met. Saw hers, too. Relief, and … something more.”

And what would become of them—of their child—if another Heir were chosen for the throne? Nesryn asked carefully, “Why not end this tradition of competing with each other?”

Sartaq was silent for a long minute. “Perhaps one day, whoever takes the throne will end it. Love their siblings more than they honor the tradition. I like to believe we have moved past who we were centuries ago—when the empire was still fledgling. But perhaps now, these years of relative peace, perhaps this is the dangerous time.” He shrugged, his body shifting against hers. “Perhaps war will sort the matter of succession for us.”

And maybe it was because they were so high above the world, because that dim land swept ever closer, but Nesryn asked, “There is nothing that would keep you from war if it called, then?”

“You sound as if you are reconsidering this goal of yours to drag us into the north.”

She stiffened. “I will admit that these weeks here … It was easier before to ask for your aid. When the rukhin were a nameless, faceless legion. When I did not know their names, their families. When I did not know Houlun, or Borte. Or that Borte is betrothed.”

A low laugh at that. Borte had refused—outright refused—to answer Nesryn’s questions about Yeran. She said it wasn’t even worth talking about.

“I’m sure Borte would be glad to go to war, if only to compete with Yeran for glory on the battlefield.”

“A true love match, then.”

Sartaq smiled at her ear. “You have no idea.” He sighed. “It began three years ago—this competition between them. Right after her mother died.”

His pause was heavy enough that Nesryn asked, “You knew her mother well?”

It took him a moment to answer. “I mentioned to you once that I’ve been sent to other kingdoms to sort out disputes or murmurings of malcontent. The last time my father sent me, I brought a small unit of rukhin along, Borte’s mother with them.”

Again, that heavy quiet. Nesryn slowly, carefully laid her hand on his forearm that encircled her. The strong muscles beneath the leather shifted—then settled.

“It is a long story, and a hard one, but there was violence between the rukhin and the group that sought to bring down our empire. Borte’s mother … One of them got in a coward’s shot from behind. A poisoned arrow through her neck, right when we were about to allow them to surrender.” The wind howled around them. “I didn’t let any of them walk away after that.”

The hollow, cold words said enough.

“I carried her body back myself,” Sartaq said, the words ripped away by the wind. “I can still hear Borte’s screaming when I landed in Altun. Still see her kneeling alone on the slopes of Arundin after the burial, clinging to her mother’s sulde where it had been planted in the ground.”

Nesryn tightened her grip on his arm. Sartaq placed his own gloved hand upon hers and squeezed gently as he blew out a long breath.

“Six months later,” he went on, “Borte competed in the Gathering—the annual three days of contests and races among all the clans. She was seventeen, and Yeran was twenty, and they were neck and neck for the final, great race. As they neared the finish, Yeran pulled a maneuver that might be considered cheating, but Borte saw it coming a mile off and beat him anyway. And then beat him soundly when they landed. Literally. He leaped off his ruk and she tackled him to the ground, pounding his face for the shit he’d pulled that nearly got Arcas killed.” He laughed to himself. “I don’t know the particulars of what went on later at the celebration, but I saw him attempt to talk to her at one point, and saw her laugh in his face before walking away. He scowled until they left the next morning, and as far as I know, they didn’t see each other for a year. Until the next Gathering.”

“Which Borte won again,” Nesryn guessed.

“She did indeed. Barely. She pulled the questionable maneuver this time, getting herself banged up in the process, but she technically won. I think Yeran was secretly more terrified of how close she’d come to permanent injury or death, so he let her have the victory. She never told me the particulars of that celebration, but she was shaken for a few days after. We all assumed it was from her injuries, but such things had never bothered her before.”

“And this year?”

“This year, a week before the Gathering, Yeran appeared at Altun. Didn’t see Houlun, or me. Just went right to wherever Borte was in the hall. No one knows what happened, but he stayed for less than thirty minutes from landing to leaving. A week later, Borte won the race again. And when she was crowned victor, Yeran’s father stepped up to declare her engagement to his son.”

“A surprise?”

“Considering that whenever Borte and Yeran are together, they’re at each other’s throats, yes. But also a surprise to Borte. She played it off, but I saw them arguing in the hall later. Whether or not she even knew about it, or wanted it revealed that way, she still won’t say. But she has not disputed the betrothal. Though she hasn’t embraced it, either. No day has been claimed for the wedding, even though the union would certainly ease our … strained ties to the Berlad.”

Nesryn smiled a bit. “I hope they sort it out.”

“Perhaps this war will do that for them, too.”

Kadara swept closer and closer to the wall of the Fells, the light turning thin and cold as clouds passed over the sun. They cleared the towering lip of the first peaks, soaring on an updraft high above as all of Dagul spread before them.

“Holy gods,” Nesryn whispered.

Dark gray peaks of barren rock. Thin pine trees crusting the vales deep below. No lakes, no rivers save for the occasional trickling stream.

Barely visible through the shroud of webbing over all of it.

Some webs were thick and white, choking the life from trees. Some were sparkling nets between peaks, as if they sought to catch the wind itself.

No life. No hum of insect or cry of beast. No sighing leaves or fluttering wings.

Falkan poked his head out of her pocket as they surveyed the dead land below and let out a squeak. Nesryn nearly did the same.

“Houlun was not exaggerating,” Sartaq murmured. “They have grown strong.”

“Where do we even land?” Nesryn asked. “There’s barely a safe spot to be seen. They could have taken the hatchlings and eggs anywhere.”

She combed the peaks and valleys for any sign of movement, any flicker of those sleek black bodies scuttling about. But saw nothing.

“We’ll make a pass around the territory,” Sartaq said. “Get a sense of the layout. Perhaps figure out a thing or two regarding their feeding habits.”

Gods above. “Keep Kadara high. Fly casual. If we look like we’re hunting for something, they might emerge in force.”

Sartaq whistled sharply to Kadara, who indeed soared higher, faster than her usual ascent. As if glad to rise a little farther from the shrouded territory below.

“Stay hidden, friend,” Nesryn said to Falkan, her hands shaking as she patted her breast pocket. “If they watch us from below, we’d best keep you secret until they least expect it.”

Falkan’s tiny paws tapped in understanding, and he slid back into her pocket.

They flew in idle circles for a time, Kadara occasionally diving as if in pursuit of some eagle or falcon. On the hunt for lunch, perhaps.

“That cluster of peaks,” Sartaq said after a while, pointing toward the highest point of the Fells. Like horns spearing toward the sky, two sister-peaks jutted up so close to each other they might have very well once been a single mountain. Between their clawed summits, a shale-filled pass wended away into a labyrinth of stone. “Kadara keeps looking toward it.”

“Circle it, but keep your distance.”

Before Sartaq could give the order, Kadara obeyed.

“Something is moving in the pass,” Nesryn breathed, squinting.

Kadara flapped closer, nearer to the peaks than was wise. “Kadara,” Sartaq warned.

But the ruk pumped her wings, frantic. Rushing.

Just as the thing in the pass became clear.

Racing over the shale, bobbing and flapping fuzz-lined wings …

A hatchling.

Sartaq swore. “Faster, Kadara. Faster.” The ruk needed no encouragement.

The hatchling was squawking, those too-small wings flailing as it tried and failed to lift from the ground. It had broken from the pine trees that flowed right to the edge of the pass, and now aimed for the center of the maze of rock.

Nesryn unslung her bow and nocked an arrow into place, Sartaq doing the same behind her. “Not a sound, Kadara,” Sartaq warned, just as the ruk opened her beak. “You will alert them.”

But the hatchling was screeching, its terror palpable even from the distance.

Kadara caught a wind and flew.

“Come on,” Nesryn breathed, arrow aimed at the woods, at whatever horrors the hatchling had escaped, undoubtedly barreling after it.

The baby ruk neared the broadest part of the pass mouth, balking at the wall of stone ahead. As if it knew that more waited within.

Trapped.

“Sweep in, cut through the pass, and sail out,” Sartaq ordered the ruk, who banked right, so steeply Nesryn’s abdomen strained with the effort to keep in the saddle.

Kadara leveled out, dropping foot by foot toward the hatchling now twisting about, screaming toward the sky as it beheld the ruk rushing in.

“Steady,” Sartaq commanded. “Steady, Kadara.”

Nesryn kept her arrow trained on the labyrinth of rock ahead, Sartaq twisting to cover the forest behind. Kadara sailed closer and closer to the shale-coated pass, to the grayish fuzzy hatchling now holding so still, waiting for the salvation of the claws that Kadara unfurled.

Thirty feet. Twenty.

Nesryn’s arm strained to keep the arrow drawn.

A wind shoved at Kadara, knocking her sideways, the world tilting, light shimmering.

Just as Kadara leveled out, just as her talons opened wide to scoop up the hatchling, Nesryn realized what the shimmering was. What the shift in angle revealed ahead.

“Look out!”

The scream shattered from her throat, but too late.

Kadara’s talons closed around the hatchling, plucking it up from the ground right as she swept up through the pass peaks.

Right into the mammoth web woven between them.

42

The hatchling had been a trap.

It was the last thought Nesryn had as Kadara crashed into the web—the net woven between the two peaks. Built not to catch the wind, but ruks.

She only had the sense of Sartaq throwing his body into hers, anchoring her into the saddle and holding tight as Kadara screamed.

Snapping and shimmering and rock; shale and gray sky and golden feathers. Wind howling, the hatchling’s piercing cry, and Sartaq’s bellow.

Then twisting, slamming into stone so hard the impact sang through her teeth, her bones. Then falling, tumbling, Kadara’s restrained body curving, curving as Sartaq was curled over Nesryn, shielding that hatchling in her talons from the final impact.

Then the boom. And the bounce—the bounce that snapped the leather straps on the saddle. Still tied to it, they were still tied together as they soared off Kadara’s body, Nesryn’s bow scattering from her hand, her fingers clasping on open air—

Sartaq pivoted them, his body a solid wall around hers as Nesryn realized where the sky was, where the pass floor was—

He roared as they struck the shale, as he kept her atop him, taking the full brunt of the impact.

For a heartbeat, there was only the skittering trickle of shifting shale and the thud of crumbling rock off the pass walls. For a heartbeat, she could not remember where her body was, her breath was—

Then a scrape of wing on shale.

Nesryn’s eyes snapped open, and she was moving before she had the words to name her motions.

A cut slashed down her wrist, caked with small rocks and dust. She didn’t feel it, barely noticed the blood as she blindly fumbled for the straps to the saddle, snapping them free, panting through her teeth as she managed to lift her head, to dare to look—

He was dazed. Blinking up at the gray sky. But alive, breathing, blood sliding down his temple, his cheek, his mouth …

She sobbed through her teeth, her legs at last coming free, allowing her to roll over to get to his own, to the tangled bits of leather shredded between them.

Sartaq was half buried in shale. His hands sliced up, but his legs—

“Not broken,” he rasped. “Not broken.” It was more to himself than her. But Nesryn managed to keep her fingers steady as she freed the buckles. The thick riding leathers had saved his life, saved his skin from being flayed off his bones. He’d taken the impact for her, moved her so that he’d hit it first—

She clawed at the shale covering his shoulders and his upper arms, sharp rock cutting into her fingers. The leather strap at the end of her braid had come free in the impact, and her hair now fell about her face, half blocking her view of the forest behind and rock around them. “Get up,” she panted. “Get up.”

He took a breath, blinking furiously. “Get up,” she begged him.

Shale shifted ahead, and a low, pained cry echoed off the rock.

Sartaq snapped upright. “Kadara—”

Nesryn twisted on her knees, scanning for her bow even as she took in the ruk.

Lying thirty feet ahead, Kadara was coated in the near-invisible silk. A phantom net, her wings pinned, her head tucked in—

Sartaq scrambled upright, swaying, slipping on the loose shale as he drew his Asterion knife.

Nesryn managed to rise, her legs shaking, head spinning as she scanned and scanned the pass for her bow—

There. Near the pass wall. Intact.

She hurtled for it while Sartaq ran to the ruk, reaching her weapon just as he sliced the first of the webbing free.

“You’ll be fine,” he was saying to Kadara, blood coating his hands, his neck. “I’ll get you out—”

Nesryn shouldered her bow, pressing a hand to her pocket. Falkan—

A little leg pushed against her in answer. Alive.

She wasted no time rushing to the ruk, drawing her own Fae blade from the sheath Borte had found for her and slicing at the thick strands. It clung to her fingers, ripping away skin, but she severed and sliced, working her way down the wing as Sartaq hacked his way down the other.

They reached Kadara’s legs at the same time.

Saw that her talons were empty.

Nesryn’s head snapped up, scanning the pass, the piles of disturbed shale—

The hatchling had been thrown during the collision. As if even Kadara’s talons couldn’t keep shut against the pain of impact. The baby ruk now lay on the ground near the lip of the pass, struggling to rise, low chirps of distress echoing off the rock.

“Up, Kadara,” Sartaq commanded, his voice breaking. “Get up.”

Great wings shifted, shale clacking as the ruk tried to obey. Nesryn staggered toward the hatchling, blood unmistakable on its fluffy gray head, its large dark eyes wide with terror and pleading—

It happened so fast Nesryn didn’t have time to shout.

One heartbeat, the hatchling had opened its beak to cry for help.

The next it screamed, eyes flaring as a long ebony leg emerged from behind a pillar of rock and slammed through its spine.

Bone crunched and blood sprayed. And Nesryn threw herself into a stop, swaying so hard she teetered backward onto her ass, a wordless cry on her lips as the hatchling was hauled around the rock, flailing and shrieking—

It went silent.

And she had seen horrific things, things that had made her sick and kept her from sleep, and yet that baby ruk, terrified and pleading, in pain and dragged away, going silent—

Nesryn whirled, feet slipping on the shale as she scrambled toward Kadara, toward Sartaq, who beheld the hatchling being snatched behind that rock and screamed at Kadara to fly—

The mighty ruk tried and failed to rise.

“FLY,” Sartaq bellowed.

Slowly, so slowly the ruk lumbered to her legs, her scraped beak dragging through the loose rock.

She wasn’t going to make it. Wasn’t going to get airborne in time. For just beyond the web-shrouded tree line … Shadows writhed. Scuttled closer.

Nesryn sheathed her sword and drew her bow, arrow shaking as she aimed it toward the rock the hatchling had been hauled behind, then the trees a hundred yards off.

“Go, Kadara,” Sartaq begged. “Get up!”

The bird was barely in shape to fly, let alone carry riders—

Rock clacked and skittered behind her. From the labyrinth of rock within the pass.

Trapped. They were trapped—

Falkan shifted in her pocket, trying to wriggle free. Nesryn covered him with her forearm, pressing hard. “Not yet,” she breathed. “Not yet.”

His powers were not Lysandra’s. He had tried and failed to shift into a ruk this week. But the large wolf was as big as he could manage. Anything larger was beyond his magic.

“Kadara—”

The first of the spiders broke from the tree line. As black and sleek as her fallen sister.

Nesryn let her arrow fly.

The spider fell back, screaming—an unholy sound that shook the rocks as that arrow sank into an eye. Nesryn instantly had another arrow drawn, backing toward Kadara, who was just now beginning to flap her wings—

The ruk stumbled.

Sartaq screamed, “FLY!”

Wind stirred Nesryn’s hair, sending shards of shale skittering. The ground rumbled behind, but Nesryn did not dare take her eyes off the second spider that emerged from the trees. She fired again, the song of her arrow drowned out by the flap of Kadara’s wings. A heavy, pained beat, but it held steady—

Nesryn glanced behind for a breath. Just one, just to see Kadara bobbing and waving, fighting for every wing beat upward through the narrow pass, blood and shale dripping from her. Right as a kharankui emerged from one of the shadows of the rocks high up the peak, legs bending as if it would leap upon the ruk’s back—

Nesryn fired, a second arrow on its tail. Sartaq’s.

Both found their marks. One through an eye, the other through the open mouth of the spider.

It shrieked, tumbling down from its perch. Kadara swung wide to dodge it, narrowly avoiding the jagged face of the peak. The spider’s splat thudded through the maze of rock ahead.

But then Kadara was up, into the gray sky, flapping like hell.

Sartaq whirled toward Nesryn just as she looked back at the pine forest.

To where half a dozen kharankui now emerged, hissing.

Blood coated the prince, his every breath ragged, but he managed to grab Nesryn’s arm and breathe, “Run.”

So they did.

Not toward the pines behind.

But into the gloom of the winding pass ahead.

43

Without the brace, Chaol was given a black mare, Farasha, whose name was about as ill-fitting as they came. It meant butterfly, Yrene told him as they gathered in the palace courtyard three days later.

Farasha was anything but.

Yanking at the bit, stomping her hooves and tossing her head, Farasha savored testing his limits long before the desert-bound company finished gathering. Servants had gone ahead the day before to prepare the camp.

He’d known the royals would give him their fiercest horse. Not a stallion, but one close enough to match it in fury. Farasha had been born furious, he was willing to bet.

And he’d be damned if he let those royals make him ask for another horse. One that would not strain his back and legs so much.

Yrene was frowning at Farasha, at him, as she stroked a hand down her chestnut mare’s night-black mane.

Both beautiful horses, though neither compared to the stunning Asterion stallion Dorian had gifted Chaol for his birthday last winter.

Another birthday celebration. Another time—another life.

He wondered what had happened to that beautiful horse, whom he had never named. As if he’d known, deep down, how fleeting those few happy weeks were. He wondered if it was still in the royal stables. Or if the witches had pillaged him—or let their horrible mounts use him to fill their bellies.

Perhaps that was why Farasha resented his very presence. Perhaps she sensed that he had forgotten that noble-hearted stallion in the north. And wanted to make him pay for it.

The breed was an offshoot of the Asterions, Hasar had tittered as she’d trotted past on her white stallion, circling him twice. The refined, wedge-shaped head and high tails were twin markers of their Fae ancestry. But these horses, the Muniqi, had been bred for the desert climes of this land. For the sands they were to cross today, and the steppes that had once been the khagan’s homeland. The princess had even pointed to a slight bulge between the horses’ eyes—the jibbah—the marker of the larger sinus capacity that allowed the Muniqi to thrive in the dry, unyielding deserts of this continent.

And then there was the Muniqi’s speed. Not as fast, Hasar admitted, as an Asterion. But close.

Yrene had watched the princess’s little lesson, face carefully neutral, using the time to adjust where she’d strapped Chaol’s cane behind her saddle, then fiddle with the clothes she wore.

While Chaol was in his usual teal jacket and brown pants, Yrene had forgone a dress.

They’d swathed her in white and gold against the sun, her long tunic flowing to her knees to reveal loose, gauzy pants tucked into high brown boots. A belt cinched her slim waist, and a glinting bandolier of gold and silver beading sliced between her breasts. Her hair, she’d left in her usual half-up fashion, but someone had woven bits of gold thread through it.

Beautiful. As lovely as a sunrise.

There were perhaps thirty of them in total, none people Yrene really knew, as Hasar had not bothered to invite any of the healers from the Torre. Swift-legged hounds paced in the courtyard, weaving under the hooves of the dozen guards’ horses. Definitely not Muniqi, those horses. Fine indeed for guards—his men had received beasts nowhere near their quality—but without that awareness the Muniqi possessed, as if they listened to every word spoken.

Hasar signaled to Shen, standing proud at the gate, who blew a horn—

And then they were off.

For a woman who commanded ships, Hasar seemed far more interested in the equine heritage of her family’s people. And seemed more than eager to unleash her skills as a Darghan rider. The princess cursed and scowled as the city streets slowed them. Even with word given well in advance to clear the path out of Antica, the narrow and steep streets checked their speed considerably.

And then there was the brutal heat. Already sweating, Chaol rode beside Yrene, keeping a tight leash on Farasha, who tried to take a bite out of not one but two vendors gawking from the sidewalks. Butterfly indeed.

He kept one eye upon the mare and the other upon the city passing by. And as they rode for the eastern gates into the arid, scrub-covered hills beyond, Yrene pointed out landmarks and tidbits of information.

Water ran through aqueducts wending between the buildings, feeding the houses and public fountains and countless gardens and parks scattered throughout. A conqueror might have taken this city three centuries ago, but that same conqueror had loved it well. Treated it well and nourished it.

They cleared the eastern gate, then passed down a long, dusty road that cut through the sprawl beyond the city proper. Hasar didn’t bother to wait, and launched her stallion into a gallop that left them waving away her dust.

Kashin, claiming he didn’t want to eat her dust the entire way to the oasis, followed suit after giving a small smile toward Yrene and a whistled command to his horse. Then most of the nobles and viziers, apparently having already taken bets, launched into various races at breakneck speed through towns cleared well in advance. As if this kingdom were their playground.

Birthday party indeed. The princess had likely been bored and didn’t want to look too irresponsible to her father. Though he was surprised to find that Arghun had joined them. Surely with most of his siblings away, he would have seized the chance to hatch some plot. But there was Arghun, galloping close to Kashin as they blended into the horizon.

Some of the nobility remained back with Chaol and Yrene, letting the others put some miles between them. They cleared the last of the outlying towns, their horses sweat-soaked and panting as they ascended a large, rocky hill. The dunes began just on its other side, Yrene had told him. They would water the horses here—then make the last leg of the trek across the sands.

She was smiling faintly at him as they ascended the crag, taking a deer path through the scrub. Horses had trampled through here; bushes were broken and shattered under careless riders. A few bushes even bore speckles of blood, already dried in the brutal sun.

Someone should flay the rider who’d been so reckless with their mount.

Others had reached the top of the crag, watered their horses, and moved on. All he saw of them were bodies and horseflesh disappearing into the sky—as if they simply walked off the edge of the cliff and into thin air.

Farasha stomped and surged her way up the hill, and his back and thighs strained to keep seated without the brace to steady him. He didn’t dare let her get a whiff of discomfort.

Yrene reached the summit first, her white clothes like a beacon in the cloudless blue day around them, her hair shining bright as dark gold. She waited for him, the chestnut mare beneath her panting heavily, its rich coat gleaming with hues of deepest ruby.

She dismounted as he urged Farasha up the last of the hill, and then—

It knocked the breath from him.

The desert.

It was a barren, hissing sea of golden sand. Hills and waves and ravines, rippling on forever, empty and yet humming. Not a tree or bush or gleam of water to be seen.

The unforgiving hand of a god had shaped this place. Still blew his breath across it, shifting the dunes grain by grain.

He had never seen such a sight. Such a wonder. It was a new world entirely.

Perhaps it was an unexpected boon that the information they sought dwelled out here.

Chaol dragged his attention to Yrene, who was reading his face. His reaction.

“Its beauty is not for everyone,” she said. “But it sings to me, somehow.”

This sea where no ships would ever sail, some men would look upon it and see only burning death. He saw only quiet—and clean. And slow, creeping life. Untamed, savage beauty.

“I know what you mean,” he said, carefully dismounting from Farasha. Yrene monitored, yet did nothing but hold out the cane, letting him find the best way to swing his leg over, back groaning and wobbling, and then slide down to the sandy rock. The cane was instantly in his hand, though Yrene made no move to steady him while he finally released the saddle and reached for Farasha’s reins.

The horse tensed, as if considering lunging for him, but he gave her a no-nonsense glare, the cane groaning as he dug it into the rock beneath him.

Farasha’s dark eyes glowed as if she’d been forged in Hellas’s burning realm, but Chaol stood tall—as tall as he could. Didn’t break her stare.

Finally, the horse huffed, and deigned to let him haul her toward the sand-crusted trough that was half crumbling with age. The trough perhaps had been here for as long as the desert had existed, had watered the horses of a hundred conquerors.

Farasha seemed to grasp that they were to enter that ocean of sand and drank heartily. Yrene led her horse over, keeping the chestnut a healthy distance away from Farasha, and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Solid,” he said, and meant it. “I’ll be aching by the time we get there, but the strain isn’t so bad.” Without the cane, he didn’t dare try to walk more than a few steps. Could barely manage it.

She still put a hand on his lower spine, then his thighs, letting her magic assess. Even with the clothes and the heat, the press of her hands left him aware of every inch of space between them.

But others gathered around the ancient, enormous trough, and so he pulled out of Yrene’s assessing touch, leading Farasha a safe distance away. Mounting the mare again, though …

“Take your time,” Yrene murmured, but remained a few steps away.

He’d had a block at the palace. Here, short of climbing onto the precarious lip of the trough … The distance between his foot and the stirrup had never seemed so long. Balancing on one foot while he lifted it, pushing down with the other to propel him up, swinging his leg around the saddle … Chaol went through the steps, feeling the motions he’d done a thousand times before. He’d learned to ride before he was six—had been on a horse nearly his entire life.

Of course he’d been given a devil of a horse to do this with.

But Farasha held still, staring toward the sifting sea of sand, to the path that had been trampled down the hill—their entry into the desert. Even with the shifting winds hauling the sands into new shapes and valleys, the tracks the others had left were clear enough. He could even spy some of them cresting hills and then flying down them, little more than specks of black and white.

And yet he remained here. Staring at the stirrups and saddle.

Yrene offered casually, “I can find a block or bucket—”

Chaol moved. Perhaps not as graceful as he’d like, perhaps more struggling than he’d intended, but he managed, the cane groaning as he used it to push upward, then clattering to the rock as he let go to grab the pommel of the saddle, right as his foot slid—barely—into the stirrup. Farasha shifted at his weight while he hauled himself higher into the saddle, his back and thighs barking as he swung his leg over, but he was up.

Yrene strode to the fallen cane and dusted it off. “Not bad, Lord Westfall.” She strapped the cane behind her saddle and mounted her mare. “Not bad at all.”

He hid his smile, his face still over-warm, and nudged Farasha down the sandy hill at last.

They followed the tracks the others had left slowly, the heat rippling off the sands.

Up, and down, the only sounds the muffled thumping of their horses and the sighing sands. Their party meandered in a long, snaking line. Guards had been posted throughout, standing with towering poles topped with the khagan’s flag and insignia of a dark running horse. Markers of the general direction toward the oasis. He pitied the poor men ordered to stand in the heat for a princess’s whim, but said nothing.

The dunes evened out after a time, the horizon shifting to reveal a flat, sandy plain. And in the distance, waving and bobbing in the heat …

“There we make our camp,” Yrene said, pointing toward a dense cluster of green. No sign of the ancient, buried city of the dead that Hasar claimed the oasis had grown over. Not that they expected to see much of anything from their vantage point.

From the distance, it might very well be another thirty minutes. Certainly at their pace.

Despite the sweat soaking through her white clothes, Yrene was smiling. Perhaps she, too, had needed a day away. To breathe the open air.

She noticed his attention and turned. The sun had brought out her freckles, darkening her skin to a glowing brown, and tendrils of hair curled about her smiling face.

Farasha tugged on the reins, her body quivering with impatience.

“I own an Asterion horse,” he said, and her mouth curved in an impressed frown. Chaol shrugged. “I’d like to see how a Muniqi measures up.”

Her brows narrowed. “You mean …” She noted the flat, smooth spread of land between them and the oasis. Perfect for running. “Oh, I can’t—a gallop?”

He waited for the words about his spine, his legs. None came.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, arching a brow.

“Of these things? Yes.” She cringed at her mount, restless beneath her.

“She’s as sweet as a dairy cow,” he said of Yrene’s chestnut mare.

Chaol leaned down to pat “Butterfly’s” neck.

She tried to bite him. He yanked on the reins enough to tell her he was fully aware of her bullshit.

“I’ll race you,” he said.

Yrene’s eyes sparkled. And to his shock she breathed, “The prize?”

He could not remember the last time. The last time he had felt so aware of every bit of breath and blood, simmering and thrumming, in his body.

“A kiss. When and where of my choosing.”

“What do you mean where.”

Chaol only grinned. And let Farasha run free.

Yrene cursed, more viciously than he’d ever heard her, but he didn’t dare look back—not as Farasha became a black storm upon the sand.

He’d never gotten to test out the Asterion. But if it was faster than this—

Flying over the sand, Farasha was a bolt of dark lightning spearing across the golden desert. It was all he could do to keep up, to grit his teeth against his barking muscles.

He forgot about them anyway at the blur of reddish brown and black that emerged in the corner of his eye—and the white rider atop it.

Yrene’s hair rose and fell behind her in a golden-brown tangle of curls, lifting with each thunderous pound of her mare’s legs on the hard sand. White clothes streaming in the wind, the gold and silver sparkled like stars, and her face—

Chaol couldn’t breathe as he beheld the wild joy on Yrene’s face, the unchecked exhilaration.

Farasha marked the mare gaining on them, meeting them beat for beat, and made to charge ahead. To leave them in the dust.

He checked her with the reins and his feet, marveling that he could even do so. That the woman now closing in, now riding beside him, now beaming at him as if he were the only thing in this barren, burning sea … She had done this. Given him this.

Yrene was smiling, and then she was laughing, as if she could not contain it inside her.

Chaol thought it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

And that this moment, flying together over the sands, devouring the desert wind, her hair a golden-brown banner behind her …

Chaol felt, perhaps for the first time, as if he was awake.

And he was grateful, right down to his very bones, for it.

44

Yrene was soaked in sweat, though it dried so quickly that she only felt its essence clinging.

Thankfully, the oasis was shaded and cool, a large, shallow pool in its center. Horses were led into the heaviest shade to be watered and brushed down, and servants and guards claimed a hidden spot for their own washing and enjoyment.

No sign of any sort of cave that Nousha had mentioned, or the city of the dead that Hasar claimed lurked in the jungle beyond. But the site was sprawling, and in the large pool … The royals were already soaking in the cool waters.

Renia, Yrene saw immediately, was only wearing a thin silk shift—that did little to hide her considerable assets as she emerged from the water, laughing at something Hasar said.

“Well, then,” Chaol said, coughing beside Yrene.

“I told you about the parties,” she muttered, heading to the tents spread through the towering palms and brush. They were white and gilded, each marked with the prince or princess’s banner. But with Sartaq and Duva not with them, Chaol and Yrene had been assigned them, respectively.

Mercifully, the two were near each other, but Yrene took in the open tent flaps, the entire space as large as the cottage she’d shared with her mother, then turned toward Chaol’s retreating back. His limp, even with the cane, was deeper than it’d been that morning. And she’d seen how stiffly he’d gotten off that infernal horse.

“I know you want to wash up,” Yrene said. “But I need to take a look at you. At your back and legs, I mean. After all that riding.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have raced him. She hadn’t even remembered who’d reached the oasis border anyway. She’d been too busy laughing, feeling as if she were coming out of her body and would likely never feel that way again. Too busy looking at his face, filled with such light.

Chaol paused at his tent flaps, cane wobbling, as if he’d put far more weight on it than he let on. But it was the relief in his face as he asked, “Your tent or mine?” that made her worry—just a tad.

“Mine,” she said, aware of the servants and nobility who likely had no idea she was even the cause of this excursion, but who would happily report her comings and goings. He nodded, and she monitored each rise and placement of his legs, the shifting of his torso, the way he leaned on that cane.

As Chaol edged past her and into the tent, he murmured in her ear, “I won, by the way.”

Yrene glanced toward the sun now making its descent and felt her core tighten in answer.

He was sore but could thankfully still walk by the time Yrene finished her thorough examination. And set of soothing stretches for his legs and back. And massage.

Chaol had the distinct feeling she was toying with him, even as her hands remained chaste. Uninterested.

She even had the nerve to call for a servant to ask for a jug of water.

The tent was fit for the princess who usually occupied it. A large bed lay in the center upon a raised platform, the floors covered with ornate rugs. Sitting areas were scattered throughout, along with a curtained-off washing-up and privy, and there was gold everywhere.

Either the servants had brought it with them yesterday, or the people of this land so feared the wrath of the khaganate that they didn’t dare rob this place. Or were so well-cared for they didn’t need to.

The others were all in the oasis pool by the time he shrugged on his now-dry clothes and they emerged to seek out their quarry.

They’d whispered in the tent—neither of them had spotted anything of interest upon arrival. And in the oasis pool, definitely no indication of a cave or ruins near the bathing royals and their friends. Comfortable, relaxed. Free, in ways that Adarlan had never been, to its detriment. He wasn’t naive enough to think that no scheming or intrigue was now playing out in the cool waters, but he’d never heard of Adarlanian nobles going to a swimming hole and enjoying themselves.

Though he certainly wondered what the hell Hasar was thinking in throwing such a party for Yrene, manipulated into it or no, considering the princess was well aware Yrene barely knew most of those gathered.

Yrene hesitated at the edge of the clearing and glanced at him beneath lowered lashes—a look anyone might interpret as shy. A woman perhaps hesitant to strip down to the light clothes they wore in the waters. Letting any onlookers forget that she was a healer and wholly used to far more skin showing. “I find I’m not up to bathing,” Yrene murmured over the laughter and splashing of those within the oasis waters. “Care for a walk?”

Pleasant, polite words as she inclined her head through the few acres of untamed jungle sprawling to the left. She didn’t think herself a courtier, but she could certainly lie well enough. He supposed that as a healer, it was a skill that proved useful.

“It would be my pleasure,” Chaol said, offering his arm.

Yrene hesitated again, the portrait of modesty—peering over her shoulder at those in the pool. The royals watching. Kashin included.

He would let her choose when and how to make it clear to the prince—again—that she was not interested. Though he couldn’t avoid a faint tinge of guilt as she looped her arm through his and they stepped into the murkiness of the oasis jungle.

Kashin was a good man. Chaol doubted his words about being willing to go to war were lies. And to risk antagonizing the prince by perhaps flaunting what he had with Yrene … Chaol glanced sidelong at her, his cane digging into the roots and soft soil. She offered him a faint smile, cheeks still flushed with the sun.

To hell with worrying over antagonizing Kashin.

The oasis spring’s gurgling blended with the sighing palms overhead as they headed deeper between the fauna, picking their own way—no direction in mind. “In Anielle,” he said, “there are dozens of hot springs along the valley floor, near the Silver Lake. Kept warm by the vents in the earth. When I was a boy, we’d often soak in them after a day of training.”

She asked carefully, as if realizing that he’d indeed offered up this piece of him, “Was it that training that inspired you to join the guard?”

His voice was thick as he finally said, “Part of it. I was just … good at it. Fighting and fencing and archery and all of it. I received the training that was befitting for the heir of a lord to a mountain people who had long fended off wild men from the Fangs. But my real training began when I arrived in Rifthold and joined the royal guard.”

She slowed while he navigated around a tricky nest of roots, letting him focus on where to place his feet and the cane.

“I suppose being stubborn and bullheaded made you a good pupil for the discipline aspect.”

Chaol chuckled, nudging her with his elbow. “It did. I was the first one on the training pitch and the last one off. Even though I was walloped every single day.” His chest tightened as he remembered their faces, those men who had trained him, who had pushed and pushed him, left him limping and bleeding, and then made sure he got patched up in the barracks that night. Usually with a hearty meal and a clap on the back.

And it was in honor of those men, his brothers, that he said hoarsely, “They weren’t all bad men, Yrene. The ones I … I grew up with, whom I commanded … They were good men.”

He saw Ress’s laughing face, the blush the young guard could never hide around Aelin. His eyes burned.

Yrene stopped, the oasis humming around them, and his back and legs were more than grateful for the reprieve as she removed her arm from his. Touched his cheek. “If they are partially responsible for you being … you,” she said, rising up to brush her mouth against his, “then I believe that they are.”

“Were,” he breathed.

And there it was. That one word, swallowed by the loam and shade of the oasis, that he could barely stand. Were.

He could still retreat—retreat from this invisible precipice now before them. Yrene remained standing close, a hand resting over his heart, waiting for him to decide whether to speak.

And maybe it was only because she held her hand over his heart that he whispered, “They were tortured for weeks this spring. Then butchered and left to hang from the castle gates.”

Grief and horror guttered in her eyes. He could hardly stomach it as he managed to go on, “Not one of them broke. When the king and—others …” He could not bring himself to finish. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, to face that suspicion and likely truth. “When they questioned the guards about me. Not a single one of them broke.”

He didn’t have the words for it—that courage, that sacrifice.

Yrene’s throat bobbed, and she cupped his cheek.

And Chaol finally breathed, “It was my fault. The king—he did it to punish me. For running, for helping the rebels in Rifthold. He … it was all because of me.”

“You can’t blame yourself.” Simple, honest words.

And utterly untrue.

They snapped him back into himself, more effectively than a thrown bucket of cold water.

Chaol pushed out of her touch.

He shouldn’t have told her, shouldn’t have brought it up. On her birthday, gods above. While they were supposed to focus on finding any sort of scrap of information that might help them.

He’d brought his sword and dagger, and as he limped into the palms and ferns, leaving Yrene to follow, he checked to ensure they were both still buckled at his waist. Checked them because he had to do something with his shaking hands, his raw insides.

He folded the words, the memories back into himself. Deeper. Sealed them away as he counted his weapons, one after another.

Yrene only trailed him, saying nothing while they picked their way deeper into the jungle. The entire site was larger than many villages, and yet little of the green had been tamed—certainly no path to be found, or indication of a city of the dead beneath them.

Until fallen pale pillars began to appear between the roots and bushes. A good sign, he supposed. If there were a cave, it might be nearby—perhaps as some ancient dwelling.

But the level of architecture they climbed over and walked around, forcing him to select his steps carefully …“These weren’t some cave-dwelling people who buried their dead in holes,” he observed, cane scraping over the ancient stone.

“Hasar said it was a city of the dead.” Yrene frowned at the ornate columns and slabs of carved stone, crusted with forest life. “A sprawling necropolis, right beneath our feet.”

He studied the jungle floor. “But I thought the khagan’s people left their dead under the open sky in the heart of their home territory.”

“They do.” Yrene ran her hands over a pillar carved with animals and strange creatures. “But … this site predates the khaganate. The Torre and Antica, too. To whoever was here before.” A set of crumbling steps led to a platform where the trees had grown through the stone itself, knocking over carved columns in their wake. “Hasar claimed the tunnels are all clever traps. Either designed to keep looters out—or keep the dead inside.”

Despite the heat, the hair on his arms rose. “You’re telling me this now?”

“I assumed Nousha meant something different. That it would be a cave, and if it was connected to these ruins, she’d have mentioned it.” Yrene stepped onto the platform, and his legs protested as he followed her up. “But I don’t see any sort of rock formations here—none large enough for a cave. The only stone … it’s from this.” The sprawling gateway into the necropolis beneath, Hasar had claimed.

They surveyed the mangled complex, the enormous pillars now broken or covered in roots and vines. Silence lay as heavy as the shaded heat. As if none of the singing birds or humming insects from the oasis dared venture here.

“It’s unsettling,” she murmured.

They had twenty guards within shouting distance, and yet he found his free hand drifting toward his sword. If a city of the dead slumbered beneath their feet, perhaps Hasar was right. They should be left to sleep.

Yrene turned in place, surveying the pillars, the carvings. No caves—none at all. “Nousha knew the location, though,” she mused. “It must have been important—the site. To the Torre.”

“But its importance was forgotten over time, or warped. So that only the name, the sense of its importance remained.”

“Healers were always drawn to this realm, you know,” Yrene said distantly, running a hand over a column. “The land just … blessed them with the magic. More than any other kind. As if this were some breeding ground for healing.”

“Why?”

She traced a carving on a column longer than most ships. “Why does anything thrive? Plants grow best in certain conditions—those most advantageous to them.”

“And the southern continent is a place for healers to thrive?”

Something had snagged her interest, making her words mumbled as she said, “Maybe it was a sanctuary.”

He approached, wincing at the slicing pain down his spine. It was forgotten as he examined the carving beneath her palm.

Two opposing forces had been etched into the column’s broad face. On the left: tall, broad-shouldered warriors, armed with swords and shields, with rippling flame and bursting water, animals of all kinds in the air or at their knees. Pointed ears—those were pointed ears on the figures’ heads.

And facing them …

“You said nothing is coincidence.” Yrene pointed to the army facing the Fae one.

Smaller than the Fae, their bodies bulkier. Claws and fangs and wicked-looking blades.

She mouthed a word.

Valg.

Holy gods.

Yrene rushed to the other pillars, ripping away vines and dirt. More Fae faces. Figures.

Some were depicted in one-on-one battles against Valg commanders. Some felled by them. Some triumphing.

Chaol moved with her as much as he could manage. Looking, looking—

There, tucked into the dense shadows of squatting, thick palms. A square, crumbling structure. A mausoleum.

“A cave,” Yrene whispered. Or what might have been interpreted as one, as knowledge turned muddled.

Chaol ripped away the vines for her with his free hand, his back protesting.

Ripped and tore them down to survey what had been carved into the gates of the necropolis.

“Nousha said legend claimed some of those scrolls came from here,” Chaol said. “From a place full of Wyrdmarks, of carvings of the Fae and Valg. But this was no living city. So they had to have been removed from tombs or archives below our feet.” From the doorway just beyond them.

“They did not bury humans here,” Yrene whispered.

For the markings on the sealed, stone gates … “The Old Language.”

He’d seen it inked on Rowan’s face and arm.

This was a Fae burial site. Fae—not human.

Chaol said, “I thought only one group of Fae ever left Doranelle—to establish Terrasen with Brannon.”

“Maybe another settled here during whatever this war was.”

The first war. The first demon war, before Elena and Gavin were born, before Terrasen.

Chaol studied Yrene. Her bloodless face. “Or maybe they wanted to hide something.”

Yrene frowned at the ground as if she could see to the tombs beneath. “A treasure?”

“Of a different sort.”

She met his eyes at his tone—his stillness. And fear, cool and sharp, slid into his heart.

Yrene said softly, “I don’t understand.”

“Fae magic is passed down through their bloodlines. It doesn’t appear at random. Perhaps these people came here. And then were forgotten by the world, forces good and evil. Perhaps they knew this place was far away enough to remain untouched. That wars would be waged elsewhere. By them.” He jerked his chin to a carving of a Valg soldier. “While the southern continent remained mostly mortal-held. While the seeds planted here by the Fae were bred into the human bloodlines and grew into a people gifted and prone to healing magic.”

“An interesting theory,” she said hoarsely, “but you don’t know if it could stand to reason.”

“If you wanted to hide something precious, wouldn’t you conceal it in plain sight? In a place where you were willing to bet a powerful force would spring up to defend it? Like an empire. Several of them. Whose walls had not been breached by outside conquerors for the entirety of its history. Who would see the value of its healers and think their gift was for one thing, but never know that it might be a treasure waiting to be used at another time. A weapon.”

“We do not kill.”

“No,” Chaol said, his blood going cold. “But you and all the healers here … There is only one other such place in the world. Guarded as heavily, protected by a power just as mighty.”

“Doranelle—the Fae healers in Doranelle.”

Guarded by Maeve. Fiercely.

Who had fought in that first war. Who had fought against the Valg.

“What does it mean?” she breathed.

Chaol had the sense of the ground slipping from beneath him. “I was sent here to retrieve an army. But I wonder … I wonder if some other force brought me to retrieve something else.”

She slid her hand into his, a silent promise. One he’d think of later.

“Perhaps that is why whoever it is that’s been stalking the Torre, was hunting me,” Yrene whispered. “If they are indeed sent from Morath … They don’t want us realizing any of this. Through healing you.”

He squeezed her fingers. “And those scrolls in the library … either they were taken or brought from here, forgotten save for legend about where they came from. Where the healers of this land might have originated from.”

Not the necropolis—but the Fae people who had built it.

“The scrolls,” she blurted. “If we return and find someone to—to translate them …”

“They might explain this. What the healers could do against the Valg.”

She swallowed. “Hafiza. I wonder if she knows what those scrolls are, somehow. The Healer on High is not just a position of power, but of learning. She’s a walking library herself, taught things by her predecessor that no one else at the Torre knows.” She twisted a curl around a finger. “It’s worth showing her some of the texts. To see if she might know what they are.”

A gamble to share the information with anyone else, but one worth taking. Chaol nodded.

Someone’s laughter pierced through even the heavy silence of the oasis.

Yrene released his hand. “We’ll need to smile, enjoy ourselves amongst them. And then leave at first light.”

“I’ll send word to Nesryn to return. As soon as we’re back. I’m not sure we can afford any longer to wait for the khagan’s aid.”

“We’ll try to convince him again anyway,” she promised. He angled his head. “You will still have to win this war, Chaol,” she said quietly. “Regardless of what role we might play.”

He brushed a thumb over her cheek. “I have no intention of losing it.”

It was no easy task to pretend they had not stumbled across something enormous. That something had not rattled them down to their bones.

Hasar grew bored of bathing and called for music and dancing and lunch. Which turned into hours of lounging in the shade, listening to the musicians, eating an array of delicacies that Yrene had no idea how they’d managed to bring all the way out here.

But as the sun set, they all dispersed into their tents to change for dinner. After what she’d learned with Chaol, even being alone for a moment had her jumpy, but Yrene washed and changed into the purple gauzy gown Hasar had provided.

Chaol was waiting outside the tent.

Hasar had brought him clothes, too. Beautiful deep blue that brought out the gold in his brown eyes, the summer-kissed tan of his skin.

Yrene blushed as his gaze slid along her neckline, to the swaths of skin the flowing folds of the dress revealed along her waist. Her thighs. Silver and clear beads had been sewn onto the entire thing, making the gown shimmer like the stars now flickering to life in the night sky above them.

Torches and lanterns had been lit around the oasis pool, tables and couches and cushions brought out. Music was playing, people were already loosing themselves upon the feast laid across the various tables, with Hasar holding court, regal as any queen from her spot at the centermost table alongside the fire-gilded pool.

She spotted Yrene and signaled her over. Chaol, too.

Two seats had been left open to the princess’s right. Yrene could have sworn Chaol sized them up with each step, as if scanning the chairs, those around them, the oasis itself for any pitfalls or threats. His hand brushed the sliver of skin exposed down the column of her spine—as if in confirmation that all was clear.

“You did not think I forgot my honored guest, did you?” Hasar said, kissing her cheeks. Chaol bowed to the princess as much as he could manage, and claimed his seat on Yrene’s other side, leaning his cane against the table.

“Today has been wonderful,” Yrene said, and wasn’t lying. “Thank you.”

Hasar was quiet for a beat, looking Yrene over with unusual softness. “I know I am not an easy person to care for, or an easy friend to have,” she said, her dark eyes meeting Yrene’s at last. “But you have never once made me feel that way.”

Yrene’s throat tightened at the bald words. Hasar inclined her head, waving to the party around them. “This is the least I can do to honor my friend.” Renia gently patted Hasar’s arm, as if in approval and understanding.

So Yrene bowed her head and said to the princess, “I have no interest in easy friends—easy people. I think I trust them less than the difficult ones, and find them far less compelling, too.”

That brought a grin to Hasar’s face. She leaned down the table to survey Chaol and drawl, “You look quite handsome, Lord Westfall.”

“And you are looking beautiful, Princess.”

Hasar, while well dressed, would never be called such. But she accepted the compliment with that cat’s smile that somehow reminded Yrene of that stranger in Innish—that knowledge that beauty was fleeting, yet power … power was a far more valuable currency.

The feast unfolded, and Yrene suffered through a not-so-unguarded toast from Hasar to her dear, loyal, clever friend. But she drank with them. Chaol, too. Wine and honey ale, their glasses refilled before Yrene could even notice the near-silent reach of the servants pouring.

It took all of thirty minutes before talk of the war started.

Arghun began it first. A mocking toast, to safety and serenity in such tumultuous times.

Yrene drank but tried to hide her surprise as she found Chaol doing so as well, a vague smile plastered on his face.

Then Hasar began musing on whether the Western Wastes, with everyone so focused upon the eastern half of the continent, was fair game to interested parties.

Chaol only shrugged. As if he’d reached some conclusion this afternoon. Some realization about this war, and the role of these royals in it.

Hasar seemed to notice, too. And for all that this was meant to be a birthday party, the princess pondered aloud to no one in particular, “Perhaps Aelin Galathynius should drag her esteemed self down here and select one of my brothers to marry. Perhaps then we would consider assisting her. If such influence remained in the family.”

Meaning all that flame, all that brute power … tied to this continent, bred into the bloodline, never to be a threat.

“My brothers would have to stomach being with someone like that, of course,” Hasar went on, “but they are not such weak-blooded men as you might believe.” A glance at Kashin, who seemed to pretend not to hear, even as Arghun snorted. Yrene wondered if the others knew how adept Kashin was at drowning out their taunting—that he never fell for their baiting simply because he couldn’t be bothered to care.

Chaol answered Hasar with equal mildness, “As interesting as it would be to see Aelin Galathynius deal with all of you …” A secret, knowing smile, as if Chaol might very well enjoy seeing that sight. As if Aelin might very well make blood sport out of them all. “Marriage is not an option for her.”

Hasar’s brows lifted. “To a man?”

Renia gave her a sharp look that Hasar ignored.

Chaol chuckled. “To anyone. Beyond her beloved.”

“King Dorian,” Arghun said, swirling his wine. “I’m surprised she can stomach him.”

Chaol stiffened, but shook his head. “No. Another prince—foreign-born and powerful.”

All the royals stilled. Even Kashin looked their way.

“Who, pray tell, is that?” Hasar sipped her wine, those keen eyes darkening.

“Prince Rowan Whitethorn, of Doranelle. Former commander to Queen Maeve, and a member of her royal household.”

Yrene could have sworn the blood drained wholly from Arghun’s face. “Aelin Galathynius is to wed Rowan Whitethorn?”

From the way the prince said the name … he’d indeed heard of this Rowan.

Chaol had mentioned Rowan more than once in passing—Rowan, who had managed to heal much of the damage in his spine. A Fae Prince. And Aelin’s beloved.

Chaol shrugged. “They are carranam, and he swore the blood oath to her.”

“He swore that oath to Maeve,” Arghun countered.

Chaol leaned back in his seat. “He did. And Aelin got Maeve to free him from it so he could swear it to her. Right in Maeve’s face.”

Arghun and Hasar swapped glances. “How,” the former demanded.

Chaol’s mouth turned up at the corner. “Through the same way Aelin achieves all her ends.” He flicked his brows up. “She encircled Maeve’s city in fire. And when Maeve told her that Doranelle was made of stone, Aelin simply replied that her people were not.”

A chill snaked down Yrene’s spine.

“So she is a brute and a madwoman,” Hasar sniffed.

“Is she? Who else has taken on Maeve and walked away, let alone gotten what they want out of it?”

“She would have destroyed an entire city for one man,” Hasar snapped.

“The most powerful pure-blooded Fae male in the world,” Chaol said simply. “A worthy asset for any court. Especially when they had fallen in love with each other.”

Though his eyes danced as he spoke, a tremor of tension ran beneath the last words.

But Arghun seized on the words. “If it is a love match, then they risk knowing their enemies will go after him to punish her.” Arghun smiled as if to say he was already thinking of doing so.

Chaol snorted, and the prince straightened. “Good luck to anyone who tries to go after Rowan Whitethorn.”

“Because Aelin will burn them to ash?” Hasar asked with poisoned sweetness.

But it was Kashin who answered softly, “Because Rowan Whitethorn will always be the person who walks away from that encounter. Not the assailant.”

A pause of silence.

Then Hasar said, “Well, if Aelin cannot represent her continent, perhaps we shall look elsewhere.” She smirked at Kashin. “Perhaps Yrene Towers might be offered in the queen’s stead.”

“I am not noble-born,” Yrene blurted. “Or royal.” Hasar had lost her mind.

Hasar shrugged. “I’m sure Lord Westfall, as Hand, can find you a title. Make you a countess or duchess or whatever terms you call them. Of course, we’d know you were little more than a milkmaid dressed in jewels, but if it stayed amongst us … I’m sure there are some here who would not mind your humble beginnings.” She’d done as much with Renia—for Renia.

The amusement faded from Chaol’s face. “You sound as if you now want to be a part of this war, Princess.”

Hasar waved a hand. “I am merely musing on the possibilities.” She surveyed Yrene and Kashin, and the food in Yrene’s stomach turned leaden. “I’ve always said you would make such beautiful children.”

“If they were allowed to live by your future khagan.”

“A small consideration—to be later dealt with.”

Kashin leaned forward, his jaw tight. “The wine goes to your head, sister.”

Hasar rolled her eyes. “Why not? Yrene is the unspoken heir of the Torre. It is a position of power—and if Lord Westfall were to bestow upon her a royal title … say, spin a little story that her royal lineage was newly discovered, she might very well wed you, Ka—”

“She will not.”

Chaol’s words were flat. Hard.

Color stained Kashin’s face as he asked softly, “And why is that, Lord Westfall?”

Chaol held the man’s gaze. “She will not marry you.”

Hasar smiled. “I think the lady may speak for herself.”

Yrene wanted to flip her chair back into the pool and sink to the bottom. And live there, under the surface, forever. Rather than face the prince waiting for an answer, the princess who was smirking like a demon, and the lord whose face was hard with rage.

But if it was a serious offer, if doing something like that could lead to the full might of the southern continent’s armies coming to help them, save them …

“Don’t you even consider it,” Chaol said too quietly. “She’s full of shit.”

People gasped. Hasar barked a laugh.

Arghun snapped, “You will speak with respect to my sister, or you will find yourself with legs that don’t work again.”

Chaol ignored them. Yrene’s hands shook badly enough that she slid them beneath the table.

Had the princess brought her out here to corner her into agreeing to this preposterous idea, or had it merely been a whim, an idle thought to taunt and gnaw at Lord Westfall?

Chaol seemed to be on the verge of opening his mouth to say more, to push this ridiculous idea out of her head, but he hesitated.

Not because he agreed, Yrene realized, but because he wanted to give her the space to choose for herself. A man used to giving orders, to being obeyed. And yet Yrene had the sense that this, too, was new to him. The patience; the trust.

And she trusted him. To do what he had to. To find a way to survive this war, whether with this army or another one. If it did not happen here, with these people, he’d sail elsewhere.

Yrene looked to Hasar, to Kashin and the others, some smirking, some swapping disgusted glances. Arghun most of all. Revolted at the thought of sullying his family’s bloodline.

She trusted Chaol.

She did not trust these royals.

Yrene smiled at Hasar, then Kashin. “This is very grave talk for my birthday. Why should I choose one man tonight when I have so many handsome ones in my company right now?”

She could have sworn a shudder of relief went through Chaol.

“Indeed,” Hasar crooned, her smile sharpening. Yrene tried not to balk at the invisible fangs revealed in that smile. “Betrothals are rather odious things. Look at poor Duva, stuck with that brooding, sad-eyed princeling.”

And so the conversation moved on. Yrene did not glance to Kashin or the others. She looked only at her constantly refilled goblet—and drank it. Or at Chaol, who appeared half inclined to lean across Yrene and flip Hasar’s chair right back into the pool.

But the meal passed, and Yrene kept drinking—enough so that when she stood after dessert, she had not realized precisely how much she’d imbibed. The world tipped and swayed, and Chaol steadied her with a hand on her elbow, even as he was none too steady on his feet.

“Seems like they can’t hold their liquor up north,” Arghun said with a snort.

Chaol chuckled. “I’d advise never to say that to someone from Terrasen.”

“I suppose there’s nothing else to do while living amongst all the snow and sheep beyond drink,” Arghun drawled, lounging in his chair.

“That may be,” Chaol said, putting an arm on Yrene’s back to guide her to the trees and tents, “but it won’t stop Aelin Galathynius or Aedion Ashryver from drinking you under the table.”

“Or under a chair?” Hasar crooned to Chaol.

Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the heat, or the hand on her back, or the fact that this man beside her had fought and fought and never once complained about it.

Yrene lunged for the princess.

And though Chaol might have decided against pushing Hasar into the pool behind her, Yrene had no such qualms about doing it herself. One heartbeat, Hasar was smirking up at her.

The next, her legs and skirts and jewels went sky-up, her shriek piercing across the dunes as Yrene shoved the princess, chair and all, into the water.

45

Yrene knew she was a dead woman.

Knew it the moment Hasar hit the dark water and everyone leaped to their feet, shouting and drawing blades.

Chaol had Yrene behind him in an instant, a sword half out—a blade she hadn’t even seen him reach for before it was in his hand.

The pool was not deep, and Hasar swiftly stood, soaked and seething, teeth bared and hair utterly limp as she pointed at Yrene.

No one spoke.

She pointed and pointed, and Yrene braced for the death order.

They’d kill her, and then kill Chaol for trying to save her.

She felt him sizing up all the guards, the princes, the viziers. Every person who would get in the way to the horses, every person who might put up a fight.

But a low, fizzing sounded behind Yrene.

She looked to see Renia clutching her stomach, another hand over her mouth, as she looked at her lover and howled.

Hasar whirled on Renia, who just stuck out a finger, pointing and roaring with laughter. Tears leaked from the woman’s eyes.

Then Kashin tipped his head back and bellowed with amusement.

Yrene and Chaol did not dare move.

Not until Hasar shoved away a servant who’d flung himself into the pool to help her, crawled back onto the paved lip, and looked Yrene dead in the eye with the full wrath of all the mighty khagans before her.

Silence again.

But then the princess snorted. “I was wondering when you’d grow a backbone.”

She walked away, trailing water behind her, Renia howling again.

Yrene caught Chaol’s stare—watched him slowly release the hand on his sword. Watched his pupils shrink again. Watched him realize …

They were not going to die.

“With that,” Yrene said quietly, “I think it’s time for bed.”

Renia paused her laughing long enough to say, “I’d be gone before she returns.”

Yrene nodded, and led Chaol by the wrist back toward the trees and dark and torches.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Renia and Kashin’s laughter had in part been true amusement, but also a gift. A birthday gift, to keep them from the gallows. From the two people who understood best just how deadly Hasar’s moods could be.

Keeping her head, Yrene decided, was a very good birthday gift indeed.

It would have been easy for Chaol to roar at Yrene. To demand how she could even think to risk her life like that. Months ago, he would have. Hell, he was still debating it.

Even as they slipped into her spacious tent, he continued soothing the instincts that had come bellowing to the surface the moment those guards had pressed in and reached for their swords.

Some small part of him was profoundly, knee-wobblingly grateful none of those guards were ones he’d trained with these weeks—that he hadn’t been forced to make that choice, cross that line between them.

But he’d seen the terror in Yrene’s eyes. The moment she’d realized what was about to happen, what would have happened if the princess’s lover and Kashin had not stepped in to defuse the situation.

Chaol knew Yrene had done it for him.

For the mocking, hateful insult.

And from the way she paced inside the tent, wending between the couches and tables and cushions … Chaol also knew she was well aware of the rest.

He took up a seat on the rolled arm of a chair, leaning the cane beside it, and waited.

Yrene whirled toward him, stunning in that purple gown, which had nearly knocked his knees from beneath him when she’d first emerged from the tent. Not just for how well it suited her, but the swaths of supple skin. The curves. The light and color of her.

“Before you begin shouting,” Yrene declared, “I should say that what just happened is proof that I should not be marrying a prince.”

Chaol crossed his arms. “Having lived with a prince for most of my life, I’d say quite the opposite.”

She waved a hand, pacing more. “I know it was stupid.”

“Incredibly.”

Yrene hissed—not at him. The memory. The temper. “I don’t regret doing it.”

A smile tugged on his mouth. “It’s an image I’ll likely remember for the rest of my life.”

He would. The way Hasar’s feet had gone over her head, her shrieking face right before she hit the water—

“How can you be so amused?”

“Oh, I’m not.” His lips indeed curved. “But it’s certainly entertaining to see that temper of yours turned on someone other than me.”

“I don’t have a temper.”

He raised a brow. “I have known a fair number of people with tempers, and yours, Yrene Towers, ranks among the finest of them.”

“Like Aelin Galathynius.”

A shadow passed over him. “She would have greatly enjoyed the sight of Hasar flipping into the pool.”

“Is she really marrying that Fae Prince?”

“Maybe. Likely.”

“Are you—upset about it?”

And though she asked it casually, that healer’s mask a portrait of calm curiosity, he selected his words carefully.

“Aelin was very important to me. She still is—though in a different way. And for a while … it was not easy, to change the dreams I’d planned for my future. Especially the dreams with her.”

Yrene angled her head, the lantern light dancing in her soft curls. “Why?”

“Because when I met Aelin, when I fell in love with her, she was not … She went by another name. Another title and identity. And things between us fell apart before I knew the truth, but … I think I knew. When I learned she was truly Aelin. I knew that between her and Dorian, I …”

“You would never leave Adarlan. Or him.”

He fiddled with the cane beside him, running his hands over the smooth wood. “She knew it, too, I think. Long before I did. But she still … She left, at one point. It’s a long story, but she went off to Wendlyn alone. And that was where she met Prince Rowan. And out of respect to me, because we had not truly ended it, she waited. For him. They both did. And when she came back to Rifthold, it ended. Between us, I mean. Officially. Badly. I handled it badly, and she did, too, and it just … We made our peace, before we parted ways months ago. And they left together. As it should be. They are … If you ever meet them, you’ll get it. Like Hasar, she isn’t an easy person to be with, to understand. Aelin frightens everyone.” He snorted. “But not him. I think that’s why she fell in love with him, against her best intentions. Rowan beheld all Aelin was and is, and he was not afraid.”

Yrene was quiet for a moment. “But you were?”

“It was a … rough period for me. Everything I knew was trampled. Everything. And she … I think I placed the blame for a great deal of it upon her. Began to see her as a monster.”

“Is she?”

“It depends on who’s telling the story, I suppose.” Chaol studied the intricate pattern of the red-and-green rug beneath his boots. “But I don’t think so. There is no one else that I would trust to handle this war. No one else I would trust to take on all of Morath but Aelin. Even Dorian. If there’s some way to win, she’ll find it. The costs might be high, but she’ll do it.” He shook his head. “And it’s your birthday. We should probably talk of nicer things.”

Yrene didn’t smile. “You waited for her while she was gone. Didn’t you? Even knowing what—who—she really was.”

He hadn’t admitted it, even to himself.

His throat tightened. “Yes.”

She now studied that woven carpet beneath them. “But you—you don’t still love her?”

“No,” he said, and had never meant anything more. He added softly, “Or Nesryn.”

Her brows rose at that, but he wrapped a hand around the cane, groaning softly as he pushed to his feet and made his way toward her. She tracked each movement, unable to set aside the healing, her eyes darting over his legs, his middle, the way he gripped the cane.

Chaol halted a step away, pulling a small bundle out of his pocket. Silently, he extended it to her, the black velvet like the rippling dunes beyond them.

“What’s that?”

He only held out the folded piece of fabric. “They didn’t have a box I liked, so I just used the cloth—”

Yrene took it from his hand, her fingers shaking slightly as she folded back the edges of the bundle that he’d been carrying all day.

In the lantern light, the silver locket shimmered and danced as she lifted it up between her fingers, eyes wide. “I can’t take this.”

“You’d better,” he said as she lowered the oval locket into her palm to examine it. “I had your initials carved onto it.”

Indeed, she was already tracing the swirling letters he’d asked the jeweler in Antica to engrave on the front. She turned it over to the back—

Yrene put a hand to her throat, right over that scar.

“Mountains. And seas,” she whispered.

“So you never forget that you climbed them and crossed them. That you—only you—got yourself here.”

She let out a small, soft laugh—a sound of pure joy. He couldn’t let himself identify the other sound within it.

“I bought it,” Chaol clarified instead, “so you could keep whatever it is you always carry in your pocket inside. So you don’t have to keep moving it from dress to dress. Whatever it is.”

Surprise lighted her eyes. “You know?”

“I don’t know what it is, but I see you holding something in there all the time.”

He’d calculated that it was small, and based the locket’s size upon it. He’d never seen an indentation or weight in her pockets to suggest its bulk, and had studied other objects she’d placed within there while working on him—papers, vials—against the utter flatness of it. Perhaps it was a lock of hair, some small stone—

“It’s nothing as fine as a party in the desert—”

“No one has given me a gift since I was eleven.”

Since her mother.

“A birthday gift, I mean,” she clarified. “I …”

She slid the locket’s fine silver chain over her head, the links catching in the stray, luscious curls. He watched her lift the mass of her hair over the chain, setting it dangling down to the edge of her breasts. Against the honey-brown of her skin, the locket was like quicksilver. She traced her slim fingers over the engraved surface.

Chaol’s chest tightened as she lifted her head, and he found silver lining her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

He shrugged, unable to come up with a response.

Yrene only walked over, and he braced himself, readied himself, as her hands cupped his face. As she stared into his eyes.

“I am glad,” she whispered, “that you do not love that queen. Or Nesryn.”

His heart thundered through every inch of him.

Yrene rose onto her toes and pressed a kiss, light as a caress, to his mouth. Never breaking his stare.

He read the unspoken words there. He wondered if she read the ones not voiced by him, either.

“I will cherish it always,” Yrene said, and he knew she wasn’t talking about the locket. Not as she lowered a hand from his face to his chest. Atop his raging heart. “No matter what may befall the world.” Another featherlight kiss. “No matter the oceans, or mountains, or forests in the way.”

Any leash on himself snapped. Letting his cane thump to the floor, Chaol drifted a hand around her waist, his thumb stroking along the sliver of bare skin the dress revealed. The other he plunged into that luxurious, heavy hair, cupping the back of her head as he tilted her face upward. As he studied those brown-gold eyes, the emotion simmering in them.

“I am glad that I do not love them, either, Yrene Towers,” he whispered onto her lips.

Then his mouth was on hers, and she opened for him, the heat and silk of her driving a groan from deep in his throat.

Her hands speared into his hair, onto his shoulders, across his chest and up his neck. As if she could not touch enough of him.

Chaol reveled in the fingers she dug into his clothes, as if they were claws seeking purchase. He slid his tongue against hers, and her moan as she pushed herself against him—

Chaol backed them toward the bed, its white sheets near-glowing in the lantern light, not caring that his steps were uneven, staggering. Not with that dress little more than cobwebs and mist, not when he never took his mouth from hers, remained unable to take his mouth from hers.

Yrene’s knees hit the mattress behind them, and she drew her lips away enough to protest, “Your back—”

“I’ll manage.” He slanted his mouth over hers again, her kiss searing him to his very soul.

His. She was his, and he had never had anything he could call such. Wanted to call such.

Chaol couldn’t bring himself to rip his mouth away from Yrene’s long enough to ask if she considered him hers. To explain that he already knew his own answer. Had perhaps known from the moment she’d walked into that sitting room and did not look at him with an ounce of pity or sadness.

He nudged her with a press of his hips, and she let him lay her upon the bed gently—reverently.

Her reach for him, hauling him atop her, was anything but.

Chaol huffed a laugh against her warm neck, the skin softer than silk, as she scrabbled with his buttons, his buckles. She writhed against him, and as he settled his weight over her, every hard part of him lining up with so many soft parts of her …

He was going to fly out of his skin.

Yrene’s breath was sharp and ragged against his ear, her hands tugging desperately at his shirt, trying to slide to his back beneath.

“I’d think you were sick of touching my back.”

She shut him up with a plundering kiss that made him forget language for a while.

Forget about his name and his title and everything but her.

Yrene.

Yrene.

Yrene.

She moaned when he slid a hand up her thigh, baring her skin beneath the folds of that gown. When he did it to the other leg. When he nipped at her mouth and traced idle circles with his fingers over those beautiful thighs, starting along their outer edge and arcing over—

Yrene did not appreciate being toyed with.

Not as she wrapped a hand around him, and his entire body bowed into the touch, the sensation of it. Not just a hand stroking over him, but Yrene doing it—

He couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but taste and touch and yield.

And yet—

He found words. Found language again. Long enough to ask, “Have you ever—”

“Yes.” The word was a rough pant. “Once.”

Chaol shoved against the ripple of darkness, the line on that throat. He only kissed it instead. Licked it. Then asked against her skin, his mouth skirting up her jaw, “Do you want to—”

“Keep going.”

But he made himself pause. Made himself rise to look at her face, his hands on her sleek thighs and her hand still gripping him, stroking him. “Yes, then?”

Yrene’s eyes were gold flame. “Yes,” she breathed. She leaned up, kissed him gently. Not lightly, but sweetly. Openly. “Yes.”

A shudder wracked through him at the words, and he gripped her thigh right where it met her hip. Yrene released him to lift her hips, dragging herself over him. Feeling him, with only the thin gossamer panel of her gown between them. Nothing beneath.

Chaol slid it to the side, bunching the material at her waist. He dipped his head, eager to look his fill, then to touch and taste and learn what made Yrene Towers lose control entirely—

“Later,” Yrene begged hoarsely. “Later.”

He couldn’t bring himself to deny her anything. This woman who held everything he was, all he had left, in her beautiful hands.

So Chaol removed his shirt, his pants following with a few, trickier maneuvers. Then he removed that dress of hers, leaving it in scraps on the floor beside the bed.

Until Yrene only wore that locket. Until Chaol surveyed every inch of her and found himself unable to breathe.

“I will cherish it always,” Chaol whispered as he slid into her, slow and deep. Pleasure rippled down his spine. “No matter what may befall the world.” Yrene kissed his neck, his shoulder, his jaw. “No matter the oceans, or mountains, or forests in the way.”

Chaol held Yrene’s stare as he stilled, letting her adjust. Letting himself adjust to the sensation that the entire axis of the world had shifted. Looking into those eyes of hers, swimming with brightness, he wondered if she felt it, too.

But Yrene kissed him again, in answer and silent demand. And as Chaol began to move in her, he realized that here, amongst the dunes and stars … Here, in the heart of a foreign land … Here, with her, he was home.

46

It broke her, and unmade her, and rebirthed her.

Sprawled over Chaol’s chest hours later, listening to the thump of his heartbeat, Yrene still did not have words for what had passed between them. Not the physical joining, not the repeated bouts of it, but simply the sense of him. Of belonging.

She’d never known it could be like that. Her quick, unimpressive, and only brush with sex had been just last autumn, and had left her in no hurry to seek it out again. But this …

He’d made sure she found her pleasure. Repeatedly. Before he ever found his own.

And beyond that, the things he made her feel—

Not just as a result of his body, but who he was …

Yrene pressed an idle kiss to the sculpted muscle of his chest, savoring the fingers he still trained down her spine, over and over.

It was safety, and joy, and comfort, and knowing that no matter what befell them … He would not balk. He would not break. Yrene nuzzled her face against him.

It was dangerous, she knew, to feel such things. She’d known what lay in her eyes when he’d looked at her. The heart she’d offered up without saying as much. But seeing that locket that he’d somehow found and had been so thoughtful about … Her initials were beautifully done, but the mountains and waves … It was stunning work, done by a master jeweler in Antica.

“I didn’t do it on my own,” Yrene murmured against his skin.

“Hmm?”

She ran her fingers over the grooves of Chaol’s stomach before rising onto an elbow to study his face in the dimness. The lanterns had long since burned out, and silence had settled over the camp, replaced by the buzz and hum of beetles in the palm trees. “Getting here. The mountains yes, but the seas … Someone helped me.”

Alertness filled those sated eyes. “Oh?”

Yrene plucked up the locket. Between bouts of lovemaking, when she’d gone to move his cane within easy reach of the bed, she’d slid the small note inside. The fit had been perfect.

“I was stuck in Innish, with no way of leaving. And one night, this stranger appeared at the inn. She was … everything I was not. Everything I’d forgotten. She was waiting for a boat, and during the three nights she was there, I think she wanted the lowlifes to try to rob her—she was spoiling for a fight. But she kept her distance. I was left with cleaning up alone that night …”

Chaol’s hand tensed on her back, but he said nothing.

“And mercenaries who had given me a hard time earlier that evening found me in the alley.”

He went utterly still.

“I think—I know they wanted to …” She shook off the icy grip of horror, even all these years later. “The woman, girl, whatever she was, she interrupted before they could so much as try. She … dealt with them. And when she finished, she taught me how to defend myself.”

His hand began stroking again. “So that’s how you learned.”

She ran a hand over the scar on her neck. “But other mercenaries, friends of the earlier ones, returned. One held a knife to my throat to get her to drop her weapons. She refused to do so. So I used what she’d taught me to disarm and disable the man.”

He blew out an impressed breath that ruffled her hair.

“To her, it was a test. She’d been aware of the second group circling, and told me she wanted me to have some controlled experience. I’d never heard of anything more ridiculous.” The woman had been either brilliant or insane. Likely both. “But she told me … told me it was better to be suffering in the streets of Antica than in Innish. And that if I wanted to come here, I should go. That if I wanted something, I should take it. She told me to fight for my miserable life.”

Yrene brushed the sweat-damp hair from his eyes. “I patched her up and she went on her way. And when I got back to my room … She had left me a bag of gold. And a golden brooch with a ruby the size of a robin’s egg. To pay for my passage here, and any tuition at the Torre.”

He blinked in surprise. Yrene whispered, voice breaking, “I think she was a god. I—I don’t know who would do that. I have a little gold left, but the brooch … I never sold it. I still have it.”

He frowned at the necklace, as if he’d misjudged its size.

Yrene added, “That’s not what I keep in my pocket.” His brows rose. “I left Innish that morning. I took the gold and the brooch and got on a ship here. So I crossed mountains alone, yes—but the Narrow Sea …” Yrene traced the waves on the locket. “I crossed because of her. I teach the women at the Torre because she told me to share the knowledge with any women who would listen. I teach it because it makes me feel like I’m paying her back, in some small way.”

Yrene ran her thumb over the initials on the front. “I never learned her name. She only left a note with two lines. For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers. That’s what I keep in my pocket—that little scrap of paper. What’s now in here.” Yrene tapped the locket. “I know it’s silly, but it gave me courage. When things were hard, it gave me courage. It still does.”

Chaol swept the hair from her brow and kissed it. “There is nothing silly about it. And whoever she is … I will be forever grateful.”

“Me too,” Yrene whispered as he slid his mouth over her jaw and her toes curled. “Me too.”

47

The pass between the twin peaks of Dagul was larger than it looked.

It went on and on, a maze of jagged, towering rock.

Nesryn and Sartaq did not dare stop.

Webs sometimes blocked their way, or hovered above, but still they charged onward, seeking any sort of path upward. To where Kadara might pluck them into the sky.

For down here, with the cramped, narrow walls of the pass, the ruk could not reach them. If they were to stand a chance of being rescued, they’d have to find a way up.

Nesryn didn’t dare let Falkan out—not yet. Not when so many things could still go so wrong, and letting the spiders know what sort of card they had up their sleeve … No, not yet would she risk using him.

But the temptation gnawed on her. The walls were smooth, ill-fitted for climbing, and as they hurried through the pass, hour after hour, Sartaq’s wet, labored breaths echoed off the rock.

He was in no state to climb. He was barely able to stay upright, or grip his sword.

Nesryn kept an arrow nocked, ready to fly as they rounded corner after corner, glancing up every now and then.

The pass was so tight in spots that they had to squeeze through, the sky a watery trickle high above. They did not speak, did not dare do more than breathe as they kept their steps light.

It made no difference. Nesryn knew it made little difference.

A trap had been laid for them, and they had fallen into it. The kharankui knew where they were. Were likely following at their leisure, herding them along.

It had been hours since they’d last heard the boom of Kadara’s wings.

And the light … it was beginning to fade.

Once darkness fell, once the way became too dark to manage … Nesryn pressed a hand to Falkan, still in her pocket. When the night settled upon the pass, she decided, then she’d use him.

They pushed through a particularly tight passage between two near-kissing boulders, Sartaq grunting behind her. “We have to be nearing the end,” he breathed.

She didn’t tell him that she doubted the spiders were stupid enough to allow them to walk right out of the other side of the pass and into Kadara’s awaiting talons. If the injured ruk could even manage their weight.

Nesryn just pushed onward, the pass becoming a fraction wider, counting her breaths. They were likely some of her last—

Thinking that way helped no one and nothing. She’d stared down death this summer, when that wave of glass had come crashing toward her. Had stared it down, and been saved.

Perhaps she would be lucky again, too.

Sartaq stumbled out behind her, breathing hard. Water. They desperately needed water—and bandages for his wounds. If the spiders did not find them, then the lack of water in the arid pass might very well kill them first. Long before any help arrived from the Eridun rukhin.

Nesryn forced one step in front of another, the path narrowing again, the rock as tight as a vise. She twisted sideways, edging through, her swords scraping.

Sartaq grunted, then let out a pained curse. “I’m stuck.”

She found him indeed wedged behind her, the bulk of his broad chest and shoulders pinned. He shoved himself forward, blood leaking from his wounds as he pushed and pulled.

“Stop,” she ordered. “Stop—wriggle back out if you can.” There was no other way through and nothing to climb over, but if they removed his weapons—

His dark eyes met hers. She saw the words forming.

You keep going.

“Sartaq,” she breathed.

They heard it then.

Claws clicking on stone. Skittering along.

Many of them. Too many. Coming from behind, closing in.

Nesryn grabbed the prince’s hand, tugging. “Push,” she panted. “Push.”

He grunted in pain, the veins in his neck bulging as he tried to squeeze through, his boots scraping on the loose rock—

Nesryn dug her own feet in, gritting her teeth as she hauled him forward.

Click, click, click—

“Harder,” she gasped.

Sartaq angled his head, shoving against the rock that held him.

“What a fine morsel, our guest,” hissed a soft female voice. “So large he cannot even fit through the passage. How we shall feast.”

Nesryn heaved and heaved, her grip treacherously slippery with sweat and blood from both of them, but she clamped onto his wrist hard enough that she felt bones shift beneath—

“Go,” he whispered, straining to push through. “You run.”

Falkan was shifting in her pocket, trying to emerge. But with the rock pressing on her chest, the passage was too tight for even him to poke out his head—

“A pretty pair,” that female continued. “How her hair shines like a moonless night. We shall take you both back to our home, our honored guests.”

A sob clawed its way up Nesryn’s throat. “Please,” she begged, scanning the rock high above them, the lip into the upper reaches of the narrow pass, the curving horns of the peaks, tugging and tugging on Sartaq’s arm. “Please,” she begged them, begged anyone.

But Sartaq’s face went calm. So calm.

He stopped pushing, stopped trying to haul himself forward.

Nesryn shook her head, pulling on his arm.

He did not move. Not an inch.

His dark eyes met hers. There was no fear in them.

Sartaq said to her, clear and steady, “I heard the spies’ stories of you. The fearless Balruhni woman in Adarlan’s empire. Neith’s Arrow. And I knew …”

Nesryn sobbed, tugging and tugging.

Sartaq smiled at her—gently. Sweetly. In a way she had not yet seen.

“I loved you before I ever set eyes on you,” he said.

“Please,” Nesryn wept.

Sartaq’s hand tightened on hers. “I wish we’d had time.”

A hiss behind him, a rising bulk of shining black—

Then the prince was gone. Ripped from her hands.

As if he had never been.

Nesryn could barely see through her tears as she edged and squeezed along the pass. As she hurtled over rocks, arms straining, feet unfaltering.

Keep going. The words were a song in her blood, her bones as she plunged onward.

Keep going and get out; find help—

But the passage at last opened into a wider chamber. Nesryn staggered from the vise that had held her, panting, Sartaq’s blood still coating her palms, his face still swimming before her—

The path curved ahead, and she stumbled for it, hand flying to where Falkan now poked his head out. She sobbed at the sight of him, sobbed as the clicking and hissing again began to sound behind her, closing in once more.

It was over. It was done, and she had as good as killed him. She should have never left, should have never done any of it—

She sprinted toward the curve in the pass, chips of shale scattering from beneath her boots.

Take you both back to our home …

Alive. The spider had talked as if they would be taken alive to their lair. For a brief window before the feasting began. And if she had spoken true …

Nesryn slapped a hand over a wriggling Falkan, earning a squeak of outrage.

But she said, soft as the wind through the grass, “Not yet. Not yet, my friend.”

And as Nesryn slowed her steps, as she stopped entirely, she whispered her plan to him.

The kharankui did not try to hide their arrival.

Hissing and laughing, they skittered around the corner of the pass.

And halted when they beheld Nesryn panting on her knees, blood from slices in her arms, her collarbone, filling the tight air with her scent. She saw them note the sprayed shale around her, flecks of her blood on it.

As if she had taken a bad fall. As if she could no longer go on.

Clicking, chattering to one another, they surrounded her. A wall of ancient, reeking limbs and fangs and swollen, bulbous abdomens. And eyes. More eyes than she could count, her reflection in all of them.

Her trembling was not faked.

“Pity it did not give much sport,” one pouted.

“We shall have it later,” another replied.

Nesryn shook harder.

One sighed. “How fresh her blood smells. How clean.”

“P-please,” she begged.

The kharankui just laughed.

Then the one behind her pounced.

Pinning her to the shale, rock slicing her face, her hands, Nesryn screamed against the claws that dug into her back. Screamed as she managed to look over her shoulder to see those spinnerets hovering above her legs.

To see the silk that shot from them, ready to be woven. To wrap her tightly.

48

Nesryn awoke to sharp biting.

She jerked upright, a scream on her lips—

It died when she felt the little teeth biting at her neck, her ear. Nipping her awake.

Falkan. She winced, her head throbbing. Bile surged up her throat.

Not biting at her head. But the silk that bound her body, the thick strands reeking. And the cave she was in …

No, not cave. But a covered section of the pass. Dimly illuminated by the moon.

She scanned the dark to either side, the arch of stone above them no more than thirty feet wide, keeping her breathing steady—

There. Sprawled on the ground nearby, covered foot to neck with silk. His face crusted with blood, eyes closed—

Sartaq’s chest rose and fell.

Nesryn shuddered with the force of keeping her sob contained as Falkan slithered down her body, chewing at the strands with his vicious teeth.

She didn’t need to tell the shifter to hurry. She scanned the empty passage, scanned the dim stars beyond.

Wherever they were … It was different here.

The rock smooth. Polished. And carved. Countless carvings had been etched in the space, ancient and primitive.

Falkan chewed and chewed, the silk snapping strand by strand.

“Sartaq,” Nesryn dared to whisper. “Sartaq.” The prince did not stir.

Clicking sounded from beyond the archway. “Stop,” she murmured to Falkan. “Stop.”

The shifter halted his path down her back. Clung to her leathers as a shadow darker than the night emerged from around the corner behind them. Or ahead—she had no idea where true north lay. If they were still within the pass itself, or atop another peak.

The spider was slightly larger than the others. Her blackness deeper. As if the starlight itself was loath to touch her.

The kharankui halted as she noted Nesryn staring at her.

Nesryn controlled her breathing, rallying her mind to come up with something to buy them time, buy Sartaq and Falkan time …

“You are the ones who have been poking about in forgotten places,” the spider said in Halha, her voice beautiful, lyrical.

Nesryn swallowed once, twice, trying and failing to moisten her paper-dry tongue. She managed to rasp, “Yes.”

“What is it that you seek?”

Falkan pinched her back in warning—and order. Keep her distracted. While he chewed.

Nesryn blurted, “We were paid by a merchant, who traded with your sisters to the north, the stygian spiders—”

“Sisters!” The spider hissed. “Our blood kin they may be, but no true sisters of the soul. Gentlehearted fools, trading with mortals—trading, when we were born to devour you.”

Nesryn’s hands shook behind her back. “T-that is why he sent us. He was unimpressed by them. S-said they did not live up to the legend …” She had no idea what was spewing from her mouth. “So he wished to see you, see if you might t-t-trade.”

Falkan brushed against her arm in quiet comfort.

“Trade? We have nothing to trade, beyond the bones of your kin.”

“There is no Spidersilk here?”

“No. Though we delight in tasting your dreams, your years. Before we finish with you.”

Had they already done so for Sartaq? Was that why he did not stir? Nesryn forced herself to ask as the threads behind her snapped free so slowly, “Then—then what is it you do here?”

The spider took a step forward, and Nesryn braced herself. But the spider lifted a thin, clawed leg and pointed to one of the polished, carved walls. “We wait.”

And as her eyes at last adjusted to the dimness, Nesryn saw what the spider pointed to.

A carving of an archway—a gate.

And a cloaked figure standing within it.

She squinted, straining to make out who stood there. “W-who do you wait for?”

Houlun had said the Valg had once passed through here—

The spider brushed aside the dirt crusted over the figure. Revealing long, flowing hair etched there. And what she’d thought to be a cloak … It was a dress.

“Our queen,” the spider said. “We wait for Her Dark Majesty to return at last.”

“Not—not Erawan?” Servants to a dark crown, Houlun had said …

The spider spat, the venom landing near Sartaq’s covered feet. “Not him. Never him.”

“Then who—”

“We wait for the Queen of the Valg,” the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. “Who in this world calls herself Maeve.”

49

Queen of the Valg.

“Maeve is Queen of the Fae,” Nesryn countered carefully.

The spider chuckled, low and wicked. “So she has made them believe.”

Think, think, think. “What—what a mighty and powerful queen she must be,” Nesryn stammered. “To rule both.” Falkan furiously chewed, each strand slowly, so slowly, yielding. “Will you—will you tell me the tale?”

The spider studied her, those depthless eyes like pits of hell. “It will not buy you your life, mortal.”

“I—I know.” She shook further, the words tumbling out. “But stories … I have always loved stories—of these lands especially. Wind-seeker, my mother called me, because I was always drifting where the wind tugged me, always dreaming of those stories. And here … here the wind has taken me. So I would hear one last tale, if you allow it. Before I meet my end.”

The spider remained quiet for a heartbeat. Another. Then she settled herself beneath the carving of the archway—the Wyrdgate. “Consider it a gift—for your boldness in even asking.”

Nesryn said nothing, heart thundering through every part of her body.

“Long ago,” the spider said softly in that beautiful voice, “in another world, another lifetime, there existed a land of dark, and cold, and wind. Ruled by three kings, masters of shadow and pain. Brothers. The world had not always been that way, had not been born that way. But they waged a mighty war. A war to end all wars. And those three kings conquered it. Turned it into a wasteland, a paradise for those who had dwelled in darkness. For a thousand years, they ruled, equal in power, their sons and daughters spread throughout the land to ensure their continued dominion. Until a queen appeared—her power a new, dark song in the world. Such wondrous things she could do with her power, such horrible, wondrous things …”

The spider sighed. “They each desired her, those kings. Pursued her, wooed her. But she only deigned to ally with one, the strongest of them.”

“Erawan,” Nesryn murmured.

“No. Orcus, eldest of the Valg kings. They wed, but Maeve was not content. Restless, our queen spent long hours pondering the riddles of the world—of other worlds. And with her gifts, she found a way to look. To pierce the veil between worlds. To see realms of green, of light and song.” The spider spat, as if such a thing were abhorrent. “And one day, when Orcus was gone to see his brothers, she took a path between realms. Stepped beyond her world, and into the next.”

Nesryn’s blood went cold. “H-how?”

“She had watched. Had learned of such rips between worlds. A door that could open and close at random, or if one knew the right words.” The spider’s dark eyes gleamed. “We came with her—her beloved handmaidens. We stepped with her into this … place. To this very spot.”

Nesryn glanced at the polished stone. Even Falkan seemed to pause to do the same.

“She bade us stay—to guard the gate. Lest anyone should pursue her. For she had decided she did not wish to go back. To her husband, her world. So she went, and we only heard whisperings through our sisters and smaller kin, carried on the wind.” The spider fell silent.

Nesryn pushed, “What did you hear?”

“That Orcus arrived, his brothers in tow. That Orcus had learned of his wife’s leaving and discovered how she’d done it. Went beyond what she’d done, and found a way to control the gate between worlds. Made keys to do so, shared with his brothers. Three keys, for the three kings.

“They went from world to world, opening gates as they willed it, sweeping in their armies and laying waste to those realms as they hunted for her. Until they reached this world.”

Nesryn could barely draw breath to ask, “And they found her?”

“No,” the spider said, something like a smile in its voice. “For Her Dark Majesty had left these mountains, had found another land, and prepared herself well. She knew that one day she would be found. And planned to hide within plain sight. So she did. She came across a lovely, long-lived people—near-immortals themselves—ruled over by two sister-queens.”

Mab and Mora. Holy gods—

“And using her powers, she ripped into their minds. Made them believe they had a sister, an eldest sister to rule with them. Three queens—for the three kings that might one day come. When they returned to their palace, she tore into the minds of all those who dwelled there, too. And any who came. Planting the thought that a third queen had always existed, always ruled. If they somehow resisted her power, she found ways to end them.” A wicked chuckle.

Nesryn had heard the legends. Of Maeve’s dark, unnamed power—a darkness that could devour the stars. That Maeve had never revealed a Fae form, only that deadly darkness. And she had lived far beyond the lifespan of any known Fae. Lived so long that the only comparable lifespan … Erawan.

A Valg life span. For a Valg queen.

The spider again paused. Falkan had nearly reached her hands—but still not enough to free them.

Nesryn asked, “So the Valg kings arrived, but did not know who faced them in the war?”

“Precisely.” A delighted purr. “Disguised in a Fae body, they did not recognize her, the fools. But she used it against them. Knew how to defeat them, how their armies worked. And when she realized what they had done to arrive here, the keys they possessed … she wanted them. To banish them, kill them, and to use the keys as she saw fit within this world. And others.

“So she took them. Snuck in and took them, surrounding herself with Fae warriors so others might not ask just how she knew so many things. Oh, the clever queen claimed it was from communing with the spirit world, but … she knew. She had run those war camps. Knew how the kings worked. So she stole the keys. Managed to send two of those kings back, Orcus one of them. And before she could go after the final king, the youngest one who loved his brothers so very deeply, the keys were taken from her.” A hiss.

“By Brannon,” Nesryn breathed.

“Yes, the fire-king. He saw the darkness in her but did not recognize it. He wondered, suspected, but all he’d known of the Valg, our people, were their male soldiers. Their grunts and princes and kings. He did not know that a female … How different, how extraordinary a female Valg is. Even he was tricked by her; she found paths into his mind to keep him from truly realizing it.” Another soft, lovely laugh. “Even now, when all should be clear to his meddlesome spirit … Even now, he does not know. To his oncoming doom—yes, to his doom, and the other’s.”

Nausea roiled through her. Aelin. Aelin’s doom.

“But while he did not guess correctly about our queen’s origins, he still knew that his fire … She greatly feared his fire. As all true Valg do.” Nesryn tucked away that kernel. “He left, building his kingdom far away, and she built her defenses, too. So many clever defenses, should Erawan rise again and realize that the queen he’d sought for his brother, conquered worlds to find, was here all along. That she had built armies of Fae, and would let them battle each other.”

A spider in a web. That’s what Maeve was.

Falkan reached Nesryn’s hands, chewing through the silk there. Sartaq remained unconscious, so perilously close to the spider.

“So you have waited these thousands of years—for her to return to these mountains?”

“She ordered us to hold the pass, to guard the rip in the world. So we have. And so we will, until she summons us to her side once more.”

Nesryn’s head spun. Maeve—she’d think on it later. If they lived through this.

She flicked her fingers at Falkan, signaling him.

Silently, keeping to the shadows, the shifter scuttled into the dark.

“And now you know—how the Black Watch came to dwell here.” The spider rose with a mighty heave. “I hope it was a fitting final tale for you, Wind-seeker.”

Nesryn opened her mouth as the spider advanced, rotating her wrists behind her back—

“Sister,” a female voice hissed from the darkness beyond. “Sister, a word.”

The spider halted, pivoting her bulbous body toward the archway entrance. “What.”

A beat of fear. “There is a problem, sister. A threat.”

The spider scuttled toward her kin, snapping, “Tell me.”

“Ruks on the northern horizon. Twenty at least—”

The spider hissed. “Guard the mortals. I shall deal with the birds.”

Clicking legs, shale shifting all around her. Nesryn’s heart hammered as she flexed her aching fingers. “Sartaq,” she breathed.

His eyes flicked open across the way. Alert. Calm.

The other spider crawled in, smaller than her leader. Sartaq tensed, shoulders straining as if he’d try to burst from the silk that held him.

But the spider only whispered, “Hurry.”

50

Sartaq sagged at Falkan’s voice as it came from the kharankui’s hideous mouth.

Nesryn hauled her hands free from the webbing, swallowing her grunt of pain as the fibers tore at her skin. Falkan’s mouth and tongue had to be aching—

She glanced at the spider hovering over Sartaq, slicing through the silk binding the prince with slashes of the claws. Indeed, where those pincers waved, blood leaked out.

“Quickly,” the shifter whispered. “Your weapons are in the corner there.”

She could just make out the faint gleam of starlight on the curve of her bow, along the naked silver of her Asterion short-sword.

Falkan cut through Sartaq’s bindings, and the prince sprang free, shoving off the webbing. He swayed as he stood, bracing a hand on the stone. Blood, there was so much blood all over him—

But he rushed to her, ripping at the threads still covering her feet. “Are you hurt?”

“Faster,” Falkan said, glancing to the archway entrance behind. “It won’t take her long to realize no one’s coming.”

Nesryn’s feet came free, and Sartaq hauled her up. “Did you hear what she said about Maeve—”

“Oh, I heard,” Sartaq breathed as they rushed to their weapons. He handed her the bow and quiver, the Fae blade. Grabbed his own Asterion daggers as he hissed to Falkan, “Which way?”

The shifter scuttled forward, past the carving of Maeve. “Here—there is a slope upward. We’re just on the other side of the pass. If we can get up high—”

“Have you seen Kadara?”

“No,” the shifter said. “But—”

They didn’t wait to hear the rest as they crept on silent feet from the archway, entering the starlight-filled pass beyond. Sure enough, a rough slope of loose stone rose from the ground, as if it were a path into the stars themselves.

They’d made it halfway up the treacherous slope, Falkan a dark shadow at their backs, when a shriek rose from the mountain beyond. But the skies were empty, no sign of Kadara—

“Fire,” Nesryn breathed as they hurtled toward the apex of the peak. “She said all Valg hate fire. They hate fire.” For the spiders, devouring life, devouring souls … They were as Valg as Erawan. Hailed from the same dark hell. “Get the flint from your pocket,” she ordered the prince.

“And light what?” His eyes drifted to the arrows at her back as they halted atop the narrow apex of the peak—the curved horn. “We’re trapped up here.” He scanned the sky. “It might not buy us anything.”

Nesryn withdrew an arrow, shouldering her bow as she tugged a strip of her shirt from beneath the jacket of her flying leathers. She ripped off the bottom, sliced the piece in two, and wrapped one around the shaft of the arrow. “We need kindling,” she said as Sartaq withdrew the flint stone from his breast pocket.

A knife flashed, and then a section of Sartaq’s braid was in his outstretched hand.

She didn’t hesitate. Just wrapped the braid around the fabric, holding the arrow out for him as he struck the flint over and over. Sparks flew, drifting—

One caught. Fire flared. Just as darkness spilled into the pass below. Shoulder to shoulder, the spiders surged for them. Two dozen at least.

Nesryn nocked the arrow, drawing back the string—and aimed up.

Not directly to them. But a shot into the sky, high enough to pierce the frosty stars.

The spiders paused, watching the arrow reach its zenith and then plunge down, down—

“Another,” Nesryn said, taking that second strip of fabric and wrapping it again around the head of her next arrow. Only three remained in her quiver. Sartaq sliced off a second piece of his braid, looping it over the tip. Flint struck, sparks glowed, and as that first arrow plummeted toward the spiders scattering from its path, she loosed her second arrow.

The spiders were so distracted looking up they did not stare ahead.

The largest of them, the one who had spoken to her for so long, least of all.

And as Nesryn’s burning arrow slammed into her abdomen, sticking deep, the spider’s scream shook the very stones beneath them.

“Another,” Nesryn breathed, fumbling for her next arrow as Sartaq ripped the fabric from his shirt. “Hurry.”

Nowhere to go, no way to keep them at bay.

“Shift,” she told Falkan, who monitored the panicking spiders, who balked at their leader’s screaming orders to put out the fire atop her abdomen. “If you are going to shift into something, do it now.”

The shifter turned that hideous spider’s face toward them. Sartaq sliced off another piece of his braid and slid it over the head of her third arrow. “I will hold them,” Falkan said.

Sparks showered, flame kindled on that third flaming arrow.

“A favor, Captain,” the shifter said to her.

Time. They did not have time—

“When I was seven, my older brother sired a bastard daughter off a poor woman in Rifthold. Abandoned them both. It has been twenty years since then, and from when I was old enough to go to the city, to begin my trade, I looked for her. Found the mother after some years—on her deathbed. She could barely talk long enough to say she’d kicked the girl out. She did not know where my niece was. Didn’t care. She died before she could give me a name.”

Nesryn’s hands shook as she aimed the arrow toward the spider trying to edge past her burning sister. Sartaq warned, “Hurry.”

Falkan said, “If she survived, if she is grown, she might have the shifter gift, too. But it doesn’t matter if she does or does not. What matters … She is my family. All I have left. And I have looked for her for a very long time.”

Nesryn fired the third arrow. A spider screamed as it found its mark. The others fell back.

“Find her,” Falkan said, taking a step toward the horrors churning below. “My fortune—all of it is for her. And I may have failed her in this life. But not in my death.”

Nesryn opened her mouth, not believing it, the words surging up—

But Falkan sprinted down the path. Leaped right in front of that burning line of spiders.

Sartaq grabbed her elbow, pointing toward the steep slope downward from the tiny peak. “This—”

One moment, she was standing upright. The next, Sartaq had thrown her back, his sword whining.

She stumbled, arms flailing to keep her upright as she realized what had crept up the other side of the peak. The spider now hissing at them, enormous fangs dripping venom to the stone.

It lunged for Sartaq with its front two legs.

He dodged one and swung down, striking true.

Black blood sprayed, the spider shrieking—but not before it slashed that claw deep into the prince’s thigh.

Nesryn moved, her fourth arrow flying, right into one of those eyes. The fifth and final arrow flew a moment later, shooting for the spider’s open mouth as it screamed.

It bit down on the arrow, slicing it in half.

Nesryn dropped her bow and drew her Fae blade.

The spider hissed at it.

Nesryn stepped between Sartaq and the spider. Down below, the kharankui screamed and shrieked. She did not dare to look to see what Falkan was doing. If he still fought.

The blade was a sliver of moonlight between her and the spider.

The kharankui advanced a step. Nesryn yielded one, Sartaq struggling to rise beside her.

“I will make you beg for death,” the spider seethed, advancing again.

It recoiled, preparing to spring.

Make it count; make the swing count—

The spider leaped.

And went tumbling off the cliff as a dark ruk slammed into it, roaring her fury.

Not Kadara. But Arcas.

Borte.

51

A whirlwind of fury, Arcas reared up, then dove again, Borte’s battle cry ringing off the stones as she and her ruk aimed for the kharankui in the pass below. To the spider holding them off, blood—red blood—leaking from him.

Another cry split the night, one she’d learned as well as her own voice.

And there was Kadara, sailing hard for them, two other ruks in her wake.

Sartaq let out what might have been a sob as one of the other ruks broke away, diving to where Borte swept and lunged and shattered through the kharankui ranks.

A ruk of darkest brown feathers … and a young man atop it.

Yeran.

Nesryn did not recognize the other rider who sailed in behind Kadara. Blood stained Kadara’s golden feathers, but she flew steady, hovering overhead as the other ruk closed in.

“Hold still, and don’t fear the drop,” Sartaq breathed, brushing a hand over Nesryn’s cheek. In the moonlight, his face was caked in dirt and blood, his eyes full of pain, and yet—

Then there was a wall of wings, and mighty talons spread wide.

They wrapped around her waist and beneath her upper thighs, hauling her sitting upright into the air, Sartaq clutched in the other, and then the great bird shot into the night.

The wind roared, but the ruk lifted them higher. Kadara fell into rank behind—guarding their rear. Through her whipping hair, Nesryn looked back toward the fire-limned pass.

To where Borte and Yeran now soared upward, a dark form clutched in the claws of Yeran’s ruk. Utterly limp.

Borte was not done.

A light sparked atop her ruk. A flaming arrow.

Borte fired it high into the sky.

A signal, Nesryn realized as countless wings filled the air around them. And as Borte’s arrow landed atop a web, flame erupting, hundreds of lights kindled in the sky.

Ruk riders. Each bearing a flaming arrow. Each now pointing downward.

Like a rain of shooting stars, the arrows fell upon the darkness of Dagul. Landed on web and tree. And caught fire. One after another after another.

Until the night was lit up, until smoke streamed, mingling with the rising screams from the peaks and wood.

The ruks veered northward, Nesryn shaking as she clung to the talons holding her. Across the way, Sartaq met her gaze, his now-shoulder-length hair rippling in the wind.

With the flames below, it made the wounds to his face, his hands, his neck all the more gruesome. His skin was wan, his lips pale, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and relief. And yet …

Sartaq smiled, barely a curve of his mouth. The words the prince had confessed drifted on the wind between them.

She could not take her eyes from him. Could not look away.

So Nesryn smiled back.

And below and behind them, long into the night, the Dagul Fells burned.

52

Chaol and Yrene galloped back to Antica at dawn.

They left a note for Hasar, claiming that Yrene had a gravely ill patient who needed to be checked on, and raced across the dunes under the rising sun.

Neither of them had slept much, but if what they’d guessed about the healers was true, they did not risk lingering.

Chaol’s back ached thanks to yesterday’s ride and last night’s … other ride. Multiple rides. And by the time the minarets and white walls of Antica appeared, he was hissing through his teeth.

Yrene frowned at him the entire painful trek through the packed streets to the palace. They hadn’t discussed sleeping arrangements, but he didn’t care if he had to walk up every single one of the stairs of the Torre. Either her bed or his. The thought of leaving her, even for a heartbeat—

Chaol winced as he climbed off Farasha, the black mare suspiciously well behaved, and accepted the cane the nearest stable hand had retrieved from Yrene’s mare.

He managed a few steps toward her, his limp deep and splintering, but Yrene held out a warning hand. “Do not think about attempting to lift me off this horse, or carry me, or anything.”

He gave her a wry look, but obeyed. “Anything?”

She turned a beautiful shade of scarlet as she slid off the mare, passing the reins to the waiting stable hand. The man sagged with relief, utterly grateful to not have the task of handling the impetuous Farasha, who was currently sizing up the poor man attempting to drag her toward the stables as if she’d have him for lunch. Hellas’s horse indeed.

“Yes, anything,” Yrene said, fluffing out her wrinkled clothes. “It’s likely because of anything that you’re limping worse than before.”

Chaol let her fall into step beside him, and balanced on his cane long enough to press a kiss to her temple. He didn’t care who saw. Who reported on it. They could all go to hell. But behind them, he could have sworn Shen and the other guards were grinning from ear to ear.

Chaol winked at her. “Then you’d better heal me, Yrene Towers, because I plan to do a great deal of anything with you tonight.”

She flushed even deeper, but angled her chin upward, prim and proper. “Let’s focus on these scrolls first, you rogue.”

Chaol grinned, broad and unrestrained, and felt it in every inch of his aching body as they strode back inside the palace.

Any joy was short-lived.

Chaol picked up on the humming threads of something amiss the moment they entered their quiet wing. The moment he saw the guards murmuring, the servants scurrying about. Yrene only shared a glance with him, and they hurried along as fast as he could manage. Strands of fire shot along his back, down his thighs, but if something had happened—

The doors to his suite were ajar, with two guards posted outside, who gave him looks full of pity and dread. His stomach turned.

Nesryn. If she had come back, if something had happened with that Valg hunting them—

He stormed into the suite, his protesting body going distant, his head full of roaring silence.

Nesryn’s door was open.

But no body lay sprawled on the bed. No blood stained the carpet, or splattered the walls.

His room was the same. But both bedrooms … Trashed.

Shredded, as if some great wind had shattered the windows and torn through the space.

The sitting room was worse. Their usual gold couch—gutted. The pictures, the art overturned or cracked or slashed.

The desk had been looted, the carpets flipped over—

Kadja was kneeling in the corner, gathering pieces of a broken vase.

“Be careful,” Yrene hissed, striding to the girl as she plucked up pieces with her bare hands. “Get a broom and dustpan rather than use your own hands.”

“Who did this,” Chaol asked quietly.

Fear glimmered in Kadja’s eyes as she rose. “It was like this when I came in this morning.”

Yrene demanded, “You didn’t hear anything at all?”

The sharp doubt in those words made him tense. Yrene hadn’t trusted the servant girl for an instant, making up tasks that would keep her away, but for Kadja to do this—

“With you gone, my lord, I … I took the night to visit my parents.”

He tried not to cringe. A family. She had family here, and he’d never bothered to ask—

“And can your parents swear to the fact that you were with them all night?”

Chaol whirled. “Yrene.”

Yrene didn’t so much as glance at him as she studied Kadja. The servant girl withered under that fierce stare. “But I suppose leaving the door unlocked for someone would have been smarter.”

Kadja cringed, shoulders curving inward.

“Yrene—this could have been from anything. Anyone.”

“Yes, anyone. Especially someone who was looking for something.”

The words clicked at the same moment the disarray of the room did.

Chaol faced the servant girl. “Don’t clean any more of the mess. Everything in here might offer some proof of who did this.” He frowned. “How much did you manage to clean already?”

From the state of the room, not much.

“I only just started. I thought you wouldn’t return until tonight, so I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” At her cringe, he added, “Go to your parents. Take the day off, Kadja. I’m glad you weren’t here when this happened.”

Yrene gave him a frown that said the girl might very well have been the cause of this, but kept her mouth shut. Within a minute, Kadja had left, closing the hall doors with a quiet click.

Yrene ran her hands over her face. “They took everything. Everything.”

“Did they?” He limped to the desk, peering into the drawers as he braced a hand on the surface. His back ached and writhed—

Yrene stormed to the gold couch, lifting the ruined cushions. “All those books, the scrolls …”

“It was common knowledge that we’d be gone.” He leaned fully against the desk, nearly sighing at the weight it took off his back.

Yrene carved a path through the room, inspecting all the places she’d ferreted away those books and scrolls. “They took it all. Even The Song of Beginning.”

“What about the bedroom?”

She vanished instantly. Chaol rubbed at his back, hissing softly. More rustling, then, “Ha!”

She emerged again, waving one of his boots in the air. “At least they didn’t find this.”

That first scroll. He rallied a smile to his mouth. “At least there’s that.”

Yrene held his boot to her chest as if it were a babe. “They’re getting desperate. That makes people dangerous. We shouldn’t stay here.”

He surveyed the damage. “You’re right.”

“Then we’ll go directly to the Torre.”

He glanced through the open doors to the foyer. To Nesryn’s bedroom.

She was due back soon. And when she did return, to find him gone, with Yrene … He’d treated her abominably. He’d let himself forget what he’d promised, what he’d implied, in Rifthold. On the ship here. And Nesryn might not hold him to any promises, but he’d broken too many of them.

“What is it?” Yrene’s question was barely more than a whisper.

Chaol closed his eyes. He was a bastard. He’d dragged Nesryn here, and this was how he’d treated her. While she was off hunting for answers, risking her life, while she sought some shred of hope for raising an army … He’d send that message—immediately. To return as fast as she could.

“It’s nothing,” Chaol said at last. “Perhaps you should stay at the Torre tonight. There are enough guards there to make anyone think twice.” He added when hurt flickered in her eyes, “I can’t appear to be running away. Especially with the royals now starting to think I might be someone of interest. That Aelin continues to be such a source of worry and intrigue … perhaps I should use that to my advantage.” He fiddled with the cane, tossing it from one hand to another. “But I should stay here. And you, Yrene, you should go.”

She opened her mouth to object, but paused, straightening. A steely glint entered her eyes. “I’ll take Hafiza the scroll myself, then.”

He hated the edge to her voice as he nodded, the dimming of those eyes. He’d done wrong by her, too. In not first ending things with Nesryn, to make it clear. He’d made a mess of it.

A fool. He’d been a fool to think he could rise above this. Move beyond the person he’d been, the mistakes he’d made.

A fool.

53

Yrene stormed up the Torre steps, careful not to crush the scroll in her fist.

The trashing of his room had rattled him. Rattled her, too, but …

It wasn’t fear of harm or death. Something else had shaken him.

In her other hand, she clutched the locket, the metal warm against her skin.

Someone knew they were close to discovering whatever it was they wanted to keep secret. Or at the very least suspected they might learn something and had destroyed any possible sources. And after what they’d started to piece together in the ruins amid Aksara …

Yrene checked her temper as she reached the top landing of the Torre, the heat smothering.

Hafiza was in her private workshop, tutting to herself over a tonic that rippled with thick smoke. “Ah, Yrene,” she said without looking up while she measured in a drop of some liquid. Vials and basins and bowls covered the desk, scattered between the open books and a set of bronze hourglasses of various time measurements. “How was your party?”

Revelatory. “Lovely.”

“I assume the young lord finally handed over his heart.”

Yrene coughed.

Hafiza smiled as she lifted her head at last. “Oh, I knew.”

“We are not—that is to say, there is nothing official—”

“That locket suggests otherwise.”

Yrene clapped a hand over it, cheeks heating. “He is not—he is a lord.”

At Hafiza’s raised brows, Yrene’s temper whetted itself. Who else knew? Who else had seen and commented and betted?

“He is a Lord of Adarlan,” she clarified.

“So?”

“Adarlan.”

“I thought you had moved past that.”

Perhaps she had. Perhaps she hadn’t. “It is nothing to be concerned about.”

A knowing smile. “Good.”

Yrene took a long breath through her nose.

“But, unfortunately, you are not here to give me all the juicy details.”

“Och.” Yrene grimaced. “No.”

Hafiza measured another few drops into her tonic, the substance within roiling. She plucked up her ten-minute hourglass and turned it over, bone-white sand trickling into the ancient base. A proclamation of a meeting begun even before Hafiza said, “I assume it has something to do with that scroll in your hand?”

Yrene looked to the open hall, then rushed to shut the door. Then the open windows.

By the time she’d finished, Hafiza had set down the tonic, her face unusually grave.

Yrene explained the ransacking of their room. The books and scrolls taken. The ruins at the oasis and their wild theory that perhaps the healers had not just arisen here, but had been planted here, in secret. Against the Valg and their kings.

And for the first time since Yrene had known her, the ancient woman’s brown face seemed to go a bit colorless. Her clear dark eyes turned wide.

“You are certain—that these are the forces amassing on your continent?” Hafiza settled herself into the small chair behind the worktable.

“Yes. Lord Westfall has seen them himself. Battled them. It is why he came. Not to raise an army against mere men loyal to Adarlan’s empire, but an army to fight demons who wear the bodies of men, demons who breed monsters. So vast and terrible that even the full might of Aelin Galathynius and Dorian Havilliard is not enough.”

Hafiza shook her head, her nimbus of white hair flowing. “And now you two believe that the healers have some role to play?”

Yrene paced. “Perhaps. We were relentlessly hunted down on our own continent, and I know it doesn’t sound like anything to go on, but if a settlement of healing-inclined Fae did start a civilization here long ago … Why? Why leave Doranelle, why come so far, and leave so few traces, yet ensure that the healing legacy survived?”

“That is why you have come—and brought this scroll.”

Yrene placed the scroll before the Healer on High. “Since Nousha only knew vague legends and didn’t know how to read the language written here, I thought you might actually have the truth. Or tell me what this scroll might be about.”

Hafiza carefully unfurled the scroll, weighing its corners with various vials. Dark, strange letters had been inked there. The Healer on High traced a wrinkled finger over a few of them. “I do not know how to read such a language.” She ran her hand over the parchment again.

Yrene’s shoulders sagged.

“But it reminds me …” Hafiza scanned the bookshelves in her workshop, some of them sealed behind glass. She rose, hobbling to a locked case in the shadowy corner of the room. The doors there were not glass at all—but metal. Iron.

She withdrew a key from around her neck and opened it. Beckoned Yrene over.

Half stumbling through the room in her haste, Yrene reached Hafiza’s side. On a few of the spines of the tomes, near-rotting with age …“Wyrdmarks,” Yrene murmured.

“I was told these were not books for human eyes—that it was knowledge best kept locked away and forgotten, lest it find its way into the world.”

“Why?”

Hafiza shrugged, studying but not touching the ancient texts shelved before them. “That was all my predecessor told me: They are not meant for human eyes. Oh, once or twice, I’ve been drunk enough to debate opening up the books, but every time I take out this key …” She toyed with the long necklace, the key of blackest iron hanging from it. A match to the cabinet. “I reconsider.”

Hafiza weighed the key in her palm. “I do not know how to read these books, nor what this language is, but if those scrolls and books were in the library itself, then the fact that these have been locked up here … Perhaps this is the sort of information worth killing for.”

Ice skittered down her spine. “Chaol—Lord Westfall knows someone who can read these markings.” Aelin Galathynius, he’d told her. “Perhaps we should bring them to her. The scroll, and these few books.”

Hafiza’s mouth tightened as she closed the iron doors to the cabinet and locked it with a heavy click. “I shall have to think on it, Yrene. The risks. Whether these books should leave.”

Yrene nodded. “Yes, of course. But I fear we may not have much time.”

Hafiza slid the iron key back under her robes and returned to the worktable, Yrene trailing her. “I do know a little of the history,” Hafiza admitted. “I thought it myth, but … my predecessor told me, when I first came. During the Winter Moon festival. She was drunk, because I’d plied her with alcohol to get her to reveal her secrets. But instead, she gave me a rambling history lesson.” Hafiza snorted, shaking her head. “I never forgot it, mostly because I was so disappointed that three bottles of expensive wine—purchased with all the money I had—got me so little.”

Yrene leaned against the ancient worktable as Hafiza sat and interlaced her fingers in her lap. “She told me that long ago, before man stumbled here, before the horse-lords and the ruks above the steppes, this land indeed belonged to Fae. A small, pretty little kingdom, its capital here. Antica was built atop its ruins. But they erected temples to their gods beyond the city walls—out in the mountains, in the river-lands, in the dunes.”

“Like the necropolis at Aksara.”

“Yes. And she told me that they did not burn their bodies, but entombed them within sarcophagi so thick no hammer or device could open them. Sealed with spells and clever locks. Never to be opened.”

“Why?”

“The drunk goat told me that it was because they lived in fear of someone getting in. To take their bodies.”

Yrene was glad she was leaning on the table. “The way the Valg now use humans for possession.”

A nod. “She rambled about how they had left their knowledge of healing for us to find. That they had stolen it from elsewhere, and that their teachings formed the basis of the Torre. That Kamala herself had been trained in their arts, their records discovered in tombs and catacombs long since lost to us. She founded the Torre based off what she and her small order learned. Worshipped Silba because she was their healing god, too.” Hafiza gestured to the owls carved throughout her workroom, the Torre itself, and rubbed at her temple. “So your theory could hold water. I never learned how the Fae came here, where they went and why they faded away. But they were here, and according to my predecessor, they left some sort of knowledge or power behind.” A frown toward that locked bookcase.

“That someone is now trying to erase.” Yrene swallowed. “Nousha will kill me when she hears those books and scrolls were taken.”

“Oh, she might very well. But she’ll likely go on the hunt for whoever did it first.”

“What does any of it mean, though? Why go to so much trouble?”

Hafiza strode back to her tonic, the hourglass nearly empty. “Perhaps that is for you to learn.” She added a few more drops of liquid to her tonic, grabbed the one-minute glass, and flipped it over. “I shall consider the books, Yrene.”

Yrene returned to her room, flung open the window to let in the breeze to the stifling chamber, and sat on her bed for all of a minute before she was walking again.

She’d left the scroll with Hafiza, figuring the locked bookcase was safer than anywhere else, but it was not scrolls or ancient books that filled her head as she turned left and headed downstairs.

Progress. They had made progress on Chaol’s injury, significantly so, and returned to find their room trashed.

His room—not theirs. He’d made that clear enough earlier.

Yrene’s steps were unfaltering, even as her legs ached from nearly two days’ worth of riding. There had to be some connection—his progress, these attacks.

She’d never get any thinking done up in her quiet, stuffy room. Or in the library, not when she’d be jumping at every footstep or meow from a curious Baast Cat.

But there was one place, quiet and safe. One place where she might work through the tangled threads that had brought them here.

The Womb was empty.

After Yrene had washed and changed into the pale, thin lavender robe, she’d padded into the steam-filled chamber, unable to help looking toward that tub by the far wall. Toward where that healer had cried mere hours before her death.

Yrene scrubbed her hands over her face, taking a steadying breath.

The tubs on either side beckoned, the bubbling waters inviting, promising to soothe her aching limbs. But Yrene remained in the center of the chamber, amid all those faintly ringing bells, and stared up into the darkness high above.

From a stalactite too far in the gloom to see, a droplet of water fell—landing on her brow. Yrene closed her eyes at the cool, hard splash, but made no move to wipe away the water.

The bells sang and murmured, the voices of their long-dead sisters. She wondered if that healer who had died … If her voice was now singing here.

Yrene peered up at the nearest string of bells hung across the chamber, various sizes and makes. Her own bell …

On bare, silent feet, Yrene padded to the little stalagmite jutting from the floor near the wall, to the chain sagging between it and another pillar a few feet away. Seven other bells hung from it, but Yrene needed no reminder of which was hers.

Yrene smiled at the small silver bell, purchased with that stranger’s gold. There was her name, etched into the side—maybe by the same jeweler Chaol had found for the amulet hanging from her neck. Even in here, she had not wanted to part with it.

Gently, she brushed her finger over the bell, over her name and the date she’d entered the Torre.

A faint, sweet ringing leaped away in the wake of her touch. It echoed off the rock walls, off the other bells. Setting some of them ringing, as if in answer.

Around and around the sound of her bell danced, and Yrene turned in place, as if she could follow it. And when it faded …

Yrene flicked her bell again. A louder, clearer sound.

The ringing flitted through the room, and she watched it, tracked it.

It faded once more. But not before her power flickered in answer.

With hands that did not entirely belong to her, Yrene rang her bell a third time.

And as its singing filled the room, Yrene began to walk.

Everywhere its ringing went, Yrene followed.

Her bare feet slapping against the damp stone, she tracked the sound’s path through the Womb, as if it were a rabbit racing ahead of her.

Around the stalagmites rising from the floor. Ducking under the stalactites drooping from above. Crossing the room; slithering down the walls; setting the candles guttering. On and on, she tracked that sound.

Past the bells of generations of healers, all singing in its wake.

Yrene streamed her fingers along them, too.

A wave of sound answered.

You must enter where you fear to tread.

Yrene walked on, the bells ringing, ringing, ringing. Still she followed the sound of her own bell, that sweet, clear song beckoning onward. Pulling her.

That darkness still dwelled in him; in his wound. They had beaten it so far back, yet it remained. Yesterday, he’d told her things that broke her heart, but not the entire story.

But if the key to defeating that shred of Valg blackness did not lie in facing the memories alone, if blind blasts of her magic did nothing …

Yrene followed the silver bell’s ringing to where it halted:

An ancient corner of the room, the chains rusted with age, some of the bells green from oxidation.

Here, the sound of her bell went silent.

No, not silent. But waiting. Humming against the corner of stone.

There was a small bell, hanging just by the end of the chain. So oxidized that the writing was nearly impossible to read.

But Yrene read the name there.

Yafa Towers

She did not feel the hard bite of stone as she fell to her knees. As she read that name, the date—the date from two hundred years ago.

A Towers woman. A Towers healer. Here—with her. A Towers woman had been singing in this room during the years Yrene had dwelled here. Even now, even so far from home, she had never once been alone.

Yafa. Yrene mouthed the name, a hand on her heart.

Enter where you fear to tread …

Yrene peered up into the darkness of the Womb overhead.

Feeding. The Valg’s power had been feeding off him …

Yes, the darkness above seemed to say. Not a drip sounded; not a bell chimed.

Yrene gazed down at her hands, lying limp at her sides. Summoned forth the faint white glow of her power. Let it fill the room, echo off the rock in silent song. Echo off those bells, the voices of thousands of her sisters, the Towers voice before her.

Enter where you fear to tread …

Not the void lurking within him. But the void within herself.

The one that had started the day those soldiers had gathered around her cottage, had hauled her out by her hair into the bright grasses.

Had Yafa known, here in this chamber so far beneath the earth, what happened that day across the sea? Had she watched the past two months and sent up her ancient, rusted song in silent urging?

They weren’t bad men, Yrene.

No, they were not. The men he’d commanded, trained with, who had worn the same uniform, bowed to the same king as the soldiers who had come that day …

They were not bad men. People existed in Adarlan worth saving—worth fighting for. They were not her enemy, had never been. Perhaps she’d known that long before he’d revealed it in the oasis yesterday. Perhaps she had not wanted to.

But the thing that remained inside him, that shred of the demon who had ordered it all …

I know what you are, Yrene said silently.

For it was the same thing that had dwelled inside her these years, taking from her, even as it sustained her. A different creature, but still one and the same.

Yrene spooled her magic back inside herself, the glow fading. She smiled up at the sweet darkness above. I understand now.

Another drop of water kissed her brow in answer.

Smiling, Yrene reached out a hand to her ancestor’s bell. And rang it.

54

Chaol awoke the next morning and could barely move.

They’d repaired his room, added extra guards, and by the time the royals at last returned from the dunes at sundown, all was in order.

He didn’t see Yrene for the rest of that day, and wondered if she and the Healer on High had indeed found something of worth in that scroll. But when dinner came and she still hadn’t appeared, he sent Kadja to ask Shen for a report.

Shen himself had returned—blushing a bit, no doubt thanks to the beauty of the servant girl who’d led him here—and revealed that he’d made sure word was received from the Torre that Yrene had returned safely and had not left the tower since.

Still, Chaol had debated calling for Yrene when his back began to ache to the point of being unbearable, when even the cane couldn’t help him hobble across the room. But the suite was not safe. And if she began to stay here, and Nesryn returned before he could explain—

He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind. What he’d done, the trust he’d broken.

So he’d managed to take a bath, hoping to ease his sore muscles, and had nearly crawled into bed.

Chaol awoke at dawn, tried to reach for his cane beside the bed, and bit down his bark of pain.

Panic crashed into him, wild and sharp. He gritted his teeth, trying to fight through it.

Toes. He could move his toes. And his ankles. And his knees—

His neck arched at the rippling agony as he shifted his knees, his thighs, his hips.

Oh, gods. He’d pushed it too far, he’d—

The door flung open, and there she was, in that purple gown.

Yrene’s eyes widened, then settled—as if she’d been about to tell him something.

Instead, that mask of steady calm slid over her face while she tied her hair back in her usual half-up fashion and approached on unfaltering feet. “Can you move?”

“Yes, but the pain—” He could barely speak.

Dropping her satchel to the carpet, Yrene rolled up her sleeves. “Can you turn over?”

No. He’d tried, and—

She didn’t wait for his answer. “Describe exactly what you did yesterday, from the moment I left until now.”

Chaol did. All of it, right until the bath—

Yrene swore viciously. “Ice. Ice to help strained muscles, not heat.” She blew out a breath. “I need you to roll over. It will hurt like hell, but it’s best if you do it in one go—”

He didn’t wait. He gritted his teeth and did it.

A scream shattered from his throat, but Yrene was instantly there, hands on his cheek, his hair, mouth against his temple. “Good,” she breathed onto his skin. “Brave man.”

He hadn’t bothered with more than undershorts while sleeping, so she had little to do to prepare him as she hovered her hands over his back, tracing the air above his skin.

“It … it crept back,” she breathed.

“I’m not surprised,” he said through his teeth. Not at all.

She lowered her hands to her sides. “Why?”

He traced a finger over the embroidered coverlet. “Just—do what you have to.”

Yrene paused at his deflection—then riffled through her bag for something. The bit. She held it in her hands, however, instead of sliding it into his mouth. “I’m going in,” she said quietly.

“All right.”

“No—I’m going in, and I’m ending this. Today. Right now.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. All that it’d entail. He dared ask, “And what if I can’t?” Face it, endure it?

There was no fear in Yrene’s eyes, no hesitation. “That’s not my question to answer.”

No, it never had been. Chaol watched the sunlight dance on her locket, over those mountains and seas. What she might now witness within him, how badly he’d failed, over and over—

But they had walked this far down the road. Together. She had not turned away. From any of it.

And neither would he.

His throat thick, Chaol managed to say, “You could hurt yourself if you stay too long.”

Again, no ripple of doubt or terror. “I have a theory. I want to test it.” Yrene slid the bit between his lips, and he clamped down lightly. “And you—you’re the only person I can try it on.”

It occurred to Chaol, right as she laid her hands on his bare spine, why he was the only one she could try it on. But there was nothing he could do as pain and blackness slammed into him.

No way to stop Yrene as she plunged into his body, her magic a white swarming light around them, inside them.

The Valg. His body had been tainted by their power, and Yrene—

Yrene did not hesitate.

She soared through him, down the ladder of his spine, down the corridors of his bones and blood.

She was a spear of light, fired straight into the dark, aiming for that hovering shadow that had stretched out once more. That had tried to reclaim him.

Yrene slammed into the darkness and screamed.

It roared back, and they tangled, grappling.

It was foreign and cold and hollow; it was rife with rot and wind and hate.

Yrene threw herself into it. Every last drop.

And above, as if the surface of a night-dark sea separated them, Chaol bellowed with agony.

Today. It ended today.

I know what you are.

So Yrene fought, and so the darkness raged back.

55

The agony tore through him, unending and depthless.

He blacked out within a minute. Leaving him to free-fall into this place. This pit.

The bottom of the descent.

The hollow hell beneath the roots of a mountain.

Here, where all was locked and buried. Here, where all had come to take root.

The empty foundation, mined and hacked apart, crumbled away into nothing but this pit.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Worthless and nothing.

He saw his father first. His mother and brother and that cold mountain keep. Saw the stairs crusted with the ice and snow, stained with blood. Saw the man he’d gladly sold himself out to, thinking it would get Aelin to safety. Celaena to safety.

He’d sent the woman he’d loved to the safety of another assassination. Had sent her to Wendlyn, thinking it better than Adarlan. To kill its royal family.

His father emerged from the dark, the mirror of the man he might have become, might one day be. Distaste and disappointment etched his father’s features as he beheld him, the son that might have been.

His father’s asking price … he’d thought it a prison sentence.

But perhaps it had been a shot at freedom—at saving his useless, wayward son from the evil he likely suspected was about to be unleashed.

He had broken that promise to his father.

He hated him, and yet his father—that horrible, miserable bastard—had upheld his end of the bargain.

He … he had not.

Oath-breaker. Traitor.

Everything he had done, Aelin had come to rip it apart. Starting with his honor.

She, with her fluidity, that murky area in which she dwelled … He’d broken his vows for her. Broken everything he was for her.

He could see her, in the dark.

The gold hair, those turquoise eyes that had been the last clue, the final piece of the puzzle.

Liar. Murderer. Thief.

She basked in the sun atop a chaise longue on the balcony of that suite she’d occupied in the palace, a book in her lap. Tilting her head to the side, she looked him over with that lazy half smile. A cat being stirred from its repose.

He hated her.

He hated that face, the amusement and sharpness. The temper and viciousness that could reduce someone to shreds without so much as a word—only a look. Only a beat of silence.

She enjoyed such things. Savored them.

And he had been so bewitched by it, this woman who had been a living flame. He’d been willing to leave it all behind. The honor. The vows he’d made.

For this haughty, swaggering, self-righteous woman, he had shattered parts of himself.

And afterward, she had walked away, as if he were a broken toy.

Right into the arms of that Fae Prince, who emerged from the dark. Who approached that lounge chair on the balcony and sat on its end.

Her half smile turned different. Her eyes sparked.

The lethal, predatory interest honed in on the prince. She seemed to glow brighter. Become more aware. More centered. More … alive.

Fire and ice. An end and a beginning.

They did not touch each other.

They only sat on that chaise, some unspoken conversation passing between them. As if they had finally found some reflection of themselves in the world.

He hated them.

He hated them for that ease, that intensity, that sense of completion.

She had wrecked him, wrecked his life, and had then strolled right to this prince, as if she were going from one room to another.

And when it had all gone to hell, when he’d turned his back on everything he knew, when he had lied to the one who mattered most to keep her secrets, she had not been there to fight. To help.

She had only returned, months later, and thrown it in his face.

His uselessness. His nothingness.

You remind me of how the world ought to be. What the world can be.

Lies. The words of a girl who had been grateful to him for offering her freedom, for pushing and pushing her until she was roaring at the world again.

A girl who had stopped existing the night they’d found that body on the bed.

When she had ripped his face open.

When she had tried to plunge that dagger into his heart.

The predator he’d seen in those eyes … it had been unleashed.

There were no leashes that could ever keep her restrained. And words like honor and duty and trust, they were gone.

She had gutted that courtesan in the tunnels. She’d let the man’s body drop, closed her eyes, and had looked precisely as she had during those throes of passion. And when she had opened her eyes again …

Killer. Liar. Thief.

She was still sitting on the chaise, the Fae Prince beside her, both of them watching that scene in the tunnel, as if they were spectators in a sport.

Watching Archer Finn slump to the stones, his blood leaking from him, face taut with shock and pain. Watching Chaol stand there, unable to move or speak, as she breathed in the death before her, the vengeance.

As Celaena Sardothien ended, shattering completely.

He had still tried to protect her. To get her out. To atone.

You will always be my enemy.

She had roared those words with ten years’ worth of rage.

And she had meant it. Meant it as any child who had lost and suffered at Adarlan’s hand would mean it.

As Yrene meant it.

The garden appeared in another pocket of the darkness. The garden and the cottage and the mother and laughing child.

Yrene.

The thing he had not seen coming. The person he had not expected to find.

Here in the darkness … here she was.

And yet he had still failed. Hadn’t done right by her, or by Nesryn.

He should have waited, should have respected them both enough to end one and begin with another, but he supposed he had failed in that, too.

Aelin and Rowan remained on that chaise in the sunshine.

He saw the Fae Prince gently, reverently, take Aelin’s hand, turning it over. Exposing her wrist to the sun. Exposing the faint marks of shackles.

He saw Rowan rub a thumb over those scars. Saw the fire in Aelin’s eyes bank.

Over and over, Rowan brushed those scars with his thumb. And Aelin’s mask slid off.

There was fire in that face. And rage. And cunning.

But also sorrow. Fear. Despair. Guilt.

Shame.

Pride and hope and love. The weight of a burden she had run from, but now …

I love you.

I’m sorry.

She had tried to explain. Had said it as clearly as she could. Had given him the truth so he might piece it together when she had left and understand. She meant those words. I’m sorry.

Sorry for the lies. For what she had done to him, his life. For swearing that she would pick him, choose him, no matter what. Always.

He wanted to hate her for that lie. That false promise, which she had discarded in the misty forests of Wendlyn.

And yet.

There, with that prince, without the mask … That was the bottom of her pit.

She had come to Rowan, soul limping. She had come to him as she was, as she had never been with anyone. And she had returned whole.

Still she had waited—waited to be with him.

Chaol had been lusting for Yrene, had taken her into his bed without so much as thinking of Nesryn, and yet Aelin …

She and Rowan looked to him now. Still as an animal in the woods, both of them. But their eyes full of understanding. Knowing.

She had fallen in love with someone else, had wanted someone else—as badly as he wanted Yrene.

And yet it was Aelin, godless and irreverent, who had honored him. More than he’d honored Nesryn.

Aelin’s chin dipped as if to say yes.

And Rowan … The prince had let her return to Adarlan. To make right by her kingdom, but to also decide for herself what she wanted. Who she wanted. And if Aelin had chosen Chaol instead … He knew, deep down, Rowan would have backed off. If it had made Aelin happy, Rowan would have walked away without ever telling her what he felt.

Shame pressed on him, sickening and oily.

He had called her a monster. For her power, her actions, and yet …

He did not blame her.

He understood.

That perhaps she had promised things, but … she had changed. The path had changed.

He understood.

He’d promised Nesryn—or had implied it. And when he had changed, when the path had altered; when Yrene appeared down it …

He understood.

Aelin smiled softly at him as she and Rowan rippled into a sunbeam and vanished.

Leaving a red marble floor, blood pooling across it.

A head bumping vulgarly over smooth tile.

A prince screaming in agony, in rage and despair.

I love you.

Go.

That—if there had been a cleaving, it was that moment.

When he turned and ran. And he left his friend, his brother, in that chamber.

When he ran from that fight, that death.

Dorian had forgiven him. Did not hold it against him.

Yet he had still run. Still left.

Everything he had planned, worked to save, all came crumbling down.

Dorian stood before him, hands in his pockets, a faint smile on his face.

He did not deserve to serve such a man. Such a king.

The darkness pushed in further. Revealing that bloody council room. Revealing the prince and king he’d served. Revealing what they had done. To his men.

In that chamber beneath the castle.

How Dorian had smiled. Smiled while Ress had screamed, while Brullo had spat in his face.

His fault—all of it. Every moment of pain, those deaths …

It showed him Dorian’s hands as they wielded those instruments beneath the castle. As blood spurted and bone sundered. Unfaltering, clean hands. And that smile.

He knew. He had known, had guessed. Nothing would ever make it right. For his men; for Dorian, left to live with it.

For Dorian, whom he’d abandoned in that castle.

That moment, over and over, the darkness showed him.

As Dorian held his ground. As he revealed his magic, as good as a death sentence, and bought him time to run.

He had been so afraid—so afraid of magic, of loss, of everything. And that fear … it had driven him to it anyway. It had hurried him down this path. He had clung so hard, had fought against it, and it had cost him everything. Too late. He’d been too late to see clearly.

And when the worst had happened; when he saw that collar; when he saw his men swinging from the gates, their broken bodies picked over by crows …

It had cracked him through to his foundation. To this hollow pit beneath the mountain he’d been.

He had fallen apart. Had let himself lose sight of it.

And he had found some glimmer of peace in Rifthold, even after the injury, and yet …

It was like applying a patch over a knife wound to the gut.

He had not healed. Unmoored and raging, he had not wanted to heal.

Not really. His body, yes, but even that …

Some part of him had whispered it was deserved.

And the soul-wound … He had been content to let it fester.

Failure and liar and oath-breaker.

The darkness swarmed, a wind stirring it.

He could stay here forever. In the ageless dark.

Yes, the darkness whispered.

He could remain, and rage and hate and curl into nothing but shadow.

But Dorian remained before him, still smiling faintly. Waiting.

Waiting.

For—him.

He had made one promise. He had not broken it yet.

To save them.

His friend, his kingdom.

He still had that.

Even here at the bottom of this dark hell, he still had that.

And the road that he had traveled so far … No, he would not look back.

What if we go on, only to more pain and despair?

Aelin had smiled at his question, posed on that rooftop in Rifthold. As if she had understood, long before he did, that he would find this pit. And learn the answer for himself.

Then it is not the end.

This …

This was not the end. This crack in him, this bottom, was not the end.

He had one promise left.

To that he would still hold.

It is not the end.

He smiled at Dorian, whose sapphire eyes shone with joy—with love.

“I’m coming home,” he whispered to his brother, his king.

Dorian only bowed his head and vanished into the darkness.

Leaving Yrene standing behind him.

She was glowing with white light, bright as a newborn star.

Yrene said quietly, “The darkness belongs to you. To shape as you will. To give it power or render it harmless.”

“Was it ever the Valg’s to begin with?” His words echoed into nothing.

“Yes. But it is yours to keep now. This place, this final kernel of it.”

It would remain in him, a scar and a reminder. “Will it grow again?”

“Only if you let it. Only if you do not fill it with better things. Only if you do not forgive.” He knew she didn’t just mean others. “But if you are kind to yourself, if you—if you love yourself …” Yrene’s mouth trembled. “If you love yourself as much as I love you …”

Something began to pound in his chest. A drumbeat that had gone silent down here.

Yrene held a hand toward him, her iridescence rippling into the darkness.

It is not the end.

“Will it hurt?” he asked hoarsely. “The way back—the way out?”

The path back to life, to himself.

“Yes,” Yrene whispered. “But just this one last time. The darkness does not want to lose you.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same.”

Yrene’s smile was brighter than the glow rippling off her body. A star. She was a fallen star.

She extended her hand again. A silent promise—of what waited on the other side of the dark.

He still had much to do. Oaths to keep.

And looking at her, at that smile …

Life. He had life to savor, to fight for.

And the breaking that had started and ended here … Yes, it belonged to him. He was allowed to break, so that this forging might begin.

So that he might begin again.

He owed it to his king, his country.

And he owed it to himself.

Yrene nodded as if to say yes.

So Chaol stood.

He surveyed the darkness, this piece of him. He did not balk at it.

And smiling at Yrene, he took her hand.

56

It was agony and despair and fear. It was joy and laughter and rest.

It was life, all of it, and as that darkness lunged for Chaol and Yrene, he did not fear it.

He only looked toward the dark and smiled.

Not broken.

Made anew.

And when the darkness beheld him …

Chaol slid a hand against its cheek. Kissed its brow.

It loosened its grip and tumbled back into that pit. Curled up on that rocky floor and quietly, carefully, watched him.

He had the sense of rising up, of being sucked through a too-thin door. Yrene grasped him, hauling him along with her.

She did not let go. Did not falter. She speared them upward, a star racing into the night.

White light slammed into them—

No. Daylight.

He squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness.

The first thing he felt was nothing.

No pain. No numbness. No ache or exhaustion.

Gone.

His legs were … He moved one. It flowed and shifted without a flicker of pain or tension.

Smooth as butter.

He looked to the right, to where Yrene always sat.

She was simply smiling down at him.

“How,” he rasped.

Joy lit her stunning eyes. “My theory … I’ll explain later.”

“Is the mark—”

Her mouth tightened. “It is smaller, but … still there.” She poked a point on his spine. “Though I do not feel anything when I touch it. Nothing at all.”

A reminder. As if some god wanted him to remember this, remember what had occurred.

He sat up, marveling at the ease, the lack of stiffness. “You healed me.”

“I think we both get considerable credit this time.” Her lips were too pale, skin wan.

Chaol brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “Are you feeling well?”

“I’m—tired. But fine. Are you feeling well?”

He scooped Yrene into his lap and buried his head in her neck. “Yes,” he breathed. “A thousand times, yes.”

His chest … there was a lightness to it. To his shoulders.

She batted him away. “You still need to be careful. This newly healed, you could still injure yourself. Give your body time to rest—to let the healing set.”

He lifted a brow. “What, exactly, does resting entail?”

Yrene’s smile turned wicked. “Some things that only special patients get to learn.”

His skin tightened over his bones, but Yrene slid off his lap. “You might want to bathe.”

He blinked, looking at himself. At the bed. And cringed.

That was vomit. On the sheets, on his left arm.

“When—”

“I’m not sure.”

The setting sun was indeed gilding the garden, cramming the room with long shadows.

Hours. All day, they’d been in here.

Chaol moved off the bed, marveling at how he slid through the world like a blade through silk.

He felt her watching him as he strode for the bathing room. “Hot water is safe now?” he called over his shoulder, stripping off his undershorts and stepping into the deliciously warm bath.

“Yes,” she called back. “You’re not full of strained muscles.”

He dunked under the water, scrubbing himself off. Every movement … holy gods.

When he broke from the surface, wiping the water from his face, she was standing in the arched doorway.

He went still at the smokiness in her eyes.

Slowly, Yrene undid the laces down the front of that pale purple gown. Let it ripple to the floor, along with her undergarments.

His mouth turned dry as she kept her eyes upon him, hips swishing with every step she took to the pool. To the stairs.

Yrene stepped into the water, and his blood roared in his ears.

Chaol was upon her before she’d hit the last step.

They missed dinner. And dessert.

And midnight kahve.

Kadja snuck in during the bath to change the sheets. Yrene couldn’t bring herself to be mortified at what the servant had likely heard. They certainly hadn’t been quiet in the water.

And certainly weren’t quiet during the hours following.

Yrene was limp with exhaustion when they peeled apart, sweaty enough that another trip to the bath was imminent. Chaol’s chest rose and fell in mighty gulps.

In the desert, he’d been unbelievable. But now, healed—beyond the spine, the legs; healed in that dark, rotting place within his soul …

He pressed a kiss to her sweat-sticky brow, his lips catching in the stray curls that had appeared thanks to the bath. His other hand drew circles on her lower back.

“You said something—down in that pit,” he murmured.

Yrene was too tired to form words beyond a low “Mmm.”

“You said that you love me.”

Well, that woke her up.

Her stomach clenched. “Don’t feel obligated to—”

Chaol silenced her with that steady, unruffled look. “Is it true?”

She traced the scar down his cheek. She had not seen much of the beginning, had only broken into his memories in time to see that beautiful, dark-haired man—Dorian—smiling at him. But she had sensed it, known who had given him that recent scar.

“Yes.” And though her voice was soft, she meant it with every inch of her soul.

The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “Then it is a good thing, Yrene Towers, that I love you as well.”

Her chest tightened; she became too full for her body, for what coursed through her.

“From the moment you walked into the sitting room that first day,” Chaol said. “I think I knew, even then.”

“I was a stranger.”

“You looked at me without an ounce of pity. You saw me. Not the chair or the injury. You saw me. It was the first time I’d felt … seen. Felt awake, in a long time.”

She kissed his chest, right over his heart. “How could I resist these muscles?”

His laugh rumbled into her mouth, her bones. “The consummate professional.”

Yrene smiled onto his skin. “The healers will never let me hear the end of this. Hafiza is already beside herself with glee.”

But she stiffened, considering the road ahead. The choices.

Chaol said after a moment, “When Nesryn returns, I plan to make it clear. Though I think she knew before I did.”

Yrene nodded, trying to fight off the shakiness that crept over her.

“And beyond that … The choice is yours, Yrene. When you leave. How you leave. If you truly want to leave at all.”

She braced herself.

“But if you’ll have me … there will be a place for you on my ship. At my side.”

She let out a dainty hum and traced a circle around his nipple. “What sort of place?”

Chaol stretched out like a cat, tucking his arms behind his head as he drawled, “The usual options: scullery maid, cook, dishwasher—”

She poked his ribs, and he laughed. It was a beautiful sound, rich and deep.

But his brown eyes softened as he cupped her face. “What place would you like, Yrene?”

Her heart thundered at the question, the timbre of his voice. But she smirked and said, “Whichever one gives me the right to yell at you if you push yourself too hard.” She drew her hand along his legs, his back. Careful—he’d have to be so, so careful for a while.

A corner of Chaol’s mouth kicked up, and he hauled her over him. “I think I know of just the position.”

57

The Eridun aerie was madness when they returned.

Falkan was alive—barely—and had caused such panic upon the ruks’ arrival at Altun that Houlun had to leap in front of the limp spider to keep the other ruks from shredding him apart.

Sartaq had managed to stand long enough to embrace Kadara, order a healer to come for her immediately, then wrap his arms around Borte, who was spattered in black blood and grinning from ear to ear. Then Sartaq clasped arms with Yeran, whom Borte pointedly ignored, which Nesryn supposed was an improvement from outright hostility.

“How?” Sartaq asked Borte while Nesryn hovered near the unconscious form of Falkan, still not trusting the ruks to control themselves.

Yeran, his company of Berlad ruks having returned to their own aerie, stepped away from his awaiting mount and answered instead, “Borte came to get me. Said she was going on a stupidly dangerous mission and I could either let her die alone or come along.”

Sartaq rasped a laugh. “You were forbidden,” he told Borte, glancing toward where Houlun knelt at Falkan’s side, the hearth-mother indeed looking torn between relief and outright rage.

Borte sniffed. “By my hearth-mother here. As I am currently betrothed to a captain of the Berlad”—emphasis on currently, to Yeran’s chagrin, it seemed—“I also can claim partial loyalty to the hearth-mother there. Who had no qualms about letting me spend some quality time with my betrothed.”

“We will have words, she and I,” Houlun seethed as she rose to her feet and strode past, ordering several people to bring Falkan farther into the hall. Wincing at the spider’s weight, they gingerly obeyed.

Borte shrugged, turning to follow Houlun to where the shifter would be patched up as best they could manage in that spider’s body. “At least his hearth-mother’s sense of quality time is in line with my own,” she said, and walked off.

Yet as she left, Nesryn could have sworn Borte gave Yeran a secret, small smile.

Yeran stared after her for a long moment, then turned to them. Gave them a crooked grin. “She promised to set a date. That’s how she got my hearth-mother to approve.” He winked at Sartaq. “Too bad I didn’t tell her that I don’t approve of the date at all.”

And with that, he strode after Borte, jogging a few steps to catch up. She whirled on him, sharp words already snapping from her lips, but allowed him to follow her into the hall.

When Nesryn faced Sartaq, it was in time to see him sway.

She lunged, her aching body protesting as she caught the prince around the middle. Someone shouted for a healer, but Sartaq got his legs beneath him, even as he kept his arms about her.

Nesryn found herself disinclined to remove her own arms from his waist.

Sartaq stared down at her, that soft, sweet smile on his mouth again. “You saved me.”

“It seemed a sorry end for the tales of the Winged Prince,” she replied, frowning at the gash in his leg. “You should be sitting—”

Across the hall, light flashed, people cried out … and then the spider was gone. Replaced by a man, covered in slashing cuts and blood.

When Nesryn looked back, Sartaq’s gaze was on her face.

Her throat closed up, her mouth pressing into a trembling line as she realized that they were here. They were here, and alive, and she had never known such true terror and despair as she had in those moments when he had been hauled away.

“Don’t cry,” he murmured, leaning down to brush his mouth over the tears that escaped. He said against her skin, “Whatever would they say about Neith’s Arrow then?”

Nesryn laughed despite herself, despite what had happened, and wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she dared, resting her head against his chest.

Sartaq just wordlessly stroked her hair and held her right back.

The Council of Clans met two days later at dawn.

Hearth-mothers and their captains from every aerie gathered in the hall, so many that the space was filled.

Nesryn had slept the entirety of the day before.

Not in her room, but curled in bed beside the prince now standing with her before the assembled group.

They had both been patched up and bathed, and though Sartaq had not so much as kissed her … Nesryn had not objected when he led her by the hand and limped into his bedroom.

So they had slept. And when they had awoken, when their wounds had been rebandaged, they’d emerged to find the hall full of riders.

Falkan sat against the far wall, his arm in a sling, but eyes clear. Nesryn had smiled at him as she’d entered, but now was not the time for that reunion. Or the possible truths she bore.

When Houlun had finished welcoming everyone, when silence fell on the hall, Nesryn stood shoulder to shoulder with Sartaq. It was strange to see him with the shorter hair—strange, but not awful. It would grow back, he said when she had frowned that morning.

All eyes shifted between them, some warm and welcoming, some worried, some hard.

Sartaq said to the group gathered, “The kharankui have stirred again.” Murmurs and shifting rustled through the hall. “And though the threat was dealt with bravely and fiercely by the Berlad clan, the spiders will likely return again. They have heard a dark call through the world. And they are poised to answer it.”

Nesryn stepped forward. Lifted her chin. And though the words filled her with dread, speaking them here felt as natural as breathing. “We learned many things in the Pass of Dagul,” Nesryn said, voice ringing out across the pillars and stones of the hall. “Things that will change the war in the north. And change this world.”

Every eye was on her now. Houlun nodded from her spot near Borte, who smiled in encouragement. Yeran sat nearby, half watching his betrothed.

Sartaq’s fingers brushed hers. Once—in urging. And promise.

“We do not face an army of men in the northern continent,” Nesryn went on. “But of demons. And if we do not rise to meet this threat, if we do not rise to meet it as one people, of all lands … Then we will find our doom instead.”

So she told them. The full history. Of Erawan. And Maeve.

She did not mention the quest for the keys, but by the time she was done, the hall was astir as clans whispered to one another.

“I leave this choice to you,” Sartaq said, voice unfaltering. “The horrors in the Dagul Fells are only the start. I will pass no judgment, should you choose to remain. But all who fly with me, we soar under the khagan’s banner. We shall leave you to debate amongst yourselves.”

And with that, taking Nesryn by the hand, Sartaq led her from the hall, Falkan falling into step behind them. Borte and Houlun remained, as heads of the Eridun clan. Nesryn knew how they would side, that they would fly north, but the others …

Whispers had turned into full-on debate by the time they reached one of the private gathering spaces for the family. But Sartaq was only in the small room for a moment before he headed to the kitchens, leaving Nesryn and Falkan with a wink and a promise to bring back food.

Alone with the shifter, Nesryn strode to the fire and warmed her hands. “How are you feeling?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder to where Falkan eased into a low-backed wooden chair.

“Everything hurts.” Falkan grimaced, rubbing at his leg. “Remind me never to do anything heroic again.”

She chuckled over the crackle of the fire. “Thank you—for doing that.”

“I have no one in my life who would miss me anyway.”

Her throat tightened. But she asked, “If we fly north—to Antica, and finally to the northern continent …” She could no longer bring herself to say the word. Home. “Will you come?”

The shifter was silent for a long moment. “Would you want me there? Any of you?”

Nesryn turned from the fire at last, eyes burning. “I have something to tell you.”

Falkan wept.

Put his head in his hands and wept when Nesryn told him what she suspected. She did not know much of Lysandra’s personal history, but the ages, the location matched. Only the description did not. The mother had described a plain, brown-haired girl. Not a black-haired, green-eyed beauty.

But yes—yes, he would come. To war, and to find her. His niece. His last shred of family in the world, for whom he had never stopped looking.

Sartaq returned with food, and thirty minutes later, word came from the hall.

The clans had decided.

Hands shaking, Nesryn strode to the door, to where Sartaq held out a hand.

Their fingers interlaced, and he led her toward the now-silent hall. Falkan rose painfully from his chair, groaning as he brushed away his tears, and limped after them.

They made it a handful of steps before a messenger came barreling down the hall.

Nesryn pulled away from Sartaq to let him deal with the panting, wild-eyed girl. But it was to Nesryn the messenger extended the letter.

Nesryn’s hands shook as she recognized the handwriting on it.

She felt Sartaq stiffen as he, too, realized that the writing was Chaol’s. He stepped back, eyes shuttered, to let her read it.

She read the message twice. Had to take a steady breath to keep from vomiting.

“He—he requests my presence in Antica. Needs it,” she said, the note fluttering in her shaking hand. “He begs us to return immediately. As fast as the winds can carry us.”

Sartaq took the letter to read for himself. Falkan remained quiet and watchful as the prince read it. Swore.

“Something is wrong,” Sartaq said, and Nesryn nodded.

If Chaol, who never asked for help, never wanted help, had told them to hurry … She glanced toward the council, still waiting to announce their decision.

But Nesryn only asked the prince, “How soon can we be airborne?”

58

Morning came and went, and Yrene was in no rush to rise from bed. Neither was Chaol. They ate a leisurely lunch in the sitting room, not bothering with proper clothes.

Hafiza would decide in her own time whether to give them those books. So they’d just have to wait. And then wait to encounter Aelin Galathynius again, or anyone else who might be able to decipher them. Chaol said as much, after Yrene told him what Hafiza had confirmed.

“There must be considerable information inside those books,” Chaol mused as he chewed on pomegranate seeds, the fruit like small rubies he popped into his mouth.

“If they date back as far as we think,” Yrene said, “if many of those texts came from the necropolis or similar sites, it could be a trove. About the Valg. Our connection to them.”

“Aelin lucked out in Rifthold, when she stumbled across those few books.”

He’d told her last night—of the assassin named Celaena, who had turned out to be a queen named Aelin. The entire history of it, laid bare. A long one, and a sad one. His voice had grown hoarse when he’d talked of Dorian. Of the collar and the Valg prince. Of those they had lost. Of his own role, the sacrifices he’d made, the promises he’d broken. All of it.

And if Yrene had not loved him already, she would have loved him then, learning that truth. Seeing the man he was becoming, turning into, after all of it.

“The king somehow missed them during his initial research and purging.”

“Or perhaps some god made sure he did,” Yrene mused. She lifted a brow. “I don’t suppose there are any Baast Cats at that library.”

Chaol shook his head and set down the looted corpse of the pomegranate. “Aelin has always had a god or two perched on her shoulder. Nothing would surprise me at this point.”

Yrene considered. “Whatever did happen with the king? If he had that Valg demon.”

Chaol’s face darkened as he leaned back on the not-nearly-as-comfortable replacement for the shredded gold sofa. “Aelin healed him.”

Yrene sat up straighter. “How?”

“She burned it out of him. Well, she and Dorian did.”

“And the man—the true king—survived it?”

“No. Initially, yes. But neither Aelin nor Dorian wanted to talk much about what happened on that bridge. He survived long enough to explain what had been done, but I think he was fading fast. Then Aelin destroyed the castle. And him with it.”

“But fire rid the Valg demon within him?”

“Yes. And I think it helped save Dorian, too. Or at least bought him enough freedom to fight back on his own.” He angled his head. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that theory I had …” Yrene’s knee bounced. She scanned the room, the doors. No one nearby. “I think …” She leaned closer, gripping his knee. “I think the Valg are parasites. Infections.”

He opened his mouth, but Yrene plowed ahead. “Hafiza and I pulled a tapeworm from Hasar when I first came here. They feed off their host, much in the same way the Valg do. Take over basic needs—like hunger. And eventually kill their hosts, when all those resources have been used up.”

Chaol went utterly still. “But these are no mindless grubs.”

“Yes, and that was what I wanted to see with you yesterday. How much awareness that darkness had. The extent of their power. If it had left some sort of parasite in your bloodstream. It didn’t, but … There was the other parasite—feeding off you, giving it control.”

He was silent.

Yrene cleared her throat, caressing her thumb over his wrist. “I realized the night before. That I had one of my own. My hatred, my anger and fear and pain.” She brushed away a stray curl. “They were all parasites, feeding on me these years. Sustaining me, but also feeding on me.”

And once she had understood that—that the place she most feared to tread was inside herself, where she might have to acknowledge what, exactly, dwelled within her …

“When I realized what I was doing, I understood that’s what the Valg truly is, deep down. What your own shadows are. Parasites. And enduring it these weeks was not the same as facing it. So I attacked it as I would any other parasite; swarmed around it. Made it come to you—attack you as hard as it could to get away from me. So that you might face it, defeat it. So you might go where you feared most to tread, and decide whether, at last, you were ready to fight back.”

His eyes were clear, bright. “That’s a big realization.”

“It certainly was.” She considered what he’d related—about Aelin and the demon inside the dead king. “Fire is cleansing. Purifying. But amongst the healing arts, it’s not often used. Too unwieldy. Water is better-tuned to the healing. But then there are raw healing gifts. Like mine.”

“Light,” Chaol said. “It looked like swarming lights, against their darkness.”

She nodded. “Aelin managed to get Dorian and his father free. Roughly, crudely, and one did not survive. But what if a healer with my sort of gifts was to treat someone possessed—infected by the Valg? The ring, the collar, they’re implantation devices. Like a bad bit of water, or tainted food. Merely a carrier for something small, the kernel of those demons, who then grow within their hosts. Removing it is the first step, but you said the demon can remain even afterward.”

His chest began to heave in an uneven rhythm as he nodded.

Yrene whispered, “I think I can heal them. I think the Valg … I think they are parasites, and I can treat the people they infect.”

“Then everyone Erawan has captured, held with those rings and collars—”

“We could potentially free them.”

He squeezed her hand. “But you’d have to get close to them. And their power, Yrene—”

“I would assume that is where Aelin and Dorian would come in. To hold them down.”

“There’s no way to test this, though. Without considerable risk.” His jaw tightened. “It has to be why Erawan’s agent is hunting you. To erase the knowledge of that. To keep you from realizing it by healing me. And relaying it to other healers.”

“If that is the case, though … Why now? Why wait this long?”

“Perhaps Erawan did not even consider it. Until Aelin purged the Valg from Dorian and the king.” He rubbed at his chest. “But there is a ring. It belonged to Athril, friend to King Brannon and Maeve. It granted Athril immunity from the Valg. It was lost to history—the only one of its kind. Aelin found it. And Maeve wanted it badly enough that she traded Rowan for it. Legend said Mala herself forged it for Athril, but … Mala loved Brannon, not Athril.”

Chaol shot up from the couch, and Yrene watched him pace. “There was a tapestry. In Aelin’s old room. A tapestry that showed a stag, and hid the entrance that led down to the tomb where the Wyrdkey had been hidden by Brannon. It was Aelin’s first clue that set her down this path.”

“And?” The word was a push of air.

“And there was an owl on it amongst the forest animals. It was Athril’s form. Not Brannon’s. All of that was coded—the tapestry, the tomb. Symbols upon symbols. But the owl … We never thought. Never considered.”

“Considered what?”

Chaol halted in the middle of the room. “That the owl might not just be Athril’s animal form, but his sigil because of his loyalty to someone else.”

And despite the warm day, Yrene’s blood chilled as she said, “Silba.”

Chaol nodded slowly. “Goddess of Healing.”

Yrene whispered, “Mala did not make that ring of immunity.”

“No. She didn’t.”

Silba did.

“We need to go to Hafiza,” Yrene said softly. “Even if she won’t let us take the books, we should ask her to look at them—see for ourselves what might have survived all this time. What those Fae healers might have learned in that war.”

He motioned her to rise. “We’ll go now.”

But the suite doors opened, and Hasar breezed in, her gold-and-green dress flowing.

“Well,” she said, smirking at their lack of clothes, their disheveled hair. “At least you two are comfortable.”

Yrene had the sense the world was about to be knocked from beneath her as the princess smiled at Chaol. “We’ve had some news. From your lands.”

“What is it.” The words were ground out.

Hasar picked at her nails. “Oh, just that Queen Maeve’s armada managed to find the host Aelin Galathynius has been so sneakily patching together. There was quite the battle.”

59

Chaol debated strangling the smirking princess. But he managed to keep his hands at his sides, managed to keep his chin high despite the fact that he was only wearing his pants, and said, “What. Happened.”

A naval battle. Aelin against Maeve. He waited for the dangling sword to drop. If he had been too late—

Hasar looked up from her nails. “It was a spectacle, apparently. A Fae armada versus a cobbled-together human force—”

“Hasar, please,” Yrene murmured.

The princess sighed at the ceiling. “Fine. Maeve was trounced.”

Chaol sank onto the sofa.

Aelin—thank the gods Aelin had managed to find a way—

“Though there were some interesting details.” Then the princess rattled off the facts. The numbers. A third of Maeve’s armada, bearing Whitethorn flags, had turned on their own and joined Terrasen’s fleet. Dorian had fought—held the front lines with Rowan. Then a pack of wyverns had soared in from nowhere—to fight for Aelin.

Manon Blackbeak. Chaol would be willing to bet his life that somehow, either through Aelin or Dorian, that witch had done them a favor, and possibly altered the course of this war.

“The magic, they say, was impressive,” Hasar went on. “Ice and wind and water.” Dorian and Rowan. “Even rumor of a shape-shifter.” Lysandra. “But no darkness. Or whatever Maeve fights with. And no flame.”

Chaol braced his forearms on his knees.

“Though some reports claim they spotted flame and shadow on shore—far away. Flickers of both. There and gone. And no one spotted Aelin or the Dark Queen in the fleet.”

It would have been like Aelin, to shift the battle between her and Maeve to the shore. To minimize casualties, so she could unleash her full power without hesitation.

“As I said,” Hasar continued, fluffing the skirts of her dress, “They were victorious. Aelin was spotted returning to her armada hours later. They’ve set sail—north, apparently.”

He muttered a prayer of thanks to Mala. And a prayer of thanks to whatever god watched over Dorian, too. “Any major casualties?”

“To their men, yes, but not to any of the interesting players,” Hasar said, and Chaol hated her. “But Maeve … there and gone, not a whisper of her left.” She frowned at the windows. “Maybe she’ll sail here to lick her wounds.”

Chaol prayed that wouldn’t be the case. Yet if Maeve’s armada still sat in the Narrow Sea when they took the crossing … “But the others sail north now—to where?” Where can I find my king, my brother?

“I’d assume Terrasen, now that Aelin has her armada. Oh, and another one.”

Hasar smiled at him. Waiting for the question—the plea.

“What other armada,” Chaol forced himself to ask.

Hasar shrugged, walking from the room. “Turns out, Aelin called in a debt. To the Silent Assassins of the Red Desert.”

Chaol’s eyes burned.

“And to Wendlyn.”

His hands began shaking.

“How many ships,” he breathed.

“All of them,” Hasar said, hand on the door. “All of Wendlyn’s armada came, commanded by Crown Prince Galan himself.”

Aelin … Chaol’s blood sparked, and he looked to Yrene. Her eyes were wide, bright. Bright with hope—burning, precious hope.

“Turns out,” Hasar mused, as if it were a passing thought, “there are quite a few people who think highly of her. And who believe in what she’s selling.”

“Which is what?” Yrene whispered.

Hasar shrugged. “I assume it’s what she tried to sell to me, when she wrote me a message weeks ago, asking for my aid. From one princess to another.”

Chaol took a shuddering breath. “What did Aelin promise you?”

Hasar smiled to herself. “A better world.”

60

Chaol was bristling beside Yrene as they hurried through Antica’s narrow streets, crammed with people going home for the night. Not with rage, she realized, but purpose.

Aelin had mustered an army, and if they could join with them, bring some force from the khaganate … Yrene beheld the hope in his eyes. The focus.

A fool’s shot at this war. But only if they could convince the royals.

One last push, he declared to her as they entered the cool interior of the Torre and hurried up the stairs. He didn’t care if he had to crawl in front of the khagan. He would make one last attempt at convincing him.

But first: Hafiza. And the books that might contain a far more valuable weapon than swords or arrows: knowledge.

His steps did not falter as they wound up the endless interior of the Torre. Even with all that weighed on them, Chaol still murmured in her ear, “No wonder those legs of yours are so pretty.”

Yrene batted him off, her face heating. “Cad.”

At this hour, most of the acolytes were already heading down to dinner. Several beamed at Chaol as they passed him on the stairs, some younger ones giggling. He gave them all warm, indulgent smiles that sent them into further fits.

Hers. He was hers, Yrene wanted to crow at them. This beautiful, brave, selfless man—he was hers.

And she was going home with him.

It was that thought that sobered her slightly. The sense that these endless hikes up the interior of the Torre might now be limited. That she might not smell the lavender and baked bread for a long time. Not hear those giggles.

Chaol’s hand brushed hers as if to say he understood. Yrene only gripped his fingers tightly. Yes, she would leave a part of herself here. But what she took with her upon leaving … Yrene was smiling when they at last reached the top of the Torre.

Chaol panted, bracing a hand on the wall of the landing. Hafiza’s office door was cracked open, letting in the last of the sunset. “Whoever built this thing was a sadist.”

Yrene laughed, knocking on Hafiza’s office door and pushing it open. “That would be Kamala. And rumor says she—” Yrene halted, finding the Healer on High’s office empty.

She edged around him on the landing, striding for the workroom—the door ajar. “Hafiza?”

No answer, but she pushed open the door anyway.

Empty. That bookcase, mercifully, still locked.

Likely making rounds, or at dinner, then. Though they’d seen everyone coming down after the dinner bell’s summons, and Hafiza hadn’t been among them.

“Wait here,” Yrene said, and bounded down the stairs to the next landing, a level above Yrene’s own room.

“Eretia,” she said, stepping into the small room.

The healer grunted in answer. “Saw a nice backside walk past here a moment ago.”

Chaol’s cough sounded from above.

Yrene snorted, but said, “Do you know where Hafiza is?”

“In her workroom.” The woman didn’t so much as turn. “She’s been in there all day.”

“You’re … certain?”

“Yes. Saw her go in, shut the door, and she hasn’t come out.”

“The door was open just now.”

“Then she likely slipped past me.”

Without saying a word? That wasn’t Hafiza’s nature.

Yrene scratched her head, scanning the landing behind her. The few doors on it. She didn’t bother saying good-bye to Eretia before knocking on them. One was empty; the other healer told her the same: Hafiza was in her workroom.

Chaol was waiting atop the stairs when Yrene climbed back up. “No luck?”

Yrene tapped her foot on the ground. Perhaps she was paranoid, but …

“Let’s check the mess hall,” was all she said.

She caught the gleam in Chaol’s eyes. The worry—and warning.

They went down two levels until Yrene halted on her own landing.

Her door was shut—but there was something wedged beneath it. As if a passing foot had kicked it under. “What is that?”

Chaol drew his sword so fast she didn’t even see him move, every movement of his body, his blade, a dance. She bent and pulled the object out. Metal scraped on stone.

And there, dangling from its chain … Hafiza’s iron key.

Chaol studied the door, the stairs, as Yrene pulled the necklace over her head with shaking fingers. “She didn’t slide it there by accident,” he said.

And if she had thought to hide the key here … “She knew something was coming for her.”

“There was no sign of forced entry or attack upstairs,” he countered.

“She could have just been spooked, but … Hafiza does nothing without thought.”

Chaol put a hand on the small of her back, ushering her toward the stairs. “We need to notify the guard—start a search party.”

She was going to be ill. She was going to vomit right down the steps.

If she had brought this upon Hafiza—

Panic helped no one. Nothing.

She forced herself to take a breath. Another one. “We need to be quick. Can your back—”

“I can manage. It feels fine.”

Yrene assessed his stance, his balance. “Then hurry.”

Around and around, they flew down the steps of the Torre. Asking anyone who passed if they’d seen Hafiza. In her workroom, they all said.

As if she had simply vanished into nothing. Into shadow.

Chaol had seen enough, endured enough, to listen to his gut.

And his gut told him that something either had happened or was unfurling.

Yrene’s face was bone white with dread, that iron key bouncing against her chest with each of their steps. They reached the bottom of the Torre, and Yrene had the guard on alert in a matter of words, calmly explaining that the Healer on High was missing.

But search parties took too long to organize. Anything could happen in the span of minutes. Seconds.

In the busy hallway of the Torre’s main level, Yrene called out to a few healers about Hafiza’s location. No, she was not in the mess hall. No, she was not in the herb gardens. They had just been that way and had not seen her.

It was an enormous complex. “We’d cover more ground if we split up,” Yrene panted, scanning the hall.

“No. They might be expecting that. We stick together.”

Yrene scrubbed her hands over her face. “Widespread hysteria might make the—person act quicker. Rasher. We keep it quiet.” She lowered her hands. “Where do we start? She could be in the city, she could be d—”

“How many exits lead from the Torre into the streets?”

“Just the main gate, and a small side one for the deliveries. Both heavily guarded.”

They visited both within a span of minutes. Nothing. The guards were well trained and had kept a record of everyone who went in and out. Hafiza had not been seen. And no wagons had come in or left since early morning. Before Eretia had last seen her.

“She has to be somewhere on the premises,” Chaol said, surveying the tower looming above, the physicians’ complex. “Unless you can think of another way in or out. Perhaps something that might have been forgotten.”

Yrene went wholly still, her eyes bright as flame in the sinking twilight.

“The library,” she breathed, and launched into a sprint.

Swift—she was swift, and it was all he could do to keep up with her. To run. Holy gods, he was running, and—

“There are rumors of tunnels in the library,” Yrene panted, leading him down a familiar hallway. “Deep below. That connect outside. To where, we don’t know. Rumor claims they were sealed up, but—”

His heart thundered. “It would explain how they were able to come and go unnoticed.”

And if the old woman had been brought down there …

“How did they even get her to go? Without anyone noticing?”

He didn’t want to answer. The Valg could summon shadows if they wished. And hide within them. And those shadows could turn deadly in an instant.

Yrene slid to a stop in front of the main library desk, Nousha’s head snapping up. The marble was so smooth Yrene had to grapple at the edges of the desk to keep from falling.

“Have you seen Hafiza?” she blurted.

Nousha looked between them. Noted the sword he still had out.

“What is wrong.”

“Where are the tunnels?” Yrene demanded. “The ones they boarded up—where are they?”

Behind her, a storm-gray Baast Cat leaped up from its vigil by the hearth and sprinted into the library proper.

Nousha gazed at an ancient bell the size of a melon atop the desk. A hammer lay beside it.

Yrene slapped her hand on the hammer. “Don’t. It will alert them that—that we know.”

The woman’s brown skin seemed to go wan. “Head down to the bottom level. Walk straight to the wall. Cut left. Take that to the farthest wall—the very end. Where the stone is rough and unpolished. Cut right. You’ll see them.”

Yrene’s chest heaved, but she nodded, muttering the directions to herself. Chaol memorized them, planted them in his mind.

Nousha rose to her feet. “Shall I summon the guard?”

“Yes,” Chaol said. “But quietly. Send them after us. As fast as you can.”

Nousha’s hands shook as she folded them in front of her middle. “Those tunnels have been left untouched for a very long time. Be on your guard. Even we do not know what lies down there.”

Chaol debated mentioning the usefulness of cryptic warnings before plunging into battle, but simply entwined his fingers through Yrene’s and launched them down the hall.

61

Yrene counted every step. Not that it helped, but her brain just produced the numbers in an endless tally.

One, two, three … Forty.

Three hundred.

Four twenty-four.

Seven hundred twenty-one.

Down and down they went, scanning every shadow and aisle, every alcove and reading room and nook. Nothing.

Only acolytes quietly working, many packing up for the night. No Baast Cats—not one.

Eight hundred thirty.

One thousand three.

They hit the bottom of the library, the lights dimmer. Sleepier.

The shadows more alert. Yrene saw faces in all of them.

Chaol plunged ahead, sword like quicksilver as they followed Nousha’s directions.

The temperature dropped. The lights became fewer and farther between.

Leather books were replaced with crumbling scrolls. Scrolls replaced by carved tablets. Wooden shelves gave way to stone alcoves. The marble floor turned uncut. So did the walls.

“Here,” Chaol breathed, and drew her into a stop, his sword lifting.

The hall before them was lit by a sole candle. Left to burn on the ground.

And down it: four doors.

Three sealed with heavy stone, but the fourth … Open. The stone rolled aside. Another lone candle before it, illumining the darkness beyond.

A tunnel. Deeper than the Womb—deeper than any level of the Torre.

Chaol pointed to the rough dirt of the passage ahead. “Tracks. Two sets, side by side.”

Sure enough, the ground had been disturbed.

He whirled to her. “You stay here, I’ll—”

“No.” He weighed the word, her stance, as she added, “Together. We do this together.”

Chaol took another moment to consider, then nodded. Carefully, he led her along, showing her where to step to avoid any loud noises on loose bits of stone.

The candle beckoned by the open tunnel doorway. A beacon. An invitation.

The light danced along his blade as he angled it before the tunnel entrance.

Nothing but fallen blocks of stone and an endless dark passage greeted them.

Yrene breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Hafiza. Hafiza was in there. Either hurt or worse, and—

Chaol linked his hand with hers and led her into the dark.

They inched along in silence for untold minutes. Until the light from the sole candle faded behind them—and another appeared. Faintly, far off. As if around a distant corner.

As if someone was waiting.

Chaol knew it was a trap.

Knew the Healer on High had not been the target, but the bait. But if they arrived too late …

He would not let that happen.

They inched toward that second candle, the light as good as ringing the dinner bell.

But he moved forward nonetheless, Yrene keeping pace beside him.

The sole candle grew brighter.

Not a candle. A golden light from the passage beyond. Gilding the stone wall behind it.

Yrene tried to hurry, but he kept their pace slow. Quiet as death.

Though he had no doubt whoever it was already knew they were coming.

They reached the turn in the tunnel, and he studied the light on the far wall, trying to read for any shadows or disruptions. Only light.

He peered around the corner. Yrene did so, too.

Her breath snagged. He had seen some sights in the past year, but this …

It was a chamber, as enormous as the entire throne room in Rifthold’s palace, perhaps larger. The ceiling held aloft on carved pillars receding into the gloom, a set of stairs leading down from the tunnel onto the main floor. He knew why the light had been golden upon the walls.

For illuminated by the torches that burned throughout … Gold.

The wealth of an ancient empire filled the chamber. Chests and statues and trinkets of pure gold. Suits of armor. Swords.

And scattered amongst it all were sarcophagi. Built not from gold, but impenetrable stone.

A tomb—and a trove. And at the very back, rising up on a towering dais …

Yrene let out a small sound at the sight of the gagged and bound Healer on High seated on a golden throne. But it was the woman standing beside the healer, a knife resting on her round belly, that made Chaol’s blood go cold.

Duva. The khagan’s now-youngest daughter.

She smiled at them as they approached—and the expression was not human.

It was Valg.

62

“Well,” said the thing inside the princess, “it certainly took you long enough.”

The words echoed down the massive chamber, bouncing off stone and gold.

Chaol assessed every shadow, every object they passed. All possible weapons. All possible escape routes.

Hafiza did not move as they neared, walking down the broad avenue between the endless, glittering gold and sarcophagi. A necropolis.

Perhaps one enormous, subterranean city, stretching from the desert to here.

When they’d visited Aksara, Duva had remained behind. Claiming that her pregnancy—

Yrene’s hiss told him she realized the same.

Duva was pregnant—and the Valg had a hold on her.

Chaol sized up the odds. A Valg-infested princess, armed with a knife and whatever dark magic, the Healer on High tied to the throne …

And Yrene.

“Because I see you calculating, Lord Westfall, I’ll spare you the trouble and lay out your options for you.” Duva traced gentle, idle lines over her full womb with that knife, barely disturbing the fabric of her gown. “See, you’ll have to pick. Me, the Healer on High, or Yrene Towers.” The princess smiled and whispered again, “Yrene.”

And that voice …

Yrene shook beside him. The voice from that night.

But Yrene lifted her chin as they halted at the base of those steep dais steps, and said to the princess, unfaltering as any queen, “What is it that you want?”

Duva angled her head, her eyes wholly black. The ebony of the Valg. “Don’t you want to know how?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell us, anyway,” Chaol said.

Duva’s eyes narrowed with annoyance, but she let out a small laugh. “These tunnels run right between the palace and the Torre. Those immortal Fae brats buried their royals here. Renegades of Mora’s noble line.” She swept an arm to encompass the room. “I’m sure the khagan would be beside himself to learn of how much gold sits beneath his feet. Another hand to play when the time calls for it.”

Yrene stared and stared at Hafiza, who was watching them calmly.

A woman ready for her end. Who now only wanted to make sure Yrene did not think her frightened.

“I was waiting for you to figure out it was me,” Duva said. “When I destroyed all those precious books and scrolls, I thought you’d certainly realize I was the only one who hadn’t gone to the party. But then I realized—how could you suspect me?” She laid a hand on her full womb. “It was why he chose her to begin with. Lovely, gentle Duva. Too kind to ever be a contender for the throne.” A snake’s smile. “Do you know Hasar tried to take the ring first? She spied it in the wedding trove sent by Perrington and wanted it. But Duva snatched it before she could.” She held up her finger, revealing the broad silver band. Not a glimmer of Wyrdstone.

“It’s beneath,” she whispered. “A clever little trick to hide it. And the moment she spoke her vows to that sweet, lovesick human prince, this went on her hand.” Duva smirked. “And no one even noticed.” A flash of her white teeth. “Except for keen-eyed little sister.” She clicked her tongue. “Tumelun suspected something was wrong. Caught me poking about in forgotten places. So I caught her, too.” Duva chuckled. “Or didn’t, I suppose. Since I shoved her right off that balcony.”

Yrene sucked in a breath.

“Such a wild, impetuous princess,” Duva drawled. “Prone to such moods. I couldn’t very well have her going to her beloved parents and whining about me, could I?”

“You bitch,” Yrene snapped.

“That’s what she called me,” Duva replied. “Said I didn’t seem right.” She rubbed a hand over her belly, then tapped a finger to the side of her head. “You should have heard how she screamed. Duva—how Duva screamed when I pushed the brat off the balcony. But I shut her up fast enough, didn’t I?” She again brought that knife up to her belly and scraped over the silk fabric.

“Why are you here,” Yrene breathed. “What do you want?”

“You.”

Chaol’s heart stumbled at the word.

Duva straightened. “The Dark King heard whispers. Whispers that a healer blessed with Silba’s gifts had entered the Torre. And it made him so very, very wary.”

“Because I can wipe you all out like the parasites you are?”

Chaol shot Yrene a warning glance.

But Duva plucked the dagger off her womb and studied the blade. “Why do you think Maeve has hoarded her healers, never allowing them to leave her patrolled borders? She knew we would return. She wanted to be ready—to protect herself. Her prized favorites, those Doranelle healers. Her secret army.” Duva hummed, motioning with the dagger to the necropolis. “How clever those Fae were, who escaped her clutches after the last war. They ran all the way here—the healers who knew their queen would keep them penned up like animals. And then they bred the magic into the land, into its people. Encouraged the right powers to rise up, to ensure this land would always be strong, defended. And then they vanished, taking their treasures and histories beneath the earth. Ensuring they were forgotten below, while their little garden was planted above.”

“Why,” was all Chaol said.

“To give those Maeve did not consider important a fighting chance should Erawan return.” Duva clicked her tongue. “So noble, those renegade Fae. And thus the Torre grew—and His Dark Majesty indeed rose again, and then fell, and then slept. And even he forgot what someone with the right gifts might do. But then he awoke once more. And he remembered the healers. So he made sure to purge the gifted ones from the northern lands.” A smile at Yrene, hateful and cold. “But it seems a little healer slipped the butcher’s block. And made it all the way to this city, with an empire to guard her.”

Yrene’s breathing was ragged. He saw the guilt and dread settle in. That in coming here, she had brought this upon them. Tumelun, Duva, the Torre, the khaganate.

But what Yrene did not realize, Chaol instead saw it for her. Saw it with the weight of a continent, a world, upon him. Saw what had terrified Erawan enough to dispatch one of his agents.

Because Yrene, ripe with power and facing down that preening Valg demon … Hope.

It was hope that stood beside him, hidden and protected these years in this city, and in the years before it, spirited across the earth by the gods themselves, concealed from the forces poised to destroy her.

A kernel of hope.

The most dangerous of all weapons against Erawan, against the Valg’s ancient darkness.

What he had been brought here to retrieve for his homeland, his people. What he had been brought here to protect. More precious than soldiers, than any weapon. Their only shot at salvation.

Hope.

“Why not kill me, then,” Yrene demanded. “Why not just kill me?”

Chaol hadn’t dared ask or think the question.

Duva rested her dagger upon her belly again. “Because you are so much more useful to Erawan alive, Yrene Towers.”

Yrene was shaking. In her bones, she was trembling.

“I am no one,” Yrene breathed.

That blade—that blade sat atop that womb. And Hafiza remained still and watchful, ever calm, beside Duva.

“Are you?” the princess crooned. “Two years is an unnaturally swift pace to climb so high in the Torre. Is it not, Healer?”

Yrene wanted to vomit as the demon inside Duva looked upon Hafiza.

Hafiza met her stare unflinchingly.

Duva laughed quietly. “She knew. She said as much to me when I spirited her out of her room earlier. That I was coming for you. Silba’s Heir.”

Yrene’s hand slid to her locket. The note within.

The world needs more healers.

Had it been Silba herself who had come that night in Innish, who had sent her here, with a message she would later understand?

The world needed more healers—to fight Erawan.

“That was why Erawan sent me,” Duva drawled. “To be his spy. To see if a healer with those gifts—the gifts—might indeed emerge from the Torre. And to keep you from learning too much.” A little shrug. “Of course, killing that brat-princess and the other healer were … mistakes, but I’m sure His Dark Majesty will forgive me for it when I return with you in tow.”

Roaring filled her head, so loud Yrene could barely hear herself as she snapped, “If you mean to bring me to him, why kill the healer you mistook for me? And why not kill every healer in this city and spare yourselves the trouble?”

Duva snorted, waving that dagger. “Because that would raise too many questions. Why was Erawan targeting your kind? Certain key players might have started pondering. So the Torre was to be left alone—in ignorance. Dwelling here, removed from the north, never leaving these shores. Until it’s time for my liege to deal with this empire.” A smile that made Yrene’s blood ice over. “As for that healer … It had nothing to do with how she resembled you. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, the right time for me, since I was frightfully hungry and I couldn’t exactly feed without being noticed. But to drum up some fear in you, to make you realize the danger and stop working on that Adarlanian fool, stop prying too far into such ancient matters. But you did not listen, did you?”

Yrene’s hands curled into claws at her sides.

Duva went on, “Too bad, Yrene Towers. Too bad. For every day you worked on him, healed him, it became clear that you, indeed, were the one. The one my Dark King covets. And after Duva’s own palace spies told her that you had healed him fully, once he was walking again and you proved beyond doubt that you were the one I’d been sent to find …” She sneered at Hafiza, and Yrene wanted to rip that expression right off her face. “I knew outright attack would be complicated. But luring you down here … Too easy. I’m rather disappointed. So,” she declared, flipping the knife in her hand, “you will be coming with me, Yrene Towers. To Morath.”

Chaol stepped in front of Yrene. “You are forgetting one thing.”

Duva lifted a groomed eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You have not won yet.”

Go, Yrene wanted to tell him. Go.

For that was dark power starting to curl around Duva’s fingers, around the hilt of her dagger.

“What’s amusing, Lord Westfall,” Duva said, peering down at them from atop the dais, “is that you think you can buy yourself time until the guards come. But by then, you will be dead, and no one would dare question my word when I tell them you tried to kill us down here. To take this gold back to your poor little kingdom after you wasted your own upon ordering those weapons from my father’s vizier. Why, you could buy yourself a thousand armies with this.”

Yrene hissed, “You still have us to contend with.”

“I suppose.” Duva pulled something from her pocket. Another ring, crafted from stone so dark it swallowed the light. No doubt sent directly from Morath. “But once you put this on … you’ll do whatever I say.”

“And why should I ever—”

Duva rested the knife against Hafiza’s throat. “That’s why.”

Yrene looked to Chaol, but he was sizing up the room, the stairs and exits.

The dark power twining around Duva’s fingers.

“So,” Duva said, taking one step down the dais. “Let’s begin.”

She made it a second step before it happened.

Chaol did not move. But Hafiza did.

She hurled her body, chair and all, the entire weight of that golden throne, down the stairs.

Right atop Duva.

Yrene screamed, running for them, Chaol launching into motion.

Hafiza and the baby, the baby and Hafiza—

Crone and princess tumbled down those steep stairs, wood snapping. Wood, not metal. The throne had been painted, and now it shattered as they rolled, Duva shrieking and Hafiza so silent, even as her gag came free—

They hit the stone floor with a crack that Yrene felt in her heart.

Chaol was instantly there, not going for Duva, sprawled on the ground, but for Hafiza, limp and unmoving. He hauled her back, splinters and ropes clinging to her, her mouth gaping—

Eyes cracking open—

Yrene sobbed, grabbing Hafiza by the other arm and helping him heave her out of the way, toward a towering statue of a Fae soldier.

Just as Duva rose up on her elbows, hair loose around her face, and seethed, “You rotting pile of shit—”

Chaol shot upright, sword angled before them while Yrene fumbled for her magic to heal the ancient, frail body.

The old woman managed to raise her arm long enough to grip Yrene’s wrist. Go, she seemed to say.

Duva climbed to her feet, long splinters embedded in her neck, blood dripping from her mouth. Black blood.

Chaol gave Yrene all of one look over his shoulder. Run.

And take Hafiza with her.

Yrene opened her mouth to tell him no, but he had already faced ahead again. Toward the princess who advanced one step.

Her dress was torn, revealing the firm, round belly beneath. A fall like that with a baby—

A baby.

Yrene gripped Hafiza under her thin shoulders, hauling her slight weight across the floor.

Chaol wouldn’t kill her. Duva.

Yrene sobbed through her clenched teeth as she dragged Hafiza back and back through that gold-lined avenue, the statues looking on unfeelingly.

He wouldn’t so much as harm Duva, not with that baby in her womb.

Yrene’s chest caved in at the low hum of power that filled the room.

He would not fight back. He would buy Yrene time.

To get Hafiza out and to run.

Duva purred, “This will likely hurt a great deal.”

Yrene whirled back just as shadows lashed from the princess, aimed right at Chaol.

He rolled to the side, the blast going wide and striking the statue he ducked behind.

“Such theatrics,” Duva tutted, and Yrene hurried, sliding Hafiza toward those distant stairs. Leaving him—leaving him behind.

But movement caught her eye, and then—

A statue crashed into the princess’s path.

Duva blasted it aside with her power. Gold showered the room in chunks that thundered atop the sarcophagi, the cracking echoing through the chamber.

“You will make this boring,” Duva tsked, and hurled a handful of darkness toward where he’d been. Yrene stumbled as the room shuddered, but she kept upright.

Another blow.

Another.

Duva hissed, rounding the sarcophagus where she’d guessed Chaol was hiding. She fired her power blindly.

Chaol appeared, shield in hand.

Not a shield—an ancient mirror.

The power bounced off the metal, shattering glass, even as it rebounded into the princess.

Yrene saw the blood first. On both of them.

Then saw the dread in his face as Duva was blasted back, slamming into a stone sarcophagus so hard her bones cracked.

Duva hit the ground and did not move.

Yrene waited one breath. Two.

She lowered Hafiza to the floor and ran. Ran right for Chaol, where he panted, gaping at the woman’s fallen body.

“What have I done,” he breathed, refusing to take his eyes off the too-still princess. Blood slid down his face from the shards of that mirror, but nothing major—nothing lethal.

Duva, however …

Yrene shoved past him, past his sword, to the princess on the ground. If she was down, she could potentially get the Valg demon out, potentially try to fix her body—

She turned Duva over.

And found the princess smiling at her.

It happened so fast. Too fast.

Duva lunged for her face, her throat, black bands of power leaping from her palms.

Then Yrene was not there. Then she was on the stones, thrown to the side as Chaol hurled himself between her and the princess.

No shield, no weapon.

Only his back, utterly exposed, as he shoved Yrene away and took the full brunt of the Valg attack.

63

Agony roared through his spine. Down his legs. His arms. Into his very fingertips.

Worse than it had been in the glass castle.

Worse than in those healing sessions.

But all he could see, all he’d seen, was Yrene, that power spearing for her heart—

Chaol hit the ground, and Yrene’s scream shattered through the pain.

Get up get up get up

“Such a pity all that hard work amounted to nothing,” Duva trilled, and pointed a finger at his spine. “Your poor, poor back.”

That dark power slammed into his spine again.

Something cracked.

Again. Again.

The feeling in his legs vanished first.

“Stop,” Yrene sobbed, on her knees. “Stop!”

“Run,” he breathed, forcing his palms flat onto the stones, forcing his arms to push, to lift him—

Duva only reached into her pocket and pulled out that black ring. “You know how this stops.”

“No,” he snarled, and his back bellowed as he tried and tried to get his legs beneath him—

Yrene crawled away a step. Another. Eyes darting between them.

Not again. He would not endure seeing this, endure living this one more time.

But then he beheld what Yrene grabbed in her right hand.

What she had been crawling toward.

His sword.

Duva snickered, stepping over his sprawled, unmoving legs as she advanced on Yrene. As Yrene rose to her feet and lifted his sword between them.

The blade trembled, and Yrene’s shoulders shook as she sobbed through her teeth.

“What do you think that could possibly do,” Duva crooned, “against this?”

Whips of dark power unfurled from the princess’s palms.

No. He groaned the word, screamed it at his body, at the wounds pushing in, the agony dragging him under. Duva lifted her arm to strike—

And Yrene threw the sword. A straight throw, unskilled and wild.

But Duva ducked—

Yrene ran.

Swift as a doe, she turned and ran, sprinting into the labyrinth of corpses and treasure.

And like a hound on a scent, Duva snarled and gave chase.

She had no plan. She had nothing.

No options. Nothing whatsoever.

Chaol’s spine—

Gone. All that work … shattered.

Yrene ran through the piles of gold, searching, searching—

Duva’s shadows blasted around her, sending shards of gold flying into the air. Gilding every breath Yrene took.

She snatched a short-sword off a chest overflowing with treasure as she ran, the blade whirring through the air.

If she could trap her, get Duva down for long enough—

A lash of power shattered the stone sarcophagus before her. Chunks of rock soared.

Yrene heard the thud before she felt the impact.

Then her head bleated with pain, and the world tilted.

She fought to stay upright with every heartbeat, every bit of focus she’d ever mastered.

Yrene did not let her feet falter. She kept moving, buying them any sort of time. Rounding a statue, she—

Duva stood before her.

Yrene careened into her, that short-sword so close to the princess’s gut, to that womb—

She splayed her hands, dropping the weapon. Duva held firm, arms snatching around Yrene’s neck and middle. Pinning her.

The princess hissed, hauling her back toward that avenue, “This body does not like so much running.”

Yrene thrashed, but Duva held firm. Too strong—for someone her size, she was too strong.

“I want you to see this. Want you both to see this,” Duva jeered in her ear.

Chaol had crawled halfway across the path. Crawled, trailing blood, his legs unresponsive. To help her.

He stilled, blood sliding from his mouth as Duva stepped onto the walkway, pressing Yrene against her.

“Shall I make you watch me kill him, or make him watch me put that ring on you?”

And even with that arm shoved against her throat, Yrene snarled, “Don’t you touch him.”

Blood on his gritted teeth, Chaol’s arms strained and buckled as he tried to rise.

“It’s too bad I don’t have two rings,” Duva mused to Chaol. “I’m sure your friends would pay handsomely for you.” A grunt. “But I suppose your death will be equally devastating.”

Duva loosened her arm from Yrene’s middle to point at him—

Yrene moved.

She stomped down on the princess’s foot. Right on the instep.

And as the princess lurched, Yrene slammed her palm into the woman’s elbow, freeing the arm across her throat.

So Yrene could whirl and drive her elbow straight into Duva’s face.

Duva dropped like a stone, blood spurting.

Yrene lunged for the dagger at Chaol’s side. The blade whined as she whipped it free of its sheath and threw herself atop the stunned princess, straddling her.

Aimed that blade high, to plunge into the woman’s neck, to sever that head. Bit by bit.

“Don’t,” Chaol rasped, the word full of blood.

Duva had destroyed it—destroyed everything.

From the blood coming out of his mouth, up his throat …

Yrene wept, the dagger poised over the princess’s neck.

He was dying. Duva had ripped open something within him.

Duva’s brows began to twitch and furrow as she stirred.

Now.

She had to do it now. Drive this blade in. End it.

End it, and perhaps she could save him. Stop that lethal internal bleeding. But his spine, his spine—

A life. She had sworn an oath never to take a life.

And with this woman before her, the second life in her womb …

The dagger lowered. She’d do it. She’d do it, and—

“Yrene,” Chaol breathed, and the word was so full of pain, so quiet …

It was too late.

Her magic could feel it, his death. She had never told him of that terrible gift—that healers knew when death sat near. Silba, lady of gentle deaths.

The death she would give Duva and her child would not be that sort of death.

Chaol’s death would not be that sort of death.

But she …

But she …

The princess looked so young, even as she stirred. And the life in her womb …

The life before her …

Yrene dropped the knife to the floor.

Its clattering echoed over gold and stone and bones.

Chaol closed his eyes in what she could have sworn was relief.

A light hand touched her shoulder.

She knew that touch. Hafiza.

But as Yrene looked, as she turned and sobbed—

Two others stood behind the Healer on High, holding her upright. Letting Hafiza lean down beside Duva and blow a breath onto the princess’s face, sending her into undisturbed slumber.

Nesryn. Her hair was windblown, her cheeks rosy and chapped—

And Sartaq, his own hair far shorter. The prince’s face was taut, his eyes wide as he beheld his unconscious, bloody sister. As Nesryn breathed, “We were too late—”

Yrene lunged across the stones to Chaol. Her knees tore on the rock, but she barely felt it, barely felt the blood sliding down her temple as she took his head in her lap and closed her eyes, rallying her power.

White flared, but there was red and black everywhere.

Too much. Too many broken and torn and ravaged things—

His chest was barely rising. He did not open his eyes.

“Wake up,” she ordered him, her voice breaking. She plunged into her power, but the damage … It was like trying to patch up holes in a sinking ship.

Too much. Too much and—

Shouting and steps all around them.

His life began to thin and turn to mist around her magic. Death circled, an eagle with an eye upon them.

“Fight it,” Yrene sobbed, shaking him. “You stubborn bastard, fight it.”

What was the point of it, the point of any of it, if now, when it mattered—

“Please,” she whispered.

Chaol’s chest rose, a high note before the last plunge—

She could not endure it. Would not endure it—

A light flickered. Inside that failing mass of red and black.

A candle ignited. A bloom of white.

Then another.

Another.

Blooming lights, along that broken interior. And where they shone …

Flesh knitted. Bone smoothed.

Light after light after light.

His chest continued to rise and fall. Rise and fall.

But in the hurt and the dark and the light …

A woman’s voice that was both familiar and foreign. A voice that was both Hafiza’s and … another. Someone who was not human, never had been. Speaking through Hafiza herself, their voices blending into the blackness.

The damage is too great. There must be a cost if it is to be repaired.

All those lights seemed to hesitate at that otherworldly voice.

Yrene brushed herself along them, waded through them like a field of white flowers, the lights bobbing and swaying in this quiet place of pain.

Not lights … but healers.

She knew their lights, their essences. Eretia—that was Eretia closest to her.

The voice that was both Hafiza and Other said again, There must be a cost.

For what the princess had done to him … There was no returning from it.

I will pay it. Yrene said into the pain and dark and light.

A daughter of Fenharrow will pay the debt of a son of Adarlan?

Yes.

She could have sworn a gentle, warm hand brushed her face.

And Yrene knew it did not belong to Hafiza or the Other. Did not belong to any healer alive.

But to one who had never left her, even when she had been turned into ash on the wind.

The Other said, You offer this of your own free will?

Yes. With my entire heart.

It had been his from the start, anyway.

Those loving, phantom hands brushed her cheek again and faded away.

The Other said, I chose well. You shall pay the debt, Yrene Towers. And I hope you shall see it for what it truly is.

Yrene tried to speak. But light flared, soft and soothing.

It blinded her, within and without. Left her cringing over Chaol’s head, her fingers grappled into his shirt. Feeling his heartbeats thunder into her palms. The scrape of his breath against her ear.

There were hands on her shoulders. Two sets. They tightened, a silent command to lift her head. Yrene did.

Hafiza stood behind her, Eretia at her side. Each with a hand on her shoulder.

Behind them stood two healers each. Hands on their shoulders.

Behind them, two more. And more. And more.

A living chain of power.

All the healers in the Torre, young and old, stood in that room of gold and bone.

All connected. All channeling to Yrene, to the grip she still held on Chaol.

Nesryn and Sartaq stood a few feet away, the former with a hand over her mouth. Because Chaol—

The healers of the Torre lowered their hands, severing that bridge of contact, as Chaol’s feet moved. Then his knees.

And then his eyes cracked open, and he was staring up at Yrene, her tears plopping onto his blood-crusted face. He lifted a hand to brush her lips. “Dead?”

“Alive,” she breathed, and lowered her face to his. “Very much alive.”

Chaol smiled against her mouth, sighing deep as he said, “Good.”

Yrene raised her head, and he smiled up at her again, cracked blood sliding away from his face with the motion.

And where that scar had once sliced down his cheek … only unmarred skin remained.

64

Chaol’s body ached, but it was the ache of newness. Of sore muscles, not broken ones.

And the air in his lungs … it did not burn to breathe.

Yrene helped him sit up, his head spinning.

He blinked, finding Nesryn and Sartaq before them as the healers began to file away, their faces grim. The prince’s long braid had been cut in favor of loose, shoulder-length hair, and Nesryn … it was ruk leathers she wore, her dark eyes brighter than he’d ever seen—even with the graveness of her expression.

Chaol rasped, “What—”

“You sent a note to come back,” Nesryn said, her face deathly pale. “We flew as fast as we could. We were told you’d come to the Torre earlier this evening. The guards were right behind us, until we outran them. We got a bit lost down here, but then … cats led the way.”

A bemused, puzzled glance over her shoulder, to where half a dozen beryl-eyed cats sat on the tunnel steps, cleaning themselves. They noticed the human attention and scattered, tails high.

Sartaq added, smiling faintly, “We also thought healers might be necessary, and asked some to follow. But apparently, a great number more wanted to come.”

Considering the number of women filing out after the vanished cats … All of them. All of them had come.

Behind Chaol and Yrene, Eretia was tending to Hafiza. Alive, clear-eyed, but … frail.

Eretia clucked over the elderly woman, chiding her for such heroics. But even as she did, the woman’s eyes were bright with tears. Perhaps more, as Hafiza brushed a thumb over Eretia’s cheek.

“Is she—” Sartaq began, jerking his chin toward Duva, sprawled on the floor.

“Unconscious,” Hafiza rasped. “She will sleep until roused.”

“Even with a Valg ring on her?” Nesryn asked as Sartaq made to pick up his sister from the stone floor. She blocked him with an arm across his middle, earning an incredulous look from the prince. There were cuts and scabs on both of them, Chaol realized. And the way the prince had moved—with a limp. Something had happened—

“Even with the ring, she will remain asleep,” Hafiza said.

Yrene was just staring at the princess, the dagger on the floor nearby.

Sartaq saw it, too. And said quietly to Yrene, “Thank you—for sparing her.”

Yrene just pressed her face against Chaol’s chest. He stroked a hand down her hair, finding it wet—

“You’re bleeding—”

“I’m fine,” she said onto his shirt.

Chaol pulled back, scanning her face. The bloody temple. “That is anything but fine,” he said, whipping his head toward Eretia. “She’s hurt—”

Eretia rolled her eyes. “Good to see none of this put you out of your usual spirits.”

Chaol gave the woman a flat stare.

Hafiza peered over Eretia’s shoulder and wryly asked Yrene, “Are you certain this pushy man was worth the cost?”

Before Yrene could answer, Chaol demanded, “What cost?”

A stillness crept over them, and even Yrene looked to Hafiza as the woman extracted herself from Eretia’s care. The Healer on High said quietly, “The damage was too great. Even with all of us … Death held you by the hand.”

He turned to Yrene, dread curling in his stomach. “What did you do,” he breathed. She didn’t meet his stare.

“She likely made a fool’s bargain, that’s what,” Eretia snapped. “Offered to pay the price without even being told what it was. To save your neck. We all heard.”

Eretia was close to not having a functioning neck herself, but Chaol said as calmly as he could, “Pay the price to whom?”

“Not a payment,” Hafiza corrected, setting a hand on Eretia’s shoulder to quiet her, “but a restoration of balance. To the one who likes to see it intact. Who spoke through me as we all gathered within you.”

“What was the cost,” Chaol rasped. If she’d given up anything, he’d find a way to retrieve it. He didn’t care what he had to pay, he’d—

“To keep your life tethered in this world, we had to bind it to another. To hers. Two lives,” Hafiza clarified, “now sharing one thread. But even with that …” She gestured to his legs, the foot he slid up to brace on the floor. “The demon broke many, many parts of you. Too many. And in order to save most of you, there was a cost, too.”

Yrene went still. “What do you mean?”

Hafiza again looked between them. “There remains some damage to the spine—impacting the lower portions of the legs. That even we could not repair.”

Chaol glanced between the Healer on High and his legs, currently moving. He went so far as to put some weight on them. They held.

Hafiza went on, “With the life-bond between you, Yrene’s power flowing into you … It will act as a brace. Stabilizing the area, granting you ability to use your legs whenever Yrene’s magic is at its fullest.” He steeled himself for the but. Hafiza smiled grimly. “But when Yrene’s power flags, when she is drained or tired, your injury will regain control, and your ability to walk will again be impaired. It will require you to use a cane at the very least—on hard days, perhaps many days, the chair. But the injury to your spine will remain.”

The words settled in him. Floated through and settled.

Yrene was wholly silent. So still that he faced her.

“Can’t I just heal him again?” She leaned toward him, as if she’d do just that.

Hafiza shook her head. “It is part of the balance—the cost. Do not tempt the compassion of the force that granted this to you.”

But Chaol touched Yrene’s hand. “It is no burden, Yrene,” he said softly. “To be given this. It is no burden at all.”

Yet agony filled her face. “But I—”

“Using the chair is not a punishment. It is not a prison,” he said. “It never was. And I am as much of a man in that chair, or with that cane, as I am standing on my feet.” He brushed away the tear that slipped down her cheek.

“I wanted to heal you,” she breathed.

“You did,” he said, smiling. “Yrene, in every way that truly matters … You did.”

Chaol wiped away the other tears that fell, brushing a kiss to her hot cheek.

“There is another piece to the life-bond, to this bargain,” Hafiza added gently. They turned to her. “When it is time, whether the death is kind or cruel … It will claim you both.”

Yrene’s golden eyes were still lined with silver. But there was no fear in her face, no lingering sorrow—none.

“Together,” Chaol said quietly, and interlaced their hands.

Her strength would be his strength. And when Yrene went, he would go. But if he went before her—

Dread curled in his gut.

“The true price of all this,” Hafiza said, reading the panic. “Not fear for your own life, but what losing your life will do to the other.”

“I suggest you not go to war,” Eretia grumbled.

But Yrene shook her head, shoulders straightening as she declared, “We shall go to war.” Pointing to Duva, she looked at Sartaq. As if she had not just offered up her very life to save his—“That is what Erawan will do. To all of you. If we do not go.”

“I know,” Sartaq said quietly. The prince turned to Nesryn, and as she held his stare … Chaol saw it. The glimmer between them. A bond, new and trembling. But there it was, right along with the cuts and wounds they both bore. “I know,” Sartaq said again, his fingers brushing Nesryn’s.

Nesryn met Chaol’s eyes then.

She smiled softly at him, glancing to where Yrene now asked Hafiza about whether she could stand. He’d never seen Nesryn appear so … settled. So quietly happy.

Chaol swallowed. I’m sorry, he said silently.

Nesryn shook her head as Sartaq scooped his sister into his arms with a grunt, the prince balancing his weight on his good leg. I think I did just fine.

Chaol smiled. Then I am happy for you.

Nesryn’s eyes widened as Chaol at last got to his feet, taking Yrene with him. His movements were as smooth as any maneuver he might have made without the invisible brace of Yrene’s magic flowing between them.

Nesryn wiped away her tears as Chaol closed the distance between them and embraced her tightly. “Thank you,” he said in Nesryn’s ear.

She squeezed him back. “Thank you—for bringing me here. To all of this.”

To the prince who now looked at Nesryn with a quiet, burning sort of emotion.

She added, “We have many things to tell you.”

Chaol nodded. “And we you.”

They pulled apart, and Yrene approached—throwing her arms around Nesryn as well.

“What are we going to do with all this gold?” Eretia demanded, leading Hafiza away as the guards formed a living path for them out of the tomb. “Such tacky junk,” she spat, frowning at a towering statue of a Fae soldier.

Chaol laughed, and Yrene joined him, sliding her arm around his middle as they trailed behind the healers.

Alive, Yrene had said to him. As they walked out of the dark, Chaol at last felt it was true.

Sartaq took Duva to the khagan. Called in his brothers and sister.

Because Yrene insisted they be there. Chaol and Hafiza insisted they be there.

The khagan, in the first hint of emotion Yrene had ever seen from the man, lunged for the unconscious, bloody Duva as Sartaq limped into the hall where they’d been waiting. Viziers pressed in. Hasar let out a gasp of what Yrene could have sworn was true pain.

Sartaq did not let his father touch her. Did not let anyone but Nesryn come close as he laid Duva on a low couch.

Yrene kept a few steps back, silent and watching, Chaol at her side.

This bond between them … She could feel it, almost. Like a living band of cool, silken light flowing from her—into him.

And he truly did not seem to mind that a piece of his spine, his nerves, would retain permanent damage for as long as they lived.

Yes, he’d now be able to move his legs with limited motion, even when her magic was drained. But standing—never a possibility during those times. She supposed they’d soon learn how and when the level of her power correlated with whether he required cane or chair or neither.

But Chaol was right. Whether he stood or limped or sat … it did not change him. Who he was. She had fallen in love with him well before he’d ever stood. She would love him no matter how he moved through the world.

What if we fight? Yrene had asked him on the trek over here. What then?

Chaol had only kissed her temple. We fight all the time already. It’ll be nothing new. He’d added, Do you think I’d want to be with anyone who didn’t hand my ass to me on a regular basis?

But she’d frowned. He’d continued, And this bond between us, Yrene … it changes nothing. With you and me. You’ll need your own space; I’ll need mine. So if you think for one moment that you’re going to get away with flimsy excuses for never leaving my side—

She’d poked him in the ribs. As if I’ll want to hang around you all day like some lovesick girl!

Chaol had laughed, tucking her in tighter. But Yrene had only patted his arm and said, And I think you can take care of yourself just fine.

He’d just kissed her brow again. And that had been that.

Yrene now brushed her fingers against his, Chaol’s hand curling around her own, as Sartaq cleared his throat and held up Duva’s limp hand. To display the wedding band there. “Our sister has been enslaved by a demon sent by Perrington in the form of this ring.”

Murmurs and shifting about. Arghun spat, “Nonsense.”

“Perrington is no man. He is Erawan,” Sartaq declared, ignoring his elder brother, and Yrene realized Nesryn must have told him everything. “The Valg king.”

Still holding Yrene’s hand, Chaol added for all to hear, “Erawan sent this ring as a wedding gift, knowing Duva would put it on—knowing the demon would entrap her. On her wedding day.” They’d left the second ring at the Torre, locked within one of the ancient chests, to be disposed of later.

“The babe,” the khagan demanded, eyes on that torn-up belly, the scratches marring her neck where Hafiza had already removed the worst of the splinters.

“These are lies,” Arghun seethed. “From desperate, scheming people.”

“They are not lies,” Hafiza cut in, chin high. “And we have witnesses who will tell you otherwise. Guards, healers, and your own brother, Prince, if you will not believe us.”

To challenge the word of the Healer on High … Arghun shut his mouth.

Kashin shoved to the front of the crowd, earning a glare from Hasar as he shouldered past her. “That explains …” He peered at his sleeping sister. “She has not been the same.”

“She was the same,” Arghun snapped.

Kashin leveled a glare on his eldest brother. “If you ever deigned to spend any time with her, you would have known the differences.” He shook his head. “I thought her morose from the arranged marriage, then the pregnancy.” Grief flooded his eyes as he faced Chaol. “She did it, didn’t she? She killed Tumelun.”

A ripple of shock went through the room as all eyes fixed upon him. But Chaol instead turned to the khagan, whose face was bloodless and devastated in a way that Yrene had not yet known, and could not imagine. To lose a child, to endure this … “Yes,” Chaol said, bowing his head to the khagan. “The demon confessed to it, but it was not Duva. The demon made it sound as if Duva fought every second—raged against your daughter’s death.”

The khagan closed his eyes for a long moment.

Kashin lifted his palms to Yrene in the heavy silence. “Can you fix her? If she still somehow remains inside?” A broken plea. Not from a prince to a healer, but one friend to another. As they had once been—as she hoped they might again be.

The gathering focused upon Yrene now. She didn’t let an ounce of doubt curve her spine as she said, “I shall try.”

Chaol added, “There are things you should know, Great Khagan. About Erawan. The threat he poses. What you and this land might offer against him. And stand to gain in the process.”

“You think to scheme at a time like this?” Arghun snapped.

“No,” Chaol said clearly, unhesitatingly. “But consider that Morath has already reached these shores. Has already killed and harmed those you care for. And if we do not rise to face this threat …” His fingers tightened on Yrene’s. “Princess Duva will only be the first. And Princess Tumelun will not be the last victim of Erawan and the Valg.”

Nesryn stepped forward. “We come with grave tidings from the south, Great Khagan. The kharankui are stirring again, called by their dark … master.” Many stirred at the term she’d used. But some glanced to each other, confusion in their eyes, and Nesryn explained, “Creatures of darkness from the Valg realm. This war has already leaked into these lands.”

Murmuring silence and rustling robes.

But the khagan didn’t tear his eyes away from his unconscious daughter. “Save her,” he said—the words directed to Yrene.

Hafiza nodded subtly to Yrene, motioning her forward.

The message was clear enough: a test. The final one. Not between Yrene and the Healer on High. But something far greater.

Perhaps what had indeed called Yrene to these shores. Guided her across two empires, over mountains and seas.

An infection. A parasite. Yrene had faced them before.

But this demon inside … Yrene approached the sleeping princess.

And began.

65

Yrene’s hands did not tremble as she held them before her.

White light glowed around her fingers, encasing them, shielding them as she picked up the sleeping princess’s hand. It was so slight—so delicate, compared to the horrors she’d done with it.

Yrene’s magic rippled and bent as she reached for the false wedding ring. As if it were some sort of lodestone, warping the world around it.

Chaol’s hand settled on her back in silent support.

She steeled herself, sucking in a breath as her fingers closed around the ring.

It was worse.

So much worse than what had been within Chaol.

Where his had been a mere shadow, this was an inky pool of blackness. Corruption. The opposite of everything in this world.

Yrene panted through her teeth, her magic flaring around her hand, the light a barrier, a glove between her and that ring, and pulled.

The ring slid off.

And Duva began screaming.

Her body arched off the couch, Sartaq and Kashin lunging for her legs and shoulders, respectively.

Teeth gritted, the princes pinned their sister as she thrashed against them, shrieking wordlessly as Hafiza’s sleeping spell kept her unconscious.

“You’re hurting her,” the khagan snapped. Yrene did not bother to look toward him as she studied Duva. The body the princess slammed up and down, over and over.

“Hush,” Hasar hissed at her father. “Let her work. Someone fetch a blacksmith to crack open that damned ring.”

The world beyond them faded into blur and sound. Yrene was distantly aware of a young man—Duva’s husband—sprinting up to them. Covering his mouth with a cry; being held at bay by Nesryn.

Chaol just continued to kneel beside Yrene, removing his hand from her back with a final, soothing rub, while she stared and stared at Duva as she writhed.

“She will hurt herself, ” Arghun seethed. “Stop this—”

A true parasite. A living shadow within the princess. Filling her blood, planted in her mind.

She could feel the Valg demon within, raging and screeching.

Yrene lifted her hands before her. The white light filled her skin. She became that light, held within the now-faint borders of her body.

Someone gasped as Yrene reached her glowing, blinding hands toward the princess’s chest, as if guided by some invisible tug.

The demon began to panic, sensing her approach.

Distantly, she heard Sartaq swear. Heard the crack of wood as Duva drove her foot into the arm of the couch.

There was only the thrashing Valg, scrabbling at power. Only her incandescent hands, reaching for the princess.

Yrene laid her glowing hands on Duva’s chest.

Light flared, bright as a sun. People cried out.

But as quickly as it had appeared, the light vanished, sucked into Yrene—into where her hands met Duva’s chest. Sucked into the princess herself.

Along with Yrene.

It was a dark storm within.

Cold, and raging, and ancient.

Yrene felt it squatting there. Squatting everywhere. A tapeworm indeed.

“You will all die—” the Valg demon began to hiss.

Yrene unleashed her power.

A torrent of white light flooded every vein and bone and nerve.

Not a river, but a band of light made up of the countless kernels of her power—so many they were legion, all hunting out each dark, festering corner, each screaming crevice of malice.

Far away, beyond, a blacksmith arrived. A hammer struck metal.

Hasar snarled—the sound echoed by Chaol, right at Yrene’s ear.

Half aware, she saw the black, glittering stone held within the metal as they carefully passed it around on a vizier’s kerchief.

The Valg demon roared as her magic smothered it, drowned it. Yrene panted against the onslaught as it pushed back. Shoved at her.

Chaol’s hand again began to rub down her back in soothing lines.

More of the world faded away.

I am not afraid of you, Yrene said into the dark. And you have nowhere to run.

Duva thrashed, trying to unseat Yrene’s grip. Yrene pressed down harder on her chest.

Time slowed and bent. She was dimly aware of the ache in her knees, the cramp in her back. Dimly aware of Sartaq and Kashin refusing to offer their position to someone else.

Still Yrene sent her magic flowing into Duva. Filling her with that devouring light.

The demon screamed the entire time.

But bit by bit, she blasted it back, blasted it deeper.

Until she saw it, curled within the core of her.

Its true form … It was as horrific as she’d imagined.

Smoke swirled and coiled about it, revealing glimpses of gangly limbs and talons, mostly hairless gray, slick skin, and unnaturally large dark eyes that raged as she looked upon it.

Truly looked upon it.

It hissed, revealing pointed, fish-sharp teeth. Your world shall fall. As the others have done. As all others will.

The demon dug claws deep into the darkness. Duva screamed.

“Pathetic,” Yrene told it.

Perhaps she spoke the word aloud, for silence fell.

Distantly, that bond flowing away … it thinned. The hand on her back drifted away.

“Utterly pathetic,” Yrene repeated, her magic rallying behind her in a mighty, cresting white wave. “For a prince to prey on a helpless woman.”

The demon scrambled back against the wave, clawing at the dark as if it would tunnel through Duva.

Yrene pushed forward. Let her wave fall.

And as her power slammed into that last remnant of the demon, it laughed. No prince am I, girl. But a princess. And my sisters shall soon find you.

Yrene’s light erupted, shredding and cleaving, devouring any last scrap of darkness—

Yrene snapped back into her body, collapsing against the floor. Chaol shouted her name.

But Hasar was there, hauling her upright as Yrene lunged for Duva, hands flaring—

But Duva coughed, choking, trying to twist onto her side.

“Turn her,” Yrene rasped to the princes, who obeyed. Just as Duva heaved, and vomited over the edge of the couch. It splattered Yrene’s knees, reeking to deepest hell. But she scanned the mess. Food—mostly food, and speckles of blood.

Duva retched again, a deep, choking noise.

Only black smoke broke from her lips. She retched again, and again.

Until a tendril dribbled onto the emerald floors.

And as the shadows slithered out of Duva’s lips … Yrene felt it. Even as her magic strained and buckled, she felt the last of that Valg demon vanish into nothing.

A bit of dew dissolved by the sun.

Her body became cold and aching. Empty. Her magic drained to the dregs.

She blinked up at the wall of people standing around the couch.

The khagan’s sons now flanked their father, hands on their swords, faces grim.

Lethal—with rage. Not at Yrene, not at Duva, but the man who had sent this to their house. Their family.

Duva’s face relaxed on an exhaled breath, color blooming on her cheeks.

Duva’s husband tried to surge for her again, but Yrene stopped him with an upheld hand.

Heavy—her hand was so heavy. But she held the young man’s panicked stare. Which had not been on his wife’s face, but the belly. Yrene nodded to him as if to say, I will look.

Then she laid her hands on that round, high womb.

Sent her magic probing, dancing along it—the life within.

Something new and joyous answered back.

Loudly.

Its kick roused Duva with an ooph, her eyelids fluttering open.

Duva blinked at them all. Blinked at Yrene, the hand she still laid on her belly. “Is it—” The words were a broken rasp.

Yrene smiled, panting softly, relief a crushing weight in her chest. “Healthy and human.”

Duva just stared at Yrene until tears filled and flowed from those dark eyes.

Her husband sank into a chair and covered his face, shoulders shaking.

There was a flurry of motion, and then the khagan was there.

And the most powerful man on the earth fell to his knees before that couch and reached for his daughter. Crushed her against him.

“Is it true, Duva?” Arghun demanded from the head of the couch, and Yrene resisted the urge to snap at him about giving the woman some space to sort through all she’d endured.

Sartaq had no reservations. He snarled at his elder brother, “Shut your mouth.”

But before Arghun could hiss a retort, Duva lifted her head from the khagan’s shoulder.

Tears leaked down her cheeks as she surveyed Sartaq and Arghun. Then Hasar. Then Kashin. And lastly the husband who lifted his head from his hands.

Shadows still lined that lovely face, but—human ones.

“It is true,” Duva whispered, her voice breaking as she looked back to her brothers and sister. “All of it.”

And as everything that confession implied sank in, the khagan gathered her to him again, rocking her gently while she wept.

Hasar lingered by the foot of the couch as her brothers pressed in to embrace their sister, something like longing on her face.

Hasar noticed Yrene’s stare and mouthed the words: Thank you.

Yrene only bowed her head and backed toward where Chaol was waiting. Not at her side, but sitting in his chair next to a nearby pillar. He must have asked a servant to bring it from his suite when the tether between them had grown thin as she battled within Duva.

Chaol wheeled over to her, scanning her features. But his own face held no grief, no frustration.

Only awe—awe and such adoration it snatched her breath away. Yrene settled in his lap, and he looped his arms around her as she kissed his cheek.

A door slammed open across the hall, and rushing feet and skirts filled the air. And sobbing. The Grand Empress was sobbing as she threw herself toward her daughter.

She made it within a foot before Kashin leaped in, grabbing his mother by the waist, her white gown swaying with the force of her halted sprint. She spoke in Halha, too fast for Yrene to understand, her skin ashen against the jet black of her long, straight hair. She did not seem to notice anyone but the daughter before her as Kashin murmured an explanation, his hand stroking down his mother’s thin back in soothing lines.

The Grand Empress just fell to her knees and folded Duva into her arms.

An old ache stirred in Yrene at the sight of that mother and daughter, at the sight of both of them, weeping with grief and joy.

Chaol squeezed her shoulder in quiet understanding as Yrene slid off his lap and they turned to leave.

“Anything,” the khagan said over his shoulder to Yrene, the man still kneeling by Duva and his wife as Hasar at last swept in to embrace her sister. Their mother just enfolded both princesses, kissing the sisters on their cheeks and brows and hair as they held together tightly. “Anything you desire,” the khagan said. “Ask it, and it is yours.”

Yrene did not hesitate. The words tumbled from her lips.

“A favor, Great Khagan. I would ask you a favor.”

The palace was in uproar, but Chaol and Yrene still found themselves alone with Nesryn and Sartaq, sitting, of all places, in their suite.

The prince and Nesryn had joined them on the long walk back to the room, Chaol wheeling his chair close to Yrene’s side. She’d been swaying on her feet, and was too damned stubborn to mention it. Even went so far as to assess him with those sharp healer’s eyes, inquiring after his back, his legs. As if he was the one who’d drained his power to the dregs.

He’d felt it, the shifting within his body as mighty waves of her power flowed into Duva. The growing strain along parts of his back and legs. Only then had he left her side during the healing, his steps uneven as he’d gone to lean against the wooden arm of a nearby couch and quietly asked the nearest servant to bring his chair. By the time they’d returned, he’d needed it—his legs still capable of some motion, but not standing.

But it did not frustrate him, did not embarrass him. If this was to be his body’s natural state for the rest of his life … it was not a punishment, not at all.

He was still thinking that when they reached his suite, mulling over how they might work out a schedule of him fighting in battle with her healing.

For he would fight. And if her power was drained, he’d fight then, too. Whether on horseback or in the chair itself.

And when Yrene needed to heal, when the magic in her veins summoned her to those killing fields and their bond grew thin … he’d manage with a cane, or the chair. He would not shrink from it.

If he survived the battle. The war. If they survived.

He and Yrene found spots on the sorry replacement for the gold couch—which he was honestly debating bringing back to Adarlan with him, broken bits and all—while Nesryn and the prince sat, carefully, in separate chairs. Chaol tried not to look too aware or amused by it.

“How did you know we were in such trouble?” Yrene asked at last. “Before you linked up with the guards, I mean.”

Sartaq blinked, stumbling out of his thoughts. A corner of his mouth lifted. “Kadja,” he said, jerking his chin toward the servant currently setting a tea service before them. “She was the one who saw Duva leave—down to those tunnels. She’s in my … employ.”

Chaol studied the servant, who made no sign that she’d heard. “Thank you,” he rasped.

But Yrene went one step further, taking the woman’s hand and squeezing it. “We owe you a life debt,” she said. “How can we repay you?”

Kadja only shook her head and backed out of the room. They stared after her for a moment.

“Arghun is no doubt debating whether to punish her for it,” Sartaq mused. “On the one hand, it saved Duva. On the other hand … she didn’t tell him at all.”

Nesryn frowned. “We need to find a way to shield her, then. If he’s that ungrateful.”

“Oh, he is,” Sartaq said, and Chaol tried not to blink at the casualness between them, or her use of we. “But I’ll think on it.”

Chaol refrained from revealing that one word to Shen, and Kadja would have a faithful protector for the rest of her life.

Yrene only asked, “What now?”

Nesryn ran a hand through her dark hair. Different. Yes, there was something wholly different about her. She glanced to Sartaq—not for permission, but … as if reassuring herself that he was there. Then she said the words that made Chaol glad he was already sitting.

“Maeve is a Valg queen.”

It all came out then. What she and Sartaq had learned these past weeks: stygian spiders, who were really Valg foot soldiers. A shape-shifter who might be Lysandra’s uncle. And a Valg queen who had been masquerading as Fae for thousands of years, hiding from the demon kings she’d drawn to this world in her attempt to escape them.

“That explains why the Fae healers might have fled, too,” Yrene murmured when Nesryn fell silent. “Why Maeve’s own healer compound lies on the border with the mortal world. Perhaps not so they can have access to humans who need care … but as a border patrol against the Valg, should they ever try to encroach her territory.”

How close the Valg had unwittingly come when Aelin had fought those princes in Wendlyn.

“It also explains why Aelin reported an owl at Maeve’s side when they first met,” Nesryn said, gesturing to Yrene, whose brows bunched.

Then Yrene blurted, “The owl must be the Fae form of a healer. Some healer of hers that she keeps close—as a bodyguard. Has let everyone believe to be some pet …”

Chaol’s head spun. Sartaq gave him a look as if to say he understood the feeling well.

“What happened before we arrived?” Nesryn asked. “When we found you …”

Yrene’s hand clenched his. And it was his turn to tell them what they had learned, what they had endured. That regardless of what Maeve might plan to do … There remained Erawan to face.

Until Yrene murmured, “When I was healing Duva, the demon …” She rubbed at her chest. He’d never seen anything so remarkable as that healing: the blinding glow of her hands, the near-holy expression on her face. As if she were Silba herself. “The demon told me it was not a Valg prince … but a princess.”

Silence. Until Nesryn said, “The spider. It claimed the Valg kings had sons and daughters. Princes and princesses.”

Chaol swore. No, his legs would not be able to function anytime soon, with or without Yrene’s slowly refilling well of power. “We’re going to need a Fire-Bringer, it seems,” he said. And to translate the books Hafiza said she would gladly hand over to their cause.

Nesryn chewed on her lip. “Aelin now sails north to Terrasen, an armada with her. The witches as well.”

“Or just the Thirteen,” Chaol countered. “The reports were murky. It might not even be Manon Blackbeak’s coven, actually.”

“It is,” Nesryn said. “I’d bet everything on it.” She slid her attention to Sartaq, who nodded—silent permission. Nesryn braced her forearms on her knees. “We did not return alone when we raced back here.”

Chaol glanced between them. “How many?”

Sartaq’s face tightened. “The rukhin are vital enough internally that I can only risk bringing half.” Chaol waited. “So I brought a thousand.”

He was indeed glad he was sitting down. A thousand ruk riders … Chaol scratched his jaw. “If we can join Aelin’s host, along with the Thirteen and any other Ironteeth Manon Blackbeak can sway to our side …”

“We will have an aerial legion to combat Morath’s,” Nesryn finished, eyes bright. With hope, yes, but something like dread, too. As if she perhaps realized what combating would ensue. The lives at stake. Yet she turned to Yrene. “And if you can heal those infected by the Valg …”

“We still need to find a way to get their hosts down,” Sartaq said. “Long enough for Yrene and any others to heal them.” Yes, there was that to account for, too.

Yrene cut in, “Well, as you said, we have Aelin Fire-Bringer fighting for us, don’t we? If she can produce flame, surely she can produce smoke.” Her mouth quirked to the side. “I might have some ideas.”

Yrene opened her mouth as if she’d say more, but the suite doors blew open and Hasar breezed in.

Hasar seemed to check herself at the sight of Sartaq. “It seems I’m late for the war council.”

Sartaq crossed an ankle over a knee. “Who says that’s what we’re discussing?”

Hasar claimed a seat for herself and adjusted the fall of her hair over a shoulder. “You mean to tell me the ruks shitting up the roofs are just here to make you look important?”

Sartaq huffed a quiet laugh. “Yes, sister?”

The princess only looked to Yrene, then Chaol. “I will come with you.”

Chaol didn’t dare move. Yrene said, “Alone?”

“Not alone.” The mocking amusement was gone from her face. “You saved Duva’s life. And ours, if she had grown more bold.” A glance to Sartaq, who watched with mild surprise. “Duva is the best of us. The best of me.” Hasar’s throat bobbed. “So I will go with you, with whatever ships I can bring, so that my sister will never again look over her shoulder in fear.”

Except in fear of one another, Chaol refrained from saying.

But Hasar caught the words in his eyes. “Not her,” she said quietly. “All the others,” she added with a stark look at Sartaq, who nodded grimly. “But never Duva.”

An unspoken promise, Chaol realized, among the other siblings.

“So you will have to suffer my company for a while yet, Lord Westfall,” Hasar said, but that edged smile was not as sharp. “Because for my sisters, both living and dead, I will march with my sulde to the gates of Morath and make that demon bastard pay.” She met Yrene’s stare. “And for you, Yrene Towers. For what you did for Duva, I will help you save your land.”

Yrene rose, her hands shaking. And none of them spoke a word as Yrene reached Hasar’s seat and threw her arms around her neck to hold the princess tightly.

66

Nesryn was utterly drained. Wanted to sleep for a week. A month.

But she somehow found herself walking the halls, aiming for Kadara’s minaret. Alone.

Sartaq had gone to see his father, Hasar joining him. And though it certainly was not awkward with Chaol and Yrene … Nesryn gave them their privacy. He had been upon Death’s threshold after all. She had few illusions about what was likely about to take place in that suite.

And that she’d have to find quarters of her own.

Nesryn supposed she’d have to find quarters for a few people tonight anyway—starting with Borte, who’d marveled at Antica and the sea, even as they’d swept in as fast as the winds could carry them. And Falkan, who’d indeed come with them, riding as a field mouse in Borte’s pocket, Yeran none too pleased about it. Or so he’d seemed the last time she’d seen him at the Eridun aerie, Sartaq charging the various hearth-mothers and the captains to rally their rukhin and fly for Antica.

Nesryn reached the stairwell leading up to the minaret when the page found her. The boy was out of breath but managed a graceful bow as he handed her a letter.

It was dated two weeks ago. In her uncle’s handwriting.

Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal.

A minute later, she was racing up the minaret stairs.

People cried out in awe and surprise when the reddish-brown ruk sailed over the buildings and homes of Antica.

Nesryn murmured to the bird, guiding him toward the Runni Quarter while they flew on a salt-kissed breeze as fast as his wings could carry them.

She had claimed him upon leaving the Eridun aerie.

Had gone right to the nests, where he had still waited for a rider who would never return, and looked deep into his golden eyes. Had told him that her name was Nesryn Faliq, and she was daughter of Sayed and Cybele Faliq, and that she would be his rider, if he would have her.

She wondered if the ruk, whose late rider had called him Salkhi, had known the burning in her eyes had not been from the roaring wind as he’d bowed his head to her.

Then she’d flown him, Salkhi keeping pace with Kadara at the head of the host as the rukhin sailed northward. Raced to Antica.

And now, as Salkhi landed in the street outside her uncle’s home, some vendors abandoning their carts in outright terror, some children dropping their games to gawk, then grin—Nesryn patted her ruk on his broad neck and dismounted.

The front gates to her uncle’s house banged open.

And as she saw her father standing there, as her sister shoved past, her children pouring out in a shrieking gaggle …

Nesryn fell to her knees and wept.

How Sartaq found her two hours later, Nesryn didn’t know. Though she supposed a ruk sitting in the street of a fancy quarter of Antica was sure to cause a stir. And be easy to spot.

She had wept and laughed and held her family for untold minutes, right in the middle of the street, Salkhi looking on.

And when her uncle and aunt had called them in to at least cry over a good cup of tea, her family had told her of their adventures. The wild seas they had sailed, the enemies their ship had dodged on their voyage here. But they had made it—and here they would stay while the war raged, her father said, to the nods of her uncle and aunt.

When she emerged from the house gates at last, her father claiming the honor of escorting Nesryn to Salkhi—after he’d shooed off her sister to go manage that circus of children—Nesryn had halted so quickly her father had nearly slammed into her.

Because standing beside Salkhi was Sartaq, a half smile on his face. And on the other side of Salkhi … Kadara patiently waited, the two ruks a proud pair indeed.

Her father’s eyes widened, as if recognizing the ruk before the prince.

But then her father bowed. Deeply.

Nesryn had told her family—in moderate detail—what had befallen her amongst the rukhin. Her sister and aunt had glared at her when the various children began to declare that they, too, would be ruk riders. And then took off through the house, shrieking and flapping their arms, leaping off furniture with wild abandon.

She expected Sartaq to wait to be approached, but the prince spotted her father and strode forward. Then reached out and clasped his hand. “I heard Captain Faliq’s family had at last arrived safely,” Sartaq said by way of greeting. “I thought I’d come to welcome you myself.”

Something swelled in her chest to the point of pain as Sartaq inclined his head to her father.

Sayed Faliq looked like he might very well keel over dead, either from the gesture of respect or Kadara’s mere presence behind them. Indeed, several small heads now popped behind his legs, scanning the prince, then the ruks, and then—

“KADARA!”

Her aunt and uncle’s youngest child—no more than four—screamed the ruk’s name loud enough that anyone in the city who didn’t know the bird was on this street was now well aware.

Sartaq laughed as the children shoved past Nesryn’s father, racing for the golden bird.

Her sister was on their heels, warning springing from her lips—

Until Kadara lowered herself to the ground, Salkhi following suit. The children halted, reverence stealing over them as they reached out tentative hands toward the two ruks and stroked them gently.

Nesryn’s sister sighed with relief. Then realized who stood before Nesryn and their father.

Delara went red. She patted her dress, as if it would somehow cover the fresh food stains courtesy of her youngest. Then she slowly backed into the house, bowing as she went.

Sartaq laughed as she vanished—but not before Delara gave Nesryn a sharp look that said, Oh, you are so smitten it’s not even a laughing matter.

Nesryn gave her sister a vulgar gesture behind her back that their father chose not to see.

Her father was saying to Sartaq, “I apologize if my grandchildren, nieces, and nephews take some liberties with your ruk, Prince.”

But Sartaq smiled broadly—a brighter grin than any she’d seen him give before. “Kadara pretends to be a noble mount, but she’s more of a mother hen than anything.”

Kadara puffed her feathers, earning squeals of delight from the children.

Nesryn’s father squeezed her shoulder before he said to the prince, “I think I’ll go keep them from trying to fly off on her.”

And then they were alone. In the street. Outside her uncle’s house. All of Antica now gawking at them.

Sartaq did not seem to notice. Certainly not as he said, “Walk with me?”

Swallowing, with a backward glance toward where her father was now overseeing the gaggle of children attempting to climb onto Salkhi and Kadara, Nesryn nodded.

They headed toward the quiet, clean alley behind her uncle’s house, walking in silence for a few steps. Until Sartaq said, “I spoke to my father.”

And she wondered, then, if this meeting was not to be a good one. If the army they had brought was to be ordered back to its aeries. Or if the prince, the life she saw for herself in those beautiful mountains … if perhaps the reality of that, too, had found them.

For he was a prince. And for all that she loved her family, for all that they made her so proud, there was not one noble drop of blood in their lineage. Her father shaking Sartaq’s hand was the closest any Faliq had ever come to royalty.

Nesryn managed to say, “Oh?”

“We … discussed things.”

Her chest sank at the careful words. “I see.”

Sartaq stopped, the sandy alley humming with the buzzing bees in the jasmine that climbed the walls of the bordering courtyards. The one behind them: the back, private courtyard belonging to her family. She wished she could slither over the wall and hide within. Rather than hear this.

But Nesryn made herself meet the prince’s eyes. Saw him scanning her face.

“I told him,” Sartaq said at last, “that I planned to lead the rukhin against Erawan, with or without his consent.”

Worse. This was getting worse and worse. She wished his face weren’t so damn unreadable.

Sartaq took a breath. “He asked me why.”

“I hope you told him that the fate of the world might depend upon it.”

Sartaq chuckled. “I did. But I also told him that the woman I love now plans to head into war. And I intend to follow her.”

She didn’t let the words sink in. Didn’t let herself believe any of it, until he’d finished.

“He told me that you are common-born. That a would-be Heir of the khagan needs to wed a princess, or a lady, or someone with lands and alliances to offer.”

Her throat closed up. She tried to shut out the sound, the words. Didn’t want to hear the rest.

But Sartaq took her hand. “I told him if that was what it took to be chosen as Heir, I didn’t want it. And I walked out.”

Nesryn sucked in a breath. “Are you insane?”

Sartaq smiled faintly. “I certainly hope not, for the sake of this empire.” He tugged her closer, until their bodies were nearly touching. “Because my father appointed me Heir before I could walk out of the room.”

Nesryn left her body. Could only manage to breathe.

And when she tried to bow, Sartaq gripped her shoulders tightly. Stopped her before her head could even lower.

“Never from you,” he said quietly.

Heir—he’d been made Heir. To all this. This land she loved, this land she still wished to explore so much it ached.

Sartaq lifted a hand to cup her cheek, his calluses scraping against her skin. “We fly to war. Much is uncertain ahead. Save for this.” He brushed his mouth against hers. “Save for what I feel for you. No demon army, no dark queen or king, will change that.”

Nesryn shook, letting the words sink in. “I—Sartaq, you are Heir—”

He pulled back to study her again. “We will go to war, Nesryn Faliq. And when we shatter Erawan and his armies, when the darkness is at last banished from this world … Then you and I will fly back here. Together.” He kissed her again—a bare caress of his mouth. “And so we shall remain for the rest of our days.”

She heard the offer, the promise.

The world he laid at her feet.

She trembled at it. What he so freely gave. Not the empire and crown, but … the life. His heart.

Nesryn wondered if he knew her heart had been his from that very first ride atop Kadara.

Sartaq smiled as if to say yes, he had.

So she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

It was tentative, and soft, and full of wonder, that kiss. He tasted like the wind, like a mountain spring. He tasted like home.

Nesryn clasped his face in her hands as she pulled back. “To war, Sartaq,” she breathed, memorizing every line of his face. “And then we’ll see what comes after.”

Sartaq gave her a knowing, cocky grin. As if he’d fully decided what would come after and nothing she could say would ever convince him otherwise.

And from the courtyard just a wall away, her sister shouted, loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, “I told you, Father!”

67

Two weeks later, it was barely dawn when Yrene found herself on the deck of a fine, massive ship and watched the sun rise over Antica for the last time.

The ship was abuzz with activity, but she stood at the rail, and counted the minarets of the palace. Ran an eye over every shining quarter, the city stirring in the new light.

Autumn winds were already whipping the seas, the ship bobbing and lurching beneath her.

Home. They were to sail home today.

She hadn’t made many good-byes, had not needed to. But Kashin had still found her, right as she’d ridden to the docks. Chaol had given the prince a nod before leading her mare onto the ship.

For a long moment, Kashin had stared at the ship—the others gathered in the harbor. Then he’d said quietly, “I wish I had never said a word to you on the steppes that night.”

Yrene began to shake her head, unsure of what to even say.

“I have missed having you—as my friend,” Kashin went on. “I do not have many of them.”

“I know,” she managed to get out. And then added, “I missed having you as my friend, too.”

For she had. And what he was now willing to do for her, her people …

She took Kashin’s hand. Squeezed it. There was still pain in his eyes, limning his handsome face, but … understanding. And a clear, undaunted gleam as he beheld the northern horizon.

The prince squeezed her hand in return. “Thank you again—for Duva.” A small smile toward that northern sky. “We shall meet again, Yrene Towers. I am certain of it.”

She smiled back at him, beyond words. But Kashin winked, pulling his hand from hers. “My sulde still blows northward. Who knows what I may find on the road ahead? Especially now that Sartaq has the burden of being Heir, and I’m free to do as I please.”

The city had been in an uproar about it. Celebrating, debating—it still raged on. What the other royal siblings thought, Yrene did not know, but … there was peace in Kashin’s eyes. And in the eyes of the others, when Yrene had seen them. And part of her indeed wondered if Sartaq had struck some unspoken agreement that went beyond Never Duva. To perhaps even Never Us.

Yrene had smiled again at the prince—at her friend. “Thank you, for all your kindness.”

Kashin had only bowed to her and strode off into the gray light.

And in the hour since then, Yrene had stood on the deck of this ship, silently watching the awakening city behind it, while the others readied things around and below.

For long minutes, she breathed in the sea and the spices and the sounds of Antica under the rising sun. Took them deep into her lungs, letting them settle. Let her eyes drink their fill of the cream-colored stones of the Torre Cesme rising above it all.

Even in the early morning, the tower was a beacon, a jutting lance of hope and calm.

She wondered if she would ever see it again. For what lay ahead of them …

Yrene braced her hands on the rail as another gust of wind rocked the ship. A wind from inland, as if all thirty-six gods of Antica blew a collective breath to send them skittering home.

Across the Narrow Sea—and to war.

The ship began to move at last, the world a riot of action and color and sound, but Yrene remained at the rail. Watching the city grow smaller and smaller.

And even when the coast was little more than a shadow, Yrene could have sworn she still saw the Torre standing above it, glinting white in the sun, as if it were an arm upraised in farewell.

68

Chaol Westfall took none of his steps for granted. Even the ones that had sent him rushing to a bucket to hurl up the contents of his stomach for the first few days at sea.

But one of the advantages of traveling with a healer was that Yrene easily soothed his stomach. And after two weeks at sea, dodging fierce storms that the captain only called Ship-Wreckers … his stomach had finally forgiven him.

He found Yrene at the prow railing, gazing toward land. Or where the land would be, if they dared sail close enough. They were keeping far out as they skirted up the coast of their continent, and from his meeting with the captain moments before, they were somewhere near northern Eyllwe. Close to the Fenharrow border.

No sign of Aelin or her armada, but that was to be expected, considering how long they’d been delayed in Antica before leaving.

But Chaol pushed that from his mind as he slid his arms around Yrene’s waist and pressed a kiss to the crook of her neck.

She didn’t so much as freeze at the touch from behind. As if she’d learned the cadence of his steps. As if she took none of them for granted, either.

Yrene leaned back into him, her body loosening with a sigh as she laid her hands atop where his rested over her stomach.

It had taken a full day after Duva’s healing before he’d been able to walk with the cane—albeit stiffly and unevenly. As it had been in those early days of recovery: his back strained to the point of aching, every step requiring his full attention. But he’d gritted his teeth, Yrene murmuring encouragement when he had to figure out various movements. A day after that, most of the limp had eased, though he’d kept the cane; and a day later, he’d walked with minimal discomfort.

But even now, after these two weeks at sea with little for Yrene to heal beyond queasy stomachs and sunburns, Chaol kept the cane in their stateroom, the chair stored belowdecks, for when they were next needed.

He peered over Yrene’s shoulder, down to their interlaced fingers. To the twin rings now gracing both of their hands.

“Watching the horizon won’t get us there any faster,” he murmured onto her neck.

“Neither will teasing your wife about it.”

Chaol smiled against her skin. “How else am I to amuse myself during the long hours than by teasing you, Lady Westfall?”

Yrene snorted, as she always did at the title. But Chaol had never heard anything finer—other than the vows they’d spoken in Silba’s temple at the Torre two and a half weeks ago. The ceremony had been small, but Hasar had insisted on a feast afterward that put to shame all the others they’d had in the palace. The princess might have been many things, but she certainly knew how to throw a party.

And how to lead an armada.

Gods help him when Hasar and Aedion met.

“For someone who hates being called Lord Westfall,” Yrene mused, “you certainly seem to enjoy using the title for me.”

“You’re suited to it,” he said, kissing her neck again.

“Yes, so suited to it that Eretia won’t stop mocking me with her curtsying and bowing.”

“Eretia is someone whom I could have gladly left behind in Antica.”

Yrene chuckled, but pinched his wrist, stepping out of his embrace. “You’ll be glad for her when we get to land.”

“I certainly hope so.”

Yrene pinched him again, but Chaol caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers.

Wife—his wife. He’d never seen the path ahead so clearly as he had that afternoon three weeks ago, when he’d spied her sitting in the garden and just … knew. He’d known what he wanted, and so he’d gone to her chair, knelt down before it, and simply asked.

Will you marry me, Yrene? Will you be my wife?

She’d flung her arms around his neck, knocking them both right into the fountain. Where they had remained, to the annoyance of the fish, kissing until a servant had pointedly coughed on their way past.

And looking at her now, the sea air curling tendrils of her hair, bringing out those freckles on her nose and cheeks … Chaol smiled.

Yrene’s answering smile was brighter than the sun on the sea around them.

He’d brought that damned gold couch with them, shredded cushions and all. It had earned him no shortage of comments from Hasar when it was hauled into the cargo hold, but he didn’t care. If they survived this war, he’d build a house for Yrene around the damn thing. Along with a stable for Farasha, currently terrorizing the poor soldiers tasked with mucking out her stall aboard the ship.

A wedding gift from Hasar, along with Yrene’s own Muniqi horse.

He’d almost told the princess that she could keep Hellas’s Horse, but there was something to be said about the prospect of charging down Morath foot soldiers atop a horse named Butterfly.

Still leaning against him, Yrene wrapped a hand around the locket she never took off, save to bathe. He wondered if he could have it changed to reflect her new initials.

No longer Yrene Towers—but Yrene Westfall.

She smiled down at the locket, the silver near-blinding in the midday sun. “I suppose I don’t need my little note any longer.”

“Why?”

“Because I am not alone,” she said, running her fingers over the metal. “And because I found my courage.”

He kissed her cheek, but said nothing as she opened the locket and carefully removed the browned scrap. The wind tried to rip it from her fingers, but Yrene held tight, unfolding the slender fragment.

She scanned the text she’d read a thousand times. “I wonder if she’ll return for this war. Whoever she was. She spoke of the empire like …” Yrene shook her head, more to herself, and folded it shut again. “Perhaps she will come home to fight, from wherever she sailed off to.” She offered him the piece of paper and turned away to the sea ahead.

Chaol took the scrap from Yrene, the paper velvet-soft from its countless readings and foldings and how she’d held it in her pocket, clutched it, all these years.

He unfolded the note and read the words he already knew were within:

For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.

The waves quieted. The ship itself seemed to pause.

Chaol glanced to Yrene, smiling serenely at the sea, then to the note.

To the handwriting he knew as well as his own.

Yrene went still at the tears he could not stop from sliding down his face.

“What’s wrong?”

She would have been sixteen, nearly seventeen then. And if she had been in Innish …

It would have been on her way to the Red Desert, to train with the Silent Assassins. The bruises Yrene had described … The beating Arobynn Hamel had given her as punishment for freeing Rolfe’s slaves and wrecking Skull’s Bay.

“Chaol?”

For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.

There, in her handwriting …

Chaol looked up at last, blinking away tears as he scanned his wife’s face. Every beautiful line, those golden eyes.

A gift.

A gift from a queen who had seen another woman in hell and thought to reach back a hand. With no thought of it ever being returned. A moment of kindness, a tug on a thread …

And even Aelin could not have known that in saving a barmaid from those mercenaries, in teaching her to defend herself, in giving her that gold and this note …

Even Aelin could not have known or dreamed or guessed how that moment of kindness would be answered.

Not just by a healer blessed by Silba herself, capable of wiping the Valg away.

But by the three hundred healers who had come with her.

The three hundred healers from the Torre, now spread across the one thousand ships of the khagan himself.

A favor, Yrene had asked of the man in return for saving his most beloved daughter.

Anything, the khagan had promised.

Yrene had knelt before the khagan. Save my people.

That was all she asked. All she had begged.

Save my people.

So the khagan had answered.

With one thousand ships from Hasar’s armada, and his own. Filled with Kashin’s foot soldiers and Darghan cavalry.

And above them, spanning the horizon far behind the flagship on which Chaol and Yrene now sailed … Above them flew one thousand rukhin led by Sartaq and Nesryn, from every aerie and hearth.

An army to challenge Morath, with more to come, still rallying in Antica under Kashin’s command. Two weeks, Chaol had given the khagan and Kashin, but with the autumn storms, he had not wanted to risk waiting longer. So this initial host … Only half. Only half, and yet the scope of what sailed and flew behind him …

Chaol folded the note along its well-worn lines and carefully set it back within Yrene’s locket.

“Keep it a while longer,” he said softly. “I think there’s someone who will want to see that.”

Yrene’s eyes filled with surprise and curiosity, but she asked nothing as Chaol again slid his arms around her and held her tightly.

Every step, all of it, had led here.

From that keep in the snow-blasted mountains where a man with a face as hard as the rock around them had thrown him into the cold; to that salt mine in Endovier, where an assassin with eyes like wildfire had smirked at him, unbroken despite a year in hell.

An assassin who had found his wife, or they had found each other, two gods-blessed women wandering the shadowed ruins of the world. And who now held the fate of it between them.

Every step. Every curve into darkness. Every moment of despair and rage and pain.

It had led him to precisely where he needed to be.

Where he wanted to be.

A moment of kindness. From a young woman who ended lives to a young woman who saved them.

That shriveled scrap of darkness within him shrank further. Shrank and fractured into nothing but dust that was swept away by the sea wind. Past the one thousand ships sailing proud and unyielding behind him. Past the healers scattered amongst the soldiers and horses, Hafiza leading them, who had all come when Yrene had also asked them to save her people. Past the ruks soaring through the clouds, scanning for any threats ahead.

Yrene was watching him warily. He kissed her once—twice.

He did not regret. He did not look back.

Not with Yrene in his arms, at his side. Not with the note she carried, that bit of proof … that bit of proof that he was exactly where he was meant to be. That he had always been headed there. Here.

“Will I ever hear an explanation for this dramatic reaction,” Yrene said at last, clicking her tongue, “or are you just going to kiss me for the rest of the day?”

Chaol rumbled a laugh. “It’s a long story.” He slung an arm around her waist and stared out toward the horizon with her. “And you might want to sit down first.”

“Those are my favorite kinds,” she said, winking.

Chaol laughed again, feeling the sound in every part of him, letting it ring clear and bright as a bell. A final, joyous pealing before the storm of war swept in.

“Come on,” he said to Yrene, nodding to the soldiers working alongside Hasar’s men to keep the ships sailing swiftly for the north—to battle and bloodshed. “I’ll tell you over lunch.”

Yrene rose onto her toes to kiss him before he led them toward their spacious stateroom. “This story of yours had better be worth it,” she said with a wry grin.

Chaol smiled back at his wife, at the light he’d unknowingly walked toward his entire life, even when he had not been able to see it.

“It is,” he said quietly to Yrene. “It is.”