It was a week before he had time to meet with Aedion again—to get the information that he hadn’t received thanks to Dorian interrupting them. If Dorian had snuck up on them so easily, then the tomb wasn’t the best place to meet. There was one place, however, where they could gather with minimal risk. Celaena had left it to him in her will, along with the address.
The secret apartment above the warehouse was untouched, though someone had taken the time to cover the ornate furniture. Pulling the sheets off one by one was like uncovering a bit more of who Celaena had been before Endovier—proof that her lavish tastes ran deep. She’d bought this place, she’d once told him, to have somewhere to call her own, a place outside the Assassins’ Keep where she’d been raised. She’d dropped almost every copper she had into it—but it had been necessary, she said, for the bit of freedom it had granted her. He could have left the sheets on, probably should have, but . . . he was curious.
The apartment consisted of two bedrooms with their own bathing rooms, a kitchen, and a great room in which a deep-cushioned couch sprawled before a carved marble fireplace, accented by two oversized velvet armchairs. The other half of the room was occupied by an oak dining table capable of seating eight, its place settings still laid out: plates of porcelain and silver, flatware that had long since gone dull. It was the only evidence that this apartment had been untouched since whoever—Arobynn Hamel, probably—had ordered the place sealed up.
Arobynn Hamel, the King of the Assassins. Chaol gritted his teeth as he finished stuffing the last of the white sheets into the hallway closet. He’d been thinking a good deal about Celaena’s old master in the past few days. Arobynn was smart enough to have put things together when he found a washed-up orphan right after the Princess of Terrasen went missing, her body vanished into the half-frozen Florine River.
If Arobynn had known, and done those things to her . . . The scar on Celaena’s wrist flashed before him. He’d made her break her own hand. There must have been countless other brutalities that Celaena didn’t even tell him about. And the worst of them, the absolute worst . . .
He’d never asked Celaena why, when she was appointed Champion, her first priority wasn’t hunting down her master and cutting him into pieces for what he’d done to her lover, Sam Cortland. Arobynn had ordered Sam tortured and killed, and then devised a trap for Celaena that got her hauled off to Endovier. Arobynn must have expected to retrieve her someday, if he’d left this apartment untouched. He must have wanted to let her rot in Endovier—until he decided to free her and she crawled back to him, his eternally loyal servant.
It was her right, Chaol told himself. Her right to decide when and how to kill Arobynn. It was Aedion’s right, too. Even the two lords of Terrasen had more of a claim on Arobynn’s head than he did. But if Chaol ever saw him, he wasn’t sure he would be able to restrain himself.
The rickety wooden staircase beyond the front door groaned, and Chaol had his sword drawn in a heartbeat. Then there was a low, two-note whistle and he relaxed, just slightly, and whistled back. He kept his sword drawn until Aedion strode through the door, sword out.
“I was wondering whether you’d be here alone, or with a gaggle of men waiting in the shadows,” Aedion said by way of greeting, sheathing his sword.
Chaol glared at him. “Likewise.”
Aedion moved farther into the apartment, the fierceness on his face shifting among wariness, wonder, and sorrow. And it occurred to Chaol that this apartment was the first time Aedion was seeing a piece of his lost cousin. These were her things. She had selected everything, from the figurines atop the mantel to the green napkins to the old farm table in the kitchen, flecked and marred by what seemed like countless knives.
Aedion paused in the center of the room, scanning everything. Perhaps to see if there were indeed any hidden forces lying in wait, but . . . Chaol muttered something about using the bathing room and gave Aedion the privacy he needed.
•
This was her apartment. Whether she accepted or hated her past, she’d decorated the dining table in Terrasen’s royal colors—green and silver. The table and the stag figurine atop the mantel were the only shreds of proof that she might remember. Might care.
Everything else was comfortable, tasteful, as if the apartment were for lounging and nights by the fire. And there were so many books—on shelves, on the tables by the couch, stacked beside the large armchair before the curtained floor-to-ceiling window spanning the entire length of the great room.
Smart. Educated. Cultured, if the knickknacks were any indication. There were things from across the kingdoms, as if she’d picked up something everywhere she went. The room was a map of her adventures, a map of a whole different person. Aelin had lived. She’d lived, and seen and done things.
The kitchen was small but cozy—and . . . Gods. She had a cooling box. The captain had mentioned her being notorious as an assassin, but he hadn’t mentioned that she was rich. All that blood money—all these things just proof of what she’d lost. What he’d failed to protect.
She’d become a killer. A damn good one, if this apartment was any indication. Her bedroom was even more outrageous. It had a massive four-poster bed with a mattress that looked like a cloud, and an attached marble-tiled bathing room that possessed its own plumbing system.
Well, her closet hadn’t changed. His cousin had always loved pretty clothes. Aedion pulled out a deep blue tunic, gold embroidery around the lapels and buttons glimmering in the light from the sconces. These were clothes for a woman’s body. And the scent still clinging to the entire apartment belonged to a woman—so similar to what he remembered from childhood, but wrapped in mystery and secret smiles. It was impossible for his Fae senses not to notice, to react.
Aedion leaned against the wall of the dressing room, staring at the gowns and the displays of jewelry, now coated in dust. He didn’t let himself care about what had been done to him in the past, the people he’d ruined, the battlefields he’d walked off covered in blood and gore that wasn’t his own. As far as he was concerned, he’d lost everything the day Aelin died. He had deserved the punishment for how badly he’d failed. But Aelin . . .
Aedion ran his hands through his hair before stepping into the great room. Aelin would come back from Wendlyn, no matter what the captain believed. Aelin would come back, and when she did . . . With every breath, Aedion felt that lingering scent wrapping tighter around his heart and soul. When she came back, he was never letting her go.
•
Aedion sank onto one of the armchairs before the fire as Chaol said, “Well, I think I’ve waited long enough to hear what you have to say about magic. I hope it’s worthwhile.”
“Regardless of what I know, magic shouldn’t be your main plan of defense—or action.”
“I saw your queen cleave the earth in two with her power,” Chaol said. “Tell me that wouldn’t turn the tide on a battlefield—tell me that you wouldn’t need that, and others like her.”
“She won’t be anywhere near those battlefields,” Aedion snarled softly.
Chaol highly doubted that was true, but wished it was. Aedion would probably have to bind Celaena to her throne to keep her from fighting on the front lines with her people. “Just tell me.”
Aedion sighed and gazed at the fire, as if beholding a distant horizon
. “The burnings and executions had already started by the time magic disappeared, so the day it happened, I thought the birds were just fleeing the soldiers, or looking for carrion. I was locked in one of the tower rooms by the king’s orders. Most days I didn’t dare look out the window because I didn’t want to see what was happening in the city below, but there was such noise from the birds that day that I looked. And . . .” Aedion shook his head. “Something sent them all flying up in one direction, then another. And then the screaming started. I heard some people just died right on the spot, as if an artery had been cut.”
Aedion spread out a map on the low table between them and put a callused finger on Orynth. “There were two waves of birds. The first went north-northwest.” He traced a vague line. “From the tower, I could see far enough that I knew many of them had come from the south—most of the birds near us didn’t move much. But then the second wave shoved all of them to the north and east, like something from the center of the land threw them that way.”
Chaol pointed to Perranth, the second-largest city in Terrasen. “From here?”
“Farther south.” Aedion knocked Chaol’s hand out of the way. “Endovier or even lower.”
“You couldn’t have seen that far.”
“No, but the warrior-lords of my court made me memorize the birds in Oakwald and all their calls for hunting—and fighting. And there were birds flying up toward us that were only found in your country. I was counting them to distract myself while—” Another pause, as if Aedion hadn’t meant to say that. “I don’t remember hearing any birds from the three southern kingdoms.”
Chaol made a rough line, starting in Rifthold and going out toward the mountains, toward the Ferian Gap. “Like something shot out in this direction.”
“It wasn’t until the second wave that magic stopped.” Aedion raised a brow. “Don’t you remember that day?”
“I was here; if anyone felt pain, they hid it. Magic’s been illegal in Adarlan for decades. So where does all this get us, Aedion?”