“Threats, Aelin? And what if I make threats of my own? What if I mention to the king’s guard that his missing general and his Captain of the Guard are frequently visiting a certain warehouse? What if I let it slip that a Fae warrior is wandering his city? Or, worse, that his mortal enemy is living in the slums?”
“I suppose it’ll be a race to the palace, then. It’s too bad the captain has men stationed by the castle gates, messages in hand, ready for the signal to send them this very night.”
“You’d have to get out of here alive to give that signal.”
“The signal is us not returning, I’m afraid. All of us.”
Again, that cold stare. “How cruel and ruthless you’ve become, my love. But will you become a tyrant as well? Perhaps you should start slipping rings onto the fingers of your followers.”
He reached into his tunic. She kept her posture relaxed as a golden chain glinted around his long white fingers, and then a tinkling sounded, and then—
The amulet was exactly as she remembered it.
It had been with a child’s hands that she’d last held it, and with a child’s eyes that she’d last seen the cerulean blue front with the ivory stag and the golden star between its antlers. The immortal stag of Mala Fire-Bringer, brought over to these lands by Brannon himself and set free in Oakwald Forest. The amulet glinted in Arobynn’s hands as he removed it from his neck.
The third and final Wyrdkey.
It had made her ancestors mighty queens and kings; had made Terrasen untouchable, a powerhouse so lethal no force had ever breached its borders. Until she’d fallen into the Florine River that night—until this man had removed the amulet from around her neck, and a conquering army had swept through. And Arobynn had risen from being a local lord of assassins to crown himself this continent’s unrivaled king of their Guild. Perhaps his power and influence derived solely from the necklace—her necklace—that he’d worn all these years.
“I’ve become rather attached to it,” Arobynn said as he handed it over.
He’d known she would ask for it tonight, if he was wearing it. Perhaps he’d planned to offer it to her all along, just to win her trust—or get her to stop framing his clients and interrupting his business.
Keeping her face neutral was an effort as she reached for it.
Her fingers grazed the golden chain, and she wished then and there that she’d never heard of it, never touched it, never been in the same room with it. Not right, her blood sang, her bones groaned. Not right, not right, not right.
The amulet was heavier than it looked—and warm from his body, or from the boundless power dwelling inside of it.
The Wyrdkey.
Holy gods.
That quickly, that easily, he’d handed it over. How Arobynn hadn’t felt it, noticed it … Unless you needed magic in your veins to feel it. Unless it never … called to him as it did to her now, its raw power brushing up against her senses like a cat rubbing along her legs. How had her mother, her father—any of them—never felt it?
She almost walked out right then and there. But she slid the Amulet of Orynth around her neck, its weight becoming heavier still—a force pressing down on her bones, spreading through her blood like ink in water. Not right.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said coldly, “you and I are going to talk again. Bring your best men, or whoever is licking your boots these days. And then we’re going to plan.” She rose from the chair, her knees wobbling.
“Any other requests, Your Majesty?”
“You think I don’t realize you have the upper hand?” She willed calm to her veins, her heart. “You’ve agreed to help me far too easily. But I like this game. Let’s keep playing it.”
His answering smile was serpentine.
Each step toward the door was an effort of will as she forced herself not to think about the thing thudding between her breasts. “If you betray us tonight, Arobynn,” she added, pausing before the door, “I’ll make what was done to Sam seem like a mercy compared to what I do to you.”
“Learned some new tricks these past few years, have you?”
She smirked, taking in the details of how he looked at this exact moment: the sheen of his red hair, his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the scars on his hands, and those silver eyes, so bright with challenge and triumph. They’d probably haunt her dreams until the day she died.
“One more thing,” Arobynn said.
It was an effort to lift a brow as he came close enough to kiss her, embrace her. But he just took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her palm. “I’m going to enjoy having you back,” he purred.
Then, faster than she could react, he slid the Wyrdstone ring onto her finger.
CHAPTER
44
The hidden dagger Aelin had drawn clattered to the wooden floor the moment the cool black stone slid against her skin. She blinked at the ring, at the line of blood that had appeared on her hand beneath Arobynn’s sharp thumbnail as he raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his tongue along the back of her palm.
Her blood was on his lips as he straightened.
Such a silence in her head, even now. Her face stopped working; her heart stopped working.
“Blink,” he ordered her.
She did.
“Smile.”
She did.
“Tell me why you came back.”
“To kill the king; to kill the prince.”
Arobynn leaned in close, his nose grazing her neck. “Tell me that you love me.”
“I love you.”
“My name—say my name when you tell me that you love me.”
“I love you, Arobynn Hamel.”
His breath
warmed her skin as he huffed a laugh onto her neck, then brushed a kiss where it met her shoulder. “I think I’m going to like this.”
He pulled back, admiring her blank face, her features, now empty and foreign. “Take my carriage. Go home and sleep. Do not tell anyone of this; do not show your friends the ring. And tomorrow, report here after breakfast. We have plans, you and I. For our kingdom, and Adarlan.”
She just stared, waiting.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He lifted her hand again and kissed the Wyrdstone ring. “Good night, Aelin,” he murmured, his hand grazing her backside as he shooed her out.
Rowan was trembling with restrained rage as they took Arobynn’s carriage home, none of them speaking.
He’d heard every word uttered inside that room. So had Aedion. He’d seen the final touch Arobynn had made, the proprietary gesture of a man convinced that he had a new, very shiny toy to play with.
But Rowan didn’t dare grab for Aelin’s hand to see the ring.
She didn’t move; she didn’t speak. She just sat there and stared at the wall of the carriage.
A perfect, broken, obedient doll.
I love you, Arobynn Hamel.
Every minute was an agony, but there were too many eyes on them—too many, even as they finally reached the warehouse and climbed out. They waited until Arobynn’s carriage had driven off before Rowan and Aedion flanked the queen as she slipped inside the warehouse and up the stairs.
The curtains were already shut inside the house, a few candles left burning. The flames caught on the golden dragon embroidered on the back of that remarkable gown, and Rowan didn’t dare breathe as she just stood in the center of the room. A slave awaiting orders.
“Aelin?” Aedion said, his voice hoarse.
Aelin lifted her hands in front of her and turned.
She pulled off the ring. “So that was what he wanted. I honestly expected something grander.”
Aelin slapped the ring down on the small table behind the couch.
Rowan frowned at it. “He didn’t check Stevan’s other hand?”