Nesryn squared her shoulders. “I received word from Ren. He got into some minor trouble on the border, but he’s fine. He has a message for you—for us.” She brushed back a strand of her inky hair. Her hand trembled slightly.
Chaol braced himself, fought against the urge to put a hand on her arm. “The king,” Nesryn went on, “has been building an army down in Morath, under Duke Perrington’s supervision. The Valg guards around Rifthold are the first of them. More are coming up this way.”
Valg footsoldiers, then. Morath, it seemed, might very well be their first or last battleground.
Aedion cocked his head, the Wolf incarnate. “How many?”
“Too many,” Nesryn said. “We haven’t gotten a full count. Some are camped inside mountains surrounding the war camp—never out all at once, never in full sight. But it’s an army greater than any he’s assembled before.”
Chaol’s palms became slick with sweat.
“And more than that,” Nesryn said, her voice hoarse, “the king now has an aerial cavalry of Ironteeth witches—a host three thousand strong—who have been secretly training in the Ferian Gap to ride wyverns that the king has somehow managed to create and breed.”
Gods above.
Aelin lifted her head, gazing up at the brick wall as if she could see that aerial army there, the movement revealing the ring of scars around her neck.
Dorian—they needed Dorian on the throne. Needed this shut down.
“You are certain of this?” Aedion said.
Rowan was staring at Nesryn, his face the portrait of a cold, calculating warrior, and yet—yet he’d somehow moved closer to Aelin.
Nesryn said tightly, “We lost many spies to attain that information.”
Chaol wondered which of them had been her friends.
Aelin spoke, her voice flat and hard. “Just to make sure I have it right: we are now facing three thousand bloodthirsty Ironteeth witches on wyverns. And a host of deadly soldiers gathering in the south of Adarlan, likely to cut off any alliance between Terrasen and the southern kingdoms.”
Leaving Terrasen stranded. Say it, Chaol silently beseeched her. Say that you need Dorian—free and alive.
Aedion mused, “Melisande might be capable of uniting with us.” He pinned Chaol with an assessing stare—a general’s stare. “Do you think your father knows about the wyverns and witches? Anielle is the closest city to the Ferian Gap.”
His blood chilled. Was that why his father had been so keen to get him home? He sensed Aedion’s next question before the general spoke. “He doesn’t wear a black ring,” Chaol said. “But I doubt you’d find him a pleasant ally—if he bothered to ally with you at all.”
“Things to consider,” Rowan said, “should we need an ally to punch through the southern lines.” Gods, they were actually talking about this. War—war was coming. And they might not all survive it.
“So what are they waiting for?” Aedion said, pacing. “Why not attack now?”
Aelin’s voice was soft—cold. “Me. They’re waiting for me to make my move.”
None of them contradicted her.
Chaol’s voice was strained as he shoved aside his swarming thoughts. “Anything else?”
Nesryn reached into her tunic and pulled out a letter. She handed it to Aedion. “From your second in command. They all worry for you.”
“There’s a tavern down the block. Give me five minutes, and I’ll have a reply for you,” Aedion said, already striding away. Nesryn followed him, giving Chaol a silent nod. The general said over his shoulder to Rowan and Aelin, his heavy hood concealing any telltale features, “I’ll see you at home.”
Meeting over.
But Aelin suddenly said, “Thank you.”
Nesryn paused, somehow knowing the queen had spoken to her.
Aelin put a hand on her heart. “For all that you’re risking—thank you.”
Nesryn’s eyes flickered as she said, “Long live the queen.”
But Aelin had already turned away.
Nesryn met Chaol’s gaze, and he followed after her and Aedion.
An indestructible army, possibly led by Erawan, if the King of Adarlan were insane enough to raise him.
An army that could crush any human resistance.
But … but maybe not if they allied with magic-wielders.
That is, if the magic-wielders, after all that had been done to them, even wanted to bother saving their world.
“Talk to me,” Rowan said from behind her as Aelin stormed down street after street.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t form the thoughts, let alone the words.
How many spies and rebels had lost their lives to get that information? And how much worse would it feel when she sent people to their deaths—when she had to watch her soldiers butchered by those monsters? If Elena had thrown her a bone tonight, somehow leading that opium monger to the Sin-Eater’s temple so that they might find it, she wasn’t feeling particularly grateful.
“Aelin,” Rowan said, quietly enough for only her and the alley rats to hear.
She’d barely survived Baba Yellowlegs. How would anyone survive an army of witches trained in combat?
He gripped her elbow, forcing her to stop. “We’ll face this together,” he breathed, his eyes shining bright and canines gleaming. “As we have in the past. To whatever end.”
She trembled—trembled like a gods-damned coward—and yanked free, stalking away. She didn’t even know where she was going—only that she had to walk, had to find a way to sort herself out, sort the world out, before she stopped moving, or else she would never move again.
Wyverns. Witches. A new, even bigger army. The alley pressed in on her, sealing as tightly as one of those flooded sewer tunnels.
“Talk to me,” Rowan said again, keeping a respectful distance behind.
She knew these streets. A few blocks down, she would find one of the Valg sewer entrances. Maybe she’d jump right in and hack a few of them to pieces. See what they knew about the Dark King Erawan, and whether he was still slumbering under that mountain.
Maybe she wouldn’t bother with questions at all.
There was a strong, broad hand at her elbow, yanking her back against a hard male body.
But the scent wasn’t Rowan’s.
And the knife at her throat, the blade pressing so hard that her skin stung and split …
“Going somewhere, Princess?” Lorcan breathed into her ear.
Rowan had thought he knew fear. He had thought he could face any danger with a clear head and ice in his veins.
Until Lorcan appeared from the shadows, so fast that Rowan hadn’t even scented him, and put that knife against Aelin’s throat.
“You move,” Lorcan snarled in Aelin’s ear, “and you die. You speak, and you die. Understand?”
Aelin said nothing. If she nodded, she’d slice her throat open on the blade. Blood was shining there already, just above her collarbone, filling the alley with its scent.
The smell of it alone sent Rowan sliding into a frozen, murderous calm.
“Understand?” Lorcan hissed, jostling her enough that her blood flowed a bit faster. Still she said nothing, obeying his order. Lorcan chuckled. “Good. I thought so.”
The world s
lowed and spread around Rowan with sharp clarity, revealing every stone of the buildings and the street, and the refuse and rubbish around them. Anything to give him an advantage, to use as a weapon.
If he’d had his magic, he would have choked the air from Lorcan’s lungs by now, would have shattered through Lorcan’s own dark shields with half a thought. If he’d had his magic, he would have had a shield of their own around them from the start, so this ambush could never happen.
Aelin’s eyes met his.
And fear—that was genuine fear shining there.
She knew she was in a compromised position. They both knew that no matter how fast he was, she was, Lorcan’s slice would be faster.
Lorcan smiled at Rowan, his dark hood off for once. No doubt so that Rowan could see every bit of triumph in Lorcan’s black eyes. “No words, Prince?”
“Why?” was all Rowan could ask. Every action, every possible plan still left him too far away. He wondered whether Lorcan realized that if he killed her, Lorcan himself would be next. Then Maeve. And maybe the world, for spite.
Lorcan craned his head to look at Aelin’s face. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Where is the Wyrdkey?”
Aelin tensed, and Rowan willed her not to speak, not to taunt Lorcan. “We don’t have it,” Rowan said. Rage—unending, cataclysmic rage—pounded through him.
Exactly what Lorcan wanted. Exactly how Rowan had witnessed the demi-Fae warrior manipulate their enemies for centuries. So Rowan locked that rage down. Tried to, at least.
“I could snap this neck of yours so easily,” Lorcan said, grazing his nose against the side of her throat. Aelin went rigid. The possessiveness in that touch alone half blinded him with feral wrath. It was an effort to stifle it again as Lorcan murmured onto her skin, “You’re so much better when you don’t open that hideous mouth.”
“We don’t have the key,” Rowan said again. He’d slaughter Lorcan in the way only immortals learned and liked to kill: slowly, viciously, creatively. Lorcan’s suffering would be thorough.
“What if I told you we were working for the same side?” Lorcan said.
“I’d tell you that Maeve works for only one side: her own.”
“Maeve didn’t send me here.”