“I have everything I need to know.” She jerked her chin to Fenrys and Gavriel and the former peeled away from the wall to open the door. The latter, however, began tightening Vernon’s chains once more. Anchoring him to the chair, binding his hands to the arms.
“Aren’t you going to unchain me?” Vernon demanded. “I gave you what you wished.”
Aelin took a step into the hall, noting the fury on Lorcan’s face. He’d heard every word—including her oath not to let him slaughter Vernon.
Aelin threw Vernon a crooked smile over her shoulder. “I said nothing about unchaining you.”
Vernon went still.
Aelin shrugged. “I said none of us would kill you. It’s not our fault if you can’t get out of those chains, is it?”
The blood drained from Vernon’s face.
Aelin said quietly, “You chained and locked my friend in a tower for ten years. Let’s see how you enjoy the experience.” She let her smile turn vicious. “Though, once the trainers here are dealt with, I don’t think there will be anyone left to feed you. Or bring you water. Or even hear your screaming. So I doubt you’ll make it to ten years before the end claims you, but two days? Three? I can accept that, I think.”
“Please,” Vernon said as Gavriel reached for the door handle—to seal the man inside.
“Marion saved my life,” Aelin said, holding the man’s gaze. “And you gleefully bowed to the man who killed her. Perhaps even told the King of Adarlan where to find us. All of us.”
“Please!” Vernon shrieked.
“You should have conserved that tankard of ale,” was all Aelin said before she nodded to Gavriel.
Vernon began screaming as the door shut. And Aelin turned the key.
Silence filled the hall.
Aelin met Elide’s wide-eyed stare, Lorcan savagely satisfied at her side.
“It won’t be quick this way,” Aelin said, extending the key to Elide. The rest of the question hung there.
Vernon kept screaming, pleading for them to come back, to unchain him.
Elide studied the sealed door. The desperate man behind it.
The Lady of Perranth took the outstretched key. Pocketed it. “We should find a better way to seal that room.”
“Our worst fears have been confirmed,” Aelin said to Rowan, leaning over a railing of one of the Northern Fang’s balconies, peering to the army gathered on the Gap floor. To where their companions now headed, the task of permanently sealing the chamber in which Vernon sat chained completed. Where they should be headed, too. But she had paused here. Taken a moment.
Rowan laid a hand on her shoulder. “We will face them together. Maeve and Erawan.”
“And the hundred thousand soldiers marching on Orynth?”
“Together, Fireheart,” was all he said.
She found only centuries of training and cool calculation within his face. That unbreakable will.
She rested her head against his shoulder, her temple digging into the light armor. “Will we make it? Will there be anything left at all?”
He brushed the hair from her face. “We will try. That is the best we can do.” The words of a commander who had walked on and off killing fields for centuries.
He joined their hands, and together they gazed at the army below. The shred of salvation it offered.
Had she been a fool, to expend those three hard-won months of descent into her power on that army, rather than Maeve? Maeve and Erawan? Even if she began now, it wouldn’t, could never, be the same.
“Don’t burden yourself with the what-ifs,” Rowan said, reading the words on her face.
I don’t know what to do, she said silently.
He kissed the top of her head. Together.
And as the wind howled through the peaks, Aelin realized that her mate, perhaps, did not have a solution, either.
CHAPTER 81
“One hundred thousand,” Ren breathed, warming his hands before the roaring fire in the Great Hall. They had lost two of the Silent Assassins to Morath archers seeking retaliation for the destruction of the witch towers, but no more than that, mercifully.
Still, the evening meal had been somber. No one had really eaten, not when darkness had fallen and the enemy campfires ignited. More than they could count.
Aedion had lingered here after everyone else had trudged to their own beds. Only Ren had remained, Lysandra escorting a still-trembling Evangeline up to their chamber. What the morning would bring, only the gods knew.
Perhaps the gods had abandoned them again, now that their only way to return home had been locked up in an iron box. Or focused their efforts entirely on Dorian Havilliard.
Ren heaved out a long breath. “This is it, isn’t it. There’s no one left to come to our aid.”
“It won’t be a pretty end,” Aedion admitted, leaning against the mantel. “Especially once they get that third tower operational again.”
They wouldn’t have another chance to surprise Morath now.
He jerked his chin at the young lord. “You should get some rest.”
“And you?”
Aedion just stared into the flame.
“It would have been an honor,” Ren said. “To serve in this court. With you.”
Aedion shut his eyes, swallowing hard. “It would have been an honor indeed.”
Ren clapped him on the shoulder. Then his departing footsteps scuffed through the hall.
Aedion remained alone in the guttering firelight for another few minutes before he made his way toward bed and whatever sleep he might find.
He’d nearly reached the entrance to the eastern tower when he spied her.
Lysandra halted, a cup of what seemed to be steaming milk in her hands. “For Evangeline,” she said. “She can’t sleep.”
The girl had been shaking all day. Had looked like she’d vomit right at the table.
Aedion only asked, “Can I speak to her?”
Lysandra opened her mouth as if she’d say no, and he was willing to let it drop, but she inclined her head.
They walked in silence the entire way to the north tower, then up and up and up. To Rose’s old room. Ren must have seen to it once again. The door was cracked open, golden light spilling onto the landing.
“I brought you some milk,” Lysandra announced, barely winded from the climb. “And some company,” she added to the girl as Aedion stepped into the cozy room. Despite the years of neglect, Rose’s chamber in the royal castle remained unharmed—one of the few rooms to claim such a thing.
Evangeline’s eyes widened at the sight of him, and Aedion offered the girl a smile before he perched on the side of her bed. She took the milk that Lysandra offered as the shifter sat on the other edge of the mattress, and sipped once, hands white-knuckled around the cup.
“Before my first battle,” Aedion said to the girl, “I spent the entire night in the privy.”
Evangeline squeaked, “You?”
Aedion smirked. “Oh yes. Quinn, the old Captain of the Guard, said it was a wonder I had anything left inside me by the time dawn broke.” An old ache filled Aedion’s chest at the mention of his mentor and friend, the man he’d admired so greatly. Who had made his final stand, as Aedion would, on the plain beyond this city.
Evangeline let out a little laugh. “That’s disgusting.”
“It certainly was,” Aedion said, and could have sworn Lysandra was smiling a bit. “So you’re already much braver than I ever was.”
“I threw up earlier,” Evangeline whispered.
Aedion said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Better than shitting your pants, sweetheart.”
Evangeline let out a belly laugh that made her clutch the cup to keep from spilling.
Aedion grinned, and ruffled her red-gold hair. “The battle won’t be pretty,” he said as Evangeline sipped her milk. “And you will likely throw up again. But just remember that this fear of yours? It means you have something worth fighting for—something you care so greatly for that losing it is the worst thing you can imagine.” He pointed to the frost-covered windows. “Those bastards out there on the plain? They have none of that.” He laid his hand on hers and squeezed gently. “They have nothing to fight for. And while we might not have their numbers, we do have something worth defending. And because of that, we can overcome our fear. We can fight against them, to the very end. For our friends, for our family …” He squeezed her hand again at that. “For those we love …” He dared to look up at Lysandra, whose green eyes were lined with silver. “For those we love, we can rise above that fear. Remember that tomorrow. Even if you throw up, even if you spend the whole night in the privy. Remember that we have something to fight for, and it will always triumph.”
Evangeline nodded. “I will.”
Aedion ruffled her hair once more and walked to the door, pausing on the threshold. He met Lysandra’s stare, her eyes emerald-bright. “I lost my family ten years ago. Tomorrow I will fight for the new one I’ve made.”
Not only for Terrasen and its court and people. But also for the two ladies in this room.
I wanted it to be you in the end.