Aelin didn’t know everything. Fire or beheading couldn’t be the only choices. Maybe he would keep one of the Valg commanders alive, see just how far gone the man inside of the demon truly was. Maybe there was another way—there had to be another way …
Tunnel after tunnel after tunnel, all the usual haunts, and no sign of them.
Not one.
Chaol hurried into a near-run as he headed for the largest nest he knew of, where they’d always been able to find civilians in need of rescuing, if they were lucky enough to catch the guards unawares. He would save them—because they deserved it, and because he had to keep at it, or else he would crumble and—
Chaol stared at the gaping mouth of the main nest.
Watery sunlight filtering from above illuminated the gray stones and the little river at the bottom. No sign of the telltale darkness that usually smothered it like a dense fog.
Empty.
The Valg soldiers had vanished. And taken their prisoners with them.
He didn’t think they’d gone into hiding from fear.
They’d moved on, concealing themselves and their prisoners, as a giant, laughing go-to-hell to every rebel who’d actually thought they were winning this secret war. To Chaol.
He should have thought of pitfalls like this, should have considered what might happen when Aelin Galathynius made a fool of the king and his men.
He should have considered the cost.
Maybe he was the fool.
There was a numbness in his blood as he emerged from the sewers onto a quiet street. It was the thought of sitting in his ramshackle apartment, utterly alone with that numbness, that sent him southward, trying to avoid the streets that still teemed with panicked people. Everyone demanded to know what had happened, who had been killed, who had done it. The decorations and baubles and food vendors had been entirely forgotten.
The sounds eventually died away, the streets clearing out as he reached a residential district where the homes were of modest size but elegant, well kept. Little streams and fountains of water from the Avery flowed throughout, lending themselves to the surplus of blooming spring flowers at every gate, windowsill, and tiny lawn.
He knew the house from the smell alone: fresh-baked bread, cinnamon, and some other spice he couldn’t name. Taking the alley between the two pale-stoned houses, he kept to the shadows as he approached the back door, peering through the pane of glass to the kitchen within. Flour coated a large worktable, along with baking sheets, various mixing bowls, and—
The door swung open, and Nesryn’s slim form filled the entryway. “What are you doing here?”
She was back in her guard’s uniform, a knife tucked behind her thigh. She’d no doubt spotted an intruder approaching her father’s house and readied herself.
Chaol tried to ignore the weight pushing down on his back, threatening to snap him in two. Aedion was free—they’d accomplished that much. But how many other innocents had they doomed today?
Nesryn didn’t wait for his reply before she said, “Come in.”
“The guards came and went. My father sent them on their way with pastries.”
Chaol glanced up from his own pear tart and scanned the kitchen. Bright tiles accented the walls behind the counters in pretty shades of blue, orange, and turquoise. He’d never been to Sayed Faliq’s house before, but he’d known where it was—just in case.
He’d never let himself consider what that “just in case” might entail. Showing up like a stray dog at the back door hadn’t been it.
“They didn’t suspect him?”
“No. They just wanted to know whether he or his workers saw anyone who looked suspicious before Aedion’s rescue.” Nesryn pushed another pastry—this one almond and sugar—toward him. “Is the general all right?”
“As far as I know.”
He told her about the tunnels, the Valg.
Nesryn only said, “So we’ll find them again. Tomorrow.”
He waited for her to pace, to shout and swear, but she remained steady—calm. Some tight part of him uncoiled.
She tapped a finger on the wooden table—lovingly worn, as if the kneading of a thousand loaves of bread had smoothed it out. “Why did you come here?”
“For distraction.” There was a suspicious gleam in those midnight eyes of hers—enough so that he said, “Not for that.”
She didn’t even blush, though his own cheeks burned. If she had offered, he probably would have said yes. And hated himself for it.
“You’re welcome here,” she said, “but surely your friends at the apartment—the general, at least—would provide better company.”
“Are they my friends?”
“You and Her Majesty have done a great job trying to be anything but.”
“It’s hard to be friends without trust.”
“You are the one who went to Arobynn again, even after she warned you not to.”
“And he was right,” Chaol said. “He said she would promise not to touch Dorian, and then do the opposite.” And he would be forever grateful for the warning shot Nesryn had fired.
Nesryn shook her head, her dark hair glimmering. “Let’s just imagine that Aelin is right. That Dorian is gone. What then?”
“She’s not right.”
“Let’s just imagine—”
He slammed his fist on the table hard enough to rattle his glass of water. “She’s not right!”
Nesryn pursed her lips, even as her eyes softened. “Why?”
He scrubbed at his face. “Because then it’s all for nothing. Everything that happened … it’s all for nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t?” A cold question. “You think that I don’t understand what’s at stake? I don’t care about your prince—not the way you do. I care about what he represents for the future of this kingdom, and for the future of people like my family. I won’t allow another immigrant purge to happen. I don’t ever want my sister’s children coming home with broken noses again because of their foreign blood. You told me Dorian would fix the world, make it better. But if he’s gone, if we made the mistake today in keeping him alive, then I will find another way to attain that future. And another one after that, if I have to. I will keep getting back up, no matter how many times those butchers shove me down.”
He’d never heard so many words from her at once, had never … never even known she had a sister. Or that she was an aunt.
Nesryn said, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stay the course, but also plot another one. Adapt.”
His mouth had gone dry. “Were you ever hurt? For your heritage?”
Nesryn glanced toward the roaring hearth, her face like ice. “I became a city guard because not a single one of them came to my aid the day the other schoolchildren surrounded me with stones in their hands. Not one, even though they could hear my screaming.” She met his stare again. “Dorian Havilliard offers a better future, but the responsibility also lies with us. With how common people choose to act.”
True—so true, but he said, “I won’t abandon him.”
She sighed. “You’re even more hardheaded than the queen.”
“Would you expect me to be anything else?”
A half smile. “I don’t think I would like you if you were anything but a stubborn ass.”
“You actually admit to liking me?”
“Did last summer not tell you enough?”
Despite himself, Chaol laughed.
“Tomorrow,” Nesryn said. “Tomorrow, we continue on.”
He swallowed. “Stay the course, but plot a new path.” He could do that; he could try it, at least.
“See you in the sewers bright and early.”
23
Aedion rose to consciousness and took in every detail that he could without opening his eyes. A briny breeze from a nearby open window tickled his face; fishermen were shouting their catches a few blocks away; and—and someone was breathing evenly, deeply, nearby. Sleeping.
He opened an eye to find that he was in a small, wood-paneled room decorated with care and a penchant for the luxurious. He knew this room. Knew this apartment.
The door across from his bed was open, revealing the great room beyond—clean and empty and bathed in sunshine. The sheets he slept between were crisp and silken, the pillows plush, the mattress impossibly soft. Exhaustion coated his bones, and pain splintered through his side, but dully. And his head was infinitely clearer as he looked toward the source of that even, deep breathing and beheld the woman asleep in the cream-colored armchair beside the bed.
Her long, bare legs were sprawled over one of the rolled arms, scars of every shape and size adorning them. She rested her head against the wing, her shoulder-length golden hair—the ends stained a reddish brown, as if a cheap dye had been roughly washed out—strewn across her face. Her mouth was slightly open as she dozed, comfortable in an oversized white shirt and what looked to be a pair of men’s undershorts. Safe. Alive.
For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Aelin.
He mouthed her name.
As if she heard it, she opened her eyes—coming fully alert as she scanned the doorway, the room beyond, then the bedroom itself for any danger. And then finally, finally she looked at him and went utterly still, even as her hair shifted in the gentle breeze.
The pillow beneath his face had become damp.
She just stretched out her legs like a cat and said, “I’m ready to accept your thanks for my spectacular rescue at any time, you know.”
He couldn’t stop the tears leaking down his face, even as he rasped, “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
A smile tugged at her lips, and her eyes—their eyes—sparkled. “Hello, Aedion.”
Hearing his name on her tongue snapped something loose, and he had to close his eyes, his body barking in pain as it shook with the force of the tears trying to get out of him. When he’d mastered himself, he said hoarsely, “Thank you for your spectacular rescue. Let’s never do it again.”
She snorted, her eyes lined with silver. “You’re exactly the way I dreamed you’d be.”
Something in her smile told him that she already knew—that Ren or Chaol had told her about him, about being Adarlan’s Whore, about the Bane. So all he could say was, “You’re a little taller than I’d imagined, but no one’s perfect.”
“It’s a miracle the king managed to resist executing you until yesterday.”
“Tell me he’s in a rage the likes of which have never been seen before.”
“If you listen hard enough, you can actually hear him shrieking from the palace.”
Aedion laughed, and it made his wound ache. But the laugh died as he looked her over from head to toe. “I’m going to throttle Ren and the captain for letting you save me alone.”
“And here we go.” She looked at the ceiling and sighed loudly. “A minute of pleasant conversation, and then the territorial Fae bullshit comes raging out.”
“I waited an extra thirty seconds.”
Her mouth quirked to the side. “I honestly thought you’d last ten.”
He laughed again, and realized that though he’d loved her before, he’d merely loved the memory—the princess taken away from him. But the woman, the queen—the last shred of family he had …
“It was worth it,” he said, his smile fading. “You were worth it. All these years, all the waiting. You’re worth it.” He’d known the moment she had looked up at him as she stood before his execution block, defiant and wicked and wild.
“I think that’s the healing tonic talking,” she said, but her throat bobbed as she wiped at her eyes. She lowered her feet to the floor. “Chaol said you’re even meaner than I am most of the time.”
“Chaol is already on his way to being throttled, and you’re not helping.”
She gave that half smile again. “Ren’s in the North—I didn’t get to see him before Chaol convinced him to go there for his own safety.”
“Good,” he managed to say, and patted the bed beside him. Someone had stuffed him into a clean shirt, so he was decent enough, but he managed to haul himself halfway into a sitting position. “Come here.”
She glanced at the bed, at his hand, and he wondered whether he’d crossed some line, assumed some bond between them that no longer existed—until her shoulders slumped and she uncoiled from the chair in a smooth, feline motion before plopping down on the mattress.
Her scent hit him. For a second, he could only breathe it deep into his lungs, his Fae instincts roaring that this was his family, this was his queen, this was Aelin. He would have known her even if he were blind.
Even if there was another scent entwined with hers. Staggeringly powerful and ancient and—male. Interesting.
She plumped up the pillows, and he wondered if she knew how much it meant to him, as a demi-Fae male, to have her lean over to straighten his blankets, too, then run a sharp, critical eye down his face. To fuss over him.
He stared right back, scanning for any wounds, any sign that the blood on her the other day hadn’t belonged only to those men. But save for a few shallow, scabbed cuts on her left forearm, she was unharmed.
When she seemed assured that he wasn’t about to die, and when he was assured the wounds on her arm weren’t infected, she leaned back on the pillows and folded her hands over her abdomen. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”
Outside, gulls were crying to each other, and that soft, briny breeze kissed his face. “You,” he whispered. “Tell me everything.”
So she did.
They talked and talked, until Aedion’s voice became hoarse, and then Aelin bullied him into drinking a glass of water. And then she decided that he was looking peaky, so she padded to the kitchen and dug up some beef broth and bread. Lysandra, Chaol, and Nesryn were nowhere to be seen, so they had the apartment to themselves. Good. Aelin didn’t feel like sharing her cousin right now.
As Aedion devoured his food, he told her the unabridged truth of what had happened to him these past ten years, just as she’d done for him. And when they were both finished telling their stories, when their souls were drained and grieving—but gilded with growing joy—she nestled down across from Aedion, her cousin, her friend.
They’d been forged of the same ore, two sides of the same golden, scarred coin.
She’d known it when she spied him atop the execution platform. She couldn’t explain it. No one could understand that instant bond, that soul-deep assurance and rightness, unless they, too, had experienced it. But she owed no explanations to anyone—not about Aedion.
They were still sprawled on the bed, the sun now settling into late afternoon, and Aedion was just staring at her, blinking, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Are you ashamed of what I’ve done?” she dared to ask.
His brow creased. “Why would you ever think that?”
She couldn’t quite look him in the eye as she ran a finger down the blanket. “Are you?”