Heir of Fire

Celaena did not remember curling up in her bed, boots still on. She did not remember her dreams, or feel the pangs of hunger or thirst when she awoke, and she could barely respond to anyone as she trudged down to the kitchen and set about helping with breakfast. Everything swirled past in dull colors and whispers of sound. But she was still. A bit of rock in a stream.

Breakfast passed, and when it was done, in the quiet of the kitchen, the sounds sorted out into voices. A murmur—Malakai. A laugh—Emrys.

“Look,” Emrys said, coming up to where Celaena stood at the kitchen sink, still staring out at the field. “Look what Malakai bought me.”

She caught the flash of the golden hilt before she understood Emrys was holding out a new knife. It was a joke. The gods had to be playing a joke. Or they just truly, truly hated her.

The hilt was engraved with lotus blossoms, a ripple of lapis lazuli edging the bottom like a river wave. Emrys was smiling, eyes bright. But that knife, the gold polished and bright …

“I got it from a merchant from the southern continent,” Malakai said from the table, his satisfied tone enough to tell her that he was beaming. “It came all the way from Eyllwe.”

The numbness snapped.

Snapped with such a violent crack that she was surprised they didn’t hear it.

And in its place was a screaming, high-pitched and keening, loud as a teakettle, loud as a storm wind, loud as the sound the maid had emitted the morning she’d walked into Celaena’s parents’ bedroom and seen the child lying between their corpses.

It was so loud that she could hardly hear herself as she said, “I do not care.” She couldn’t hear anything over that silent screaming, so she raised her own voice, breath coming fast, too fast, as she repeated, “I. Do. Not. Care.”

Silence. Then Luca warily said from across the room, “Elentiya, don’t be rude.”

Elentiya. Elentiya. Spirit that cannot be broken.

Lies, lies, lies. Nehemia had lied about everything. About her stupid name, about her plans, about every damn thing. And she was gone. All that Celaena would have left of her were reminders like this—weapons similar to the ones the princess had worn with such pride. Nehemia was gone, and she had nothing left.

Trembling so hard she thought her body would fall apart at the seams, she turned. “I do not care about you,” she hissed to Emrys and Malakai and Luca. “I do not care about your knife. I do not care about your stories or your little kingdom.” She pinned Emrys with a stare. Luca and Malakai were across the room in an instant, stepping in front of the old man—teeth bared. Good. They should feel threatened. “So leave me alone. Keep your gods-damned lives to yourselves and leave me alone.”

She was shouting now, but she couldn’t stop hearing the screaming, couldn’t hone the anger into anything, couldn’t tell which way was up or down, only that Nehemia had lied about everything, and her friend once had sworn an oath not to—sworn an oath and broken it, just as she’d broken Celaena’s own heart the day she let herself die.

She saw the tears in Emrys’s eyes then. Sorrow or pity or anger, she didn’t care. Luca and Malakai were still between them, growling softly. A family—they were a family, and they stuck together. They would rip her apart if she hurt one of them.

Celaena let out a low, joyless laugh as she took in the three of them. Emrys opened his mouth to say whatever it was he thought would help.

But Celaena let out another dead laugh and walked out the door.

After an entire night of tattooing the names of the fallen onto Gavriel’s flesh and listening to the warrior talk about the men he’d lost, Rowan sent him on his way and headed for the kitchen. He found it empty save for the ancient male, who sat at the empty worktable, hands wrapped around a mug. Emrys looked up, his eyes bright and … grieving.

The girl was nowhere to be seen, and for a heartbeat, he hoped she’d left again, if only so he didn’t have to face what he’d said yesterday. The door to the outside was open—as if someone had thrown it wide. She’d probably gone that way.

Rowan took a step toward it, nodding his greeting, but the old male looked him up and down and quietly said, “What are you doing?”

“What?”

Emrys didn’t raise his voice as he said, “To that girl. What are you doing that makes her come in here with such emptiness in her eyes?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Emrys pressed his lips into a tight line. “What do you see when you look at her, Prince?”

He didn’t know. These days, he didn’t know a damn thing. “That’s none of your concern, either.”

Emrys ran a hand over his weathered face. “I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”

“I don’t see why I would be of any use to—”

“Did you know that Evalin Ashryver was my friend? She spent almost a year working in this kitchen—living here with us, fighting to convince your queen that demi-Fae have a place in your realm. She fought for our rights until the very day she departed this kingdom—and the many years after, until she was murdered by those monsters across the sea. So I knew. I knew who her daughter was the moment you brought her into this kitchen. All of us who were here twenty-five years ago recognized her for what she is.”

It wasn’t often that he was surprised, but … Rowan just stared.

“She has no hope, Prince. She has no hope left in her heart. Help her. If not for her sake, then at least for what she represents—what she could offer all of us, you included.”

“And what is that?” he dared ask.

Emrys met his gaze unflinchingly as he whispered, “A better world.”

Celaena walked and walked, until she found herself by the tree-lined shore of a lake, glaringly bright in the midday sun. She figured it was as good a spot as any as she crumpled to the mossy bank, as her arms wrapped tight around herself and she bowed over her knees.

There was nothing that could be done to fix her. And she was … she was …

A whimpering noise came out of her, lips trembling so hard she had to clamp down to keep the sound inside.

But the sound was in her throat and her lungs and her mouth, and when she took a breath, it cracked out. Once she heard it, everything came spilling into the world, until her body ached with the force of it.

She vaguely felt the light shifting on the lake. Vaguely felt the sighing wind, warm as it brushed against her damp cheeks. And heard, so soft it was as if she dreamed it, a woman’s voice whispering, Why are you crying, Fireheart?

It had been ten years—ten long years since she had heard her mother’s voice. But she heard it then over the force of her weeping, as clear as if she knelt beside her. Fireheart—why do you cry?

“Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”

It was what she had never been able to tell Nehemia—that for ten years, she had been unsure how to find the way home, because there was no home left.

Storm winds and ice crackled against her skin before she registered Rowan sitting down beside her, legs out, palms braced behind him in the moss. She raised her head, but didn’t bother to wipe her face as she stared across the glittering lake.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.” Swallowing a few times, she yanked a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose, her head clearing with each breath.

They sat in silence, no sound but the quiet lapping of the lake on the mossy bank and the wind in the leaves. Then— “Good. Because we’re going.”

Bastard. She called him as much, and then asked, “Going where?”

He smiled grimly. “I think I’ve started to figure you out, Aelin Galathynius.”

“What in every burning ring of hell,” Celaena panted, gazing at the cave mouth nestled into the base of the craggy mountain, “are we doing here?”

It had been a five-mile hike. Uphill. With hardly anything in her stomach.

The trees butted against the gray stones, flowing up the slope for a ways and then fading into lichen-covered rock that eventually turned into the snow-capped peak that marked the barrier between Wendlyn and Doranelle beyond. For some reason, this hulking giant made the hair on her neck stand up. And it had nothing to do with the frozen wind.

Rowan strode into the gaping maw of the cave mouth, his pale-gray cloak flapping behind him. “Hurry up.”

Pulling her own cloak tighter around her, she staggered after him. This was a bad sign. A horrible sign, actually, because whatever was in that cave …

She walked into the dark, following Rowan by the light on his hair, letting her eyes adjust. The ground was rocky, the stones small and worn smooth. And littered with rusted weapons, armor, and—clothes. No skeletons. Gods, it was so cold that she could see her breath, see—

“Tell me I’m hallucinating.”

Rowan had stopped at the edge of an enormous frozen lake, stretching into the gloom. Sitting on a blanket in its center, the chains around his wrists anchored under the ice, was Luca.

Luca’s chains clanked as he raised a hand in greeting. “I thought you’d never show. I’m freezing,” he called, and tucked his hands back under his arms. The sound echoed throughout the chamber.

The thick sheet of ice covering the lake was so clear that she could see the water beneath—pale stones on the bottom, what looked to be old roots from trees long dead, and no sign of life whatsoever. An occasional sword or dagger or lance poked up from the stones. “What is this place?”

“Go get him,” was Rowan’s answer.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Rowan gave her a smile that suggested he was, in fact, insane. She stepped toward the ice, but he blocked her path with a muscled arm. “In your other form.”

Luca’s head was angled, as if trying to hear. “He doesn’t know what I am,” she murmured.

“You’ve been living in a fortress of demi-Fae, you know. He won’t care.”

That was the least of her concerns, anyway. “How dare you drag him into this?”

“You dragged him in yourself when you insulted him—and Emrys. The least you can do is retrieve him.” He blew out a breath toward the lake, and the ice thawed by the shore, then hardened. Holy gods. He’d frozen the whole damn lake. He was that powerful?

“I hope you brought snacks!” Luca said. “I’m starving. Hurry up, Elentiya. Rowan said you had to do this as part of your training, and …” He prattled on and on.

“What is the gods-damned point of this? Just punishment for acting like an ass?”

“You can control your power in human form—keep it dormant. But the moment you switch, the moment you get agitated or angry or afraid, the moment you remember how much your power scares you, your magic rises up to protect you. It doesn’t understand that you are the source of those feelings, not some external threat. When there is an outside threat, when you forget to fear your power long enough, you have control. Or some control.” He pointed again to the sheet of ice between her and Luca. “So free him.”

If she lost control, if her fire got out of her … well, fire and ice certainly went well together, didn’t they? “What happens to Luca if I fail?”

“He’ll be very cold and very wet. And possibly die.” From the smile on his face, she knew he was enough of a sadist to let the boy go under with her.

“Were the chains really necessary? He’ll go right to the bottom.” A stupid, bleating kind of panic was starting to fill her veins.

When she held out her hand for the key to Luca’s chains, Rowan shook his head. “Control is your key. And focus. Cross the lake, then figure out how to free him without drowning the both of you.”

“Don’t give me a lesson like you’re some mystical-nonsense master! This is the stupidest thing I have ever had to—”

“Hurry,” Rowan said with a wolfish grin, and the ice gave a collective groan. As if it was melting. Though some small voice in her head told her he wouldn’t let the boy drown, she couldn’t trust him, not after last night.

She took one step closer to the ice. “You are a bastard.” When Luca was safely home, she would start finding ways to make Rowan’s life a living hell. She punched through her inner veil, the pain barely registering as her features shifted.

“I was waiting to see your Fae form!” Luca said. “We were all taking bets on when—” And on and on.

She scowled at Rowan, his tattoo even more detailed now that she was seeing it with Fae eyes. “It gives me comfort to know that people like you have a special place in hell waiting for them.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

She gave him a particularly vulgar gesture as she stepped onto the ice.

As she took each tentative step—small ones at first—she could see the lake bottom sloping away into darkness, swallowing the spread of lost weapons. Luca had finally shut up.

It was only when she stepped past the visible edge of the rocky shelf and hovered over the dark depths that her breath hitched. She slid her foot, and the ice groaned.

Groaned, and cracked, spiderwebbing under her foot. She froze, gaping like a fool as the cracks spread wider and wider, and then—she kept moving. There was another crack beneath her boots. Did the ice move? “Stop it,” she hissed at Rowan, but didn’t dare look behind her.

Her magic shuddered awake, and she went still as death. No.

But there it was, filling up the spaces in her.

The ice emitted a deep groan that could only mean something cold and wet was coming her way really damn soon, and she took another step, if only because the way back seemed like it would shatter. She was sweating now—the magic, the fire was warming her from the inside out.

“Elentiya?” Luca asked, and she held out a hand toward him—a silent gesture to shut his stupid mouth as she closed her eyes and breathed, imagining the cold air around them filling her lungs, freezing over the well of power. Magic—it was magic. In Adarlan it was a death trap.

She clenched her hands into fists. Here it was not a death trap. In this land, she could have it, could wear whatever form she wished.

The ice stopped groaning, but it had clouded and thinned around her. She started sliding her feet, keeping as balanced and fluid as she could, humming a melody—a bit of a symphony that used to calm her. She let the beat anchor her, dull the edge of her panic.

The magic simmered to embers, pulsing with each breath. I am safe, she told it. Relatively safe. If Rowan was right, and it was just a reaction to protect her from some enemy …

Fire was the reason she’d been banned from the Library of Orynth when she was eight, after accidentally incinerating an entire bookcase of ancient manuscripts when she grew irritated with the Master Scholar lecturing her about decorum. It had been a beautiful, horrible relief to wake up one day not too many months after that and know magic was gone. That she could hold a book—hold what she adored most—and not worry about turning it to ash if she became upset or tired or excited.

Celaena Sardothien, gloriously mortal Celaena, never had to worry about accidentally scorching a playmate, or having a nightmare that might incinerate her bedroom. Or burning all of Orynth to the ground. Celaena had been everything Aelin wasn’t. She had embraced that life, even if Celaena’s accomplishments were death and torture and pain.

“Elentiya?” She’d been staring at the ice. Her magic flickered again.

Burning a city to the ground. That was the fear she overheard Melisande’s emissary hiss at her parents and uncle. She’d been told he had come to see about an alliance, but she later understood he’d really come to gather information on her. Melisande had a young queen on its throne, and she wanted to assess the threat she might face from the heir of Terrasen one day. Wanted to know if Aelin Galathynius would become a weapon of war.

The ice fogged over, and a crack splintered through the air. The magic was pulsing its way out of her, snapping its jaws at every breath she took.

“You are in control now,” Rowan said from the shore. “You are its master.”

She was halfway there. She took one more step toward Luca, and the ice cracked further. His chains rustled—impatience, or fear?

She had never been in control. Even as Celaena, control had been an illusion. Other masters had held her reins.

“You are the keeper of your own fate,” Rowan said softly from the shore, as if he knew exactly what was flowing through her head.

She hummed some more, the music wending its way from her memory. And somehow … somehow the flame grew quiet. Celaena took a step forward, then another. The power smoldering in her veins would never go away; she was far more likely to hurt someone if she didn’t master it.

She scowled over her shoulder at Rowan, who was now striding along the shore, examining some of the fallen blades. There was a hint of triumph in his usually hollow eyes, but he turned away and approached a small crevice in the cave wall, feeling for something inside. She kept walking, the watery abyss deepening. She had mastered her mortal body as an assassin. Mastering her immortal power was just another task.

Luca’s eyes were wide as she came at last within touching distance. “You have nothing to hide, you know. We all knew you could shift, anyway,” he said. “And if it makes you feel any better, Sten’s animal form is a pig. He won’t even shift for shame.”

She would have laughed—actually felt her insides tighten to bark out the sound that had been buried for months, but then she remembered the chains around his wrists. The magic had quieted down, but now … melt through them, or melt the ice where they were anchored and let him drag the chains back? If she went for the ice, she could easily send them right to the bottom of this ancient lake. And if she went for the chains … Well, she could lose control and send them to the bottom, but she could also wind up burning him. At best, branding him where the manacles were. At worst, melting his bones. Better to risk the ice.

“Erm,” Luca said. “I’ll forgive every awful thing you said earlier if we can go eat something right now. It smells awful in here.” His senses had to be sharper than hers—the cave had only a faint hint of rust, mold, and rotting things.

“Just hold still and stop talking,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended. But he shut up as she eased to the spot where Rowan had frozen the chains. As carefully as she could, she knelt, spreading her weight out evenly.

She slid one palm against the ice, eyeing the chain’s path to the hanging length swaying in the water beneath.

Swaying—there must be a current. Which meant Rowan had to be constantly sealing the ice … The cold bit into her palm, and she eyed Luca on the fur blanket before she turned back to the anchor. If the ice broke, she’d have to grab him. Rowan was out of his damned mind.

She took several long breaths, letting the magic calm and cool and gutter. Then, hand pressed flat against the ice, she crooked an inner finger at her power and pulled out a tiny, burning thread. It flowed down her arm, snaked around her wrist, and then settled in her palm, her skin warming, the ice … glowing a bright red. Luca yelped as the ice splintered around them.

“Control,” Rowan barked from the shore, pulling free a discarded sword from where it had been knocked into the little crevice in the wall, its golden hilt glinting. Celaena clamped on the magic so hard it suffocated. A small hole had melted where her palm had been—but not all the way through. Not big enough to free the chain.

She could master this. She could master herself again. The well inside of her filled up and she pushed back, willing only that thread to squeeze free and into the ice, burrowing like a worm, gnawing away at the cold … There was a clank of metal, and a hiss, and then— “Oh, thank the gods,” Luca moaned, hauling the length of chain out of the hole.

She spooled the thread of power back into herself, into that well, and was suddenly cold.

“Please tell me you brought food,” Luca said again.

“Is that why you came? Rowan promised you snacks?”

“I’m a growing boy.” He winced when he looked at Rowan. “And you don’t say no to him.”

No, indeed, no one ever said no to him, and that was probably why Rowan thought a scheme like this was acceptable. Celaena sighed through her nose and looked at the small hole she’d made. A feat—a miracle. As she was about to stand and help Luca navigate the way back to shore, she glanced at the ice once more. No, not the ice—the water beneath.

Where a giant red eye was staring right at her.