Queen of Shadows

This place smelled like death, like hell, like the dark spaces between the stars.

Centuries of training kept Rowan’s steps light, kept him focused on the lethal weight he carried as he and the general crept through the dry, ancient passageway.

The ascending stone path had been gouged by brutal claws, the space so dark that even Rowan’s eyes were failing him. The general trailed close behind, making no sound save for the occasional pebble skittering from beneath his boots.

Aelin would be in the castle by now, the captain in tow as her ticket into the throne room.

Only a few minutes more, if they’d calculated right, and then they could ignite their deadly burden and get the hell out.

Minutes after, he’d be at her side, rife with magic that he’d use to choke the air clean out of the king’s lungs. And then he’d enjoy watching as she burned him alive. Slowly.

Though he knew his satisfaction would pale in comparison to what the general would feel. What every child of Terrasen would feel.

They passed through a door of solid iron that had been peeled back as if massive, clawed hands had ripped it off its hinges. The walkway beyond was smooth stone.

Aedion sucked in a breath at the same moment the pounding struck Rowan’s brain, right between his eyes.

Wyrdstone.

Aelin had warned him of the tower—that the stone had given her a headache, but this …

She had been in her human body then.

It was unbearable, as if his very blood recoiled at the wrongness of the stone.

Aedion cursed, and Rowan echoed it.

But there was a wide sliver in the stone wall ahead, and open air beyond it.

Not daring to breathe too loudly, Rowan and Aedion eased through the crack.

A large, round chamber greeted them, flanked by eight open iron doors. The bottom of the clock tower, if their calculations were correct.

The darkness of the chamber was nearly impenetrable, but Rowan didn’t dare light the torch he’d brought with them. Aedion sniffed, a wet sound. Wet, because—

Blood dribbled down Rowan’s lip and chin. A nosebleed.

“Hurry,” he whispered, setting down his vat at the opposite end of the chamber.

Just a few more minutes.

Aedion stationed his vat of hellfire across from Rowan’s at the chamber entrance. Rowan knelt, his head pounding, worse and worse with each throb.

He kept moving, shoving the pain down as he set the fuse wire and led it over to where Aedion crouched. The dripping of their nosebleeds on the black stone floor was the only sound.

“Faster,” Rowan ordered, and Aedion snarled softly—no longer willing to be annoyed with warnings as a distraction. He didn’t feel like telling the general he’d stopped doing it minutes ago.

Rowan drew his sword, making for the doorway through which they’d entered. Aedion backed toward him, unspooling the joined fuses as he went. They had to be far enough away before they could light it, or else they’d be turned to ash.

He sent up a silent prayer to Mala that Aelin was biding her time—and that the king was too focused on the assassin and the captain to consider sending anyone below.

Aedion reached him, unrolling inch after inch of fuse, the line a white streak through the dark. Rowan’s other nostril began bleeding.

Gods, the smell of this place. The death and reek and misery of it. He could hardly think. It was like having his head in a vise.

They retreated into the tunnel, that fuse their only hope and salvation.

Something dripped onto his shoulder. An ear bleed.

He wiped it away with his free hand.

But it was not blood on his cloak.

Rowan and Aedion went rigid as a low growling filled the passage.

Something on the ceiling moved, then.

Seven somethings.

Aedion dropped the spool and drew his sword.

A piece of fabric—gray, small, worn—dropped from the maw of the creature clinging to the stone ceiling. His cloak—the missing corner of his cloak.

Lorcan had lied.

He hadn’t killed the remaining Wyrdhounds.

He’d just given them Rowan’s scent.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius faced the King of Adarlan.

“Celaena, Lillian, Aelin,” she drawled, “I don’t particularly care what you call me.”

None of the guards behind them stirred.

She could feel Chaol’s eyes on her, feel the relentless attention of the Valg prince inside Dorian.

“Did you think,” the king said, grinning like a wolf, “that I could not peer inside my son’s mind and ask what he knows, what he saw the day of your cousin’s rescue?”

She hadn’t known, and she certainly hadn’t planned on revealing herself this way. “I’m surprised it took you this long to notice who you’d let in by the front door. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed.”

“So your people might say of you. What was it like, Princess, to climb into bed with my son? Your mortal enemy?” Dorian didn’t so much as blink. “Did you end it with him because of the guilt—or because you’d gained a foothold in my castle and no longer needed him?”

“Is that fatherly concern I detect?”

A low laugh. “Why doesn’t the captain stop pretending that he’s stuck in those manacles and come a bit closer.”

Chaol stiffened. But Aelin gave him a subtle nod.

The king didn’t bother glancing at his guards as he said, “Get out.”

As one, the guards left, sealing the door behind them. The heavy glass groaned shut, the floor shuddering. Chaol’s shackles clattered to the ground, and he flexed his wrists.

“Such traitorous filth, dwelling in my own home. And to think I once had you in chains—once had you so close to execution, and had no idea what prize I instead sentenced to Endovier. The Queen of Terrasen—slave and my Champion.” The king unfurled his fist to look at the two rings in his palm. He chucked them aside. They bounced on the red marble, pinging faintly. “Too bad you don’t have your flames now, Aelin Galathynius.”

Aelin tugged the cloth from the pommel of her father’s blade and drew the Sword of Orynth.

“Where are the Wyrdkeys?”

“At least you’re direct. But what shall you do to me, heir of Terrasen, if I do not tell you?” He gestured to Dorian, and the prince descended the steps of the dais, stopping at the bottom.

Time—she needed time. The tower wasn’t down yet. “Dorian,” Chaol said softly.

The prince didn’t respond.

The king chuckled. “No running today, Captain?”

Chaol leveled his stare at the king, and drew Damaris—Aelin’s gift to him.

The king tapped a finger on the arm of his throne. “What would the noble people of Terrasen say if they knew Aelin of the Wildfire had such a bloody history? If they knew that she had signed her services over to me? What hope would it give them to know that even their long-lost princess was corrupted?”

“You certainly like to hear yourself speak, don’t you?”

The king’s finger stilled on the throne. “I’ll admit that I don’t know how I didn’t see it. You’re the same spoiled child who strutted about her castle. And here I was, thinking I’d helped you. I saw into your mind that day, Aelin Galathynius. You loved your home and your kingdom, but you had such a wish to be ordinary, such a wish for freedom from your crown, even then. Have you changed your mind? I offered you freedom on a platter ten years ago, and yet you wound up a slave anyway. Funny.”

Time, time, time. Let him talk …

“You had the element of surprise then,” Aelin said. “But now we know what power you wield.”

“Do you? Do you understand the cost of the keys? What you must become to use one?”

She tightened her grip on the Sword of Orynth.

“Would you like to go head-to-head with me, then, Aelin Galathynius? To see if the spells you learned, the books you stole from me, will hold out? Little tricks, Princess, compared to the raw power of the keys.”

“Dorian,” Chaol said again. The prince remained fixated on her, a hungry smile now on those sensuous lips.

“Let me demonstrate,” the king said. Aelin braced herself, her gut clenching.

He pointed at Dorian. “Kneel.”

The prince dropped to his knees. She hid her wince at the impact of bone on marble. The king’s brows knotted. A darkness began to build, cracking from the king like forks of lightning.

“No,” Chaol breathed, stepping forward. Aelin grabbed the captain by the arm before he could do something incredibly stupid.

A tendril of night slammed into Dorian’s back and he arched, groaning.

“I think there is more that you know, Aelin Galathynius,” the king said, that too-familiar blackness growing. “Things that perhaps only the heir of Brannon Galathynius might have learned.”

The third Wyrdkey.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Aelin said. The prince’s neck was taut as he panted, as the darkness whipped him.

Once—twice. Lashings.

She knew that pain. “He’s your son—your heir.”

“You forget, Princess,” the king said, “that I have two sons.”

Dorian screamed as another whip of darkness slashed his back. Black lightning flitted across his exposed teeth.

She lunged—and was thrown back by the very wards she’d drawn on her body. An invisible wall of that black pain lay around Dorian now, and his screams became unending.

Like a beast snapped from its leash, Chaol flung himself against it, roaring Dorian’s name, the blood crumbling from the cuff of his jacket with each attempt.

Again. Again. Again.

Dorian was sobbing, darkness pouring out of his mouth, shackling his hands, branding his back, his neck—

Then it vanished.

The prince sagged to the floor, chest heaving. Chaol halted midstrike, his breathing ragged, face drawn.

“Rise,” the king said.

Dorian got to his feet, his black collar gleaming as his chest heaved. “Delicious,” the thing inside the prince said. Bile burned Aelin’s throat.

“Please,” Chaol said hoarsely to the king, and her heart cracked at the word, at the agony and desperation. “Free him. Name your price. I’ll give you anything.”

“Would you hand over your former lover, Captain? I see no use in losing a weapon if I don’t gain one in return.” The king waved a hand toward her. “You destroyed my general and three of my princes. I can think of a few other Valg who are aching to get their claws into you for that—who would very much enjoy the chance to slip into your body. It’s only fair.”

Aelin dared a glance toward the window. The sun climbed higher.

“You came into my family’s home and murdered them in their sleep,” Aelin said. The grandfather clock began chiming twelve. A heartbeat later, the miserable, off-kilter clanging of the clock tower sounded. “It’s only fair,” she said to the king as she backed a step toward the doors, “that I destroy you in return.”

She tugged the Eye of Elena from under her suit. The blue stone glowed like a small star.

Not just a ward against evil.

But a key in its own right, that could be used to unlock Erawan’s tomb.

The king’s eyes went wide and he rose from his throne. “You’ve just made the mistake of your life, girl.”

He might have a point.

The noontime bells were ringing.

Yet the clock tower still stood.