“Are you telling me,” she said too quietly, fire flickering in her gut, dancing along her tongue, “that even though I am the last living Galathynius, my throne does not yet belong to me?”
She felt Rowan’s attention fix upon her face, but she didn’t look away from Lord Darrow.
“I am telling you, Princess, that while you might be the last living direct descendant of Brannon, there are other possibilities, other directions to go in, should you be deemed unfit.”
“Weylan, please,” Murtaugh cut in. “We did not accept the offer to meet for this. It was to discuss rebuilding, to help her and work with her.”
They all ignored him.
“Other possibilities such as yourself?” Aelin asked Darrow. Smoke curled in her mouth. She swallowed it down, nearly choking on it.
Darrow didn’t so much as flinch. “You can hardly expect us to allow a nineteen-year-old assassin to parade into our kingdom and start yapping orders, regardless of her bloodline.”
Think it through, take a deep breath. Men, money, support from your already-broken people. That’s what Darrow offers, what you can stand to gain, if you just control your rutting temper.
She stifled the fire in her veins into murmuring embers. “I understand that my personal history might be considered problematic—”
“I find everything about you, Princess, to be problematic. The least of which is your choice in friends and court members. Can you explain to me why a common whore is in your company and being passed as a lady? Or why one of Maeve’s minions is now sitting at your side?” He tossed a sneer in Rowan’s direction. “Prince Rowan, is it?” He must have pieced it together from what the messenger had whispered in his ear upon arriving. “Oh, yes, we’ve heard of you. What an interesting turn of events, that when our kingdom is weakest and its heir so young, one of Maeve’s most trusted warriors manages to gain a foothold, after so many years of gazing at our kingdom with such longing. Or perhaps the better question is, why serve at Maeve’s feet when you could rule beside Princess Aelin?”
It took considerable effort to keep her fingers from curling into fists. “Prince Rowan is my carranam. He is above any doubt.”
“Carranam. A long-forgotten term. What other things did Maeve teach you in Doranelle this spring?”
She bit back her retort as Rowan’s hand grazed hers beneath the table—his face bored, uninterested. The calm of a feral, frozen storm. Permission to speak, Majesty?
She had a feeling Rowan would very, very much enjoy the task of shredding Darrow into little pieces. She also had the feeling that she’d very, very much enjoy joining him.
Aelin gave a slight nod, at a loss for words herself as she struggled to keep her flames at bay.
Honestly, she felt slightly bad for Darrow as the Fae Prince gave him a look laced with three hundred years of cold violence. “Are you accusing me of taking the blood oath to my queen with dishonor?”
Nothing human, nothing merciful in those words.
To his credit, Darrow didn’t shrink. Rather, he raised his brows at Aedion, then turned and shook his head at Aelin. “You gave away the sacred oath to this … male?”
Ren gaped a bit as he surveyed Aedion, that scar stark against his tan skin. She had not been there to protect him from it. Or to protect Ren’s sisters when their magic academy became a slaughterhouse during Adarlan’s invasion. Aedion caught Ren’s surprise and subtly shook his head, as if to say, I’ll explain later.
But Rowan leaned back in his chair with a faint smile—and it was a horrifying, terrible thing. “I have known many princesses with kingdoms to inherit, Lord Darrow, and I can tell you that absolutely none of them were ever stupid enough to allow a male to manipulate them that way, least of all my queen. But if I were going to scheme my way onto a throne, I’d pick a far more peaceful and prosperous kingdom.” He shrugged. “But I do not think my brother and sister in this room would allow me to live for very long if they suspected I meant their queen ill—or their kingdom.”
Aedion gave a grim nod, but beside him, Lysandra straightened—not in anger or surprise, but pride. It broke Aelin’s heart as much as it lightened it.
Aelin smiled slowly at Darrow, flames banking. “How long did it take you to come up with a list of every possible thing to insult me with and accuse me of during this meeting?”
Darrow ignored her and jerked his chin at Aedion. “You’re rather quiet tonight.”
“I don’t think you particularly want to hear my thoughts right now, Darrow,” Aedion replied.
“Your blood oath is stolen by a foreign prince, your queen is an assassin who appoints common whores to serve her, and yet you have nothing to say?”
Aedion’s chair groaned, and Aelin dared a look—to find him gripping the sides of it so hard his knuckles were white.
Lysandra, though stiff-backed, did not give Darrow the pleasure of blushing with shame.
And she was done. Sparks danced at her fingertips beneath the table.
But Darrow went on before Aelin could speak or incinerate the room. “Perhaps, Aedion, if you hope to still gain an official position in Terrasen, you could see if your kin in Wendlyn have reconsidered the betrothal proposition of so many years ago. See if they’ll recognize you as family. What a difference it might have made, if you and our beloved Princess Aelin had been betrothed—if Wendlyn had not rejected the offer to formally unite our kingdoms, likely at Maeve’s behest.” A smile in Rowan’s direction.
Her world tilted a bit. Even Aedion had paled. No one had ever hinted that there had been an official attempt at betrothing them. Or that the Ashryvers had truly left Terrasen to war and ruin.
“Whatever will the adoring masses say of their savior princess,” Darrow mused, putting his hands flat on the table, “when they hear of how she has spent her time while they suffered?” A slap in the face, one after another. “But,” Darrow added, “you’ve always been good at whoring yourself out, Aedion. Though I wonder if Princess Aelin knows what—”
Aelin lunged.
Not with flame, but steel.
The dagger shuddering between Darrow’s fingers flickered with the light of the crackling hearth.
She snarled in the old man’s face, Rowan and Aedion half out of their chairs, Ren reaching for a weapon, but looking sick—sick at the sight of the ghost leopard now sitting where Lysandra had been a moment ago.
Murtaugh gaped at the shape-shifter. But Darrow glared at Aelin, his face white with rage.
“You want to sling insults at me, Darrow, then go ahead,” Aelin hissed, her nose almost touching his. “But you insult my own again, and I won’t miss next time.” She flicked her eyes to the dagger between the old man’s splayed fingers, a hairsbreadth separating the blade from his speckled flesh.
“I see you inherited your father’s temper,” Darrow sneered. “Is this how you plan to rule? When you don’t like someone, you’ll threaten them?” He slid his hand from the blade and pulled back far enough to cross his arms. “What would Orlon think of this behavior, this bullying?”
“Choose your words wisely, Darrow,” Aedion warned.
Darrow lifted his brows. “All the work I have done, all that I have sacrificed these past ten years, has been in Orlon’s name, to honor him and to save his kingdom—my kingdom. I do not plan to let a spoiled, arrogant child destroy that with her temper tantrums. Did you enjoy the riches of Rifthold these years, Princess? Was it very easy to forget us in the North when you were buying clothes and serving the monster who butchered your family and friends?”
Men, and money, and a unified Terrasen.
“Even your cousin, despite his whoring, helped us in the North. And Ren Allsbrook”—a wave of the hand in Ren’s direction—“while you were living in luxury, did you know that Ren and his grandfather were scraping together every copper they could, all to find a way to keep the rebel effort alive? That they squatted in shanties and slept under horses?”
“That’s enough,” Aedion said.
/> “Let him go on,” Aelin said, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms.
“What else is there to say, Princess? Do you think the people of Terrasen will be glad to have a queen who served their enemy? Who shared a bed with the son of their enemy?”
Lysandra snarled softly, rattling the glasses.
Darrow was unfazed. “And a queen who now undoubtedly shares a bed with a Fae Prince who served the other enemy at our backs—what do you suppose our people will make of that?”
She didn’t want to know how Darrow had guessed, what he’d read between them.
“Who shares my bed,” she said, “is none of your concern.”
“And that is why you are not fit to rule. Who shares the queen’s bed is everyone’s concern. Will you lie to our people about your past, deny that you served the deposed king—and served his son, too, in a different manner?”
Beneath the table, Rowan’s hand shot out to grip her own, his fingers coated in ice that soothed the fire starting to flicker at her nails. Not in warning or reprimand—just to tell her that he, too, was struggling with the effort to keep from using the pewter food platter to smash in Darrow’s face.
So she didn’t break Darrow’s stare, even as she laced her fingers with Rowan’s.
“I will tell my people,” Aelin said quietly but not weakly, “the entire truth. I will show them the scars on my back from Endovier, the scars on my body from my years as Celaena Sardothien, and I will tell them that the new King of Adarlan is not a monster. I will tell them that we have one enemy: the bastard down in Morath. And Dorian Havilliard is the only chance for survival—and future peace between our two kingdoms.”
“And if he is not? Will you shatter his stone castle as you shattered the glass one?”
Chaol had mentioned this—months ago. She should have considered it more, that ordinary humans might demand checks against her power. Against the power of the court gathering around her. But let Darrow believe she’d shattered the glass castle; let him believe she’d killed the king. Better than the potentially disastrous truth.
“Should you still wish to be a part of Terrasen,” Darrow continued when none of them replied, “I’m sure Aedion can find some use for you in the Bane. But I will have no use for you in Orynth.”
She flicked her brows up. “Is there anything else that you have to say to me?”
His gray eyes turned flinty. “I do not recognize your right to rule; I do not recognize you as the rightful Queen of Terrasen. Neither do the Lords Sloane, Ironwood, and Gunnar, who make up the remaining surviving majority of what was once your uncle’s court. Even if the Allsbrook family sides with you, that is still one vote against four. General Ashryver has no lands or title here—and no say as a result. As for Lady Lysandra, Caraverre is not a recognized territory, nor do we recognize her lineage or your purchase of those lands.” Formal words, for a formal declaration. “Should you return to Orynth and seize your throne without our invitation, it will be considered an act of war and treason.” Darrow pulled a piece of paper from his jacket—lots of fancy writing and four different signatures on the bottom. “As of this moment, until it is otherwise decided, you shall remain a princess by blood—but not queen.”
5
Aelin stared and stared at that piece of paper, at the names that had been signed long before tonight, the men who had decided against her without meeting her, the men who had changed her future, her kingdom, with just their signatures.
Perhaps she should have waited to call this meeting until she was in Orynth—until her people saw her return and it would have been harder to kick her to the curb of the palace.
Aelin breathed, “Our doom gathers in the South of Adarlan—yet this is what you focus on?”
Darrow sneered, “When we have need of your … skill set, we will send word.”
No fire burned in her, not even an ember. As if Darrow had clenched it in his fist, snuffed it out.
“The Bane,” Aedion said with a hint of that legendary insolence, “will answer to none but Aelin Galathynius.”
“The Bane,” Darrow spat, “is now ours to command. In the event that there is no fit ruler on the throne, the lords control the armies of Terrasen.” He again surveyed Aelin, as if sensing the vague plan to publicly return to her city, to make it harder for him to shut her out, glimmering as it formed. “Set foot in Orynth, girl, and you will pay.”
“Is that a threat?” Aedion snarled, a hand darting to grip the hilt of the Sword of Orynth sheathed at his side.
“It is the law,” Darrow said simply. “One generations of Galathynius rulers have honored.”
There was such a roaring in her head, and such a still emptiness in the world beyond.
“The Valg march on us—a Valg king marches on us,” Aedion pushed, the general incarnate. “And your queen, Darrow, might be the only person capable of keeping them at bay.”
“War is a game of numbers, not magic. You know this, Aedion. You fought at Theralis.” The great plain before Orynth, host to the final, doomed battle as the empire had swept down upon them. Most of Terrasen’s forces and commanders had not walked away from the bloodbath, so thorough streams ran red for days afterward. If Aedion had fought in it … Gods, he must have been barely fourteen. Her stomach turned. Darrow concluded, “Magic failed us once before. We will not trust in it again.”
Aedion snapped, “We will need allies—”
“There are no allies,” Darrow said. “Unless Her Highness decides to be useful and gain us men and arms through marriage”—a sharp glance at Rowan—“we are alone.”
Aelin debated revealing what she knew, the money she’d schemed and killed to attain, but—
Something cold and oily clanged through her. Marriage to a foreign king or prince or emperor.
Would this be the cost? Not just in blood shed, but in dreams yielded? To be a princess eternal, but never a queen? To fight with not just magic, but the other power in her blood: royalty.
She could not look at Rowan, could not face those pine-green eyes without being sick.
She had laughed once at Dorian—laughed and scolded him for admitting that the thought of marriage to anyone but his soul-bonded was abhorrent. She’d chided him for choosing love over the peace of his kingdom.
Perhaps the gods did hate her. Perhaps this was her test. To escape one form of enslavement only to walk into another. Perhaps this was the punishment for those years in Rifthold’s riches.
Darrow gave her a small, satisfied smile. “Find me allies, Aelin Galathynius, and perhaps we shall consider your role in Terrasen’s future. Think on it. Thank you for asking us to meet.”
Silently, Aelin rose to her feet. The others did as well. Save for Darrow.
Aelin plucked up the piece of paper he had signed and examined the damning words, the scribbled signatures. The crackling fire was the only sound.
Aelin silenced it.
And the candles. And the wrought-iron chandelier over the table.
Darkness fell, cleaved only by twin sharp inhales of breath—Murtaugh and Ren. The patter of rain filled the black room.
Aelin spoke into the dark, toward where Darrow was seated. “I suggest, Lord Darrow, that you become accustomed to this. For if we lose this war, darkness will reign forever.”
There was a scratch and a hiss—then a match sputtered as it lit a candle on the table. Darrow’s wrinkled, hateful face flickered into view. “Men can make their own light, Heir of Brannon.”
Aelin stared at the sole flame Darrow had sparked. The paper in her hands wilted into ashes.
Before she could speak, Darrow said, “That is our law—our right. You ignore that decree, Princess, and you defile all that your family stood and died for. The Lords of Terrasen have spoken.”
Rowan’s hand was solid against her lower back. But Aelin looked to Ren, his face tight. And over the roaring in her head, she said, “Whether or not you vote in my favor, there is a spot for you in this court. For what you helped Aed
ion and the captain do. For Nehemia.” Nehemia, who had worked with Ren, fought with him. Something like pain rippled in Ren’s eyes, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Darrow cut him off.
“What a waste of a life that was,” Darrow spat. “A princess actually dedicated to her people, who fought until her last breath for—”
“One more word,” Rowan said softly, “and I don’t care how many lords support you or what your laws are. One more word about that, and I will gut you before you can get up from that chair. Understand?”
For the first time, Darrow looked into Rowan’s eyes and blanched at the death he found waiting there. But the lord’s words had found their mark, leaving a shuddering sort of numbness in their wake.
Aedion snatched Aelin’s dagger off the table. “We’ll take your thoughts into consideration.” He scooped up his shield and put a hand on Aelin’s shoulder to guide her from the room. It was only the sight of that dented and scarred shield, the ancient sword hanging at his side, that set her feet moving, slicing through that thick numbness.
Ren moved to open the door, stepping into the hall beyond to scan it, giving Lysandra a wide berth as she padded past, Evangeline and Fleetfoot on her fluffy tail, secrecy be damned.
Aelin met the young lord’s eyes and drew in breath to say something, when Lysandra snarled down the hall.
A dagger was instantly in Aelin’s hand, angled and ready.
But it was Darrow’s messenger, hurtling for them.
“Rifthold,” he panted as he skidded to a stop, flinging rain on them. “One of the scouts from the Ferian Gap just raced past. The Ironteeth host flies for Rifthold. They mean to sack the city.”
Aelin stood in a clearing just past the inn’s glow, the cold rain plastering her hair and raising bumps on her skin. Soaking them all, because Rowan now buckled on the extra blades she handed him, conserving each drop of his magic for what he was about to do.
They’d let the messenger spill the information he’d received—not much at all.
The Ironteeth host lingering in the Ferian Gap were now flying for Rifthold. Dorian Havilliard would be their target. Dead or alive.