The fortress had not been this tense since that first night Maeve had been here.
It was too soon for her aunt to be checking on her. She had little to show so far other than a few somewhat useful tricks and her various shields.
She took the stairs two at a time until she reached the kitchen. If Maeve learned about the invasion and ordered Rowan to leave . . . Breathing, thinking—those were the key tools to enduring this encounter.
The heat and yeasty scent hit her as she bounded down the last steps, slowing her gait, lifting her chin, even though she doubted her aunt would condescend to meet in the kitchen. Unless she wanted her unbalanced. But—
But Maeve was not in the kitchen.
Rowan was, and his back was to her as he stood at the other end with Emrys, Malakai, and Luca, talking quietly. Celaena stopped dead as she beheld at Emrys’s too pale face, the hand gripping Malakai’s arm.
As Rowan turned to her, lips thin and eyes wide with—with shock and horror and grief—the world stopped dead, too.
Rowan’s arms hung slack at his sides, his fingers clenching and unclenching. For a heartbeat, she wondered if she went back upstairs, whatever he had to say would not be true.
Rowan took a step toward her—one step, and that was all it took before she began shaking her head, before she lifted her hands in front of her as if to push him away. “Please,” she said, and her voice broke. “Please.”
Rowan kept approaching, the bearer of some inescapable doom. And she knew that she could not outrun it, and could not fall on her knees and beg for it to be undone.
Rowan stopped within reach but did not touch her, his features hardening again—not from cruelty. Because he knew, she realized, that one of them would have to hold it together. He needed to be calm—needed to keep his wits about him for this.
Rowan swallowed once. Twice. “There was . . . there was an uprising at the Calaculla labor camp,” he said.
Her heart stumbled on a beat.
“After Princess Nehemia was assassinated, they say a slave girl killed her overseer and sparked an uprising. The slaves seized the camp.” He took a shallow breath. “The King of Adarlan sent two legions to get the slaves under control. And they killed them all.”
“The slaves killed his legions?” A push of breath. There were thousands of slaves in Calaculla—all of them together would be a mighty force, even for two of Adarlan’s legions.
With horrific gentleness, Rowan grasped her hand. “No. The soldiers killed every slave in Calaculla.”
A crack in the world, through which a keening wail pushed in like a wave. “There are thousands of people enslaved in Calaculla.”
The resolve in Rowan’s countenance splintered as he nodded. And when he opened and closed his mouth, she realized it was not over. The only word she could breathe was “Endovier?” It was a fool’s plea.
Slowly, so slowly, Rowan shook his head. “Once he got word of the uprising in Eyllwe, the King of Adarlan sent two other legions north. None were spared in Endovier.”
She did not see Rowan’s face when he gripped her arms as if he could keep her from falling into the abyss. No, all she could see were the slaves she’d left behind, the ashy mountains and those mass graves they dug every day, the faces of her people, who had worked beside her—her people whom she had left behind. Whom she had let herself forget, had let suffer; who had prayed for salvation, holding out hope that someone, anyone would remember them.
She had abandoned them—and she had been too late.
Nehemia’s people, the people of other kingdoms, and—and her people. The people of Terrasen. The people her father and mother and court had loved so fiercely. There had been rebels in Endovier—rebels who fought for her kingdom when she . . . when she had been . . .
There were children in Endovier. In Calaculla.
She had not protected them.
The kitchen walls and ceiling crushed her, the air too thin, too hot. Rowan’s face swam as she panted, panted, faster and faster—
He murmured her name too softly for the others to hear.
And the sound of it, that name that had once been a promise to the world, the name she had spat on and defiled, the name she did not deserve . . .
She tore off his grip, and then she was walking out the kitchen door, across the courtyard, through the ward-stones, and along the invisible barrier—until she found a spot just out of sight of the fortress.
The world was full of screaming and wailing, so loud she drowned in it.
Celaena did not utter a sound as she unleashed her magic on the barrier, a blast that shook the trees and set the earth rumbling. She fed her power into the invisible wall, begging the ancient stones to take it, to use it. The wards, as if sensing her intent, devoured her power whole, absorbing every last ember until it flickered, hungry for more.
So she burned and burned and burned.
49
For weeks now, Chaol hadn’t had any contact with any of his friends—allies, whatever they had been. So, one last time, Chaol slipped into the rhythm of his old duties. Though it was more difficult than ever to oversee the king’s luncheons, though making his reports was an effort of will, he did it. He had heard nothing from Aedion or Ren, and still hadn’t yet asked Dorian to use his magic to test out their theories about the spell. He was starting to wonder if he was done playing his part in Aelin’s growing rebellion.
He’d gathered enough information, crossed enough lines. Perhaps it was time to learn what could be done from Anielle. He would be closer to Morath, and maybe he could uncover what the king was brewing down there. The king had accepted his plans to take up his mantle as heir to Anielle with hardly any objections. Soon, he was to present options for a replacement.
Chaol was currently standing guard at a state luncheon in the great hall, which Aedion and Dorian were both attending. The doors had been thrown open to welcome in the spring air, and Chaol’s men were standing at each one, weapons at the ready.
Everything was normal, everything was going smoothly, until the king stood, his black ring seeming to gobble up the midday sun streaming in through the towering windows. He lifted a goblet, and the room fell silent. Not in the way it did when Aedion spoke. Chaol hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what the general had said to him about choosing a side, or what Dorian had said about his refusal to accept Celaena and the prince for what they really were. Over and over again, he’d contemplated it.
But nothing could prepare Chaol, or anyone in that silent hall, as the king smiled to the tables below his dais and said, “Good news arrived this morning from Eyllwe and the north. The Calaculla slave rebellion has been dealt with.”
They’d heard nothing of it, and Chaol wished he could cover his ears as the king said, “We’ll have to work to replenish the mines, there and in Endovier, but the rebel taint has been purged.”
Chaol was glad he was leaning against a pillar. It was Dorian who spoke, his face bone-white. “What are you talking about?”
His father smiled at him. “Forgive me. It seems the slaves in Calaculla got it into their heads to start an uprising after Princess Nehemia’s unfortunate death. We got it into our heads not to allow it. Or any other potential uprisings. And as we didn’t have the resources to devote to interrogating each and every slave to weed out the traitors . . .”
Chaol understood what strength it took for Dorian not to shake his head in horror as he did the calculations and understood just how many people had been slaughtered.
“General Ashryver,” the king said. Aedion sat motionless. “You and your Bane will be pleased to know that since the purge in Endovier, many of the rebels in your territory have ceased their . . . antics. It seems they did not want a fate similar to that of their friends in the mines.”
Chaol didn’t know how Aedion found t
he courage and will, but the general smiled and bowed his head. “Thank you, Majesty.”
•
Dorian burst into Sorscha’s workroom. She jumped from her spot at the table, a hand on her chest. “Did you hear?” he asked, shutting the door behind him.
Her eyes were red enough to suggest that she had. He took her face in his hands, pressing his brow against hers, needing that cool strength. He didn’t know how he’d kept from weeping or vomiting or killing his father on the spot. But looking at her, breathing in her rosemary-and-mint scent, he knew why.
“I want you out of this castle,” he said. “I’ll give you the funds, but I want you away from here as soon as you can find a way to go without raising suspicion.”
She yanked out of his grasp. “Are you mad?”
No, he’d never seen anything more clearly. “If you stay, if we are caught . . . I will give you whatever money you need—”
“No money you could offer could convince me to leave.”
“I’ll tie you to a horse if I have to. I’m getting you out—”
“And who will look after you? Who will make your tonics? You’re not even talking to the captain anymore. How could I leave now?”
He gripped her shoulders. She had to understand—he had to make her understand. Her loyalty was one of the things he loved, but now . . . it would only get her killed. “He murdered thousands of people in one sweep. Imagine what he’ll do if he finds you’ve been helping me. There are worse things than death, Sorscha. Please—please, just go.”
Her fingers found his, entwining tight. “Come with me.”
“I can’t. It will get worse if I leave, if my brother is made heir. And I think . . . I know of some people who might be trying to stop him. If I am here, perhaps I can help them in some way.”
Oh, Chaol. He understood completely now why he had sent Celaena to Wendlyn—understood that his return to Anielle . . . Chaol had sold himself to get Celaena to safety.
“If you stay, I stay,” Sorscha said. “You cannot convince me otherwise.”
“Please,” he said, because he didn’t have it in him to yell, not with the deaths of those people hanging over him. “Please . . .”
But she brushed her thumb across his cheek. “Together. We’ll face this together.”
And it was selfish and horrible of him, but he put up no further argument.
•
Chaol went to the tomb for privacy, to mourn, to scream. But he was not alone.
Aedion was sitting on the steps of the spiral stairwell, his forearms braced on his knees. He didn’t turn as Chaol set down his candle and sat beside him.
“What do you suppose,” Aedion breathed, staring into the darkness, “the people on other continents, across all those seas, think of us? Do you think they hate us or pity us for what we do to each other? Perhaps it’s just as bad there. Perhaps it’s worse. But to do what I have to do, to get through it . . . I have to believe it’s better. Somewhere, it’s better than this.”
Chaol had no answer.
“I have . . .” Aedion’s teeth gleamed in the light. “I have been forced to do many, many things. Depraved, despicable things. Yet nothing made me feel as filthy as I did today, thanking that man for murdering my people.”
There was nothing he could say to console him, nothing he could promise. So Chaol left Aedion staring into the darkness.
•
There was not one empty seat in the Royal Theater that night. Every box and tier was crammed with nobility, merchants, whoever could afford the ticket. Jewels and silk gleamed in the light of the glass chandeliers, the riches of a conquering empire.
The news about the slave massacres had struck that afternoon, spreading through the city on a wave of murmuring, leaving only silence behind. The upper tiers of the theater were unusually still, as if the audience had come to be soothed, to let the music sweep away the stain of the news.
Only the boxes were full of chatter. About what this meant for the fortunes of those seated in the plush crimson velvet chairs, debates over where the new slaves would come from to ensure there was no pause in labor, and about how they should treat their own slaves afterward. Despite the chiming bells and the raising and dimming of the chandeliers, it took the boxes far longer to quiet than usual.
They were still talking when the red curtains pulled back to reveal the seated orchestra, and it was a miracle they bothered to applaud for the conductor as he hobbled across the stage.
That was when they noticed that every musician on the stage was wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And when the conductor raised his arms, it was not a symphony that filled the cavernous space.
It was the Song of Eyllwe.
Then the Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labor camps.
And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had become, they played the Song of Adarlan.
When the final note finished, the conductor turned to the crowd, the musicians standing with him. As one, they looked to the boxes, to all those jewels bought with the blood of a continent. And without a word, without a bow or another gesture, they walked off the stage.
The next morning, by royal decree, the theater was shut down.
No one saw those musicians or their conductor again.
50
A cooling breeze kissed down Celaena’s neck. The forest had gone silent, as if the birds and insects had been quieted by her assault on the invisible wall. The barrier had gobbled down every spark of magic she’d launched at it, and now seemed to hum with fresh power.
The scent of pine and snow wrapped around her, and she turned to find Rowan standing against a nearby tree. He’d been there for some time now, giving her space to work herself into exhaustion.
But she was not tired. And she was not done. There was still wildfire in her mind, writhing, endless, damning. She let it dim to embers, let the grief and horror die down, too.
Rowan said, “Word just arrived from Wendlyn. Reinforcements aren’t coming.”
“They didn’t come ten years ago,” she said, her throat raw though she had not spoken in hours. Cold, glittering calm was now flowing in her veins. “Why should they bother helping now?”
His eyes flickered. “Aelin.” When she only gazed into the darkening forest, he suddenly said, “You do not have to stay—we can go to Doranelle tonight, and you can retrieve your knowledge from Maeve. You have my blessing.”
“Do not insult me by asking me to leave. I am fighting. Nehemia would have stayed. My parents would have stayed.”
“They also had the luxury of knowing that their bloodline did not end with them.”
She gritted her teeth. “You have experience—you are needed here. You are the only person who can give the demi-Fae a chance of surviving; you are trusted and respected. So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to whatever end.” And if the creatures devoured her body and soul, then she would not mind. She had earned that fate.
For a long moment, he said nothing. But his brows narrowed slightly. “To whatever end?”
She nodded. He had not needed to mention the massacres, had not needed to try to console her. He knew—he understood without her having to say a word—what it was like.
Her magic thrummed in her blood, wanting out, wanting more. But it would wait—it had to wait until it was time. Until she had Narrok and his creatures in her sight.
She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, its long blade gleaming as if he’d been secretly polishing and caring for it these months.
And when she grasped the dagger, its weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of
her, and said, “Fireheart.”
•
Reinforcements from Wendlyn weren’t coming—not out of spite but because a legion of Adarlan’s men had attacked the northern border. Three thousand men in ships had launched a full-on assault. Wendlyn had sent every last soldier to the northern coast, and there they would remain. The demi-Fae were to face Narrok and his forces alone. Rowan calmly encouraged the nonfighters at the fortress to flee.
But no one fled. Even Emrys refused, and Malakai merely said that where his mate went, he went.
For hours, they adjusted their plans to accommodate the lack of reinforcements. In the end they didn’t have to change much, thankfully. Celaena contributed what she could to the planning, letting Rowan order everyone about and adjust the masterful strategy in that brilliant head of his. She tried not to think about Endovier and Calaculla, but the knowledge of it still simmered in her, brewing during the long hours that they debated.
They planned until Emrys hauled up a pot from the kitchen and began whacking it with a spoon, ordering them out because dawn would come too soon.
Within a minute of returning to their room, Celaena was undressed and flopping into bed. Rowan took his time, however, peeling off his shirt and striding to the washbasin. “You did well helping me plan tonight.”
She watched him wash his face, then his neck. “You sound surprised.”
He wiped his face with a towel, then leaned against the dresser, bracing his hands against either end. The wood groaned, but his face remained still.
Fireheart, he had called her. Did he know what that name meant to her? She wanted to ask, still had so many questions for him, but right now, after all the news of the day, she needed to sleep.
“I sent word,” Rowan said, letting go of the dresser and approaching the bed. She’d left the sword from the mountain cave on the bedpost, and its smoldering ruby now glinted in the dim light as he ran a finger down the golden hilt. “To my . . . cadre, as you like to call them.”