Текст книги "Queen of Shadows"

Автор книги: Sarah J. Maas

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

Until the Shadow Market had burned to cinders, that miserable merchant there had been making a small fortune off all the bricks of dye she’d kept buying. Aelin winced at the thought of having to track down the vendor again—the woman had seemed the sort who would have escaped the flames. And would now charge double, triple, on her already overpriced dyes to make up for her lost goods. And since Lorcan could track her by scent alone, changing the color of her hair would have no impact on him. Though she supposed that with the king’s guard on the lookout for her … Oh, it was too damn early to consider the giant pile of horseshit that had become her life.

Groggy, she made tea mostly by muscle memory. She started on toast, and prayed they had eggs left in the cooling box—they did. And bacon, to her delight. In this house, food tended to vanish as soon as it came in.

One of the biggest pigs of all approached the kitchen on immortal-silent feet. She braced herself as, arms full of food, she nudged the small cooling box shut with a hip.

Aedion eyed her warily while she went to the small counter beside the stove and began pulling down bowls and utensils. “There are mushrooms somewhere,” he said.

“Good. Then you can clean and cut them. And you get to chop the onion.”

“Is that punishment for last night?”

She cracked the eggs one by one into a bowl. “If that’s what you think is an acceptable punishment, sure.”

“And is making breakfast at this ungodly hour your self-imposed punishment?”

“I’m making breakfast because I’m sick of you burning it and making the whole house smell.”

Aedion laughed quietly and came up beside her to begin slicing the onion.

“You stayed on the roof the whole time you were out, didn’t you?” She yanked an iron skillet from the rack over the stove, set it on a burner, and chucked a thick pat of butter onto its dark surface.

“You kicked me out of the apartment, but not the warehouse, so I figured I might as well make myself useful and take watch.” The twisty, bendy Old Ways manner of warping orders. She wondered what the Old Ways had to say about queenly propriety.

She grabbed a wooden spoon and pushed the melting butter around a bit. “We both have atrocious tempers. You know I didn’t mean what I said, about the loyalty thing. Or about the half-human thing. You know none of that matters to me.” Gavriel’s son—holy gods. But she would keep her mouth shut about it until Aedion felt like broaching the subject.

“Aelin, I’m ashamed of what I said to you.”

“Well, that makes two of us, so let’s leave it at that.” She whisked the eggs, keeping an eye on the butter. “I—I understand, Aedion, I really do, about the blood oath. I knew what it meant to you. I made a mistake not telling you. I don’t normally admit to that kind of thing, but … I should have told you. And I’m sorry.”

He sniffed at the onions, his expert slicing leaving a neat heap of them on one end of the cutting board, and then started on the small brown mushrooms. “That oath meant everything to me. Ren and I used to be at each other’s throats because of it when we were children. His father hated me because I was the one favored to take it.”

She took the onions from him and chucked them into the butter, sizzling filling the kitchen. “There’s nothing that says you can’t take the oath, you know. Maeve has several blood-sworn members in her court.” Who were now making Aelin’s life a living hell. “You can take it, and so can Ren—only if you want to, but … I won’t be upset if you don’t want to.”

“In Terrasen, there was only one.”

She stirred the onions. “Things change. New traditions for a new court. You can swear it right now if you wish.”

Aedion finished the mushrooms and set down the knife as he leaned against the counter. “Not now. Not until I see you crowned. Not until we can be in front of a crowd, in front of the world.”

She dumped in the mushrooms. “You’re even more dramatic than I am.”

Aedion snorted. “Hurry up with the eggs. I’m going to die of starvation.”

“Make the bacon, or you don’t get to eat any.”

Aedion could hardly move fast enough.

30

There was a room deep below the stone castle that the demon lurking inside him liked to visit.

The demon prince even let him out sometimes, through the eyes that might have once been his.

It was a room cloaked in endless night. Or maybe the darkness was from the demon.

But they could see; they had always been able to see in the blackness. Where the demon prince had come from, so little light existed that it had learned to hunt in the shadows.

There were pedestals arranged in the round room in an elegant curve, each topped with a black pillow. And on each pillow sat a crown.

Kept down here like trophies—kept in darkness. Like him.

A secret room.

The prince stood in the center of it, surveying the crowns.

The demon had taken control of the body completely. He’d let him, after that woman with the familiar eyes had failed to kill him.

He waited for the demon to leave the room, but the demon prince spoke instead. A hissing, cold voice that came from between the stars, speaking to him—only to him.

The crowns of the conquered nations, the demon prince said. More will be added soon. Perhaps the crowns of other worlds, too.

He did not care.

You should care—you will enjoy it as we rip the realms to shreds.

He backed away, tried to retreat into a pocket of darkness where even the demon prince couldn’t find him.

The demon laughed. Spineless human. No wonder she lost her head.

He tried to shut out the voice.

Tried to.

He wished that woman had killed him.

31

Manon stormed into Perrington’s massive war tent, shoving aside the heavy canvas flap so violently that her iron nails slashed through the material. “Why are my Thirteen being denied access to the Yellowlegs coven? Explain. Now.”

As the last word snapped out of her, Manon stopped dead.

Standing in the center of the dim tent, the duke whirled toward her, his face dark—and, Manon had to admit with a thrill, a bit terrifying. “Get out,” he said, his eyes flaring like embers.

But Manon’s attention was fixed on what—who—stood beyond the duke.

Manon stepped forward, even as the duke advanced on her.

Her black, filmy dress like woven night, Kaltain was facing a kneeling, trembling young soldier, her pale hand outstretched toward his contorted face.

And all over her, an unholy aura of dark fire burned.

“What is that?” Manon said.

“Out,” the duke barked, and actually had the nerve to lunge for Manon’s arm. She swiped with her iron nails, sidestepping the duke without so much as glancing at him. All her focus, every pore of her, was pinned on the dark-haired lady.

The young soldier—one of Perrington’s own—was silently sobbing as tendrils of that black fire floated from Kaltain’s fingertips and slithered over his skin, leaving no marks. The human turned pain-filled gray eyes to Manon. Please, he mouthed.

The duke snatched for Manon again, and she darted past him. “Explain this.”

“You do not give orders, Wing Leader,” the duke snapped. “Now get out.”

“What is that?” Manon repeated.

The duke surged for her, but then a silken female voice breathed, “Shadowfire.”

Perrington froze, as if surprised she had spoken.

“Where does this shadowfire come from?” Manon demanded. The woman was so small, so thin. The dress was barely more than cobwebs and shadows. It was cold in the mountain camp, even for Manon. Had she refused a cloak, or did they just not care? Or perhaps, with this fire … Perhaps she did not need one at all.

“From me,” Kaltain said, in a voice that was dead and hollow and yet vicious. “It has always been there—asleep. And now it has been awoken. Shaped anew.”

“What does it do?” Manon said. The duke had stopped to observe the young woman, like he was figuring out some sort of puzzle, like he was waiting for something else.

Kaltain smiled faintly at the soldier shaking on the ornate red carpet, his golden-brown hair shimmering in the light of the dimmed lantern above him. “It does this,” she whispered, and curled her delicate fingers.

The shadowfire shot from her hand and wrapped around the soldier like a second skin.

He opened his mouth in a silent scream—convulsing and thrashing, tipping his head back to the ceiling of the tent and sobbing in quiet, unheard agony.

But no burns marred his skin. As if the shadowfire summoned only pain, as if it tricked the body into thinking it was being incinerated.

Manon didn’t take her eyes away from the man spasming on the carpet, tears of blood now leaking from his eyes, his nose, his ears. Quietly she asked the duke, “Why are you torturing him? Is he a rebel spy?”

Now the duke approached Kaltain, peering at her blank, beautiful face. Her eyes were wholly fixed on the young man, enthralled. She spoke again. “No. Just a simple man.” No inflection, no sign of empathy.

“Enough,” the duke said, and the fire vanished from Kaltain’s hand. The young man sagged on the carpet, panting and weeping. The duke pointed to the curtains in the back of the tent, which no doubt concealed a sleeping area. “Lie down.”

Like a doll, like a ghost, Kaltain turned, that midnight gown swirling with her, and stalked toward the heavy red curtains, slipping through them as if she were no more than mist.

The duke walked over to the young man and knelt before him on the ground. The captive lifted his head, blood and tears mingling on his face. But the duke’s eyes met Manon’s as he put his massive hands on either side of his soldier’s face.

And snapped his neck.

The death-crunch shuddered through Manon like the twanging of a harp. Normally, she would have chuckled.

But for a heartbeat she felt warm, sticky blue blood on her hands, felt the hilt of her knife imprinted against her palm as she gripped it hard and slashed it across the throat of that Crochan.

The soldier slumped to the carpet as the duke rose. “What is it that you want, Blackbeak?”

Like the Crochan’s death, this had been a warning. Keep her mouth shut.

But she planned to write to her grandmother. Planned to tell her everything that had happened: this, and that the Yellowlegs coven hadn’t been seen or heard from since entering the chamber beneath the Keep. The Matron would fly down here and start shredding spines.

“I want to know why we have been blocked from the Yellowlegs coven. They are under my jurisdiction, and as such, I have the right to see them.”

“It was successful; that’s all you need to know.”

“You’re to tell your guards immediately to grant me and mine permission to enter.” Indeed, dozens of guards had blocked her path—and short of killing her way through, Manon had no way in.

“You choose to ignore my orders. Why should I follow yours, Wing Leader?”

“You won’t have a gods-damned army to ride those wyverns if you lock them all up for your breeding experiments.”

They were warriors—they were Ironteeth witches. They weren’t chattel to be bred. They weren’t to be experimented upon. Her grandmother would slaughter him.

The duke merely shrugged. “I told you I wanted Blackbeaks. You refused to give them to me.”

“Is this punishment?” The words snapped out of her. The Yellowlegs were still Ironteeth, after all. Still under her command.

“Oh, no. Not at all. But if you disobey my orders again, the next time, it might be.” He cocked his head, and the light gilded his dark eyes. “There are princes, you know—among the Valg. Powerful, cunning princes, capable of splattering people on walls. They’ve been very keen to test themselves against your kind. Perhaps they’ll pay a visit to your barracks. See who survives the night. It’d be a good way to weed out the lesser witches. I have no use for weak soldiers in my armies, even if it decreases your numbers.”

For a moment, there was a roaring silence in her head. A threat.

A threat from this human, this man who had lived but a fraction of her existence, this mortal beast—

Careful, a voice said in her head. Proceed with cunning.

So Manon allowed herself to nod slightly in acquiescence, and asked, “And what of your other … activities? What goes on beneath the mountains circling this valley?”

The duke studied her, and she met his gaze, met every inch of blackness within it. And found something slithering inside that had no place in this world. At last he said, “You do not wish to learn what is being bred and forged under those mountains, Blackbeak. Don’t bother sending your scouts in. They won’t see daylight again. Consider yourself warned.”

The human worm clearly didn’t know precisely how skilled her Shadows were, but she wasn’t about to correct him, not when it could be used to her advantage one day. Yet whatever did go on inside those mountains wasn’t her concern—not with the Yellowlegs and the rest of the legion to deal with. Manon jerked her chin toward the dead soldier. “What do you plan to use this shadowfire for? Torture?”

A flash of ire at yet another question. The duke said tightly, “I have not yet decided. For now, she will experiment like this. Perhaps later, she will learn to incinerate the armies of our enemies.”

A flame that did not leave burns—loosed upon thousands. It would be glorious, even if it was grotesque. “And are there armies of enemies gathering? Will you use this shadowfire on them?”

The duke again cocked his head, the scars on his face thrown into stark contrast in the dim lantern light. “Your grandmother didn’t tell you, then.”

“About what?” she bit out.

The duke strode toward the curtained-off part of the room. “About the weapons she has been making for me—for you.”

“What weapons?” She didn’t bother wasting time with tactical silence.

The duke just grinned at her as he disappeared, the curtains swinging enough to reveal Kaltain lying on a low bed covered in furs, her thin, pale arms at her sides, her eyes open and unseeing. A shell. A weapon.

Two weapons—Kaltain, and whatever her grandmother was making.

That was why the Matron had stayed in the Fangs with the other High Witches.

If the three of them were combining their knowledge, wisdom, and cruelty to develop a weapon to use against the mortal armies …

A shiver skidded down Manon’s spine as she glanced once more at the broken human on the rug.

Whatever this new weapon was, whatever the three High Witches came up with …

The humans wouldn’t stand a chance.

“I want you all spreading the word to the other covens. I want sentinels on constant surveillance at the entrances to the barracks. Three-hour watch rotations, no longer—we don’t need anyone passing out and letting the enemy slip in. I’ve dispatched a letter to the Matron already.”

Elide awoke with a jolt inside the aerie, warm and rested and not daring to breathe. It was still dark, but the moonlight was gone, dawn far off. And in the blackness, she could faintly make out the gleam of snow-white hair and the flicker of a few sets of iron teeth and nails. Oh, gods.

She’d planned to sleep for only an hour. She must have slept for at least four. Abraxos didn’t move behind her, his wing still shielding her.

Since that encounter with Asterin and Manon, every hour, waking or sleeping, had been a nightmare for Elide, and even days afterward she caught herself holding her breath at odd moments, when the shadow of the fear gripped her by the throat. The witches hadn’t bothered with her, even though she’d claimed her blood ran blue. But neither had Vernon.

But tonight … she’d been limping back to her room, the stairwell dark and quiet—too quiet, even with the scraping of her chains on the floor. And by her door, a pocket of utter silence, as if even the dust mites had held their breath. Someone was inside her room. Waiting for her.

So she’d kept walking, all the way to the moonlit aerie, where her uncle wouldn’t dare go. The wyverns of the Thirteen had been curled up on the floor like cats or perched on their posts over the drop. To her left, Abraxos had watched her from where he’d sprawled on his belly, his depthless eyes wide, unblinking. When she’d come close enough to smell the carrion on his breath, she’d said, “I need somewhere to sleep. Just for tonight.”

His tail moved slightly, the iron spikes clinking on the stones. Wagging. Like a dog—sleepy, but pleased to see her. There was no growl to be heard, no glint of iron teeth readying to gulp her down in two bites. She would rather be gobbled down than face whoever had been in her room.

Elide had slid down against the wall, tucking her hands under her armpits and curling her knees to her chest. Her teeth began clacking against each other, and she curled tighter. It was so cold in here that her breath clouded in front of her.

Hay crunched, and Abraxos sidled closer.

Elide had tensed—might have sprung to her feet and bolted. The wyvern had extended one wing toward her as if in invitation. To sit beside him.

“Please don’t eat me,” she’d whispered.

He’d huffed, as if to say, You wouldn’t be much of a mouthful.

Shivering, Elide rose. He seemed bigger with every step. But that wing remained extended, as if she were the animal in need of calming.

As she reached his side, she could hardly breathe as she extended a hand and stroked the curving, scaly hide. It was surprisingly soft, like worn leather. And toasty, as if he were a furnace. Carefully, aware of the head he angled to watch her every move, she sat down against him, her back instantly warmed.

That wing had gracefully lowered, folding down until it became a wall of warm membrane between her and the chill wind. She’d leaned farther into his softness and delightful heat, letting it sink into her bones.

She hadn’t even realized that she’d tumbled into sleep. And now … they were here.

Abraxos’s reek must be concealing her own human scent, or else the Wing Leader would have found her by now. Abraxos kept still enough that she wondered if he knew that, too.

The voices moved toward the center of the aerie, and Elide gauged the distance between Abraxos and the door. Perhaps she could slip away before they noticed—

“Keep it quiet; keep it secret. If anyone reveals our defenses, they die at my hand.”

“As you will it,” Sorrel said.

Asterin said, “Do we tell the Yellowlegs and Bluebloods?”

“No,” Manon said, her voice like death and bloodshed. “Blackbeaks only.”

“Even if another coven winds up volunteering for the next round?” Asterin said.

Manon gave a snarl that made the hair on Elide’s neck rise. “We can only tug so much at the leash.”

“Leashes can snap,” Asterin challenged.

“So can your neck,” Manon said.

Now—now, while they were fighting. Abraxos remained unmoving, as if not daring to draw attention to himself while Elide prepared to hurry out. But the chains … Elide sat back down and carefully, slowly, lifted her foot just a little off the floor, holding the chains so they wouldn’t drag. With one foot and one hand, she began pushing herself across the stones, sliding for the door.

“This shadowfire,” Sorrel mused, as if trying to diffuse the brewing storm between the Wing Leader and her cousin. “Will he use it on us?”

“He seemed inclined to think it could be used on entire armies. I wouldn’t put it past him to hold it over our heads.”

Closer and closer, Elide edged for the open doorway.

She was almost there when Manon crooned, “If you had any backbone, Elide, you would have stayed beside Abraxos until we left.”

32

Manon had spotted Elide sleeping against Abraxos the moment they’d entered the aerie, and she’d become aware of her presence moments before that—tracking her from scent alone up the stairs. If Asterin and Sorrel had noticed, they made no comment.

The servant girl was sitting on her ass, almost to the doorway, one foot in the air to keep her chains from dragging. Smart, even if she’d been too stupid to realize how well they saw in the dark.

“There was someone in my room,” Elide said, lowering her foot and standing.

Asterin stiffened. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” Elide said, keeping near the doorway, even if it would do her no good. “It didn’t seem wise to go inside.”

Abraxos had tensed, his tail shifting over the stones. The useless beast was worried for the girl. Manon narrowed her eyes at him. “Isn’t your kind supposed to eat young women?”

He glared at her.

Elide held her ground as Manon prowled closer. And Manon, despite herself, was impressed. She looked at the girl—really looked at her.

A girl who was not afraid to sleep against a wyvern, who had enough common sense to tell when danger might be approaching … Perhaps that blood really did run blue.

“There is a chamber beneath this castle,” Manon said, and Asterin and Sorrel fell into rank behind her. “Inside it is a coven of Yellowlegs witches, all taken by the duke to … create demon offspring. I want you to get into that chamber. I want you to tell me what’s happening in there.”

The human went pale as death. “I can’t.”

“You can, and you will,” Manon said. “You’re mine now.” She felt Asterin’s attention on her—the disapproval and surprise. Manon went on, “You find a way into that chamber, you give me the details, you keep quiet about what you learn, and you live. If you betray me, if you tell anyone … then we’ll toast to you at your wedding party to a handsome Valg husband, I suppose.”

The girl’s hands were shaking. Manon smacked them down to her sides. “We do not tolerate cowards in the Blackbeak ranks,” she hissed. “Or did you think your protection was free?” Manon pointed to the door. “You’re to stay in my chambers if your own are compromised. Go wait at the bottom of the stairs.”

Elide glanced behind Manon to her Second and Third, as if she was considering begging them to help. But Manon knew that their faces were stony and unyielding. Elide’s terror was a tang in Manon’s nose as she limped away. It took her far too long to get down the stairs, that wasted leg of hers slowing her to a crone’s pace. Once she was at the bottom, Manon turned to Sorrel and Asterin.

“She could go to the duke,” Sorrel said. As Second, she had the right to make that remark—to think through all threats to the heir.

“She’s not that ruthless.”

Asterin clicked her tongue. “That was why you spoke, knowing she was here.”

Manon didn’t bother nodding.

“If she’s caught?” Asterin asked. Sorrel glanced sharply at her. Manon didn’t feel like reprimanding. It was on Sorrel to sort out the dominance between them now.

“If she’s caught, then we’ll find another way.”

“And you have no qualms about them killing her? Or using that shadowfire on her?”

“Stand down, Asterin,” Sorrel ground out.

Asterin did no such thing. “You should be asking these questions, Second.”

Sorrel’s iron teeth snapped down. “It is because of your questioning that you’re now Third.”

“Enough,” Manon said. “Elide is the only one who might get into that chamber and report. The duke has his grunts under orders not to let a single witch near. Even the Shadows can’t get close enough. But a servant girl, cleaning up whatever mess …”

“You were the one waiting in her room,” Asterin said.

“A dose of fear goes a long way in humans.”

“Is she human, though?” Sorrel asked. “Or do we count her among us?”

“It makes no difference if she’s human or witch-kind. I’d send whoever was the most qualified down into those chambers, and at this moment, only Elide can gain access to them.”

Cunning—that was how she would get around the duke, with his schemes and his weapons. She might work for his king, but she would not tolerate being left ignorant.

“I need to know what’s happening in those chambers,” Manon said. “If we lose one life to do that, then so be it.”

“And what then?” Asterin asked, despite Sorrel’s warning. “Once you learn, what then?”

Manon hadn’t decided. Again, that phantom blood coated her hands.

Follow orders—or else she and the Thirteen would be executed. Either by her grandmother or by the duke. After her grandmother read her letter, maybe it would be different. But until then—

“Then we continue as we’ve been commanded,” Manon said. “But I will not be led into this with a blindfold over my eyes.”

Spy.

A spy for the Wing Leader.

Elide supposed it was no different than being a spy for herself—for her own freedom.

But learning about the supply wagons’ arrival and trying to get into that chamber while also going about her duties … Maybe she would get lucky. Maybe she could do both.

Manon had a pallet of hay brought up to her room, setting it near the fire to warm Elide’s mortal bones, she’d said. Elide hardly slept that first night in the witch’s tower. When she stood to use the privy, convinced that the witch was asleep, she’d made it two steps before Manon had said, “Going somewhere?”

Gods, her voice. Like a snake hidden up a tree.

She’d stammered out an explanation about needing the bathing room. When Manon hadn’t replied, Elide had stumbled out. She’d returned to find the witch asleep—or at least her eyes were closed.

Manon slept naked. Even with the chill. Her white hair cascaded down her back, and there wasn’t a part of the witch that didn’t seem lean with muscle or flecked with faint scarring. No part that wasn’t a reminder of what Manon would do to her if she failed.

Three days later, Elide made her move. The exhaustion that had tugged relentlessly on her vanished as she clutched the armful of linens she’d taken from the laundry and peered down the hallway.

Four guards stood at the door to the stairwell.

It had taken her three days of helping in the laundry, three days of chatting up the laundresses, to learn if linens were ever needed in the chamber at the bottom of those stairs.

No one wanted to talk to her the first two days. They just eyed her and told her where to haul things or when to singe her hands or what to scrub until her back hurt. But yesterday—yesterday she had seen the torn, blood-soaked clothes come in.

Blue blood, not red.

Witch-blood.

Elide kept her head down, working on the soldiers’ shirts she’d been given once she’d proved her skill with a needle. But she noted which laundresses intercepted the clothes. And then she kept working through the hours it took to clean and dry and press them, staying later than most of the others. Waiting.

She was nobody and nothing and belonged to no one—but if she let Manon and the Blackbeaks think she accepted their claim on her, she might very well still get free once those wagons arrived. The Blackbeaks didn’t care about her—not really. Her heritage was convenient for them. She doubted they would notice when she vanished. She’d been a ghost for years now, anyway, her heart full of the forgotten dead.

So she worked, and waited.

Even when her back was aching, even when her hands were so sore they shook, she marked the laundress who hauled the pressed clothes out of the chamber and vanished.

Elide memorized every detail of her face, of her build and height. No one noticed when she slipped out after her, carrying an armful of linens for the Wing Leader. No one stopped her as she trailed the laundress down hall after hall until she reached this spot.

Elide peered down the hall again just as the laundress came up out of the stairwell, arms empty, face drawn and bloodless.

The guards didn’t stop her. Good.

The laundress turned down another hall, and Elide loosed the breath she’d been holding.

Turning toward Manon’s tower, she silently thought through her plan over and over.

If she was caught …

Perhaps she should throw herself from one of the balconies rather than face one of the dozens of awful deaths awaiting her.

No—no, she would endure. She had survived when so many—nearly everyone she’d loved—had not. When her kingdom had not. So she would survive for them, and when she left, she would build herself a new life far away in their honor.

Elide hobbled up a winding stairwell. Gods, she hated stairs.

She was about halfway up when she heard a man’s voice that stopped her cold.

“The duke said you spoke—why will you not say a word to me?”

Vernon.

Silence greeted him.

Back down the stairs—she should go right back down the stairs.

“So beautiful,” her uncle murmured to whomever it was. “Like a moonless night.”

Elide’s mouth went dry at the tone in his voice.

“Perhaps it’s fate that we ran into each other here. He watches you so closely.” Vernon paused. “Together,” he said quietly, reverently. “Together, we shall create wonders that will make the world tremble.”

Such dark, intimate words, filled with such … entitlement. She didn’t want to know what he meant.

Elide took as silent a step as she could down the stairs. She had to get away.

“Kaltain,” her uncle rumbled, a demand and a threat and a promise.

The silent young woman—the one who never spoke, who never looked at anything, who had such marks on her. Elide had seen her only a few times. Had seen how little she responded. Or fought back.

And then Elide was walking up the stairs.

Up and up, making sure her chains clanked as loudly as possible. Her uncle fell silent.

She rounded the next landing, and there they were.

Kaltain had been shoved up against the wall, the neck of that too-flimsy gown tugged to the side, her breast nearly out. There was such emptiness on her face—as if she weren’t even there at all. Vernon stood a few paces away. Elide clutched her linens so hard she thought she’d shred them. Wished she had those iron nails, for once.

“Lady Kaltain,” she said to the young woman, barely a few years older than she.

She did not expect her own rage. Did not expect herself to go on to say, “I was sent to find you, Lady. This way, please.”

“Who sent for her?” Vernon demanded.

Elide met his gaze. And did not bow her head. Not an inch. “The Wing Leader.”

“The Wing Leader isn’t authorized to meet with her.”

“And you are?” Elide set herself between them, though it would do no good should her uncle decide to use force.

Vernon smiled. “I was wondering when you’d show your fangs, Elide. Or should I say your iron teeth?”

He knew, then.

Elide stared him down and put a light hand on Kaltain’s arm. She was as cold as ice.

She didn’t even look at Elide.

“If you’d be so kind, Lady,” Elide said, tugging on that arm, clutching the laundry with her other hand. Kaltain mutely started into a walk.