Текст книги "Queen of Shadows"

Автор книги: Sarah J. Maas

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

43

Aelin leaned back in her chair. Even Rowan was staring at her now, surprise and annoyance written on his face. Lysandra was doing a good job of feigning shock and confusion—even though it had been she who had fed Aelin the details, who had made her plan so much better and broader than it had been when Aelin scribbled it out on that ship.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a little smile.

“Oh?” Arobynn swirled his wine. “You mean to tell me that when you wrecked the Vaults beyond repair, it wasn’t a move against my investment in that property—and my monthly cut of their profits? Don’t pretend it was just vengeance for Sam.”

“The king’s men showed up. I had no choice but to fight for my life.” After she’d led them directly from the docks to the pleasure hall, of course.

“And I suppose it was an accident that the lockbox was hacked open so its contents could be snatched up by the crowd.”

It had worked—worked so spectacularly that she was surprised Arobynn had lasted this long without going for her throat.

“You know how those lowlifes get. A little chaos, and they turn into animals foaming at the mouth.”

Lysandra cringed; a stellar performance of a woman witnessing a betrayal.

“Indeed,” Arobynn said. “But especially the lowlifes at establishments from which I receive a handsome monthly sum, correct?”

“So you invited me and my friends here tonight to fling accusations at me? Here I was, thinking I’d become your personal Valg hunter.”

“You deliberately disguised yourself as Hinsol Cormac, one of my most loyal clients and investors, when you freed your cousin,” Arobynn snapped. Aedion’s eyes widened slightly. “I could dismiss it as coincidence, except a witness says he called out Cormac’s name at the prince’s party, and Cormac waved to him. The witness told the king that, too—that he saw Cormac heading toward Aedion right before the explosions happened. And what a coincidence that the very day Aedion disappeared, two carriages, belonging to a business that Cormac and I own together, went missing—carriages Cormac then told all my clients and partners that I used to get Aedion to safety when I freed the general that day by impersonating him, because I, apparently, have become a gods-damned rebel sympathizer strutting about town at all hours of the day.”

She dared a look at Rowan, whose face remained carefully blank, but saw the words there anyway. You wicked, clever fox.

And here you were, thinking the red hair was just for vanity.

I shall never doubt again.

She turned to Arobynn. “I can’t help it if your prissy clients turn on you at the slightest hint of danger.”

“Cormac has fled the city, and continues to drag my name through the mud. It’s a miracle the king hasn’t come to haul me to his castle.”

“If you’re worried about losing money, you could always sell the house, I suppose. Or stop using Lysandra’s services.”

Arobynn hissed, and Rowan and Aedion reached casually under the table for their hidden weapons. “What will it take, dearest, for you to stop being such a raging pain in my ass?”

There they were. The words she’d wanted to hear, the reason she’d been so careful not to wreck him altogether but merely to annoy him just enough.

She picked at her nails. “A few things, I think.”

The sitting room was oversized and made to entertain parties of twenty or thirty, with couches and chairs and chaises spread throughout. Aelin lounged in an armchair before the fire, Arobynn across from her, fury still dancing in his eyes.

She could feel Rowan and Aedion in the hall outside, monitoring every word, every breath. She wondered whether Arobynn knew they’d disobeyed his command to remain in the dining room; she doubted it. They were stealthier than ghost leopards, those two. But she didn’t want them in here, either—not until she’d done what she needed to do.

She crossed one leg over the other, revealing the simple black velvet shoes she wore, and her bare legs.

“So all of this was punishment—for a crime I didn’t commit,” Arobynn said at last.

She ran a finger down the rolled arm of the chair. “First thing, Arobynn: let’s not bother with lies.”

“I suppose you’ve told your friends the truth?”

“My court knows everything there is to know about me. And they know everything you’ve done, too.”

“Casting yourself as the victim, are you? You’re forgetting that it didn’t take much encouragement to put those knives in your hands.”

“I am what I am. But it doesn’t erase the fact that you knew very well who I was when you found me. You took my family necklace off me, and told me that anyone who came looking for me would wind up killed by my enemies.” She didn’t dare let her breathing hitch, didn’t let him consider the words too much as she plowed ahead. “You wanted to shape me into your own weapon—why?”

“Why not? I was young and angry, and my kingdom had just been conquered by that bastard king. I believed I could give you the tools you needed to survive, to someday defeat him. That is why you’ve come back, isn’t it? I’m surprised you and the captain haven’t killed him yet—isn’t that what he wants, why he tried to work with me? Or are you claiming that kill for yourself?”

“You honestly expect me to believe that your end goal was to have me avenge my family and reclaim my throne.”

“Who would you have become without me? Some pampered, quaking princess. Your beloved cousin would have locked you up in a tower and thrown away the key. I gave you your freedom—I gave you the ability to bring down men like Aedion Ashryver with a few blows. And all I get for it is contempt.”

She clenched her fingers, feeling the weight of the pebbles she’d carried that morning to Sam’s grave.

“So what else do you have in store for me, O Mighty Queen? Shall I save you the trouble and tell you how else you might continue to be a thorn in my side?”

“You know the debt isn’t anywhere near paid.”

“Debt? For what? For trying to free you from Endovier? And when that didn’t work, I did the best I could. I bribed those guards and officials with money from my own coffers so that they wouldn’t hurt you beyond repair. All the while, I tried to find ways to get you out—for a year straight.”

Lies and truth, as he’d always taught her. Yes, he’d bribed the officials and guards to ensure she would still be functioning when he eventually freed her. But Wesley’s letter had explained in detail just how little effort Arobynn had put forth once it became clear she was headed for Endovier. How he’d adjusted his plans—embracing the idea of her spirit being broken by the mines.

“And what about Sam?” she breathed.

“Sam was murdered by a sadist, whom my useless bodyguard got it into his head to kill. You know I couldn’t allow that to go unpunished, not when we needed the new Crime Lord to continue working with us.”

Truth and lies, lies and truth. She shook her head and looked toward the window, ever the confused and conflicted protégée falling for Arobynn’s poisoned words.

“Tell me what I need to do to make you understand,” he said. “Do you know why I had you capture that demon? So that we could attain its knowledge. So you and I could take on the king, learn what he knows. Why do you think I let you in that room? Together—we’ll bring that monster down together, before we’re all wearing those rings. Your friend the captain can even join in, free of charge.”

“You expect me to believe a word you say?”

“I have had a long, long while to think on the wretched things I’ve done to you, Celaena.”

“Aelin,” she snapped. “My name is Aelin. And you can start proving you’ve mended your ways by giving me back my family’s gods-damned amulet. Then you can prove it some more by giving me your resources—by letting me use your men to get what I need.”

She could see the wheels turning in that cold and cunning head. “In what capacity?”

No word about the amulet—no denying he had it.

“You want to take down the king,” she murmured, as if to keep the two Fae males outside the door from hearing. “Then let’s take down the king. But we do it my way. The captain and my court stay out of it.”

“What’s in it for me? These are dangerous times, you know. Why, just today, one of the top opiate dealers was caught by the king’s men and killed. Such a pity; he escaped the slaughter at the Shadow Market only to be caught buying dinner a few blocks away.”

More nonsense to distract her. She merely said, “I won’t send a tip to the king about this place—about how you operate and who your clients are. Or mention the demon in your dungeon, its blood now a permanent stain.” She smiled a little. “I’ve tried; their blood doesn’t wash away.”

“Threats, Aelin? And what if I make threats of my own? What if I mention to the king’s guard that his missing general and his Captain of the Guard are frequently visiting a certain warehouse? What if I let it slip that a Fae warrior is wandering his city? Or, worse, that his mortal enemy is living in the slums?”

“I suppose it’ll be a race to the palace, then. It’s too bad the captain has men stationed by the castle gates, messages in hand, ready for the signal to send them this very night.”

“You’d have to get out of here alive to give that signal.”

“The signal is us not returning, I’m afraid. All of us.”

Again, that cold stare. “How cruel and ruthless you’ve become, my love. But will you become a tyrant as well? Perhaps you should start slipping rings onto the fingers of your followers.”

He reached into his tunic. She kept her posture relaxed as a golden chain glinted around his long white fingers, and then a tinkling sounded, and then—

The amulet was exactly as she remembered it.

It had been with a child’s hands that she’d last held it, and with a child’s eyes that she’d last seen the cerulean blue front with the ivory stag and the golden star between its antlers. The immortal stag of Mala Fire-Bringer, brought over to these lands by Brannon himself and set free in Oakwald Forest. The amulet glinted in Arobynn’s hands as he removed it from his neck.

The third and final Wyrdkey.

It had made her ancestors mighty queens and kings; had made Terrasen untouchable, a powerhouse so lethal no force had ever breached its borders. Until she’d fallen into the Florine River that night—until this man had removed the amulet from around her neck, and a conquering army had swept through. And Arobynn had risen from being a local lord of assassins to crown himself this continent’s unrivaled king of their Guild. Perhaps his power and influence derived solely from the necklace—her necklace—that he’d worn all these years.

“I’ve become rather attached to it,” Arobynn said as he handed it over.

He’d known she would ask for it tonight, if he was wearing it. Perhaps he’d planned to offer it to her all along, just to win her trust—or get her to stop framing his clients and interrupting his business.

Keeping her face neutral was an effort as she reached for it.

Her fingers grazed the golden chain, and she wished then and there that she’d never heard of it, never touched it, never been in the same room with it. Not right, her blood sang, her bones groaned. Not right, not right, not right.

The amulet was heavier than it looked—and warm from his body, or from the boundless power dwelling inside of it.

The Wyrdkey.

Holy gods.

That quickly, that easily, he’d handed it over. How Arobynn hadn’t felt it, noticed it … Unless you needed magic in your veins to feel it. Unless it never … called to him as it did to her now, its raw power brushing up against her senses like a cat rubbing along her legs. How had her mother, her father—any of them—never felt it?

She almost walked out right then and there. But she slid the Amulet of Orynth around her neck, its weight becoming heavier still—a force pressing down on her bones, spreading through her blood like ink in water. Not right.

“Tomorrow morning,” she said coldly, “you and I are going to talk again. Bring your best men, or whoever is licking your boots these days. And then we’re going to plan.” She rose from the chair, her knees wobbling.

“Any other requests, Your Majesty?”

“You think I don’t realize you have the upper hand?” She willed calm to her veins, her heart. “You’ve agreed to help me far too easily. But I like this game. Let’s keep playing it.”

His answering smile was serpentine.

Each step toward the door was an effort of will as she forced herself not to think about the thing thudding between her breasts. “If you betray us tonight, Arobynn,” she added, pausing before the door, “I’ll make what was done to Sam seem like a mercy compared to what I do to you.”

“Learned some new tricks these past few years, have you?”

She smirked, taking in the details of how he looked at this exact moment: the sheen of his red hair, his broad shoulders and narrow waist, the scars on his hands, and those silver eyes, so bright with challenge and triumph. They’d probably haunt her dreams until the day she died.

“One more thing,” Arobynn said.

It was an effort to lift a brow as he came close enough to kiss her, embrace her. But he just took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her palm. “I’m going to enjoy having you back,” he purred.

Then, faster than she could react, he slid the Wyrdstone ring onto her finger.

44

The hidden dagger Aelin had drawn clattered to the wooden floor the moment the cool black stone slid against her skin. She blinked at the ring, at the line of blood that had appeared on her hand beneath Arobynn’s sharp thumbnail as he raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his tongue along the back of her palm.

Her blood was on his lips as he straightened.

Such a silence in her head, even now. Her face stopped working; her heart stopped working.

“Blink,” he ordered her.

She did.

“Smile.”

She did.

“Tell me why you came back.”

“To kill the king; to kill the prince.”

Arobynn leaned in close, his nose grazing her neck. “Tell me that you love me.”

“I love you.”

“My name—say my name when you tell me that you love me.”

“I love you, Arobynn Hamel.”

His breath warmed her skin as he huffed a laugh onto her neck, then brushed a kiss where it met her shoulder. “I think I’m going to like this.”

He pulled back, admiring her blank face, her features, now empty and foreign. “Take my carriage. Go home and sleep. Do not tell anyone of this; do not show your friends the ring. And tomorrow, report here after breakfast. We have plans, you and I. For our kingdom, and Adarlan.”

She just stared, waiting.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He lifted her hand again and kissed the Wyrdstone ring. “Good night, Aelin,” he murmured, his hand grazing her backside as he shooed her out.

Rowan was trembling with restrained rage as they took Arobynn’s carriage home, none of them speaking.

He’d heard every word uttered inside that room. So had Aedion. He’d seen the final touch Arobynn had made, the proprietary gesture of a man convinced that he had a new, very shiny toy to play with.

But Rowan didn’t dare grab for Aelin’s hand to see the ring.

She didn’t move; she didn’t speak. She just sat there and stared at the wall of the carriage.

A perfect, broken, obedient doll.

I love you, Arobynn Hamel.

Every minute was an agony, but there were too many eyes on them—too many, even as they finally reached the warehouse and climbed out. They waited until Arobynn’s carriage had driven off before Rowan and Aedion flanked the queen as she slipped inside the warehouse and up the stairs.

The curtains were already shut inside the house, a few candles left burning. The flames caught on the golden dragon embroidered on the back of that remarkable gown, and Rowan didn’t dare breathe as she just stood in the center of the room. A slave awaiting orders.

“Aelin?” Aedion said, his voice hoarse.

Aelin lifted her hands in front of her and turned.

She pulled off the ring. “So that was what he wanted. I honestly expected something grander.”

Aelin slapped the ring down on the small table behind the couch.

Rowan frowned at it. “He didn’t check Stevan’s other hand?”

“No,” she said, still trying to clear the horror of betrayal from her mind. Trying to ignore the thing hanging from her neck, the abyss of power that beckoned, beckoned—

Aedion snapped, “One of you needs to explain now.”

Her cousin’s face was drained of color, his eyes so wide that the whites shone all around them as he glanced from the ring to Aelin and back again.

She’d held it together during the carriage ride, maintaining the mask of the puppet Arobynn believed she’d become. She crossed the room, keeping her arms at her sides to avoid chucking the Wyrdkey against the wall. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You couldn’t know—”

“I could have rutting known. You really think I can’t keep my mouth shut?”

“Rowan didn’t even know until last night,” she snapped.

Deep in that abyss, thunder rumbled.

Oh, gods. Oh, gods—

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Rowan crossed his arms. “It is, considering the fight we had about it.”

Aedion shook his head. “Just … explain.”

Aelin picked up the ring. Focus. She could focus on this conversation, until she could safely hide the amulet. Aedion couldn’t know what she carried, what weapon she’d claimed tonight. “In Wendlyn, there was a moment when Narrok … came back. When he warned me. And thanked me for ending him. So I picked the Valg commander who seemed to have the least amount of control over the human’s body, out of hope that the man might be in there, wishing for redemption in some form.” Redemption for what the demon had made him do, hoping to die knowing he’d done one good thing.

“Why?”

Speaking normally was an effort. “So I could offer him the mercy of death and freedom from the Valg, if he would only tell Arobynn all the wrong information. He tricked Arobynn into thinking that a bit of blood could control these rings—and that the ring he bore was the real thing.” She held up the ring. “I got the idea from you, actually. Lysandra has a very good jeweler, and had a fake made. The real thing I cut off the Valg commander’s finger. If Arobynn had taken off his other glove, he would have found him without a digit.”

“You’d need weeks to plan all that—”

Aelin nodded.

“But why? Why bother with any of it? Why not just kill the prick?”

Aelin set down the ring. “I had to know.”

“Know what? That Arobynn is a monster?”

“That there was no redeeming him. I knew, but … It was his final test. To show his hand.”

Aedion hissed. “He would have made you into his own personal figurehead—he touched—”

“I know what he touched, and what he wanted to do.” She could still feel that touch on her. It was nothing compared to the hideous weight pressing against her chest. She rubbed her thumb across the scabbed-over slice on her hand. “So now we know.”

Some small, pathetic part of her wished she didn’t.

Still in their finery, Aelin and Rowan stared at the amulet lying on the low table before the darkened fireplace in her bedroom.

She’d taken it off the moment she entered the room—Aedion having gone to the roof to take watch—and slumped onto the couch facing the table. Rowan took a seat beside her a heartbeat later. For a minute, they said nothing. The amulet gleamed in the light of the two candles Rowan had lit.

“I was going to ask you to make sure it wasn’t a fake; that Arobynn hadn’t switched it somehow,” Rowan said at last, his eyes fixed on the Wyrdkey. “But I can feel it—a glimmer of whatever is inside that thing.”

She braced her forearms on her knees, the black velvet of her dress softly caressing. “In the past, people must have assumed that feeling came from the magic of whoever was wearing it,” she said. “With my mother, with Brannon … it would never have been noticed.”

“And your father and uncle? They had little to no magic, you said.”

The ivory stag seemed to stare at her, the immortal star between its horns flickering like molten gold. “But they had presence. What better place to hide this thing than around the neck of a swaggering royal?”

Rowan tensed as she reached for the amulet and flipped it over as quickly as she could. The metal was warm, its surface unmarred despite the millennia that had passed since its forging.

There, exactly as she’d remembered, were carved three Wyrdmarks.

“Any idea what those mean?” Rowan said, shifting close enough that his thigh grazed hers. He moved away an inch, though it did nothing to stop her from feeling the heat of him.

“I’ve never seen—”

“That one,” Rowan said, pointing to the first one. “I’ve seen that one. It burned on your brow that day.”

“Brannon’s mark,” she breathed. “The mark of the bastard-born—the nameless.”

“No one in Terrasen ever looked into these symbols?”

“If they did, it was never revealed—or they wrote it in their personal accounts, which were stored in the Library of Orynth.” She chewed on the inside of her lip. “It was one of the first places the King of Adarlan sacked.”

“Maybe the librarians smuggled out the rulers’ accounts first—maybe they got lucky.”

Her heart sank a bit. “Maybe. We won’t know until we return to Terrasen.” She tapped her foot on the carpet. “I need to hide this.” There was a loose floorboard in her closet under which she stashed money, weapons, and jewelry. It would be good enough for now. And Aedion wouldn’t question it, since she couldn’t risk wearing the damn thing in public anyway, even under her clothes—not until she was back in Terrasen. She stared down at the amulet.

“So do it,” he said.

“I don’t want to touch it.”

“If it was that easy to trigger, your ancestors would have figured out what it was.”

“You pick it up,” she said, frowning.

He just gave her a look.

She bent down, willing her mind blank while she lifted the amulet off the table. Rowan stiffened as if bracing himself, despite his reassurance.

The key was a millstone in her hand, but that initial sense of wrongness, of an abyss of power … It was quiet. Slumbering.

She made quick work of pulling back the rug in her closet and yanking loose the floorboard. She felt Rowan come up behind her, peering over her shoulder where she knelt and into the small compartment.

She had picked up the amulet to drop it into the little space when a thread tugged inside her—no, not a thread, but … a wind, as if some force barreled from Rowan into her, as if their bond were a living thing, and she could feel what it was to be him—

She dropped the amulet into the compartment. It thudded only once, a dead weight.

“What?” Rowan asked.

She twisted to peer up at him. “I felt—I felt you.”

“How?”

So she told him—about his essence sliding into her, of feeling like she wore his skin, if only for a heartbeat.

He didn’t look entirely pleased. “That sort of ability could be a helpful tool for later.”

She scowled. “Typical warrior-brute thinking.”

He shrugged. Gods, how did he handle it, the weight of his power? He could crush bones into dust even without his magic; he could bring this whole building down with a few well-placed blows.

She’d known—of course she’d known—but to feel it … The most powerful purebred Fae male in existence. To an ordinary human, he was as alien as the Valg.

“But I think you’re right: it can’t just blindly act on my will,” she said at last. “Or else my ancestors would have razed Orynth to the ground anytime they were royally pissed off. I—I think these things might be neutral by nature; it’s the bearer who guides how they are used. In the hands of someone pure of heart, it would only be beneficial. That was how Terrasen thrived.”

Rowan snorted as she replaced the wooden plank, tamping it down with the heel of her hand. “Trust me, your ancestors weren’t utterly holy.” He offered her a hand up, and she tried not to stare at it as she gripped it. Hard, callused, unbreakable—nearly impossible to kill. But there was a gentleness to his grip, a care reserved only for those he cherished and protected.

“I don’t think any of them were assassins,” she said as he dropped her hand. “The keys can corrupt an already black heart—or amplify a pure one. I’ve never heard anything about hearts that are somewhere in between.”

“The fact that you worry says enough about your intentions.”

She stepped all around the area to ensure that no creaking boards gave away the hiding place. Thunder rumbled above the city. “I’m going to pretend that’s not an omen,” she muttered.

“Good luck with that.” He nudged her with an elbow as they reentered the bedroom. “We’ll keep an eye on things—and if you appear to be heading toward Dark Lorddom, I promise to bring you back to the light.”

“Funny.” The little clock on her nightstand chimed, and thunder boomed again through Rifthold. A swift-moving storm. Good—maybe it would clear her head, too.

She went to the box Lysandra had brought her and pulled out the other item.

“Lysandra’s jeweler,” Rowan said, “is a very talented person.”

Aelin held up a replica of the amulet. She’d gotten the size, coloring, and weight almost perfect. She set it on her vanity like a discarded piece of jewelry. “Just in case anyone asks where it went.”

The downpour had softened to a steady drizzle by the time the clock struck one, yet Aelin hadn’t come down from the roof. She’d gone up there to take over Aedion’s watch, apparently—and Rowan had waited, biding his time as the clock neared midnight and then passed it. Chaol had come by to give Aedion a report on the movements of Arobynn’s men, but slipped back out around twelve.

Rowan was done waiting.

She was standing in the rain, facing westward—not toward the glowing castle to her right, not toward the sea at her back, but across the city.

He didn’t mind that she’d gotten that glimpse into him. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t care what she knew about him, so long as it didn’t scare her away—and would have told her before if he still hadn’t been so stupidly distracted by how she looked tonight.

The lamplight glinted off the combs in her hair and along the golden dragon on the dress.

“You’ll ruin that dress standing out here in the rain,” he said.

She half turned toward him. The rain had left streaks of kohl down her face, and her skin was as pale as a fish’s belly. The look in her eyes—guilt, anger, agony—hit him like a blow to the gut.

She turned again toward the city. “I was never going to wear this dress again, anyway.”

“You know I’ll take care of it tonight,” he said, stepping beside her, “if you don’t want to be the one to do it.” And after what that bastard had tried to do to her, what he’d planned to do to her … He and Aedion would take a long, long time ending Arobynn’s life.

She gazed across the city, toward the Assassins’ Keep. “I told Lysandra she could do it.”

“Why?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tight. “Because more than me, more than you or Aedion, Lysandra deserves to be the one who ends him.”

It was true. “Will she be needing our assistance?”

She shook her head, spraying droplets of rain off the combs and the damp strands of hair that had come loose. “Chaol went to ensure everything goes fine.”

Rowan allowed himself a moment to look at her—at the relaxed shoulders and uplifted chin, the grip she had on her elbows, the curve of her nose against the streetlight, the thin line of her mouth.

“It feels wrong,” she said, “to still wish that there had been some other way.” She took an uneven breath, the air clouding in front of her. “He was a bad man,” she whispered. “He was going to enslave me to his will, use me to take over Terrasen, maybe make himself king—maybe sire my—” She shuddered so violently that light shimmered off the gold in her dress. “But he also … I also owe him my life. All this time I thought it would be a relief, a joy to end him. But all I feel is hollow. And tired.”

She was like ice when he slid an arm around her, folding her into his side. Just this once—just this once, he would let himself hold her. If he’d been asked to put down Maeve, and one of his cadre had done it instead—if Lorcan had done it—he would have felt the same.

She twisted slightly to peer up at him, and though she tried to hide it, he could see the fear in her gaze, and the guilt. “I need you to hunt down Lorcan tomorrow. See if he’s accomplished the little task I gave him.”

If he’d killed those Wyrdhounds. Or been killed by them. So she could at last free magic.

Gods. Lorcan was his enemy now. He shut out the thought. “And if it’s necessary to eliminate him?”

He watched her throat bob as she swallowed. “It’s your call then, Rowan. Do as you see fit.”

He wished she’d told him one way or another, but giving him the choice, respecting their history enough to allow him to make that decision … “Thank you.”

She rested her head against his chest, the tips of the bat-wing combs digging into him enough that he eased them one at a time from her hair. The gold was slick and cold in his hands, and as he admired the craftsmanship, she murmured, “I want you to sell those. And burn this dress.”

“As you wish,” he said, pocketing the combs. “Such a pity, though. Your enemies would have fallen to their knees if they ever saw you in it.”

He’d almost fallen to his knees when he’d first seen her earlier tonight.

She huffed a laugh that might have been a sob and wrapped her arms around his waist as if trying to steal his warmth. Her sodden hair tumbled down, the scent of her—jasmine and lemon verbena and crackling embers—rising above the smell of almonds to caress his nose, his senses.

Rowan stood with his queen in the rain, breathing in her scent, and let her steal his warmth for as long as she needed.

The rain lightened to a soft sprinkle, and Aelin stirred from where Rowan held her. From where she’d been standing, soaking up his strength, thinking.

She twisted slightly to take in the strong lines of his face, his cheekbones gilded with the rain and the light from the street. Across the city, in a room she knew too well, Arobynn was hopefully bleeding out. Hopefully dead.

A hollow thought—but also the clicking of a lock finally opened.

Rowan turned his head to look at her, rain dripping off his silver hair. His features softened a bit, the harsh lines becoming more inviting—vulnerable, even. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he murmured.