Empire of Storms

A blink from the male was all the shock he’d let show. Maeve’s creatures were too well trained, too aware of the punishment for revealing her secrets.

“Princess Aelin Galathynius is ordered to surrender,” the male said.

“Queen Aelin Galathynius is not on this ship or any other in this fleet. She is, in fact, not on the shore, or in any nearby lands. So Maeve will find she came a long way for nothing. We will leave your armada in peace, if you will grant us the same courtesy.”

The male sneered up at him. “Spoken like cowards who know they’re outnumbered. Spoken like a traitor.”

Rowan gave the male a small smile. “Let’s see what Maeve has to say now.”

The male spat into the water. But the ship rowed back into the embrace of the armada.

For a moment, Rowan recalled his last words to Dorian before he’d sent the king to shield his own line of ships.

They were beyond apologies. Aelin would either return or—he didn’t let himself consider the alternative. But they could buy her as much time as possible. Try to fight their way out—for her, and the future of this armada.

Dorian’s face had revealed the same thoughts as he clasped hands with him and said quietly, “It is not such a hard thing, is it—to die for your friends.”

Rowan didn’t bother insisting they were going to live through this. The king had been tutored in warfare, even if he hadn’t yet practiced it. So Rowan had given him a grim smile and replied, “No, it is not.”

The words echoed through him again as that messenger’s boat disappeared. And for whatever good it would do, whatever time it would buy them, Rowan reinforced his shields again.

The sun had fully risen over the horizon when Maeve’s reply came.

Not a messenger in a longboat.

But a barrage of arrows, so many that they blotted out the light as they arced across the sky.

“Shield,” Rowan bellowed, not only at the magic-wielders, but also at the armed men who raised their dented and battered shields above them as arrows rained across the line.

The arrows struck, and his magic buckled under their onslaught. Their tips had been wrapped in magic of their own, and Rowan gritted his teeth against it. On other ships, where the shield was stretched thin, some men screamed.

Maeve’s armada began crawling toward them.

64

Aelin had a body that was not a body.

She knew only because in this void, this foggy twilight, Manon had a body. A nearly transparent, wraithlike body, but … a form nonetheless.

Manon’s teeth and nails glinted in the dim light as she surveyed the swirling gray mists. “What is this place?” The mirror had transported them to … wherever this was.

“Your guess is as good as mine, witch.”

Had time stopped beyond the mists? Had Maeve held her fire upon learning she was not present—or attacked anyway? Aelin had no doubt Rowan would hold the lines for as long as possible. Had no doubt he and Aedion would lead them. But …

Whether the witch mirror was the Lock she’d sought, she’d expected it to have some immediate reaction to the two Wyrdkeys she’d snuck into her jacket.

Not … this. Not absolutely nothing.

Aelin drew Goldryn. In the mist, the sword’s ruby flickered—the only color, only light.

Manon said, “We stick close; we only speak when necessary.”

Aelin was inclined to agree. There was solid ground beneath them, but the mist hid her feet—hid any inkling that they stood on dirt beyond a faint, crumbling scraping.

“Any guess which way?” Aelin murmured. But they didn’t have to decide.

The eddying fog darkened, and Manon and Aelin stepped close together, back to back. Pure night swept around them—blinding them.

Then—a murky, dim light ahead. No, not ahead. Approaching them. Manon’s bony shoulder dug into her own as they pressed tighter together, an impenetrable wall.

But the light rippled and expanded, figures within it appearing. Solidifying.

Aelin knew three things as the light and color enveloped them and became tangible:

They were not seen, or heard, or scented by those before them.

And this was the past. A thousand years ago, to be exact.

And that was Elena Galathynius on her knees in a black barren mountain pass, blood dripping from her nose, tears sliding through the dirt crusting her face to splatter on her armor, an obsidian sarcophagus somehow stationed before her.

All across the sarcophagus, Wyrdmarks simmered with pale blue fire. And in the center of it … the Eye of Elena, the amulet held within the stone itself, its pale gold unvarnished and gleaming.

Then, as if a phantom breath blew over it, the Eye dimmed, along with the Wyrdmarks.

Elena reached with a trembling hand to twist the Eye, rotating it thrice in the black stone. The Eye clicked and tumbled into Elena’s awaiting hand. Sealing the sarcophagus.

Locking it.

“You’ve had the Lock all along,” Manon murmured. “But then the mirror …”

“I think,” Aelin breathed, “we have been deliberately misled about what we must retrieve.”

“Why?” Manon said with equal quiet.

“I suppose we’re about to find out.”

A memory—that’s what this was. But what was so vital that they had been sent to retrieve it when the whole damn world was falling apart around them?

Aelin and Manon stood in silence as the scene unfolded. As the truth, at last the truth, now wove together.

65

Dawn at the Obsidian Passes

The Lock had crafted the sarcophagus from the mountain itself.

It had taken every ember of its power to bind Erawan within the stone, to seal him inside.

She could feel the Dark King sleeping within. Hear the shrieks of his fell army feasting on human flesh in the valley far below. How long would they continue fighting when word spread that Erawan had fallen?

She wasn’t foolish enough to hope her companions had survived the slaughter. Not this long.

On her knees in the sharp black rock, Elena gazed at the obsidian sarcophagus, the symbols carved into it. They initially had been glowing, but had now faded and cooled, settled into place. When she had stolen the Lock from her father all those months ago, she had not known—had not understood—the truth depth of its power. Still did not know why he had forged it. Only that once, just once, could the Lock’s power be wielded. And that power … oh, that mighty, shattering power … it had saved them all.

Gavin, sprawled and bloody behind her, stirred. His face was so mangled she could barely see the handsome, fierce features beneath. His left arm was useless at his side. The price of distracting Erawan while she’d unleashed the Lock’s power. But even Gavin had not known what she’d been planning. What she’d stolen and harbored all these months.

She did not regret it. Not when it had spared him from death. Worse.

Gavin took in the sarcophagus, the empty, intricate amulet of the Lock in her palm as it rested on her thigh. He recognized it instantly, having seen it around her father’s neck during those initial weeks in Orynth. The blue stone in its center was now drained, dim where it had once flickered with inner fire. Barely a drop of its power left, if that.

“What have you done?” His voice was a broken rasp from screaming during Erawan’s ministrations. To buy her time, to save their people—

Elena folded her fingers into a fist around the Lock. “He is sealed. He cannot escape.”

“Your father’s Lock—”

“It is done,” she said, shifting her attention to the dozen ancient, immortal figures now on the other side of the sarcophagus.

Gavin started, hissing at his broken body with the sudden movement.

They had no forms. They were only figments of light and shadow, wind and rain, song and memory. Each individual, and yet a part of one majority, one consciousness.

They were all gazing at the broken Lock in her hands, its stone dull.

Gavin lowered his brow to the blood-soaked rock and averted his eyes.

Elena’s very bones quailed in their presence, but she kept her chin high.

“Our sister’s bloodline has betrayed us,” said one that was of sea and sky and storms.

Elena shook her head, trying to swallow. Failing. “I saved us. I stopped Erawan—”