Empire of Storms

Aelin plummeted down into fire and darkness, refusing to yield one inch to the terror creeping over her.

Erawan crooned, “My hunters are already tracking them. And I am going to hurt them, Aelin Galathynius. I am going to hone them into my most loyal generals. Starting with your Fae Prince—”

A battering ram of hottest blue slammed into that pit in the man’s chest cavity, into those burning eyes.

Aelin kept her magic focused on that chest, on the bones and flesh melting away, leaving only that heart of iron and Wyrdstone untouched. Her magic flowed around it like a stream surging past a rock, burning his body, that thing inside him—

“Don’t bother saving any part of him,” Aedion snarled softly.

Her magic roaring out of her, Aelin glanced over a shoulder. Lysandra was now in human form beside Aedion, teeth gritted at the overseer—

The look cost her.

She heard Aedion’s shout before she felt Erawan’s punch of darkness crash into her chest.

Felt the air snap against her as she was hurled back, felt her body bark against the stone wall before the agony of that darkness really sank in. Her breath stalled, her blood halted—

Get up get up get up.

Erawan laughed softly as Aedion was instantly at her side, dragging her to her feet as her mind, her body tried to reorder itself—

Aelin threw out her power again, letting Aedion believe she allowed him to hold her upright simply because she forgot to step away, not because her knees were shaking so violently she wasn’t sure she could stand.

But her hand remained steady, at least, as she extended it.

The temple around them shuddered at the force of the power she hurled out of herself. Dust and kernels of debris trickled from the ceiling high above; columns swayed like drunken friends.

Aedion’s and Lysandra’s faces glowed in the blue light of her flame, their features wide-eyed but set with solid determination—and wrath. She leaned farther into Aedion as her magic roared from her, his grip tightening at her waist.

Each heartbeat was a lifetime; each breath ached.

But the overseer’s body at last ripped apart under her power—the dark shields around it yielding to her.

And some small part of her realized that it only did so when Erawan deigned to leave, those amused, ember-like eyes guttering into nothing.

When the man’s body was only ashes, Aelin reeled back her magic, cocooned her heart in it. She gripped Aedion’s arm, trying not to breathe too loudly, lest he hear the rasp of her battered lungs, realize how hard that single plume of darkness had hit.

A heavy thud echoed through the silent temple as the lump of iron and Wyrdstone fell.

That was the cost—Erawan’s plan. To realize that the only mercy she might offer her court would be death.

If they were ever captured … he’d make her watch as they were all carved apart and filled with his power. Make her look into their faces when he’d finished, and find no trace of their souls within. Then he’d get to work on her.

And Rowan and Dorian … If Erawan was hunting them at this very moment, if he learned that they were in Skull’s Bay, and how hard he’d actually struck her—

Aelin’s flames banked to a quiet ember, and she finally found enough strength in her legs to push away from Aedion’s grip.

“We need to be on that ship before dawn, Aelin,” he said. “If Erawan wasn’t bluffing…”

Aelin only nodded. They had to get to Skull’s Bay as fast as the winds and currents could carry them.

But as she turned toward the archway out of the temple, heading for the archives, she glanced at her chest—utterly untouched, though Erawan’s power had hit her like a hurled spear.

He’d missed. By three inches, Erawan had narrowly missed hitting the amulet. And possibly sensing the Wyrdkey inside it.

Yet the blow still reverberated against her bones in brutal ripples.

A reminder that she might be the heir of fire … but Erawan was King of the Darkness.

17

Manon Blackbeak watched the black skies above Morath bleed to rotted gray on the last morning of Asterin’s life.

She had not slept the entirety of the night; had not eaten or drank; had done nothing but sharpen Wind-Cleaver in the frigid openness of the wyvern’s aerie. Over and over, she had honed the blade, leaning against Abraxos’s warm side, until her fingers were too stiff with cold to grip sword or stone.

Her grandmother had ordered Asterin locked in the deepest bowels of the Keep’s dungeon, so heavily guarded that escape was impossible. Or rescue.

Manon had toyed with the idea for the first few hours after the sentence had been given. But to rescue Asterin would be to betray her Matron, her Clan. Her mistake—it was her own mistake, her own damned choices, that had led to this.

And if she stepped out of line again, the rest of the Thirteen would be put down. She was lucky she hadn’t been stripped of her title as Wing Leader. At least she could still lead her people, protect them. Better than allowing someone like Iskra to take command.

The Ferian Gap legion’s assault on Rifthold under Iskra’s command had been sloppy, chaotic—not the systematic, careful sacking Manon would have planned had they asked her. It made no difference now whether the city was in full or half ruin. It didn’t alter Asterin’s fate.

So there was little to be done, other than to sharpen her ancient blade and memorize the Words of Request. Manon would have to utter them at the right moment. This last gift, she could give her cousin. Her only gift.

Not the long, slow torture and beheading that was typical of a witch execution.

But the swift mercy of Manon’s own blade.

Boots scuffed on stone and crunched the hay littering the aerie floor. Manon knew that step—knew it as well as Asterin’s own gait. “What,” she said to Sorrel without looking behind her.

“Dawn approaches,” her Third said.

Soon to be Second. Vesta would become Third, and … and maybe Asterin would at last see that hunter of hers, see the stillborn witchling they’d had together.

Never again would Asterin ride the winds; never again would Asterin soar on the back of her sky-blue mare. Manon’s eyes slid to the wyvern across the aerie—shifting on her two legs, awake when the others were not.

As if she could sense her mistress’s doom beckoning with each passing moment.

What would become of the mare when Asterin was gone?

Manon rose to her feet, Abraxos nudging the backs of her thighs with his snout. She reached down, brushing his scaly head. She didn’t know who it was meant to comfort. Her crimson cape, as bloody and filthy as the rest of her, was still clasped at her collarbone.

The Thirteen would become twelve.

Manon met Sorrel’s gaze. But her Third’s attention was on Wind-Cleaver, bare in Manon’s hand.

Her Third said, “You mean to make the Words of Request.”

Manon tried to speak. But she could not open her mouth. So she only nodded.

Sorrel stared toward the open archway beyond Abraxos. “I wish she had the chance to see the Wastes. Just once.”

Manon forced herself to lift her chin. “We do not wish. We do not hope,” she said to her soon-to-be Second. Sorrel’s eyes snapped to her, something like hurt flashing there. Manon took the inner blow. She said, “We will move on, adapt.”

Sorrel said quietly, but not weakly, “She goes to her death to keep your secrets.”

It was the closest Sorrel had ever come to outright challenge. To resentment.

Manon sheathed Wind-Cleaver at her side and strode for the stairwell, unable to meet Abraxos’s curious stare. “Then she will have served me well as Second, and will be remembered for it.”

Sorrel said nothing.

So Manon descended into the gloom of Morath to kill her cousin.

The execution was not to be held in the dungeon.

Rather, her grandmother had selected a broad veranda overlooking one of the endless drops into the ravine curled around Morath. Witches were crowded onto the balcony, practically thrumming with bloodlust.

The Matrons stood before the gathered group, Cresseida and the Yellowlegs Matron flanked by each of their heirs, all facing the open doors through which Manon and the Thirteen exited the Keep proper.