Manon backed away a step—just one.

“There is nowhere to flee. Not with your belly barely inside you.” She tossed her auburn hair over a shoulder. “Oh, what fun we’ll have now that I’ve found you, Blackbeak. All of us.”

Manon braced herself, drawing Wind-Cleaver as the woman’s form glowed like a black sun, then rippled, the edges expanding, morphing, until—

The woman had been an illusion. A glamour. The creature that stood before her had been birthed in darkness, so white she doubted it had ever felt the kiss of the sun until now. And the mind that had invented it … The imagination of someone born in another world—one where nightmares prowled the dark, cold earth.

The body and face were vaguely human. But—Bloodhound. Yes, that was fitting. The nostrils were enormous, the eyes so large and lidless she wondered if Erawan himself had spread her eyelids apart, and her mouth … The teeth were black stumps, the tongue thick and red—for tasting the air. And spreading from that white body—the method of Manon’s transportation: wings.

“You see,” the Bloodhound purred. “You see what he can give you? I can now taste the wind; smell its very marrow. Just as I smelled you across the land.”

Manon kept an arm cradled over her belly as the other trembled, lifting Wind-Cleaver.

The Bloodhound laughed, low and soft. “I shall enjoy this, I think,” she said—and pounced.

Alive—she was alive, and she would stay that way.

Manon jumped back, sliding between two trees, so close that the creature hit them, a wall of wood in her way. Those calf eyes narrowed in rage, and her white hands—tipped with earth-digging claws—sank into the wood as she backtracked—

Only to be stuck.

Maybe the Mother was watching over her.

The Bloodhound had lodged herself between the two trees, half in, half out, thanks to those wings, wood squeezing—

Manon ran. Pain ripped at her with each step, and she sobbed through her teeth as she sprinted between the trees. A snap and crash of wood and leaves from behind.

Manon pushed herself, a hand shoved against her wound, gripping Wind-Cleaver tight enough it shook. But there was Abraxos, eyes wild, wings already flapping, preparing for flight.

“Go,” she rasped, flinging herself at him as wood crunched behind her.

Abraxos launched for her as she leaped for him—not onto him, but into his claws, into the mighty talons that wrapped her under her breasts, her stomach tearing a bit more as he hefted her up, up, up, through wood and leaf and nest.

The air snapped beneath her boots, and Manon, eyes streaming, peered down to see the Bloodhound’s claws reaching wildly. But too late.

A shriek of rage on her lips, the Bloodhound backed a few steps to the edge of the clearing, preparing to get a running leap into the air, as Abraxos’s wings beat like hell—

They cleared the canopy, his wings shattering branches, raining them onto the Bloodhound.

The wind tore at Manon as Abraxos sailed with her, higher and higher, heading east, toward the plains—east and south…

The thing wouldn’t be detained long. Abraxos realized it, too.

Had planned for it.

A flicker of white broke through the canopy below them.

Abraxos lunged, a swift, lethal dive, his roar of rage making Manon’s head buzz.

The Bloodhound didn’t have time to bank as Abraxos’s mighty tail slammed into her, poison-coated steel barbs hitting home.

Black festering blood sprayed; ivory membranous wings sundered.

Then they were sweeping back up and the Bloodhound was tumbling down through the canopy—dying or injured, Manon didn’t care.

“I will find you,” the Bloodhound screeched from the forest floor.

It was miles before the screamed words faded.

Manon and Abraxos paused only long enough for her to crawl onto his back and strap herself in. No signs of other wyverns in the skies, no hint of the Bloodhound pursuing them. Perhaps that poison would keep her down for a while—if not permanently.

“To the coast,” Manon said over the wind as the sky bled crimson into a final blackness. “Somewhere safe.”

Blood trickled from between her fingers—faster, stronger than before—only a moment before the Darkness claimed her again.

26

Even after two weeks in Skull’s Bay, being utterly ignored by Rolfe despite their requests to meet with him, Dorian still wasn’t entirely used to the heat and humidity. It hounded him day and night, driving him from sleep to wake drenched in sweat, chasing him inside the Ocean Rose when the sun was at its zenith.

And since Rolfe refused to see them, Dorian tried to fill his days with things other than complaining about the heat. Mornings were for practicing his magic in a jungle clearing a few miles away. Worse, Rowan made him run there and back; and when they returned at lunch, he had the “choice” of eating before or after one of Rowan’s grueling workouts.

Honestly, Dorian had no idea how Aelin had survived months of this—let alone fallen in love with the warrior while she did. Though he supposed both the queen and prince possessed a sadistic streak that made them compatible.

Some days, Fenrys and Gavriel met them in the inn’s courtyard to either exercise or give unwanted pointers on Dorian’s technique with a sword and dagger. Some days, Rowan let them stay; others, he kicked them out with a snarl.

The latter, Dorian realized, usually happened when even the heat and sun couldn’t drive away the shadows of the past few months—when he awoke with his sweat feeling like Sorscha’s blood, when he couldn’t abide even the brush of his tunic against his neck.

He wasn’t sure whether to thank the Fae Prince for noticing or to hate him for the kindness.

During the afternoons, he and Rowan prowled the city for gossip and news, watching Rolfe’s men as closely as they were watched. Only seven captains of Rolfe’s depleted armada were on the island—eight including Rolfe, with fewer ships anchored in the bay. Some had fled after the Valg attack; some now slept with the fishes at the bottom of the harbor, their ships with them.

Reports poured in from Rifthold: of the city under witch command, of most of it in ruin, its nobility and merchants fleeing to country estates and leaving the poor to fend for themselves. The witches controlled the city gates and the docks—nothing and no one got in without them knowing. Worse, ships from the Ferian Gap were sailing down the Avery toward Rifthold, carrying strange soldiers and beasts that turned the city into their own personal hunting ground.

Erawan was no fool with planning this war. Those ships prowling the Avery were too small, Rowan had claimed, and there was no way the force at the Dead End was the entirety of Erawan’s armada. So where had Adarlan’s fleet been all this time?

Rowan discovered the answer five days into their stay: the Gulf of Oro. Some of the fleet had been positioned near Eyllwe’s northwestern coast, some hidden in Melisande’s ports, where, rumor had it, their queen was allowing Morath soldiers in through any direction they pleased. Erawan had skillfully divided his fleet, placing it in enough key locations that Rowan informed Dorian they’d have to sacrifice land, allies, and geographical advantages in order to hold others.

Dorian had hated to admit to the Fae warrior that he’d never heard any of these plans these past years—his council meetings had all been on policy and trade and slaves. A distraction, he realized—a way to keep the lords and rulers of the continent focused on one thing while other plans were set in motion. And now … if Erawan summoned the fleet from the gulf, they’d likely sail around Eyllwe’s southern coast and sack every city until they reached Orynth’s doorstep.

Perhaps they’d get lucky and Erawan’s fleet would collide with Maeve’s. Not that they’d heard anything of the latter. Not even a whisper of where and how fast her ships sailed. Or a whisper of where Aelin Galathynius had gone. It was for news of her, Dorian knew, that Rowan hunted through the city streets.

So Dorian and Rowan collected kernels of information and would return to the inn each night to analyze them over spiced prawns from the warm waters of the archipelago and steaming rice from traders in the southern continent, their glasses of orange-infused water resting atop the maps and charts they’d purchased in town. Information was mostly second- or third-hand—and a common whore patrolling the streets seemed to know as much as the sailors laboring at the docks.