Empire of Storms

The little witch was hiding something. The hay snapped again as she returned to the cauldron.

Hiding something under the mattress—something she’d been carrying with her and didn’t want him knowing about. Water splashed, and Marion let out a moan of surprising depth and sincerity. He shut out the sound.

But even as he did, Lorcan’s thoughts drifted toward Rowan and his bitch-queen.

Marion and the queen were about the same age—one dark, one golden. Would the queen bother at all with Marion once she arrived? Likely, if her curiosity was piqued about why she wished to see Celaena Sardothien, but … what about after?

It wasn’t his concern. He’d left his conscience on the cobblestones of the back streets of Doranelle five centuries ago. He’d killed men who had begged for their lives, wrecked entire cities and never once looked back at the smoldering rubble.

Rowan had, too. Gods-damned Whitethorn had been his most effective general, assassin, and executioner for centuries. They had laid waste to kingdoms and then drunk and bedded themselves into stupors in the following days-long celebrations on the ruins.

This winter, he’d had a damn fine commander at his disposal, brutal and vicious and willing to do just about anything Lorcan ordered.

The next time he’d seen Rowan, the prince had been roaring, desperate to fling himself into lethal darkness to save the life of a princess with no throne. Lorcan had known—in that moment.

Lorcan had known, as he’d pinned Rowan into the grass outside Mistward, the prince thrashing and screaming for Aelin Galathynius, that everything was about to change. Knew that the commander he’d valued was altered irrevocably. No longer would they glut themselves on wine and women; no longer would Rowan gaze toward a horizon without some glimmer of longing in his eyes.

Love had broken a perfect killing tool. Lorcan wondered if it would take him centuries more to stop being so pissed about it.

And the queen—princess, whatever Aelin called herself … She was a fool. She could have bartered Athril’s ring for Maeve’s armies, for an alliance to wipe Morath off the earth. Even not knowing what the ring was, she could have used it to her advantage.

But she’d chosen Rowan. A prince with no crown, no army, no allies.

They deserved to perish together.

Marion’s soaked head popped out of the tent, and Lorcan twisted to see the heavy wool blanket wrapped around her like a gown. “Can you bring the clothes now?” She chucked her pile out. She’d bundled her underthings in her white shirt, and the leathers … They’d never be dry before morning—and would likely shrink beyond use if washed improperly.

Lorcan stooped, picking up the bundle of clothes and trying not to peer into the tent to learn what she’d hidden beneath the bedroll. “What about standing guard?”

Her hair was plastered to her head, heightening the sharp lines in her cheekbones, her fine nose. But her eyes were bright again, her full lips once more like a rosebud, as she said, “Please get them washed. Quickly.”

Lorcan didn’t bother confirming as he carried her clothes away from the tent, leaving her to sit in partial nakedness inside. Ombriel was in the middle of cooking whatever was in the pot over the fire. Likely rabbit stew. Again. Lorcan examined the clothes in his hands.

Thirty minutes later, he returned to the tent, plate of food in hand. Marion was perched on the bedroll, foot stretched out before her, blanket tucked under her shoulders.

Her skin was so pale. He’d never seen such white unmarred skin.

As if she’d never been let outside.

Her dark brows furrowed at the plate—then at the bundle under his arm.

“Ombriel was busy—so I washed your clothes myself.”

She flushed.

“A body is a body,” he repeated simply to her. “So are undergarments.”

She frowned, but her attention was again riveted on the plate. He set it down before her. “I got you dinner, since I assumed you didn’t want to sit among everyone in your blanket.” He dumped the pile of clothes on her bedroll. “And I got you clothes from Molly. She’s charging you, of course. But at least you won’t sleep naked.”

She dug into the stew without so much as thanking him.

Lorcan was about to leave when she said, “My uncle … He is a commander at Morath.”

Lorcan froze. And looked right to the bedroll.

But Marion continued between bites, “He … locked me in the dungeon once.”

The wind in the grasses died; the campfire far beyond their tent flickered, the people around it huddling closer together as the nighttime insects went silent and the small, furred creatures of the plains scampered into their burrows.

Marion either didn’t notice the surge of his dark power, the magic kissed by Death himself, or didn’t care. She said, “His name is Vernon, and he is clever and cruel, and he will likely try to keep you alive if you are caught. He wields people to gain power for himself. He has no mercy, no soul. There is no moral code that guides him.”

She went back to her food, done for the night.

Lorcan said quietly, “Would you like me to kill him for you?”

Her limpid, dark eyes rose to his face. And for a moment, he could see the woman she’d become—was already becoming. Someone who, regardless of where she’d been born, any queen would prize at her side. “Would there be a cost?”

Lorcan hid his smile. Smart, cunning little witch. “No,” he said, and meant it. “Why did he lock you in the dungeon?”

Marion’s white throat bobbed once. Twice. She seemed to hold his stare through effort of will, through a refusal not to back down from him, but from her own fears. “Because he wished to see if his bloodline could be crossed with the Valg. That was why I was brought to Morath. To be bred like a prize mare.”

Every thought emptied out of Lorcan’s head.

He had seen and dealt and endured many, many unspeakable things, but this…

“Did he succeed?” he managed to ask.

“Not with me. There were others before me who … Help came too late for them.”

“That explosion was not accidental, was it.”

A small shake of the head.

“You did it?” He glanced to the bedroll—to whatever she hid beneath.

Again that shake of the head. “I will not say who, or how. Not without risking the lives of the people who saved me.”

“Are the ilken—”

“No. The ilken are not the creatures that were bred in the catacombs. Those … those came from the mountains around Morath. Through far darker methods.”

Maeve had to know. She had to know what they were doing in Morath. The horrors being bred there, the army of demons and beasts to rival any from legend. She would never ally with such evil—never be foolish enough to ally with the Valg. Not when she warred with them millennia ago. But if she did not fight … How long would it be before these beasts were howling around Doranelle? Before it was his own continent under siege?

Doranelle could hold out. But he would likely be dead, once he found some way to destroy the keys and Maeve punished him. And with him dead and Whitethorn likely carrion, too … how long would Doranelle last? Decades? Years?

A question snagged in Lorcan’s mind, drawing him to the present, to the stuffy little tent. “Your foot has been ruined for years, though. He locked you in the dungeon that long?”

“No,” she said, not even flinching at his rough description. “I was only in the dungeon for a week. The ankle, the chain … He did that to me long before.”

“What chain.”

She blinked. And he knew she’d meant to avoid telling him that one particular detail.

But now that he looked … he could make out, among the mass of scars, a white band. And there, around her perfect, lovely other ankle, was its twin.

A wind laced with the dust and coldness of a tomb gnawed through the field.

Marion merely said, “When you kill my uncle, ask him yourself.”

31

Well, on the one hand, at least Rolfe’s map worked.

It had been Rowan’s idea, actually. And she might have felt slightly guilty for letting Aedion and Lysandra believe the Pirate Lord had only gone after the Amulet of Orynth, but … at least they now knew his unholy map functioned. And that the Pirate Lord was indeed living in terror of the Valg returning to this harbor.