Empire of Storms

Lorcan blinked as she followed after the men who’d entered the dockside tavern. The first fat drops of the storm plunked onto the moss-speckled cobblestones of the quay.

Lorcan followed Elide inside the tavern, some part of him admitting that for all his five hundred years of surviving and killing and serving, he’d never quite encountered someone so … unimpressed with him. Even gods-damned Aelin had some sense of the threat he posed. Maybe living with monsters had stripped away a healthy fear of them. He wondered how Elide hadn’t become one in the process.

Lorcan took in the details of the taproom by instinct and training, finding nothing worth a second thought. The reek of the place—unwashed bodies, piss, mold, wet wool—threatened to suffocate him. But in the span of a few moments, Elide had grabbed herself a table near a cluster of those people from the docks and ordered two tankards of ale and whatever was the lunch special.

Lorcan slid into the ancient wooden chair beside hers, wondering if the damn thing would collapse under him as it groaned. Thunder cracked overhead, and all eyes shifted to the bay of windows overlooking the quay. Rain fell in earnest, setting the barges bobbing and swaying.

Lunch was dropped before them, the bowls clattering and sending the goopy brown stew splashing over the chipped rims. Elide didn’t so much as look at it, or touch the ales that were plunked down with equal disinterest for a tip, as she scanned the room.

“Drink,” Elide commanded him.

Lorcan debated telling her not to give him orders, but … he liked seeing this small, fine-boned creature in action. Liked seeing her size up a room of strangers and select her prey. Because it was a hunt—for the best and safest source of information. The person who wouldn’t report to a town garrison still under Adarlan’s control that a dark-haired young woman was asking questions about enemy forces.

So Lorcan drank and watched her while she watched others. So many calculating thoughts beneath that pale face, so many lies ready to spill from those rosebud lips. Part of him wondered if his own queen could find her useful—if Maeve would also pick up on the fact that it was perhaps Anneith herself who’d taught the girl to look and listen and lie.

Part of him dreaded the thought of Elide in Maeve’s hands. What she’d become. What Maeve would ask her to do as a spy or courtier. Perhaps it was good that Elide was mortal, life span too short for Maeve to bother honing her into quite possibly her most vicious sentinel.

He was so damn busy thinking about it that he nearly didn’t notice when Elide leaned back casually in her chair and interrupted the table of merchants and captains behind them. “What do you mean, Rifthold is gone?”

Lorcan snapped to attention. But they’d heard the news weeks ago.

The captain nearest them—a woman in her early thirties—sized up Elide, then Lorcan, then said, “Well, it’s not gone, but … witches now control it, on behalf of Duke Perrington. Dorian Havilliard’s been ousted.”

Elide, the cunning little liar, looked outright shocked. “We’ve been in the deep wild for weeks. Is Dorian Havilliard dead?” She whispered the words, as if in horror … and as if to avoid being heard.

Another person at the table—an older, bearded man—said, “They never found his body, but if the duke’s declaring him not to be king anymore, I’d assume he’s alive. No use making proclamations against a dead man.”

Thunder rattled, almost drowning out her whisper as she said, “Would he—would he go to the North? To … her?”

They knew precisely who Elide meant. And Lorcan knew exactly why she’d come here.

She was going to leave. Tomorrow, whenever the carnival rolled out. She’d likely hire one of these boats to take her northward, and he … he would go south. To Morath.

The companions swapped glances, weighing the appearance of the young woman—and then Lorcan. He attempted to smile, to look bland and unthreatening. None of them returned the look, though he must have done something right, because the bearded man said, “She’s not in the North.”

It was Elide’s turn to go still.

The bearded man went on, “Rumor has it, she was in Ilium, trouncing soldiers. Then they say she was in Skull’s Bay last week, raising hell. Now she’s sailing elsewhere—some say to Wendlyn, some say to Eyllwe, some say she’s fleeing to the other side of the world. But she’s not in the North. Won’t be for a while, it seems. Not wise to leave your home undefended, if you ask me. But she’s barely a woman; she can’t know much about warfare at all.”

Lorcan doubted that, and doubted the bitch didn’t make a move without Whitethorn or Gavriel’s son weighing in. But Elide loosed a shuddering breath. “Why leave Terrasen at all?”

“Who knows?” The woman turned back to her food and company. “Seems like the queen has a habit of showing up where she’s least expected, unleashing chaos, and vanishing again. There’s good money to be had from the betting pool about where she’ll show up next. I say Banjali, in Eyllwe—Vross here says Varese in Wendlyn.”

“Why Eyllwe?” Elide pushed.

“Who knows? She’d be a fool indeed to announce her plans.” The woman gave Elide a sharp look as if to say to keep quiet about it.

Elide returned to her food and ale, the rain and thunder drowning the chatter in the room.

Lorcan watched her drink the entire tankard in silence. And when it seemed the least suspicious, she rose and left.

Elide went to two other taverns in the town—followed the same exact pattern. The news shifted slightly with each recounting, but the general consensus was that Aelin was on the move, perhaps south or east, and no one knew what to expect.

Elide walked out of the third tavern, Lorcan on her heels. They hadn’t spoken once since she’d gone into that first inn. He’d been too lost in contemplating what it would be like to suddenly travel on his own again. To leave her … and never see her again.

And now, staring up at the rain and the thunder, Elide said, “I was supposed to go north.”

Lorcan found himself not wanting to confirm or object. Like a useless fool, he found himself … hesitating to push her toward that original path.

She lowered her face, water and light gilding her high cheekbones. “Where do I head now? How do I find her?”

He dared say, “What did you glean from the rumors?” He’d been analyzing each tidbit of information, but wanted to see that clever mind at work.

And some small part of him wanted to see what she’d decide about their splitting ways, too.

Elide said softly, “Banjali—in Eyllwe. I think she’s going to Banjali.”

He tried not to look too relieved. He’d arrived at the same conclusion, if only because it was what Whitethorn would have done—and he’d trained the prince himself for a few decades.

She scrubbed at her face. “How … how far is it?”

“Far.”

She lowered her hands, her features stark and bone white. “How do I get there? How do …” She rubbed at her chest.

“I can get you a map,” he found himself saying. Just to see if she’d ask him to stay.

Her throat bobbed, and she shook her head, her black hair flowing. “It’d be no use.”

“Maps are always useful.”

“Not if you can’t read.”

Lorcan blinked, wondering if he’d heard her right. But color stained her pale cheeks, and that was indeed shame and despair clouding her dark eyes. “But you …” There had been no opportunity for it these weeks, he realized—no chance where she might have revealed it.

“I learned my letters, but when—when everything happened,” she said, “and I was put in that tower … My nursemaid was illiterate. So I never learned more. So I forgot what I did know.”

He wondered if he would have ever noticed if she hadn’t told him. “You seem to have survived rather impressively without it.”

He spoke without considering, but it seemed to be the right thing to say. The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “I suppose I have,” she mused.

Lorcan’s magic picked up on the garrison before he heard or scented them.