Empire of Storms

“Our mother was a warrior,” Fenrys said, each word labored. “She trained us as such. Our father was, too, but was often away at war. She was tasked with defending our home, our lands. And reporting to Maeve.” Rasping, laboring breaths from both of them. Aedion shifted so that Aelin could lean wholly against him, biting down on the weight it put on his already-swollen knee. “When Con and I were thirty, we were straining at the leash to go to Doranelle with her—to see the city, meet the queen, and do … what young males like to do with money in their pockets and youth on their sides. Only Maeve took one look at us and …” He needed longer to catch his breath this time. “It didn’t go well from there.”

Aedion knew the rest; so did Aelin.

The last of the green slime slid out of Fenrys’s chest. And Aelin breathed, “She knows you hate the oath, doesn’t she?”

“Maeve knows,” Fenrys said. “And I have no doubt she sent me here, hoping I’d be tortured by the temporary freedom.”

Aelin’s hands were shaking, her body shuddering against his own. Aedion slipped an arm around her waist. “I’m sorry you’re bound to her,” was all Aelin managed.

The wounds in Fenrys’s chest began knitting together. Rowan stalked over as if sensing she was fading.

Fenrys’s face was still grayish, still taut, as he glanced up at Rowan and said to Aelin, “This is what we are meant to do—protect, serve, cherish. What Maeve offers is … a mockery of that.” He surveyed the wounds now healing on his chest, mending so slowly. “But it is what calls to a Fae male’s blood, what guides him. What we’re all looking for, even when we say we’re not.”

Aedion’s father had gone still over the wounded pirate.

Aedion, surprising even himself, said over his shoulder to Gavriel, “And do you find Maeve fulfills that—or are you like Fenrys?”

His father blinked, about all the shock he’d show, and then straightened, the wounded sailor before him now sleeping off the healing. Aedion bore the brunt of his tawny stare, tried to shut out the kernel of hope that shone in the Lion’s eyes. “I come from a noble house as well, the youngest of three brothers. I wouldn’t inherit or rule, so I took to soldiering. It earned Maeve’s eye, and her offer. There was—is no greater honor.”

“That’s not an answer,” Aedion said quietly.

His father rolled his shoulders. Fidgeting. “I only hated it once. Only wanted to leave once.”

He didn’t continue. And Aedion knew what the unspoken words were.

Aelin brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “You loved her that much?”

Aedion tried not to let his gratitude that she’d asked for him show.

Gavriel’s hands were white-knuckled as they folded into fists. “She was a bright star in centuries of darkness. I would have followed that star to the ends of the earth, if she had let me. But she didn’t, and I respected her wishes to stay away. To never seek her out again. I went to another continent and didn’t let myself look back.”

The ship’s creaking and the groaning of the injured were the only sounds. Aedion clamped down on the urge to stand and walk away. He’d look like a child—not a general who’d fought his way through knee-deep gore on killing fields.

Aelin said, again because Aedion couldn’t bring himself to say the words, “You would have tried to break the blood oath for her? For them?”

“Honor is my code,” Gavriel said. “But if Maeve had tried to harm either you or her, Aedion, I would have done everything in my power to get you out.”

The words hit Aedion, then flowed through him. He didn’t let himself think about it, the truth he’d felt in each word. The way his name had sounded on his father’s lips.

His father checked the injured pirate for any lingering injuries, then moved on to another. Those tawny eyes slid to Aedion’s knee, swollen beneath his pants. “You need to tend to that, or it’ll be too stiff to function in a few hours.”

Aedion felt Aelin’s attention snap to him, scanning him for injury, but he held his father’s gaze and said, “I know how to treat my own injuries.” The battlefield healers and the Bane had taught him enough over the years. “Tend to your own wounds.” Indeed, the male had blood crusting his shirt. Lucky—so lucky the venom had already been wiped off those claws. Gavriel blinked down at himself, his band of tattoos bobbing as he swallowed, then continued without another word.

Aelin pushed off Aedion at last, trying and failing to get to her feet. Aedion reached for her as the focus went out of her now-dull eyes, but Rowan was already there, smoothly sweeping her up before she kissed the planks. Too fast—she must have drained her reserves too fast, and without any food in her system.

Rowan held his stare, Aelin’s hair limp as she rested her head against his chest. The strain—Aedion’s guts twisted at it. Morath knew what it was going up against. Who it was going up against. Erawan had built his commanders accordingly. Rowan nodded as if in confirmation of Aedion’s thoughts, but only said, “Elevate that knee.”

Fenrys had slipped into a light sleep before Rowan carried Aelin below.

So Aedion kept his own company for the rest of the night: first on watch, then sitting against the mast on the quarterdeck for a few hours, knee indeed elevated, unwilling to descend into the cramped, dim interior.

Sleep was finally starting to tug at him when wood groaned a few feet behind, and he knew it did so only because she willed it, to keep from startling him.

The ghost leopard sat beside him, tail twitching, and met his eyes for a moment before she laid her enormous head on his thigh.

In silence, they watched the stars flicker over the calm waves, Lysandra nuzzling her head against his hip.

The starlight stained her coat with muted silver, and a smile ghosted Aedion’s lips.

48

They worked through the night, weighing anchor only long enough for the crew to patch up the hole in Manon’s room. It would hold for now, the captain told Dorian, but gods help them if they hit another storm before they got to the marshes.

They tended to the wounded for hours, and Dorian was grateful for the little healing magic Rowan had taught him as he pieced flesh back together. Pretending it was a puzzle, or bits of torn cloth, kept his meager dinner from coming back up. But the poison … He left that to Rowan, Aelin, and Gavriel.

By the time the morning had shifted into a sickly gray, their faces were sallow, dark smudges etched deep beneath their eyes. Fenrys, at least, was limping around, and Aedion had let Aelin tend to his knee only long enough to get him walking again, but … They’d seen better days.

Dorian’s legs were wobbling a bit as he scanned the blood-soaked deck. Someone had dumped the creatures’ bodies overboard, along with the worst of the gore, but … If what the Bloodhound had said was true, they didn’t have the luxury of pulling into a harbor to fix the rest of the damage to the ship.

A low, rumbling growl sounded, and Dorian looked across the deck, to the prow.

The witch was still there. Still tending to Abraxos’s wounds, as she had been all night. One of the creatures had bit him a few times—thankfully, no poison in their teeth, but … he’d lost some blood. Manon had not let anyone near him.

Aelin had tried once, and when Manon snarled at her, Aelin had cursed enough to make everyone else halt, saying she’d rutting deserve it if the beast died. Manon had threatened to rip out her spine, Aelin had given her a vulgar gesture, and Lysandra had been forced to monitor the space between them for an hour, perched in the rigging of the mainmast in ghost leopard form, tail swaying in the breeze.

But now … Manon’s white hair was limp, the warm morning wind tugging lazily at the strands as she leaned against Abraxos’s side.

Dorian knew he was toeing a dangerous line. The other night, he’d been ready to slowly strip her naked, to put those chains to good use. And when he’d found her gold eyes devouring him as intently as he wanted to devour other parts of her …

As if sensing his stare, Manon peered over at him.

Even from across the deck, every inch between them went taut.