Empire of Storms

Elide was sobbing. In terror and despair.

Each sound whetted his rage into something so lethal Lorcan could barely see straight.

Then the ilken threw her into that iron box.

And Elide proved she wasn’t bluffing in her claim to never return to Morath.

He heard her nose break as she hit the rim of the box, heard her uncle’s cry of surprise as she rebounded and lunged for him—

And grabbed his dagger. Not to kill him.

For the first time in five centuries, Lorcan knew true fear as Elide turned that knife on herself, the blade angled to plunge up and into her heart.

He threw his hatchet.

As the tip of that dagger pierced the leather over her ribs, the wooden handle of his hatchet slammed into her wrist.

Elide went down with a cry, the dagger flying wide—

Lorcan was already moving as they whirled toward where he’d perched on the rooftop. He leaped to the nearest one, to the weapons he’d positioned there minutes before, knowing they’d emerge from this door—

His next knife went through the wing of an ilken. Then another to keep it down before they pinpointed his location. But Lorcan was already sprinting to the third rooftop flanking the courtyard. To the sword he’d left there. He hurled it right through the face of the closest one.

Two left, along with Vernon, screaming now to get the girl in the box—

Elide was running like hell for the narrow alley out of the courtyard, not the broad street. The alley, too small for the ilken to fit, especially with all the debris and trash littered throughout. Good girl.

Lorcan leaped and rolled onto the next roof, to the two remaining daggers—

He threw them, but the ilken had already learned his aim, his throwing style.

They hadn’t learned Elide’s.

She hadn’t just gone into the alley to save herself. She’d gone after the hatchet.

And Lorcan watched as that woman crept up behind the distracted ilken and drove the hatchet into its wings.

With an injured wrist. With her nose leaking blood down her face.

The ilken screamed, thrashing to grab her, even as it crashed to its knees.

Where she wanted it.

The axe was swinging again before its scream finished sounding.

The sound was cut off a heartbeat later as its head bounced to the stones.

Lorcan hurtled off the roof, aiming for the one remaining ilken now seething at her—

But it pivoted and ran to where Vernon was cowering by the door, his face bloodless.

Sobbing, her own blood sprayed on the stones, Elide whirled toward her uncle, too. Axe already lifting.

But the ilken reached her uncle, snatched him up in its strong arms, and launched them both into the sky.

Elide threw the hatchet anyway.

It missed the ilken’s wing by a whisper of wind.

The axe slammed to the cobblestones, taking out a chunk of rock. Right near the ilken with the shredded wings—now crawling toward the courtyard exit.

Lorcan watched as Elide picked up his axe and walked toward the hissing, broken beast.

It lashed at her with its claws. Elide easily sidestepped the swipe.

It screamed as she stomped on its wrecked wing, halting its crawl to freedom.

When it fell silent, she said in a quiet, merciless voice he’d never heard her use, clear despite the blood clogging one nostril, “I want Erawan to know that the next time he sends you after me like a pack of dogs, I’ll return the favor. I want Erawan to know that the next time I see him, I will carve Manon’s name on his gods-damned heart.” Tears rolled down her face, silent and unending as the wrath that now sculpted her features into a thing of mighty and terrible beauty.

“But it seems like tonight isn’t really your night,” Elide said to the ilken, lifting the hatchet again over a shoulder. The ilken might have been whimpering as she smiled grimly. “Because it takes only one to deliver a message. And your companions are already on their way.”

The axe fell.

Flesh and bone and blood spilled onto the stones.

She stood there, staring at the corpse, at the reeking blood that dribbled from its neck.

Lorcan, perhaps a bit numbly, walked over and took the axe from her hands. How she’d been able to use it with the sore wrist—

She hissed and whimpered at the movement. As if whatever force had rushed through her blood had vanished, leaving only pain behind.

She clutched her wrist, utterly silent as he circled the dead ilken and severed their heads from their bodies. One after another, retrieving his weapons as he went.

People inside the inn were stirring, wondering at the noise, wondering if it was safe to come out to see what had happened to the girl they’d so willingly betrayed.

For a heartbeat, Lorcan debated ending that innkeeper.

But Elide said, “Enough death.”

Tears streaked through the splattered black blood on her cheeks—blood that was a mockery of the smattering of freckles. Blood, crimson and pure, ran from her nose down her mouth and chin, already caking.

So he sheathed the hatchet and scooped her into his arms. She didn’t object.

He carried her through the fog-wrapped town, to where their boat was tied. Already, onlookers had gathered, no doubt to scavenge their supplies when the ilken left. A snarl from Lorcan had them skittering into the mist.

As he stepped onto the barge, the boat rocking beneath him, Elide said, “He told me you’d left.”

Lorcan still didn’t set her down, holding her aloft with one arm as he untied the ropes. “You believed him.”

She wiped at the blood on her face, then winced at the tender wrist—and broken nose. He’d have to tend to that. Even then, it might very well be slightly crooked forever. He doubted she’d care.

Knew she’d perhaps see that crooked nose as a sign that she’d fought and survived.

Lorcan put her down at last, atop the crate of apples—right where he could see her. She sat silently as he took up the pole and pushed them away from the dock, from that hateful town, glad for the cover of mist as they drifted downstream. They could perhaps afford two more days on the river before they’d have to cut inland to shake any enemies trailing them. Good thing they were close enough to Eyllwe now to make it in a matter of days on foot.

When there was nothing but wafting mist and the lapping of the river against the boat, Lorcan spoke again. “You wouldn’t have stopped that dagger.”

She didn’t respond, and the silence went on long enough that he turned to where she perched on the crate.

Tears rolled down her face as she stared at the water.

He didn’t know how to comfort, how to soothe—not in the way she needed.

So he set down the pole and sat beside her on the crate, the wood groaning. “Who is Manon?”

He’d heard most of what Vernon had hissed inside that private dining room while he’d been setting his trap in the courtyard, but some details had evaded him.

“The Wing Leader of the Ironteeth legion,” Elide said, voice trembling, the words snagging on the blood clogging her nose.

Lorcan took a shot in the dark. “She was the one who got you out. That day—she was why you’re in witch leathers, why you wound up wandering in Oakwald.”

A nod.

“And Kaltain—who was she?” The person who’d given her that thing she carried.

“Erawan’s mistress—his slave. She was my age. He put the stone inside her arm and made her into a living ghost. She bought me and Manon time to run; she incinerated most of Morath in the process, and herself.”

Elide reached into her jacket, her breathing thick with tears still sliding down her face. Lorcan’s breath caught as she pulled out a scrap of dark fabric.

The scent clinging to it was female, foreign—broken and sad and cold. But there was another scent beneath it, one he knew and hated …

“Kaltain said to give this to Celaena—not to Aelin,” Elide said, shaking with her tears. “Because Celaena … she gave her a warm cloak in a cold dungeon. And they wouldn’t let Kaltain take the cloak with her when they brought her to Morath, but she managed to save this scrap. To remember to repay Celaena for that kindness. But … what sort of gift is this thing? What is this?” She pulled back the fold of cloth, revealing a dark sliver of stone.