Queen of Shadows

“So you see,” she finished, “considering the gifts I have, you’ll find that you want to tell me what you know. I might be the only person capable of freeing Dorian, or at least giving him the mercy of killing him. If he’s even in there.” The last words tasted as horrible as they sounded.

Chaol shook his head. Once. Twice. And she might have felt bad for the panic, for the grief and despair on his face. Until he said, “Did it even occur to you to send us a warning? To let any of us know about the king’s collars?”

It was like a bucket of water had been dumped on her. She blinked. She could have warned them—could have tried. Later—she’d think about that later.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Right now, we need to help Aedion and Dorian.”

“There is no we.” He unfastened the Eye of Elena from around his neck and chucked it at her. It glimmered in the streetlights as it flew between them. She caught it with one hand, the metal warm against her skin. She didn’t look at it before sliding it into her pocket. He went on. “There hasn’t been a we for a while, Celaena—”

“It’s Aelin now,” she snapped as loudly as she dared. “Celaena Sardothien doesn’t exist anymore.”

“You’re still the same assassin who walked away. You came back only when it was useful for you.”

It was an effort to keep from sending her fist into his nose. Instead she pulled the silver amethyst ring out of her pocket and grabbed his hand, slamming it into his gloved palm. “Why were you meeting with Arobynn Hamel tonight?”

“How—”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell me why.”

“I wanted his help to kill the king.”

Aelin started. “Are you insane? Did you tell him that?”

“No, but he guessed it. I’d been trying to meet with him for a week now, and tonight he summoned me.”

“You’re a fool for going.” She began walking again. Staying in one spot, however deserted, wasn’t wise.

Chaol fell into step beside her. “I didn’t see any other assassins offering their services.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. She curled her fingers, then straightened them one by one. “The price won’t be gold or favors. The price will be the last thing you see coming. Likely the death or suffering of the people you care about.”

“You think I didn’t know that?”

“So you want to have Arobynn kill the king, and what? Put Dorian on the throne? With a Valg demon inside him?”

“I didn’t know that until now. But it changes nothing.”

“It changes everything. Even if you get that collar off, there’s no guarantee the Valg hasn’t taken root inside him. You might replace one monster with another.”

“Why don’t you say whatever it is you’re getting at, Aelin?” He hissed her name barely loud enough for her to hear.

“Can you kill the king? When it comes down to it, could you kill your king?”

“Dorian is my king.”

It was an effort not to flinch. “Semantics.”

“He killed Sorscha.”

“He killed millions before her.” Perhaps a challenge, perhaps another question.

His eyes flared. “I need to go. I’m meeting Brullo in an hour.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said, glancing toward the glass castle towering over the northeastern quarter of the city. Perhaps she’d learn a bit more about what the Weapons Master knew about Dorian. And how she might be able to put down her friend. Her blood turned icy, sluggish.

“No, you won’t,” Chaol said. Her head snapped toward him. “If you’re there, I have to answer too many questions. I won’t jeopardize Dorian to satisfy your curiosity.”

He kept walking straight, but she turned the corner with a tight shrug. “Do what you want.”

Noticing she was heading away, he halted. “And what are you going to be doing?”

Too much suspicion in that voice. She paused her steps and arched an eyebrow. “Many things. Wicked things.”

“If you give us away, Dorian will—”

She cut him off with a snort. “You refused to share your information, Captain. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to withhold mine.” She made to walk down the street, toward her old apartment.

“Not captain,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder and studied him again. “What happened to your sword?”

His eyes were hollow. “I lost it.”

Ah. “So is it Lord Chaol, then?”

“Just Chaol.”

For a heartbeat, she pitied him, and part of her wished she could say it more kindly, more compassionately. “There’s no getting Dorian out. There’s no saving him.”

“Like hell there isn’t.”

“You’d be better off considering other contenders to put on the throne—”

“Do not finish that sentence.” His eyes were wide, his breathing uneven.

She’d said enough. She rolled her shoulders, leashing her temper. “With my magic, I could help him—I could try to find a way to free him.”

But most likely kill him. She wouldn’t admit that aloud. Not until she could see him for herself.

“And what then?” Chaol asked. “Will you hold all of Rifthold hostage the way you did Doranelle? Burn anyone who doesn’t agree with you? Or will you just incinerate our kingdom from spite? And what of others like you, who feel that they have a score to settle with Adarlan?” He huffed a bitter laugh. “Perhaps we’re better off without magic. Perhaps magic doesn’t exactly make things fair amongst us mere mortals.”

“Fair? You think that any part of this is fair?”

“Magic makes people dangerous.”

“Magic has saved your life a few times now, if I recall correctly.”

“Yes,” he breathed, “you and Dorian both—and I’m grateful, I am. But where are the checks against your kind? Iron? Not much of a deterrent, is it? Once magic is free, who is to stop the monsters from coming out again? Who is to stop you?”

A spear of ice shot through her heart.

Monster.

It truly had been horror and revulsion that she’d seen on his face that day she revealed her Fae form in the other world—the day she’d cleaved the earth and called down fire to save him, to save Fleetfoot. Yes, there would always need to be checks against any sort of power, but … Monster.

She wished he’d struck her instead. “So Dorian is allowed to have magic. You can come to terms with his power, and yet my power is an abomination to you?”

“Dorian has never killed anyone. Dorian didn’t gut Archer Finn in the tunnels or torture and kill Grave and then chop him up into pieces. Dorian didn’t go on a killing spree at Endovier that left dozens dead.”

It was an effort to put up that old, familiar wall of ice and steel. Everything behind it was crumbling and shaking. “I’ve made my peace with that.” She sucked on her teeth, trying so damn hard not to go for her weapons as she might once have done, as she still ached to do, and said, “I’ll be at my old apartment, should you decide to take your head out of your ass. Good night.”

She didn’t give him a chance to reply before she stalked down the street.

Chaol stood in the small bedroom of the ramshackle house that had been his squadron’s primary headquarters for the past three weeks, staring at a desk littered with maps and plans and notes regarding the palace, the guards’ rotations, and Dorian’s habits. Brullo had nothing to offer during their meeting an hour earlier—just grim reassurance that Chaol had done the right thing in leaving the king’s service and walking away from everything he’d ever worked for. The older man still insisted on calling him captain, despite Chaol’s protests.

Brullo had been the one who’d found Chaol and offered to be his eyes inside the castle, not three days after he’d run. Fled, Aelin had said. She’d known exactly what word she wielded.

A queen—raging and fiery and perhaps more than a little cruel—had found him tonight. He’d seen it from the moment he’d staggered out of the Valg’s darkness to find her standing with a predator’s stillness beside Nesryn. Despite the dirt and blood on her, Aelin’s face was tan and flushed with color, and—different. Older, as if the stillness and power she radiated had honed not just her soul but also the very shape of her. And when he had seen her bare finger …