Queen of Shadows

Hoarfrost coated the windows, groaning—

Glass exploded, and a cry shattered from her throat as it sliced into her back.

Aelin veered to the side, for the now-broken window, its too-small iron frame, and the drop beyond.

She flung herself through it.

72

Bright, open air, the wind roaring in her ears, then—

Aelin landed on the open glass bridge a level below, her knees popping as she absorbed the impact and rolled. Her body shrieked in agony at the slices in her arms and back where bits of glass stuck clean through her suit, but she was already sprinting for the tower door at the other end of the bridge.

She looked in time to see Dorian hurtle right through the space she’d cleared, his eyes fixed on her.

Aelin flung open the door as the boom of Dorian hitting the bridge sounded.

She slammed the door behind her, but even that couldn’t seal out the growing cold.

Just a little farther.

Aelin raced up the spiraling tower stairs, half sobbing through her gritted teeth.

Rowan. Aedion. Chaol.

Chaol—

The door shattered off its hinges at the base of the spire and cold exploded through, stealing her breath.

But Aelin had reached the top of the tower. Beyond it, another glass footbridge, thin and bare, stretched far across to one of the other spires.

It was still shaded as the sun crept across the other side of the building, the uppermost turrets of the glass castle surrounding and smothering her like a cage of darkness.

Aelin had gotten out, and taken Dorian with her.

Chaol had bought her that time, in one final attempt to save his friend and his king.

When she had burst into his house this morning, sobbing and laughing, she’d explained what the Wing Leader had written, the payment the witch had given in exchange for saving her life. Dorian was still in there, still fighting.

She had planned to take them both on at once, the king and the prince, and he had agreed to help her, to try to talk Dorian back into humanity, to try to convince the prince to fight. Until that moment he’d seen his men hanging from the gates.

Now he had no interest in talking.

If Aelin were to stand a chance—any chance—of freeing Dorian from that collar, she needed the king out of the picture. Even if it cost her the vengeance for her family and kingdom.

Chaol was glad to settle that score on her behalf—and on the behalf of many more.

The king looked at Chaol’s sword, then at his face, and laughed.

“You’ll kill me, Captain? Such dramatics.”

They’d gotten away. Aelin had gotten Dorian out, her bluff so flawless even Chaol had believed the Eye in her hands was the real thing, with the way she’d angled it into the sun so the blue stone glowed. He had no idea where she’d put the real one. If she was even wearing it.

All of it—all that they had done, and lost, and fought for. All of it for this moment.

The king kept approaching, and Chaol held his sword before him, not yielding one step.

For Ress. For Brullo. For Sorscha. For Dorian. For Aelin, and Aedion, and their family, for the thousands massacred in those labor camps. And for Nesryn—who he’d lied to, who would wait for a return that wouldn’t come, for time they wouldn’t have together.

He had no regrets but that one.

A wave of black slammed into him, and Chaol staggered back a step, the marks of protection tingling on his skin.

“You lost,” Chaol panted. The blood was flaking away beneath his clothes, itching.

Another wave of black, identical to the one that had struck Dorian—which Dorian hadn’t been able to stand against.

Chaol felt it that time: the throb of unending agony, the whisper of pain to come.

The king approached. Chaol lifted his sword higher.

“Your wards are failing, boy.”

Chaol smiled, tasting blood in his mouth. “Good thing steel lasts longer.”

The sun through the windows warmed Chaol’s back—as if in an embrace, as if in comfort. As if it to tell him it was time.

I’ll make it count, Aelin had promised him.

He had bought her time.

A wave of black reared up behind the king, sucking the light out of the room.

Chaol spread his arms wide as the darkness hit him, shattered him, obliterated him until there was nothing but light—burning blue light, warm and welcoming.

Aelin and Dorian had gotten away. It was enough.

When the pain came, he was not afraid.

73

It was going to kill her.

He wanted it to.

Her face—that face—

He neared the woman, step by step across the narrow, shaded bridge, the turrets high above them gleaming with blinding light.

Blood covered her arms, and she panted as she backed away from him, her hands out before her, a gold ring shining on her finger. He could smell her now—the immortal, mighty blood in her veins.

“Dorian,” she said.

He did not know that name.

And he was going to kill her.

74

Time. She needed to buy more time, or steal it, while the bridge still lay in shadow, while the sun slowly, slowly moved.

“Dorian,” Aelin pleaded again.

“I’m going to rip you apart from the inside out,” the demon said.

Ice spread across the bridge. The glass in her back shifted and ripped into her with each step she retreated toward the tower door.

Still the clock tower had not come down.

But the king had not yet arrived.

“Your father is currently in his council room,” she said, fighting the pain splintering through her. “He is in there with Chaol—with your friend—and your father has likely already killed him.”

“Good.”

“Chaol,” Aelin said, her voice breaking. Her foot slid against a patch of ice, and the world tilted as she steadied her balance. The drop to the ground hundreds of feet below hit her in the gut, but she kept her eyes on the prince even as agony rippled down her body again. “Chaol. You sacrificed yourself. You let them put that collar on you—so he could get out.”

“I’m going to let him put a collar on you, and then we can play.”

She hit the tower door, fumbling for the latch.

But it was iced over.

She clawed at the ice, glancing between the prince and the sun that had begun to peek around the corner of the tower.

Dorian was ten steps away.

She whirled back around. “Sorscha—her name was Sorscha, and she loved you. You loved her. And they took her away from you.”

Five steps.

There was nothing human in that face, no flicker of memory in those sapphire eyes.

Aelin began weeping, even as blood leaked down her nose from his nearness. “I came back for you. Just like I promised.”

A dagger of ice appeared in his hand, its lethal tip glinting like a star in the sunlight. “I don’t care,” Dorian said.

She shoved a hand between them as if she could push him away, grabbing one of his own hands tight. His skin was so cold as he used the other to plunge the knife into her side.

Rowan’s blood sprayed from his mouth as the creature slammed into him, knocking him to the ground.

Four were dead, but three remained between him and the fuse.

Aedion bellowed in pain and fury, holding the line, keeping the other three at bay as Rowan drove his blade home—

The creature flipped back, away out of reach.

The three beasts converged again, wild with the Fae blood now covering the passage. His blood. Aedion’s. The general’s face was already pale from the loss of it. They couldn’t stand this much longer.

But he had to get that tower down.

As though they were of one mind, one body, the three Wyrdhounds lunged, driving him and Aedion apart, one leaping for the general, two snapping for him—

Rowan went down as stone jaws clamped onto his leg.

Bone snapped, and black crushed in—

He roared against the darkness that meant death.

Rowan slammed his fighting knife into the creature’s eye, driving up and deep, just as the second beast lunged for his outstretched arm.

But something massive slammed into the creature, and it yelped as it was thrown against the wall. The dead one was hurled away a heartbeat later, and then—

And then there was Lorcan, swords out and swinging, a battle cry on his lips as he tore into the remaining creatures.