Queen of Shadows

The second dungeon held more of the same. Vesta stayed this time to sweep it again.

Faster, Blackbeak, that wise female voice begged her, as if there were only so much she might interfere. Faster—

Manon ran like hell.

The third dungeon was above the catacombs, and so heavily guarded that black blood became a mist around them as they launched themselves into tier after tier of soldiers.

Not one more. Not one more female would she allow them to take.

Sorrel and Asterin plunged into the soldiers, plowing a path for her. Asterin ripped out the throat of one man with her teeth while she gutted another with her nails. Black blood sprayed from Asterin’s mouth as she pointed to the stairs ahead and roared, “Go!”

So Manon had left her Second and Third behind, leaping down the stairs, around and around. There had to be a secret entrance from these dungeons into the catacombs, some quiet way to transport Elide—

Faster, Blackbeak! that sage voice barked.

And as a little wind pushed at Manon’s feet as if it could hurry her along, she knew that it was a goddess peering over her shoulder, a lady of wise things. Who perhaps had watched over Elide her entire life, muted without magic, but now that it was free …

Manon hit the lowest level of the dungeon, a mere floor above the catacombs. Sure enough, at the end of the hall, a door opened onto a descending staircase.

Between her and that staircase were two guards sniggering at an open cell door as a young woman begged for their mercy.

It was the sound of Elide’s weeping—that girl of quiet steel and quicksilver wit who had not wept for herself or her sorry life, only faced it with grim determination—that made Manon snap entirely.

She killed those guards in the hall.

She saw what they had been laughing at: the girl gripped between two other guards, her robe tugged open to reveal her nakedness, the full extent of that ruined leg—

Her grandmother had sold them to these people.

She was a Blackbeak; she was no one’s slave. No one’s prize horse to breed.

Neither was Elide.

Her wrath was a song in her blood, and Manon had merely said, “You’re already dead men,” before she unleashed herself on them.

When she’d chucked the last guard’s body onto the ground, when she was covered in black and blue blood, Manon looked at the girl on the floor.

Elide tugged her green robe shut, shaking so badly Manon thought she’d puke. She could smell vomit already in the cell. They had kept her here, in this rotting place.

“We need to run,” Manon said.

Elide tried to rise, but couldn’t so much as get to her knees.

Manon stalked to her, helping the girl to her feet, leaving a smear of blood on her forearm. Elide swayed, but Manon was looking at the old chain around her ankles.

With a swipe of her iron nails, she snapped through it.

She’d unlock the shackles later. “Now,” Manon said, tugging Elide into the hall.

There were more soldiers shouting from the way she’d come, and Asterin and Sorrel’s battle cries rang out down the stairs. But behind them, from the catacombs below …

More men—Valg—curious about the clamor leaking in from above.

Bringing Elide into the melee might very well kill her, but if the soldiers from the catacombs attacked from behind … Worse, if they brought one of their princes …

Regret. It had been regret she’d felt that night she’d killed the Crochan. Regret and guilt and shame, for acting on blind obedience, for being a coward when the Crochan had held her head high and spoken truth.

They have made you into monsters. Made, Manon. And we feel sorry for you.

It was regret that she’d felt when she heard Asterin’s tale. For not being worthy of trust.

And for what she had allowed to happen to those Yellowlegs.

She did not want to imagine what she might feel should she bring Elide to her death. Or worse.

Brutality. Discipline. Obedience.

It did not seem like a weakness to fight for those who could not defend themselves. Even if they weren’t true witches. Even if they meant nothing to her.

“We’re going to have to battle our way out,” Manon said to Elide.

But the girl was wide-eyed, gaping at the cell doorway.

Standing there, her dress flowing around her like liquid night, was Kaltain.

82

Elide stared at the dark-haired young woman.

And Kaltain stared back.

Manon let out a warning snarl. “Unless you want to die, get the rutting hell out of the way.”

Kaltain, her hair unbound, her face pale and gaunt, said, “They are coming now. To find out why she has not yet arrived.”

Manon’s bloodied hand was sticky and damp as it clamped around Elide’s arm and tugged her toward the door. The single step, the freedom of movement without that chain … Elide almost sobbed.

Until she heard the fighting ahead. Behind them, from the dark stairwell at the other end of the hall, the rushing feet of more men approached from far below.

Kaltain stepped aside as Manon pushed past.

“Wait,” Kaltain said. “They will turn this Keep upside down looking for you. Even if you get airborne, they will send out riders after you and use your own people against you, Blackbeak.”

Manon dropped Elide’s arm. Elide hardly dared to breathe as the witch said, “How long has it been since you destroyed the demon inside that collar, Kaltain?”

A low, broken laugh. “A while.”

“Does the duke know?”

“My dark liege sees what he wants to see.” She shifted her eyes to Elide. Exhaustion, emptiness, sorrow, and rage danced there together. “Remove your robe and give it to me.”

Elide backed up a step. “What?”

Manon looked between them. “You can’t trick them.”

“They see what they want to see,” Kaltain said again.

The men closing in on either side grew nearer with every uneven heartbeat. “This is insane,” Elide breathed. “It’ll never work.”

“Take off your robe and give it to the lady,” Manon ordered. “Do it now.”

No room for disobedience. So Elide listened, blushing at her own nakedness, trying to cover herself.

Kaltain merely let her black dress slip from her shoulders. It rippled on the ground.

Her body—what they had done to her body, the bruises on her, the thinness …

Kaltain wrapped herself in the robe, her face empty again.

Elide slid on the gown, its fabric horribly cold when it should have been warm.

Kaltain knelt before one of the dead guards—oh, gods, those were corpses lying there—and ran her hand over the hole in the guard’s neck. She smeared and flicked blood over her face, her neck, her arms, the robe. She ran it through her hair, tugging it forward, hiding her face until bits of blood were all that could be seen, folding her shoulders inward, until—

Until Kaltain looked like Elide.

You could be sisters, Vernon had said. Now they could be twins.

“Please—come with us,” Elide whispered.

Kaltain laughed quietly. “Dagger, Blackbeak.”

Manon pulled out a dagger.

Kaltain sliced it deep into the hideous scarred lump in her arm. “In your pocket, girl,” Kaltain said to her. Elide reached into the dress and pulled out a scrap of dark fabric, frayed and ripped at the edges, as if it had been torn from something.

Elide held it toward the lady as Kaltain reached into her arm, no expression of pain on that beautiful, bloodied face, and pulled out a glimmering sliver of dark stone.

Kaltain’s red blood dripped off it. Carefully, the lady set it onto the scrap of fabric Elide held out, and folded Elide’s fingers around it.

A dull, strange thudding pounded through Elide as she grasped the shard.

“What is that?” Manon asked, sniffing subtly.

Kaltain just squeezed Elide’s fingers. “You find Celaena Sardothien. Give her this. No one else. No one else. Tell her that you can open any door, if you have the key. And tell her to remember her promise to me—to punish them all. When she asks why, tell her I said that they would not let me bring the cloak she gave me, but I kept a piece of it. To remember that promise she made. To remember to repay her for a warm cloak in a cold dungeon.”