Queen of Shadows

“I came to look at the infamous general before they execute you like an animal.”

No chance of being killed today, then.

“The same way they executed your Sorscha?”

Though the prince didn’t move, Aedion could have sworn he recoiled, as if someone yanked on a leash, as if there was still someone in need of leashing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the thing inside the prince said. But its nostrils flared.

“Sorscha,” Aedion breathed, his lungs aching. “Sorscha—your woman, the healer. I was standing beside you when they cut off her head. I heard you screaming as you dove for her body.” The thing went a bit rigid, and Aedion pressed, “Where did they bury her, Dorian? What did they do with her body, the body of the woman you loved?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” it said again.

“Sorscha,” Aedion panted, his breathing uneven. “Her name was Sorscha, and she loved you—and they killed her. The man who put that collar around your neck killed her.”

The thing was quiet. Then it tilted its head. The smile it gave him was horrifying in its beauty. “I shall enjoy watching you die, General.”

Aedion coughed out a laugh. The prince—the thing he’d become—turned smoothly and strode out. And Aedion might have laughed again, for spite and defiance, had he not heard the prince say to someone in the hall, “The general is sick. See to it that he’s attended to immediately.”

No.

The thing must have smelled it on him.

Aedion could do nothing as a healer was summoned—an older woman named Amithy—and he was held down, too weak to fight back as she attended his wounds. She shoved a tonic down his throat that made him choke; his wound was washed and bound, and his shackles were shortened until he couldn’t move his hands enough to rip out the stitching. The tonics kept coming, every hour, no matter how hard he bit, no matter how forcefully he tried to clamp his mouth shut.

So they saved him, and Aedion cursed and swore at Death for failing him, even as he silently prayed to Mala Light-Bringer to keep Aelin away from the party, away from the prince, and away from the king and his Wyrdstone collars.

The thing inside him left the dungeons and headed into the glass castle, steering his body like a ship. And now it forced him to be still as they stood before the man he often saw in those moments that pierced through the darkness.

The man was seated on a glass throne, smiling faintly as he said, “Bow.”

The thing inside him yanked hard on their bond, lightning spearing his muscles, ordering them to obey. It was how he’d been forced to descend into those dungeons, where that golden-haired warrior had said her name—said her name so many times that he began screaming, even if he made no sound. He was still screaming as his muscles betrayed him yet again, bringing him to his knees, the tendons on his neck lashing with pain, forcing him to bow his head.

“Still resisting?” the man said, glancing at the dark ring on his finger as though it possessed the answer already. “I can feel both of you in there. Interesting.”

Yes—that thing in the darkness was growing stronger, now able to reach through the invisible wall between them and puppet him, speak through him. But not entirely, not for long amounts of time. He patched up the holes as best he could, but it kept breaking through.

Demon. A demon prince.

And he saw that moment—over and over and over—when the woman he’d loved had lost her head. Hearing her name on the general’s raspy tongue had made him start whaling on the other wall in his mind, the barrier that kept him locked in the dark. But the darkness in his mind was a sealed tomb.

The man on the throne said, “Report.”

The command shuddered through him, and he spit out the details of his encounter, every word and action. And the thing—the demon—delighted in his horror at it.

“Clever of Aedion to try to quietly die on me,” the man said. “He must think his cousin has a good chance of arriving at your party, then, if he’s so desperate to rob us of our entertainment.”

He kept silent, as he had not been instructed to speak. The man looked him over, those black eyes full of delight. “I should have done this years ago. I don’t know why I wasted so much time waiting to see whether you’d have any power. Foolish of me.”

He tried to speak, tried to move, tried to do anything with that mortal body of his. But the demon gripped his mind like a fist, and the muscles of his face slid into a smile as he said, “It is my pleasure to serve, Majesty.”

11

The Shadow Market had operated along the banks of the Avery for as long as Rifthold had existed. Maybe longer. Legend claimed it had been built on the bones of the god of truth so that it would keep the vendors and would-be thieves honest. Chaol supposed it was ironic, considering there was no god of truth. As far as he knew. Contraband, illicit substances, spices, clothes, flesh: the market catered to any and all clientele, if they were brave or foolish or desperate enough to venture inside.

When he’d first come here weeks ago, Chaol had been all of those things as he climbed down the half-rotted wooden stairs from a crumbling section of the docks into the embankment itself, where alcoves and tunnels and shops were tunneled into the riverbank.

Cloaked, armed figures patrolled the long, broad quay that served as the only path to the market. During rainy periods, the Avery would often rise high enough to flood the quay, and sometimes unlucky merchants and shoppers drowned inside the labyrinth of the Shadow Market. During drier months, you never knew what or who you might find selling their wares or meandering through the dirty, damp tunnels.

The market was packed tonight, even after a day of rain. A small relief. And another small relief as thunder reverberated through the subterranean warren, setting everyone murmuring. The vendors and lowlifes would be too busy preparing for the storm to take notice of Chaol and Nesryn as they strode down one of the main passageways.

The thunder rattled the hanging lanterns of colored glass—strangely beautiful, as if someone had once been determined to give this place some loveliness—that served as the main lights in the brown caverns, casting plenty of those shadows the market was so notorious for. Shadows for dark dealings, shadows to slip a knife between the ribs or to spirit someone away.

Or for conspirators to meet.

No one had bothered them as they’d slipped through one of the rough holes that served as an entrance to the Shadow Market’s tunnels. They connected to the sewers somewhere—and he would bet that the more established vendors possessed their own secret exits beneath their stalls or shops. Vendor after vendor had set up stalls of wood or stone, with some wares displayed on tables or crates or in baskets, but most valuable goods hidden. A spice dealer offered everything from saffron to cinnamon—but even the most fragrant spices couldn’t conceal the cloyingly sweet stench of the opium stashed beneath his displays.

Once, long ago, Chaol might have cared about the illegal substances, about the vendors selling whatever they pleased. He might have bothered to try to shut this place down.

Now, they were nothing but resources. As a city guard, Nesryn probably felt the same way. Even if, just by being in here, she was jeopardizing her own safety. This was a neutral zone—but its denizens didn’t take kindly to authority.

He didn’t blame them. The Shadow Market had been one of the first places the King of Adarlan had purged after magic vanished, seeking out vendors who claimed to have banned books or still-working charms and potions, as well as magic-wielders desperate for a cure or a glimmer of magic. The punishments hadn’t been pretty.

Chaol almost heaved a sigh of relief when he spotted the two cloaked figures with a spread of knives for sale at a makeshift stand tucked into a dark corner. Exactly where they’d planned, and they’d done a hell of a job making it look authentic.

Nesryn slowed her steps, pausing at various vendors, no more than a bored shopper killing time until the rain ceased. Chaol kept close to her, his weapons and prowling gait enough to deter any foolish pickpockets from trying their luck. The punch he’d taken to his ribs earlier that night made maintaining his crawling pace and scowl all the easier.