Queen of Shadows

“Aelin Galathynius’s return might have started it,” Chaol said, aware of those who listened.

“No,” Nesryn said simply. “Aelin announced herself barely two months ago. Something this large … It’s been in the works for a long, long time.”

Sen—one of the leaders with whom Chaol met regularly— said, “We should consider yielding the city. Move to other places where their foothold isn’t as secure; maybe try to establish a border somehow. If Aelin Galathynius is lingering near Rifthold, we should meet with her—maybe head for Terrasen, push Adarlan out, and hold the line.”

“We can’t abandon Rifthold,” Chaol said, glancing at the prisoners being helped to their feet.

“It might be suicide to stay,” Sen challenged. Some of the others nodded their agreement.

Chaol opened his mouth, but Nesryn said, “We need to head for the river. Fast.”

He gave her a grateful look, but she was already moving.

Aelin waited until everyone was asleep and the full moon had risen before climbing out of bed, careful not to jostle Rowan.

She slipped into the closet and dressed swiftly, strapping on the weapons she’d casually dumped there that afternoon. Neither male had commented when she’d plucked Damaris from the dining table, claiming she wanted to clean it.

She strapped the ancient blade onto her back along with Goldryn, the two hilts peeking over either shoulder as she stood in front of the closet mirror and hastily braided back her hair. It was short enough now that braiding had become a nuisance, and the front bits slipped out, but at least it wasn’t in her face.

She crept from the closet, a spare cloak in hand, past the bed where Rowan’s tattooed torso gleamed in the light of the full moon leaking in from the window. He didn’t stir as she snuck from the bedroom and out of the apartment, no more than a shadow.

36

It didn’t take long for Aelin to set her trap. She could feel the eyes monitoring her as she found the patrol led by one of the more sadistic Valg commanders.

Thanks to Chaol and Nesryn’s reports, she knew their new hideouts. What Chaol and Nesryn didn’t know—what she had spent these nights sneaking out to track on her own—was which sewer entrances the commanders used when going to speak to one of the Wyrdhounds.

They seemed to prefer the most ancient waterways to swimming through the filth of the more recent main tunnels. She’d been getting as close as she dared, which usually was not near enough to overhear anything.

Tonight, she slipped down into the sewers after the commander, her steps nearly silent on the slick stones, trying to stifle her nausea at the stench. She’d waited until Chaol, Nesryn, and their top lieutenants were out of the city, chasing down those prison wagons, if only so no one would get in her way again. She couldn’t risk it.

As she walked, keeping far enough behind the Valg commander that he wouldn’t hear, she began speaking softly.

“I got the key,” she said, a sigh of relief passing over her lips.

Twisting her voice just as Lysandra had showed her, she replied in a male tenor, “You brought it with you?”

“Of course I did. Now show me where you wanted to hide it.”

“Patience,” she said, trying not to smile too much as she turned down a corner, creeping along. “It’s just up this way.”

On she went, offering whispers of conversation, until she neared the crossroads where the Valg commanders liked to meet with their Wyrdhound overseer and fell silent. There, she dumped the spare cloak she’d brought, and then backtracked to a ladder leading up to the street.

Aelin’s breath caught as she pushed against the grate, and it mercifully gave.

She heaved herself onto the street, her hands unsteady. For a moment, she contemplated lying there on the filthy, wet cobblestones, savoring the free air around her. But he was too close. So she silently sealed the grate again.

It took only a minute before near-silent boots scraped on stone below, and a figure moved past the ladder, heading to where she’d left the cape, tracking her as he’d done all night.

As she’d let him do all night.

And when Lorcan walked right into that den of Valg commanders and the Wyrdhound that had come to retrieve their reports, when the clash of weapons and roar of dying filled her ears, Aelin merely sauntered down the street, whistling to herself.

Aelin was striding down an alley three blocks from the warehouse when a force akin to a stone wall slammed her face-first into the side of a brick building.

“You little bitch,” Lorcan snarled in her ear.

Both of her arms were somehow already pinned behind her back, his legs digging hard enough into hers that she couldn’t move them.

“Hello, Lorcan,” she said sweetly, turning her throbbing face as much as she could.

From the corner of her eye, she could make out cruel features beneath his dark hood, along with onyx eyes and matching shoulder-length hair, and—damn. Elongated canines shone far too near her throat.

One hand gripped her arms like a steel vise; Lorcan used the other to push her head against the damp brick so hard her cheek scraped. “You think that was funny?”

“It was worth a shot, wasn’t it?”

He reeked of blood—that awful, otherworldly Valg blood. He pushed her face a little harder into the wall, his body an immovable force against her. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Ah, about that,” she said, and shifted her wrist just enough for him to feel the blade she’d flicked free in the moment before she’d sensed his attack—the steel now resting against his groin. “Immortality seems like a long, long time to go without your favorite body part.”

“I’ll rip out your throat before you can move.”

She pressed the blade harder against him. “Big risk to take, isn’t it?”

For a moment, Lorcan remained unmoving, still shoving her into the wall with the force of five centuries of lethal training. Then cool air nipped at her neck, her back. By the time she whirled, Lorcan was several paces away.

In the darkness, she could barely make out the granite-hewn features, but she remembered enough from that day in Doranelle to guess that beneath his hood, the unforgiving face was livid. “Honestly,” she said, leaning against the wall, “I’m a little surprised you fell for it. You must think I’m truly stupid.”

“Where’s Rowan?” he sneered. His close-fitting dark clothes, armored with black metal at the forearms and shoulders, seemed to gobble up the dim light. “Still warming your bed?”

She didn’t want to know how Lorcan knew that. “Isn’t that all you pretty males are good for?” She looked him up and down, marking the many weapons both visible and concealed. Massive—as massive as Rowan and Aedion. And utterly unimpressed by her. “Did you kill all of them? There were only three by my count.”

“There were six of them, and one of those stone demons, you bitch, and you knew it.”

So he had found a way to kill one of the Wyrdhounds. Interesting—and good. “You know, I’m really rather tired of being called that. You’d think five centuries would give you enough time to come up with something more creative.”

“Come a little closer, and I’ll show you just what five centuries can do.”

“Why don’t I show you what happens when you whip my friends, you spineless prick?”

Violence danced across those brutal features. “Such a big mouth for someone without her fire tricks.”

“Such a big mouth for someone who needs to mind his surroundings.”

Rowan’s knife was angled along Lorcan’s throat before he could so much as blink.

She’d been wondering how long it would take him to find her. He’d probably awakened the moment she pushed back the covers. “Start talking,” Rowan ordered Lorcan.

Lorcan gripped his sword—a mighty, beautiful weapon that she had no doubt had ended many lives on killing fields in distant lands. “You don’t want to get into this fight right now.”

“Give me a good reason not to spill your blood,” Rowan said.

“If I die, Maeve will offer aid to the King of Adarlan against you.”