Queen of Shadows

“No one in Terrasen ever looked into these symbols?”

“If they did, it was never revealed—or they wrote it in their personal accounts, which were stored in the Library of Orynth.” She chewed on the inside of her lip. “It was one of the first places the King of Adarlan sacked.”

“Maybe the librarians smuggled out the rulers’ accounts first—maybe they got lucky.”

Her heart sank a bit. “Maybe. We won’t know until we return to Terrasen.” She tapped her foot on the carpet. “I need to hide this.” There was a loose floorboard in her closet under which she stashed money, weapons, and jewelry. It would be good enough for now. And Aedion wouldn’t question it, since she couldn’t risk wearing the damn thing in public anyway, even under her clothes—not until she was back in Terrasen. She stared down at the amulet.

“So do it,” he said.

“I don’t want to touch it.”

“If it was that easy to trigger, your ancestors would have figured out what it was.”

“You pick it up,” she said, frowning.

He just gave her a look.

She bent down, willing her mind blank while she lifted the amulet off the table. Rowan stiffened as if bracing himself, despite his reassurance.

The key was a millstone in her hand, but that initial sense of wrongness, of an abyss of power … It was quiet. Slumbering.

She made quick work of pulling back the rug in her closet and yanking loose the floorboard. She felt Rowan come up behind her, peering over her shoulder where she knelt and into the small compartment.

She had picked up the amulet to drop it into the little space when a thread tugged inside her—no, not a thread, but … a wind, as if some force barreled from Rowan into her, as if their bond were a living thing, and she could feel what it was to be him—

She dropped the amulet into the compartment. It thudded only once, a dead weight.

“What?” Rowan asked.

She twisted to peer up at him. “I felt—I felt you.”

“How?”

So she told him—about his essence sliding into her, of feeling like she wore his skin, if only for a heartbeat.

He didn’t look entirely pleased. “That sort of ability could be a helpful tool for later.”

She scowled. “Typical warrior-brute thinking.”

He shrugged. Gods, how did he handle it, the weight of his power? He could crush bones into dust even without his magic; he could bring this whole building down with a few well-placed blows.

She’d known—of course she’d known—but to feel it … The most powerful purebred Fae male in existence. To an ordinary human, he was as alien as the Valg.

“But I think you’re right: it can’t just blindly act on my will,” she said at last. “Or else my ancestors would have razed Orynth to the ground anytime they were royally pissed off. I—I think these things might be neutral by nature; it’s the bearer who guides how they are used. In the hands of someone pure of heart, it would only be beneficial. That was how Terrasen thrived.”

Rowan snorted as she replaced the wooden plank, tamping it down with the heel of her hand. “Trust me, your ancestors weren’t utterly holy.” He offered her a hand up, and she tried not to stare at it as she gripped it. Hard, callused, unbreakable—nearly impossible to kill. But there was a gentleness to his grip, a care reserved only for those he cherished and protected.

“I don’t think any of them were assassins,” she said as he dropped her hand. “The keys can corrupt an already black heart—or amplify a pure one. I’ve never heard anything about hearts that are somewhere in between.”

“The fact that you worry says enough about your intentions.”

She stepped all around the area to ensure that no creaking boards gave away the hiding place. Thunder rumbled above the city. “I’m going to pretend that’s not an omen,” she muttered.

“Good luck with that.” He nudged her with an elbow as they reentered the bedroom. “We’ll keep an eye on things—and if you appear to be heading toward Dark Lorddom, I promise to bring you back to the light.”

“Funny.” The little clock on her nightstand chimed, and thunder boomed again through Rifthold. A swift-moving storm. Good—maybe it would clear her head, too.

She went to the box Lysandra had brought her and pulled out the other item.

“Lysandra’s jeweler,” Rowan said, “is a very talented person.”

Aelin held up a replica of the amulet. She’d gotten the size, coloring, and weight almost perfect. She set it on her vanity like a discarded piece of jewelry. “Just in case anyone asks where it went.”

The downpour had softened to a steady drizzle by the time the clock struck one, yet Aelin hadn’t come down from the roof. She’d gone up there to take over Aedion’s watch, apparently—and Rowan had waited, biding his time as the clock neared midnight and then passed it. Chaol had come by to give Aedion a report on the movements of Arobynn’s men, but slipped back out around twelve.

Rowan was done waiting.

She was standing in the rain, facing westward—not toward the glowing castle to her right, not toward the sea at her back, but across the city.

He didn’t mind that she’d gotten that glimpse into him. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t care what she knew about him, so long as it didn’t scare her away—and would have told her before if he still hadn’t been so stupidly distracted by how she looked tonight.

The lamplight glinted off the combs in her hair and along the golden dragon on the dress.

“You’ll ruin that dress standing out here in the rain,” he said.

She half turned toward him. The rain had left streaks of kohl down her face, and her skin was as pale as a fish’s belly. The look in her eyes—guilt, anger, agony—hit him like a blow to the gut.

She turned again toward the city. “I was never going to wear this dress again, anyway.”

“You know I’ll take care of it tonight,” he said, stepping beside her, “if you don’t want to be the one to do it.” And after what that bastard had tried to do to her, what he’d planned to do to her … He and Aedion would take a long, long time ending Arobynn’s life.

She gazed across the city, toward the Assassins’ Keep. “I told Lysandra she could do it.”

“Why?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tight. “Because more than me, more than you or Aedion, Lysandra deserves to be the one who ends him.”

It was true. “Will she be needing our assistance?”

She shook her head, spraying droplets of rain off the combs and the damp strands of hair that had come loose. “Chaol went to ensure everything goes fine.”

Rowan allowed himself a moment to look at her—at the relaxed shoulders and uplifted chin, the grip she had on her elbows, the curve of her nose against the streetlight, the thin line of her mouth.

“It feels wrong,” she said, “to still wish that there had been some other way.” She took an uneven breath, the air clouding in front of her. “He was a bad man,” she whispered. “He was going to enslave me to his will, use me to take over Terrasen, maybe make himself king—maybe sire my—” She shuddered so violently that light shimmered off the gold in her dress. “But he also … I also owe him my life. All this time I thought it would be a relief, a joy to end him. But all I feel is hollow. And tired.”

She was like ice when he slid an arm around her, folding her into his side. Just this once—just this once, he would let himself hold her. If he’d been asked to put down Maeve, and one of his cadre had done it instead—if Lorcan had done it—he would have felt the same.

She twisted slightly to peer up at him, and though she tried to hide it, he could see the fear in her gaze, and the guilt. “I need you to hunt down Lorcan tomorrow. See if he’s accomplished the little task I gave him.”

If he’d killed those Wyrdhounds. Or been killed by them. So she could at last free magic.

Gods. Lorcan was his enemy now. He shut out the thought. “And if it’s necessary to eliminate him?”