Queen of Shadows

Harding and Mullin made to move, but Tern flung his arms out, stopping them. “What the hell do you want from us?”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing you three gutted and hanging from the chandeliers by your insides, but I think it would ruin these very beautiful carpets that I’m now the owner of.”

“You can’t just toss us out. What will we do? Where will we go?”

“I hear hell is particularly nice at this time of year.”

“Please—please,” Tern said, his breath coming fast.

She stuffed her hands into her pockets and surveyed the room. “I suppose …” She made a thoughtful sound. “I suppose I could sell you the house, and the land, and the Guild.”

“You bitch—” Tern spat, but Harding stepped forward. “How much?” he asked.

“How much were the property and the Guild valued at, Master?”

The Master looked like a man walking up to the gallows as he opened his file again and found the sum. Astronomical, outrageous, impossible for the three of them to pay.

Harding ran a hand through his hair. Tern had turned a spectacular shade of purple.

“I take it you don’t have that much,” Aelin said. “Too bad. I was going to offer to sell it all to you at face value—no markup.”

She made to turn away, but Harding said, “Wait. What if we all paid together—the three of us and the others. So we all owned the house and the Guild.”

She paused. “Money’s money. I don’t give a shit where you get it from, so long as it’s given to me.” She angled her head toward the Master. “Can you have the papers drawn up today? Providing they come through with the money, of course.”

“This is insane,” Tern murmured to Harding.

Harding shook his head. “Be quiet, Tern. Just—be quiet.”

“I … ,” the Master said. “I—I can have them made up and ready within three hours. Will that be adequate time for you to provide proof of sufficient funds?”

Harding nodded. “We’ll find the others and tell them.”

She smiled at the Master and at the three men. “Congratulations on your new freedom.” She pointed to the door again. “And as I am mistress of this house for another three hours … get out. Go find your friends, get your money together, and then sit on the curb like the trash you are until the Master returns.”

They wisely obeyed, Harding clamping down on Tern’s hand to keep him from giving her a vulgar gesture. When the Master of the Bank left, the assassins spoke to their colleagues, and every inhabitant of the house filed outside one by one, even the servants. She didn’t care what the neighbors made of it.

Soon the giant, beautiful manor house was empty save for her, Aedion, and Rowan.

They silently followed as she walked through the door to the lower levels and descended into the dark to see her master one last time.

Rowan didn’t know what to make of it. A whirlwind of hate and rage and violence, that was what she’d become. And none of these piss-poor assassins had been surprised—not even a blink at her behavior. From Aedion’s pale face, he knew the general was thinking the same thing, contemplating the years she’d spent as that unyielding and vicious creature. Celaena Sardothien—that was who she’d been then, and who she’d become today.

He hated it. Hated that he couldn’t reach her when she was that person. Hated that he’d snapped at her last night, had panicked at the touch of her hands. Now she’d shut him out entirely. This person she’d become today had no kindness, no joy.

He followed her down into the dungeons, where candles lit a path toward the room where her master’s body was being kept. She was still swaggering, hands in her pockets, not caring that Rowan lived or breathed or even existed. Not real, he told himself. An act.

But she’d avoided him since last night, and today she had actually stepped away from his touch when he’d dared to reach for her. That had been real.

She strode through the open door into the same room where Sam had lain. Red hair spilled out from underneath the white silk sheet covering the naked body on the table, and she paused before it. Then she turned to Rowan and Aedion.

She stared at them, waiting. Waiting for them to—

Aedion swore. “You switched the will, didn’t you?”

She gave a small, cold smile, her eyes shadowed. “You said you needed money for an army, Aedion. So here’s your money—all of it, and every coin for Terrasen. It was the least Arobynn owed us. That night I fought at the Pits, we were only there because I’d contacted the owners days before and told them to send out subtle feelers to Arobynn about investing. He took the bait—didn’t even question the timing of it. But I wanted to make sure he quickly earned back all the money he lost when I trashed the Vaults. So we wouldn’t be denied one coin owed to us.”

Holy burning hell.

Aedion shook his head. “How—how the hell did you even do it?”

She opened her mouth, but Rowan said quietly, “She snuck into the bank—all those times that she slipped out in the middle of the night. And used all those daytime meetings with the Master of the Bank to get a better sense of the layout, where things were kept.” This woman, this queen of his … A familiar thrill raced through his blood. “You burned the originals?”

She didn’t even look at him. “Clarisse would have been a very rich woman, and Tern would have become King of the Assassins. And you know what I would have received? The Amulet of Orynth. That was all he left me.”

“That was how you knew he truly had it—and where he kept it,” Rowan said. “From reading the will.”

She shrugged again, dismissing the shock and admiration he couldn’t keep from his face. Dismissing him.

Aedion scrubbed at his face. “I don’t even know what to say. You should have told me so I didn’t act like a gawking fool up there.”

“Your surprise needed to be genuine; even Lysandra didn’t know about the will.” Such a distant answer—closed and heavy. Rowan wanted to shake her, demand she talk to him, look at him. But he wasn’t entirely sure what he would do if she wouldn’t let him near, if she pulled away again while Aedion was watching.

Aelin turned back to Arobynn’s body and flipped the sheet away from his face, revealing a jagged wound that sliced across his pale neck.

Lysandra had mangled him.

Arobynn’s face had been arranged in an expression of calm, but from the blood Rowan had seen in the bedroom, the man had been very much awake while he choked on his own blood.

Aelin peered down at her former master, her face blank save for a slight tightening around her mouth. “I hope the dark god finds a special place for you in his realm,” she said, and a shiver went down Rowan’s spine at the midnight caress in her tone.

She extended a hand behind her to Aedion. “Give me your sword.”

Aedion drew the Sword of Orynth and handed it to her. Aelin gazed down at the blade of her ancestors as she weighed it in her hands.

When she raised her head, there was only icy determination in those remarkable eyes. A queen exacting justice.

Then she lifted her father’s sword and severed Arobynn’s head from his body.

It rolled to the side with a vulgar thud, and she smiled grimly at the corpse.

“Just to be sure,” was all she said.

PART TWO

QUEEN OF LIGHT

48

Manon beat Asterin in the breakfast hall the morning after her outburst regarding the Yellowlegs coven. No one asked why; no one dared.

Three unblocked blows.

Asterin didn’t so much as flinch.

When Manon was finished, the witch just stared her down, blue blood gushing from her broken nose. No smile. No wild grin.

Then Asterin walked away.

The rest of the Thirteen monitored them warily. Vesta, now Manon’s Third, looked half inclined to sprint after Asterin, but a shake of Sorrel’s head kept the red-haired witch still.

Manon was off-kilter all day afterward.

She’d told Sorrel to stay quiet about the Yellowlegs, but wondered if she should tell Asterin to do the same.

She hesitated, thinking about it.