Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
Up and up it built, the sound breaking from the pianoforte like the heart-song of a god, until Rowan drifted over to stand beside the instrument, until she whispered to him, “Now,” and the crescendo shattered into the world, note after note after note.
The music crashed around them, roaring through the emptiness of the theater. The hollow silence that had been inside her for so many months now overflowed with sound.
She brought the piece home to its final explosive, triumphant chord.
When she looked up, panting slightly, Rowan’s eyes were lined with silver, his throat bobbing. Somehow, after all this time, her warrior-prince still managed to surprise her.
He seemed to struggle for words, but he finally breathed, “Show me—show me how you did that.”
So she obliged him.
They spent the better part of an hour seated together on the bench, Aelin teaching him the basics of the pianoforte—explaining the sharps and flats, the pedals, the notes and chords. When Rowan heard someone at last coming to investigate the music, they slipped out. She stopped at the Royal Bank, warning Rowan to wait in the shadows across the street as she again sat in the Master’s office while one of his underlings rushed in and out on her business. She eventually left with another bag of gold—vital, now that there was one more mouth to feed and body to clothe—and found Rowan exactly where she’d left him, pissed off that she’d refused to let him accompany her. But he’d raise too many questions.
“So you’re using your own money to support us?” Rowan asked as they slipped down a side street. A flock of beautifully dressed young women passed by on the sunny avenue beyond the alley and gaped at the hooded, powerfully built male who stormed past—and then all turned to admire the view from behind. Aelin flashed her teeth at them.
“For now,” she said to him.
“And what will you do for money later?”
She glanced sidelong at him. “It’ll be taken care of.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
“Explain.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” She gave him a little smile that she knew drove him insane.
Rowan made to grab her by the shoulder, but she ducked away from his touch. “Ah, ah. Better not move too swiftly, or someone might notice.” He snarled, the sound definitely not human, and she chuckled. Annoyance was better than guilt and grief. “Just be patient and don’t get your feathers ruffled.”
CHAPTER
35
Gods, he hated the smell of their blood.
But damn if it wasn’t a glorious thing to be covered in when two dozen Valg lay dead around him, and good people were finally safe.
Drenched in Valg blood from head to toe, Chaol Westfall searched for a clean bit of fabric with which to wipe down his black-stained blade, but came up empty. Across the hidden clearing, Nesryn was doing the same.
He’d killed four; she’d taken down seven. Chaol knew only because he’d been watching her the entire time; she’d paired off with someone else during the ambush. He’d apologized for snapping at her the other night, but she’d just nodded—and still teamed up with another rebel. But now … She gave up trying to wipe down her blade and looked toward him.
Her midnight eyes were bright, and even with her face splattered in black blood, her smile—relieved, a bit wild with the thrill of the fight, their victory—was … beautiful.
The word clanged through him. Chaol frowned, and the expression was instantly wiped from her face. His mind was always a jumble after a fight, as if it had been spun around and around and twisted upside down, and then given a heavy dose of liquor. But he strode toward her. They’d done this—together, they’d saved these people. More at once than they’d ever rescued before, and with no loss of life beyond the Valg.
Gore and blood were splattered on the grassy forest floor, the only remnants of the decapitated Valg bodies that had already been hauled away and dumped behind a boulder. When they left, they’d pay the bodies’ former owners the tribute of burning them.
Three of his group had set to unchaining the huddled prisoners now seated in the grass. The Valg bastards had stuffed so many of them into the two wagons that Chaol had nearly gagged at the smell. Each wagon had only a small, barred window high up on the wall, and a man had fainted inside. But all of them were safe now.
He wouldn’t stop until the others still hidden in the city were out of harm’s way as well.
A woman reached up with her filthy hands—her nails split and fingertips swollen as if she’d tried to claw her way out of whatever hellhole she’d been kept in. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. Probably from screaming that had gone unanswered.
Chaol’s throat tightened as he gave the woman’s hands a gentle squeeze, mindful of her near-broken fingers, and stepped to where Nesryn was now wiping her blade on the grass. “You fought well,” he told her.
“I know I did.” Nesryn looked over her shoulder at him. “We need to get them to the river. The boats won’t wait forever.”
Fine—he didn’t expect warmth or camaraderie after a battle, despite that smile, but … “Maybe once we’re back in Rifthold, we can go for a drink.” He needed one. Badly.
Nesryn rose from her crouch, and he fought the urge to wipe a splatter of black blood from her tan cheek. The hair she’d tied back had come loose, and the warm forest breeze set the strands floating past her face. “I thought we were friends,” she said.
“We are friends,” he said carefully.
“Friends don’t spend time with each other only when they’re feeling sorry for themselves. Or bite each other’s heads off for asking difficult questions.”
“I told you I was sorry for snapping the other night.”
She sheathed her blade. “I’m fine with distracting each other for whatever reason, Chaol, but at least be honest about it.”
He opened his mouth to object, but … maybe she was right. “I do like your company,” he said. “I wanted to go for a drink to celebrate—not … brood. And I’d like to go with you.”
She pursed her lips. “That was the most half-assed attempt at flattery I’ve ever heard. But fine—I’ll join you.” The worst part was that she didn’t even sound mad—she genuinely meant it. He could go drinking with or without her, and she wouldn’t particularly care. The thought didn’t sit well.
Personal conversation decidedly over, Nesryn surveyed the clearing, the wagon, and the carnage. “Why now? The king has had ten years to do this; why the sudden rush to get these people all down to Morath? What’s it building to?”
Some of the rebels turned their way. Chaol studied the bloody aftermath as if it were a map.
“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.
&nbs
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.
CHAPTER
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.”
“Bullshit,” Aelin spat.
“Friends close but enemies closer, right?” Lorcan said.
Slowly, Rowan let go of him and stepped away. All three of them monitored every movement the others made, until Rowan was at Aelin’s side, his teeth bared at Lorcan. The aggression pouring off the Fae Prince was enough to make her jumpy.
“You made a fatal mistake,” Lorcan said to her, “the moment you showed my queen that vision of you with the key.” He flicked his black eyes to Rowan. “And you. You stupid fool. Allying yourself—binding yourself to a mortal queen. What will you do, Rowan, when she grows old and dies? What about when she looks old enough to be your mother? Will you still share her bed, still—”
“That’s enough,” Rowan said softly. She didn’t let one flicker of the emotions that shot through her show, didn’t dare to even think about them for fear Lorcan could smell them.
Lorcan just laughed. “You think you beat Maeve? She allowed you to walk out of Doranelle—both of you.”
Aelin yawned. “Honestly, Rowan, I don’t know how you put up with him for so many centuries. Five minutes and I’m bored to tears.”
“Really—you Fae males and your dramatic speeches.” She turned to walk away, a move she could make only because of the prince standing between them. But she looked back over her shoulder, dropping all pretense of amusement, of boredom. Let that killing calm rise close enough to the surface that she knew there was nothing human in her eyes as she said to Lorcan, “I will never forget, not for one moment, what you did to him that day in Doranelle. Your miserable existence is at the bottom of my priority list, but one day, Lorcan …” She smiled a little. “One day, I’ll come to claim that debt, too. Consider tonight a warning.”
Aelin had just unlocked the warehouse door when Rowan’s deep voice purred from behind, “Busy night, Princess?”
She hauled open the door, and the two of them slipped into the near-black warehouse, illuminated only by a lantern near the back stairs. She took her time locking the sliding door behind her. “Busy, but enjoyable.”
“You’re going to have to try a lot harder to sneak past me,” Rowan said, the words laced with a growl.
“You and Aedion are insufferable.” Thank the gods Lorcan hadn’t seen Aedion—hadn’t scented his heritage. “I was perfectly safe.” Lie. She hadn’t been sure whether Lorcan would even show up—or whether he would fall for her little trap.
Rowan poked her cheek gently, and pain rippled. “You’re lucky scraping you is all he did. The next time you sneak out to pick a fight with Lorcan, you will tell me beforehand.”
“I will do no such thing. It’s my damn business, and—”
“It’s not just your business, not anymore. You will take me along with you the next time.”
“The next time I sneak out,” she seethed, “if I catch you following me like some overprotective nursemaid, I will—”
“You’ll what?” He stepped up close enough to share breath with her, his fangs flashing.