Ress.

How long had they tortured him—tortured all the men? Since Aedion’s rescue?

He racked his mind to think of the last time they’d had contact. He’d assumed the difficulty was because they were lying low. Not because—because they were being—

Chaol noticed the man strung up beside Ress.

Brullo’s eyes were gone, either from torture or the crows. His hands were swollen and twisted—part of his ear was missing.

Chaol had no sounds in his head, no feeling in his body.

It was a message, but not to Aelin Galathynius or Aedion Ashryver.

His fault. His.

He and Aelin didn’t speak as they neared the iron gates, the death of those men lingering over them. Every step was an effort. Every step was too fast.

His fault.

“I’m sorry,” Aelin murmured, nudging him closer to the gates, where black-uniformed guards were indeed monitoring every face that passed on the street. “I’m so sorry—”

“The plan,” he said, his voice shaking. “We change it. Now.”

“Chaol—”

He told her what he needed to do. When he finished, she wiped away her tears as she gripped his hand and said, “I’ll make it count.”

The tears were gone by the time they broke from the crowd, nothing between them and those familiar gates but open cobblestones.

Home—this had once been his home.

He did not recognize the guards standing watch at the gates he had once protected so proudly, the gates he had ridden through not even a year ago with an assassin newly freed from Endovier, her chains tied to his saddle.

Now she led him in chains through those gates, an assassin one last time.

Her walk became a swagger, and she moved with fluid ease toward the guards who drew their swords, their black rings gobbling up the sunlight.

Celaena Sardothien halted a healthy distance away and lifted her chin. “Tell His Majesty that his Champion has returned—and she’s brought him one hell of a prize.”

69

Aelin’s black cloak flowed behind her as she led the fallen Captain of the Guard through the shining halls of the palace. Hidden at her back was her father’s sword, its pommel wrapped in black cloth. None of their ten-guard escort bothered to take her weapons.

Why would they, when Celaena Sardothien was weeks early for her expected return, and still loyal to king and crown?

The halls were so quiet. Even the queen’s court was sealed and silent. Rumor had it the queen had been cloistered in the mountains since Aedion’s rescue and had taken half her court with her. The rest had vanished as well, to escape either the rising summer heat—or the horrors that had come to rule their kingdom.

Chaol said nothing, though he put on a good show of looking furious, like a pursued man desperate to find a way back to freedom. No sign of the devastation that had been on his face upon finding his men hanging from the gates.

He jerked against the chains, and she leaned in close. “I don’t think so, Captain,” she purred. Chaol didn’t deign a response.

The guards glanced at her. Wyrdmarks written in Chaol’s blood covered her beneath her clothes, its human scent hopefully masking any hints of her heritage that the Valg might otherwise pick up. There were only two demons in this group—a small mercy.

So they went, up and up, into the glass castle itself.

The halls seemed too bright to contain such evil. The few servants they passed averted their eyes and scurried along. Had everyone fled since Aedion’s rescue?

It was an effort to not look too long at Chaol as they neared the massive red-and-gold glass doors, already open to reveal the crimson-marbled floor of the king’s council room.

Already open to reveal the king, seated on his glass throne.

And Dorian standing beside him.

Their faces.

They were faces that tugged at him.

Human filth, the demon hissed.

The woman—he recognized that face as she yanked back her dark hood and knelt before the dais on which he stood.

“Majesty,” she said. Her hair was shorter than he remembered.

No—he did not remember. He did not know her.

And the man in chains beside her, bloodied and filthy …

Screaming, wind, and—

Enough, the demon snapped.

But their faces—

He did not know those faces.

He did not care.

The King of Adarlan, the murderer of her family, the destroyer of her kingdom, lounged in his glass throne. “Isn’t this an interesting turn of events, Champion.”

She smiled, hoping the cosmetics she’d dabbed around her eyes would mute the turquoise and gold of her irises, and that the drab shade of blond she’d dyed her hair would disguise its near-identical hue with Aedion’s. “Do you want to hear an interesting story, Your Majesty?”

“Does it involve my enemies in Wendlyn being dead?”

“Oh, that, and much, much more.”

“Why has word not arrived, then?”

The ring on his finger seemed to suck in the light. But she could spy no sign of the Wyrdkeys, couldn’t feel them here, as she’d felt the presence of the one in the amulet.

Chaol was pale, and kept glancing at the floor of the room.

This was where everything had happened. Where they’d murdered Sorscha. Where Dorian had been enslaved. Where, once upon a time, she’d signed her soul away to the king under a fake name, a coward’s name.

“Don’t blame me for the piss-poor messengers,” she said. “I sent word the day before I left.” She pulled out two objects from her cloak and looked over her shoulder at the guards, jerking her chin at Chaol. “Watch him.”

She strode to the throne and extended her hand to the king. He reached forward, the reek of him—

Valg. Human. Iron. Blood.

She dropped two rings into his palm. The clink of metal on metal was the only sound.

“The seal rings of the King and Crown Prince of Wendlyn. I’d have brought their heads, but … Immigration officials can get so pissy.”

The king plucked up one of the rings, his face stony. Lysandra’s jeweler had yet again done a stunning job of re-creating the royal crest of Wendlyn and then wearing down the rings until they looked ancient, like heirlooms. “And where were you during Narrok’s attack on Wendlyn?”

“Was I supposed to be anywhere but hunting my prey?”

The king’s black eyes bored into hers.

“I killed them when I could,” she went on, crossing her arms, careful of the hidden blades in the suit. “Apologies for not making it the grand statement you wanted. Next time, perhaps.”

Dorian hadn’t moved a muscle, his features stone-cold above the collar around his neck.

“And how did you wind up with my Captain of the Guard in chains?”

Chaol was only gazing at Dorian, and she didn’t think his distraught, pleading face was an act.

“He was waiting for me at the docks, like a good dog. When I saw that he was without his uniform, I got him to confess to everything. Every last little conspiratorial thing he’s done.”

The king eyed the captain. “Did he, now.”

Aelin avoided the urge to check the grandfather clock ticking in the far corner of the room, or the position of the sun beyond the floor-to-ceiling window. Time. They needed to bide their time a bit longer. But so far, so good.

“I do wonder,” the king mused, leaning back on his throne, “who has been conspiring more: the captain, or you, Champion. Or should I call you Aelin?”

70

This place smelled like death, like hell, like the dark spaces between the stars.

Centuries of training kept Rowan’s steps light, kept him focused on the lethal weight he carried as he and the general crept through the dry, ancient passageway.

The ascending stone path had been gouged by brutal claws, the space so dark that even Rowan’s eyes were failing him. The general trailed close behind, making no sound save for the occasional pebble skittering from beneath his boots.

Aelin would be in the castle by now, the captain in tow as her ticket into the throne room.

Only a few minutes more, if they’d calculated right, and then they could ignite their deadly burden and get the hell out.