“One more thing,” Arobynn said.

It was an effort to lift a brow as he came close enough to kiss her, embrace her. But he just took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her palm. “I’m going to enjoy having you back,” he purred.

Then, faster than she could react, he slid the Wyrdstone ring onto her finger.

44

The hidden dagger Aelin had drawn clattered to the wooden floor the moment the cool black stone slid against her skin. She blinked at the ring, at the line of blood that had appeared on her hand beneath Arobynn’s sharp thumbnail as he raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his tongue along the back of her palm.

Her blood was on his lips as he straightened.

Such a silence in her head, even now. Her face stopped working; her heart stopped working.

“Blink,” he ordered her.

She did.

“Smile.”

She did.

“Tell me why you came back.”

“To kill the king; to kill the prince.”

Arobynn leaned in close, his nose grazing her neck. “Tell me that you love me.”

“I love you.”

“My name—say my name when you tell me that you love me.”

“I love you, Arobynn Hamel.”

His breath warmed her skin as he huffed a laugh onto her neck, then brushed a kiss where it met her shoulder. “I think I’m going to like this.”

He pulled back, admiring her blank face, her features, now empty and foreign. “Take my carriage. Go home and sleep. Do not tell anyone of this; do not show your friends the ring. And tomorrow, report here after breakfast. We have plans, you and I. For our kingdom, and Adarlan.”

She just stared, waiting.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He lifted her hand again and kissed the Wyrdstone ring. “Good night, Aelin,” he murmured, his hand grazing her backside as he shooed her out.

Rowan was trembling with restrained rage as they took Arobynn’s carriage home, none of them speaking.

He’d heard every word uttered inside that room. So had Aedion. He’d seen the final touch Arobynn had made, the proprietary gesture of a man convinced that he had a new, very shiny toy to play with.

But Rowan didn’t dare grab for Aelin’s hand to see the ring.

She didn’t move; she didn’t speak. She just sat there and stared at the wall of the carriage.

A perfect, broken, obedient doll.

I love you, Arobynn Hamel.

Every minute was an agony, but there were too many eyes on them—too many, even as they finally reached the warehouse and climbed out. They waited until Arobynn’s carriage had driven off before Rowan and Aedion flanked the queen as she slipped inside the warehouse and up the stairs.

The curtains were already shut inside the house, a few candles left burning. The flames caught on the golden dragon embroidered on the back of that remarkable gown, and Rowan didn’t dare breathe as she just stood in the center of the room. A slave awaiting orders.

“Aelin?” Aedion said, his voice hoarse.

Aelin lifted her hands in front of her and turned.

She pulled off the ring. “So that was what he wanted. I honestly expected something grander.”

Aelin slapped the ring down on the small table behind the couch.

Rowan frowned at it. “He didn’t check Stevan’s other hand?”

“No,” she said, still trying to clear the horror of betrayal from her mind. Trying to ignore the thing hanging from her neck, the abyss of power that beckoned, beckoned—

Aedion snapped, “One of you needs to explain now.”

Her cousin’s face was drained of color, his eyes so wide that the whites shone all around them as he glanced from the ring to Aelin and back again.

She’d held it together during the carriage ride, maintaining the mask of the puppet Arobynn believed she’d become. She crossed the room, keeping her arms at her sides to avoid chucking the Wyrdkey against the wall. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You couldn’t know—”

“I could have rutting known. You really think I can’t keep my mouth shut?”

“Rowan didn’t even know until last night,” she snapped.

Deep in that abyss, thunder rumbled.

Oh, gods. Oh, gods—

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Rowan crossed his arms. “It is, considering the fight we had about it.”

Aedion shook his head. “Just … explain.”

Aelin picked up the ring. Focus. She could focus on this conversation, until she could safely hide the amulet. Aedion couldn’t know what she carried, what weapon she’d claimed tonight. “In Wendlyn, there was a moment when Narrok … came back. When he warned me. And thanked me for ending him. So I picked the Valg commander who seemed to have the least amount of control over the human’s body, out of hope that the man might be in there, wishing for redemption in some form.” Redemption for what the demon had made him do, hoping to die knowing he’d done one good thing.

“Why?”

Speaking normally was an effort. “So I could offer him the mercy of death and freedom from the Valg, if he would only tell Arobynn all the wrong information. He tricked Arobynn into thinking that a bit of blood could control these rings—and that the ring he bore was the real thing.” She held up the ring. “I got the idea from you, actually. Lysandra has a very good jeweler, and had a fake made. The real thing I cut off the Valg commander’s finger. If Arobynn had taken off his other glove, he would have found him without a digit.”

“You’d need weeks to plan all that—”

Aelin nodded.

“But why? Why bother with any of it? Why not just kill the prick?”

Aelin set down the ring. “I had to know.”

“Know what? That Arobynn is a monster?”

“That there was no redeeming him. I knew, but … It was his final test. To show his hand.”

Aedion hissed. “He would have made you into his own personal figurehead—he touched—”

“I know what he touched, and what he wanted to do.” She could still feel that touch on her. It was nothing compared to the hideous weight pressing against her chest. She rubbed her thumb across the scabbed-over slice on her hand. “So now we know.”

Some small, pathetic part of her wished she didn’t.

Still in their finery, Aelin and Rowan stared at the amulet lying on the low table before the darkened fireplace in her bedroom.

She’d taken it off the moment she entered the room—Aedion having gone to the roof to take watch—and slumped onto the couch facing the table. Rowan took a seat beside her a heartbeat later. For a minute, they said nothing. The amulet gleamed in the light of the two candles Rowan had lit.

“I was going to ask you to make sure it wasn’t a fake; that Arobynn hadn’t switched it somehow,” Rowan said at last, his eyes fixed on the Wyrdkey. “But I can feel it—a glimmer of whatever is inside that thing.”

She braced her forearms on her knees, the black velvet of her dress softly caressing. “In the past, people must have assumed that feeling came from the magic of whoever was wearing it,” she said. “With my mother, with Brannon … it would never have been noticed.”

“And your father and uncle? They had little to no magic, you said.”

The ivory stag seemed to stare at her, the immortal star between its horns flickering like molten gold. “But they had presence. What better place to hide this thing than around the neck of a swaggering royal?”

Rowan tensed as she reached for the amulet and flipped it over as quickly as she could. The metal was warm, its surface unmarred despite the millennia that had passed since its forging.

There, exactly as she’d remembered, were carved three Wyrdmarks.

“Any idea what those mean?” Rowan said, shifting close enough that his thigh grazed hers. He moved away an inch, though it did nothing to stop her from feeling the heat of him.

“I’ve never seen—”

“That one,” Rowan said, pointing to the first one. “I’ve seen that one. It burned on your brow that day.”

“Brannon’s mark,” she breathed. “The mark of the bastard-born—the nameless.”