A/N: I'm back (after way too long! Aaah)! Here we go with chapter 12! I'm not sure that I'm really satisfied with this one, and I might go back and rewrite it later, but right now... I'm too excited to write the next chapter, actually. (I'm awful, I know.) Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this one! (There's a scene in the middle of this chapter that I... ah... didn't intentionally mean to write... but... You'll see what I mean...)
RECAP: Alright, so. Raiden has been locked up with Maeve for some time now. He has a bit of a weird habit of noticing how attractive Fenrys is... whatever that means. He's also just learned that the reason Fenrys, Kasper (Aelin's son), and Aelin didn't break the chains before was because they were Wyrdmarked. Raiden revealed that he's fluent in Wyrdmarks, and he could free them. Hip hip hooray!
Meanwhile, Leta and Vaughan are on their way to the northern coast, Terrasen-bound. And Lorcan just arrived at Sollemere to raise some hell.
Explosive combos. Thanks to everyone who reviewed (YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING)!
CHAPTER 12
Aelin Galathynius sat on the pile of mildewed hay in the corner of her undercroft cage and cried.
She didn't cry often now, not that she ever had. When she did, it was soundless: she'd long-since lost the ability to sob, to scream, as if someone-anyone-might hear her cries. She'd long-since realized, as the years dragged by in a haze of blood and lashes, that no one ever would.
She sometimes thought that she'd lost the ability to weep, as if her meager months had wrung her tears from her like water from a dirtied washrag. But then something would happen, the unthinkable would become reality, and Aelin would discover, yet again, that things could always get worse-and that she always, always had something left to lose.
She should've protected Kas. Aelin had failed so miserably at shielding her children that she sometimes thought it was a blessing that no one would ever find her. It was a blessing that she would not have to look into Rowan's face and tell him how Maeve had taken her daughter from her arms while Aelin was still bleeding and gasping on the floor, throat raw with her muffled cries of pain. It was a blessing that she would never have to tell Rowan that she had not been able to keep Kas safe from Maeve-that no matter how many times she tried to escape, they were always brought back, and it was not Aelin that was punished, but Kas; and she was made to stand by and watch.
After she'd given birth to Kas and Leta, she'd thought that Maeve would kill her. The queen had, after all, no more use for Aelin. Aelin would have welcomed death at that time, after the blood and the screams.
Leta had been so small-tiny, even, with a nose no bigger than Aelin's pinky finger. She'd drawn in little, snuffling breaths through her rosebud lips and button nose.
Kas didn't look like Rowan, not really. He had his father's eyes and mouth, but the rest of him was Aelin, through-and-through. His tawny Ashryver coloring made him resemble Aedion more than Rowan.
When he was younger, Aelin used to stroke his hair as he slept beside her. She used to call him her golden-haired boy, until the day that Maeve slammed her son to the floor, whip in Cairn's hand, looked Aelin in the eye and said, Pity. He's such a lovely golden-haired boy.
Bile brushed her throat as she thought about it.
It was better, Aelin thought sometimes, that Kas didn't look like Rowan. It was better that Aelin didn't have to live with the constant reminder of all that she had lost, just how miserably she'd failed. No matter how hard she'd tried, every second of every day, to keep Kas safe, she'd never been able to cordon him off from the world of suffering and exquisite pain. She'd taken seventy-five lashes once to keep Kas safe from five.
She'd have taken five hundred.
She still remembered the day that Kas's eyes changed. He'd been three, playing out by the well while Aelin washed the laundry, scrubbed cloth with the soap that made her hands so dry and cracked, unrecognizable from the slender lady's hands that they had once been twenty-something years ago, when she was eight and naive and blessed.
They'd lived in Doranelle the day Kas's eyes had changed-Rowan and the rest had been too preoccupied with Erawan in the west to save her. Aelin had understood. She'd known what she was doing that day on the beach.
Kas had been ripping out handfuls of the jade-green grass that grew in thick clusters around the well, shaking the ripped yellow roots in his chubby fists.
Perfect, lovely pink hands; slender-fingered and elegant. If things had been different, Kas might've been a beautiful pianist.
The sun had hit him, dappling his Ashryver bone structure in citrusy light that smelled like the lemon verbena perfume that she'd once rubbed behind her ears and wrists, and his eyes had glowed not the faded, crushed cornflower of baby irises, but pine-green, like the forests that blanketed the Staghorn Mountains in the country that had once been her home.
Rowan's eyes.
Aelin had screamed when they took Leta away. Her voice had been hoarse with it. She hadn't been expecting twins; she'd thought that she'd be finished after Kas came out, already gleaming with golden light. They wasted no time in slapping iron cuffs on his brand-new arms, studding his virgin ears with spokes of the blackish metal.
She'd screamed then, too. But then she'd been lost in Leta...
She hadn't come out like Kas, in a triumph of sunshine; a deluge of radiance. She'd come out like a wisp of smoke, somehow colder, more delicate; beautiful in the remote way of frost spiderwebbing across a leaded windowpane, even as a baby; skin milky and pale, a tuft of silver hair on her soft head.
Aelin hadn't had the time to see Leta grow up, but she suspected that her daughter would have been like her husband in the ways that Kasper was like her. She suspected that her daughter would've had Rowan's hair, a river of silvery luminescence, and perhaps his manner-quiet but strong; determined.
Aelin had laid on the floor of the jail cell-because that was, of course, where they forced her to have her children-and screamed when Maeve went bone-white at the sight of Leta. She'd screamed when Maeve had said that there could be only one survivor, that two was too much. She'd screamed when Maeve had taken Leta away. Aelin had only gotten a few seconds to name her daughter.
Aelin had risen from the floor, trembling and weak, wrapped in iron from head-to-toe, and dared to fight back.
Maeve had shoved her against the wall, broken several of her ribs, and dragged her down to the prison beneath the graveyard of the fallen.
Both of her children had been taken away from her in those early days. Maeve had brought Kas to raise as her own child, and she'd taken Leta away from the world: the lovely girl with the delicate frost who might have been so much like Rowan.
Aelin stopped trying. She didn't rise from her bed for weeks, and no one made her. She wasted away, slowly withering like brown leaves curling and wilting.
Two weeks after her children had been born, after one of them was dead and the other no longer hers, Maeve had come into her room holding her son.
Sometimes when Aelin couldn't sleep she'd sit in the corner of her room and murmur the names that she had been permitted to give them-a strange, small kindness.
Leta Lyria Evalin Whitethorn Ashryver Galathynius.
Kasper Samuel Rhoen Whitethorn Ashryver Galathynius.
Long, powerful names. Because there was power in a name-Aelin should know. She'd been the bearer of so very many.
She'd crouched on her bed of straw, and Maeve had set Kas down beside her. The baby blinked up at her owlishly. He was too thin, she noticed detachedly; his skin was the color of curdled cream, and his cheekbones protruded from his heart-shaped face like wings from the back of a skinned baby bird.
"He won't take milk from anyone," said Maeve, her lip curling in disgust.
Aelin hadn't looked at the queen-hadn't been able to. Not after what she'd done.
"So?" she said tonelessly.
"Your son is dying," Maeve said. "Fix it if you want him to survive, or I'll breed you again with someone else."
For a moment Aelin had seen a different future flash in front of her eyes-one in which her son did die, like her daughter; one in which she killed herself soon after; one in which Rowan finally found her after a century of searching but there was nothing left but a pile of bones and ash.
But then she saw Kasper's mouth.
It was Rowan's mouth: disarmingly pretty in a face of muscle and tattoo, too full for a boy, a tad too pink.
This is your mate's child, Aelin thought. This is Rowan's son.
And so she brought Kasper into her arms and vowed to keep him safe as best as she was able.
Maeve had discovered soon enough that they could be used as leverage against each other, to keep one another in check. And sometimes Maeve permitted Aelin to take five, six times the amount of lashings Kas would receive, substituting her in his place.
Aelin tried fighting back. But powerless, with forty Fae breathing down her neck, as she was kept weak and thin, crippled by her love for her son…
She would gamble with her own life, but she would not toy with the life of her son. She wasn't much a of a threat. Not anymore.
She'd known who Chaol's son was the minute Kasper had brought him to her door. Kas had been wild-eyed, carrying a limp, lanky form that looked so much like Chaol it had knocked the wind out of her. The boy had Nesryn's dark skin, but Chaol's russet hair and warm eyes; the same way of holding and commanding himself and speaking.
She'd wanted so badly to protect him, but she'd failed at that, too.
She sat now on the bed of straw, her knees pulled up to her chest, as tears slipped down her cheeks and fell onto the hay. It was better this way-better that no one had ever found her. Better that Rowan would never know...
She'd felt such hope when Fenrys's secret had come out. Felt hope, and thanks, such overwhelming gratitude that her knees had gone out. Aelin wanted to believe that her daughter was alive, wanted desperately to think that the girl she had named after Lyria had grown up and become like her husband.
When Maeve had come back empty-handed...
Aelin had sensed that pulse of magic. Her daughter was alive. She'd felt it.
But maybe... Maybe Aelin would never even know Leta.
It was nighttime now in Sollemere, not that Aelin could see the stars from her dirt cellar beneath the cemetery. The tallow candles sputtered, emitting the scent of burning fat, and she curled in further on herself, her hair tumbling over her forehead in lank, greasy strands. She'd never stop fighting, not as long as Kas still lived, but she was so tired, so hopeless, after all those years of losing.
And then the knock came.
A fist thudded on her door, three times. She furrowed her brow, swiping the backs of her hands across her cheeks hastily to wipe away the tears.
"Aelin!" someone thundered-Fenrys, Aelin thought dizzily. "Open up!"
Aelin shoved herself up from the floor, crossed the room in two neat strides, and flung the door open. Fenrys stood there-and Raiden, and Kas. As was habit whenever she saw her son, Aelin's eyes flicked down his form, assuring herself that he was in one piece, that he was safe, checking for limbs and a lack of scars.
He'd grown taller than her in the past few years, perhaps as tall and broad-shouldered as his father. It was a rare thought that almost made her want to smile.
"You can't be out of your cell," Aelin began. "It's too dangerous. You could-"
"Something's happening up at the castle," Fenrys interrupted. "Something big."
She narrowed her eyes. "Like what?"
"An attack of some kind, I don't know," said Kas. His voice, she thought; that was the other thing she'd gotten from Rowan. His years growing up in Doranelle and Sollemere had laced his words with the same subtle, rolling accent, but even without it, his tone had the same depth, the same slight roughness to it. "All the guards have been called away. I was able to get us through to you without anyone noticing."
"But why?" said Aelin. "Even if there is an attack, now's hardly the time to-" She froze. "Is it... Rowan?"
"Not Rowan," Raiden said, and she swallowed, quelling the burst of disappointment. Stupid. "It's not an army. But it's a distraction."
"Don't be idiots," she hissed. "You're going to get caught again, and then we'll all be screwed."
"Aelin," Fenrys said, and it struck her for the first time how he looked. She hadn't seen him look like this in nearly sixteen years, not since they'd been on a ship together, fighting side-by-side with Manon and Dorian and Rowan; Gavriel and Aedion; Lysandra and even, briefly, Lorcan and Elide. He shone with life, with hope.
"What?" she said. Her heart thudded. "What is it?"
Both Kas and Fenrys looked, of all people, to Raiden Westfall.
Raiden swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing, Chaol's amber eyes gleaming. "I can break the chains."
Connall hated his brother.
His brother had been the charming one, the golden one; the perfect one. He'd seen to emit a glow from within his chest, and smiled and laughed as if it were easy as breathing. Fenrys was everyone's favorite, had been since he and Connall were children. Everyone preferred Fenrys's shine to Connall's damper, and who could blame them? Fenrys was the more likeable of the two. He didn't fold inward on himself like Connall did; he threw his arms outward.
Connall hadn't regretted pledging his services to Maeve, but Fenrys had swept in anyway, ever the tragic hero. Fenrys had been the one that saved him, rescued him from an "unfortunate fate," as everyone had put it.
Fenrys had ended up stealing his limelight yet again, and that-saving him from what might have been Connall's glory, or at least tragic story-was the one thing Connall had not been able to forgive his brother.
Connall had been triumphant at Fenrys's fall from grace when it had been revealed that his brother had saved the fire-breathing bitch-queen's daughter. He'd been triumphant every step of the way as Fenrys had suffered, bled, and choked on his own poison.
Connall hated himself for it.
He hated himself for so many things-hated himself for being in love with Maeve, as cruel and heartless and undeserving as she was; hated himself for being so unlikeable and decidedly uncharming; hated himself for not standing up as Fenrys had done when Maeve had killed that baby (or so Connall had thought at the time), and hated himself for not lifting a finger to protect Kasper Galathynius, as Fenrys had done; as Aelin had done. As they did.
They'd both done everything to protect that child-made a horrible situation bearable, if barely.
Connall hated himself for being jealous of the way that Maeve eyed Kasper, hated himself for envying the court's love of the young Fae. Kasper had inherited Aelin's dry wit, and both of his parent's good looks. Even with his powers muted and suffocated, Kasper radiated smiles and affability, as if it was just that easy.
Connall hated so many things.
He sat now in the parlor room in his chambers, playing cards with Jacan and a few of the other warriors. Maeve's cadre had become different in the years since Rowan, Lorcan, and Gavriel had left it-it had become broader, less exacting, numbering around thirty or so instead of six. It was a bone of contention for Connall, not that he'd ever mentioned it. He wouldn't dare.
"I win," Jacan said with a smile, tossing his cards down on the table. "Pay up, you sorry bastards."
Connall grimaced. By the time the night was over, his pockets would be empty, and then he'd be poor and out of favor with his queen. He'd been so distracted lately.
"Eff you," one of the warriors said, though without any real bite.
That did it. "I'm out," Connall said, holding up his hands.
"Oh, come on-"
"Sorry," Connall said, forcing a smirk. "No interest in completely emptying my coffers."
There was a knock on the door, and the fire crackling in the hearth seemed to ebb a bit, shrinking back, though that might've been Connall's overactive, brooding imagination.
"Who the hell is that?" Jacan said without much interest, snatching up the deck of gilded cards and shuffling them with surprising grace between his stubby, scarred fingers.
"I'll get it," Connall said, heading over and pulling open the heavy oaken door. It was still marred with scratches from the battle that had taken place decades earlier, like most of Sollemere.
A page was standing outside, gray-faced. "There's been an attack."
Connall went still with a lethal, predatory grace. Behind him, the warriors stiffened with attention. "What was that?" he said silkily.
"A breach," the page rushed on, shrinking back. The poor thing was a human; a mortal lifted from the streets of Varese years back. Connall felt a distant mixed sympathy and contempt for the creature. "In the western wall. Five guards were found dead."
Connall and Jacan exchanged glances across the room. "Fae guards?" Connall asked carefully. "Or human ones? Answer carefully, mortal."
"F-Fae," the page stammered, blanching.
Connall cocked his head. "Five Fae guards all found dead? Without an alarm being raised?"
"They were found minutes ago," the page said, nodding frantically. "Her Majesty sent me to get you-"
"Rowan," Jacan breathed from across the room. "Has to be."
"Where the fuck is Cairn?" Connall snarled at the page, who shrank back with his fingers splayed in protest.
"At Her Majesty's side," the page said. "But-"
"Then that's where I'm going," said Connall, and turned back to the assembled group. The cards lay splayed out on the table, forgotten. "Where we're all going. Now."
"But sir," the page said. "That's not all."
"Oh?"
"Whoever did it," said the page, a sheen of sickly sweat coating his pathetic features. "He's inside the castle."
Raiden had been ten when his father taught him about the Wyrdmarks.
Chaol had handed Raiden a book-simple, black and silver-embossed. The Walking Dead. "Read it," he said. "Study it. Learn it."
"But Dad," Raiden had said, paging through it, eyes skimming the printed pages. "This is... magic."
Despite the changes made in the past decade at that time, magic was still a feared word in their kingdom. Despite the fact that a king with raw magic and a half-Ironteeth, half-Crochan queen lounged on the throne; despite the fact that the heir to Adarlan had iron fangs and claws and superhuman strength and speed; despite the fact that the whole royal family was a hodge-podge of magic and varying degrees of cruelty and lethality, the practice was something kept hushed, still shadowed by the terror of the years that had come before.
"I know," Chaol had answered.
"But... our family doesn't have any," Raiden had said, confused. "Magic, I mean."
"This doesn't require magic, Rai," Chaol had said patiently. "It just requires patience. Something you lack."
Maybe it had been Chaol's doubt that had driven Raiden to learn the bitch of a language, or maybe it had been Raiden's intense desire to become anything other than ordinary; to become special enough to deserve someone like Syeira. He'd wanted so badly to hold his own in the shadow of his parents' legacy.
Not that he'd managed it. Looking back on it now, perhaps it had been the gods' way of pushing Raiden into his path, preparing him for the day that he would break these chains.
Maeve was so powerful, but Kasper... Kasper was even more so. Fenrys and Aelin were legendary.
If Raiden could do this... If he succeeded...
He crouched over Kasper's chains in Aelin's crypt now, furrowing his brow. A riddle and a set of instructions were inscribed on the metal.
"So?" Aelin said anxiously.
"Can you do it?" Fenrys said. "We don't have much time, Raiden."
Raiden glanced up at the Fae. Fenrys really was handsome, Raiden thought absentmindedly; the shadows threw his classical features into sharp profile. His golden curls tumbled down his neck. They looked as if they'd be soft.
Why was Raiden thinking about Fenrys's hair?
He cleared his throat abruptly. "I think so," he said. "It says here that I have to answer this riddle to break them."
"Well?" Kasper said. "What's the riddle?"
"'I break but do not shatter,'" Raiden read, somewhat slowly. It had been years since he'd done this.
"These are old runes," Aelin said. "I tried to read them, but I couldn't. I wasn't fluent enough."
"Shh," Fenrys hissed. Aelin glowered at him, but Raiden continued, undeterred.
"'I have no color,'" Raiden said, "'but am often blue.'"
"What the fuck?" Kasper said, and earned a light smack on the back of his head from his mother. Kasper winced and shot Aelin a look, but she only glared back at him.
"Watch your mouth, young man," she said imperiously.
"Your mouth is worse!" Kasper protested.
"I," Aelin said, straightening her back with dignity, "am a lady."
"Oh, for the love of-"
"Do you want to hear the riddle or not?" Raiden snapped.
"We do," Fenrys said, and put a hand on Raiden's shoulder. For some reason, the contact of Fenry's long fingers on his skin made Raiden's stomach flip, though that was ridiculous. "Please, Rai. Go ahead."
Soft hair...
"'I break but do not shatter. I have no color, but am often blue. I am quick to swallow and slow to spit.'"
The four of them sat in silence for a beat or two.
"What," said Fenrys finally, "is that?"
Kasper sucked in a sharp breath. "Water."
"Oh," Aelin said. The queen of Terrasen sounded very, very small.
"Gods," Fenrys said, his jaw set. "As soon as you get your gifts back, Kas, promise me that you'll kick Maeve's ass."
"What?" Raiden said. "How can you be sure?"
"My daughter," Aelin began, then faltered. "My daughter had water powers. She showed signs when she was born."
For a moment, Raiden was struck speechless.
"What do you need next?" Fenrys said, stepping in when neither Kasper nor Aelin could. "If anything?"
"I need Kasper's blood," said Raiden.
"Pardon?" Kasper said.
"To break the enchantment," Raiden clarified. "I'll need to write the runes for 'water' on your chains in your blood. That should do it."
Kasper nodded, and before anyone could react, lifted a sharp stone from the floor and dug it into his honey-tanned skin.
His blood slipped down, pooling on the floor. Aelin went white and turned away. Raiden felt a stab of sympathy: she'd probably seen her son's blood spilled far too many times.
Raiden took a deep breath.
Out of everything he wished he could've done differently since the events that had led him to Sollemere, the thing Raiden regretted about his life before his chains was his relationship with his father. Chaol had been good to Raiden-exacting, sometimes harsh, but good.
Kasper might never get to know his father. Raiden owed it to all the children that never would to curb his stupidity and impulsivity, to make amends as best as he was able. He missed his dad. He missed his mom.
Even if he did die here, he hoped they heard about what he did. Raiden hoped that he could, even if only once, make them proud.
He dipped his finger in the blood and began to draw.
Lorcan didn't exactly have a plan, but that was fine. He'd always been best when he was wild. He and Whitethorn had had that in common before Aelin-before Elide.
He pictured her face sometimes when he was lonely, or feeling particularly masochistic. She'd been so lovely-skin like glistening pearls, hair like liquid dark, eyes so large and fathomless that they'd cracked something open in his impenetrable chest.
This is for you, he thought. I wanted to go to Perranth with you. Maybe... Maybe I still can. Maybe it's not too late.
You've made me think there could be a 'maybe.'
He'd worked fast dispatching the sentries on the western wall. For someone else they might've been a challenge, but for Lorcan, his hatchet had taken care of them in seconds. He'd relished the feeling of blood on his hands.
It had been too long since he'd exacted vengeance-too long since Lorcan Salvaterre had been in a proper fight.
Sollemere was a dusty, lonely city, probably chosen exactly because of its remote gloominess. Lorcan forced the memories of bloodshed aside.
The sandstone castle was hushed, but he was no fool. It was only a matter of time before they caught his scent; before they found the Fae dead.
Lorcan slipped through the hallways. He'd seen a few bursts of life; light emanating from beneath doorways, spilling out into the corridors of mosaic, but mostly it had been lifeless as a grave.
Aelin, Aelin, Aelin. She had to be alive. She and that other child of hers. Lorcan had known from the minute he'd felt that answering ripple of power that there was another. If only he could get free, he could probably burn the whole place to the ground.
The thought gave him some satisfaction.
Voices trickled down the hallway, and Lorcan froze, plastering himself against the wall. It was Cairn-and Connall.
"What do you mean, Fenrys and Westfall aren't in their cages?" Cairn growled.
Lorcan stiffened. Fenrys? Westfall?
Cages?
"They're gone," said Connall. "I've sent people to head for Aelin's cell beneath the cemetery. Ten-to-one they're there."
"You were in charge of security, you-"
"No, I wasn't," Connall interrupted. "You were, Cairn. I'm not about to let you pin this on me. If they're gone, it's your own gods-damned fault for being such a fool."
Cell beneath the cemetery. Where the bloody hell is the cemetery?
"I'm the fool," Cairn said. "Ironic. Whatever gets you to sleep at night, you piece of festering shit."
"Enough. We need to track down that disturbance. Whatever-"
Connall's words drifted off abruptly, and Cairn said, mockingly, "What? Cat got your tongue, shithead?"
"Stop for a minute," Connall said.
"Need me to lay off?"
"Stop and smell, you idiot," snarled Connall, and that was when Lorcan knew that he'd been had.
Lorcan stepped casually out from behind the corner. The hallway was a large and wide patterned with blue and ivory tiles, open-aired with curving columns. It might've been elegant once, had it not borne the marks of ruin: crumbling floors and chunks of stone strewn about; jewels ripped from the mosaics on the walls.
"Where," Lorcan said, "is Aelin?"
And that was when they felt it.
For a minute Lorcan thought it was Leta again, from countries away, sending her stupid bursts of power through the fabric of the world, but then he realized it was different, the pulse of magic. Distinctly different, as if it were not smoke and shadows but instead light and fire, crackling and burning with a strange sort of… electricity.
The floors rumbled. Lorcan, Cairn, and Connall all stumbled back in unison.
"Kasper," Connall whispered. His face had gone bone-white. "How-"
Another pulse of power: this one even stronger, rattling the stars floating above their heads.
"It seems," Lorcan said, "as if you've got bigger fish to fry."
And, like the fool he was, he ran straight for the two Fae standing in front of him, his hatchet raised.
Syeira felt something strange. A tug in her gut-an answering call. A flare through her veins.
She was standing in the middle of the healing rooms, chopping up tarragon and sage for a new poultice ordered by the head healer, when she felt it. Her knife dropped from her fingers with a clang, crashing to the cutting board.
The head healer bolted upright from where she was standing, observing a simmering batch of basil. "What in Deanna's name was that?" she said, hand pressed to her stomach, as if she'd felt the magic too.
Syeira felt the power somewhere deep in her chest-similar to the magic she'd felt all those nights ago, and yet starkly different. It felt almost... familiar to her. Right.
Syeira swallowed, hard. For once, she knew exactly what to say. "It's the beginning."
"Of what?"
"War," she breathed.
Raiden huddled in a corner, horrified.
Kasper was blazing. His skin was on fire.
His chains had fallen away, and he was glowing with flame: his entire skin was coated with the stuff, crackling and snapping like a rogue firecracker. Aelin's mouth was open, her eyes shining with...
Not fear. Not apprehension.
Pride.
Kasper's eyes were closed, his head thrown back. Wind whipped around his feet. He shone so brightly that Raiden couldn't look directly at him.
The whirlwind died down slowly, quietly, as Kasper reined in his power. His breaths came in pants; gasps.
"I'm going to kill Maeve," Kasper said.
And before anyone could react, he bolted out the door.
Leta and Vaughan had stopped in another town for the night. She was curled up in a bed (it wasn't half-bad once she got used to it), blankets wrapped around her shoulders, when she felt it.
She jerked upright, blankets thrown off her supine body, and pressed her hand to her chest. Power-achingly familiar, as if it were half of herself; a half that she hadn't even known existed or was missing.
Whatwhatwhatwhat
Before she could think twice, she shoved herself out of bed, hurled open the door, and ran across the hall to Vaughan's room. He threw it open before she could knock.
His hair was mussed from sleep, stubble coating his skin. He gripped her shoulders, his eyes wide. He seemed almost unhinged, at odds with his suave personality. "Are you alright?" he demanded, breath hitching.
"Yes," she said, blinking. "I-You felt it?"
"You're alright?" Vaughan repeated, eyes frantically running up and down her arms, her legs, as if searching for cuts or bruises or gaping wounds.
"I'm fine, Vaughan," she said, bewildered, and he hauled her into his arms faster than she could blink.
She stiffened for a moment before relaxing slightly, melting into his frame. He smelled so good-that same cloves and applewood smoke scent, silvery and crisp. He was whispering something, and though she could feel his breaths ruffling her hair, tickling her scalp, she couldn't make out what he was saying.
She fisted her hands in the cloth of his shirt and didn't let go. He was warm, and he felt, somehow, like home.
Leta had never had a home before.
It was a long while before Vaughan pulled back, somewhat calmer, but she still didn't let go. She didn't want to.
"I'm fine," she repeated, softer this time.
He let out a slow, shuddering breath, his eyes flickering. "I thought..." He swallowed. "I thought you might be in trouble. Might be hurt. I didn't… I thought it might…"
"You were worried?"
"I was terrified."
She met his eyes, then, her gold-and-blue pupils clashing against his. She felt a sort of tug between them, as if a cord had gone taut.
"Why?" she whispered.
"I don't... I don't know," he said, and he looked so lost, so uncharacteristically unsure, that she tightened her hold on him, and took a step closer.
She'd read books before. She knew... Had known...
Had never thought that she would...
"Leta," he said. His voice had gone uneven, and she took another step closer, her bare feet brushing against his. She was wearing nothing but a nightgown-a novelty, she thought, to have clothing just for sleeping. It was a cottony white, brushing her thighs. Her arms were bare, and cold.
"Yes?"
"This isn't... A good idea," he said hoarsely.
"What isn't?" she said, taking another step closer.
"This," he said. "I can't..."
She felt the tug again, the cord between them growing taut, and Vaughan stiffened, sucking in a sharp breath as if he'd been punched in the gut.
"Oh, gods," he said.
And that was when she kissed him.
She had to rise up to do it, toes pointing and curving. It was tentative, uncertain, her lips just barely skimming his.
His arms circled around her waist, drawing her closer, and he seemed to exhale against her mouth, his hand brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.
It felt... right. Something inside of her clicked into place, almost imperceptibly, and she inhaled sharply.
She knotted her arms around his neck and fisted her fingers in his hair. The curls were thick, dense, and her fingernails scratched his scalp, acting on pure impulse. He groaned, snatching her forward until her hips were pressed up against his, skin brushing skin. His thumb stroked her neck, and she nipped at his lower lip, tugging with her teeth.
He broke away, swearing fluently. "Shit," he said raggedly, his hands tightening their grip around her waist. "Shit."
"I'm... I'm sorry," she said, taking a step back, but he drew her back, gently.
"No. I..." He searched her face. "It's you."
"What's me?"
"I never thought..." Vaughan's throat bobbed. "I... Don't be sorry. Fuck."
"Is that a... good thing?" she said.
"No. Yes. I don't know." He dragged a hand through her hair, his palm resting against his forehead. His locks tangled in a mess of cowlicks. She frowned and smoothed it back, her hand brushing against his almost unconsciously, and in unison, they both froze.
Her hand was so much smaller than his. His own skin was a few shades darker, his palm massive in comparison. He brought her hand down and curled his fingers around hers, his mouth parting slightly as if he found her broken fingernails and scarred, tan skin fascinating.
"Do you mind if I... sleep with you tonight?" she said.
Vaughan jerked. "What?"
"Not like that," she clarified hastily, her face burning. "Just... I don't want to be alone. Not right now. Not after whatever… that was."
He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against hers. Leta was not short-she thought she was about five-foot-nine-but he was still so much taller than her, so much broader. His thumb trailed a circle on her waist with exquisite care, as if she were made of glass and might shatter.
"I'm in such shit," Vaughan said huskily. "Such deep, unending shit."
"Because of me?" Leta said.
He didn't answer. Instead, he tilted up her chin and kissed her, lightly, before sweeping her up as if she weighed nothing and heading back into his room, kicking the door shut behind them with his heel. He set her down on the bed with that same painful caution. Her nightgown rode up an inch or two on her thigh.
"You remember," he said, "when you told me about the stars?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"I think I knew then," he said. "I just didn't want to believe it."
"Knew what?" she asked, staring at him. His eyes were hazy, his mouth swollen and raw.
He didn't answer. Instead, he sighed resignedly and settled down beside her, wrapping his arms around her waist and tugging her close. She turned around so that she faced him, her body flattened against his.
He brushed her hair away from her face. "Go to sleep, Leta," he whispered, laying a blanket over her. He held her close to him, as if he were afraid that she would suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke.
"Thank you," she said suddenly.
He swallowed and closed his eyes. "For what?"
"Everything," she said, and kissed him one last time, closing her eyes. He tasted of spices-of cumin, of cinnamon. Of cayenne.
She fell asleep like that in minutes, with her head on his chest, his arms circled around her too-thin form.
But for Vaughan, sleep was a long time coming.
Vaughan was in so much trouble.
Kasper was running.
He felt the fire burning in his veins, tingling and sweeping through him in a maelstrom of sparks and fury. This, he thought, this feeling must be the reason that people lost themselves in opium and liquor. This high, soaring and racing and looping.
He was flying.
He sprinted through the hallways. He was glowing with the pent-up flame of almost sixteen years, his gut swirling and swishing. He felt the well inside of him, but he felt no bottom to it, no limit to his gifts.
He was going to burn this whole gods-damned city to the ground.
A few Fae were standing by the corridor, conversing in panicked tones. Kasper caught snatches of their conversation, his pointed ears twitching and pricking.
"-five dead-"
"-two seconds-"
"-possibly-"
"-Salvaterre-"
He didn't care. He recognized the Fae. One of them, a red-haired, long-bearded mass of a male, had held Kasper down while they whipped his mother. Another had held his mother down while they'd whipped him.
They were all guilty. All of them.
He saw their faces when they beheld him in his burning, blazing glory, and he opened his arms, unleashing a wildfire of liquid gold.
All that remained of them in a matter of seconds was a stack of pale white cinders.
Kasper had just killed a male-had just killed males.
But all he felt was his mother's anger sizzling through him, ripping his heart and his conscience to ashes, and he thought only, moremoremoremoremoremoremoremore
vengeance
Connall didn't even see Lorcan coming.
Lorcan hurled his hatchet, and it sunk deep into Connall's chest, the blade severing flesh and bone with a sickening thud. The Fae sank to his knees in a muffled grunt, blood pouring from him in a deluge of carmine.
Cairn raised a brow as Connall collapsed and chuckled. "If you were half as good a warrior as you think you are," Cairn said, "you would've gone for me first."
He launched himself at Lorcan.
Cairn's weapon was a whip.
It had been a way to keep members of Cairn's troops in line at first, but over the years, the Fae had become cruel enough to train himself to use it in battle-hurling and withdrawing it at breakneck speed, lashing and thrashing. Cairn had had it tipped in silver, and the metal glinted as the whip came for Lorcan, slashing down in a deadly arc.
Lorcan neatly sidestepped it. Cairn was better than the average Fae, Lorcan would admit. But he was no match for him.
Lorcan closed his fist around the handle of his hatchet, yanked it from Connall's chest, and hurled it straight for Cairn.
It didn't pierce the Fae's heart-Cairn was too quick for that. Instead, it caught Cairn's cloak and pinned him to the wall just fast enough for Lorcan to withdraw a dagger and jam it through Cairn's throat.
The only sound in the hallway was that of Cairn gurgling blood and Connall wheezing.
"I wish," Lorcan said, "that I could say you two deserved better deaths."
He headed on down the hallway, pausing only to pull his hatchet from the wall and retrieve his knife. He wiped it free of red blood on the hem of Cairn's finely-made shirt.
Fenrys, Aelin, and Raiden gaped after Kasper.
Aelin was the first one to recover. "Raiden," she said urgently. "I need you to unlock me. I have to go after him-he can't-he won't be able to-"
Raiden did as she asked. He didn't dare waste any time. He looked at her cuffs, scanning the printed runes. "It's another riddle."
"Read it," Fenrys snapped. He was jogging his leg impatiently, gray-faced with anxiety.
"'I shriek and whistle,'" stammered Raiden, terror coursing through his veins. "'I carry but do not hold. I breathe and choke.'"
Aelin closed her eyes, shoulders caving. "Wind."
Raiden understood that one-knew why Fenrys swore. Rowan Galathynius was notorious for his wind and frost magic.
Aelin grabbed the still-bloodied rock from the floor, lifted it, and drew a long, jagged line on her skin. She didn't so much as flinch or wince as crimson blood welled to the surface.
Raiden traced the delicate, bold, curving Wyrdmark for wind on the cuffs in her blood. The chains snapped and clattered to the floor.
He was thrown back off his feet by the force of Aelin's fire.
It whipped through the room, blisteringly hot. It scorched his skin, scalded him, and Raiden knew there was an expression for blood boiling, that it meant anger, but he thought that his blood might literally be bubbling.
By the time the infernal radiance had faded, Aelin was gone, the only part of her remaining the sparks that rippled in the air with faint, subdued grace.
Raiden had somehow fallen into someone-someone strong, and muscled. Fenrys was holding him, corded arms wrapped around Raiden's middle. Raiden's stomach flopped at the feel of Fenry's skin brushing against the sliver of exposed stomach where his shirt rose up from his trousers.
Fenrys was… strong. If his biceps were anything to judge by.
"Fuck," Fenrys swore. He didn't seem to notice. "Raiden, unlock me. Now."
Raiden stepped out of the Fae's grasp. "I… You're not going to leave me behind, too, are you? Because I don't really think I could survive that long without... When…" He fumbled for the words, but trailed off as Fenrys put his hands on Raiden's shoulders.
"I'm not going to leave you," Fenrys said, his basalt eyes glittering with surprising sincerity. "I like you, Raiden."
Raiden's mouth had gone dry. "You don't… know me."
"I spent the last forty-eight hours or so in a cell with you," said Fenrys, his mouth quirking. "You're one of the better humans I've met."
Raiden flushed. "Thanks."
"I mean it," Fenrys said. He still hadn't let go of Raiden's shoulders. Raiden couldn't help but notice a blond curl that tumbled down over Fenrys's forehead, casting a shadow on his bronzed skin. Raiden had the sudden impulse to push it back-though that was ridiculous.
Wasn't it?
"Right," Raiden said. His voice was oddly uneven. "Let me see your cuffs, then."
Fenrys dropped his arms and held them out to Raiden. "Go on. Read."
"This one isn't a riddle," said Raiden. "It just says… 'Inscribe the rune for dark and he shall be free.'"
The Fae tipped his head up to look at the dirt ceiling, exhaling softly. "Of course."
Lorcan felt Aelin's power rumble through the ground five minutes after he left Connall and Cairn bleeding on the floor, and swore.
He sprinted through the tiled hallways of Sollemere, pausing occasionally to dispatch groups of Fae. He was bleeding from a cut on his arm, but he hadn't met anyone that was close to a match for him. Lorcan had been the best warrior on earth for centuries-no one but Whitethorn had come even close, except…
Maeve had bested him with her magic. Aelin might have been able to as well, and her children…
Her children could almost definitely. A shiver spasmed down Lorcan's spine.
A Fae guard stepped out behind a corner, his eyes widening when he saw Lorcan. He opened his mouth to shout out a warning, but before he could, Lorcan had ripped out a dagger from the sheath at his side and flung it with perfect precision. It landed in-between the guard's eyes, slicing through his brain.
The guard crumpled. Lorcan kept running.
He was tracking Aelin's power now; her scent. It had changed a bit in the years since he'd last seen her, but somehow, she still had the faint undercurrent of jasmine and lemon verbena and wildfire. It was all muted, as if it had been stifled-probably by iron chains, Lorcan thought. But it was still there.
He stiffened, halting, as he caught Maeve's scent. He didn't know how to describe his former queen's perfume, other than it was old, and ancient, and somehow cruel in its wafting odor. It was what had drawn Lorcan to her in the first place. Hellas called to Hellas.
She was close. And she knew that he was there.
"You don't have power over me anymore, bitch," Lorcan muttered, and turned right, entering a columned, open-aired hallway.
But it wasn't Maeve he saw.
A figure streaked through the corridor, a blur even to Lorcan's seasoned, sharp eyes: a shock of flaxen hair; browned, scarred skin; ripped, tattered clothing; and even from a distance, eyes like the conifers of Oakwald Forest.
Ashryver coloring and Whitethorn eyes.
He was almost as large as Whitethorn and Lorcan himself, and glowing, skin lit up like a lantern, as if fireflies swarmed under his skin. He left a charred trail of smoldering stone in his wake.
Lorcan barked a curse. As soon as he found that fire-breathing bitch, he was going to kill her. Her and Rowan both.
Fools.
Kasper had never felt this free before; this liberated.
He leaned into his fury. He wanted to kill Maeve-kill her for all of the beatings and sobs and horror that she had wrenched from him and his mother over the years.
Kasper was going to kill her.
He sprinted through the corridors. He landed with precision, his teeth bared, fangs digging into his lower lip so hard that blood spattered on the stones below. He was tracking Maeve by her scent, his feet carrying him so quickly that his surroundings blurred.
He wasn't running. He had the distinct feeling that he was flying.
He could sense the wind currents around him; could feel the wildfire crackling in his veins. It had no bottom. He somehow knew, without his mother telling him, that his powers had no bottom.
They were endless.
He was infinite.
He had felt his mother's release of power, and knew that she was tracking him, coming for him. He felt Fenrys's power, too; far more subdued, but there. Gods knew what Raiden was doing now. Hopefully Fenrys had protected Westfall.
Though Kasper wasn't particularly worried about that. The way that Fenrys had been eying the Captain's son, and the way the Captain's son had been eying Fenrys…
Were it not for their circumstances, it would've been amusing. Hell, maybe because of their circumstances, it was amusing.
Kasper didn't know. His sense of humor had become rather twisted over the past few years.
He reached the throne room. Someone was running after him, calling out, but he couldn't even distinguish the noise. This was the throne room where he had been whipped, with the battered, broken piano and those shattered windows. This was the throne room where his mother had been beaten to a bloodied pulp while Kasper and Fenrys had been forced to watch.
Kasper snarled and kicked open the doors.
Maeve was talking to a group of about ten Fae warriors, her more elite-Jacan, Solomon, a few others that Kas didn't recognize. She looked, for the first time in the decade and a half Kasper had known her, worried: her pallor had gone a pale ashy tone, and her words were clipped, bitten off in anxiety.
Their heads turned to see where Kasper was standing, framed in the doorway, blazing.
"Stop!" someone shouted behind him. Kasper didn't bother to turn as another Fae, one he didn't recognize, came hurtling into the room, a whiplash of darkness and wrath. Nearly seven feet tall, with dark skin and coloring, and eyes voids of anger.
"Lorcan," Maeve breathed. "So you have come back, after all."
"Not for you," the Fae-Lorcan, Kasper thought dizzily; gods, so he'd been the distraction-snarled. "Where is Aelin?"
"Salvaterre?" a familiar voice said, and then Kasper's mother running into the room, her golden hair curling with luminosity. She didn't look like the mother he'd known. This was an insurmountable enemy, not weakened but strong-far too strong, with hard, flinty chips for eyes.
Maeve raised a hand to her mouth, appearing distinctly queasy. Lorcan, meanwhile, wilted with relief.
"I've killed Cairn," Lorcan growled, stepping forward as Kasper and Aelin took a step back in unison, stunned.
Maeve's hand fell. Her lips were thin but resolute. "Of course you did," she said. "He's been no match for your talents, Lorcan."
Salvaterre peeled his lips back, exposing elongated canines, as if to say, Choose your words carefully.
Despite all the stories that Kasper had heard about Lorcan Salvaterre, all of the despicable things the Fae had done, he couldn't help being rather impressed. He liked Lorcan. Although that was probably foolish.
"In fact," said Maeve calmly, sweetly, "if you'd like your former position back, I feel that you've earned it, Lorcan. Your position as my second-in-command is now open to you."
The throne room froze. In unison.
"But-" Jacan started, but Lorcan beat him to the punch.
"I have no interest," said Lorcan, "in working for you, you bitch."
Aelin sucked in a sharp breath. Apparently, whatever she had been expecting, that wasn't it.
"I killed Cairn," said Lorcan. "And I killed Connall, too."
"What?" someone said from the doorway, sounding as if all the wind had just been knocked out of him.
This time, Kasper's rage and sudden surge of power ebbed slightly, and he did turn. Fenrys was standing in the doorway, Raiden behind him, both silhouetted in shadow. Fenrys had gone white as parchment, his black eyes stark in a field of snow.
"Oh, gods," Aelin said.
"Lorcan," Fenrys said. He looked stunned, tripping over his feet, as if he'd taken a step expecting to land on solid ground and instead found himself pinwheeling in midair. "Connall. Con. Where… Where is my brother?"
No one said anything.
"Where is my brother?"
"You whore," Aelin spat, whirling and facing Maeve. "This is your fault."
"I'm not the one that killed-"
"No, you just enslaved and beat him every damn day of his life," snarled Aelin. "I'm going to kill you."
Jacan took a step forward, features contorting. "Get away from Her Majesty," he growled, unsheathing his sword in a neat movement.
"Get away from my mother," Kasper retorted, and heads whipped toward him. He still flickered with muted electricity.
Jacan curled his lip. "Make me."
Kasper gnashed his teeth and rose a hand.
The room flashed brightly in a burst of white-hot light. It lasted only a millisecond, searing and blistering, but when it dissipated, everyone was blinking, as if stars danced in front of their eyes, and Kasper's hair was sticking up around his head with a static charge.
Jacan lay in a smoking heap of chars, barely recognizable.
"Lightning," Maeve whispered. "Of course. Wind-ice-fire-"
"I'm going to kill you, too," Kasper said to Maeve. His mother was looking at him as if she'd seen a ghost-as if there was something in the set of his face that had stunned her.
But it was Lorcan that chuckled. He had a dazed expression, but he was laughing. "He looks just like you, Galathynius," he said. "He doesn't have much of Rowan in him at all. But never fear-your daughter has enough for the both of them."
Wildfire erupted in a circle around the room, but it didn't come from Kasper. It came from his mother. "What," she said in a low, dangerous tone, "did you just say?"
"Your daughter is alive," Lorcan said. "I've met her."
"Where is she?" Kasper said, his chest contracting.
His… sister. His other half. His twin.
Kasper's eyes darted to Fenrys. Despite how much taller the Fae stood than the Captain's son, despite how much larger, Fenrys was leaning on Raiden. Westfall was propping him up, as if Fenrys no longer had the energy to stand.
"On her way to Terrasen by now, hopefully," said Lorcan.
"Hopefully?" Aelin sputtered.
"Now," Maeve said, "is not the time for this. Lorcan, don't be a fool. Come back to me." She held out her hands, smiling pleasantly.
He laughed. "Not a chance."
Aelin took a step forward, her eyes glinting. "You," she breathed, jabbing a finger at Maeve, "are mine. For what you have done to my son"-sparks jutted from her hand in a flurry of fireworks-"and my daughter"-more sparks, crackling and burning-"and my mate."
An arrow of fire shot straight for Maeve's chest, more a point than a real attack, but before it even reached her, it disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Dear," Maeve purred. "Darling. Do you really think-"
Kasper roared.
Later, he'd remember the events of the courtroom in blurred snatches. As the years would go by, he'd be unable to think of them without nausea roiling in his gut, and he'd do his best to forget them-to forget all that happened next.
He'd never be able to, much as he tried.
The room again flared with that vivid, dazzling light, ten times brighter than it had been moments before. A single scream of eight voices rose up in unison, pitched, and broke off in a horrible silence.
Eight bodies lay in a heap of remains. The eight guards that had remained to protect Maeve.
The queen herself was gone.
Kasper had killed eight elite Fae in a second with lightning.
"Holy burning hell," Lorcan said hoarsely.
"Maeve," Aelin stammered. "Where-where is Maeve-"
"Gone," Raiden said. "She's gone."
Kasper's legs gave out, the strain of too much magic dredged up too fast, and he fell to the floor, collapsing into darkness.
There were twenty or thirty more of Maeve's Fae that survived the initial wave of destruction, but they were never found.
The sun dawned frail and faded pink that morning, streaking Sollemere's horizon with faint longing. There were five of them that lived and stayed behind to see that sunrise: Fenrys, Lorcan, Aelin, Kasper, and Raiden. Two members of Maeve's first cadre, a warrior queen, a prince, and a captain's son, all uniquely bruised and broken.
After Kasper collapsed on the floor, Fenrys had carried him to the kitchens, where Aelin rummaged around in cabinets until she found the herbs to patch him up. Lorcan did final sweeps of the perimeter, but gleaned nothing: Maeve and the rest of her order were gone, vanished, as if they had never been there at all.
Aelin and Kasper fell asleep in the corner of the kitchens, mother holding her son by the still-warm hearth. Lorcan took charge of the group. "We leave at dawn," he said, and no one had the strength to argue or even agree.
Fenrys didn't speak much. After Lorcan returned from scouting, Fenrys stood, brushing off his blood-spattered trousers, and said, "Where is my brother?"
His voice held none of its usual charisma. It was not cheerful, or charismatic, or charming. It was bleak; resigned.
Lorcan met Fenrys's eyes, and centuries of understanding passed between them-years of long-forgotten battles and spattered blood. "I'm sorry," said Lorcan quietly.
Fenrys nodded. "I know." He glanced down at his hands, as if he expected to see his twin's blood there.
"He's in the courtyard hallway," said Lorcan.
Fenrys exhaled and squared his shoulders. "Cairn is there too?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to bury my brother," Fenrys said. "I'll be back before it's time to leave."
Raiden unfolded himself from the corner. He felt tired, and traumatized, the memory of Kasper's lightning flashing before his eyes.
"I'll help you," Raiden said.
Fenrys flitted his gaze toward him, surprise and a bit of thanks flickering in his features. He didn't say anything, but Raiden came forward and knotted his fingers around Fenrys's, palm against palm.
Lorcan watched them both, his eyes narrowed.
"I'll help," Raiden said again, and he followed Fenrys to find his dead brother's body.
The courtyard hallway was spattered with crimson liquid dried in russet stains, patches of it still fresh. Connall was sprawled out near a pillar, spread-eagle, his black hair crusted. His eyes-glassy obsidian, exactly like Fenrys's-were wide open and unseeing.
Fenrys took in a jagged, ragged breath, and gripped Raiden's hand tighter.
It was Raiden that detached himself, gently, from Fenrys; who kneeled on the floor, his knees wetting with the Fae's blood, and closed Connall's eyelids. Raiden had no love for Connall-he'd been the one that had captured Raiden and dragged him here, after all. But Raiden owed it to Fenrys, to the one person that had showed Raiden kindness-kindness-in this otherworldly prison.
"Thank you," Fenrys said, words ragged. He knelt down beside Raiden and lifted his brother's enormous body into his arms as if it weighed nothing. "I don't want-I don't want to bury him in the cemetery. I want him somewhere else."
"I'll follow you," Raiden said, "wherever you want to go."
And so Fenrys walked-through the hallways and cake-crumbled pathways of the ruined city, into the avenues and ruined roads, past wreckages that were once homes or schools or churches, where the wild dogs bayed and howled all night.
It was on the outskirts of the city that Fenrys halted. A stone quarry sprawled before them, rocks glittering in the opaque moonlight.
They didn't bury Connall underground. Instead, they piled stones on top of him, so many that the Fae became part of a mountain of ore, streaks of coal and granite gleaming and winking.
Fenrys and Raiden sat there for awhile, hand-in-hand. Fenrys didn't say anything; tears just slipped silently down his face, parting the dirt and grime on his cheeks.
Raiden wondered whether Connall would've done the same for his brother if the roles had been reversed.
Raiden wondered if that was why Fenrys was crying.
It was a long time before Fenrys and Raiden made their way back to the castle. No one new had shown up, but it was best to vacate the premises as soon as possible. Lorcan was still in the kitchen, Kasper sitting up weakly, groggily, Aelin smoothing down her son's curls gently, sponging his forehead with a cool cloth.
"Someone has to go after Maeve," Lorcan was saying.
"I don't disagree," Aelin said calmly as Raiden and Fenrys walked into the kitchens. They were suffused with a warm glow from the fire; all the candles had been lit. Raiden wondered if it had something to do with Aelin. "But I'm not going to be the one to do it, not now. I'm going home, Lorcan." She swallowed, painfully. "I'm going home."
"I'll go," Fenrys said.
Lorcan, Aelin, Kasper, and Raiden all whirled to look at him. Fenrys shrugged. "I'm still bound to Maeve," he said. "I can track her-and when I find her, I can send a signal to you. This fight isn't over yet. We all know it."
"Track her? By yourself?" Aelin said, concern tugging downwards at her mouth. "Fenrys… After everything that just happened, do you really want to be alone?"
"He won't be," Raiden said, words spilling out before he knew what he was saying. "I want to go with him."
Everyone's jaw lowered half an inch. Raiden included.
"Human," Lorcan said. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you have any training? Any gifts at all?"
"I'm smarter than I look," Raiden said. "I was the one that freed everyone, remember?"
"Luck," Lorcan said.
But it was Aelin that said, "Raiden. Don't you want to go home? Think about this for a minute-think about what it would really mean. If you go with Fenrys, you might never see Erilea again."
"I know," Raiden said. "Look…" He scrubbed his face with his palms. "I want to do this. I've never been much use to anyone before. I want to help. Maybe… Maybe I will be kind of useless. But no one should have to do this alone. Lorcan, I'm sure you want to get back; I've heard enough stories to know why." Somewhat incredibly, Lorcan dropped his eyes. "And Aelin and Kasper, you've been through enough. I want to do this-of my own free will. I swear it on my life."
Silence.
Fenrys's hand fell on Raiden's shoulder, that familiar bolt of heat swooping through Raiden's arm. "I'd be glad to have you," Fenrys said roughly.
Aelin's eyes softened. "You are your father's son," she said quietly to Raiden. "Perhaps more than his equal."
Raiden's breath snagged in his throat. He had never…
Never thought… that he could be anything like his father. Or that he would ever be good enough, brave enough, to make anyone anything other than ashamed of him.
"Tell Dad… tell Dad that I love him," Raiden said hoarsely. "Mom, too. And tell them that I'm doing this for me."
Aelin dropped her chin. "Of course."
"And," Raiden said, "if you see Syeira, tell her that I love her, too."
Kasper's head snapped up. "What? Syeira?"
"Dorian and Manon's daughter," Raiden said, confused. "The heir to the Crochan throne. I thought you knew who she was, although I guess it's easy to-"
"Tell her that you love her?" Kasper said, pupils wide as quarters.
Behind Raiden, Fenrys had gone stiff as a board.
Raiden flushed. "She and I had a… It's nothing. Just please do it, if you see her."
Kasper sank back against the hearth, dazed, but Aelin's lips tugged up in a rueful smile. "I'll do that, too. I miss Dorian." Her chest caved. "I miss them all."
"It's decided, then," Lorcan said. "Kasper, Aelin, and I will go back to Terrasen, and Fenrys and Westfall will track Maeve."
They lapsed into quiet, burdened by the weight of the oncoming war.
Aelin lifted her head, her eyes glistening with silver tears. "I'm going home."
It was only later that it occurred to them that while they had found Connall's dead body, they had not found Cairn's.
A/N: The next chapter will be... very... action-packed. :) Sorry (not sorry) for the scene. By now you probably know what I'm talking about, lol.
Review list time!
kittysniper9
SparklelyWonderful
apez009
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Anonymous (Not... quite. Kasper was the other hidden twin, but I like the idea of Deanna's daughter. I'll try to work that in.)
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fairymaster (I know, I made Syeira so unlikable. Her character arc is long, though, and Kas will have a lot to do with it.)
ClearlyNerdy
Real Life Trash
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Mintcat (I'll have to try it! I've been going through all of Cassandra Clare's books lately... I'd read parts of her series, but never all of them. Those are super awesome if you haven't read those too! If you haven't, start with the Infernal Devices, go to the Mortal Instruments, then the Bane Chronicles, then the Dark Artifices, and then Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. Aah!)
cindykxie (You are literally so sweet, and trust me: the only reason I'm even capable of writing is because it's literally like all I ever do, like, 24/7. I'm addicted. Practice makes perfect. :D)
silverstargenesis
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You guys are AMAZING! The next chapter will involve more Leta & Vaughan, some important meetings, and at least one major plot twist. Eek! :)