The rage that roiled through him had no space for mercy. No room for compassion.
There was neither in him as he and Gavriel snuck past the last cluster of tents to the large one situated in a cleared circle of grass. As if no one could stomach being near Cairn.
Fenrys was with her. Or had been.
From the quiet inside, he wondered if the wolf was dead.
Gavriel shifted into his Fae form, and freed a knife at his hip. An exchanged glance conveyed the order for silence as Rowan sent a wisp of wind floating into the tent.
It sang back to him of two life-forms. Both injured. Blood thick in the air. It was all he needed.
Silent as the breeze in the grass, they slipped between the tent flaps. Rowan didn’t know where to look first.
At the wolf and Fae male sprawled on the floor.
Or at the iron coffin across the tent.
The iron box they’d locked her in.
Had to reinforce, it seemed, from the sloppy welding on the thick slabs atop it.
The box was so small. So narrow.
The smell of her blood, her fear, saturated the tent. Emanated from that box.
A metal table lay nearby.
And beneath it …
Rowan took in the three unlit braziers set beneath it, the chain anchors at the head and foot of the table, and at last looked toward the Fae male left bloodied, but still alive, on the floor across from Fenrys.
Fenrys, whom Gavriel was already crouched over, the golden light of his power wrapped around the blood-soaked fur. Healing him. The white wolf did not rise to consciousness, but his breathing steadied. Good enough.
“Heal him,” Rowan said with lethal softness. The Lion looked up, and found that Rowan’s gaze was no longer on the wolf. But on Cairn.
Chunks of flesh had been torn from Cairn’s body. A lump on his temple told Rowan it had been the blow that had rendered him unconscious. As if Fenrys had slammed Cairn’s skull into the side of that metal table. And then collapsed himself mere feet away.
Collapsed, perhaps not from the wounds themselves, but … Rowan started. What had happened here, what had been so terrible that the wolf had been able to do the impossible to spare Aelin from enduring it?
Gavriel’s tawny eyes flashed with wariness. Rowan pointed at Cairn again. “Heal him.”
They did not have much time. Not to do what he wanted. What he needed.
Some of the drawers in the tall chest had been knocked free. Polished tools glinted within.
A pouch of them had also been set on a piece of black velvet beside the metal table.
Her blood sang to him of pain and despair, of utter terror.
His Fireheart.
Gavriel’s magic shimmered, golden light settling over Cairn.
Rowan surveyed the tools Cairn had laid out, the ones in the drawer. Carefully, thoughtfully, he selected one.
A thin, razor-sharp knife. A healer’s tool, meant for sleek incisions and scraping out rot.
Cairn groaned as unconsciousness gave way. By the time Cairn awoke, chained to that metal table, Rowan was ready.
Cairn beheld who stood over him, the tool in Rowan’s tattooed hand, the others he had also laid out on that piece of velvet, and began thrashing. The iron chains held firm.
Then Cairn beheld the frozen rage in Rowan’s eyes. Understood what he intended to do with that sharp, sharp knife. A dark stain spread across the front of Cairn’s pants.
Rowan wrapped an ice-kissed wind around the tent, blocking out all sound, and began.
CHAPTER 30
The clash of conflict echoed across the land, even from miles away. Deep in the rough hills of an ancient forest, Elide had waited for hours. First shivering in the dark, then watching the sky bleed to gray, then at last blue. And with that final transition, the clamor had started.
She’d alternated between pacing through the mossy glen, weaving amongst the gray boulders strewn between the trees, and sitting in the thrumming silence against one of the towering, wide-trunked trees, making herself as small and quiet as possible. Gavriel had sworn none of the strange or fell beasts in these lands would prowl so close to Doranelle, but she didn’t want to risk it. So she remained in the glen, where she’d been told to wait.
Wait for them. Or wait for things to go badly enough that she had to find her own way. Perhaps she’d seek out Essar if it should come to that—
It wouldn’t come to that. She swore it over and over. It couldn’t come to that.
The morning sun was beginning to warm the chilled shade when she saw them.
Saw them, before she heard them, because their feet were silent on the forest floor, thanks to their immortal grace and training. The breath shuddered out of her as Lorcan emerged between two moss-crusted trees, eyes already fixed on her. And a step behind him, staggering along …
Elide didn’t know what to do. With her body, her hands. Didn’t know what to say as Aelin stumbled over root and rock, the mask and the chains clanking, blood soaking her. Not just blood from her own wounds, but those of others.
She was thin, her golden hair so much longer. Too long, even with the time apart. It fell nearly to her navel, most of it dark with caked blood. As if she’d run through a rain of it.
No sign of Rowan or Gavriel. But no grief on Lorcan’s face, nothing beyond urgency, given how he monitored the sky, the trees. Searching for any pursuit.
Aelin halted at the edge of the clearing. Her feet were bare, and the thin, short shift she wore revealed no major injuries.
But there was little recognition in Aelin’s eyes, shadowed with the mask.
Lorcan said to the queen, “We’ll wait here for them.”
Aelin, as if her body didn’t quite belong to her, lifted her shackled, metal-encased hands. The chain linking them had been severed, and hung in pieces off either manacle. The same with those at her ankles.
She tugged at one of the metal gauntlets. It didn’t budge.
She tugged again. The gauntlet didn’t so much as shift.
“Take it off.”
Her voice was low, gravelly.
Elide didn’t know which one of them she’d ordered, but before she could cross the clearing, Lorcan gripped the queen’s wrist to examine the locks.
One corner of his mouth tightened. There was no easy way to free them, then.
Elide approached, her limp deep once more with Gavriel’s magic occupied.
The gauntlets had been locked at her wrist, overlapping slightly with the shackle. Both had small keyholes. Both were made from iron.
Elide shifted slightly, bracing her weight on her uninjured leg, to get a view of where the mask was bound to the back of Aelin’s head.
That lock was more complicated than the others, the chains thick and ancient.
Lorcan had fitted the tip of a slender dagger into the lock of the gauntlet, and was now angling it, trying to pick the mechanism.
“Take it off.” The queen’s guttural words were swallowed by the moss-crusted trees.
“I’m trying,” Lorcan said—not gently, though certainly without his usual coldness.
The dagger scraped in the lock, but to no avail.
“Take it off.” The queen began trembling.
“I’m—”
Aelin snatched the dagger from him, metal clicking on metal as she fitted the blade’s tip into the lock. The dagger shook in her ironclad hand. “Take it off,” she breathed, lips curling back from her teeth. “Take it off. ”
Lorcan made to grab the dagger, but she angled away. He snapped, “These locks are too clever. We need a proper locksmith.”
Panting through her clenched teeth, Aelin dug and twisted the dagger into the gauntlet’s lock. A snap cracked through the clearing.
But not the lock. Aelin withdrew the dagger to reveal the broken, chipped point. A shard of metal tumbled from the lock and into the moss.
Aelin stared at the broken blade, at the shard in the greenery cushioning her bare, bloodied feet, her breaths coming faster and faster.
Then she dropped the dagger into the moss. Began clawing at the shackles on her arms, the gauntlets on her hands, the mask on her face. “Take it off,” she begged as she scratched and tugged and yanked. “Take it off!”
Elide reached a hand for her, to stop her before she ripped the skin clean off her bones, but Aelin dodged away, staggering deeper into the clearing.
The queen dropped to her knees, bowing over them, and clawed at the mask.