The clock issued its ninth strike. She’d unlock Aedion’s hands as soon as they got to the garden; they didn’t have another second to spend in the suffocating smoke.
Aedion staggered but kept upright, close behind as she leaped off the platform into the smoke, right where Brullo claimed two guards would hold their position. One died with a dagger to the spine, the other a blow to the side of the neck. She squeezed the hilts of her daggers against the slippery blood now coating them—and every inch of her.
His sword gripped in both hands, Aedion jumped down beside her, and his knees buckled.
He was injured, but not from any wound she could see. She’d discerned as much in the moments she’d weaved through the crowd, altering her demeanor as Lysandra had instructed. The paleness of Aedion’s face had nothing to do with fear, nor did his shallow breaths. They’d hurt him.
It made killing these men very, very easy.
The crowd was bottlenecking by the patio doors, just as she had calculated. All it took was her shouting “Fire! Fire!” and the screaming turned frantic.
The crowd began shattering the windows and the glass doors, trampling one another and the guards. People grabbed buckets to douse the flames, water spraying everywhere and splashing away the Wyrdmarks on the thresholds.
The smoke billowed out ahead, leading the way into the garden. Aelin pushed Aedion’s head down as she shoved him into the mass of fleeing courtiers and servants. Thrashing, squeezing, shouting, ripping at her clothes, until—until the noontime sun blinded her.
Aedion hissed. Weeks in the dungeons had probably wrecked his eyes. “Just hold on to me,” she said, putting his massive hand on her shoulder. He gripped her hard, his chains knocking against her as she waded through the crowd and into open, clear air beyond.
The clock tower bellowed its twelfth and final strike as Aelin and Aedion skidded to a halt before a line of six guards blocking the entrance to the garden hedges.
Aelin stepped out of Aedion’s grip, and her cousin swore as his eyes adjusted enough to see what now lay between them and escape. “Don’t get in my way,” she said to him, then launched herself at the guards.
Rowan had taught her a few new tricks.
She was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of shadows, and these men were already carrion.
Slashing and ducking and twirling, Aelin gave herself completely to that killing calm, until the blood was a mist around her and the gravel was slick with it. Four of Chaol’s men came racing up—then ran the other way. Allies or just smart, she didn’t care.
And when the last of those black-uniformed guards had slumped to the bloody ground, she surged for Aedion. He’d been gaping—but he let out a low, dark laugh as he stumbled into a sprint beside her, into the hedges.
Archers—they had to clear the archers who were sure to begin firing as soon as the smoke vanished.
They dashed around and between the hedges she’d traversed dozens of times during her stay here, when she’d run every morning with Chaol. “Faster, Aedion,” she breathed, but he was already lagging. She paused and sliced into her blood-soaked wrist with a dagger before sketching the unlocking Wyrdmarks on each of his manacles. Again, light flared and burned. But then the cuffs sprang open silently.
“Nice trick,” he panted, and she yanked the chains off him. She was about to chuck the metal aside when the gravel crunched behind them.
Not the guards, and not the king.
It was with no small amount of horror that she found Dorian strolling toward them.
19
“Going somewhere?” Dorian said, his hands in the pockets of his black pants.
The man who spoke those words was not her friend—she knew that before he’d even opened his mouth. The collar of his ebony tunic was unbuttoned, revealing the glimmering Wyrdstone torque at the base of his throat.
“Unfortunately, Your Highness, we have another party to get to.” She marked the slender red maple to the right, the hedges, the glass palace towering beyond them. They were too deep in the garden to be shot at, but every wasted second was as good as signing her own death sentence. And Aedion’s.
“Pity,” said the Valg prince inside Dorian. “It was just getting exciting.”
He struck.
A wave of black lashed for her, and Aedion shouted in warning. Blue flared before her, deflecting the assault from Aedion, but she was shoved back a step, as if by a hard, dark wind.
When the black cleared, the prince stared. Then he gave a lazy, cruel smile. “You warded yourself. Clever, lovely human thing.”
She’d spent all morning painting every inch of her body with Wyrdmarks in her own blood, mixed with ink to hide the color.
“Aedion, run for the wall,” she breathed, not daring to take her eyes off the prince.
Aedion did no such thing. “He’s not the prince—not anymore.”
“I know. Which is why you need to—”
“Such heroics,” said the thing squatting in her friend. “Such foolish hope, to think you can get away.”
Like an asp, he struck again with a wall of black-tainted power. It knocked her clean into Aedion, who grunted in pain but set her upright. Her skin began tickling beneath her costume, as if the blood-wards were flaking off with each assault. Useful, but short-lived. Precisely why she hadn’t wasted them on getting into the castle.
They had to get out of here—now.
She shoved the chains into Aedion’s hands, took the Sword of Orynth from him, and stepped toward the prince.
Slowly, she unsheathed the blade. Its weight was flawless, and the steel shone as brightly as it had the last time she’d seen it. In her father’s hands.
The Valg prince snapped another whip of power at her, and she stumbled but kept walking, even as the blood-wards beneath her costume crumbled away.
“One sign, Dorian,” she said. “Just give me one sign that you’re in there.”
The Valg prince laughed low and harsh, that beautiful face twisted with ancient brutality. His sapphire eyes were empty as he said, “I am going to destroy everything you love.”
She raised her father’s sword in both hands, advancing still.
“You’d never do it,” the thing said.
“Dorian,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “You are Dorian.” Seconds—she had seconds left to give him. Her blood dripped onto the gravel, and she let it pool there, her eyes fixed on the prince as she began tracing a symbol with her foot.
The demon chuckled again. “Not anymore.”
She gazed into those eyes, at the mouth she’d once kissed, at the friend she’d once cared for so deeply, and begged, “Just one sign, Dorian.”
But there was nothing of her friend in that face, no hesitation or twinge of muscle against the attack as the prince lunged.
Lunged, and then froze as he passed over the Wyrdmark she’d drawn on the ground with her foot—a quick and dirty mark to hold him. It wouldn’t last for more than a few moments, but that was all she needed as he was forced to his knees, thrashing and pushing against the power. Aedion quietly swore.
Aelin raised the Sword of Orynth over Dorian’s head. One strike. Just one to cleave through flesh and bone, to spare him.
The thing was roaring with a voice that didn’t belong to Dorian, in a language that did not belong in this world. The mark on the ground flared, but held.
Dorian looked up at her, such hatred on his beautiful face, such malice and rage.
For Terrasen, for their future, she could do this. She could end this threat here and now. End him, on his birthday—not a day past twenty. She would suffer for it later, grieve later.
Not one more name would she etch into her flesh, she’d promised herself. But for her kingdom … The blade dipped as she decided, and—
Impact slammed into her father’s sword, knocking her off balance as Aedion shouted.
The arrow ricocheted into the garden, hissing against the gravel as it landed.
Nesryn was already approaching, another arrow drawn, pointed at Aedion. “Strike the prince, and I’ll shoot the general.”
Dorian let out a lover’s laugh.
“You’re a shit spy,” Aelin snapped at her. “You didn’t even try to remain hidden when you watched me inside.”
“Arobynn Hamel told the captain you were going to try to kill the prince today,” Nesryn said. “Put your sword down.”
Aelin ignored the command. Nesryn’s father makes the best pear tarts in the capital. She supposed Arobynn had tried to warn her—and she’d been too distracted by everything else to contemplate the veiled message. Stupid. So profoundly stupid of her.
Only seconds left before the wards failed.
“You lied to us,” Nesryn said. The arrow remained pointed at Aedion, who was sizing up Nesryn, his hands curling as if he were imagining his fingers wrapped around her throat.
“You and Chaol are fools,” Aelin said, even as a part of her heaved in relief, even as she wanted to admit that what she’d been about to do made her a fool as well. Aelin lowered the sword to her side.
The thing inside Dorian hissed at her, “You will regret this moment, girl.”
Aelin just whispered, “I know.”
Aelin didn’t give a shit what happened to Nesryn. She sheathed the sword, grabbed Aedion, and ran.