She pulled a hunk of bread toward her but didn’t touch it. None of them ate the food. Breakfast and dinner were always for show, to have a presence here.
The Thirteen didn’t say a word.
Manon stared each and every one of them down, until they dropped their eyes. But when her gaze met Asterin’s, the witch held it. “Do you have something you want to say,” Manon said to her, “or do you just want to start swinging?”
Asterin’s eyes flicked over Manon’s shoulder. “We have guests.”
Manon found the leader of one of the newly arrived Yellowlegs covens standing at the foot of the table, eyes downcast, posture unthreatening—complete submission.
“What?” Manon demanded.
The coven leader kept her head low. “We would request your consideration for the duke’s task, Wing Leader.”
Asterin stiffened, along with many of the Thirteen. The nearby tables had also gone silent. “And why,” Manon asked, “would you want to do that?”
“You will force us to do your drudgery work, to keep us from glory on the killing fields. That is the way of our Clans. But we might win a different sort of glory in this way.”
Manon held in her sigh, weighing, contemplating. “I will consider it.”
The coven leader bowed and backed away. Manon couldn’t decide whether she was a fool or cunning or brave.
None of the Thirteen spoke for the rest of breakfast.
“And what coven, Wing Leader, have you selected for me?”
Manon met the duke’s stare. “A coven of Yellowlegs under a witch named Ninya arrived earlier this week. Use them.”
“I wanted Blackbeaks.”
“You’re getting Yellowlegs,” Manon snapped. Down the table, Kaltain did not react. “They volunteered.”
Better than Blackbeaks, she told herself. Better that the Yellowlegs had offered themselves.
Even if Manon could have refused them.
She doubted Ghislaine was wrong about the nature of the Valg, but … Maybe this could work to their advantage, depending on how the Yellowlegs fared.
The duke flashed his yellowing teeth. “You toe a dangerous line, Wing Leader.”
“All witches have to, in order to fly wyverns.”
Vernon leaned forward. “These wild, immortal things are so diverting, Your Grace.”
Manon gave him a long, long look that told Vernon that one day, in a shadowy hallway, he would find himself with the claws of this wild, immortal thing in his belly.
Manon turned to go. Sorrel—not Asterin—stood stone-faced by the door. Another jarring sight.
Then Manon turned back to the duke, the question forming even as she willed herself not to say it. “To what end? Why do all of this—why ally with the Valg, why raise this army … Why?” She could not understand it. The continent already belonged to them. It made no sense.
“Because we can,” the duke said simply. “And because this world has too long dwelled in ignorance and archaic tradition. It is time to see what might be improved.”
Manon made a show of contemplating and then nodding as she strode out.
But she had not missed the words—this world. Not this land, not this continent.
This world.
She wondered whether her grandmother had considered the idea that they might one day have to fight to keep the Wastes—fight the very men who had helped them take back their home.
And wondered what would become of these Valg-Ironteeth witchlings in that world.
21
He had tried.
When the blood-soaked woman had spoken to him, when those turquoise eyes had seemed so familiar, he had tried to wrest away control of his body, his tongue. But the demon prince in him had held firm, delighting in his struggle.
He had sobbed with relief when she trapped it and raised an ancient blade over his head. Then she had hesitated—and then that other woman had fired an arrow, and she had put down the sword and left.
Left him still trapped with the demon.
He could not remember her name—refused to remember her name, even as the man on the throne questioned him about the incident. Even as he returned to the exact spot in the garden and prodded the discarded shackles lying in the gravel. She had left him, and with good reason. The demon prince had wanted to feed on her, and then hand her over.
But he wished she had killed him. He hated her for not killing him.
22
Chaol left his watch on the roof of Aelin’s apartment the moment the hooded head of one of the rebels appeared and signaled that he would take over. Thank the gods.
He didn’t bother stopping in the apartment to see how Aedion was holding up. Each of his pounding steps on the wooden stairs accented the raging, thunderous beat of his heart, until it was all he could hear, all he could feel.
With the other rebels lying low or monitoring the city and Nesryn gone to make sure her father wasn’t in danger, Chaol found himself alone as he stalked through the city streets. Everyone had their orders; everyone was where they were supposed to be. Nesryn had already told him Ress and Brullo had given her the signal that all was clear on their end—and now …
Liar. Aelin was and had always been a gods-damned liar. She was as much an oath-breaker as he was. Worse.
Dorian wasn’t gone. He wasn’t. And he didn’t give a shit how much Aelin trumpeted about mercy for Dorian, or that she said it was a weakness not to kill him. The weakness lay in his death—that’s what he should have said. The weakness lay in giving up.
He stormed down an alley. He should have been hiding as well, but the roaring in his blood and bones was unrelenting. A sewer grate rang beneath his feet. He paused, and peered into the blackness below.
There were still things to do—so many things to do, so many people to keep from harm. And now that Aelin had yet again humiliated the king, he had no doubt that the Valg would round up more people as punishment, as a statement. With the city still in an uproar, perhaps it was the perfect time for him to strike. To even the odds between them.
No one saw as he climbed into the sewer, closing the lid overhead.
Tunnel after tunnel, his sword gleaming in the afternoon light streaming in through the grates, Chaol hunted those Valg pieces of filth, his steps near-silent. They usually kept to their nests of darkness, but every now and then, stragglers prowled the tunnels. Some of their nests were small—only three or four of them guarding their prisoners—or meals, he supposed. Easy enough for him to ambush.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful to see those demon heads roll.
Gone. Dorian is gone.
Aelin didn’t know everything. Fire or beheading couldn’t be the only choices. Maybe he would keep one of the Valg commanders alive, see just how far gone the man inside of the demon truly was. Maybe there was another way—there had to be another way …
Tunnel after tunnel after tunnel, all the usual haunts, and no sign of them.
Not one.
Chaol hurried into a near-run as he headed for the largest nest he knew of, where they’d always been able to find civilians in need of rescuing, if they were lucky enough to catch the guards unawares. He would save them—because they deserved it, and because he had to keep at it, or else he would crumble and—
Chaol stared at the gaping mouth of the main nest.
Watery sunlight filtering from above illuminated the gray stones and the little river at the bottom. No sign of the telltale darkness that usually smothered it like a dense fog.
Empty.
The Valg soldiers had vanished. And taken their prisoners with them.
He didn’t think they’d gone into hiding from fear.
They’d moved on, concealing themselves and their prisoners, as a giant, laughing go-to-hell to every rebel who’d actually thought they were winning this secret war. To Chaol.
He should have thought of pitfalls like this, should have considered what might happen when Aelin Galathynius made a fool of the king and his men.
He should have considered the cost.
Maybe he was the fool.
There was a numbness in his blood as he emerged from the sewers onto a quiet street. It was the thought of sitting in his ramshackle apartment, utterly alone with that numbness, that sent him southward, trying to avoid the streets that still teemed with panicked people. Everyone demanded to know what had happened, who had been killed, who had done it. The decorations and baubles and food vendors had been entirely forgotten.
The sounds eventually died away, the streets clearing out as he reached a residential district where the homes were of modest size but elegant, well kept. Little streams and fountains of water from the Avery flowed throughout, lending themselves to the surplus of blooming spring flowers at every gate, windowsill, and tiny lawn.
He knew the house from the smell alone: fresh-baked bread, cinnamon, and some other spice he couldn’t name. Taking the alley between the two pale-stoned houses, he kept to the shadows as he approached the back door, peering through the pane of glass to the kitchen within. Flour coated a large worktable, along with baking sheets, various mixing bowls, and—
The door swung open, and Nesryn’s slim form filled the entryway. “What are you doing here?”
She was back in her guard’s uniform, a knife tucked behind her thigh. She’d no doubt spotted an intruder approaching her father’s house and readied herself.
Chaol tried to ignore the weight pushing down on his back, threatening to snap him in two. Aedion was free—they’d accomplished that much. But how many other innocents had they doomed today?