“It’s … it’s about Elena and Gavin,” she said. “The first panel here”—she pointed to a stretch of symbols—“describes them as the first King and Queen of Adarlan, how they were mated. Then … then it jumps back. To the war.”
Footsteps sounded and light flickered as Aedion and Chaol reached them. Chaol whistled.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Aedion said. He frowned at the giant rendering of the Eye, and then at the one around Aelin’s neck.
“Get comfortable,” she said.
Aelin read a few more lines, deciphering and decoding. So hard—the Wyrdmarks were so damn hard to read. “It describes the demon wars with the Valg that had been left here after the First War. And …” She read the line again. “And the Valg this time were led …” Her blood chilled. “By one of the three kings—the king who remained trapped here after the gate was sealed. It says that to look upon a king—to look upon a Valg king was to gaze into …” She shook her head. “Madness? Despair? I don’t know that symbol. He could take any form, but he appeared to them now as a handsome man with golden eyes. The eyes of the Valg kings.”
She scanned the next panel. “They did not know his true name, so they called him Erawan, the Dark King.”
Aedion said, “Then Elena and Gavin battled him, your magic necklace saved their asses, and Elena called him by his true name, distracting him enough for Gavin to slay him.”
“Yes, yes,” Aelin said, waving a hand. “But—no.”
“No?” Chaol said.
Aelin read further, and her heart skipped a beat. “What is it?” Rowan demanded, as if his Fae ears had noted her heart’s stutter.
She swallowed hard, running a shaking finger under a line of symbols. “This … this is Gavin’s confessional. From his deathbed.”
None of them spoke.
Her voice trembled as she said, “They did not slay him. Not by sword, or fire, or water, or might could Erawan be slain or his body be destroyed. The Eye …” Aelin touched her hand to the necklace; the metal was warm. “The Eye contained him. Only for a short time. No—not contained. But … put him to sleep?”
“I have a very, very bad feeling about this,” Aedion said.
“So they built him a sarcophagus of iron and some sort of indestructible stone. And they put it in a sealed tomb beneath a mountain—a crypt so dark … so dark that there was no air, no light. Upon the labyrinth of doors,” she read, “they put symbols, unbreakable by any thief or key or force.”
“You’re saying that they never killed Erawan,” Chaol said.
Gavin had been Dorian’s childhood hero, she recalled. And the story had been a lie. Elena had lied to her—
“Where did they bury him?” Rowan asked softly.
“They buried him …” Her hands shook so badly that she lowered them to her sides. “They buried him in the Black Mountains, and built a keep atop the tomb, so that the noble family who dwelled above might forever guard it.”
“There are no Black Mountains in Adarlan,” Chaol said.
Aelin’s mouth went dry. “Rowan,” she said quietly. “How do you say ‘Black Mountains’ in the Old Language?”
A pause, and then a loosened breath.
“Morath,” Rowan said.
She turned to them, her eyes wide. For a moment, they all just stared at one another.
“What are the odds,” she said, “that the king is sending his forces down to Morath by mere coincidence?”
“What are the odds,” Aedion countered, “that our illustrious king has acquired a key that can unlock any door—even a door between worlds—and his second in command happens to own the very place where Erawan is buried?”
“The king is insane,” Chaol said. “If he plans to raise Erawan—”
“Who says he hasn’t already?” Aedion asked.
Aelin glanced at Rowan. His face was grim. If there is a Valg king in this world, we need to move fast. Get those Wyrdkeys and banish them all back to their hellhole.
She nodded. “Why now, though? He’s had the two keys for at least a decade. Why bring the Valg over now?”
“It would make sense,” Chaol said, “if he’s doing it in anticipation of raising Erawan again. To have an army ready for him to lead.”
Aelin’s breathing was shallow. “The summer solstice is in ten days. If we bring magic down on the solstice, when the sun is strongest, there’s a good chance my power will be greater then, too.” She turned to Aedion. “Tell me you found a lot of hellfire.”
His nod wasn’t as reassuring as she’d hoped.
51
Manon and her Thirteen stood around a table in a room deep within the witches’ barracks.
“You know why I called you here,” Manon said. None of them replied; none of them sat. They’d barely spoken to her since butchering that tribe in the White Fangs. And then today—more news. More requests.
“The duke asked me to pick another coven to use. A Blackbeak coven.”
Silence.
“I’d like your suggestions.”
They didn’t meet her eyes. Didn’t utter a word.
Manon snapped down her iron teeth. “You would dare defy me?”
Sorrel cleared her throat, attention on the table. “Never you, Manon. But we defy that human worm’s right to use our bodies as if they were his own.”
“Your High Witch has given orders that will be obeyed.”
“You might as well name the Thirteen,” Asterin said, the only one of them holding Manon’s gaze. Her nose was still swollen and bruised from the beating. “For we would sooner that be our fate than hand over our sisters.”
“And you all agree with this? That you wish to breed demon offspring until your bodies break apart?”
“We are Blackbeaks,” Asterin said, her chin high. “We are no one’s slaves, and will not be used as such. If the price for that is never returning to the Wastes, then so be it.”
None of the others so much as flinched. They’d all met—they’d discussed this beforehand. What to say to her.
As if she were in need of managing.
“Was there anything else you all decided in your little council meeting?”
“There are … things, Manon,” Sorrel said. “Things you need to hear.”
Betrayal—this was what mortals called betrayal.
“I don’t give a shit about what you fools dared believe I need to hear. The only thing I need to hear is the sound of you saying Yes, Wing Leader. And the name of a gods-damned coven.”
“Pick one yourself,” Asterin snapped.
The witches shifted. Not a part of the plan, was it?
Manon stalked around the table to Asterin, past the other witches who didn’t dare turn to face her. “You have been nothing but a waste from the minute you set foot in this Keep. I don’t care if you have flown at my side for a century—I am going to put you down like the yapping dog you are—”
“Do it,” Asterin hissed. “Rip my throat out. Your grandmother will be so proud that you finally did.”
Sorrel was at Manon’s back.
“Is that a challenge?” Manon said too quietly.
Asterin’s gold-flecked black eyes danced. “It’s a—”
But the door opened and shut.
A young man with golden hair now stood in the room, his black stone collar gleaming in the torchlight.
He shouldn’t have gotten in.
There had been witches everywhere, and she’d set sentinels from another coven to guard the halls so that none of the duke’s men could catch them unawares.
As one, the Thirteen turned toward the handsome young man.
And as one, they flinched as he smiled, and a wave of darkness crashed into them.
Darkness without end, darkness even Manon’s eyes couldn’t penetrate, and—
And Manon was again standing before that Crochan witch, a dagger in her hand.
“We pity you … for what you do to your children … You force them to kill and hurt and hate until there is nothing left inside of them—of you. That is why you are here,” the Crochan wept … “Because of the threat you posed to the monster you call grandmother when you chose mercy and you saved your rival’s life.”
Manon violently shook her head, blinking. Then it was gone. There was only darkness, and the Thirteen, shouting to one another, struggling, and—
A golden-haired young man had been in that room with the Yellowlegs, Elide had said.
Manon started prowling through the darkness, navigating the room by memory and smell. Some of her Thirteen were nearby; some had backed against the walls. And the otherworldly reek of the man, of the demon inside him—
The smell wrapped around her fully, and Manon drew Wind- Cleaver.
Then there he was, chuckling as someone—Ghislaine—started screaming. Manon had never heard that sound. She’d never heard any of them scream with … with fear. And pain.
Manon hurtled into a blind sprint and tackled him to the ground. No sword—she didn’t want a sword for this execution.
Light cracked around her, and there was his handsome face, and that collar. “Wing Leader,” he grinned, in a voice that was not from this world.