Kingdom of Ash

Aelin leaned against the stone wall, hands sliding into her pockets. Nothing human in her face. Though Elide marked the way her hands, even within their confines, shifted.

Bound in irons. Battered.

Only weeks ago, it had been the queen herself in Vernon’s place. And now it seemed she stood here through sheer will. Stood here, ready to pry the information from Vernon, for Elide’s sake.

It strengthened Elide enough that she said to her uncle, “Your breaths are limited. I would suggest you use them wisely.”

“Ruthless.” Vernon smirked. “The witch-blood in your veins ran true after all.”

She couldn’t stand it. To be in this room with him. To breathe the same air as the man who had smiled while her father had been executed, smiled while he locked her in that tower for ten years. Smiled while he’d touched Kaltain, done far worse perhaps, then tried to sell Elide to Erawan for breeding. “Why?” she asked.

It was the only question she could really think of, that really mattered. “Why do any of it?”

“Since my breaths are limited,” Vernon said, “I suppose it makes no difference what I tell you.” A small smile curled his lips. “Because I could,” her uncle said. Lorcan growled. “Because my brother, your father, was an insufferable brute, whose only qualification to rule was the order of our birth. A warrior-brute,” Vernon spat, sneering toward Lorcan. Then at Elide. “Your mother’s preference seems to have passed to you, too.” A hateful shake of the head. “Such a pity. She was a rare beauty, you know. Such a pity that she was killed, defending Her Majesty.” Heat flared across the room, but Aelin’s face remained unmoved. “There might have been a place for her in Perranth had she not—”

“Enough,” Elide said softly, but not weakly. She took another step toward him. “So you were jealous. Of my father. Jealous of his strength, his talent. Of his wife.” Vernon opened his mouth, but Elide lifted a hand. “I am not done yet.”

Vernon blinked.

Elide kept her breathing steady, shoulders back. “I do not care why you are here. I do not care what they plan to do with you. But I want you to know that once I walk from this room, I will never think of you again. Your name will be erased from Perranth, from Terrasen, from Adarlan. There will never be a whisper of you, nor any reminder. You will be forgotten.”

Vernon paled—just slightly. Then he smiled. “Erased from Perranth? You say that as if you do not know, Lady Elide.” He leaned forward as much as his chains would allow. “Perranth now lies in the hands of Morath. Your city has been sacked.”

The words rippled through her like a blow, and even Lorcan sucked in a breath.

Vernon leaned back, smug as a cat. “Go ahead and erase me, then. With the rubble, it will not be hard to do.”

Perranth had been captured by Morath. Elide didn’t need to glance over a shoulder to know that Aelin’s eyes were near-glowing. Bad—this was far worse than they’d anticipated. They had to move quickly. Get to the North as fast as they could.

So Elide turned toward the door, Lorcan stalking ahead to open it for her.

“That’s it?” Vernon demanded.

Elide paused. Slowly turned. “What else could I have to say to you?”

“You did not ask me for details.” Another snake’s smile. “You still have not learned how to play the game, Elide.”

Elide returned his smile with one of her own. “There is nothing more that I care to hear from you.” She glanced toward Lorcan and Aelin, toward their companions gathered in the hall. “But they still have questions.”

Vernon’s face went the color of spoiled milk. “You mean to leave me in their hands, utterly defenseless?”

“I was defenseless when you let my leg remain unhealed,” she said, a steady sort of calm settling over her. “I was a child then, and I survived. You’re a grown man.” She let her lips curl in another smile. “We’ll see if you do, too.”

She didn’t try to hide her limp as she strode out. As she caught Lorcan’s eye and beheld the pride gleaming there.

Not a whisper—not one whisper from that voice who had guided her. Not from fear, but … Perhaps she did not need Anneith, Lady of Wise Things. Perhaps the goddess had known she herself was not needed.

Not anymore.

Aelin knew that one word from her, and Lorcan would rip out Vernon’s throat. Or perhaps begin with snapping bones.

Or skin him alive, as Rowan had done with Cairn.

As she followed Elide, the Lady of Perranth’s head still high, Aelin forced her own breathing to remain steady. To brace herself for what was to come. She could get through it. Push past the shaking in her hands, the cold sweat down her back. To learn what they needed, she could find some way to endure this next task.

Elide halted in the hall, Gavriel, Rowan, and Fenrys taking a step closer. No sign of Nesryn, Chaol, or Sartaq, though one shout would likely summon them in this festering warren.

Gods, the stench of this place. The feel of it.

She’d been debating for the past hour whether it was worth it to her sanity and stomach to shift back into her human form—to the blessed lesser sense of smell it offered.

Elide said to none of them in particular, “I don’t care what you do with him.”

“Do you care if he walks out alive?” Lorcan said with deadly calm.

Elide studied the male whose heart she held. “No.” Good, Aelin almost said. Elide added, “But make it quick.” Lorcan opened his mouth. Elide shook her head. “My father would wish it so.”

Punish them all, Kaltain had made Aelin once promise. And Vernon, from what Elide had told Aelin, seemed likely to have been at the top of Kaltain’s list.

“We need to question him first,” Rowan said. “See what he knows.”

“Then do it,” Elide said. “But when it’s time, make it quick.”

“Quick,” Fenrys mused, “but not painless?”

Elide’s face was cold, unyielding. “You can decide.”

Lorcan’s brutal smile told Aelin enough. So did the hatchet, twin to Rowan’s, gleaming at his side.

Her palms turned sweaty. Had been sweating since they’d bound up Vernon, since she’d seen the iron chains.

Aelin reached for her magic. Not the raging flame, but the cooling droplet of water. She listened to its silent song, letting it wash through her. And in its wake, she knew what she wished to do.

Lorcan took a step toward the chamber door, but Aelin blocked his path. She said, “Torture won’t get anything out of him.”

Even Elide blinked at that.

Aelin said, “Vernon likes to play games. Then I’ll play.”

Rowan’s eyes guttered. As if he could scent the sweat on her hands, as if he knew that doing it the old-fashioned way … it’d send her puking her guts up over the edge of the Northern Fang.

“Never underestimate the power of breaking a few bones,” Lorcan countered.

“See what you can get out of him,” Rowan said to her instead. Lorcan whirled, mouth opening, but Rowan snarled, “We can decide, here and now, what we wish to be as a court. Do we act like our enemies? Or do we find alternative methods to break them?”

Her mate met her stare, understanding shining there.

Lorcan still seemed ready to argue.

Above the phantom sting of chains on her wrists, the weight of a mask on her face, Aelin said, “We do it my way first. You can still kill him, but we try my way first.” When Lorcan didn’t object, she said, “We need some ale.”

Aelin slid the tankard of chilled ale across the table to where Vernon now sat, chains loosened enough for him to use his hands.

One false move, and her fire would melt him.

Only the Lion and Fenrys stood in the chamber, stationed by the doors.

Rowan and Lorcan had snarled at her order to stay in the hall, but Aelin had declared that they would only hinder her efforts here.

Aelin sipped from her own tankard and hummed. “An odd day, when one has to compliment their enemy’s good taste in ale.”

Vernon frowned at the tankard.

“It’s not poisoned,” Aelin said. “It’d defeat the purpose if it was.”