The darkness that the Valg brought with them continued to strike the wall, so Celaena threw up shield after shield, fire flaming through her blood, her breath, her mind. She gave her magic free rein, only asking it to keep the shield behind her alive. It did so, gobbling up her reserves.
Rowan had not come back to help. But she told herself he would come, and he would help, because it was not weakness to admit she needed him, needed his help and—
Her lower back cramped, and it was all she could do to keep her grip on the legendary blade as the leader of the Valg princes swiped for her neck. No.
A muscle twinged near her spine, twisting until she had to bite down a scream as she deflected the blow. It couldn’t be a burnout. Not so soon, not after practicing so much, not—
A hole tore through the shield behind her, and the darkness slammed into the barrier, making the magic ripple and shriek. She flung a thought toward it, and as the flame patched it up, her blood began to pound.
The princes were closing in again. She growled, sending a wall of white-hot flame at them, pushing them back, back, back while she took a deep breath.
But blood came coughing out instead of air.
If she ran inside the gates, how long would the shield last before it fell to the princes and their ancient darkness? How long would any of those inside last? She didn’t dare look behind to see who was winning. It didn’t sound good. There were no cries of victory, only pain and fear.
Her knees quaked, but she swallowed the blood in her mouth and took another breath.
She had not imagined it would end like this. And maybe it was what she deserved, after turning her back on her kingdom.
One of the Valg princes ripped a hand through the wall of flame separating them, the darkness shielding his flesh from being melted off. She was about to send another blast at him when a movement from the trees caught her eye.
Far up the hill, as if they had come racing down from the mountains and had not stopped for food or water or sleep, were a towering man, a massive bird, and three of the largest predators she had ever seen.
Five in all.
Answering their friend’s desperate call for aid.
They hurtled through the trees and over stones: two wolves, one black and one moon-white; the powerfully built male; the bird swooping low over them; and a familiar mountain cat racing behind. Heading for the darkness looming between them and the fortress.
The black wolf skidded to a halt as they neared the darkness, as if sensing what it could do. The screaming in the fortress rose. If the newcomers could destroy the soldiers, the survivors could take the tunnel and flee before the dark consumed everything.
Sweat stung Celaena’s eyes, and pain sliced into her so deep that she wondered if it was permanent. But she had not lied to Rowan about saving lives.
So she did not stop to doubt or consider as she flung the remnants of her power toward Rowan’s five friends, a bridge of flame through the darkness, cleaving it in two.
A path toward the gates behind her.
To their credit, Rowan’s friends did not hesitate as they raced for it, the wolves leading the way, the bird—an osprey—close behind. She poured her power into the bridge, gritting her teeth against the agony as the five rushed past, not sparing her a glance. But the golden mountain cat slowed as he charged through the gates behind her, as her chest seized and she coughed, her blood bright on the grass.
“He’s inside,” she choked out. “Help him.”
The great cat lingered, assessing her, and the wall, and the princes fighting against her flame. “Go,” she wheezed. The bridge through the darkness collapsed, and she staggered back a step as that black power slammed into her, the shield, the world.
The blood was roaring so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear when the mountain cat raced for the fortress. Rowan’s friends had come. Good. Good that he would not be alone, that he had people in the world.
She coughed blood again, splattering it on the ground—on the legs of the Valg prince.
She barely moved before he slammed her into her own flames, and she hit the magical wall beneath, as hard and unforgiving as if it were made of stone. The only way into the fortress was through the ward-gates. She swiped with Goldryn, but the blow was feeble. Against the Valg, against this horrible power that the King of Adarlan possessed, the army at his disposal . . . it was all useless. As useless as the vow she’d made to Nehemia’s grave. As useless as an heir to a broken throne and a broken name.
The magic was boiling her blood. The darkness—it would be a relief compared to the hell smoldering in her veins. The Valg prince advanced, and part of her was screaming—screaming at herself to get up, to keep fighting, to rage and roar against this horrible end. But moving her limbs, even breathing, had become a monumental effort.
She was so tired.
•
The fortress was a hell of yelling and fighting and gore, but Rowan kept swinging his blades, holding his position at the tunnel mouth as soldier after soldier poured in. The scout leader, Bas, had let them in, Luca had told Rowan. The other demi-Fae who had conspired with Bas wanted the power the creatures offered—wanted a place in the world. From the devastation in the bleeding boy’s eyes, Rowan knew that Bas had already met his end. He hoped Luca hadn’t been the one to do it.
The soldiers kept coming, highly trained men who were not afraid of the demi-Fae, or of the little magic that they bore. They were armed with iron and did not differentiate between young and old, male and female, as they hacked and slaughtered.
Rowan was not drained, not in the least. He had fought for longer and in worse conditions. But the others were flagging, especially as soldiers continued flooding the fortress. Rowan yanked his sword from the gut of a falling soldier, dagger already slicing across the neck of the next, when growling shook the stones of the fortress. Some of the demi-Fae froze, but Rowan nearly shuddered with relief as twin wolves leapt down the staircase and closed their jaws around the necks of two Adarlanian soldiers.
Great wings flapped, and then a glowering, dark-eyed male was in front of him, swinging a sword older than the occupants of Mistward. Vaughan merely nodded at him before taking up a position, never one to waste words.
Beyond him, the wolves were nothing short of lethal, and did not bother to shift into their Fae forms as they took down soldier after soldier, leaving those that got through to the male waiting behind them. That was all Rowan had to see before he sprinted for the stairs, dodging the stunned and bloodied demi-Fae.
Darkness had not fallen, which meant she had to still be breathing, she had to still be holding the line, but—
A mountain cat skidded to a halt on the stairwell landing and shifted. Rowan took one look at Gavriel’s tawny eyes and said, “Where is she?”
Gavriel held out an arm. As if to stop him. “She’s in bad shape, Rowan. I think—”
Rowan ran, shoving aside his oldest friend, shouldering past the other towering male who now appeared—Lorcan. Even Lorcan had answered his call. The time for gratitude would come later, and the dark-haired demi-Fae didn’t say anything as Rowan rushed to the battlement gates. What he saw beyond almost drove him to his knees.
The wall of flame was in tatters, but still protecting the barrier. But the three creatures . . .
Aelin was standing in front of them, hunched and panting, sword limp in her hand. They advanced, and a feeble blue flame sprang up before them. They swiped it away with wave of their hands. Another flame sprang up, and her knees buckled.
The shield of flame surged and receded, pulsing like the light around her body. She was burning out. Why hadn’t she retreated?
Another step closer and the things said something that had her raising her head. Rowan knew he could not reach her, didn’t even have the breath to shout a warning as Ael
in gazed into the face of the creature before her.
She had lied to him. She had wanted to save lives, yes. But she had gone out there with no intention of saving her own.
He drew in a breath—to run, to roar, to summon his power, but a wall of muscle slammed into him from behind, tackling him to the grass. Though Rowan shoved and twisted against Gavriel, he could do nothing against the four centuries of training and feline instinct that had pinned him, keeping him from running through those gates and into the blackness that destroyed worlds.
The creature took Aelin’s face in its hands, and her sword thudded to the ground, forgotten.
Rowan was screaming as the creature pulled her into its arms. As she stopped fighting. As her flames winked out and darkness swallowed her whole.
53
There was blood everywhere.
As before, Celaena stood between the two bloody beds, reeking breath caressing her ear, her neck, her spine. She could feel the Valg princes roving around her, circling with predators’ gaits, devouring her misery and pain bit by bit, tasting and savoring.
There was no way out, and she could not move as she looked from one bed to the other.
Nehemia’s corpse, mangled and mutilated. Because she had been too late, and because she had been a coward.
And her parents, throats slit from ear to ear, gray and lifeless. Dead from an attack they should have sensed. An attack she should have sensed. Maybe she had sensed it, and that was why she had crept in that night. But she had been too late then as well.
Two beds. Two fractures in her soul, cracks through which the abyss had come pouring in long before the Valg princes had ever seized her. A claw scraped along her neck and she jerked away, stumbling toward her parents’ corpses.
The moment that darkness had swept around her, snuffing out her exhausted flame, it began eating away at the reckless rage that had compelled her to step out of the barrier. Here in the dark, the silence was complete—eternal. She could feel the Valg slinking around her, hungry and eager and full of cold, ancient malice. She’d expected to have the life sucked from her instantly, but they had just stayed close in the dark, brushing up against her like cats, until a faint light had formed and she’d found herself between these two beds. She was unable to look away, unable to do anything but feel her nausea and panic rise bit by bit. And now . . . Now . . .
Though her body remained unmoving on the bed, Nehemia’s voice whispered, Coward.
Celaena vomited. A faint, hoarse laugh sounded behind her.
She backed up, farther and farther from the bed where Nehemia lay. Then she was standing in a sea of red—red and white and gray, and—
She now stood like a wraith in her parents’ bed, where she had lain ten years ago, awakening between their corpses to the servant woman’s screaming. It was those screams she could hear now, high and endless, and—Coward.
Celaena fell against the headboard, as real and smooth and cold as she remembered it. There was nowhere else for her to go. It was a memory—these were not real things.
She pressed her palms against the wood, fighting her building scream. Coward. Nehemia’s voice again filled the room. Celaena squeezed her eyes shut and said into the wall, “I know. I know.”
She did not fight as cold, claw-tipped fingers stroked at her cheeks, at her brow, at her shoulders. One of the claws severed clean through her long braid as it whipped her around. She did not fight as darkness swallowed her whole and dragged her down deep.
•
The darkness had no end and no beginning.
It was the abyss that had haunted her steps for ten years, and she free-fell into it, welcomed it.
There was no sound, only the vague sense of going toward a bottom that might not exist, or that might mean her true end. Maybe the Valg princes had devoured her, turning her into a husk. Maybe her soul was forever trapped here, in this plunging darkness.
Perhaps this was hell.
•
The blackness was rippling now, shifting with sound and color that she passed through. She lived through each image, each memory worse than the next. Chaol’s face as he saw what she truly was; Nehemia’s mutilated body; her final conversation with her friend, the damning things she’d said. When your people are lying dead around you, don’t come crying to me.
It had come true—now thousands of slaves from Eyllwe had been slaughtered for their bravery.
She tumbled through a maelstrom of the moments when she had proved her friend right. She was a waste of space and breath, a stain on the world. Unworthy of her birthright.
This was hell—and looked like hell, as she saw the bloodbath she’d created on the day she rampaged through Endovier. The screams of the dying—the men she’d cut apart—tore at her like phantom hands.
This was what she deserved.
•
She went mad during that first day in Endovier.
Went mad as the descent slowed and she was stripped and strapped between two blood-splattered posts. The cold air nipped at her bare breasts, a bite that was nothing compared to the terror and agony as a whip cracked and—
She jerked against the ropes binding her. She scarcely had time to draw in a breath before the crack sounded again, cleaving the world like lightning, cleaving her skin.
“Coward,” Nehemia said behind her, and the whip cracked. “Coward.” The pain was blinding. “Look at me.” She couldn’t lift her head, though. Couldn’t turn. “Look at me.”
She sagged against her ropes, but managed to look over her shoulder.
Nehemia was whole, beautiful and untouched, her eyes full of damning hatred. And then from behind her emerged Sam, handsome and tall. His death had been so similar to Nehemia’s, and yet so much worse, drawn out over hours. She had not saved him, either. When she beheld the iron-tipped whip in his hands, when he stepped past Nehemia and let the whip unfurl onto the rocky earth, Celaena let out a low, quiet laugh.
She welcomed the pain with open arms as he took a deep breath, clothes shifting with the movement as he snapped the whip. The iron tip—oh gods, it ripped her clean open, knocked her legs out from underneath her.
“Again,” Celaena told him, the word little more than a rasp. “Again.”
Sam obeyed. There was only the thud of leather on wet flesh as Sam and Nehemia took turns, and a line of people formed behind them, waiting for what they deserved as payment for what she had failed to do.
Such a long line of people. So many lives that she had taken or failed to protect.
Again.
Again.
Again.
•
She had not walked past the barrier expecting to defeat the Valg princes.
She had walked out there for the same reason she had snapped that day in Endovier.
But the Valg princes had not killed her yet.
She had felt their pleasure as she begged for the whipping. It was their sustenance. Her mortal flesh was nothing to them—it was the agony within that was the prize. They would draw this out forever, keep her as their pet.
There was no one to save her, no one who could enter their darkness and live.
One by one, they groped through her memories. She fed them, gave them everything they wanted and more. Back and back, sorting through the years as they plunged into the dark, twining together. She did not care.
She had not looked into the Valg prince’s eyes expecting to ever again see sunrise.
•
She did not know how long she fell with them.
But then there was a rushing, roaring below—a frozen river. Whispers and foggy light were rising to meet them. No, not rising—this was the bottom.
An end to the abyss. And an end to her, perhaps, at last.
She didn’t know if the Valg princes’ hissing was
from anger or pleasure as they slammed into that frozen river at the bottom of her soul.
54
Trumpets announced his arrival. Trumpets and silence as the people of Orynth crowded the steep streets winding up to the white palace that watched over them all. It was the first sunny day in weeks—the snow on the cobblestone streets melting quickly, though the wind still had a final bite of winter to it, enough so that the King of Adarlan and his entire massive party were bundled in furs that covered their regalia.
Their gold and crimson flags, however, flapped in the crisp wind, the golden poles shining as brightly as the armor of their bearers, who trotted at the head of the party. She watched them approach from one of the balconies off the throne room, Aedion at her side running a constant commentary about the state of their horses, armor, weapons—about the King of Adarlan himself, who rode near the front on a great black warhorse. There was a pony beside him, bearing a smaller figure. “His sniveling son,” Aedion told her.
The whole castle was miserably quiet. Everyone was dashing around, but silently, tensely. Her father had been on edge at breakfast, her mother distracted, the whole court snarly and wearing far more weapons than usual. Only her uncle seemed the same—only Orlon had smiled at her today, said she looked very pretty in her blue dress and golden crown, and tugged one of her freshly pressed curls. No one had told her anything about this visit, but she knew it was important, because even Aedion was wearing clean clothes, a crown, and a new dagger, which he’d taken to tossing in the air.
“Aedion, Aelin,” someone hissed from inside the throne room—Lady Marion, her mother’s dearest friend and handmaiden. “On the dais, now.” Behind the lovely lady peeked a night-black head of hair and onyx eyes—Elide, her daughter. The girl was too quiet and breakable for her to bother with usually. And Lady Marion, her nursemaid, coddled her own daughter endlessly.
“Rat’s balls,” Aedion cursed, and Marion went red with anger, but did not reprimand. Proof enough that today was different—dangerous, even.
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