Heir of Fire

by Sarah J. Maas

  She’d find another way to learn about the Wyrdkeys and destroy the King of Adarlan and free Eyllwe. If she kept going like this, she’d have nothing left inside to fight with.

  She’d marked the paths they’d taken on the way in, but as she entered the tree-­covered slopes, she mostly relied on the position of the cloud-­veiled sun to navigate. She’d make the trip back, find food along the way, and figure out something ­else. This had been a fool’s errand from the start. At least she hadn’t been too long delayed—­though she might now have to be quicker about finding the answers she needed, and—

  “Is this what you do? Run away when things get hard?” Rowan was standing between two trees directly in her path, ­having undoubtedly flown ­here.

  She brushed past him, her legs burning with the downhill walk. “You’re free of your obligation to train me, so I have nothing more to say to you, and you have nothing more to say to me. Do us both a favor and go to hell.”

  A growl. “Have you ever had to fight for anything in your life?”

  She let out a low, bitter laugh and walked faster, veering westward, not caring about the direction as much as getting away from him. But he kept up easily, his long, heavily muscled legs devouring the mossy ground. “You’re proving me right with every step you take.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I don’t know what you want from Maeve—­what answers you’re looking for, but you—”

  “You don’t know what I want from her?” It was more of a shout than a question. “How about saving the world from the King of Adarlan?”

  “Why bother? Maybe the world’s not worth saving.” She knew he meant it, too. Those lifeless eyes spoke volumes.

  “Because I made a promise. A promise to my friend that I would see her kingdom freed.” She shoved her scarred palm into his face. “I made an unbreakable vow. And you and Maeve—­all you gods-­damned bastards—­are getting in the way of that.” She went off down the hillside again. He followed.

  “And what of your own people? What of your own kingdom?”

  “They are better off without me, just as you said.”

  His tattoo scrunched as he snarled. “So you’d save another land, but not yours. Why ­can’t your friend save her own kingdom?”

  “Because she is dead!” She screamed the last word so loudly it burned in her throat. “Because she is dead, and I am left with my worthless life!”

  He merely stared at her with that animal stillness. When she walked away, he didn’t come after her.

  •

  She lost track of how far she walked and in what direction she traveled. She didn’t really care. She hadn’t spoken the words—she is dead—­since the day after Nehemia had been taken from her. But she was dead. And Celaena missed her.

  Night swept in earlier due to the cloud cover, the temperature plummeting as thunder grumbled in the distance. She made weapons as she went, finding a sharp stone to whittle down branches into rudimentary spears: the longer one she used as a walking stick, and though they ­were little more than stakes, she told herself the two short ones ­were daggers. Better than nothing.

  Each step was heavier than the last, and she had enough of a sense of self-­preservation left to start looking for a place to spend the night. It was almost dark when she found a decent spot: a shallow cave in the side of a granite ledge.

  She swiftly gathered enough wood for a fire. The irony of it ­wasn’t wasted on her. If she had any control over her magic—­she shut down that thought before it finished. She hadn’t made a fire in years, so it took a few tries, but it worked. Just as thunder cracked above her little cave and the skies opened up.

  She was hungry, and thankfully found some apples at the bottom of her satchel, along with old teggya from Varese that was still edible, if hard to chew. After she ate as much of it as she could stand, she pulled her cloak around herself and nestled into the side of the cave.

  She didn’t fail to notice the small, glowing eyes that gathered, peering through the brambles or over boulders or around trees. None of them had bothered her since that first night, and they didn’t come closer. Her instincts, warped as they had felt these last few weeks, didn’t raise any alarms, either. So she didn’t tell them off, and didn’t really mind them at all.

  With the fire and the pounding rain, it was almost cozy—­not like her freezing room. Though she was exhausted, she felt somewhat clearheaded. Almost like herself again, with her makeshift weapons. She’d made a smart choice to leave. Do what needs to be done, Elena had told her. Well, she’d needed to leave before Rowan shredded her into so many pieces that she would never stand a chance of putting herself back together.

  Tomorrow, she’d start over. She’d spotted what looked like a crumbling, forgotten road that she could follow downhill. As long as she kept going toward the plains, she could find her way back to the coast. And come up with a new plan as she went.

  It was good she had left.

  Exhaustion hit her so thoroughly that she was asleep moments after she sprawled beside the fire, one hand clasped around her spear. She probably would have dozed until dawn had a sudden silence not jerked her awake.

  22

  Celaena’s fire was still crackling, the rain still pounding beyond the cave mouth. But the forest had gone quiet. Those little watching eyes had vanished.

  She uncoiled to her feet, spear in one hand and a stake in the other, and crept to the narrow cave entrance. With the rain and the fire, she ­couldn’t make out anything. But every hair on her body was standing, and a growing reek was slithering in from the forest beyond. Like leather and carrion. Different from what she’d whiffed at the barrows. Older and earthier and . . . hungrier.

  Suddenly, the fire seemed like the stupidest thing she had ever done.

  No fires. That had been Rowan’s only rule while trekking to the fortress. And they had stayed off the roads—­veering away entirely from the forgotten, overgrown ones. Ones like the path she’d spied nearby.

  The silence deepened.

  She slipped into the drenched forest, stubbing her toes on rocks and roots as her eyes adjusted to the dark. But she kept moving ahead—­curving down and away from the ancient path.

  She’d made it far enough that her cave was little more than a glow on the hill above, a flicker of light illuminating the trees. A gods-­damned beacon. She angled her stake and spear into better positions, about to continue on when lightning flashed.

  Three tall, lanky silhouettes lurked in front of her cave.

  Though they stood like humans, she knew, deep in her bones from some collective mortal memory, that they ­were not. They ­were not Fae, either.

  With expert quiet, she took another step, then another. They ­were still poking around the cave entrance, taller than men, neither male nor female.

  Skinwalkers are on the prowl, Rowan had warned that first day they’d trained, searching for human pelts to bring back to their caves. She had been too dazed to ask or care. But now—­now that carelessness, that wallowing, was going to get her killed. Skinned.

  Wendlyn. Land of nightmares made flesh, where legends roamed the earth. Despite years of stealth training, each step felt like a snap, her breathing too loud.

  Thunder grumbled, and she used the cover of the sound to take a few bounding steps. She stopped behind another tree, breathing as quietly as she could, and peered around it to survey the hillside behind her. Lightning flashed again.

  The three figures ­were gone. But the leathery, rancid smell swarmed all around her now. Human pelts.

  She eyed the tree she’d ducked behind. The trunk was too slick with moss and rain to scale, the branches too high. The other trees ­weren’t any better. And what good was being stuck up a tree in a lightning storm?

  She darted to the next tree, carefully avoiding any sticks or leaves, cursing silently at the slowness
of her pace, and— Damn it all to hell. She burst into a run, the mossy earth treacherous underfoot. She could make out the trees, some larger rocks, but the slope was steep. She kept her feet under her, even as undergrowth cracked behind, faster and faster.

  She didn’t dare take her focus off the trees and rocks as she hurtled down the slope, desperate for any flat ground. Perhaps their hunting territory ended somewhere—­perhaps she could outrun them until dawn. She veered eastward, still going downhill, and grabbed on to a trunk to swing herself around, almost losing her balance as she slammed into something hard and unyielding.

  She slashed with her stake—­only to be grabbed by two massive hands.

  Her wrists sang in agony as the fingers squeezed hard enough that she ­couldn’t stab either weapon into her captor. She twisted, bringing up a foot to smash into her assailant, and caught a flash of fangs before—­ Not fangs. Teeth.

  And there was no gleam of flesh-­pelts. Only silver hair, shining with rain.

  Rowan dragged her against him, pressing them into what appeared to be a hollowed-­out tree.

  She kept her panting quiet, but breathing didn’t become any easier when Rowan gripped her by the shoulders and put his mouth to her ear. The crashing footsteps had stopped.

  “You are going to listen to every word I say.” Rowan’s voice was softer than the rain outside. “Or ­else you are going to die to­night. Do you understand?” She nodded. He let go—­only to draw his sword and a wicked-­looking hatchet. “Your survival depends entirely on you.” The smell was growing again. “You need to shift now. Or your mortal slowness will kill you.”

  She stiffened, but reached in, feeling for some thread of power. There was nothing. There had to be some trigger, some place inside her where she could command it . . . A slow, shrieking sound of stone on metal sounded through the rain. Then another. And another. They ­were sharpening their blades. “Your magic—”

  “They do not breathe, so have no airways to cut off. Ice would slow them, not stop them. My wind is already blowing our scent away from them, but not for long. Shift, Aelin.”

  Aelin. It was not a test, not some elaborate trick. The skinwalkers did not need air.

  Rowan’s tattoo shone as lightning filled their little hiding spot. “We are going to have to run in a moment. What form you take when we do will determine our fates. So breathe, and shift.”

  Though every instinct screamed against it, she closed her eyes. Took a breath. Then another. Her lungs opened, full of cool, soothing air, and she wondered if Rowan was helping with that, too.

  He was helping. And he was willing to meet a horrible fate in order to keep her alive. He hadn’t left her alone. She hadn’t been alone.

  There was a muffled curse, and Rowan slammed his body against hers, as if he could somehow shield her. No, not shield her. Cover her, the flash of light.

  She barely registered the pain—­if only because the moment her Fae senses snapped into place, she had to shove a hand against her own mouth to keep from retching. Oh, gods, the festering smell of them, worse than any corpse she’d ever dealt with.

  With her delicately pointed ears, she could hear them now, each step they took as the three of them systematically made their way down the hill. They spoke in low, strange voices—­at once male and female, all ravenous.

  “There are two of them now,” one hissed. She didn’t want to know what power it wielded to allow it to speak when it had no airways. “A Fae male joined the female. I want him—­he smells of storm winds and steel.” Celaena gagged as the smell shoved down her throat. “The female we’ll bring back with us—­dawn’s too close. Then we can take our time peeling her apart.”

  Rowan eased off her and said quietly, not needing to be near for her to hear while he assessed the forest beyond, “There is a swift river a third of a mile east, at the base of a large cliff.” He didn’t look at her as he extended two long daggers, and she didn’t nod her thanks as she silently discarded her makeshift weapons and gripped the ivory hilts. “When I say run, you run like hell. Step where I step, and don’t turn around for any reason. If we are separated, run straight—­you’ll hear the river.” Order after order—­a commander on the battlefield, solid and deadly. He peered out of the tree. The smell was nearly overpowering now, swarming from every angle. “If they catch you, you cannot kill them—­not with a mortal weapon. Your best option is to fight until you can get free and run. Understand?”

  She gave another nod. Breathing was hard again, and the rain was now torrential.

  “On my mark,” Rowan said, smelling and hearing things that ­were lost even to her heightened senses. “Steady . . .” She sank onto her haunches as Rowan did the same.

  “Come out, come out,” one of them hissed—­so close it could have been inside the tree with them. There was a sudden rustling in thebrush to the west, almost as if two people ­were running. In­stantly, the reek of the skinwalkers lessened as they raced after the cracking branches and leaves that Rowan’s wind led in the other direction.

  “Now,” Rowan hissed, and burst out of the tree.

  Celaena ran—­or tried to. Even with her sharpened vision, the brush and stones and trees proved a hindrance. Rowan raced toward the rising roar of the river, swollen from the spring rains, his pace slower than she’d expected, but . . . but he was slowing for her. Because this Fae body was different, and she was adjusting wrong, and—

  She slipped, but a hand was at her elbow, keeping her upright. “Faster,” was all he said, and as soon as she’d found her footing, he was off again, shooting through the trees like a mountain cat.

  It took all of a minute before the force of that smell gnawed on her heels and the snapping of the brush closed in. But she ­wouldn’t take her eyes off Rowan, and the brightening ahead—­the end of the tree line. Not much farther until they could jump, and—

  A fourth skinwalker leapt out of where it had somehow been lurking undetected in the brush. It lunged for Rowan in a flash of leathery, long limbs marred with countless scars. No, not scars—stitches. The stitches holding its various hides together.

  She shouted as the skinwalker pounced, but Rowan didn’t falter a step as he ducked and twirled with inhuman speed, slashing down with his sword and viciously slicing with the hatchet.

  The skinwalker’s arm severed at the same moment its head toppled off its neck.

  She might have marveled at the way he moved, the way he killed, but Rowan didn’t stop sprinting, so Celaena raced after him, glancing once at the body the Fae warrior had left in pieces.

  Sagging bits of leather on the wet leaves, like discarded clothes. But still twitching and rustling—­as if waiting for someone to stitch it back together.

  She ran faster, Rowan still bounding ahead.

  The skinwalkers closed in from behind, shrieking with rage. Then they fell silent, until—

  “You think the river can save you?” one of them panted, letting out a laugh that raked along her bones. “You think if we get wet, we’ll lose our form? I have worn the skins of fishes when mortals ­were scarce, female.”

  She had an image then, of the chaos waiting in that river—­a flipping and near-­drowning and dizziness—­and something pulling her down, down, down to the still bottom.

  “Rowan,” she breathed, but he was already gone, his massive body hurtling straight off the cliff edge in a mighty leap.

  There was no stopping the pursuit behind her. The skinwalkers ­were going to jump with them. And there would be nothing they could do to kill them, no mortal weapon they could use.

  A well ripped open inside of her, vast and unyielding and horrible. Rowan had claimed no mortal weapon could kill them. But what of immortal ones?

  Celaena broke through the line of trees, sprinting for the ledge that jutted out, bare granite beneath her as she threw her strength into her legs, her lungs, her arms, and jum
ped.

  As she plummeted, she twisted to face the cliff, to face them. They ­were no more than three lean bodies leaping into the rainy night, shrieking with primal, triumphant, anticipated plea­sure.

  “Shift!” was the only warning she gave Rowan. There was a flash of light to tell her he’d obeyed.

  Then she ripped everything from that well inside her, ripped it out with both hands and her entire raging, hopeless heart.

  As she fell, hair whipping her face, Celaena thrust her hands toward the skinwalkers.

  “Surprise,” she hissed. The world erupted in blue wildfire.

  •

  Celaena shuddered on the riverbank, from cold and exhaustion and terror. Terror at the skinwalkers—­and terror at what she had done.

  His clothes dry thanks to shifting, Rowan stood a few feet away, monitoring the smoldering cliffs upriver. She’d incinerated the skinwalkers. They hadn’t even had time to scream.

  She hunched over her knees, arms wrapped around herself. The forest was burning on either side of the river—­a radius that she didn’t have the nerve to mea­sure. It was a weapon, her power. A different sort of weapon than blades or arrows or her hands. A curse.

  It took several attempts, but at last she spoke. “Can you put it out?”

  “You could, if you tried.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I’m almost done.” In a moment the flames nearest the cliffs went out. How long had he been working to suffocate them? “We don’t need something ­else attracted to your fires.”

  She might have bothered to respond to the jab, but she was too tired and cold. The rain filled the world, and for a while, silence reigned.

  “Why is my shifting so vital?” she asked at last.

  “Because it terrifies you,” he said. “Mastering it is the first step toward learning to control your power. Without that control, with a blast like that, you could easily have burnt yourself out.”