Empire of Storms
Page 43
A pointed glance at the door through which Aelin had vanished.
None of them said anything else, even as they later ate cold porridge for breakfast.
The cook, it seemed, hadn’t made it through the night.
Rowan knocked on the door of their private bathing room. She’d locked it. Walked into their room, then into the bathing room, and locked him out.
And now she was puking her guts up.
“Aelin,” he growled softly.
A ragged intake of breath, then retching, then—more vomiting.
“Aelin,” he snarled, debating how long until it was socially acceptable for him to break down the door. Act like a prince, she’d snarled at him the other night.
“I don’t feel well,” was her muffled response. Her voice was hollow, flat in a way he hadn’t heard for some time now.
“Then let me in so I can take care of you,” he said as calmly and rationally as he could.
She’d locked him out—locked him out.
“I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“I’ve seen you wet yourself. I can handle vomiting. Which I have also seen you do before.”
Ten seconds. Ten more seconds seemed like a fair enough amount of time before he crunched down on the handle and splintered the lock.
“Just—give me a minute.”
“What was it about Fenrys’s words that set you off?” He’d heard it all from his post on the mast.
Utter silence. Like she was spooling the raw terror back into herself, shoving it down into a place where she wouldn’t look at it or feel it or acknowledge it. Or tell him about it.
“Aelin.”
The lock turned.
Her face was gray, her eyes red-rimmed. Her voice broke as she said, “I want to talk to Lysandra.”
Rowan looked at the bucket she’d half filled, then at her bloodless lips. At the sweat beaded on her brow.
His heart stopped dead in his chest as he contemplated that … that she might not be lying.
And why she might be ill. He tried to scent her, but the vomit was too overpowering, the space too small and full of brine. He stumbled back a step, shutting out the thoughts. Without another word, he left their room.
He was numb as he hunted down the shifter, now returned and in human form as she devoured a cold, soggy breakfast. With a concerned look, Lysandra silently did as he commanded.
Rowan shifted and soared so high that the ship turned into a bobbing speck below. Clouds cooled his feathers; the wind roared over the pure panic thundering in his heart.
He planned to lose himself in the awakening sky while scouting for danger, to sort himself out before he returned to her and started asking questions that he might not be ready to hear the answers to.
But the coast appeared—and only his magic kept him from tumbling out of the sky at what the first rays of the sun revealed.
Broad, sparkling rivers and snaking streams flowed throughout the undulating emerald and gold of the grasslands and reeds lining them, the burnt gold of the sandbanks flanking either side.
And where little fishing villages had once watched over the sea … Fire.
Dozens of those villages burning.
On the ship beneath him, the sailors began to shout, calling to one another as the coast at last broke over the horizon and the smoke became visible.
Eyllwe.
Eyllwe was burning.
49
Elide didn’t speak to Lorcan for three days.
She wouldn’t have spoken to him for another three, maybe for three damn months, if necessity hadn’t required them to break their hateful silence.
Her cycle had come. And through whatever steady, healthy diet she’d been consuming this past month, it had gone from an inconsistent trickle to the deluge she’d awoken to this morning.
She’d hurtled from the narrow bed in the cabin to the small privy on board, rifled through every drawer and box she could find, but … clearly, a woman had never spent any time on this infernal boat. She resorted to ripping up the embroidered tablecloth for liners, and by the time she’d cleaned herself up, Lorcan was awake and already steering the boat.
She said flatly to him, “I need supplies.”
“You still reek of blood.”
“I suspect I will reek of blood for several more days, and it will get worse before it gets better, so I need supplies. Now.”
He turned from his usual spot near the prow, sniffing once. Her face was burning, her stomach a knotted mess of cramping. “I’ll stop at the next town.”
“When will that be?” The map was of no use to her.
“By nightfall.”
They’d sailed right through every town or outpost along the river, surviving on the fish Lorcan had caught. She’d been so annoyed at her own helplessness that after the first day, she’d started copying his movements—and had earned herself a fat trout in the process. She’d made him kill it and gut it and cook it, but … she’d at least caught the thing.
Elide said, “Fine.”
Lorcan said, “Fine.”
She aimed for the cabin to find some other fabrics to tide her over, but Lorcan said, “You barely bled the last time.”
The last thing she wanted to do was have this conversation. “Perhaps my body finally felt safe enough to be normal.”
Because even with him murdering that man, lying, and then spitting the truth about Aelin in her face … Lorcan would go up against any threat without a second thought. Perhaps for his own survival, but he’d promised her protection. She was able to sleep through the night because he lay on the floor between her and the door.
“So … there’s nothing wrong, then.” He didn’t bother to look at her as he said it.
But she cocked her head, studying the hard muscles of his back. Even while refusing to speak to him, she’d watched him—and made excuses to watch as he went through his exercises each day, usually shirtless.
“No, there’s nothing wrong,” she said. At least, she hoped. But Finnula, her nursemaid, had always clicked her tongue and said her cycles were spotty—too light and irregular. For this one to have come precisely a month later … She didn’t feel like wondering about it.
Lorcan said, “Good. It’d delay us if it were otherwise.”
She rolled her eyes at his back, not at all surprised by the answer, and limped into the cabin.
He’d needed to stop anyway, Lorcan told himself as he watched Elide barter with an innkeeper in town for the supplies she needed.
She’d wrapped her dark hair in a discarded red kerchief she must have scrounged up on that pitiful little barge, and even used a nasally accent while she spoke to the woman, her entire countenance a far cry from the graceful, quiet woman he’d spent three days ignoring.
Which had been fine. He’d used these three days to sort out his plans for Aelin Galathynius, how he’d return the favor she’d dealt him.
The inn seemed safe enough, so Lorcan left Elide to her bartering—turned out, she wanted new clothes, too—and wandered the ramshackle streets of the backwater town in search of supplies.
The streets were abuzz with river traders and fisherfolk mooring for the night. Lorcan managed to intimidate his way into buying a crate of apples, dried venison, and some oats for half their usual price. Just to get him away, the merchant along the crumbling quay threw in a few pears—for the lovely lady, he’d said.
Lorcan, arms full of his wares, was almost to the barge when the words echoed in his head, an off-kilter pealing.
He hadn’t taken Elide past that section of the quay. Hadn’t spied the man while he’d been docking, or when they’d left. Rumor could account for it, but this was a river town: strangers were always coming and going, and paid for their anonymity.
He hurried back to the barge. Fog had rippled in from the river, clouding the town and the opposite bank. By the time he dumped the crate and wares onto the boat, not even bothering to tie them down, the streets had emptied.
His magic stirred. He scanned the fog, the splotches of gold where candles shone in windows. Not right, not right, not right, his magic whispered.
Where was she?
Hurry, he willed her, counting the blocks they’d taken to the inn. She should have been back by now.
The fog pressed in. Squeaking sounded at his boots.
Lorcan snarled at the cobblestones as rats streamed past—toward the water. They flung themselves into the river, crawling and clawing over one another.
Something wasn’t coming—something was here.
The innkeeper insisted she try on the clothes before she bought them. She bundled them in Elide’s arms and pointed her toward a room in the back of the inn.
Men stared at her—too eagerly—as she passed and strode down a narrow hall. Typical of Lorcan to leave her while he sought whatever he needed. Elide shoved into the room, finding it black and chilled. She twisted, scanning for a candle and flint.
The door snapped shut, sealing her in.
Elide lunged for the handle as that little voice whispered, Run run run run run run.
She slammed into something muscled, bony, and leathery.
It reeked of spoiled meat and old blood.
A candle sparked to life across the room. Revealing a wooden table, an empty hearth, sealed windows, and …
Vernon. Sitting on the other side of the table, smiling at her like a cat.
Strong hands tipped in claws clamped on her shoulders, nails cutting through her leathers. The ilken held her firmly as her uncle drawled, “What an adventure you’ve had, Elide.”
50
“How did you find me?” Elide breathed, the reek of the ilken nearly enough to make her vomit.
Her uncle rose to his feet in a fluid, unhurried movement, straightening his green tunic. “Asking questions to buy yourself time? Clever, but expected.” He jerked his chin to the creature. It loosed a low, guttural clicking sound.
The door opened behind it, revealing two other ilken now crowding the hall with their wings and hideous faces. Oh gods. Oh, gods.
Think think think think think.
“Your companion, last we heard, was putting supplies on his boat and unmooring it. You probably should have paid him more.”
“He’s my husband,” she hissed. “You have no right to take me from him—none.” Because once she was married, Vernon’s wardenship over her life ended.
Vernon let out a low laugh. “Lorcan Salvaterre, Maeve’s second-in-command, is your husband? Really, Elide.” He waved a lazy hand to the ilken. “We depart now.”
Fight now—now, before they had the chance to move her, to get her away.
But where to run? The innkeeper had sold her out, someone had betrayed their location on this river—
The ilken tugged at her. She planted her heels onto the wooden slats, little good it would do.
It let out a low laugh and brought its mouth to her ear. “Your blood smells clean.”
She recoiled, but it gripped her hard, its grayish tongue tickling the side of her neck. Thrashing, she still could do nothing as it twisted them into the hall and toward the two waiting ilken in it. To the back door, not ten feet away, already open to the night beyond.
“You see what I shielded you from at Morath, Elide?” Vernon crooned, falling into step behind them. She slammed her feet into the wooden floor, over and over, straining for the wall, for anything to have leverage to push and fight against it—
No.
No.
No.
Lorcan had left—he’d gotten everything he needed from her and left. She’d slowed him down, had brought enemy after enemy after him.
“And whatever will you do back at Morath,” Vernon mused, “now that Manon Blackbeak is dead?”
Elide’s chest cracked open at the words. Manon—
“Gutted by her own grandmother and thrown off the side of the Keep for her disobedience. Of course, I’ll shield you from your relatives, but … Erawan will be interested to learn what you’ve been up to. What you … took from Kaltain.”
The stone in her jacket’s breast pocket.
It thrummed and whispered, awakening as she bucked.
No one in the now-silent inn at the opposite end of the hall bothered to come around the corner and investigate her wordless shouting. Another ilken stepped into view just beyond the open back door.
Four of them. And Lorcan had left—
The stone at her breast began to seethe.
But a voice that was young and old, wise and sweet, whispered, Do not touch it. Do not use it. Do not acknowledge it.
It had been inside Kaltain—had driven her mad. Had made her into that … shell.
A shell for something else to fill.
The open door loomed.
Think think think.
She couldn’t breathe enough to think, the ilken reek around her promising the sort of horrors she’d endure when they got her back to Morath—
No, she wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t let them take her, break and use her—
One shot. She’d have one shot.
No, whispered the voice in her head. No—
But there was a knife at her uncle’s side as he strolled ahead and out the door. It was all she’d need. She’d seen Lorcan do it enough while hunting.
Vernon paused in the back courtyard, a large, rectangular iron box waiting before him.
There was a small window in it.
And handles on two of its edges.
She knew what the ilken were for as the three others fell into place around it.
They’d shove her inside, lock the door, and fly her back to Morath.
The box was little bigger than a coffin standing upright.
Its door was already open.
The ilken would have to release her to throw her inside. For a heartbeat, they’d let go. She’d have to use it to her advantage.
Vernon loitered beside the box. She didn’t dare look at his knife.
A sob broke from her throat. She’d die here—in this filthy courtyard, with these awful things around her. She’d never see the sun again, or laugh, or hear music—
The ilken stirred around the box, wings rustling.
Five feet. Four. Three.
No, no, no, the wise voice begged her.
She would not be taken back to Morath. She would not let them touch her and corrupt her—
The ilken shoved her forward, a violent thrust meant to send her staggering into the box.
Elide twisted, slamming face-first into the edge instead, her nose crunching, but she whirled on her uncle. Her ankle roared as she set her weight on it to lunge for the knife at his side.
Vernon didn’t have time to realize what she intended as she whipped the knife free from its sheath at his hip. As she flipped the knife in her fingers, her other hand wrapping around the hilt.
As her shoulders curved inward, her chest caving, and she drove the blade home.
Lorcan had the kill shot.
Hidden in the fog, the four ilken couldn’t detect him as the man he was certain was Elide’s uncle had that ilken haul her toward that prison-box.
It was on him that Lorcan had trained his hatchet.
Elide was sobbing. In terror and despair.
Each sound whetted his rage into something so lethal Lorcan could barely see straight.
Then the ilken threw her into that iron box.
And Elide proved she wasn’t bluffing in her claim to never return to Morath.
He heard her nose break as she hit the rim of the box, heard her uncle’s cry of surprise as she rebounded and lunged for him—
And grabbed his dagger. Not to kill him.
For the first time in five centuries, Lorcan knew true fear as Elide turned that knife on herself, the blade angled to plunge up and into her heart.
He threw his hatchet.
As the tip of that dagger pierced the leather over her ribs, the wooden handle of his hatchet slammed into her wrist.
Lorcan was already moving as they whirled toward where he’d perched on the rooftop. He leaped to the nearest one, to the weapons he’d positioned there minutes before, knowing they’d emerge from this door—
His next knife went through the wing of an ilken. Then another to keep it down before they pinpointed his location. But Lorcan was already sprinting to the third rooftop flanking the courtyard. To the sword he’d left there. He hurled it right through the face of the closest one.
Two left, along with Vernon, screaming now to get the girl in the box—
Elide was running like hell for the narrow alley out of the courtyard, not the broad street. The alley, too small for the ilken to fit, especially with all the debris and trash littered throughout. Good girl.
Lorcan leaped and rolled onto the next roof, to the two remaining daggers—
He threw them, but the ilken had already learned his aim, his throwing style.
They hadn’t learned Elide’s.
She hadn’t just gone into the alley to save herself. She’d gone after the hatchet.
And Lorcan watched as that woman crept up behind the distracted ilken and drove the hatchet into its wings.
With an injured wrist. With her nose leaking blood down her face.
The ilken screamed, thrashing to grab her, even as it crashed to its knees.
Where she wanted it.
The axe was swinging again before its scream finished sounding.
The sound was cut off a heartbeat later as its head bounced to the stones.
Lorcan hurtled off the roof, aiming for the one remaining ilken now seething at her—
But it pivoted and ran to where Vernon was cowering by the door, his face bloodless.
Sobbing, her own blood sprayed on the stones, Elide whirled toward her uncle, too. Axe already lifting.
But the ilken reached her uncle, snatched him up in its strong arms, and launched them both into the sky.
Elide threw the hatchet anyway.