Empire of Storms

by Sarah J. Maas

  In his wasteland of a soul, Lorcan felt that tug. Hated it.

  It was why Whitethorn had strode to her—why Fenrys was now halfway across the plain, dazed, attention wholly fixed on where they stood, tangled in each other.

  Elide stirred beneath him. “Is—is it over?”

  Given the heat with which the queen was kissing her prince, he wasn’t entirely sure what to tell Elide. But he let her squirm out from beneath him, twisting to her feet to spy the two figures on the horizon. He rose, watching with her.

  “They killed them all,” she breathed.

  An entire legion—gone. Not easily, but—they’d done it.

  Ash continued to fall, clumping on Elide’s silky night-dark hair. He gently picked out a bit, then put a shield over her to keep it from landing on her again.

  He hadn’t touched her since last night. There hadn’t been time, and he hadn’t wanted to think about what her kiss had done to him. How it had utterly wrecked him and still twisted up his guts in ways he wasn’t sure he could live with.

  Elide said, “What do we do now?”

  It took him a moment to realize what she’d meant. Aelin and Rowan at last pulled apart, though the prince leaned in to nuzzle her neck.

  Power called to power among the Fae. Perhaps Aelin Galathynius was unlucky the cadre had been drawn to Maeve’s power long before she was born, had chained themselves to her instead.

  Perhaps they were the unlucky ones, for not holding out for something better.

  Lorcan shook his head to clear the useless, traitorous thoughts.

  That was Aelin Galathynius standing there. Drained of her power.

  He felt it now—the utter lack of sound or feeling or heat where there had been such a riotous storm moments before. A creeping cold.

  She’d emptied her entire cache. They all had. Maybe Whitethorn had gone to her, put his arms around her, not because he wanted to mount her in the middle of the marshes, but to keep her upright once that power was gone. Once she was left vulnerable.

  Open to attack.

  What do we do now? Elide had asked.

  Lorcan smiled slightly. “We go say hello.”

  She balked at the shift in his tone. “You’re not on friendly terms.”

  Certainly not, and he wasn’t about to be, not when the queen was within his sights. Not when she had that Wyrdkey … the sibling to the one Elide carried.

  “They won’t attack me,” he said, and began heading for them. The marsh water was near-scalding, and he grimaced at the fish floating, milky eyes open wide to the sky. Frogs and other beasts bobbed among them, wobbling in his ripples.

  Elide hissed at entering the hot water but followed after him.

  Slowly, Lorcan closed in on his prey, too focused on the fire-breathing bitch to notice that Fenrys and Gavriel had vanished from their positions in the reeds.

  57

  Every step toward Aelin was an eternity—and every step was somehow too swift.

  Elide had never been more aware of her limp. Of her dirty clothes; of her long, unshaped hair; of her small body and lack of any discernible gifts.

  She had imagined Aelin’s power, dreamed of how it had shattered the glass castle.

  She hadn’t considered that the reality of seeing it unleashed would make her bones quail in terror. Or that the others would possess such harrowing gifts as well—ice and wind twining with fire, until only death rained down. She almost felt bad for the ilken they’d slaughtered. Almost.

  Lorcan was silent. Tense.

  She was able to read his moods now, the little tells that he believed no one could detect. But there—that faint twitch on the left side of his mouth. That was his attempt to suppress whatever rage was now riding him. And there, that slight angle of his head to the right … that was his assessing and reassessing every surrounding, every weapon and obstacle within sight. Whatever this meeting was, Lorcan didn’t think it would go well.

  He expected to fight.

  But Aelin—Aelin—had now turned toward them from where she stood on that mound of grass. Her silver-haired prince pivoted with her. Took a casual step in front of her. Aelin sidestepped around him. He tried to block her again. She nudged him with an elbow and held her ground at his side. The Prince of Doranelle—her queen’s lover. How much sway would his opinion hold over Aelin? If he hated Lorcan, would his contempt and mistrust for her as well be immediate?

  She should have thought of it—how it’d look to be with Lorcan. Approach with Lorcan.

  “Regretting your choice in allies?” Lorcan said with cutting calm. Like he’d been able to read her tells, too.

  “It sends a message, doesn’t it?”

  She could have sworn something like hurt flashed in his eyes. But it was typical Lorcan—even when she’d ripped into him atop that barge, he’d barely flinched.

  He said coolly, “It would seem our bargain with each other is about to end anyway. I’ll be sure to explain the terms, don’t worry. I’d hate for them to think you were slumming it with me.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He snorted. “I don’t care.”

  Elide halted, wanting to call him a liar, half because she knew he was lying and half because her own chest tightened at the words. But she kept silent, letting him walk ahead, that distance between them yawning wider with his every storming step.

  But what would she even say to Aelin? Hello? How do you do? Please don’t burn me? Sorry I’m so filthy and lamed?

  A gentle hand touched her shoulder. Pay attention. Look around.

  Elide glanced up from where she’d been wincing at her dirty clothes. Lorcan was perhaps twenty feet ahead, the others mere figures near the horizon.

  The invisible hand on her shoulder squeezed. Observe. See.

  See what? Ash and ice rained to the right, ruins rose up on the left, nothing but open marshes spreading ahead. But Elide halted, scanning the world around her.

  Something was wrong. Something made any creatures that had survived the maelstrom of magic go silent again. The burnt grasses rustled and sighed.

  Lorcan kept walking, his back stiff, though he hadn’t reached for his weapons.

  See see see.

  See what? She turned in place but found nothing. She opened her mouth to call to Lorcan.

  Golden eyes flickered in the brush not thirty paces ahead.

  Enormous golden eyes, fixed on Lorcan as he strode mere feet away. A mountain lion, ready to pounce, to shred flesh and sever bone—

  No—

  The beast exploded from the burnt grasses.

  Elide screamed Lorcan’s name.

  He whirled, but not to the lion. Toward her, that furious face shooting toward her—

  But she was running, leg shrieking in pain, as Lorcan finally sensed the attack about to swoop down on him.

  The mountain lion reached him, those thick claws going low while its teeth went right for his throat.

  Lorcan drew his hunting knife, so fast it was only the glint of gray light on steel.

  Beast and Fae male went down, right into the muddy water.

  Elide hurtled for him, a wordless scream breaking from her. Not a normal mountain lion. Not even close. Not with the way it knew Lorcan’s every move as they rolled through the water, as they dodged and swiped and lunged, blood spurting, magic clashing, shield against shield—

  Then the wolf attacked.

  A massive white wolf, sprinting out of nowhere, wild with rage and all of it focused on Lorcan.

  Lorcan broke from the lion, blood streaming down his arm, his leg, panting. But the wolf had vanished into nothing. Where was it, where was it—

  It appeared out of thin air, as if it had stepped through an invisible bridge, ten feet from Lorcan.

  Not an attack. An execution.

  Elide cleared a gap between two mounds of land, icy grass slicing into her palms, something crunching in her leg—

  The wolf leaped for Lorcan’s vulnerable back, eyes glazed with
bloodlust, teeth shining.

  Elide surged up the little hill, time spinning out beneath her.

  No no no no no no.

  Vicious white fangs neared Lorcan’s spine.

  Lorcan heard her then, heard the shuddering sob as she threw herself into him.

  His dark eyes flared in what looked like terror as she slammed into his unprotected back.

  As he noticed the death blow not coming from the lion at his front, but the wolf whose jaws closed around her arm instead of Lorcan’s neck.

  She could have sworn the wolf’s eyes flared in horror as it tried to pull back the physical blow, as a dark, hard shield slammed into her, stealing her breath with its unflinching solidity—

  Blood and pain and bone and grass and bellowing fury.

  The world tilted as she and Lorcan went down, her body thrown over his, the wolf’s jaws wrenching out of her arm.

  She curled over Lorcan, waiting for the wolf and mountain lion to end it, to take her neck in their jaws and crunch down.

  No attack came. Silence cleaved the world.

  Lorcan flipped her over, his breathing ragged, his face bloody and pale as he took in her face, her arm. “ElideElideElide—”

  She couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t see around the sensation that her arm was mere shredded flesh and splintered bone—

  Lorcan grabbed her face before she could look and snapped, “Why did you do that? Why?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He lifted his head, his snarl so vicious it echoed in her bones, made the pain in her arm surge violently enough that she whimpered.

  He growled to the lion and the wolf, his shield a swirling, obsidian wind around them, “You’re dead. You’re both dead—”

  Elide shifted her head enough to see the white wolf staring at them. At Lorcan. See the wolf change in a flash of light into the most beautiful man she’d ever beheld. His golden-brown face tightened as he took in her arm. Her arm, her arm—

  “Lorcan, we were ordered,” said an unfamiliar, gentle male voice from where the lion, too, had transformed into a Fae male.

  “Damn your orders to hell, you stupid bastard—”

  The wolf-warrior hissed, chest heaving, “We can’t fight against the command much longer, Lorcan—”

  “Put the shield down,” the calmer one said. “I can heal the girl. Let her get away.”

  “I’ll kill you both,” Lorcan swore. “I’ll kill you—”

  Elide looked at her arm.

  There was a piece missing. From her forearm. There was blood gushing into the burnt remnants of grass. White bone jutting out—

  Maybe she started screaming or sobbing or silently shaking.

  “Don’t look,” Lorcan snapped, squeezing her face again to draw her eyes to his own. His face was lined with such wrath she barely recognized it, but he made no move against the males.

  His power was drained. He’d nearly wiped it out shielding against Aelin’s flame and whoever had borne that other magic on the field. This shield … this was all Lorcan had left.

  And if he lowered it so they could heal her … they’d kill him. He had warned them of the attack, and they’d still kill him.

  Aelin—where was Aelin—

  The world was blackening at the edges, her body begging to submit rather than endure the pain that reordered everything in her life.

  Lorcan tensed as if sensing the oblivion that threatened. “You heal her,” he said to the gentle-eyed male, “and then we continue—”

  “No,” she got out. Not for this, not for her—

  Lorcan’s onyx eyes were unreadable as he scanned her face. And then he said quietly, “I wanted to go to Perranth with you.”

  Lorcan dropped the shield.

  It was not a hard choice. And it did not frighten him. Not nearly as much as the fatal wound in her arm did.

  Fenrys had hit an artery. She’d bleed out in minutes.

  Lorcan had been born from and gifted with darkness. Returning to it was not a difficult task.

  But letting that glimmering, lovely light before him die out … In his ancient, bitter bones, he could not accept it.

  She had been forgotten—by everyone and everything. And still she had hoped. And still she had been kind to him.

  And still she had offered him a glimpse of peace in the time he’d known her.

  She had offered him a home.

  He knew Fenrys wouldn’t be able to fight Maeve’s kill order. Knew Gavriel would stay true to his word and heal her, but Fenrys couldn’t hold out against the blood oath’s command.

  He knew the bastard would regret it. Knew the wolf had been horrified the moment Elide had jumped between them.

  Lorcan let go of his shield, praying she wouldn’t watch when the bloodletting started. When he and Fenrys went claw-to-claw and fang-to-fang. He’d last against the warrior. Until Gavriel joined back in.

  The shield vanished, and Gavriel was instantly kneeling, reaching with his broad hands for her arm. Pain paralyzed her, but she tried telling Lorcan to run, to put the shield back up—

  Lorcan stood, shutting out her pleading.

  He faced Fenrys. The warrior was trembling with restraint, his hands clenched at his sides to keep from going for any of his blades.

  Elide was still sobbing, still begging him.

  Fenrys’s taut features were lined with regret.

  Lorcan just smiled at the warrior.

  It snapped Fenrys’s leash.

  His sentinel leaped for him, sword out, and Lorcan lifted his own, already knowing the move Fenrys planned to use. He’d trained him how to do it. And he knew the guard Fenrys let drop on his left side, just for a heartbeat, exposing his neck—

  Fenrys landed before him, swiping low and dodging right.

  Lorcan angled his blade for that vulnerable neck.

  They were both blown back by an icy, unbreakable wind. Whatever was left of it after the battle.

  Fenrys was up, lost to the blood fury, but the wind slammed into him. Again. Again. Holding him down. Lorcan struggled against it, but the shield Whitethorn had thrown over them, the raw power he now used to keep them pinned, was too strong when his own magic was depleted.

  Boots crunched on the burnt grass. Sprawled on the bank of a little hill, Lorcan lifted his head. Whitethorn stood between him and Fenrys, the prince’s eyes glazed with wrath.

  Rowan surveyed Gavriel and Elide, the latter still weeping, still begging for it to stop. But her arm …

  A scratch marred that moon-white arm, but Gavriel’s rough battlefield healing had filled the holes, the missing flesh and broken bones. He must have used all his magic to—

  Gavriel swayed ever so slightly.

  Whitethorn’s voice was like gravel. “This ends now. You two don’t touch them. They’re under the protection of Aelin Galathynius. If you harm them, it will be considered an act of war.”

  Specific, ancient words, the only way a blood order could be detained. Not overridden—just delayed for a little while. To buy them all time.

  Fenrys panted, but relief flickered in his eyes. Gavriel sagged a bit.

  Elide’s dark eyes were still glassy with pain, the smattering of freckles on her cheeks stark against the unnatural whiteness of her skin.

  Whitethorn said to Fenrys and Gavriel, “Are we clear on what the hell will happen if you step out of line?”

  To Lorcan’s eternal shock, they lowered their heads and said, “Yes, Prince.”

  Rowan let the shields drop, and then Lorcan was hurtling to Elide, who struggled to sit up, gaping at her nearly healed arm. Gavriel, wisely, backed away. Lorcan examined her arm, her face, needing to touch her, smell her—

  He didn’t notice that the light footsteps in the grass didn’t belong to his former companions.

  But he knew the female voice that said from behind him, “What the rutting hell is going on?”

  Elide had no words to express to Lorcan what she’d felt in that moment he’d let the shield drop. What she’d felt when the s
ilver-haired, tattooed warrior-prince had halted that fatal bloodshed.

  But she had no breath in her body when she looked over Lorcan’s broad shoulder and beheld the golden-haired woman striding toward them.

  Young, and yet her face … It was an ancient face, wary and cunning and limned with power. Beautiful, with the sun-kissed skin, the vibrant turquoise eyes. Turquoise eyes, with a core of gold around the pupil.

  Ashryver eyes.

  The same as the golden-haired, handsome man who came up beside her, muscled body tense as he assessed whether he’d need to spill blood, a bow dangling from his hand.

  Two sides of the same golden coin.

  Aelin. Aedion.

  They were both staring at her with those Ashryver eyes.

  Aelin blinked. And her golden face crumpled as she said, “Are you Elide?”

  It was all Elide could do to nod. Lorcan was taut as a bowstring, his body still half angled over her.

  Aelin strode closer, eyes never leaving Elide’s face. Young—she felt so young compared to the woman who approached. There were scars all over Aelin’s hands, along her neck, around her wrists … where shackles had been.

  Aelin slid to her knees not a foot away, and it occurred to Elide that she should be bowing, head to the dirt—

  “You look … so much like your mother,” Aelin said, her voice cracking. Aedion silently knelt, putting a broad hand on Aelin’s shoulder.

  Her mother, who had gone down swinging, who had died fighting so this woman could live—

  “I’m sorry,” Aelin said, shoulders curving inward, head dropping low as tears slid down her flushed cheeks. “I’m so sorry.” How many years had those words been locked up?

  Elide’s arm ached, but it didn’t stop her from touching Aelin’s hand, clenched in her lap.

  Touching that tanned, scarred hand. Warm, sticky skin met her fingertips.

  Real. This was—Aelin was—real.

  As if Aelin realized the same, her head lifted. She opened her mouth, but her lips wobbled, and the queen clamped them together.

  None of the gathered company spoke.

  And at last Aelin said to Elide, “She bought me time.”