Empire of Storms

by Sarah J. Maas

  “Endymion,” he said hoarsely. “Enda, I need you to listen.”

  There were plenty of people who might have called for the guards, but he knew Enda—or had. He was but one of several cousins who’d shoved their noses into his business for years. Tried, Rowan now wondered, not for gossip but … to fight to keep some small scrap of him alive. Enda more than any of them.

  So Endymion gave him the gift of listening. Rowan tried to keep it concise, tried to keep his hands from trembling. In the end, he supposed his request was simple.

  When he finished, Enda studied him, any response hidden behind that court-trained mask of neutrality.

  Then Enda said, “I will consider it.”

  It was the best Rowan could hope for. He said nothing else to his cousin before he shifted again and flapped into the night—toward another banner he had once marched beside.

  And ship to ship, Rowan went. The same speech. The same request.

  All of them, all his cousins, had the same answer.

  I will consider it.

  62

  Manon was awake when Dorian stormed into her room an hour before dawn. He ignored her unlaced shirt, the swell of those lush breasts he’d tasted only yesterday, as he said, “Put your clothes on and follow me.”

  Mercifully, the witch obeyed. Though he had a feeling it was mostly from curiosity.

  When he reached Aelin’s chamber, he bothered to knock—just in case the queen and Rowan were utilizing their potentially last few hours together. But the queen was already awake and dressed, the prince nowhere to be found. Aelin took one look at Dorian’s face. “What is it?”

  He didn’t tell either woman anything as he led them down into the cargo hold, the upper levels of the ship already astir with battle preparations.

  While they’d debated and readied for the past day, he’d contemplated Manon’s warning, after she’d made his very blood sing with pleasure. Unless you would like to learn precisely what parts of me are made of iron the next time you touch me, I decide those things.

  Over and over, he’d considered the way the words had snagged on a sharp corner of memory. He’d lain awake all night while he descended into his still-depleted well of magic. And as the light had begun to shift …

  Dorian tugged the sheet off the witch mirror carefully held in place against the wall. The Lock—or whatever it was. In the muted reflection, the two queens were frowning at his back.

  Manon’s iron nails slid out. “I would be careful handling that if I were you.”

  “The warning is noted and appreciated,” he said, meeting those gold eyes in the mirror. She didn’t return his smile. Neither did Aelin. He sighed. “I don’t think this witch mirror has any power. Or, rather, not a tangible, brute power. I think its power is knowledge.”

  Aelin’s steps were near-silent as she approached. “I was told the Lock would allow me to bind the three keys into the gate. You think this mirror knows how to do that?”

  He simply nodded, trying not to be too offended by the skepticism scrunching her face.

  Aelin picked at a loose thread on her jacket. “But what does the Lock-mirror-whatever-it-is have to do with the armada breathing down our necks?”

  He tried not to roll his eyes. “It has to do with what Deanna said. What if the Lock wasn’t just for binding them back into the gate, but a tool for safely controlling the keys?”

  Aelin frowned at the mirror. “So I’m going to lug that thing onto the deck and use it to blow apart Maeve’s armada with the two keys we have?”

  He took a steadying breath, beseeching the gods for patience. “I said I think this mirror’s power is knowledge. I think it will show you how to wield the keys safely. So you can come back here and wield them without consequence.”

  A slow blink. “What do you mean, come back here?”

  Manon answered, now stepping close as she studied the mirror. “It’s a traveling mirror.”

  Dorian nodded. “Think about Deanna’s words: ‘Flame and iron, together bound, merge into silver to learn what must be found. A mere step is all it shall take.’” He pointed to the mirror. “Step into the silver—and learn.”

  Manon clicked her tongue. “And I suppose she and I are flame and iron.”

  Aelin crossed her arms.

  Dorian cut the Queen of Terrasen a wry glance. “People other than you can solve things, you know.”

  Aelin glared at him. “We don’t have time for what-ifs. Too many things could go wrong.”

  “You have little magic left,” Dorian countered, waving a hand toward the mirror. “You could be in and out of this mirror before dawn. And use what you learn to send Maeve a message in no uncertain terms.”

  “I can still fight with steel—without the risks and waste of time.”

  “You can stop this battle before the losses are too great on either side.” He added carefully, “We’re out of time already, Aelin.”

  Those turquoise eyes were steady—if not still furious he’d beat her to the riddle—but something flickered in them. “I know,” she said. “I was hoping …” She shook her head, more at herself. “I ran out of time,” she murmured as if it were an answer, and considered the mirror, then Manon. Then blew out a breath. “This wasn’t my plan.”

  “I know,” Dorian said with a half smile. “That’s why you don’t like it.”

  Manon asked before Aelin could bite off his head, “But where will the mirror lead?”

  Aelin clenched her jaw. “Hopefully not Morath.” Dorian tensed. Perhaps this plan—

  “That symbol belongs to both of us,” Manon said, studying the Eye of Elena etched onto it. “And if it takes you to Morath, you’re going to need someone who knows the way out.”

  Steps thudded down the stairs at the back of the hold. Dorian twisted toward them, but Aelin smirked at Manon and approached the mirror. “Then I’ll see you on the other side, witch.”

  Aedion’s golden head appeared between the crates. “What the hell are you—”

  Aelin’s shallow nod seemed all that Manon needed. She placed her hand atop Aelin’s.

  Golden eyes met Dorian’s for a moment, and he opened his mouth to say something to her, the words surging from some barren field in his chest.

  But Aelin and Manon pressed their joined hands to the speckled glass.

  Aedion’s shout of warning rang through the hold as they vanished.

  63

  Elide watched the ship rally against the armada looming before them—then descend into utter chaos as Aedion began roaring below.

  The news came out moments later. Came out as Prince Rowan Whitethorn landed on the main deck, face haggard, eyes full of nothing but fear as Aedion burst out the door, Dorian on his heels, sporting an already-nasty bruise around his eye. Pacing, seething, Aedion told them of Aelin and Manon walking into the mirror—the Lock—and vanishing. How the King of Adarlan had solved Deanna’s riddle and sent them into its silvery realm to buy them a shot at this battle.

  They went down into the cargo hold. But no matter how Aedion pushed against the mirror, it did not open to him. No matter how Rowan searched it with his magic, it did not yield where Aelin and Manon had gone. Aedion had spat on the floor, looking inclined to give the king another black eye as Dorian explained there had been little choice. He hadn’t seemed sorry about it—until Rowan refused to meet his gaze.

  Only when they were gathered on the deck again, the king and shape-shifter off speaking to the captain about the turn of events, did Elide carefully say to Aedion as he paced, “What is done is done. We can’t wait for Aelin and Manon to find a way to save us.”

  Aedion halted, and Elide tried not to cringe at the unrelenting fury as it narrowed on her. “When I want your opinion about how to deal with my missing queen, I’ll ask you.”

  Lorcan snarled at him. But Elide lifted her chin, even as the insult hit something in her chest. “I waited as long as you did to find her again, Aedion. You are not the only one who fears to lose her once mor
e.”

  Indeed, Rowan Whitethorn now rubbed his face. She suspected it was as much feeling as the Fae Prince would show.

  Rowan lowered his hands, the others watching him. Waiting—for his orders.

  Even Aedion.

  Elide started as realization slapped her. As she searched for proof but found none.

  “We continue readying for battle,” Rowan said hoarsely. He looked to Lorcan, then Fenrys and Gavriel, and his entire countenance changed, his shoulders pushing back, his eyes turning hard and calculating. “There’s not a chance in hell Maeve doesn’t know you’re here. She’ll wield the blood oath when it’ll hurt us the most.”

  Maeve. Some small part of her wished to see the queen who could command Lorcan’s relentless focus and affection for so many centuries. And perhaps give Maeve a piece of her mind.

  Fenrys put a hand on the hilt of his sword and said with more quiet than Elide had witnessed so far, “I don’t know how to play this one.”

  Indeed, Gavriel seemed at a loss, scanning his tattooed hands as if the answer lay there.

  It was Lorcan who said, “If you’re spotted fighting on this side, it’s over. She’ll either kill you both or make you regret it in other ways.”

  “And what about you?” Fenrys challenged.

  Lorcan’s eyes slid to hers, then back to the males before them. “It was over for me months ago. It’s now a matter of waiting to see what she’ll do about it.”

  If she’d kill him. Or drag him back in chains.

  Elide’s stomach turned, and she avoided the urge to grab his hand, to beg him to run.

  “She’ll see that we’ve worked our way around her order to kill you,” Gavriel at last said. “If fighting on this side of the line doesn’t damn us enough, then that surely will. It likely already has.”

  “Dawn’s still half an hour off, if you two want to try again,” Lorcan crooned.

  Elide tensed. But it was Fenrys who said, “It’s all a ploy.” Elide held her breath as he surveyed the Fae males—his companions. “To fracture us when Maeve knows that unified, we could present a considerable threat.”

  “We’d never turn on her,” Gavriel countered.

  “No,” Fenrys agreed. “But we would offer that strength to another.” And he looked at Rowan as he said, “When we got your call for aid this spring—when you asked us to come defend Mistward, we left before Maeve could get wind of it. We ran.”

  “That’s enough,” Lorcan growled.

  But Fenrys went on, holding Rowan’s steady gaze, “When we returned, Maeve whipped us within an inch of our lives. Tied Lorcan to the posts for two days and let Cairn whip him whenever he wished. Lorcan ordered us not to tell you—for whatever reason. But I think Maeve saw what we did together in Mistward and realized how dangerous we could be—to her.”

  Rowan didn’t hide the devastation in his eyes as he faced Lorcan—devastation that Elide felt echo in her own heart. Lorcan had endured that … and still remained loyal to Maeve. Elide brushed her fingers against his. The motion didn’t go unnoticed by the others, but they wisely kept quiet about it. Especially as Lorcan dragged his thumb down the back of her hand in answer.

  And Elide wondered if Rowan also understood that Lorcan hadn’t ordered their silence for strategy, but perhaps to spare the prince from guilt. From wanting to retaliate against Maeve in a way that would surely harm him.

  “Did you know,” Rowan said hoarsely to Lorcan, “that she’d punish you before you came to Mistward?”

  Lorcan held the prince’s stare. “We all knew what the cost would be.”

  Rowan’s throat bobbed, and he took a long breath, his eyes darting toward the stairs, as if Aelin would come prowling out, salvation in hand. But she didn’t, and Elide prayed that wherever the queen now was, she was gleaning what they so desperately needed to learn. Rowan said to his companions, “You know how this battle will likely end. Even if our armada teemed with Fae soldiers, we’d still have the odds stacked against us.”

  The sky began to bleed with pink and purple as the sun stirred beneath the distant waves.

  Gavriel only said, “We have had the odds stacked against us before.” A glance at Fenrys, who nodded gravely. “We will stay until we are commanded otherwise.”

  It was to Aedion that Gavriel looked as he said this last piece. There was something in the general’s Ashryver eyes that looked almost like gratitude.

  Elide sensed Lorcan’s attention and found him still watching her as he said to Rowan, “Elide gets to shore, under a guard of whatever men you can spare. My sword is yours only if you do that.”

  Elide started. But Rowan said, “Done.”

  Rowan spread them across the fleet, each given command of a few ships. He stationed Fenrys, Lorcan, and Gavriel on ships toward the center and back, farthest away from Maeve’s notice. He and Aedion took the front lines, with Dorian and Ansel commanding the line of ships behind his.

  Lysandra was already beneath the waves in sea dragon form, ready for his order to do damage to hull and prow and rudder on ships he’d marked for her. He’d bet that while the Fae ships might have shields around them, they wouldn’t waste valuable reservoirs of power on shielding below the surface. Lysandra would strike quick and hard—gone before they could realize who and what wrecked them from below.

  Dawn broke, clear and bright, staining the sails with gold.

  Rowan did not let himself think of Aelin—of wherever she might be.

  Minute after minute passed, and still Aelin did not return.

  A small oak rowboat slid out from Maeve’s fleet and headed for him.

  There were only three people on it—none of them Maeve.

  He could feel thousands of eyes on either side of that too-narrow band of empty water between their armadas, watching that boat approach. Watching him.

  A male in Maeve’s livery stood with preternatural Fae balance as the oarsmen held the boat steady. “Her Majesty awaits your reply.”

  Rowan tunneled into his depleted reserve of power, keeping his face bland. “Inform Maeve that Aelin Galathynius is no longer present to give a reply.”

  A blink from the male was all the shock he’d let show. Maeve’s creatures were too well trained, too aware of the punishment for revealing her secrets.

  “Princess Aelin Galathynius is ordered to surrender,” the male said.

  “Queen Aelin Galathynius is not on this ship or any other in this fleet. She is, in fact, not on the shore, or in any nearby lands. So Maeve will find she came a long way for nothing. We will leave your armada in peace, if you will grant us the same courtesy.”

  The male sneered up at him. “Spoken like cowards who know they’re outnumbered. Spoken like a traitor.”

  Rowan gave the male a small smile. “Let’s see what Maeve has to say now.”

  The male spat into the water. But the ship rowed back into the embrace of the armada.

  For a moment, Rowan recalled his last words to Dorian before he’d sent the king to shield his own line of ships.

  They were beyond apologies. Aelin would either return or—he didn’t let himself consider the alternative. But they could buy her as much time as possible. Try to fight their way out—for her, and the future of this armada.

  Dorian’s face had revealed the same thoughts as he clasped hands with him and said quietly, “It is not such a hard thing, is it—to die for your friends.”

  Rowan didn’t bother insisting they were going to live through this. The king had been tutored in warfare, even if he hadn’t yet practiced it. So Rowan had given him a grim smile and replied, “No, it is not.”

  The words echoed through him again as that messenger’s boat disappeared. And for whatever good it would do, whatever time it would buy them, Rowan reinforced his shields again.

  The sun had fully risen over the horizon when Maeve’s reply came.

  Not a messenger in a longboat.

  But a barrage of arrows, so many that they blotted out the light as they arced a
cross the sky.

  “Shield,” Rowan bellowed, not only at the magic-wielders, but also at the armed men who raised their dented and battered shields above them as arrows rained across the line.

  The arrows struck, and his magic buckled under their onslaught. Their tips had been wrapped in magic of their own, and Rowan gritted his teeth against it. On other ships, where the shield was stretched thin, some men screamed.

  Maeve’s armada began crawling toward them.

  64

  Aelin had a body that was not a body.

  She knew only because in this void, this foggy twilight, Manon had a body. A nearly transparent, wraithlike body, but … a form nonetheless.

  Manon’s teeth and nails glinted in the dim light as she surveyed the swirling gray mists. “What is this place?” The mirror had transported them to … wherever this was.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, witch.”

  Had time stopped beyond the mists? Had Maeve held her fire upon learning she was not present—or attacked anyway? Aelin had no doubt Rowan would hold the lines for as long as possible. Had no doubt he and Aedion would lead them. But …

  Whether the witch mirror was the Lock she’d sought, she’d expected it to have some immediate reaction to the two Wyrdkeys she’d snuck into her jacket.

  Not … this. Not absolutely nothing.

  Aelin drew Goldryn. In the mist, the sword’s ruby flickered—the only color, only light.

  Manon said, “We stick close; we only speak when necessary.”

  Aelin was inclined to agree. There was solid ground beneath them, but the mist hid her feet—hid any inkling that they stood on dirt beyond a faint, crumbling scraping.

  “Any guess which way?” Aelin murmured. But they didn’t have to decide.

  The eddying fog darkened, and Manon and Aelin stepped close together, back to back. Pure night swept around them—blinding them.

  Then—a murky, dim light ahead. No, not ahead. Approaching them. Manon’s bony shoulder dug into her own as they pressed tighter together, an impenetrable wall.