Rowan kept pace with her as she stalked to the small dais before the carved railing, and when they stopped, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. “Majesty,” he murmured.
Her aunt did not even glance at Rowan or bid him to rise. She left her nephew kneeling as she turned her violet, starry eyes to Celaena and gave her that spider’s smile.
“It would seem that you have accomplished your task, Aelin Galathynius.”
Another test—using her name to elicit a reaction.
She smiled right back at Maeve. “Indeed.”
Rowan kept his head down, eyes on the floor. Maeve could make him kneel there for a hundred years if she wished. The wolves beside the throne didn’t move an inch.
Maeve deigned a glance at Rowan and then gave Celaena that little smile again. “I will admit that I am surprised that you managed to gain his approval so swiftly. So,” Maeve said, lounging in her throne, “show me, then. A demonstration of what you have learned these months.”
Celaena clenched the ring in her pocket, not lowering her chin one millimeter. “I would prefer to first retrieve the knowledge you’re keeping to yourself.”
A feminine click of the tongue. “You don’t trust my word?”
“You can’t believe I’d give you everything you want with no proof you can deliver your side of the bargain.”
Rowan’s shoulders tensed, but his head remained down.
Maeve’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The Wyrdkeys.”
“How they can be destroyed, where they are, and what else you know of them.”
“They cannot be destroyed. They can only be put back in the gate.”
Celaena’s stomach twisted. She’d known that already, but hearing the confirmation was hard, somehow. “How can they be put back in the gate?”
“Don’t you think they would already have been restored to their home if anyone knew?”
“You said you knew about them.”
An adder’s smile. “I do know about them. I know they can be used to create, to destroy, to open portals. But I do not know how to put them back. I never learned how, and then they were taken by Brannon across the sea and I never saw them again.”
“What did they look like? What did they feel like?”
Maeve cupped her palm and looked at it, as if she could see the keys lying there. “Black and glittering, no more than slivers of stone. But they were not stone—they were like nothing on this earth, in any realm. It was like holding the living flesh of a god, like containing the breath of every being in every realm all at once. It was madness and joy and terror and despair and eternity.”
The thought of Maeve possessing all three of the keys, even for brief moment, was horrifying enough that Celaena didn’t let herself fully contemplate it. She just said, “And what else can you tell me about them?”
“That’s all I can recall, I’m afraid.” Maeve settled back in her throne.
No—no, there had to be some way. She couldn’t have spent all these months in a fool’s bargain, couldn’t have been tricked that badly. But if Maeve did not know, then there were other bits of information to extract; she would not walk out of here empty-handed.
“The Valg princes—what can you tell me of them?”
For a few heartbeats, Maeve remained silent, as if contemplating the merits of answering more than she’d originally promised. Celaena wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to know why Maeve decided in her favor as the queen said, “Ah—yes. My men informed me of their presence.” Maeve paused again, no doubt dredging up the information from some ancient corner of her memory. “There are many different races of Valg—creatures that even your darkest nightmares would flee from. They are ruled by the princes, who themselves are made of shadow and despair and hatred and have no bodies to occupy save those that they infiltrate. There aren’t many princes—but I once witnessed an entire legion of Fae warriors devoured by six of them within hours.”
A chill went down her spine, and even the wolves’ hackles rose. “But I killed them with my fire and light—”
“How do you think Brannon won himself such glory and a kingdom? He was a discarded son of nobody, unclaimed by either parent. But Mala loved him fiercely, so his flames were sometimes all that held the Valg princes at bay until we could summon a force to push them back.”
She opened to her mouth to ask the next question, but paused. Maeve wasn’t the sort to toss out random bits of information. So Celaena slowly asked, “Brannon wasn’t royal-born?”
Maeve cocked her head. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you what the mark on your brow means?”
“I was told it was a sacred mark.”
Maeve’s eyes danced with amusement. “Sacred only because of the bearer who established your kingdom. But before that, it was nothing. Brannon was born with the bastard’s mark—the mark every unclaimed, unwanted child possessed, marking them as nameless, nobody. Each of Brannon’s heirs, despite their noble lineage, has since been graced with it—the nameless mark.”
And it had burned that day she’d dueled with Cain. Burned in front of the King of Adarlan. A shudder went down her spine. “Why did it glow when I dueled Cain, and when I faced the Valg princes?” She knew Maeve was well informed about the shadow-creature that had lived inside Cain. Perhaps not a Valg prince, but something small enough to be contained by the Wyrdstone ring he’d worn instead of a collar. It had recognized Elena—and it had said to both of them, You were brought here—all of you were. All the players in the unfinished game.
“Perhaps your blood merely recognized the presence of the Valg and was trying to tell you something. Perhaps it meant nothing.”
She didn’t think so. Especially when the reek of the Valg had been in her parents’ bedroom the morning after they’d been murdered. Either the assassin had been possessed, or he’d known how to use their power to keep her parents unconscious while he slaughtered them. All bits of information to be pieced together later, when she was away from Maeve. If Maeve let her walk out of here.
“Are fire and light the only way to kill the Valg princes?”
“They are hard to kill, but not invincible,” Maeve admitted. “With the way the Adarlanian king compels them, cutting off their heads to sever the collar might do the trick. If you are to return to Adarlan, that will be the only way, I suspect.”
Because in Adarlan, magic was still locked up by the king. If she faced one of the Valg princes again, she’d have to kill it by blade and wits. “If the king is indeed summoning the Valg to his armies, what can be done to stop them?”
“The King of Adarlan, it seems, is doing what I never had the nerve to do while the keys were briefly in my possession. Without all three keys, he is limited. He can only open the portal between our worlds for short periods, long enough to let in perhaps one prince to infiltrate a body he has prepared. But with all three keys, he could open the portal at will—he could summon all the Valg armies, to be led by the princes in their mortal bodies, and . . .” Maeve looked more intrigued than horrified. “And with all three keys, he might not need to rely on magically gifted hosts for the Valg. There are countless lesser spirits amongst the Valg, hungry for entrance to this world.”
“He’d have to make countless collars for them, then.”
“He would not need to, not with all three keys. His control would be absolute. And he would not need living hosts—only bodies.”
Celaena’s heart stumbled a beat, and Rowan tensed from his spot on the ground. “He could have an army of the dead, inhabited by the Valg.”