She’d seen these males before. On a bloodied bit of beach.
“Varik,” Cairn said, and one of the guards stepped forward, Fenrys now at his side by the door, the wolf as tall as a pony. Varik’s sword rested against Fenrys’s throat.
Cairn gripped her chains, tugging her against his chest as they walked toward the guards, the wolf. “You make a move, and he dies.”
Aelin didn’t tell him she wasn’t entirely sure she had the strength to try anything, let alone run.
Heaviness settled into her.
She didn’t fight the black sack shoved over her head as they passed through the arched doorway. Didn’t fight as they walked down that hall, though she counted the steps and turns.
She didn’t care if Cairn was smart enough to add in a few extras to disorient her. She counted them anyway. Listened to the rush of the river, growing louder with each turn, the rising mist that chilled her exposed skin, slicking the stones beneath her feet.
Then open air. She couldn’t see it, but it grazed damp fingers over her skin, whispering of the gaping openness of the world.
Run. Now.
The words were a distant murmur.
She had no doubt the guard’s blade remained at Fenrys’s throat. That it would spill blood. Maeve’s order of restraint bound Fenrys too well—along with that strange gift of his to leap between short distances, as if he were moving from one room to another.
She’d long since lost hope he’d find some way to use it, to bear them away from here. She doubted he’d miraculously reclaim the ability, should the guard’s sword strike.
Yet if she heeded that voice, if she ran, was the cost of his life worth her own?
“You’re debating it, aren’t you,” Cairn hissed in her ear. She could feel his smile even through the sack blinding her. “If the wolf’s life is a fair cost to get away.” A lover’s laugh. “Try it. See how far you get. We’ve a few minutes of walking left.”
She ignored him. Ignored that voice whispering to run, run, run.
Step after step, they walked. Her legs shook with the effort.
It told her enough about how long she had been here. How long she had not been able to properly move, even with the healers’ ministrations to keep her muscles from wasting away.
Cairn led her up a winding staircase that had her rasping for breath, the mist fading away to cool night air. Sweet smells. Flowers.
Flowers still existed. In this world, this hell, flowers bloomed somewhere.
The water’s bellow faded behind them to a blessedly dull rushing, soon replaced by merry trickling ahead. Fountains. Cold, smooth tiles bit into her feet, and through the hood flickering fire cast golden ripples. Lanterns.
The air tightened, grew still. A courtyard, perhaps.
Lightning pulsed down her thighs, her calves, warning her to slow, to rest.
Then open air yawned again wide around her, the water once more roaring.
Cairn halted, yanking her against his towering body, his various weapons digging into her chains, her skin. The other guards’ clothes rustled as they stopped, too. Fenrys’s claws clicked on stone, the sound no doubt meant to signal her that he remained nearby.
She realized why he’d feel the need to do so as a female voice that was both young and old, amused and soulless, purred, “Remove the hood, Cairn.”
It vanished, and Aelin needed only a few blinks to take everything in.
She had been here before.
Had been on this broad veranda overlooking a mighty river and waterfalls, had walked through the ancient stone city she knew loomed at her back.
Had stood in this very spot, facing the dark-haired queen lounging on a stone throne atop the dais, mist wreathing the air around her, a white owl perched on the back of her seat.
Only one wolf lay sprawled at her feet this time. Black as night, black as the queen’s eyes, which settled on Aelin, narrowing with pleasure.
Maeve seemed content to let Aelin look. Let her take it in.
Maeve’s deep purple gown glistened like the mists behind her, its long train draped over the few steps of the dais. Pooling toward—
Aelin beheld what glittered at the base of those steps and went still.
Maeve’s red lips curved into a smile as she waved an ivory hand. “If you will, Cairn.”
The male didn’t hesitate as he hauled Aelin toward what lay on the ground.
Shattered glass, piled and arranged in a neat circle.
He halted just outside, the first of the thick shards an inch from Aelin’s bare toes.
Maeve motioned to the black wolf at her feet and he rose, plucking up something from the throne’s broad arm before trotting to Cairn.
“I thought your rank should at least be acknowledged,” Maeve said, that spider’s smile never faltering as Aelin beheld what the wolf offered to the guard beside Cairn. “Put it on her,” the queen ordered.
A crown, ancient and glimmering, shone in the guard’s hands. Crafted of silver and pearl, fashioned into upswept wings that met in its peaked center, encircled with spikes of pure diamond, it shimmered like the moon’s rays had been captured within as the guard set it upon Aelin’s head.
A terrible, surprising weight, the cool metal digging into her scalp. Far heavier than it looked, as if it had a core of solid iron.
A different sort of shackle. It always had been.
Aelin reined in the urge to recoil, to shake the thing from her head.
“Mab’s crown,” Maeve said. “Your crown, by blood and birthright. Her true Heir.”
Aelin ignored the words. Stared toward the circle of glass shards.
“Oh, that,” Maeve said, noting her attention. “I think you know how this shall go, Aelin of the Wildfire.”
Aelin said nothing.
Maeve gave a nod.
Cairn shoved her forward, right into the glass.
Her bare feet sliced open, new skin shrieking as it ripped.
She inhaled sharply through her teeth, swallowing her cry just as Cairn pushed her onto her knees.
The breath slammed from her at the impact. At each shard that sliced and dug in deep.
Breathe—breathing was key, was vital.
She pulled her mind out, away, inhaling and exhaling. A wave sweeping back from the shore, then returning.
Warmth pooled beneath her knees, her calves and ankles, the coppery scent of her blood rising to blend into the mists.
Her breath turned jagged as she began shaking, as a scream surged within her.
She bit her lip, canines piercing flesh.
She would not scream. Not yet.
Breathe—breathe.
The tang of her blood coated her mouth as she bit down harder.
“A pity that there’s no audience to witness this,” said Maeve, her voice far away and yet too near. “Aelin Fire-Bringer, wearing her proper Faerie Queen’s crown at last. Kneeling at my feet.”
A tremor shuddered through Aelin, rocking her body enough that the glass found new angles, new entries.
She drifted further back, away. Each breath tugged her out to sea, to a place where words and feelings and pain became a distant shore.
Maeve snapped her fingers. “Fenrys.”
The wolf padded past and sat himself beside her throne. But not before he glanced at the black wolf. Just a turn of the head.
The black wolf returned the look, bland and cold. And that was enough for Maeve to say, “Connall, you may finally tell your twin what you wish to say.”
A flash of light.
Aelin inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, over and over. Barely registered the beautiful dark-haired male who now stood in place of the wolf. Bronze-skinned like his twin, but without the wildness, without the mischief shining from his face. He wore a warrior’s layered clothes, black to Fenrys’s usual gray, twin knives hanging at his sides.