Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass) (47 page)

Roots and stones wrenched at him, but his Fae-swift feet flew over the loam until it turned to sand, until light broke through the trees and there she was, sprawled on the beach, bleeding everywhere.

Beyond them, out in the bay, Ship-Breaker dropped low, and Rolfe’s
fleet swept out to pick off the surviving soldiers—and save any of their own still out there.

He vaguely noted Aelin and the others diving into the sea, swimming hard for land.

Aedion dropped to his knees, wincing as sand sprayed onto her. Her scaled head was nearly as big as he was, but her eyes … those green eyes, the same color as her scales…

Full of pain. And exhaustion.

He lifted a hand toward her, but she showed her teeth—a low snarl slipping out of her.

He held up his hands, scooting back.

It was not the woman who looked at him, but the beast she’d become. As if she had given herself so fully to its instincts, that it had been the only way to survive.

There were gashes and slices everywhere. All dribbling blood, soaking the white sand.

Rowan and Aelin—one of them could help. If they could summon any power after what the queen had done. Lysandra closed her eyes, her breathing shallow.

“Open your gods-damned eyes,” Aedion snarled.

She snarled back but cracked open an eye.

“You made it this far. Don’t die on the rutting beach.”

The eye narrowed—with a hint of female temper. He had to get the woman back. Let her take control. Or else the beast would never allow them near enough to help.

“You can thank me when your sorry ass is healed.”

Again, that eye watched him warily, temper flickering. But an animal remained.

Aedion drawled, even as his relief began to crumble his mask of arrogant calmness, “The useless sentries in the watchtower are now all half in love with you,” he lied. “One said he wanted to marry you.”

A low snarl. He yielded a foot but held eye contact with her as he grinned. “But you know what I told them? I said that they didn’t stand a chance in hell.” Aedion lowered his voice, holding her pained, exhausted stare. “Because
I
am going to marry you,” he promised her. “One day. I am going to marry you. I’ll be generous and let you pick when, even if it’s ten years from now. Or twenty. But one day, you are going to be my wife.”

Those eyes narrowed—in what he could only call female outrage and exasperation.

He shrugged. “Princess Lysandra Ashryver sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

And then the dragon huffed. In amusement. Exhaustion, but … amusement.

She opened her jaws, as if she’d try to speak, but realized she couldn’t in this body. Blood leaked through her enormous teeth, and she shuddered in pain.

Brush snapped and crashed, and there were Aelin and Rowan, and his father and Fenrys. All of them soaked, covered in sand, and gray as death.

His queen staggered for Lysandra with a sob, flinging herself onto the sand before Aedion could bark a warning.

But Lysandra only winced as the queen laid a hand on her, saying over and over, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Fenrys and Gavriel, who had maybe saved her life with that amplified shout about the bull’s location, lingered near the tree line as Rowan approached, surveying the wounds.

Fenrys spotted Aedion’s glance, spotted the warning wrath on his face if either of them got near the shifter, and said, “That was one hell of a shot, boyo.” His father nodded in silent agreement.

Aedion ignored them both. Whatever well of magic his cousin and Rowan had depleted was already refilling. The shifter’s wounds knitted closed, one by one. Slowly—painfully slowly, but … the bleeding stopped.

“She lost a lot of blood,” Rowan observed to none of them in particular. “Too much.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” Fenrys murmured. None of them had.

Aelin was trembling, a hand on her friend—face so white and drawn that any harsh words he’d reserved for her were unnecessary. His queen knew the cost. It had taken her so damn long to trust any of them to do anything. If Aedion roared at her now, even if he still yearned to … Aelin might never delegate again. Because if Lysandra hadn’t been in the water when things had gone so, so badly…

“What happened?” he breathed, catching Aelin’s eye. “What the hell happened out there?”

“I lost control,” Aelin said hoarsely. As if she couldn’t help it, her hand drifted to her chest. Where, through the white of her shirt, he could make out the Amulet of Orynth.

He knew then. Knew precisely what Aelin carried. What would have snagged Rolfe’s interest on that map of his—similar enough to the Valg essence to get him to come running.

Knew why it had been so important, so vital, she risk everything to get it from Arobynn Hamel. Knew that she had used a
Wyrdkey
today, and it had almost killed them all—

He was shaking now, that rage indeed taking over. But Rowan snarled at him, low and vicious, “Save it for later.” Because Fenrys and Gavriel had tensed—watching.

Aedion growled right back at him. Rowan gave him a cold, steady look that said if he so much as began to hint at what their queen carried, he’d rip out his tongue. Literally.

Aedion shoved down the anger. “We can’t carry her, and she’s too weak to shift.”

“Then we wait here until she can,” Aelin said. But her eyes drifted to the bay, where Rolfe was now being helped onto those rescue ships. And to the city beyond, still cheering.

A victory—but very nearly a loss. The remnants of the Mycenians,
saved by one of their long-lost sea dragons. Aelin and Lysandra had woven ancient prophecies into tangible fact.

“I’ll stay,” Aedion said. “You deal with Rolfe.”

His father offered from behind him, “I can get some supplies from the watchtower.”

“Fine,” he said.

Aelin groaned, getting to her feet, but stared down at him before she took Rowan’s extended hand. She said softly, “I’m sorry.”

Aedion knew she meant it. He still didn’t bother replying.

Lysandra groaned, the reverberations running up his knees and straight into his gut, and Aedion whirled back to the shifter.

Aelin left without further good-bye.

The Lion lingered in the brush, keeping out of sight and sound as the Wolf watched over the dragon still sprawled across the beach.

For hours, the Wolf remained there. While the outgoing tide cleared the harbor of blood. While the Pirate Lord’s ships sent any remaining enemy bodies to the crushing blue. While the young queen returned to the city in the heart of the bay to handle any fallout.

Once the sun had begun to set, the dragon stirred, and slowly, her form shimmering and shrinking, scales were smoothed into skin, a snout melted back into a flawless human face, and stumpy limbs lengthened into golden legs. Sand crusted her naked body, and she tried and failed to rise. The Wolf moved then, slinging his cloak around her and sweeping her into his arms.

The shifter didn’t object, and her eyes were again closed by the time the Wolf began striding up the beach to the trees, her head leaning against his chest.

The Lion remained out of sight and held in the offer of help. Held in the words he needed to say to the Wolf, who had downed a sea-wyvern
with one arrow. Twenty-four years old and already a myth whispered over campfires.

Today’s events would no doubt be told around fires in lands even the Lion had not roamed in all his centuries.

The Lion watched the Wolf vanish into the trees, heading for the town at the end of the sandy road, the shifter unconscious in his arms.

And the Lion wondered if he himself would ever be mentioned in those whispered stories—if his son would ever allow the world to know who had sired him. Or even care.

38

The meeting with Rolfe once the harbor was again safe was quick. Frank.

And Aelin knew if she didn’t get the hell out of this city for an hour or two, she might very well explode again.

Every key has a lock
, Deanna had said, a little reminder of Brannon’s order. Using
her
voice. And had called her that title … that title that struck some chord of horror and understanding in her, so deep she was still working out what it meant.
The Queen Who Was Promised
.

Aelin stormed onto a spit of beach on the far side of the island, having run here, needing to get her blood roaring, needing it to silence the thoughts in her head. Behind her, Rowan’s steps were quiet as death.

Only the two of them had been in that meeting with Rolfe. Bloodied, soaked, the Pirate Lord had met them in the main room of his inn, the name of it now a permanent reminder of the ship she’d wrecked. He demanded, “What the
hell
happened?”

And she had been so tired, so pissed off and full of disgust and despair,
that it had been nearly impossible to muster the swagger. “When you are blessed by Mala, you find that sometimes your control can slip.”

“
Slip?
I don’t know what you fools were talking about down there, but from where I was standing, it looked like you lost your gods-damned mind and were about to fire on
my
town.”

Rowan, leaning against the edge of a nearby table, explained, “Magic is a living thing. When you are that deep in it, remembering yourself, your purpose, is an effort. That my queen did so before it was too late is a feat in itself.”

Rolfe wasn’t impressed. “It looks to me like you were a little girl playing with power too big for you to handle, and only your prince jumping in your path made you decide
not
to slaughter my innocent people.”

Aelin closed her eyes for a heartbeat, the image of Rowan leaping in front of that fist of moonfire flashing before her. When she opened her eyes, she let the crackling assuredness fade into something frozen and hard. “It looks to
me
,” she said, “like the Pirate Lord of Skull’s Bay and long-lost Mycenian heir has just allied with a young queen so powerful she can decimate
cities
if she wishes. It looks to me like you have made yourself untouchable with that alliance, and any fool who seeks to harm you, usurp you, will have
me
to contend with. So I suggest you salvage what you can of your precious ship, mourn the dozen men I take full responsibility for losing and whose families I will compensate accordingly, and shut your rutting mouth.”

She turned toward the door, exhaustion and rage nipping at her bones.

Rolfe said to her back, “Do you want to know what the cost of this map was?”

She halted, Rowan glancing between them, face unreadable.

She smirked over her shoulder. “Your soul?”

Rolfe let out a hoarse laugh. “Yes—in a way. When I was sixteen, I was barely more than a slave on one of these festering ships, my Mycenian
heritage just a one-way ticket to a beating.” He laid a tattooed hand on the
Thresher
’s lettering. “Every coin I earned came back here—to my mother and sister. And one day the ship I was on got caught in a storm. The captain was a haughty bastard, refused to find safe harbor, and the ship was destroyed. Most of the crew drowned. I drifted for a day, washed up on an island at the edge of the archipelago, and awoke to find a man staring down at me. I asked if I was dead, and he laughed and inquired what I wanted for myself. I was so delirious I told him that I wanted to be captain—I wanted to be Pirate Lord of Skull’s Bay and make the arrogant fools like the captain who had killed my friends
bow
before me. I thought I was dreaming when he explained that if he were to grant me the skills to do it, there would be a price. What I valued most in the world, he would have. I said I’d pay it—whatever it was. I had no belongings, no wealth, no people anyway. A few coppers would be nothing. He smiled before he vanished into sea mist. I awoke with the ink on my hands.”