Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(118)

“Whoever gave you that wound wasn’t joking,” the queen said. “Trouble at home?”

It wasn’t the queen’s business, or anyone else’s. “Let me heal, and then I’ll be on my way,” Manon rasped, her tongue a dried, heavy husk.

“Oh, no,” Aelin purred. “You’re not going anywhere. Your mount may do whatever he pleases, but you are now officially our prisoner.”

Manon’s head started spinning, but she forced herself to say, “Our?”

A knowing little smile. Then the queen rose gracefully. Her hair was longer, face leaner, those turquoise eyes hard and haunted. The queen said simply, “Here are the rules, Blackbeak. You try to escape, you die. You hurt anyone, you die. You somehow bring any of us into trouble … I think you get where I’m going with this. You step one foot out of line, and I’ll finish what we started that day in the forest, life debt or no. This time I don’t need steel to do it.”

As she spoke, gold flames seemed to flicker in her eyes. And Manon realized with no small thrill, even with her pain, that the queen could indeed end her before she’d get close enough to kill.

Aelin turned for the door, her scarred hand on the knob. “I found iron splinters in your belly before I healed you. I suggest you don’t lie to whoever can tolerate being around you long enough to get the full story.” She jerked her chin toward the floor. A pitcher and cup lay there. “Water’s next to the bed. If you can reach it.”

Then she was gone.

Manon listened to her steady footsteps fade. No other voices or sounds beyond the lap of waves against the ship, the groan of the wood, and—gulls. They had to still be within range of the coast, then. Sailing to where … she’d have to figure that out.

Once she healed. Once she got out of these irons. Once she got onto Abraxos.

But to go where? To whom?

There was no aerie to receive her, no Clan who would shield her from her grandmother. And the Thirteen … Where were they now? Had they been hunted down?

Manon’s stomach burned, but she reached for the water. Pain lashed her hard enough that she gave up after a heartbeat.

They had heard, no doubt—what she was. The Thirteen had heard.

Not just a half-blooded Crochan … but the last Crochan Queen.

And her sister … her half sister…

Manon stared at the shadowed, wooden ceiling.

She could feel that Crochan’s blood on her hands. And her cape … that red cape was draped over the edge of the bed. Her sister’s cape. That her grandmother had made her wear, knowing who it belonged to, knowing whose throat Manon had slit.

No longer the Blackbeak heir, Crochan blood or no.

Despair curled like a cat around the pain in Manon’s belly. She was no one and nothing.

She did not remember falling asleep.





The witch slept for three days after Aelin reported that she had awakened. Dorian went into that cramped cabin with Rowan and the queen every time they healed a little bit more of her, observing the way their magic worked, but not daring to try it on the unconscious Blackbeak.

Even unconscious, Manon’s every breath, every twitch, was a reminder that she was a born predator, her agonizingly beautiful face a careful mask to lure the unwary to their doom.

It felt fitting, somehow, considering that they were likely sailing to their own doom.

As Rolfe’s two ships had escorted them down the coast of Eyllwe, they’d kept well away from the shore. A wicked storm had them mooring among the small cluster of islands off Leriba’s waters, and they’d only survived thanks to Rowan’s own winds shielding them. Most of them had still spent the entirely of it with their head in a bucket. Himself included.

They were nearing Banjali now—and Dorian had tried and failed not to think of his dead friend with every league closer to the lovely city. Tried and failed not to consider if Nehemia would have been with them on this very ship had things not gone so terribly wrong. Tried and failed not to contemplate if that touch she’d once given him—the Wyrdmark she’d sketched over his chest—had somehow … awakened that power of his. If it had been a curse as much as a blessing.

He hadn’t had the nerve to ask what Aelin was feeling, though he found her frequently staring toward the coast—even if they couldn’t see it, even if they wouldn’t get close.

Another week—perhaps less, if Rowan’s magic helped—would have them at the eastern edge of the Stone Marshes. And once they were in range … they’d have to trust Rolfe’s vague directions to guide them.

And avoid Melisande’s armada—Erawan’s armada now, he supposed—waiting just around the peninsula in the Gulf of Oro.

But for now … Dorian was on watch in Manon’s room, none of them taking any risks where the Blackbeak heir was concerned.

He cleared his throat as her eyelids shifted, her dark lashes bobbing up—then lifting wholly.

Gold sleep-murky eyes met his.

“Hello, witchling,” he said.

Her full, sensuous mouth tightened slightly, either in a repressed grimace or smile, he couldn’t tell. But she sat up, her moon-white hair sliding forward—her chains clanking. “Hello, princeling,” she said. Gods, her voice was like sandpaper.

He glanced at the water jug. “Care for a drink?”