Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(182)

The three-faced one said, “Tell Brannon of the Wildfire what occurred here; tell him the price his bloodline shall one day pay. Tell him to ready for it.”

She let the words, the damnation, sink in. “I will,” she whispered.

But they were gone. There was only a lingering warmth, as if a beam of sunlight had brushed her cheek.

Gavin lifted his head. “What have you done?” he asked again. “What have you given them?”

“Did you not—not hear it?”

“Only you,” he rasped, his face so horribly pale. “No others.”

She stared at the sarcophagus before them, its black stone rooted to the earth of the pass. Immovable. They would have to build something around it, to hide it, protect it.

Elena said, “The price will be paid—later.”

“Tell me.” His swollen, split lips could barely form the words.

Since she had already damned herself, damned her bloodline, she figured there was nothing left to lose in lying. Not this one time, this last time. “Erawan will awaken again—one day. When the time comes, I will help those who must fight him.”

His eyes were wary.

“Can you walk?” she asked, extending a hand to help him rise. The rising sun cast the black mountains in gold and red. She had no doubt the valley behind was bathed in the latter.

Gavin released his grip, the fingers still broken, from where it had rested on Damaris’s hilt. But he did not take her offered hand.

And he did not tell her what he’d detected while he touched the Sword of Truth, what lies he’d sensed and unraveled.

They never spoke of them again.





Moonrise at the Temple of Sandrian, the Stone Marshes



The Princess of Eyllwe had been wandering the Stone Marshes for weeks, searching for answers to riddles posed a thousand years ago. Answers that might save her doomed kingdom.

Keys and gates and locks—portals and pits and prophecies. That was what the princess murmured to herself in the weeks she’d been stalking through the marshes alone, hunting to keep herself alive, fighting the beasts of teeth and venom when necessary, reading the stars for entertainment.

So when the princess at last reached the temple, when she stood before the stone altar and the chest that was the light twin to the dark one beneath Morath, she at last appeared.

“You are Nehemia,” she said.

The princess whirled, her hunting leathers stained and damp, the gold tips on her braided hair clinking.

An assessing look with eyes that were too old for barely eighteen; eyes that had stared long into the darkness between the stars and yearned to know its secrets. “And you are Elena.”

Elena nodded. “Why have you come?”

The Princess of Eyllwe jerked her elegant chin toward the stone chest. “Am I not called to open it? To learn how to save us, and to pay the price?”

“No,” Elena said quietly. “Not you. Not in this way.”

A tightening of her lips was the only sign of the princess’s displeasure. “Then in what way, Lady, am I required to bleed?”

She had been watching, and waiting, and paying for her choices for so long. Too long.

And now that darkness had fallen … now a new sun would rise. Must rise.

“It is Mala’s bloodline that will pay, not your own.”

Her back stiffened. “You have not answered my question.”

Elena wished she could hold back the words, keep them locked up. But this was the price, for her kingdom, her people. The price for these people, this kingdom. And others.

“In the North, two branches flow from Mala. One to the Havilliard House, where its prince with my mate’s eyes possesses my raw magic—and her brute power. The other branch flows through the Galathynius House, where it bred true: flame and embers and ashes.”

“Aelin Galathynius is dead,” Nehemia said.

“Not dead.” No, she’d ensured that, still paying for what she’d done that wintry night. “Just hiding, forgotten by a world grateful to see such a power extinguished before it matured.”

“Where is she? And how does this tie to me, Lady?”

“You are versed in the history, in the players and the stakes. You know the Wyrdmarks and how to wield them. You misread the riddles, thinking it was you who must come here, to this place. This mirror is not the Lock—it is a pool of memory. Forged by myself, my father, and Rhiannon Crochan. Forged so the heir of this burden might understand one day. Know everything before deciding. This encounter, too, shall be held in it. But you were called, so we might meet.”

That wise, young face waited.

“Go north, Princess,” Elena said. “Go into your enemy’s household. Make the contacts, get the invitation, do what you must, but get to your enemy’s house. The two bloodlines will converge there. Already, they are on their way.”

“Aelin Galathynius is headed to Adarlan?”

“Not Aelin. Not with that name, that crown. Know her by her eyes—turquoise with a core of gold. Know her by the mark on her brow—the bastard’s mark, the mark of Brannon. Guide her. Help her. She will need you.”

“And the price?”

Elena hated them, then.

Hated the gods who had demanded this. Hated herself. Hated that this was asked, all these bright lights …