Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(205)

Their allies, their enemies, could not know that the immortal fire of Mala had been stolen. Leashed.

Galan said to the one whom he believed to be his cousin, “Where now?”

Lysandra looked to him, then to Aedion, not a sign of regret or guilt or doubt on her face. “We go north. To Terrasen.”

Rowan’s stomach turned leaden. But Lysandra caught his eye, and said steadily and casually, “Prince—I need you to retrieve something for me before you join us in the North.”

Find her, find her, find her, the shifter seemed to beg.

Rowan nodded, at a loss for words. Lysandra took his hand, squeezed it once in thanks, a polite, public farewell between a queen and her consort, and stepped away.

“Come,” Lysandra said to Galan and Ilias, motioning them toward where a white-faced Ansel and frowning Enda waited. “We have matters to discuss before we head out.”

Then their little company was alone once more.

Aedion’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as he gazed after the shape-shifter wearing Aelin’s skin, leading their allies down the beach. To give them privacy.

An army to take on Morath. To give them a fighting chance …

Sand whispered behind him as Lorcan stepped up to his side. “I will go with you. I will help you get her back.”

Gavriel rasped, “We’ll find her.” Aedion at last looked away from Lysandra at that. But he said nothing to his father—had said nothing to him at all since they’d landed on the beach.

Elide took a limping step closer, her voice as raw as Gavriel’s. “Together. We’ll go together.”

Lorcan gave the Lady of Perranth an assessing look that she made a point to ignore. His eyes flickered as he said to Rowan, “Fenrys is with her. He’ll know we’re coming for her—try to leave tracks if he can.”

If Maeve didn’t have him on lockdown. But Fenrys had battled the blood oath every day since swearing it. And if he was all that now stood between Cairn and Aelin … Rowan didn’t let himself think about Cairn. About what Maeve had already had him do, or would do to her before the end. No—Fenrys would fight it. And Aelin would fight it.

Aelin would never stop fighting.

Rowan faced Aedion, and the warrior-prince again peeled his attention away from Lysandra long enough to meet his eyes. Aedion understood the look, and put a hand on the Sword of Orynth’s hilt. “I’ll go north. With—her. To oversee the armies, make sure it’s all in place.”

Rowan clasped Aedion’s forearm. “The lines have to hold. Buy us whatever time you can, brother.”

Aedion gripped his forearm in return, eyes burning bright. Rowan knew how much it killed him. But if the world believed Aelin was returning north, then one of her generals had to be at her side to lead her armies. And since Aedion commanded the loyalty of the Bane … “Bring her back, Prince,” Aedion said, voice cracking. “Bring her home.”

Rowan held his brother’s stare and nodded. “We will see you again. All of you.”

He did not waste words persuading the warrior-prince to forgive the shifter. He wasn’t entirely sure what to even make of Aelin and Lysandra’s plan. What his role would have been in it.

Dorian stepped forward, but glanced to Manon, who was staring toward the sea as if she could see wherever Maeve had spirited away her ship. Using that cloaking power she’d wielded to hide Fenrys and Gavriel in Skull’s Bay—hide her armada from the eyes of Eyllwe. “The witches fly north,” Dorian said. “And I will go with them. To see if I can do what needs to be done.”

“Stay with us,” Rowan offered. “We’ll find a way to deal with the keys and the Lock and the gods—all of it.”

Dorian shook his head. “If you go after Maeve, the keys should be kept far away. If I can help by doing this, by finding the third … I will serve you better that way.”

“You’ll likely die,” Aedion cut in sharply. “We go north to bloodshed and killing fields—you head into dangers far worse than that. Morath will be waiting.” Rowan cut him a glare. But his brother was beyond caring. No, Aedion was riding a vicious, vulnerable edge right now—and it wouldn’t take much for that edge to turn lethal. Especially when Dorian had played his part in separating Aelin from their group.

Dorian again looked to Manon, who now smiled faintly at him. It was a smile that softened her face, made it come alive. “He won’t die if I can help it,” the witch said, then surveyed them all. “We journey to find the Crochans—to rally what forces they might have.”

A witch army to counter the Ironteeth legions.

Hope—precious, fragile hope—stirred Rowan’s blood.

Manon merely jerked her chin in farewell and prowled up the bluff to her coven.

So Rowan nodded to Dorian. But the man bowed his head—not the gesture of a friend to a friend. But of one king to another.

Consort, he wanted to say. He was just her consort.

Even if she’d married him so he could have the legal right to save Terrasen and rebuild it. To command the armies she’d given everything to gather for them.

“When we are done, I will join you in Terrasen, Aedion,” the King of Adarlan promised. “So that when you get back, Rowan—when both of you get back—there will be something left to fight for.”