Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(57)

The bench beneath them groaned as Marion leaned forward. “What do you know of Aelin?”

“Rumors, here and there,” Nik said, shrugging. “They say she’s beautiful as sin—and colder than ice. They say she’s a tyrant, a coward, a whore. They say she’s gods-blessed—or gods-damned. Who knows? Nineteen seems awfully young to have such burdens … Rumor claims her court is strong, though. A shape-shifter guards her back—and two warrior-princes flank her on either side.”

Lorcan thought of that shape-shifter, who had so unceremoniously vomited not once, but twice, all over him; thought of those two warrior-princes … One of them Gavriel’s son.

“Will she save or damn us all?” Nik considered, now monitoring the snaking line behind their wagon. “I don’t know if I much like the thought of everything resting in her hands, but … if she wins, perhaps the land will get better—life will get better. And if she fails … perhaps we all deserve to be damned anyway.”

“She will win,” Marion said with quiet strength. Nik’s brows rose.

Men shouted, and Lorcan said, “I’d save talk of her for another time.”

Boots crunched, and then uniformed men were peering into the back of the wagon. “Out,” one ordered. “Line up.” The man’s eyes snagged on Marion.

Lorcan’s arm tightened around her as an ugly, too-familiar light filled the soldier’s eyes.

Lorcan bit back his snarl as he said to her, “Come, wife.”

The soldier noticed him, then. The man backed away a step, a bit pale, then ordered the supplies be searched.

Lorcan jumped out first, bracing his hands on Marion’s waist as he helped her off the wagon. When she made to step away, he tugged her back against him, an arm across her abdomen. He met each soldier’s stare as they passed and wondered who was looking after the dark-haired beauty in the front.

A moment later, she and Molly came around. A dark, rimmed hat was slung over the beauty’s head, half of her light brown face obscured, her body concealed in a heavy coat that drew the eye away from any feminine curves. Even the cast of her mouth was unpleasant—as if the woman had slipped into another person’s skin entirely.

Still, Molly nudged the woman between Lorcan and Nik. Then took the money pouch from Lorcan’s free hand without so much as a thank-you.

The dark-haired beauty leaned forward to murmur to Marion, “Don’t look them in the eye, and don’t talk back.”

Marion nodded, chin dipping as she focused on the ground. Against him, he could feel her racing heart—wild, despite the calm submission written over every line of her body.

“And you,” the beauty hissed at him as the soldiers searched their wares—and took what they wanted. “Molly says if you get into a fight, you’re gone, and we’re not bailing you out of prison. So let them talk and laugh, but don’t interfere.”

Lorcan debated saying he could slaughter this entire garrison if he pleased, but nodded.

After five minutes, another order was shouted. Molly handed over Lorcan’s money and her own to pay the toll, plus more for “expedited passage.” Then they were all back in the wagon again, none of them daring to see what had been pilfered. Marion was shaking slightly against where he kept her tucked into his side, but her face was blank, bored.

The guards hadn’t so much as questioned them—hadn’t asked after a woman with a limp.

The Acanthus roared beneath them as they crossed the bridge, wagon wheels clattering on ancient stones. Marion kept shaking.

Lorcan studied her face again—the hint of red along her high cheekbones, her tight mouth.

Not shaking from fear, he realized as he caught a whiff of her scent. A slight tang of it, perhaps, but mostly something red-hot, something wild and raging and—

Anger. It was boiling rage that made her shake. At the inspection, at the leering of the guards.

An idealist—that’s what Marion was. Someone who wanted to fight for her queen, who believed, as Nik did, that this world could be better.

As they cleared the other side of the bridge, the soldiers letting them pass without fuss, as they meandered past the line on that side, and emerged onto the plains themselves, Lorcan wondered at that anger—at that belief in a better world.

He didn’t feel like telling either Marion or Nik that their dream was a fool’s one.

Marion relaxed enough to peer out the back of the wagon—at the grasses flanking the wide dirt road, at the blue sky, at the roaring river and the looming sprawl of Oakwald behind them. And for all her rage, a tentative sort of wonder grew in her dark eyes. He ignored it.

Lorcan had seen the worst and best in men for five hundred years.

There was no such thing as a better world—no such thing as a happy end.

Because there were no endings.

And there would be nothing waiting for them in this war, nothing waiting for an escaped slave girl, but a shallow grave.





20


Rowan Whitethorn just needed a place to rest. He didn’t give a shit if it was a bed or a pile of hay or even beneath a horse in a stable. As long as it was quiet and there was a roof to keep out the driving veils of rain, he didn’t care.

Skull’s Bay was what he expected, and yet not. Ramshackle buildings, painted every color but mostly in cracking disrepair, were bustling as residents shuttered windows and hauled in clotheslines against the storm that had chased Rowan and Dorian into the harbor minutes ago.