Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(96)

“Close now,” Rolfe warned from nearby—from another world.

“Aim for the middle of the fleet,” Rowan ordered her. “Send the flanking ships scattering onto the reef.” Where they’d founder, leaving any survivors to be picked off with arrows shot by Fenrys and Rolfe’s men. Rowan had to be alert, then—watching the approaching force.

She could feel them—feel her magic’s hackles rise in response to the blackness gathering beyond the horizon of her consciousness.

“Almost in range,” Rolfe called.

She began pulling up, dragging the abyss of flame and embers with her.

“Steady,” Rowan murmured.

Higher, higher, Aelin rose, back toward the sea and sunlight.

Here, that sunlight seemed to beckon. To me.

Her magic surged for it, for that voice.

“Now!” Rolfe barked.

And like a feral beast freed of its leash, her magic erupted.





She’d been doing well as Rowan had handed over his power to her.

She’d balked and bobbed a few times, but … she had the descent under control.

Even if her power … the well had gone deeper than before. It was easy to forget she was still growing—that her power would mature with her.

And when Rolfe shouted, Now! Rowan knew he had forgotten to his detriment.

A pillar of flame that did not burn erupted from Aelin, slamming into the sky, turning the world into red and orange and gold.

Aelin was ripped from his arms with the force of it, and Rowan grabbed her hand in a crushing grip, refusing to let her break that line of contact. Men around them stumbled back, falling onto their asses as they gawked upward in terror and wonder.

Higher, that column of flame swirled, a maelstrom of death and life and rebirth.

“Holy gods,” Fenrys whispered behind him.

Still Aelin’s magic poured into the world. Still she burned hotter, wilder.

Her teeth were gritted, her head arched back as she panted, eyes shut.

“Aelin,” Rowan warned. The pillar of flame began expanding, laced now with blue and turquoise. Flame that could melt bone, crack the earth.

Too much. He had given her too much, and she had delved too deep into her power—

Through the flames encasing them, Rowan glimpsed the frantic enemy fleet, now hurling themselves into motion to flee, to get out of range.

Aelin’s ongoing display was not for them.

Because there was no escape, not with the power she’d dragged up with her.

The display was for the others, for the city watching them.

For the world to know she was no mere princess playing with pretty embers.

“Aelin,” Rowan said again, trying to tug on that bond between them.

But there was nothing.

Only the gaping maw of some immortal, ancient beast. A beast that had opened an eye, a beast that spoke in the tongue of a thousand worlds.

Ice flooded his veins. She was wearing the Wyrdkey.

“Aelin.” But Rowan felt it then. Felt that bottom of her power crack open as if the beast within that Wyrdkey stomped its foot, and ash and crusted rock crumbled away beneath it.

And revealed a roiling, molten core of magic beneath it.

As if it were the fiery heart of Mala herself.

Aelin plunged into that power. Bathed in it.

Rowan tried to move, tried to scream at her to stop—

But Rolfe, eyes wide with what could only be terror and awe, roared at her, “Open fire!”

She heard that. And as violently as it had pierced the sky, that pillar of fire shot down, shot back into her, coiling and wrapping inside her, fusing into a kernel of power so hot it sizzled into him, searing his very soul—

The flames winked out at the same second she reached into Rowan with burning hands and tore the last remnants of his power from him.

Just as she ripped her hand from his. Just as her power and the Wyrdkey between her breasts merged.

Rowan collapsed to his knees, and there was a crack inside his head, as if thunder cleaved through him.

As Aelin opened her eyes, he realized it wasn’t thunder—but the sound of a door slamming open.

Her face turned expressionless. Cold as the gaps between the stars. And her eyes…

Turquoise burned bright … around a core of silver. No hint of gold to be found.

“That’s not Aelin,” Fenrys breathed.

A faint smile blossomed on her full mouth, born of cruelty and arrogance, and she examined the iron chain wrapped around her wrist.

The iron melted away, molten ore sizzling through the wooden deck and into the dark below. The creature that stared out through Aelin’s eyes furled her fingers into a fist. Light leaked through her clenched fingers.

Cold white light. Tendrils flickered—silver flame…

“Get away,” Gavriel warned him. “Get away and don’t look.”

Gavriel was indeed on his knees, head bowed and eyes averted. Fenrys followed suit.

For what gazed at the dark fleet assembled, what had filled his beloved’s body … He knew. Some primal, intrinsic part of him knew.

“Deanna,” Rowan whispered. She flicked her eyes to him in question and confirmation.

And she said to him, in a voice that was deep and hollow, young and old, “Every key has a lock. Tell the Queen Who Was Promised to retrieve it soon, for all the allies in the world shall make no difference if she does not wield the Lock, if she does not put those keys back with it. Tell her flame and iron, together bound, merge into silver to learn what must be found. A mere step is all it shall take.” Then she looked away again.