Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)(82)

Celaena was standing at the sink, back throbbing and hunger gnawing at her belly as she scrubbed the last of the copper pots while Emrys finished narrating the story of a clever wolf and a magical firebird. There was a pause, and then came the usual requests for the same old stories. Celaena didn’t acknowledge the heads that turned in her direction as she asked from the sink, “Do you know any stories about Queen Maeve?”

Dead. Silence. Emrys’s eyes widened before he smiled faintly and said, “Lots. Which one would you like to hear?”

“The earliest ones that you know. All of them.” If she was going to face her aunt again, perhaps she should start learning as much as she could. Emrys might know stories that hadn’t reached the shores of her own lands. If the stories about the skinwalkers had been true, if the immortal stags were real … perhaps she could glean something vital here.

There were some nervous glances, but at last Emrys said, “Then I shall start at the beginning.”

Celaena nodded and moved to sit in her usual chair, propped against the back door near the sharp-eyed hawk. Rowan clicked his beak, but she didn’t dare look over her shoulder at him. Instead, she dug into an entire loaf of bread.

“Long ago, when there was no mortal king on Wendlyn’s throne, the faeries still walked among us. Some were good and fair, some were prone to little mischiefs, and some were fouler and darker than the blackest night. But they were all of them ruled by Maeve and her two sisters, whom they called Mora and Mab. Cunning Mora, who bore the shape of a great hawk”—that was Rowan’s mighty bloodline—“Fair Mab, who bore the shape of a swan. And the dark Maeve, whose wildness could not be contained by any single form.”

Emrys recited the history, much of which Celaena knew: Mora and Mab had fallen in love with human men, and yielded their immortality. Some said Maeve forced them to give up their gift of eternal life as punishment. Some said they wanted to, if only to escape their sister.

And when Celaena asked, the room falling deathly silent again, if Maeve herself had ever mated, Emrys told her no—though she had come close, at the dawn of time. A warrior, rumor claimed, had stolen her heart with his clever mind and pure soul. But he had died in some long-ago war and lost the ring he’d intended for her, and since then, Maeve had cherished her warriors above all others. They loved her for it—made her a mighty queen whom no one dared challenge. Celaena expected Rowan to puff his feathers at that, but he remained still and quiet on his perch.

Emrys told stories about the Fae Queen well into the night, painting a portrait of a ruthless, cunning ruler who could conquer the world if she wished, but instead kept to her forest realm of Doranelle, planting her stone city in the heart of a massive river basin.

Celaena picked through the details and committed them to memory, trying not to think about the prince perched a few feet above her who had willingly sworn a blood oath to the immortal monster who dwelled beyond the mountains. She was about to ask for another story when she caught the motion in the trees.

She choked on the piece of blackberry pie she was in the middle of devouring as the massive mountain cat trotted from the forest and across the rain-drenched grass, heading right for their door. The rain had darkened its golden fur, and its eyes gleamed in the torches. Did the guards not see it? Malakai was listening to his mate with rapt attention. She opened her mouth to shout a warning when she paused.

The guards saw everything. And weren’t shooting. Because it wasn’t a mountain cat, but—

In a flash that could have been distant lightning, the mountain cat became a tall, broad-shouldered male walking toward the open door. Rowan surged into flight, then shifted, seamlessly landing midstride as he walked into the rain.

The two males clasped forearms and clapped each other on the back—a quick, efficient greeting. With the rain and Emrys’s narrating it was hard to hear, and she silently cursed her mortal ears as she strained to listen.

“I’ve been looking for you for six weeks,” the golden-haired stranger said, his voice sharp but hollow. Not urgent, but tired and frustrated. “Vaughan said you were at the eastern border, but Lorcan said you were on the coast, inspecting the fleet. Then the twins told me that the queen had been all the way out here with you and returned alone, so I came on a hunch …” He was babbling, his lack of control at odds with his hard muscles and the weapons strapped to him. A warrior, like Rowan—though his surprisingly lovely face had none of the prince’s severity.

Rowan put a hand on the male’s shoulder. “I heard what happened, Gavriel.” Was this one of Rowan’s mysterious friends? She wished Emrys were free to identify him. Rowan had told her so little about his five companions, but it was clear that Rowan and Gavriel were more than acquaintances. She sometimes forgot that Rowan had a life beyond this fortress. It hadn’t bothered her before, and she wasn’t sure why remembering it now suddenly settled in her stomach like a dead weight, or why it suddenly mattered that Rowan at least acknowledge that she was there. That she existed.

Gavriel scrubbed at his face, his heavily muscled back expanding as he took a breath. “I know you probably don’t want to—”

“Just tell me what you want and it will be done.”

Gavriel seemed to deflate, and Rowan guided him toward another door. They both moved with unearthly, powerful grace—as if the rain itself parted to let them through. Rowan didn’t even look back at her before he disappeared.