Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)(45)

The man with the twin swords ceased his circling, and the grin he gave Chaol was nothing short of feral. “You’re right, Aedion,” he said without taking his eyes off Chaol. “He is more interesting than he seems.”

Aedion pocketed the ring as if it ­were—­as if it ­were indeed a fake. And Chaol realized that he’d revealed far more than he’d ever intended.

Aedion began circling again, the scarred young man echoing the graceful movements. “A magical leash—­when there is no magic left,” the general mused. “And yet you still followed me, believing I was under the king’s spell. Thinking you could use me to win the rebels’ favor? Fascinating.”

Chaol kept his mouth shut. He’d already said enough to damn himself.

Aedion went on, “These two said your assassin friend was a rebel sympathizer. That she handed over information to Archer Finn without thinking twice—­that she allowed rebels to sneak out of the city when she was commanded to put them down. Was she the one who told you about the king’s rings, or did you discover that tidbit all on your own? What, exactly, is going on in that glass palace when the king isn’t looking?”

Chaol clamped down on his retort. When it became clear he ­wouldn’t speak, Aedion shook his head.

“You know how this has to end,” Aedion said, and there ­wasn’t anything mocking in it. Just cold calculation. The true face of the Northern Wolf. “The way I see it, you signed your own death warrant when you decided to trail me, and now that you know so much . . . You have two options, Captain: we can torture it out of you and then we’ll kill you, or you can tell us what you know and we’ll make it quick for you. As painless as possible, on my honor.”

They stopped circling.

Chaol had faced death a few times in the past months. Had faced and seen and dealt it. But this death, where Celaena and Dorian and his mother would never know what happened to him . . . It disgusted him, somehow. Enraged him.

Aedion stepped closer to where Chaol knelt.

He could take out the scarred one, then hope he could stand against Aedion—­or at least flee. He would fight, because that was the only way he could embrace this sort of death.

Aedion’s sword was at the ready—­the sword that belonged to Celaena by blood and right. Chaol had assumed he was a two-­faced butcher. Aedion was a traitor. But not to Terrasen. Aedion had been playing a very dangerous game since arriving ­here—­since his kingdom fell ten years ago. And tricking the king into thinking that he’d been wearing his ring all this time—­that was indeed information Aedion would be willing to kill to keep safe. Yet there was other information Chaol could use, perhaps, to get out of this alive.

Regardless of how shattered she’d been when she left, Celaena was safe now. She was away from Adarlan. But Dorian, with his magic, with the threat he secretly posed, was not. Aedion took a readying breath to kill him. Keeping Dorian protected was all he had left, all that had ever really mattered. If these rebels did indeed know something—anything—about magic that might help to free it, if he could use Aedion to get that information . . .

It was a gamble—­the biggest gamble he’d ever made. Aedion raised his sword.

With a silent prayer for forgiveness, Chaol looked straight at Aedion. “Aelin is alive.”

•

Aedion Ashryver had been called Wolf, general, prince, traitor, and murderer. And he was all of those things, and more. Liar, deceiver, and trickster ­were his par­tic­u­lar favorites—­the titles only those closest to him knew.

Adarlan’s Whore, that’s what the ones who didn’t know him called him. It was true—­in so many ways, it was true, and he had never minded it, not really. It had allowed him to maintain control in the North, to keep the bloodshed down to a minimum and a lie. Half the Bane ­were rebels, and the other half sympathizers, so many of their “battles” in the North had been staged, the body count a deceit and an exaggeration—­at least, once the corpses got up from the killing field under cover of darkness and went home to their families. Adarlan’s Whore. He had not minded. Until now.

Cousin—that had been his most beloved title. Cousin, kin, protector. Those ­were the secret names he harbored deep within, the names he whispered to himself when the northern wind was shrieking through the Staghorns. Sometimes that wind sounded like the screams of his people being led to the butchering blocks. And sometimes it sounded like Aelin—­Aelin, whom he had loved, who should have been his queen, and to whom he would have one day sworn the blood oath.

Aedion stood on the decaying planks of an empty dock in the slums, staring at the Avery. The captain was beside him, spitting blood into the water thanks to the beating given to him by Ren Allsbrook, Aedion’s newest conspirator and yet another dead man risen from the grave.

Ren, heir and Lord of Allsbrook, had trained with Aedion as a child—­and had once been his rival. Ten years ago, Ren and his grandfather, Murtagh, had escaped the butchering blocks thanks to a diversion started by Ren’s parents that cost them their lives and gave Ren the nasty scar down his face. But Aedion hadn’t known—­he’d thought them dead, and had been stunned to learn that they ­were the secret rebel group he’d hunted down upon arriving in Rifthold. He’d heard the claims that Aelin was alive and raising an army and had dragged himself down from the north to get to the bottom of it and destroy the liars, preferably cutting them up piece by piece.