Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)(8)

Chaol had mastered the horror roiling in his gut by the time he sank back into his seat and found Dorian frowning. “Gifts indeed,” the prince muttered. “Gods, he’s insufferable.”

Chaol didn’t disagree. Despite the king’s black ring, Aedion still seemed to have a mind of his own—­and was as wild off the battlefield as he was on it. He usually made Dorian look like a celibate when it came to finding debauched ways to amuse himself. Chaol had never spent much time with Aedion, nor wanted to, but Dorian had known him for some time now. Since—

They’d met as children. When Dorian and his father had visited Terrasen in the days before the royal family was slaughtered. When Dorian had met Aelin—­met Celaena.

It was good that Celaena ­wasn’t ­here to see what Aedion had become. Not just because of the ring. To turn on your own people—

Aedion slid onto the bench across from them, grinning. A predator assessing prey. “You two ­were sitting at this same table the last time I saw you. Good to know some things don’t change.”

Gods, that face. It was Celaena’s face—­the other side of the coin. The same arrogance, the same unchecked anger. But where Celaena crackled with it, Aedion seemed to . . . pulse. And there was something nastier, far more bitter in Aedion’s face.

Dorian rested his forearms on the table and gave a lazy smile. “Hello, Aedion.”

Aedion ignored him and reached for a roast leg of lamb, his black ring glinting. “I like the new scar, Captain,” he said, jerking his chin toward the slender white line across Chaol’s cheek. The scar Celaena had given to him the night Nehemia died and she’d tried to kill him—­now a permanent reminder of everything he’d lost. Aedion went on, “Looks like they didn’t chew you up just yet. And they finally gave you a big-­boy sword, too.”

Dorian said, “I’m glad to see that storm didn’t dim your spirits.”

“Weeks inside with nothing to do but train and bed women? It was a miracle I bothered to come down from the mountains.”

“I didn’t realize you bothered to do anything unless it served your best interests.”

A low laugh. “There’s that charming Havilliard spirit.” Aedion dug into his meal, and Chaol was about to demand why he was bothering to sit with them—­other than to torment them, as he’d always liked to do when the king ­wasn’t looking—­when he noticed that Dorian was staring.

Not at Aedion’s sheer size or armor, but at his face, at his eyes . . .

“Shouldn’t you be at some party or other?” Chaol said to Aedion. “I’m surprised you’re lingering when your usual enticements await in the city.”

“Is that your courtly way of asking for an invitation to my gathering tomorrow, Captain? Surprising. You’ve always implied that you ­were above my sort of party.” Those turquoise eyes narrowed and he gave Dorian a sly grin. “You, however—­the last party I threw worked out very well for you. Redheaded twins, if I recall correctly.”

“You’ll be disappointed to learn I’ve moved on from that sort of existence,” Dorian said.

Aedion dug back into his meal. “More for me, then.”

Chaol clenched his fists under the table. Celaena had not exactly been virtuous in the past ten years, but she’d never killed a natural-­born citizen of Terrasen. Had refused to, actually. And Aedion had always been a gods-­damned bastard, but now . . . Did he know what he wore on his finger? Did he know that despite his arrogance, his defiance and insolence, the king could make him bend to his will whenever he pleased? He ­couldn’t warn Aedion, not without potentially getting himself and everyone he cared about killed should Aedion truly have allegiance to the king.

“How are things in Terrasen?” Chaol asked, because Dorian was studying Aedion again.

“What would you like me to tell you? That we are well-­fed after a brutal winter? That we did not lose many to sickness?” Aedion snorted. “I suppose hunting rebels is always fun, if you’ve a taste for it. Hopefully His Majesty has summoned the Bane to the South to finally give them some real action.” As Aedion reached for the water, Chaol glimpsed the hilt of his sword. Dull metal flecked with dings and scratches, its pommel nothing more than a bit of cracked, rounded horn. Such a simple, plain sword for one of the greatest warriors in Erilea.

“The Sword of Orynth,” Aedion drawled. “A gift from His Majesty upon my first victory.”

Everyone knew that sword. It had been an heirloom of Terrasen’s royal family, passed from ruler to ruler. By right, it was Celaena’s. It had belonged to her father. For Aedion to possess it, considering what that sword now did, the lives it took, was a slap in the face to Celaena and to her family.

“I’m surprised you bother with such sentimentality,” Dorian said.

“Symbols have power, Prince,” Aedion said, pinning him with a stare. Celaena’s stare—­unyielding and alive with challenge. “You’d be surprised by the power this still wields in the North—­what it does to convince people not to pursue foolhardy plans.”

Perhaps Celaena’s skills and cunning ­weren’t unusual in her bloodline. But Aedion was an Ashryver, not a Galathynius—­which meant that his great-­grandmother had been Mab, one of the three Fae-­Queens, in recent generations crowned a goddess and renamed Deanna, Lady of the Hunt. Chaol swallowed hard.