Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)(86)

Emrys ran a hand over his weathered face. “I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”

“I don’t see why I would be of any use to—”

“Did you know that Evalin Ashryver was my friend? She spent almost a year working in this kitchen—­living ­here with us, fighting to convince your queen that demi-­Fae have a place in your realm. She fought for our rights until the very day she departed this kingdom—­and the many years after, until she was murdered by those monsters across the sea. So I knew. I knew who her daughter was the moment you brought her into this kitchen. All of us who ­were ­here twenty-­five years ago recognized her for what she is.”

It ­wasn’t often that he was surprised, but . . . Rowan just stared.

“She has no hope, Prince. She has no hope left in her heart. Help her. If not for her sake, then at least for what she represents—­what she could offer all of us, you included.”

“And what is that?” he dared ask.

Emrys met his gaze unflinchingly as he whispered, “A better world.”

•

Celaena walked and walked, until she found herself by the tree-­lined shore of a lake, glaringly bright in the midday sun. She figured it was as good a spot as any as she crumpled to the mossy bank, as her arms wrapped tight around herself and she bowed over her knees.

There was nothing that could be done to fix her. And she was . . . she was . . .

A whimpering noise came out of her, lips trembling so hard she had to clamp down to keep the sound inside.

But the sound was in her throat and her lungs and her mouth, and when she took a breath, it cracked out. Once she heard it, everything came spilling into the world, until her body ached with the force of it.

She vaguely felt the light shifting on the lake. Vaguely felt the sighing wind, warm as it brushed against her damp cheeks. And heard, so soft it was as if she dreamed it, a woman’s voice whispering, Why are you crying, Fireheart?

It had been ten years—­ten long years since she had heard her mother’s voice. But she heard it then over the force of her weeping, as clear as if she knelt beside her. Fireheart—­why do you cry?

“Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”

It was what she had never been able to tell Nehemia—­that for ten years, she had been unsure how to find the way home, because there was no home left.

Storm winds and ice crackled against her skin before she registered Rowan sitting down beside her, legs out, palms braced behind him in the moss. She raised her head, but didn’t bother to wipe her face as she stared across the glittering lake.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.” Swallowing a few times, she yanked a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose, her head clearing with each breath.

They sat in silence, no sound but the quiet lapping of the lake on the mossy bank and the wind in the leaves. Then— “Good. Because ­we’re going.”

Bastard. She called him as much, and then asked, “Going where?”

He smiled grimly. “I think I’ve started to figure you out, Aelin Galathynius.”

•

“What in every burning ring of hell,” Celaena panted, gazing at the cave mouth nestled into the base of the craggy mountain, “are we doing ­here?”

It had been a five-­mile hike. Uphill. With hardly anything in her stomach.

The trees butted against the gray stones, flowing up the slope for a ways and then fading into lichen-­covered rock that eventually turned into the snow-­capped peak that marked the barrier between Wendlyn and Doranelle beyond. For some reason, this hulking giant made the hair on her neck stand up. And it had nothing to do with the frozen wind.

Rowan strode into the gaping maw of the cave mouth, his pale-gray cloak flapping behind him. “Hurry up.”

Pulling her own cloak tighter around her, she staggered after him. This was a bad sign. A horrible sign, actually, because what­ever was in that cave . . .

She walked into the dark, following Rowan by the light on his hair, letting her eyes adjust. The ground was rocky, the stones small and worn smooth. And littered with rusted weapons, armor, and—­clothes. No skeletons. Gods, it was so cold that she could see her breath, see—

“Tell me I’m hallucinating.”

Rowan had stopped at the edge of an enormous frozen lake, stretching into the gloom. Sitting on a blanket in its center, the chains around his wrists anchored under the ice, was Luca.

Luca’s chains clanked as he raised a hand in greeting. “I thought you’d never show. I’m freezing,” he called, and tucked his hands back under his arms. The sound echoed throughout the chamber.

The thick sheet of ice covering the lake was so clear that she could see the water beneath—­pale stones on the bottom, what looked to be old roots from trees long dead, and no sign of life whatsoever. An occasional sword or dagger or lance poked up from the stones. “What is this place?”

“Go get him,” was Rowan’s answer.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Rowan gave her a smile that suggested he was, in fact, insane. She stepped toward the ice, but he blocked her path with a muscled arm. “In your other form.”