Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)(97)

“The men who went mad,” Aedion said, a half smile on his face. “What did they do, exactly?”

The shadows ­were back and Jensen glanced around him, not to see who was listening, but almost as if he wanted to find a way out of this conversation. But then he looked at the general and said, “Our reports say, general, that we killed them—­arrows to the throat. Quick and clean. But . . .”

Aedion leaned closer. “Not a word leaves this table.”

A vague nod. “The truth was, by the time we got our archers ready, the men who went mad had already bashed their own skulls in. Every time, as if they ­couldn’t get the pain out.”

Celaena claimed Kaltain and Roland had complained about headaches. As a result of the king’s magic being used on them, his horrible power. And she had told him she got a pounding headache when she uncovered those secret dungeons beneath the castle. Dungeons that led to . . .

“The tower—­you ­were never allowed in?” Chaol ignored Aedion’s warning glare.

“There was no door. Always seemed more decorative than anything. But I hated it—­we all did. It was just this awful black stone.”

Just like the clock tower in the glass castle. Built around the same time, if not a few years before. “Why bother?” Aedion drawled. “A waste of resources, if you ask me.”

There ­were still so many shadows in the man’s eyes, full of stories that Chaol didn’t dare ask about. The commander drained his glass and stood. “I don’t know why they bothered—­with Noll, or Amaroth. We’d sometimes send men up and down the Western Sea with messages between the towers, so we knew they had a similar one. We didn’t even really know what the hell we ­were all doing out there, anyway. There was no one to fight.”

Amaroth. The other outpost, and Murtaugh’s other possible origin point for their spell. Due north from Noll. Both the same distance from Rifthold. Three towers of black stone, all three points making an equilateral triangle. It had to be part of the spell, then.

Chaol traced the rim of his glass. He had sworn to keep Dorian out of it, to leave him alone . . .

He had no way of testing out any theory, and didn’t want to get within ten feet of that clock tower. But perhaps the theory could be tested on a small scale. Just to see if they ­were right about what the king had done. Which meant . . .

He needed Dorian.

37

It was two weeks of training for Manon and her Thirteen. Two weeks of waking up before the sun to fly each canyon run, to master it as one unit. Two weeks of scratches and sprained limbs, of near deaths from falls or the wyverns squabbling or just stupid miscalculation.

But slowly, they developed instincts—­not just as a fighting unit, but as individual riders and mounts. Manon didn’t like the thought of the mounts eating the foul-­tasting meat raised within the mountain, so twice a day they hunted the mountain goats, swooping to pluck them off the mountainsides. It ­wasn’t long before the witches started eating the goats themselves, building hasty fires in the mountain passes to cook their breakfast and eve­ning meals. Manon didn’t want any of them—­mounts or riders—­taking another bite of the food given to them by the king’s men, or tasting the men themselves. If it smelled and tasted strange, odds ­were something was wrong with it.

She didn’t know if it was the fresh meat or the extra lessons, but the Thirteen ­were starting to outpace every coven. To the point where Manon ordered the Thirteen to hold back whenever the Yellowlegs gathered to watch their lessons.

Abraxos was still a problem. She hadn’t dared take the Crossing with him, as his wings, while slightly stronger, ­weren’t better by much—­at least not enough to brave the sheer plunge through the narrow pass. Manon had been chewing it over every night when the Thirteen gathered in her room to compare notes about flying, their iron nails glinting as they used their hands to demonstrate the ways they’d taught their wyverns to bank, to take off, to do some fancy maneuver.

For all the excitement, they ­were exhausted. Even the lofty-­headed Bluebloods had their tempers on tight leashes, and Manon had been called in a dozen times now to break apart brawls.

Manon used her downtime to see Abraxos—­to check on his iron claws and teeth, to take him out for extra rides when everyone ­else had passed out in their cots. He needed as much training as he could get, and she liked the quiet and stillness of the night, with the silvered mountain peaks and the river of stars above, even if it made waking up the next day difficult.

So after braving the wrath of her grandmother, Manon won two days off for the Blackbeaks, convincing her that if they didn’t rest, there would be outright war in the middle of the mess hall and the king ­wouldn’t have an aerial cavalry left to ­ride his wyverns into battle.

They got two days to sleep and eat and see to what­ever needs only the men across the mountain could provide. That was something a good number of the Thirteen ­were doing, as she’d seen Vesta, Lin, Asterin, and the demon twins stalking across the bridge.

No sleeping for Manon today or tomorrow. No eating. Or bedding men.

No, she was taking Abraxos out into the Ruhnns.

He was already saddled, and Manon ensured Wind-­Cleaver was tightly strapped to her back as she mounted him. The saddlebags ­were an unexpected weight behind her, and she made a note to start training the Thirteen and the rest of the covens with them. If they ­were to be an army, then they’d carry their supplies, as most soldiers did. And training with weights would make them faster when it came time to fly without them.