Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)(41)

“I’m a city guard,” she said plainly. “My presence won’t be unexpected. And besides,” she said, her eyes glinting with her usual faint amusement, “you yourself said I don’t exactly have a line of suitors waiting outside my father’s house, so what else do I have to do with myself tonight?”

“Tomorrow’s an important day,” he said, even as he cursed himself for the words he’d spat the other night. An ass—that’s what he’d been, even if she’d never let on that it bothered her.

“I was just fine before you came along, Chaol,” she said—tired, possibly bored. “I know my limits. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

But he said, “Why go to the families yourself?”

Nesryn’s dark eyes shifted toward the river. “Because it reminds me what I have to lose if I’m caught—or if we fail.”

Night fell, and Aelin knew she was being followed as she stalked from rooftop to rooftop. Right now, even hours later, hitting the street was the most dangerous thing she could possibly do, given how pissed off the guards were after she and the rebels had stolen their prisoners right out from under them.

And she knew that because she’d been listening to them curse and hiss for the past hour as she trailed a patrol of black-uniformed guards on the route she’d noted the night before: along the docks, then keeping to the shadows off the main drag of taverns and brothels in the slums, and then near—but keeping a healthy distance from—the riverside Shadow Market. Interesting to learn how their route did or didn’t change when chaos erupted—what hidey-holes they rushed to, what sort of formations they used.

What streets were left unmonitored when all hell broke loose.

As it would tomorrow, with Aedion.

But Arobynn’s claims had been right—matching the maps Chaol and Nesryn had made, too.

She’d known that if she told Chaol why she’d shown up at the execution, he would get in the way somehow—send Nesryn to follow her, perhaps. She’d needed to see how skilled they were—all the parties that would be so crucial in tomorrow’s events—and then see this.

Just as Arobynn had told her, each guard wore a thick black ring, and they moved with jerks and twitches that made her wonder how well the demons squatting inside their bodies were adjusting. Their leader, a pale man with night-dark hair, moved the most fluidly, like ink in water, she thought.

She had left them to stalk toward another part of the city while she continued on toward where the craftsman district jutted out into the curve of the Avery, until all was silent around her and the scent of those rotting corpses faded away.

Atop the roof of a glass-blowing warehouse, the tiles still warm from the heat of the day or the massive furnaces inside, Aelin surveyed the empty alley below.

The infernal spring rain began again, tinkling on the sloped roof, the many chimneys.

Magic—Chaol had told her how to free it. So easy, and yet—a monumental task. In need of careful planning. After tomorrow, though—if she survived—she’d set about doing it.

She shimmied down a drainpipe on the side of a crumbling brick building, splashing down a bit too loudly in a puddle of what she hoped was rain. She whistled as she strolled down the empty alley, a jaunty little tune she’d overheard at one of the slums’ many taverns.

Still, she was honestly a little surprised that she got nearly halfway down the alley before a patrol of the king’s guards stepped into her path, their swords like quicksilver in the dark.

The commander of the patrol—the demon inside him—looked at her and smiled as though it already knew what her blood tasted like.

Aelin grinned right back at him, flicking her wrists and sending the blades shooting out of her suit. “Hello, gorgeous.”

Then she was upon them, slicing and twirling and ducking.

Five guards were dead before the others could even move.

The blood they leaked wasn’t red, though. It was black, and slid down the sides of her blades, dense and shining as oil. The stench, like curdled milk and vinegar, hit her as hard as the clashing of their swords.

The reek grew, overpowering the lingering smoke from the glass factories around them, worsening as Aelin dodged the demon’s blow and swiped low. The man’s stomach opened up like a festering wound, and black blood and the gods knew what else sloshed onto the street.

Disgusting. Almost as bad as what wafted from the sewer grate at the other end of the alley—already open. Already oozing that too-familiar darkness.

The rest of the patrol closed in. Her wrath became a song in her blood as she ended them.

When blood and rain lay in puddles on the broken cobblestones, when Aelin stood in a field of fallen men, she began slicing.

Head after head tumbled away.

Then she leaned against the wall, waiting. Counting.

They did not rise.

Aelin stalked from the alley, kicking shut the sewer grate, and vanished into the rainy night.

Dawn broke, the day clear and warm. Aelin had been up half the night scouring the books Chaol had saved, including her old friend The Walking Dead.

Reciting what she’d learned in the quiet of her apartment, Aelin donned the clothes Arobynn had sent over, checking and rechecking that there were no surprises and everything was where she needed it to be. She let each step, each reminder of her plan anchor her, keep her from dwelling too long on what would come when the festivities began.