Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas

Erawan crossed an ankle over a knee. “Again: Why?”

Maeve’s fingers smoothed over the facets of her goblet. “My people have betrayed me. After all I have done for them, all I have protected them, they rose up against me. The army I had gathered refused to march. My nobles, my servants, refused to kneel. I am Queen of Doranelle no longer.”

“I can guess who might be behind such a thing,” Erawan said.

Darkness flickered in the room, terrible and cold. “I had Aelin of the Wildfire contained. I had hoped to bring her here to you when she was … ready. But the sentinel I assigned to oversee her care made a grave error. I myself will admit that I was deceived. And now she is again free. And took it upon herself to dispatch letters to some influential individuals in Doranelle. She is likely already on this continent.”

Relief shuddered through him.

Erawan waved a hand. “In Anielle. Expending her power carelessly.”

Maeve’s eyes glowed. “She cost me my kingdom, my throne. My circle of trusted warriors. Any neutrality I might have had in this war, any mercy I might have offered, vanished the moment she and her mate left.”

They’d found her. Somehow, they’d found her. And Anielle—did he dare hope Chaol might also be there?

Dorian might have roared his victory. But Maeve continued, “Aelin Galathynius will come for me, if she survives you. I do not plan to allow her the chance to do so.”

Erawan’s smile grew. “So you think to ally with me.”

“Only together can we ensure Brannon’s bloodline is toppled forever. Never to rise again.”

“Then why not kill her, when you had her?”

“Would you have done so, brother? Would you not have tried to turn her?”

Erawan’s silence was confirmation enough. Then the Valg king asked, “You lay a great deal before me, sister. Do you expect me to believe you so readily?”

“I anticipated that.” Her lips curved. “After all, I have nothing left but my own powers.”

Erawan said nothing, as if well aware of the dance the queen led him in.

She extended a moon-white hand toward the center of the room. “There is something else I might bring to the table, should it interest you.”

A flick of her slender fingers, and a hole simply appeared in the heart of the chamber.

Dorian started, curling himself farther into shadow and dust. Not bothering to hide his trembling as a horror only true darkness could craft appeared on the other side of that hole. The portal.

“I had forgotten you’d mastered that gift,” Erawan said, his golden eyes flaring at the thing that now bowed to them, its pincers clicking.

The spider.

“And I’d forgotten that they still bothered to answer to you,” Erawan went on.

“When the Fae cast me aside,” Maeve said, smiling faintly at the enormous spider, “I returned to those who have always been loyal to me.”

“The stygian spiders have become their own creatures,” Erawan countered. “Your list of allies remains short.”

Maeve shook her head, dark hair shining. “These are not the stygian spiders.”

Through the portal, Dorian could make out jagged, ashen rock. Mountains.

“These are the kharankui, as the people of the southern continent call them. My most loyal handmaidens.”

Dorian’s heart thundered as the spider bowed again.

Erawan’s face turned cool and bored. “What use would I have for them?” He gestured to the windows beyond, the hellscape he’d crafted. “I have created armies of beasts loyal to me. I do not need a few hundred spiders.”

Maeve didn’t so much as falter. “My handmaidens are resourceful, their webs long-reaching. They speak to me of the goings-on in the world. And spoke to me of the next … phase of your grand plans.”

Dorian braced himself. Erawan stiffened.

Maeve drawled. “The Valg princesses need hosts. You have had difficulty in securing ones powerful enough to hold them. The khaganate princess managed to survive the one you planted in her, and is mistress of her own body once more.”

Valg princesses. In the southern continent. Chaol—

“I’m listening,” Erawan said.

Maeve pointed to the spider still bowing at the portal—the portal to the southern continent, opened as easily as a window. “Why bother with human hosts for the six remaining princesses when you might create ones far more powerful? And willing.”

Erawan’s gold eyes slid to the spider. “You and your kin would allow this?” His first words to the creature.

The spider’s pincers clicked, her horrible eyes blinking. “It would be our honor to prove our loyalty to our queen.”

Maeve smiled at the spider. Dorian shuddered.

“Immortal, powerful hosts,” Maeve purred to the Valg king. “With their innate gifts, imagine how the princesses might thrive within them. Both spider and princess becoming more.”

Becoming a horror beyond all reckoning.

Erawan said nothing, and Maeve flicked her fingers, the portal and spider vanishing. She rose, graceful as a shadow. “I shall let you consider this alliance, if that is what you wish. The kharankui will do as I bid them—and will happily march under your banner.”

“Yet what shall I say to my brother, when I see him again?”