Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5) by Sarah J. Maas

She wasn’t foolish enough to hope her companions had survived the slaughter. Not this long.

On her knees in the sharp black rock, Elena gazed at the obsidian sarcophagus, the symbols carved into it. They initially had been glowing, but had now faded and cooled, settled into place. When she had stolen the Lock from her father all those months ago, she had not known—had not understood—the truth depth of its power. Still did not know why he had forged it. Only that once, just once, could the Lock’s power be wielded. And that power … oh, that mighty, shattering power … it had saved them all.

Gavin, sprawled and bloody behind her, stirred. His face was so mangled she could barely see the handsome, fierce features beneath. His left arm was useless at his side. The price of distracting Erawan while she’d unleashed the Lock’s power. But even Gavin had not known what she’d been planning. What she’d stolen and harbored all these months.

She did not regret it. Not when it had spared him from death. Worse.

Gavin took in the sarcophagus, the empty, intricate amulet of the Lock in her palm as it rested on her thigh. He recognized it instantly, having seen it around her father’s neck during those initial weeks in Orynth. The blue stone in its center was now drained, dim where it had once flickered with inner fire. Barely a drop of its power left, if that.

“What have you done?” His voice was a broken rasp from screaming during Erawan’s ministrations. To buy her time, to save their people—

Elena folded her fingers into a fist around the Lock. “He is sealed. He cannot escape.”

“Your father’s Lock—”

“It is done,” she said, shifting her attention to the dozen ancient, immortal figures now on the other side of the sarcophagus.

Gavin started, hissing at his broken body with the sudden movement.

They had no forms. They were only figments of light and shadow, wind and rain, song and memory. Each individual, and yet a part of one majority, one consciousness.

They were all gazing at the broken Lock in her hands, its stone dull.

Gavin lowered his brow to the blood-soaked rock and averted his eyes.

Elena’s very bones quailed in their presence, but she kept her chin high.

“Our sister’s bloodline has betrayed us,” said one that was of sea and sky and storms.

Elena shook her head, trying to swallow. Failing. “I saved us. I stopped Erawan—”

“Fool,” said the one of many shifting voices, both animal and human. “Half-breed fool. Did you not consider why your father carried it, why he bided his time all these years, gathering his strength? He was to wield it—to seal the three Wyrdkeys back into the gate, and send us home before he shut the gate forever. Us, and the Dark King. The Lock was forged for us—promised to us. And you wasted it.”

Elena braced a hand on the earth to keep from swaying. “My father bears the Wyrdkeys?” He had never so much as hinted … And the Lock … she had thought it a mere weapon. A weapon he had refused to wield in this bloody war.

They did not answer, their silence confirmation enough.

A small, broken noise came out of her throat. Elena breathed, “I’m sorry.”

Their rage rattled her bones, threatened to stop her heart dead in her chest. The one of flame and light and ashes seemed to withhold, seemed to pause in her wrath.

To remember.

She had not seen or spoken to her mother since she had left her body to forge the Lock. Since Rhiannon Crochan had helped Mala cast her very essence into it, the mass of its power contained within the small witch mirror disguised as a blue stone, to be unleashed only once. They had never told Elena why. Never said it was anything more than a weapon that her father would one day desperately need to wield.

The cost: her mother’s mortal body, the life she had wanted for herself with Brannon and their children. It had been ten years since then. Ten years, her father had never stopped waiting for Mala to return, hoping he’d see her again. Just once.

I will not remember you, Mala had said to them all before she had given herself to the Lock’s forging. And yet there she was. Pausing. As if she remembered.

“Mother,” Elena whispered, a broken plea.

Mala Light-Bringer looked away from her.

The one who saw all with wise, calm eyes said, “Unleash him. So we have been betrayed by these earth beasts, let us return the favor. Unleash the Dark King from his coffin.”

“No,” Elena pleaded, rising from her knees. “Please—please. Tell me what I must do to atone, but please do not unleash him. I beg you.”

“He will rise again one day,” said the one of darkness and death. “He will awaken. You have wasted our Lock on a fool’s errand, when you could have solved all, had you only the patience and wits to understand.”

“Then let him awaken,” Elena begged, her voice breaking. “Let someone else inherit this war—someone better prepared.”

“Coward,” said the one with a voice of steel and shields and arrows. “Coward to shove the burden to another.”

“Please,” Elena said. “I will give you anything. Anything. But not that.”

As one, they looked to Gavin.

No—

But it was her mother who said, “We have waited this long to return home. We may wait a little longer. Watch over this … place a little longer.”