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

Will you come with me, so I will not be alone?

Elena nodded, but whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Aelin lowered her hands from the queen’s face. Took a deep, shuddering breath. “Why didn’t you tell me—from the start?”

Behind them, she had the vague sense that Manon was quietly assessing.

“You were barely climbing out of slavery,” Elena said. “Hardly holding yourself together, trying so hard to pretend that you were still strong and whole. There was only so much I could do to guide you, nudge you along. The mirror was forged and hidden to one day show you all of this. In a way I couldn’t tell you—not when I could only manage a few minutes at a time.”

“Why did you tell me to go to Wendlyn? Maeve poses as great a threat as Erawan.”

Glacier-blue eyes met hers at last. “I know. Maeve has long wished to regain possession of the keys. My father believed it was for something other than conquest. Something darker, worse. I don’t know why she only began hunting for them once you arrived. But I sent you to Wendlyn for the healing. And so you would … find him. The one who had been waiting so long for you.”

Aelin’s heart cracked. “Rowan.”

Elena nodded. “He was a voice in the void, a secret, silent dreamer. And so were his companions. But the Fae Prince, he was …”

Aelin reined in her sob. “I know. I’ve known for a long time.”

“I wanted you to know that joy, too,” Elena whispered. “However briefly.”

“I did,” Aelin managed to say. “Thank you.”

Elena covered her face at those words, shuddering. But after a moment, she surveyed Aelin, then Manon, still silent and watching. “The witch mirror’s power is fading; it will not hold you here for much longer. Please—let me show you what must be done. How to end it. You won’t be able to see me after, but … I will be with you. Until the very end, every step of the way, I will be with you.”

Manon only put a hand on her sword as Aelin swallowed and said, “Show me, then.”

So Elena did. And when she was done, Aelin was silent. Manon was pacing, snarling softly.

But Aelin did not fight it as Elena leaned in to kiss her brow, where that damning mark had been her whole life. A bit of chattel, branded for the slaughterhouse.

Brannon’s mark. The mark of the bastard-born … the Nameless.

Nameless is my price. To buy them a future, she’d pay it.

She’d done as much as she could to set things in motion to ensure that once she was gone, help would still come. It was the only thing she could give them, her last gift to Terrasen. To those she loved with her heart of wildfire.

Elena stroked her cheek. Then the ancient queen and the mists were gone.

Sunlight flooded them, blinding Aelin and Manon so violently that they hissed and slammed into each other. The brine of the sea, crash of nearby waves, and rustle of seagrasses greeted them. And beyond that, distantly: the clamor and bellowing of all-out war.

They were on the outskirts of the marshes, upon the lip of the sea itself, the battle miles and miles out to sea. They must have traveled within the mists, somehow—

A soft female laugh slithered through the grass. Aelin knew that laugh.

And knew that somehow, perhaps they had not traveled through the mists …

But they had been placed here. By whatever forces were at work, whatever gods watching.

To stand in the sandy field before the turquoise sea, dead guards in Briarcliff armor slaughtered upon the nearby dunes, still bleeding out. To stand before Queen Maeve of the Fae.

Elide Lochan on her knees before her—with a Fae warrior’s blade at her throat.





69


Aedion had faced armies, faced death more times than he could count, but this …

Even with what Rowan had done … the enemy ships still outnumbered them.

The battling between ships had become too dangerous, the magic-wielders too aware of Lysandra to allow her to attack beneath the waves.

She was now fighting viciously beside Aedion in ghost leopard form, taking down whatever Fae warriors tried to board their ship. Whatever soldiers made it through the shredding gauntlet of Rowan’s and Dorian’s magic.

His father had left. Fenrys and Lorcan, too. He’d last seen his father on the quarterdeck of one of the ships that had been under his command, a sword in each hand, the Lion poised for the kill. And as if sensing Aedion’s gaze, a wall of golden light had wrapped around him.

Aedion wasn’t stupid enough to demand Gavriel take it away, not as the shield shrank and shrank, until it covered Aedion like a second skin.

Minutes later, Gavriel was gone—vanished. But that magic shield remained.

That had been the start of the sharp turn they’d taken, going back on the defensive as sheer numbers and immortal-versus-mortal fighting took its toll on their fleet.

He had no doubt Maeve had something to do with it. But that bitch wasn’t his problem.

No, his problem was the armada all around him; his problem was the fact that the enemy soldiers he engaged were highly trained and didn’t go down easily. His problem was his sword arm ached, his shield was embedded with arrows and dented, and still more of those ships stretched away into the distance.

He did not let himself think about Aelin, about where she was. His Fae instincts pricked at the rumble of Rowan’s and Dorian’s magic surging up, then snapping into the enemy flank. Ships broke in the wake of that power; warriors drowned beneath the weight of their armor.