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

“Where is Aelin.”

There was pure panic, too—pure panic as Whitethorn saw the blood, the scattered blades, and the shirt.

“Where is Aelin.”

What had he done, what had he done—

Pain sliced Lorcan’s neck, warm blood dribbled down his throat, his chest.

Rowan hissed, “Where is my wife?”

Lorcan swayed where he knelt.

Wife.

Wife.

“Oh, gods,” Elide sobbed as she overheard, the words carrying the sound of Lorcan’s own fractured heart. “Oh, gods …”

And for the first time in centuries, Lorcan wept.

Rowan dug the dagger deeper into Lorcan’s neck, even as tears slid down Lorcan’s face.

What that woman had done …

Aelin had known. That Lorcan had betrayed her and summoned Maeve here. That she had been living on borrowed time.

And she had married Whitethorn … so Terrasen could have a king. Perhaps had been spurred into action because she knew Lorcan had already betrayed her, that Maeve was coming …

And Lorcan had not helped her.

Whitethorn’s wife.

His mate.

Aelin had let them whip and chain her, had gone willingly with Maeve, so Elide didn’t enter Cairn’s clutches. And it had been just as much a sacrifice for Elide as it had been a gift to him.

She had bowed to Maeve.

For Elide.

“Please,” Rowan begged, his voice breaking as that calm fury fractured.

“Maeve took her,” Manon said, approaching.

Gavriel rasped from where he knelt nearby, reeling from the severing of his blood oath, “She used the oath to keep us down—keep us from helping. Even Lorcan.”

Rowan still didn’t remove the knife from Lorcan’s throat.

Lorcan had been wrong. He had been so wrong.

And he could not entirely regret it, not if Elide was safe, but …

Aelin had refused to count. Cairn had unleashed his full strength on her with that whip, and she had refused to give them the satisfaction of counting.

“Where is the ship,” Aedion demanded, then swore at the bloody shirt nearby. He grabbed Goldryn, frantically wiping the blood specks off the scabbard with his jacket.

“It vanished,” Elide said again. “It just … vanished.”

Whitethorn stared down at him, agony and despair in those eyes. And Lorcan whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Rowan dropped the knife, released the fist gripping Lorcan’s hair. Staggered back a step. In the grass nearby, Dorian knelt beside Gavriel, a faint light glowing around them. Healing the wounds in his arms. There was nothing to be done for the soul-wound Maeve had dealt him, dealt Lorcan as well, in severing that oath with such dishonor.

Manon came closer, her witches now flanking her. They all sniffed at the blood. A golden-haired one swore softly.

Manon told them about the Lock.

About Elena. About the cost the gods demanded of her. Demanded of Aelin.

But it was Elide who then took up the thread, leaning against Lysandra, who was staring at that blood and that shirt as if it were a corpse, telling them what had happened on these dunes. What Aelin had sacrificed.

She told Rowan that he was Aelin’s mate. Told him about Lyria.

She told them about the whipping, and the mask, and the box.

When Elide finished, they were silent. And Lorcan only watched as Aedion turned to Lysandra and snarled, “You knew.”

Lysandra did not flinch. “She asked me—that day on the boat. To help her. She told me the suspected price to banish Erawan and restore the keys. What I needed to do.”

Aedion snarled, “What could you possibly …”

Lysandra lifted her chin.

Rowan breathed, “Aelin would die to forge the new Lock to seal the keys into the gate—to banish Erawan. But no one would know. No one but us. Not while you wore her skin for the rest of your life.”

Aedion dragged a hand through his blood-caked hair. “But any offspring with Rowan wouldn’t look anything like—”

Lysandra’s face was pleading. “You would fix that, Aedion. With me.”

With the golden hair, the Ashryver eyes … If that line bred true, the shifter’s offspring could pass as royal. Aelin wanted Rowan on the throne—but it would be Aedion secretly siring the heirs.

Aedion flinched as if he’d been struck. “And when were you going to reveal this? Before or after I thought I was taking my gods-damned cousin to bed for whatever reason you concocted?”

Lysandra said softly, “I will not apologize to you. I serve her. And I am willing to spend the rest of my life pretending to be her so that her sacrifice isn’t in vain—”

“You can go to hell,” Aedion snapped. “You can go to hell, you lying bitch!”

Lysandra’s answering snarl wasn’t human.

Rowan just took Goldryn from the general and walked toward the sea, the wind tossing his silver hair.

Lorcan rose to his feet, swaying again. But Elide was there.

And there was nothing of the young woman he’d come to know in her pale, taut face. Nothing of her in the raw voice as Elide said to Lorcan, “I hope you spend the rest of your miserable, immortal life suffering. I hope you spend it alone. I hope you live with regret and guilt in your heart and never find a way to endure it.”

Then she was heading for the Thirteen. The golden-haired one held up an arm, and Elide slipped beneath it, entering a sanctuary of wings and claws and teeth.