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

She said, “Are we running, or can I sit for a moment?”

He listened to the sounds of the forest for any hint of danger, then jerked his chin.

Marion sighed as she sat on the moss and roots. She surveyed him. “I thought all the Fae were dead. Even the demi-Fae.”

“I’m from Wendlyn. And you,” he said, brows rising slightly, “are from Morath.”

“Not from. Escaping from.”

“Why—and how.”

Her narrowed eyes told him enough: she knew he still didn’t believe her, not entirely, red blood or no. Yet she didn’t answer, instead leaning over her legs to unlace a boot. Her fingers trembled a bit, but she got through the laces, yanking off the boot, removing the sock, and rolling up her leather pant leg to reveal—

Shit. He’d seen plenty of ruined bodies in his day, had done plenty of ruining himself, but rarely were they left so untreated. Marion’s leg was a mess of scar tissue and twisted bone. And right above her misshapen ankle lay still-healing wounds where shackles had unmistakably been.

She said quietly, “Allies of Morath are usually whole. Their dark magic could surely cure a cripple—and they surely would have no use for one.”

That was why she’d managed so well with the limp. She’d had years to master it, from the coloring of the scar tissue.

Marion rolled her pant leg back down but left her foot bare, massaging it. She hissed through her teeth.

He sat on a fallen log a few feet away, taking off his own pack to rifle through it. “Tell me what you know of Morath,” he said, and chucked her a tin of salve straight from Doranelle.

The girl stared at it, those sharp eyes putting together what he was, where he was from, and what that tin likely contained. When she lifted them to his face, she nodded silently in agreement of his offer: relief from the pain for answers. She unscrewed the lid, and he caught the way her mouth parted as she breathed in the pungent herbs.

Pain and pleasure danced across her face as she began rubbing the salve into her old injuries.

And as she worked, she spoke.

Marion told him of the Ironteeth host, of the Wing Leader and the Thirteen, of the armies camped around the mountain Keep, of the places where only screaming echoed, of the countless forges and blacksmiths. She described her own escape: without warning, she didn’t know how, the castle had exploded. She’d seen it as her chance, disguising herself in a witch’s attire, grabbing one of their packs, and running. In the chaos, no one had chased her.

“I’ve been running for weeks,” she said. “Apparently, I’ve barely covered half the distance.”

“To where?”

Marion looked northward. “Terrasen.”

Lorcan stifled a snarl. “You’re not missing much.”

“Have you news of it?” Alarm filled those eyes.

“No,” he said, shrugging. She finished rubbing her foot and ankle. “What’s in Terrasen? Your family?” He had not asked why she’d been brought to Morath. He didn’t particularly care to hear her sad story. Everyone had one, he’d found.

The girl’s face tightened. “I owe a debt to a friend—someone who helped me get out of Morath. She bade me to find someone named Celaena Sardothien. So that is my first task: learning who she is, where she is. Terrasen seems like a better place to start than Adarlan.”

No guile, no whisper of this meeting being anything but chance.

“And then,” the girl went on, the brightness in her eyes growing, “I need to find Aelin Galathynius, the Queen of Terrasen.”

It was an effort not to go for his sword. “Why?”

Marion glanced toward him, as if she’d somehow even forgotten he was there. “I heard a rumor that she’s raising an army to stop the one in Morath. I plan to offer my services.”

“Why?” he said again. Aside from the wits that had kept her out of the ilken’s claws, he saw no other reason for the bitch-queen to need the girl.

Marion’s full mouth tightened. “Because I am from Terrasen and believed my queen dead. And now she is alive, and fighting, so I will fight with her. So that no other girls will be taken from their homes and brought to Morath and forgotten.”

Lorcan debated telling her what he knew: that her two quests were one and the same. But that would lead to questions from her, and he was in no mood—

“Why do you wish to go to Morath? Everyone else is fleeing from it.”

“I was sent by my mistress to stop the threat it poses.”

“You’re one man—male.” Not an insult, but Lorcan stared her down anyway.

“I have my skills, just as you have yours.”

Her eyes darted to his hands, now crusted in dried black blood. He wondered, though, if she was imagining the magic that had sparked there.

He waited for Marion to ask more, but she pulled on her sock, then her boot, and laced it up. “We shouldn’t rest for long.” Indeed.

She eased to her feet, wincing a bit, but gave an appreciative frown toward her leg. Lorcan took that as answer enough regarding the salve’s efficiency. She bent down to retrieve the tin, her dark curtain of hair sweeping over her face. At some point, it had come free of its braid.

She rose, chucking him the tin. He caught it in one hand. “Once we reach the Acanthus, what then?”