Sarah Maas - Heir of Fire

He ­couldn’t decide which was worse.

•

When Chaol got to the hidden apartment, Ren was pacing. “Where’s—”

There was blood on him, he realized. The spray from Sorscha’s neck. Chaol didn’t know how he found the words, but he told Ren what had happened.

“So it’s just us?” Ren asked quietly. Chaol nodded. Fleetfoot was sniffing around in the apartment, having made her inspection and decided Ren ­wasn’t worth eating—­even after Ren had protested that the dog might draw too much attention. She was staying; that was nonnegotiable.

A muscle feathered in Ren’s jaw. “Then we find a way to free Aedion. As soon as possible. You and me. Between your knowledge of the castle and my contacts, we can find a way.” Then he whispered, “You said Dorian’s woman was—­was a healer?” When Chaol nodded, Ren looked like he was about to be sick, but he asked, “Was she named Sorscha?”

“You ­were the friend she sent those letters to,” Chaol breathed.

“I kept pressing her for information, kept . . .” Ren covered his face and took a shuddering breath. When his eyes at last met Chaol’s, they ­were bright. Slowly, Ren held out a hand. “You and me, we’ll find a way to free them. Both Aedion and your prince.”

Chaol didn’t hesitate as he gripped the rebel’s outstretched hand.

“Morath,” Manon said, wondering if she’d heard right. “For battle?”

Her grandmother turned from the desk, eyes flashing. “To serve the duke, just as the king ordered. He wants the Wing Leader in Morath with half the host ready to fly at a moment’s notice. The others are to stay ­here under Iskra’s command to monitor the north.”

“And you—­where will you be?”

Her grandmother hissed, rising. “So many questions now that you’re Wing Leader.”

Manon bowed her head. They had not spoken of the Crochan. Manon had gotten the message: next time, it would be one of the Thirteen on her knees. So she kept her head down as she said, “I only ask because I would not be parted with you, Grandmother.”

“Liar. And a pathetic one.” Her grandmother turned back to the desk. “I shall remain ­here, but come to you in Morath during the summer. We have work to finish ­here.”

Manon lifted her chin, her new red cloak pooling around her, and asked, “And when shall we fly to Morath?”

Her grandmother smiled, iron teeth shining. “Tomorrow.”

•

Even under the cover of darkness, the warm spring breeze was full of new grass and snow-­melted rivers, only disrupted by the booming of wings as Manon led the host south along the Fangs.

They kept to the shadows of the mountains, shifting ranks and dipping out of sight to prevent anyone from getting an accurate count of their numbers. Manon sighed through her nose, and the wind ripped the sound away, just as it streamed her long red cloak behind her.

Asterin and Sorrel flanked her, silent like the rest of the covens for the long hours they’d flown down the mountains. They would cross Oakwald where Morath’s mountains ­were closest, then rise above the cover of the cloud line for the rest of the journey. Unseen and as quiet as possible—­that was how the king wanted them to arrive at the duke’s mountain fortress. They flew all night down the Fangs, swift and sleek as shadows, and the earth below quivered in their wake.

Sorrel was stone-­faced, monitoring the skies around them, but Asterin was smiling faintly. It was not a wild grin, or one that promised death, but a calm smile. To be aloft and skimming the clouds. Where every Blackbeak belonged. Where Manon belonged.

Asterin caught her stare and smiled wider, as if there ­wasn’t a host of witches flying behind them and Morath lying ahead. Her cousin turned her face into the wind, breathing it in, exultant.

Manon did not let herself savor that beautiful breeze or open herself to that joy. She had work to do; they all did. Despite what the Crochan had said, Manon had not been born with a heart, or a soul. She did not need them.

Once they fought the king’s war, when his enemies ­were bleeding out around them . . . only then would they ­ride to reclaim their broken kingdom.

And she would go home at last.

The rising sun was staining the Avery River with gold as the cloaked man strode onto a rickety dock in the slums. Fishermen ­were heading out for the day, revelers ­were stumbling in for the night, and Rifthold was still asleep—­unaware of what had happened the night before.

The man pulled out a lovely blade, its ea­gle pommel glinting in the first light of dawn. For a long moment, he stared at the sword, thinking of all that it had once embodied. But there was a new sword at his side—­an ancient king’s blade, from a time when good men had served noble rulers and the world had prospered for it.

He would see that world reborn, even if it took his last breath. Even if he had no name now, no position or title save Oath-­Breaker, Traitor, Liar.

No one noticed when the sword was jettisoned over the river, its pommel catching the sun and burning like golden fire, a flash of light before it was swallowed by the dark water, never to be seen again.

It turned out that the “submission” part of a blood oath was something Rowan liked to interpret as it suited him. During their two-­week trek to the nearest port in Wendlyn, he bossed Celaena around even more—­seeming to believe that now he was part of her court, it entitled him to certain nonnegotiable rights regarding her safety, her movements, and her plans.

She was starting to wonder, as they approached the docks at the end of the cobblestone street, if she had made a teensy mistake in binding him to her forever. They’d been arguing for the past three days about her next move—­about the ship she’d hired to take her back to Adarlan.

“This plan is absurd,” Rowan said for the hundredth time, stopping in the shadows of a tavern by the docks. The sea air was light and crisp. “Going back alone seems like suicide.”

“One, I’m going back as Celaena, not Aelin—”

“Celaena, who did not accomplish the king’s mission, and who they are now going to hunt down.”

“The King and Queen of Eyllwe should have gotten their warning by now.” She’d sent it the first time they’d gone into town while investigating the murder of those poor people. Though letters ­were nearly impossible to send into the empire, Wendlyn had certain ways of getting around that. And as for Chaol . . . well, that was another reason why she was ­here, on this dock, about to get onto this ship. She had awoken this morning and slipped the amethyst ring off her finger. It had felt like a blessed release, a final shadow lifted from her heart. But there ­were still words left unsaid between them, and she needed to make sure he was safe—­and would remain that way.

“So you’re going to get the key from your old master, find the captain, and then what?”

Complete submission to her indeed. “Then I go north.”

“And I’m supposed to sit on my ass for the next gods know how many months?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous, Rowan. If your tattoos don’t attract attention, then the hair, the ears, the teeth . . .”

“I have another form, you know.”

“And, just like I said , magic ­doesn’t work there anymore. You’d be trapped in that form. Though I do hear that Rifthold rats are particularly delicious, if you want to eat them for months.”

He glared at her, then scanned the ship—­even though she knew he’d snuck out of their room at the inn last night to inspect it already. “We’re stronger together than apart.”