“No,” she said, still trying to clear the horror of betrayal from her mind. Trying to ignore the thing hanging from her neck, the abyss of power that beckoned, beckoned—
Aedion snapped, “One of you needs to explain now.”
Her cousin’s face was drained of color, his eyes so wide that the whites shone all around them as he glanced from the ring to Aelin and back again.
She’d held it together during the carriage ride, maintaining the mask of the puppet Arobynn believed she’d become. She crossed the room, keeping her arms at her sides to avoid chucking the Wyrdkey against the wall. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You couldn’t know—”
“I could have rutting known. You really think I can’t keep my mouth shut?”
“Rowan didn’t even know until last night,” she snapped.
Deep in that abyss, thunder rumbled.
Oh, gods. Oh, gods—
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Rowan crossed his arms. “It is, considering the fight we had about it.”
Aedion shook his head. “Just … explain.”
Aelin picked up the ring. Focus. She could focus on this conversation, until she could safely hide the amulet. Aedion couldn’t know what she carried, what weapon she’d claimed tonight. “In Wendlyn, there was a moment when Narrok … came back. When he warned me. And thanked me for ending him. So I picked the Valg commander who seemed to have the least amount of control over the human’s body, out of hope that the man might be in there, wishing for redemption in some form.” Redemption for what the demon had made him do, hoping to die knowing he’d done one good thing.
“Why?”
Speaking normally was an effort. “So I could offer him the mercy of death and freedom from the Valg, if he would only tell Arobynn all the wrong information. He tricked Arobynn into thinking that a bit of blood could control these rings—and that the ring he bore was the real thing.” She held up the ring. “I got the idea from you, actually. Lysandra has a very good jeweler, and had a fake made. The real thing I cut off the Valg commander’s finger. If Arobynn had taken off his other glove, he would have found him without a digit.”
“You’d need weeks to plan all that—”
Aelin nodded.
“But why? Why bother with any of it? Why not just kill the prick?”
Aelin set down the ring. “I had to know.”
“Know what? That Arobynn is a monster?”
“That there was no redeeming him. I knew, but … It was his final test. To show his hand.”
Aedion hissed. “He would have made you into his own personal figurehead—he touched—”
“I know what he touched, and what he wanted to do.” She could still feel that touch on her. It was nothing compared to the hideous weight pressing against her chest. She rubbed her thumb across the scabbed-over slice on her hand. “So now we know.”
Some small, pathetic part of her wished she didn’t.
Still in their finery, Aelin and Rowan stared at the amulet lying on the low table before the darkened fireplace in her bedroom.
She’d taken it off the moment she entered the room—Aedion having gone to the roof to take watch—and slumped onto the couch facing the table. Rowan took a seat beside her a heartbeat later. For a minute, they said nothing. The amulet gleamed in the light of the two candles Rowan had lit.
“I was going to ask you to make sure it wasn’t a fake; that Arobynn hadn’t switched it somehow,” Rowan said at last, his eyes fixed on the Wyrdkey. “But I can feel it—a glimmer of whatever is inside that thing.”
She braced her forearms on her knees, the black velvet of her dress softly caressing. “In the past, people must have assumed that feeling came from the magic of whoever was wearing it,” she said. “With my mother, with Brannon … it would never have been noticed.”
“And your father and uncle? They had little to no magic, you said.”
The ivory stag seemed to stare at her, the immortal star between its horns flickering like molten gold. “But they had presence. What better place to hide this thing than around the neck of a swaggering royal?”
Rowan tensed as she reached for the amulet and flipped it over as quickly as she could. The metal was warm, its surface unmarred despite the millennia that had passed since its forging.
There, exactly as she’d remembered, were carved three Wyrdmarks.
“Any idea what those mean?” Rowan said, shifting close enough that his thigh grazed hers. He moved away an inch, though it did nothing to stop her from feeling the heat of him.
“I’ve never seen—”
“That one,” Rowan said, pointing to the first one. “I’ve seen that one. It burned on your brow that day.”
“Brannon’s mark,” she breathed. “The mark of the bastard-born—the nameless.”
“No one in Terrasen ever looked into these symbols?”
“If they did, it was never revealed—or they wrote it in their personal accounts, which were stored in the Library of Orynth.” She chewed on the inside of her lip. “It was one of the first places the King of Adarlan sacked.”
“Maybe the librarians smuggled out the rulers’ accounts first—maybe they got lucky.”
Her heart sank a bit. “Maybe. We won’t know until we return to Terrasen.” She tapped her foot on the carpet. “I need to hide this.” There was a loose floorboard in her closet under which she stashed money, weapons, and jewelry. It would be good enough for now. And Aedion wouldn’t question it, since she couldn’t risk wearing the damn thing in public anyway, even under her clothes—not until she was back in Terrasen. She stared down at the amulet.
“So do it,” he said.
“I don’t want to touch it.”
“If it was that easy to trigger, your ancestors would have figured out what it was.”
“You pick it up,” she said, frowning.
He just gave her a look.
She bent down, willing her mind blank while she lifted the amulet off the table. Rowan stiffened as if bracing himself, despite his reassurance.
The key was a millstone in her hand, but that initial sense of wrongness, of an abyss of power … It was quiet. Slumbering.
She made quick work of pulling back the rug in her closet and yanking loose the floorboard. She felt Rowan come up behind her, peering over her shoulder where she knelt and into the small compartment.
She had picked up the amulet to drop it into the little space when a thread tugged inside her—no, not a thread, but … a wind, as if some force barreled from Rowan into her, as if their bond were a living thing, and she could feel what it was to be him—
She dropped the amulet into the compartment. It thudded only once, a dead weight.
“What?” Rowan asked.
She twisted to peer up at him. “I felt—I felt you.”
“How?”
So she told him—about his essence sliding into her, of feeling like she wore his skin, if only for a heartbeat.
He didn’t look entirely pleased. “That sort of ability could be a helpful tool for later.”
She scowled. “Typical warrior-brute thinking.”
He shrugged. Gods, how did he handle it, the weight of his power? He could crush bones into dust even without his magic; he could bring this whole building down with a few well-placed blows.
She’d known—of course she’d known—but to feel it … The most powerful purebred Fae male in existence. To an ordinary human, he was as alien as the Valg.
“But I think you’re right: it can’t just blindly act on my will,” she said at last. “Or else my ancestors would have razed Orynth to the ground anytime they were royally pissed off. I—I think these things might be neutral by nature; it’s the bearer who guides how they are used. In the hands of someone pure of heart, it would only be beneficial. That was how Terrasen thrived.”
Rowan snorted as she replaced the wooden plank, tamping it down with the heel of her hand. “Trust me, your ancestors weren’t utte
rly holy.” He offered her a hand up, and she tried not to stare at it as she gripped it. Hard, callused, unbreakable—nearly impossible to kill. But there was a gentleness to his grip, a care reserved only for those he cherished and protected.
“I don’t think any of them were assassins,” she said as he dropped her hand. “The keys can corrupt an already black heart—or amplify a pure one. I’ve never heard anything about hearts that are somewhere in between.”
“The fact that you worry says enough about your intentions.”
She stepped all around the area to ensure that no creaking boards gave away the hiding place. Thunder rumbled above the city. “I’m going to pretend that’s not an omen,” she muttered.
“Good luck with that.” He nudged her with an elbow as they reentered the bedroom. “We’ll keep an eye on things—and if you appear to be heading toward Dark Lorddom, I promise to bring you back to the light.”