“We do not kill.”
“No,” Chaol said, his blood going cold. “But you and all the healers here … There is only one other such place in the world. Guarded as heavily, protected by a power just as mighty.”
“Doranelle—the Fae healers in Doranelle.”
Guarded by Maeve. Fiercely.
Who had fought in that first war. Who had fought against the Valg.
“What does it mean?” she breathed.
Chaol had the sense of the ground slipping from beneath him. “I was sent here to retrieve an army. But I wonder … I wonder if some other force brought me to retrieve something else.”
She slid her hand into his, a silent promise. One he’d think of later.
“Perhaps that is why whoever it is that’s been stalking the Torre, was hunting me,” Yrene whispered. “If they are indeed sent from Morath … They don’t want us realizing any of this. Through healing you.”
He squeezed her fingers. “And those scrolls in the library … either they were taken or brought from here, forgotten save for legend about where they came from. Where the healers of this land might have originated from.”
Not the necropolis—but the Fae people who had built it.
“The scrolls,” she blurted. “If we return and find someone to—to translate them …”
“They might explain this. What the healers could do against the Valg.”
She swallowed. “Hafiza. I wonder if she knows what those scrolls are, somehow. The Healer on High is not just a position of power, but of learning. She’s a walking library herself, taught things by her predecessor that no one else at the Torre knows.” She twisted a curl around a finger. “It’s worth showing her some of the texts. To see if she might know what they are.”
A gamble to share the information with anyone else, but one worth taking. Chaol nodded.
Someone’s laughter pierced through even the heavy silence of the oasis.
Yrene released his hand. “We’ll need to smile, enjoy ourselves amongst them. And then leave at first light.”
“I’ll send word to Nesryn to return. As soon as we’re back. I’m not sure we can afford any longer to wait for the khagan’s aid.”
“We’ll try to convince him again anyway,” she promised. He angled his head. “You will still have to win this war, Chaol,” she said quietly. “Regardless of what role we might play.”
He brushed a thumb over her cheek. “I have no intention of losing it.”
It was no easy task to pretend they had not stumbled across something enormous. That something had not rattled them down to their bones.
Hasar grew bored of bathing and called for music and dancing and lunch. Which turned into hours of lounging in the shade, listening to the musicians, eating an array of delicacies that Yrene had no idea how they’d managed to bring all the way out here.
But as the sun set, they all dispersed into their tents to change for dinner. After what she’d learned with Chaol, even being alone for a moment had her jumpy, but Yrene washed and changed into the purple gauzy gown Hasar had provided.
Chaol was waiting outside the tent.
Hasar had brought him clothes, too. Beautiful deep blue that brought out the gold in his brown eyes, the summer-kissed tan of his skin.
Yrene blushed as his gaze slid along her neckline, to the swaths of skin the flowing folds of the dress revealed along her waist. Her thighs. Silver and clear beads had been sewn onto the entire thing, making the gown shimmer like the stars now flickering to life in the night sky above them.
Torches and lanterns had been lit around the oasis pool, tables and couches and cushions brought out. Music was playing, people were already loosing themselves upon the feast laid across the various tables, with Hasar holding court, regal as any queen from her spot at the centermost table alongside the fire-gilded pool.
She spotted Yrene and signaled her over. Chaol, too.
Two seats had been left open to the princess’s right. Yrene could have sworn Chaol sized them up with each step, as if scanning the chairs, those around them, the oasis itself for any pitfalls or threats. His hand brushed the sliver of skin exposed down the column of her spine—as if in confirmation that all was clear.
“You did not think I forgot my honored guest, did you?” Hasar said, kissing her cheeks. Chaol bowed to the princess as much as he could manage, and claimed his seat on Yrene’s other side, leaning his cane against the table.
“Today has been wonderful,” Yrene said, and wasn’t lying. “Thank you.”
Hasar was quiet for a beat, looking Yrene over with unusual softness. “I know I am not an easy person to care for, or an easy friend to have,” she said, her dark eyes meeting Yrene’s at last. “But you have never once made me feel that way.”
Yrene’s throat tightened at the bald words. Hasar inclined her head, waving to the party around them. “This is the least I can do to honor my friend.” Renia gently patted Hasar’s arm, as if in approval and understanding.
So Yrene bowed her head and said to the princess, “I have no interest in easy friends—easy people. I think I trust them less than the difficult ones, and find them far less compelling, too.”
That brought a grin to Hasar’s face. She leaned down the table to survey Chaol and drawl, “You look quite handsome, Lord Westfall.”
“And you are looking beautiful, Princess.”
Hasar, while well dressed, would never be called such. But she accepted the compliment with that cat’s smile that somehow reminded Yrene of that stranger in Innish—that knowledge that beauty was fleeting, yet power … power was a far more valuable currency.
The feast unfolded, and Yrene suffered through a not-so-unguarded toast from Hasar to her dear, loyal, clever friend. But she drank with them. Chaol, too. Wine and honey ale, their glasses refilled before Yrene could even notice the near-silent reach of the servants pouring.
It took all of thirty minutes before talk of the war started.
Arghun began it first. A mocking toast, to safety and serenity in such tumultuous times.
Yrene drank but tried to hide her surprise as she found Chaol doing so as well, a vague smile plastered on his face.
Then Hasar began musing on whether the Western Wastes, with everyone so focused upon the eastern half of the continent, was fair game to interested parties.
Chaol only shrugged. As if he’d reached some conclusion this afternoon. Some realization about this war, and the role of these royals in it.
Hasar seemed to notice, too. And for all that this was meant to be a birthday party, the princess pondered aloud to no one in particular, “Perhaps Aelin Galathynius should drag her esteemed self down here and select one of my brothers to marry. Perhaps then we would consider assisting her. If such influence remained in the family.”
Meaning all that flame, all that brute power … tied to this continent, bred into the bloodline, never to be a threat.
“My brothers would have to stomach being with someone like that, of course,” Hasar went on, “but they are not such weak-blooded men as you might believe.” A glance at Kashin, who seemed to pretend not to hear, even as Arghun snorted. Yrene wondered if the others knew how adept Kashin was at drowning out their taunting—that he never fell for their baiting simply because he couldn’t be bothered to care.
Chaol answered Hasar with equal mildness, “As interesting as it would be to see Aelin Galathynius deal with all of you …” A secret, knowing smile, as if Chaol might very well enjoy seeing that sight. As if Aelin might very well make blood sport out of them all. “Marriage is not an option for her.”
Hasar’s brows lifted. “To a man?”
Renia gave her a sharp look that Hasar ignored.
Chaol chuckled. “To anyone. Beyond her beloved.”
“King Dorian,” Arghun said, swirling his wine. “I’m surprised she can stomach him.”
Chaol stiffened, but shook his head. “No. Another prince—foreign-born and powerful.”
All t
he royals stilled. Even Kashin looked their way.
“Who, pray tell, is that?” Hasar sipped her wine, those keen eyes darkening.
“Prince Rowan Whitethorn, of Doranelle. Former commander to Queen Maeve, and a member of her royal household.”
Yrene could have sworn the blood drained wholly from Arghun’s face. “Aelin Galathynius is to wed Rowan Whitethorn?”
From the way the prince said the name … he’d indeed heard of this Rowan.
Chaol had mentioned Rowan more than once in passing—Rowan, who had managed to heal much of the damage in his spine. A Fae Prince. And Aelin’s beloved.
Chaol shrugged. “They are carranam, and he swore the blood oath to her.”
“He swore that oath to Maeve,” Arghun countered.
Chaol leaned back in his seat. “He did. And Aelin got Maeve to free him from it so he could swear it to her. Right in Maeve’s face.”
Arghun and Hasar swapped glances. “How,” the former demanded.
Chaol’s mouth turned up at the corner. “Through the same way Aelin achieves all her ends.” He flicked his brows up. “She encircled Maeve’s city in fire. And when Maeve told her that Doranelle was made of stone, Aelin simply replied that her people were not.”
A chill snaked down Yrene’s spine.
“So she is a brute and a madwoman,” Hasar sniffed.
“Is she? Who else has taken on Maeve and walked away, let alone gotten what they want out of it?”
“She would have destroyed an entire city for one man,” Hasar snapped.
“The most powerful pure-blooded Fae male in the world,” Chaol said simply. “A worthy asset for any court. Especially when they had fallen in love with each other.”
Though his eyes danced as he spoke, a tremor of tension ran beneath the last words.