At Asterin’s approach, the wyverns and riders reeled back, rising high into the air, falling into formation. A hammer about to strike.
The Fae knew it. They began throwing up feeble shields, shooting wildly for them, their panic making their aim sloppy. But the wyverns were covered in armor—efficient, beautiful armor.
The Thirteen laughed at their enemy as they slammed into its southern flank.
Lysandra wished she had strength left to shift—one last time. To join them in that glorious destruction.
The Thirteen herded the panicking ships between them, smashed them apart, wielding every weapon in their arsenal—wyverns, blades, iron teeth. What got past them received the brutal mercy of Rowan’s and Dorian’s magic. And what got past that magic …
Lysandra found Aedion’s blood-splattered stare. The general-prince smirked in that insolent way of his, sending a thrill wilder than bloodlust through her. “We don’t want the witches to make us look bad, do we?”
Lysandra returned his smirk and lunged back into the fray.
Not many more.
Rowan’s magic was strained to the breaking point, his panic a dull roaring in the back of his mind, but he kept attacking, kept swinging his blades at any that got past his wind and ice, or Dorian’s own blasts of raw, unchecked power. Fenrys, Lorcan, and Gavriel had bolted an hour or lifetimes ago, vanishing to wherever Maeve had no doubt summoned them, but the armada held fast. Whoever Ansel of Briarcliff’s men were, they weren’t cowed by Fae warriors. And they were no strangers to bloodshed. Neither were Rolfe’s men. None of them ran.
The Thirteen continued to wreak havoc on Maeve’s panicking fleet. Asterin Blackbeak barked commands high above them, the twelve witches breaking the enemy lines with fierce, clever determination. If this was how one coven fought, then an army of them—
Rowan gritted his teeth as the remaining ships decided to be smarter than their dead companions and began to peel away. If Maeve gave the order to retreat—
Too bad. Too damn bad. He’d send her own ship down to the inky black himself.
He gave Asterin a sharp whistle the next time she passed overhead, rallying her Thirteen again. She whistled back in confirmation. The Thirteen launched after the fleeing armada.
The battle ebbed, red waves laden with debris flowing past on the swift tide.
Rowan gave the order to the captain to hold the lines and deal with any stupidity from Maeve’s armada if any ships decided not to turn tail.
His legs trembling, his arms shaking so badly he was afraid that if he let go of his weapons he wouldn’t be able to pick them up again, Rowan shifted and soared high.
His cousins had joined the Thirteen in their pursuit of the fleet now trying to run. He avoided the urge to count. But—Rowan flew higher, scanning.
There was one boat missing.
A boat he’d sailed on, worked on, fought on in past wars and journeys.
Maeve’s personal battleship, the Nightingale, was nowhere to be seen.
Not within the retreating fleet now fending off the Whitethorn royals and the Thirteen.
Not within the sinking hulks of ships now bleeding out in the water.
Rowan’s blood chilled. But he dove fast and hard for Aedion and Lysandra’s ship, where gore covered the deck so thickly it rippled as he shifted and set down in it.
Aedion was covered in blood, both his own and others’; Lysandra was purging a stomach full of it. Rowan managed to will his legs into maneuvering around fallen Fae. He did not look too closely at their faces.
“Is she back?” Aedion instantly demanded, wincing as he put weight on his thigh. Rowan surveyed his brother’s wound. He’d have to heal him soon—as soon as his magic replenished. In a place like this, even Aedion’s Fae blood couldn’t keep the infection away long.
“I don’t know,” Rowan said.
“Find her,” Aedion growled. He broke Rowan’s stare only to watch Lysandra shift into her human form—and ran an eye over the injuries that peppered her skin.
Rowan’s skin tightened over his bones. He had the feeling that the ground was about to slip from under his feet as Dorian appeared at the rail of the main deck, gaunt-faced and haggard, no doubt having used the last of his magic to propel a longboat over, and panted, “The coast. Aelin is out by the coast where we sent Elide—they all are.”
That was miles away. How the hell had they gotten there?
“How do you know?” Lysandra demanded, tying back her hair with bloody fingers.
“Because I can feel something out there,” Dorian said. “Flame and shadow and death. Like Lorcan and Aelin and someone else. Someone ancient. Powerful.” Rowan braced himself for it, but he still wasn’t ready for the pure terror when Dorian added, “And female.”
Maeve had found them.
The battle had not been for any sort of victory or conquest.
But a distraction. While Maeve slipped away to get the real prize.
They’d never arrive fast enough. If he flew on his own, his magic already drained to the breaking point, he would be of little help. They stood a better chance, Aelin stood a better chance, if they were all there.
Rowan whirled to the horizon behind them—to the wyverns destroying the remnants of the fleet. Rowing would take too long; his magic was gutted. But a wyvern … That might do.
71
The Queen of the Fae was exactly as Aelin remembered. Swirling dark robes, a beautiful pale face beneath onyx hair, red lips set in a faint smile … No crown adorned her head, for all who breathed, even the dead who slumbered, would know her for what she was.
Dreams and nightmares given form; the dark face of the moon.
And kneeling before Maeve, a stone-faced sentry holding a blade to her bare throat, Elide trembled. Her guards, all men in Ansel’s armor, had likely been killed before they could shout a warning. From the weapons that were only half out of their sheaths, they hadn’t even had the chance to fight.
Manon had gone still as death at the sight of Elide, her iron nails sliding free.
Aelin forced a half smile to her mouth, shoved her raw, bleeding heart into a box deep inside her chest. “Not as impressive as Doranelle, if you ask me, but at least a swamp really reflects your true nature, you know? It’ll be a wonderful new home for you. Definitely worth the cost of coming all this way to conquer it.”
At the edge of the hill that flowed down to the beach a small party of Fae warriors monitored them. Male and female, all armed, all strangers. A massive, elegant ship idled in the calm bay beyond.
Maeve smiled slightly. “What a joy, to learn that your usual good spirits remain undimmed in such dark days.”
“How could they not, when so many of your pretty males are in my company?”
Maeve cocked her head, her heavy curtain of dark hair sliding off a shoulder. And as if in answer, Lorcan appeared at the edge of the dunes, panting, wild-eyed, sword out. His focus—and horror, Aelin realized—on Elide. On the sentry holding the blade against her white neck. Maeve gave a little smile to the warrior, but looked to Manon.
With her attention elsewhere, Lorcan took up a place at Aelin’s side—as if they were somehow allies in this, would fight back-to-back. Aelin didn’t bother to say anything to him. Not as Maeve said to the witch, “I know your face.”
That face remained cold and impassive. “Let the girl go.”
A small, breathy laugh. “Ah.” Ael
in’s stomach clenched as that ancient focus shifted to Elide. “Claimed by queen, and witch, and … my Second, it seems.”
Aelin tensed. She didn’t think Lorcan was breathing beside her.
Maeve toyed with a strand of Elide’s limp hair. The Lady of Perranth shook. “The girl who Lorcan Salvaterre summoned me to save.”
That ripple of Lorcan’s power the day Ansel’s fleet had closed in … She’d known it was a summoning. The same way she’d summoned the Valg to Skull’s Bay. She’d refused to immediately explain Ansel’s presence, wanting to enjoy the surprise of it, and he had summoned Maeve’s armada to take on what he’d believed to be an enemy fleet. To save Elide.
Lorcan just said, “I’m sorry.”
Aelin didn’t know if it was to her or Elide, whose eyes now widened with outrage. But Aelin said, “You think I didn’t know? That I didn’t take precautions?”
Lorcan’s brows furrowed. Aelin shrugged.
But Maeve went on, “Lady Elide Lochan, daughter of Cal and Marion Lochan. No wonder the witch itches to retrieve you, if her bloodline runs in your veins.”
Manon snarled a warning.
Aelin drawled to the Fae Queen, “Well, you didn’t drag your ancient carcass all the way here for nothing. So let’s get on with it. What do you want for the girl?”
That adder’s smile curled Maeve’s lips again.
Elide was trembling; every bone, every pore was trembling in terror at the immortal queen standing above her, at the guard’s blade at her throat. The rest of the queen’s escort remained distant—but it was to the escort that Lorcan kept glancing, his face tight, his own body near-shaking with restrained wrath.
This was the queen to whom he’d given his heart? This cold creature who looked at the world with mirthless eyes? Who had killed those soldiers without a blink of hesitation?
The queen whom Lorcan had summoned for her. He’d brought Maeve to save her—
Elide’s breath turned sharp in her throat. He’d betrayed them. Betrayed Aelin for her—