Maeve turned her head, that darkness still lashing Aelin. “Look who finally arrived. Another set of traitors.” She smoothed a wrinkle in her flowing gown. “What a val
iant effort you made, Fenrys, delaying your arrival on this beach for as long as you could withstand my summons.” She clicked her tongue. “Did you enjoy playing loyal subject while panting after the young Queen of Fire?”
As if in answer, the darkness squeezed in tight—and Aelin screamed again.
“Stop it,” Fenrys snapped.
“Maeve, please,” Gavriel said, exposing his palms to her.
“Maeve?” the queen crooned. “Not Majesty? Has the Lion gone a bit feral? Perhaps too much time with his unchecked, half-breed bastard?”
“Leave him out of this,” Gavriel said too softly.
But Maeve let the darkness around Aelin part.
She was curled on her side, bleeding from both nostrils now, more blood dribbling from her panting mouth.
Fenrys lunged for her. A wall of black slammed up between them.
“I don’t think so,” Maeve crooned.
Aelin gasped for air, eyes glassy with pain. Eyes that slid to Elide’s. Aelin’s bloody, chapped mouth formed the word again. Run.
She would not. Could not.
Aelin’s arms shook as she tried to raise herself. And Elide knew there was no magic left.
No fire left in the queen. Not one ember.
And the only way Aelin could face this, accept this, was to go down swinging. Like Marion had.
Aelin’s wet, rasping breaths were the only sound above the crashing waves behind them. Even the battle had gone quiet in the distance. Over—or perhaps they were all dead.
Manon still stood there. Still did not move. Elide begged her, “Please. Please.”
Maeve smiled at the witch. “I have no quarrel with you, Blackbeak. Stay out of this and you are free to go where you wish.”
“Please,” Elide pleaded.
Manon’s gold eyes were hard. Cold. She nodded to Maeve. “Agreed.”
Something in Elide’s chest cleaved open.
But Gavriel said from across their little circle, “Majesty—please. Leave Aelin Galathynius to her own war here. Let us return home.”
“Home?” Maeve asked. The black wall between Fenrys and Aelin lowered—but the warrior did not try to cross. He just stared at Aelin, stared at her in that way Elide herself must be looking. He didn’t break that stare until Maeve said to Gavriel, “Is Doranelle still your home?”
“Yes, Majesty,” Gavriel said calmly. “It is an honor to call it such.”
“Honor … ,” Maeve mused. “Yes, you and honor go hand in hand, don’t they? But what of the honor of your vow, Gavriel?”
“I have kept my vow to you.”
“Did I or did I not tell you to execute Lorcan on sight?”
“There were … circumstances that prevented it from happening. We tried.”
“Yet you failed. Am I not supposed to discipline my blood-bonded who fail me?”
Gavriel lowered his head. “Of course—we will accept it. And I will also take on the punishment you intended for Aelin Galathynius.”
Aelin lifted her head slightly, glazed eyes going wide. She tried to speak, but the words had been broken from her, her voice blown out from screaming. Elide knew the word the queen mouthed. No.
Not for her. Elide wondered if Gavriel’s sacrifice was not only for Aelin’s sake. But for Aedion’s. So the son would not have to bear the pain of his queen being hurt—
“Aelin Galathynius,” Maeve mused. “So much talk about Aelin Galathynius. The Queen Who Was Promised. Well, Gavriel”—a vicious smile—“if you’re so invested in her court, why don’t you join it?”
Fenrys tensed, preparing to lunge in front of the dark power for his friend.
But Maeve said, “I sever the blood oath with you, Gavriel. Without honor, without good faith. You are dismissed from my service and stripped of your title.”
“You bitch,” Fenrys snapped as Gavriel’s breathing turned shallow.
“Majesty, please—” Gavriel hissed, clapping a hand over his arm as invisible claws raked two lines down his skin, drawing blood that spilled into the grass. A similar mark appeared on Maeve’s arm, her blood spilling.
“It is done,” she said simply. “Let the world know you, a male of honor, have none. That you betrayed your queen for another, for a bastard get of yours.”
Gavriel stumbled back—then collapsed in the sand, a hand shoved against his chest. Fenrys snarled, his face more lupine than Fae, but Maeve laughed softly. “Oh, you’d like for me to do the same, wouldn’t you, Fenrys? But what greater punishment for the one who is a traitor to me in his very soul than to serve me forever?”
Fenrys hissed, his breath coming in ragged gulps, and Elide wondered if he’d leap upon the queen and try to kill her.
But Maeve turned to Aelin and said, “Get up.”
Aelin tried. Her body failed her.
Maeve clicked her tongue, and an invisible hand hauled Aelin to her feet. Pain-fogged eyes cleared, then filled with cold rage as Aelin took in the approaching queen.
An assassin, Elide reminded herself. Aelin was an assassin, and if Maeve got close enough …
But Maeve didn’t. And those invisible hands cut the tethers on Aelin’s sword belts. Goldryn thunked to the ground. Then daggers slid from their sheaths.
“So many weapons,” Maeve contemplated as the invisible hands disarmed Aelin with brutal efficiency. Even blades hidden beneath clothes found their way out—slicing as they went. Blood bloomed beneath Aelin’s shirt and pants. Why did she stand there—
Gathering her strength. For one last strike. One last stand.
Let the queen believe her broken. “Why?” Aelin rasped. Buying herself time.
Maeve toed a fallen dagger, the blade edged with Aelin’s blood. “Why bother with you at all? Because I can’t very well let you sacrifice yourself to forge a new Lock, can I? Not when you already have what I want. And I have known for a very, very long time that you would give me what I seek, Aelin Galathynius, and have taken the steps toward ensuring that.”
Aelin breathed, “What?”
Maeve said, “Haven’t you figured it out? Why I wanted your mother to bring you to me, why I demanded such things of you this spring?”
None of them dared move.
Maeve snorted, a delicate, feminine sound of triumph. “Brannon stole the keys from me, after I took them from the Valg. They were mine, and he snatched them. And then he mated with that goddess of yours, breeding the fire into the bloodline, ensuring I would think hard before touching his land, his heirs. But all bloodlines fade. And I knew a time would come when Brannon’s flames would dim to a flicker, and I’d be poised to strike.”
Aelin sagged against the hands that held her up.
“But in my dark power, I saw a glimmer of the future. I saw that Mala’s power would surge again. And that you would lead me to the keys. Only you—the one Brannon left clues for, the one who could find all three. And I saw who you were, what you were. I saw who you loved. I saw your mate.”
The sea breeze hissing through the grasses was the only sound.
“What a powerhouse you two would be—you and Prince Rowan. And any offspring of that union …” A vicious smirk. “You and Rowan could rule this continent if you wished. But your children … your children would be powerful enough to rule an empire that could sweep the world.”
Aelin closed her eyes. The Fae males were shaking their heads slowly—not believing it.
“I didn’t know when you would be born, but when Prince Rowan Whitethorn came into this world, when he came of age and was the strongest purebred Fae male in my realm … you were still not there. And I knew what I would have to do. To leash you. To break you to my will, to hand over those keys without thought once you were strong and trained enough to acquire them.”
Aelin’s shoulders shook. Tears slid out past her closed eyes.
“It was so easy to tug on the right psychic thread that day Rowan saw Lyria at the market. To shove him down that other path, to trick those instincts. A slight altering of fate.”
/>
“Oh, gods,” Fenrys breathed.
Maeve said, “So your mate was given to another. And I let him fall in love, let him get her with child. And then I broke him. No one ever asked how those enemy forces came to pass by his mountain home.”
Aelin’s knees gave out completely. Only the invisible hands kept her upright as she wept.
“He took the blood oath without question. And I knew that whenever you were born, whenever you’d come of age … I’d ensure that your paths crossed, and you’d take one look at each other and I’d have you by the throat. Anything I asked for, you’d give to me. Even the keys. For your mate, you could do no less. You almost did that day in Doranelle.”
Slowly, Aelin slid her feet under herself again, the movement so pained that Elide cringed. But Aelin lifted her head, lip curling back from her teeth.
“I will kill you,” Aelin snarled at the Fae Queen.
“That’s what you said to Rowan after you met him, wasn’t it?” Maeve’s faint smile lingered. “I’d pushed and pushed your mother to bring you to me, so you could meet him, so I could have you at last when Rowan felt the bond, but she refused. And we know how well that turned out for her. And during those ten years afterward, I knew you were alive. Somewhere. But when you came to me … when you and your mate looked at each other with only hate in your eyes … I’ll admit I did not anticipate it. That I had broken Rowan Whitethorn so thoroughly that he did not recognize his own mate—that you were so broken by your own pain you didn’t notice, either. And when the signs appeared, the carranam bond washed away any suspicion on his part that you might be his. But not you. How long has it been, Aelin, since you realized he was your mate?”
Aelin said nothing, her eyes churning with rage and grief and despair.
Elide whispered, “Leave her alone.” Lorcan’s grip on her tightened in warning.
Maeve ignored her. “Well? When did you know?”
“At Temis’s temple,” Aelin admitted, glancing to Manon. “The moment the arrow went through his shoulder. Months ago.”
“And you’ve hidden it from him, no doubt to save him from any guilt regarding Lyria, any sort of emotional distress …” Maeve clicked her tongue. “What a noble little liar you are.”
Aelin stared at nothing, her eyes going blank.