Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass 4)

He couldn’t stop the tears leaking down his face, even as he rasped, “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

A smile tugged at her lips, and her eyes—their eyes—sparkled. “Hello, Aedion.”

Hearing his name on her tongue snapped something loose, and he had to close his eyes, his body barking in pain as it shook with the force of the tears trying to get out of him. When he’d mastered himself, he said hoarsely, “Thank you for your spectacular rescue. Let’s never do it again.”

She snorted, her eyes lined with silver. “You’re exactly the way I dreamed you’d be.”

Something in her smile told him that she already knew—that Ren or Chaol had told her about him, about being Adarlan’s Whore, about the Bane. So all he could say was, “You’re a little taller than I’d imagined, but no one’s perfect.”

“It’s a miracle the king managed to resist executing you until yesterday.”

“Tell me he’s in a rage the likes of which have never been seen before.”

“If you listen hard enough, you can actually hear him shrieking from the palace.”

Aedion laughed, and it made his wound ache. But the laugh died as he looked her over from head to toe. “I’m going to throttle Ren and the captain for letting you save me alone.”

“And here we go.” She looked at the ceiling and sighed loudly. “A minute of pleasant conversation, and then the territorial Fae bullshit comes raging out.”

“I waited an extra thirty seconds.”

Her mouth quirked to the side. “I honestly thought you’d last ten.”

He laughed again, and realized that though he’d loved her before, he’d merely loved the memory—the princess taken away from him. But the woman, the queen—the last shred of family he had …

“It was worth it,” he said, his smile fading. “You were worth it. All these years, all the waiting. You’re worth it.” He’d known the moment she had looked up at him as she stood before his execution block, defiant and wicked and wild.

“I think that’s the healing tonic talking,” she said, but her throat bobbed as she wiped at her eyes. She lowered her feet to the floor. “Chaol said you’re even meaner than I am most of the time.”

“Chaol is already on his way to being throttled, and you’re not helping.”

She gave that half smile again. “Ren’s in the North—I didn’t get to see him before Chaol convinced him to go there for his own safety.”

“Good,” he managed to say, and patted the bed beside him. Someone had stuffed him into a clean shirt, so he was decent enough, but he managed to haul himself halfway into a sitting position. “Come here.”

She glanced at the bed, at his hand, and he wondered whether he’d crossed some line, assumed some bond between them that no longer existed—until her shoulders slumped and she uncoiled from the chair in a smooth, feline motion before plopping down on the mattress.

Her scent hit him. For a second, he could only breathe it deep into his lungs, his Fae instincts roaring that this was his family, this was his queen, this was Aelin. He would have known her even if he were blind.

Even if there was another scent entwined with hers. Staggeringly powerful and ancient and—male. Interesting.

She plumped up the pillows, and he wondered if she knew how much it meant to him, as a demi-Fae male, to have her lean over to straighten his blankets, too, then run a sharp, critical eye down his face. To fuss over him.

He stared right back, scanning for any wounds, any sign that the blood on her the other day hadn’t belonged only to those men. But save for a few shallow, scabbed cuts on her left forearm, she was unharmed.

When she seemed assured that he wasn’t about to die, and when he was assured the wounds on her arm weren’t infected, she leaned back on the pillows and folded her hands over her abdomen. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

Outside, gulls were crying to each other, and that soft, briny breeze kissed his face. “You,” he whispered. “Tell me everything.”

So she did.

They talked and talked, until Aedion’s voice became hoarse, and then Aelin bullied him into drinking a glass of water. And then she decided that he was looking peaky, so she padded to the kitchen and dug up some beef broth and bread. Lysandra, Chaol, and Nesryn were nowhere to be seen, so they had the apartment to themselves. Good. Aelin didn’t feel like sharing her cousin right now.

As Aedion devoured his food, he told her the unabridged truth of what had happened to him these past ten years, just as she’d done for him. And when they were both finished telling their stories, when their souls were drained and grieving—but gilded with growing joy—she nestled down across from Aedion, her cousin, her friend.

They’d been forged of the same ore, two sides of the same golden, scarred coin.

She’d known it when she spied him atop the execution platform. She couldn’t explain it. No one could understand that instant bond, that soul-deep assurance and rightness, unless they, too, had experienced it. But she owed no explanations to anyone—not about Aedion.

They were still sprawled on the bed, the sun now settling into late afternoon, and Aedion was just staring at her, blinking, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Are you ashamed of what I’ve done?” she dared to ask.

His brow creased. “Why would you ever think that?”

She couldn’t quite look him in the eye as she ran a finger down the blanket. “Are you?”

Aedion was silent long enough that she lifted her head—but found him gazing toward the door, as though he could see through it, across the city, to the captain. When he turned to her, his handsome face was open—soft in a way she doubted many ever saw. “Never,” he said. “I could never be ashamed of you.”

She doubted that, and when she twisted away, he gently grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes to him.

“You survived; I survived. We’re together again. I once begged the gods to let me see you—if only for a moment. To see you and know you’d made it. Just once; that was all I ever hoped for.”

She couldn’t stop the tears that began slipping down her face.

“Whatever you had to do to survive, whatever you did from spite or rage or selfishness … I don’t give a damn. You’re here—and you’re perfect. You always were, and you always will be.”

She hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear that.

She flung her arms around him, careful of his injuries, and squeezed him as tightly as she dared. He wrapped an arm around her, the other bracing them, and buried his face in her neck.

“I missed you,” she whispered onto him, breathing in his scent—that male warrior’s scent she was just learning, remembering. “Every day, I missed you.”

Her skin grew damp beneath his face. “Never again,” he promised.

It was honestly no surprise that after Aelin had trashed the Vaults, a new warren of sin and debauchery had immediately sprung up in the slums.

The owners weren’t even trying to pretend it wasn’t a complete imitation of the original—not with a name like the Pits. But while its predecessor had at least provided a tavern-like atmosphere, the Pits didn’t bother. In an underground chamber hewn from rough stone, you paid for your alcohol with your cover charge—and if you wanted to drink, you had to brave the casks in the back and serve yourself. Aelin found herself somewhat inclined to like the owners: they operated by a different set of rules.

But some things remained the same.

The floors were slick and reeking of ale and piss and worse, but Aelin had anticipated that. What she hadn’t expected, exactly, was the deafening noise. The rock walls and close quarters magnified the wild cheers

from the fighting pits the place had been named after, where onlookers were betting on the brawls within.

Brawls like the one she was about to participate in.

Beside her, Chaol, cloaked and masked, shifted on his feet. “This is a terrible idea,” he murmured.

“You said you couldn’t find the Valg nests, anyway,” she said with equal quiet, tucking a loose strand of her hair—dyed red once more—back under her hood. “Well, here are some lovely commanders and minions, just waiting for you to track them home. Consider it Arobynn’s form of an apology.” Because he knew that she would bring Chaol with her tonight. She’d guessed as much, debated not bringing the captain, but in the end she needed him here, needed to be here herself, more than she needed to upend Arobynn’s plans.

Chaol sliced a glare in her direction, but then shifted his attention to the crowd around them, and said again, “This is a terrible idea.”

She followed his stare toward Arobynn, who stood across the sandy pit in which two men were fighting, now so bloodied up she couldn’t tell who was in worse shape. “He summons, I answer. Just keep your eyes open.”

It was the most they’d said to each other all night. But she had other things to worry about.

It had taken just one minute in this place to understand why Arobynn had summoned her.

The Valg guards flocked to the Pits—not to arrest and torture, but to watch. They were interspersed among the crowd, hooded, smiling, cold.

As if the blood and rage fueled them.

Beneath her black mask, Aelin focused on her breathing.

Three days after his rescue, Aedion was still injured badly enough that he remained bedridden, one of Chaol’s most trusted rebels watching over the apartment. But she needed someone at her back tonight, so she’d asked Chaol and Nesryn to come. Even if she knew it would play into Arobynn’s plans.

She’d tracked them down at a covert rebel meeting, to no one’s delight.

Especially when, apparently, the Valg had vanished with their victims and couldn’t be found despite days of tracking them. One look at Chaol’s pursed lips had told her exactly whose antics he thought were to blame for it. So she was glad to talk to Nesryn instead, if only to take her mind off the new task pressing on her, its chiming now a mocking invitation from the glass castle. But destroying the clock tower—freeing magic—had to wait.