“I trained. I healed my body. I grew strong—stronger than I’d been before. And I stopped thinking about it. A month later I went hunting for Crochans, and walked back into the Keep with three of their hearts in a box. If your grandmother was surprised I hadn’t died, she didn’t show it. You were there that night I came back. You toasted in my honor, and said you were proud to have such a fine Second.”
Still on her knees, the damp earth soaking into her pants, Manon stared at that hideous brand.
“I never went back to the hunter. I didn’t know how to explain the brand. How to explain your grandmother, or apologize. I was afraid he’d treat me as your grandmother had. So I never went back.” Her mouth wobbled. “I’d fly overhead every few years, just … just to see.” She wiped at her face. “He never married. And even when he was an old man, I’d sometimes see him sitting on that front porch. As if he were waiting for someone.”
Something … something was cracking and aching in Manon’s chest, caving in on itself.
Asterin sat among the flowers and began pulling on her clothes. She was weeping silently, but Manon didn’t know if she should reach out. She didn’t know how to comfort, how to soothe.
“I stopped caring,” Asterin said at last. “About anything and everything. After that, it was all a joke, and a thrill, and nothing scared me.”
That wildness, that untamed fierceness … They weren’t born of a free heart, but of one that had known despair so complete that living brightly, living violently, was the only way to outrun it.
“But I told myself”—Asterin finished b.u.t.toning her jacket—“I would dedicate my life wholly to being your Second. To serving you. Not your grandmother. Because I knew your grandmother had hidden me from you for a reason. I think she knew you would have fought for me. And whatever your grandmother saw in you that made her afraid … It was worth waiting for. Worth serving. So I have.”
That day Abraxos had made the Crossing, when her Thirteen had looked ready to fight their way out should her grandmother give the order to kill her …
Asterin met her stare. “Sorrel, Vesta, and I have known for a very long time what your grandmother is capable of. We never said anything because we feared that if you knew, it could jeopardize you. The day you saved Petrah instead of letting her fall … You weren’t the only one who understood why your grandmother made you slaughter that Crochan.” Asterin shook her head. “I am begging you, Manon. Do not let your grandmother and these men take our witches and use them like this. Do not let them turn our witchlings into monsters. What they’ve already done … I am begging you to help me undo it.”
Manon swallowed hard, her throat achingly tight. “If we defy them, they will come after us, and they will kill us.”
“I know. We all know. That’s what we wanted to tell you the other night.”
Manon looked at her cousin’s shirt, as if she could see through to the brand beneath. “That is why you’ve been behaving this way.”
“I am not foolish enough to pretend that I don’t have a weak spot where witchlings are concerned.”
This was why her grandmother had pushed for decades to have Asterin demoted.
“I don’t think it’s a weak spot,” Manon admitted, and glanced over her shoulder to where Abraxos was sniffing at the wildflowers. “You’re to be reinstated as Second.”
Asterin bowed her head. “I am sorry, Manon.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” She dared add, “Are there others whom my grandmother treated this way?”
“Not in the Thirteen. But in other covens. Most let themselves die when your grandmother cast them out.” And Manon had never been told. She had been lied to.
Manon gazed westward across the mountains. Hope, Elide had said—hope for a better future. For a home.
Not obedience, brutality, discipline. But hope.
“We need to proceed carefully.”
Asterin blinked, the gold flecks in her black eyes glittering. “What are you planning?”
“Something very stupid, I think.”
64
Rowan barely remembered anything of the agonizing trip back to Rifthold. By the time they had snuck across the city walls and through the alleys to reach the warehouse, he was so exhausted that he’d hardly hit the mattress before unconsciousness dragged him under.
He awoke that night—or was it the next?—with Aelin and Aedion sitting on the side of the bed, talking.
“Solstice is in six days; we need to have everything lined up by then,” she was saying to her cousin.
“So you’re going to ask Ress and Brullo to just leave a back door open so you can sneak in?”
“Don’t be so simpleminded. I’m going to walk in through the front door.”
Of course she was. Rowan let out a groan, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth.
She whirled to him, half lunging across the bed. “How are you feeling?” She brushed a hand over his forehead, testing for fever. “You seem all right.”
“Fine,” he grunted. His arm and shoulder ached. But he’d endured worse. The blood loss had been what knocked his feet out from under him—more blood than he’d ever lost at once, at least so quickly, thanks to his magic being stifled. He ran an eye over Aelin. Her face was drawn and pale, a bruise kissed her cheekbone, and four scratches marred her neck.
He was going to slaughter that witch.
He said as much, and Aelin smiled. “If you’re in the mood for violence, then I suppose you’re just fine.” But the words were thick, and her eyes gleamed. He reached out with his good arm to grip one of her hands and squeezed tightly. “Please don’t ever do that again,” she breathed.
“Next time, I’ll ask them not to fire arrows at you—or me.”
Her mouth tightened and wobbled, and she rested her brow on his good arm. He lifted the other arm, sending burning pain shooting through him as he stroked her hair. It was still matted in a few spots with blood and dirt. She must not have even bothered with a full bath.
Aedion cleared his throat. “We’ve been thinking up a plan for freeing magic—and taking out the king and Dorian.”
“Just—tell me tomorrow,” Rowan said, a headache already blooming. The mere thought of explaining to them again that every time he’d seen h.e.l.lfire used it had been more destructive than anyone could antic.i.p.ate made him want to go back to sleep. G.o.ds, without his magic … Humans were remarkable. To be able to survive without leaning on magic … He had to give them credit.
Aedion yawned—the lousiest attempt at one Rowan had ever seen—and excused himself.
“Aedion,” Rowan said, and the general paused in the doorway. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, brother.” He walked out.
Aelin was looking between them, her lips pursed again.
“What?” he said.
She shook her head. “You’re too nice when you’re wounded. It’s unsettling.”
Seeing the tears shine in her eyes just now had nearly unsettled him. If magic had already been freed, those witches would have been ashes the moment that arrow hit him. “Go take a bath,” he growled. “I’m not sleeping next to you while you’re covered in that witch’s blood.”
She examined her nails, still slightly lined with dirt and blue blood. “Ugh. I’ve washed them ten times already.” She rose from her seat on the side of the bed.
“Why,” he asked. “Why did you save her?”
She dragged a hand through her hair. A white bandage around her upper arm peeked through her shirt with the movement. He hadn’t even been conscious for that wound. He stifled the urge to demand to see it, a.s.sess the injury himself—and tug her close against him.
“Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin … ,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.”
Rowan stilled. His queen gazed at the floor, as if recalling the moment.
“How can I take away somebody who means the world to someone else? Even if she’s my enemy.” A little shrug. “I thought you were dying. It seemed like bad luck to let her die out of spite. And …” she snorted. “Falling into a ravine seemed like a pretty s.h.i.tty way to die for someone who fights that spectacularly.”
Rowan smiled, drinking in the sight of her: the pale, grave face; the dirty clothes; the injuries. Yet her shoulders were back, chin high. “You make me proud to serve you.”
A jaunty slant to her lips, but silver lined her eyes. “I know.”
“You look like s.h.i.t,” Lysandra said to Aelin. Then she remembered Evangeline, who stared at her wide-eyed, and winced. “Sorry.”
Evangeline refolded her napkin in her lap, every inch the dainty little queen. “You said I’m not to use such language—and yet you do.”
“I can curse,” Lysandra said as Aelin suppressed a smile, “because I’m older, and I know when it’s most effective. And right now, our friend looks like absolute s.h.i.t.”
Evangeline lifted her eyes to Aelin, her red-gold hair bright in the morning sun through the kitchen window. “You look even worse in the morning, Lysandra.”