“He’s a sadist.” Cairn … No amount of training, both off the battlefield and on it, had ever broken the Fae warrior of his penchant for cruelty. Rowan had locked him up, flogged him, disciplined him, wielded whatever shred of compassion he could muster in himself … nothing. Cairn had been born savoring the suffering of others.

So Rowan had kicked him out of his own army—dumped him into Lorcan’s lap. Cairn had lasted about a month with Lorcan before he was packed off to an isolated legion, commanded by a general who was not cadre and had no interest in being one. The tales of what Cairn did to the soldiers and innocents he encountered …

There were few laws against murder with the Fae. And Rowan had considered sparing the world of Cairn’s vileness every time he’d seen him. For Maeve to appoint him to the cadre, to give him almost unchecked power and influence—

“I’d bet every bit of gold I have that she’s going to let Aelin nearly break herself destroying Erawan … then strike when she’s weakest,” Fenrys mused.

For Maeve not to have given either male a gag order through the blood oath … She wanted him—wanted Aelin—to have this knowledge. To worry and speculate.

Fenrys and Gavriel swapped wary glances. “We still serve her, Rowan,” Gavriel murmured. “And we still have to kill Lorcan when the time comes.”

“Why bring this up at all? I won’t get in your way. Neither will Aelin, believe me.”

“Because,” Fenrys said, “Maeve’s style isn’t to execute. It’s to punish—slowly. Over years. But she wants Lorcan dead. And not half dead, or throat slit, but irrevocably dead.”

“Beheaded and burned,” Gavriel said grimly.

Rowan loosed a breath. “Why?”

Fenrys cast his glance over the edge of the stairs—to where Aelin slept, her golden hair shining in the moonlight. “Lorcan and you are the most powerful males in the world.”

“You forget Lorcan and Aelin can’t even stand to be in the same breathing space. I doubt there’s a chance of an alliance between them.”

“All we’re saying,” Fenrys explained, “is that Maeve does not make decisions without considerable motive. Be ready for anything. Sending her armada, wherever it is, is only the start.”

The marsh beasts roared, and Rowan wanted to roar right back. If Aelin and Cairn ever encountered each other, if Maeve had some plan beyond her greed for the keys …

Aelin turned in her sleep, scowling at the ruckus, Lysandra dozing beside her in ghost leopard form, that fluffy tail twitching. Rowan pushed off the wall, more than ready to join his queen. But he found Fenrys staring at her as well, his face tight and drawn. Fenrys’s voice was a broken whisper as he said, “Kill me. If that order is given. Kill me, Rowan, before I have to do it.”

“You’ll be dead before you can get within a foot of her.”

Not a threat—a promise and a plain statement of fact. Fenrys’s shoulders slumped in thanks.

“I’m glad, you know,” Fenrys said with unusual graveness, “that I got this time. That Maeve unintentionally gave me that. That I got to know what it was like—to be here, as a part of this.”

Rowan didn’t have words, so he looked to Gavriel.

But the Lion was merely nodding as he stared down at the little camp below. At his sleeping son.

54

The last leg of the trek the next morning was the longest yet, Manon thought.

Close—so close to this Lock the queen with a witch emblem in her pocket was seeking.

She’d fallen asleep, pondering how it could be connected, but gleaned nothing. They’d all been awake before dawn, dragged to consciousness by the oppressive humidity, so heavy it felt like a blanket weighing on Manon’s shoulders.

The queen was mostly quiet from where she walked at the head of their company, her mate scouting overhead, and her cousin and the shape-shifter flanking her, the latter wearing the skin of a truly horrific swamp viper. The Wolf and the Lion brought up the rear, sniffing and listening for anything wrong.

The people who had once dwelled within these lands had not met easy or pleasant ends. She could feel their pain even now, whispering through the stones, rippling through the water. That marsh beast that had snuck up on her last night was the mildest of the horrors here. At her side, Dorian Havilliard’s tense tan face seemed to suggest he felt the same.

Manon waded waist-deep through a pool of warm, thick water and asked, if only to get it out of where it rattled in her skull, “How will she use the keys to banish Erawan and his Valg? Or, for that matter, get rid of the things he’s created that aren’t of his original realm, but are some hybrid?”

Sapphire eyes slid toward her. “What?”

“Is there a way of weeding out who belongs and who doesn’t? Or will all those with Valg blood”—she put a hand on her sodden chest—“be sent into that realm of darkness and cold?”

Dorian’s teeth gleamed as he clenched them. “I don’t know,” he admitted, watching Aelin nimbly hop over a stone. “If she does, I assume she’ll tell us when it’s most convenient for her.”

And the least convenient for them, he didn’t need to add.

“And she gets to decide, I suppose? Who stays and who goes.”

“Banishing people to live with the Valg isn’t something Aelin would willingly do.”

“But she does decide, ultimately.”

Dorian paused atop a little hill. “Whoever holds those keys gets to decide. And you’d better pray to whatever wicked gods you worship that it’s Aelin holding them in the end.”

“What about you?”

“Why should I wish to go anywhere near those things?”

“You’re as powerful as she is. You could wield them. Why not?”

The others were swiftly pulling ahead, but Dorian remained still. Even had the audacity to grip her wrist—hard. “Why not?” There was such unyielding coldness in that beautiful face. She couldn’t turn away from it. A hot, humid breeze shoved past, dragging her hair with it. The wind didn’t touch him, didn’t ruffle one raven-dark hair on his head. A shield—he was shielding himself. Against her, or whatever was in this swamp? He said softly, “Because I was the one who did it.”

She waited.

His sapphire eyes were chips of ice. “I killed my father. I shattered the castle. I purged my own court. So if I had the keys, Wing Leader,” he finished as he released her wrist, “I have no doubt that I would do the same once more—across this continent.”

“Why?” she breathed, her blood chilling.

She was indeed a bit terrified of the icy rage rippling from him as Dorian said, “Because she died. And even before she did, this world saw to it that she suffered, and was afraid, and alone. And even though no one will remember who she was, I do. I will never forget the color of her eyes, or the way she smiled. And I will never forgive them for taking it away.”

Too breakable—he’d said of human women. No wonder he’d come to her.

Manon had no answer, and she knew he wasn’t looking for one, but she said anyway, “Good.”

She ignored the glimmer of relief that flashed across his face as she moved ahead.

Rowan’s calculations hadn’t been wrong: they reached the Lock by midday.

Aelin supposed that even if Rowan hadn’t scouted ahead, it would have been obvious from the moment they beheld the waterlogged, labyrinthine complex of wrecked pillars that the Lock likely lay in the half-crumbling stone dome in its center. Mostly because everything—every choking weed and drop of water—seemed to be leaning away from it. Like the complex was the dark, rippling heartbeat of the marshes.

Rowan shifted as he landed before where they had all gathered on a grassy, dry bit of land on the outskirts of the sprawling complex, not even missing a step as he walked to her side. She tried not to look too relieved as he safely returned.

She really tortured them, she realized, by shoving her way into danger whenever she felt like it. Perhaps she’d try to be better about it, if this dread was at all like what they felt.

“This whole place is too quiet,” Rowan said. “I probed the area, but … nothing.”

Aedion drew the Sword of Orynth from across his back. “We’ll circle the perimeter, making smaller passes until we get up to the building itself. No surprises.”

Lysandra stepped back from them, bracing for the shift. “I’ll take the water—if you hear two roars, get to higher ground. One quick roar, and it’s clear.”

Aelin nodded in confirmation and order to go ahead. By the time Aedion had strode for the outer wall of the complex, Lysandra had slipped into the water, all scales and talons.

Rowan jerked his chin to Gavriel and Fenrys. Both males silently shifted and then trotted ahead, the latter joining Aedion, the former in the opposite direction.

Rowan kept to Aelin’s side, Dorian and the witch at her back, as they waited for the all clear.

When Lysandra’s solitary, swift roar cleaved the air, Aelin murmured to Rowan, “What’s the catch? Where is the catch? It’s too easy.” Indeed, there was nothing and no one here. No threat beyond what might be rotting away in the pits and sinkholes.

“Believe me, I’ve been considering it.”

She could almost feel him sliding into that frozen, raging place—where born instinct and centuries of training had him seeing the world as a killing field, and willing to do anything to eradicate any threats to her. Not just his Fae nature—but Rowan’s nature. To protect, to shield, to fight for what and who he loved.

Aelin stepped close and kissed him on the neck. Those pine-green eyes warmed slightly as they shifted from the ruin to scan her face.

“When we get back to civilization,” he said, his voice deepening as he kissed her cheek, her ear, her brow, “I’m going to find you the nicest inn on the whole gods-damned continent.”

“Oh?” He kissed her mouth. Once, twice.

“With good food, a disgustingly comfortable bed, and a big bathtub.”

Even in the marshes, it was easy to become drunk on him, on the taste and smell and sound and feel of him. “How big?” she murmured, not caring what the others thought as they returned.

“Big enough for two,” he said onto her lips.

Her blood turned sparkling at the promise. She kissed him once—briefly but deeply. “I have no defenses against such offers. Especially those made by such a pretty male.”

He scowled at pretty, nipping at her ear with his canines. “I keep a tally, you know, Princess. To remind myself to repay you the next time we’re alone for all the truly wonderful things you say.”

Her toes curled in her soggy boots. But she patted him on the shoulder, looking him over with absolute irreverence, saying as she walked ahead, “I certainly hope you make me beg for it.”

His answering growl from behind made heat bloom in her core.

The feeling lasted for about a minute, however. Within a few turns into the maze of crumbling walls and pillars, leaving Dorian to guard the entrance and Rowan slipping ahead, Aelin found herself beside the witch—who looked more bored than anything. Fair enough. She’d been dragged here, after all.

Wading as quietly as they could into the towering archways and pillars of stone, Rowan signaled from a crossroads ahead. They were getting close.

Aelin unsheathed Goldryn, Manon drawing her own sword in answer.

Aelin lifted her brows as she glanced between their two blades. “What’s your sword called?”

“Wind-Cleaver.”

Aelin clicked her tongue. “Good name.”

“Yours?”

“Goldryn.”

A slash of iron teeth as they were bared in a half smile. “Not as good a name.”

“Blame my ancestor.” She certainly did. For many, many things.

They reached a crossroads—one leading left, one right. Neither offering a hint of the direct path to the center of the ruin.