Heir of Fire (20 page)

But Aedion barked out a laugh. “What?” His companions turned to him, brows raised. Chaol glanced at the ring on the general's
fi
nger. He hadn't been mistaken. It was identical to the ones the king, Perrington, and others had worn.

Aedion caught Chaol's look and stopped his circling.

For a moment, the general stared at him, a glimmer of surprise and amusement darting across his tan face.
Th
en Aedion purred, “You've turned out to be a far more interesting man than I thought, Captain.”

“Explain, Aedion,” the old man said so
ft
ly, but not weakly.

Aedion smiled broadly as he yanked the black ring o
ff
his
fi
nger. “
Th
e day the king presented me with the Sword of Orynth, he also o
ff
ered me a ring.
Th
anks to my heritage, my senses are . . . sharper. I thought the ring smelled strange—­and knew only a fool would accept that kind of gi
ft
from him. So I had a replica made.
Th
e real one I chucked into the sea. But I always wondered what it did,” he mused, tossing the ring with one hand and catching it. “It seems the captain knows. And disapproves.”

Th
e man with the twin swords ceased his circling, and the grin he gave Chaol was nothing short of feral. “You're right, Aedion,” he said without taking his eyes o
ff
Chaol. “He
is
more interesting than he seems.”

Aedion pocketed the ring as if it ­were—­as if it ­were indeed a fake. And Chaol realized that he'd revealed far more than he'd ever intended.

Aedion began circling again, the scarred young man echoing the graceful movements. “A magical leash—­when there is no magic le
ft
,” the general mused. “And yet you still followed me, believing I was under the king's spell.
Th
inking you could use me to win the rebels' favor? Fascinating.”

Chaol kept his mouth shut. He'd already said enough to damn himself.

Aedion went on, “
Th
ese two said your assassin friend was a rebel sympathizer.
Th
at she handed over information to Archer Finn without thinking twice—­that she allowed rebels to sneak out of the city when she was commanded to put them down. Was she the one who told you about the king's rings, or did you discover that tidbit all on your own? What, exactly, is going on in that glass palace when the king isn't looking?”

Chaol clamped down on his retort. When it became clear he ­wouldn't speak, Aedion shook his head.

“You know how this has to end,” Aedion said, and there ­wasn't anything mocking in it. Just cold calculation.
Th
e true face of the Northern Wolf. “
Th
e way I see it, you signed your own death warrant when you decided to trail me, and now that you know so much . . . You have two options, Captain: we can torture it out of you and then we'll kill you, or you can tell us what you know and we'll make it quick for you. As painless as possible, on my honor.”

Th
ey stopped circling.

Chaol had faced death a few times in the past months. Had faced and seen and dealt it. But
this
death, where Celaena and Dorian and his mother would never know what happened to him . . . It disgusted him, somehow. Enraged him.

Aedion stepped closer to where Chaol knelt.

He could take out the scarred one, then hope he could stand against Aedion—­or at least
fl
ee. He
would
fi
ght, because that was the only way he could embrace this sort of death.

Aedion's sword was at the ready—­the sword that belonged to Celaena by blood and right. Chaol had assumed he was a two-­faced butcher. Aedion
was
a traitor. But not to Terrasen. Aedion had been playing a very dangerous game since arriving ­here—­since his kingdom fell ten years ago. And tricking the king into thinking that he'd been wearing his ring all this time—­that was indeed information Aedion would be willing to kill to keep safe. Yet there was other information Chaol could use, perhaps, to get out of this alive.

Regardless of how shattered she'd been when she le
ft
, Celaena was safe now. She was away from Adarlan. But Dorian, with his magic, with the threat he secretly posed, was not. Aedion took a readying breath to kill him. Keeping Dorian protected was all he had le
ft
, all that had ever really mattered. If these rebels did indeed know something—
anything
—about magic that might help to free it, if he could use Aedion to get that information . . .

It was a gamble—­the biggest gamble he'd ever made. Aedion raised his sword.

With a silent prayer for forgiveness, Chaol looked straight at Aedion. “Aelin is alive.”

•

Aedion Ashryver had been called Wolf, general, prince, traitor, and murderer. And he was all of those things, and more. Liar, deceiver, and trickster ­were his par­tic­u­lar favorites—­the titles only those closest to him knew.

Adarlan's Whore, that's what the ones who didn't know him called him. It was true—­in so many ways, it was true, and he had never minded it, not really. It had allowed him to maintain control in the North, to keep the bloodshed down to a minimum and a lie. Half the Bane ­were rebels, and the other half sympathizers, so many of their “battles” in the North had been staged, the body count a deceit and an exaggeration—­at least, once the corpses got up from the killing
fi
eld under cover of darkness and went home to their families. Adarlan's Whore. He had not minded. Until now.

Cousin—that had been his most beloved title. Cousin, kin, protector.
Th
ose ­were the secret names he harbored deep within, the names he whispered to himself when the northern wind was shrieking through the Staghorns. Sometimes that wind sounded like the screams of his people being led to the butchering blocks. And sometimes it sounded like Aelin—­Aelin, whom he had loved, who should have been his queen, and to whom he would have one day sworn the blood oath.

Aedion stood on the decaying planks of an empty dock in the slums, staring at the Avery.
Th
e captain was beside him, spitting blood into the water thanks to the beating given to him by Ren Allsbrook, Aedion's newest conspirator and yet another dead man risen from the grave.

Ren, heir and Lord of Allsbrook, had trained with Aedion as a child—­and had once been his rival. Ten years ago, Ren and his grandfather, Murtagh, had escaped the butchering blocks thanks to a diversion started by Ren's parents that cost them their lives and gave Ren the nasty scar down his face. But Aedion hadn't known—­he'd thought them dead, and had been stunned to learn that
they
­were the secret rebel group he'd hunted down upon arriving in Ri
ft
hold. He'd heard the claims that Aelin was alive and raising an army and had dragged himself down from the north to get to the bottom of it and destroy the liars, preferably cutting them up piece by piece.

Th
e king's summons had been a con­ve­nient excuse. Ren and Murtagh had instantly admitted that the rumors had been spread by a former member of their rebel group.
Th
ey had never had or heard of any contact with their dead queen. But seeing Ren and Murtagh, he'd since wondered who ­else might have survived. He had never allowed himself to hope that Aelin . . .

Aedion set his sword on the wooden rail and ran his scarred
fi
ngers down it, taking in the nicks and lines, each mark a tale of legendary battles fought, of great kings long dead.
Th
e sword was the last shred of proof that a mighty kingdom had once existed in the North.

It ­wasn't his sword, not really. In those initial days of blood and conquest, the King of Adarlan had snatched the blade from Rhoe Galathynius's cooling body and brought it to Ri
ft
hold. And there it had stayed, the sword that should have been Aelin's.

So Aedion had fought for years in those war camps and battle
fi
elds, fought to prove his invaluable worth to the king, and had taken everything that was done to him, again and again. When he and the Bane won that
fi
rst battle and the king had proclaimed him the Northern Wolf and o
ff
ered him a boon, Aedion had asked for the sword.

Th
e king attributed the request to an eighteen-­year-­old's romanticism, and Aedion had swaggered about his own glory until everyone believed that he was a traitorous, butchering bastard who made a mockery of the sword just by touching it. But winning back the sword didn't erase his failure.

Even though he'd been thirteen, and even though he'd been forty miles away in Orynth when Aelin had been killed on the country estate, he should have stopped it. He'd been sent to her land upon his mother's death to become Aelin's sword and shield, to serve in the court she was supposed to have ruled, that child of kings. So he should have ridden out when the castle erupted with news that Orlon Gala­thynius had been assassinated. By the time anyone did, Rhoe, Evalin, and Aelin ­were dead.

It was that reminder he'd carried with him on his back, the reminder of who the sword belonged to, and to whom, when he took his last breath and went to the Otherworld, he'd
fi
nally give it.

But now the sword, that weight he'd embraced for years, felt . . . lighter and sharper, far more fragile. In
fi
nitely precious.
Th
e world had slipped from beneath his feet.

No one had spoken for a moment a
ft
er the Captain of the Guard made his claim.
Aelin is alive
.
Th
en the captain had said he'd only speak with Aedion about it.

Just to show they ­weren't blu
ffi
ng about torturing him, Ren had bloodied him up with a cool precision that Aedion grudgingly admired, but the captain had taken the blows. And whenever Ren paused, Murtaugh looking on disapprovingly, the captain said the same thing. A
ft
er it became clear that the captain would either tell only Aedion or die, he'd called o
ff
Ren.
Th
e heir of Allsbrook bristled, but Aedion had dealt with plenty of young men like him in the war camps. It never took much to get them to fall in line. Aedion gave him a long, hard stare, and Ren backed down.

Which was how they wound up ­here, Chaol cleaning o
ff
his face with a scrap of his shirt. For the past few minutes, Aedion had listened to the most unlikely story he'd ever heard.
Th
e story of Celaena Sardothien, the infamous assassin, being trained by Arobynn Hamel, the story of her downfall and year in Endovier, and how she'd wound up in the ridiculous competition to become the King's Champion.
Th
e story of Aelin, his Queen, in a death camp, and then serving in her enemy's ­house.

Aedion braced his hands on the rail. It ­couldn't be true. Not a
ft
er ten years. Ten years without hope, without proof.

“She has your eyes,” Chaol said, working his jaw. If this assassin—an
assassin
, gods above—­was truly Aelin, then she was the King's Champion.
Th
en she was the captain's—

“You sent her to Wendlyn,” Aedion said, his voice ragged.
Th
e tears would come later. Right now, he was emptied. Gutted. Every lie, every rumor and act and party he'd thrown, every battle, real or faked, every life he'd taken so more could live . . . How would he ever explain that to her? Adarlan's Whore.

“I didn't know who she was. I just thought she would be safer there because of what she is.”

“You realize you've only given me a bigger reason to kill you.” Aedion clenched his jaw. “Do you have any idea what kind of risk you took in telling me? I could be working for the king—­you
thought
I was in thrall to him, and all you had for proof against it was a quick story. You might as well have killed her yourself.” Fool—­stupid, reckless fool. But the captain still had the upper hand ­here—­the king's noble captain, who was now toeing the line of treason. He'd wondered about the captain's allegiance when Ren told him about the involvement of the King's Champion with the rebels, but—­damn. Aelin.
Aelin
was the King's Champion,
Aelin
had helped the rebels, and gutted Archer Finn. His knees threatened to buckle, but he swallowed the shock, the surprise and terror and glimmer of delight.

“I know it was a risk,” the captain said. “But the men who have those rings—­something changes in their eyes, a kind of darkness that sometimes manifests physically. I ­haven't seen it in you since you've been ­here. And I've never seen someone throw so many parties, but only attend for a few minutes. You ­wouldn't go to such lengths to hide your meetings with the rebels if you ­were enslaved to the king, especially when during all this time the Bane still hasn't come, despite your assurances that it will be ­here soon. It ­doesn't add up.”
Th
e captain met his stare. Perhaps not quite a fool, then. “I think she'd want you to know.”

Th
e captain looked down the river toward the sea.
Th
is place reeked. Aedion had smelled and seen worse in war camps, but the slums of Renaril certainly gave them a run for their money. And Terrasen's capital, Orynth, its once-­shining tower now a slab of
fi
lthy white stone, was well on its way to falling into this level of poverty and despair. But maybe, someday soon . . .

Aelin was
alive
. Alive, and as much of a killer as he was, and working for the same man. “Does the prince know?” He'd never been able to speak with the prince without remembering the days before Terrasen's downfall; he'd never been able to hide that hatred.