Book 4 - Page 95 (2/2)
She half turned. “More executions?”
The vendor jerked his round chin toward a street leading off the market. “You didn’t see the message on your way in?” She gave a sharp shake of the head. He pointed. She’d thought the crowd by the corner was watching some street performer. “Oddest thing. No one can make any sense of it. They say it’s written in what looks like blood, but it’s darker—”
Aelin was already heading toward the street the man had indicated, following the throng of people pressing to see it.
She trailed the crowd, weaving around curious revelers and vendors and common market guards until they all flowed around a corner into a brightly lit dead-end alley.
The crowd had gathered at the pale stone wall at its end, murmuring and milling about.
“What does it mean?” “Who wrote it?” “Sounds like bad news, especially on the solstice.” “There are more, all saying the same thing, right near every major market in the city.”
Aelin pushed through the crowd, an eye on her weapons and purse lest a pickpocket get any bad ideas, and then—
The message had been written in giant black letters, the reek coming off them sure enough that of Valg blood, as if someone with very, very sharp nails had ripped open one of the guards and used him as a paint bucket.
Aelin turned on her heel and ran.
She hurtled through the bustling city streets and the slums, alley after alley, until she reached Chaol’s decrepit house and flung open the door, shouting for him.
The message on the wall had only been one sentence.
Payment for a life debt.
One sentence just for Aelin Galathynius; one sentence that changed everything:
WITCH KILLER—
THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM
67
Aelin and Chaol helped Rowan and Aedion carry the two urns of h.e.l.lfire into the sewers, all of them barely breathing, none of them talking.
Now they stood in the cool, reeking dark, not daring a flame with the two vats sitting next to them on the stone walkway. Aedion and Rowan, with their Fae eyesight, wouldn’t need a torch, anyway.
Rowan shook Chaol’s hand, wis.h.i.+ng him luck. When the Fae Prince turned to Aelin, she focused instead on a torn corner of his cloak—as if it had snagged on some long-ago obstacle and been ripped off. She kept staring at that ripped-off bit of cloak as she embraced him—quickly, tightly, breathing in his scent perhaps for the last time. His hands lingered on her as if he’d hold her a moment longer, but she turned to Aedion.
Ashryver eyes met her own, and she touched the face that was the other side of her fair coin.
“For Terrasen,” she said to him.
“For our family.”
“For Marion.”
“For us.”
Slowly, Aedion drew his blade and knelt, his head bowed as he lifted the Sword of Orynth. “Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”
She did not have room in her heart for tears, would not allow or yield to them.
Aelin took her father’s sword from him, its weight a steady, solid rea.s.surance.
Aedion rose, returning to his place beside Rowan.
She looked at them, at the three males who meant everything—more than everything.
Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”
68
Lysandra’s carriage meandered through the packed city streets. Every block took thrice as long as usual, thanks to the streaming crowds headed to the markets and squares to celebrate the solstice. None of them were aware of what was to occur, or who was making her way across the city.
Lysandra’s palms turned sweaty within her silk gloves. Evangeline, drowsy with the morning heat, dozed lightly, her head resting on Lysandra’s shoulder.
They should have left last night, but … But she’d had to say good-bye.
Brightly dressed revelers pushed past the carriage, and the driver shouted to clear out of the street. Everyone ignored him.
G.o.ds, if Aelin wanted an audience, she’d picked the perfect day for it.
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