Empire of Storms
Page 31

The lady looked to where Aelin still stood on the roof, no more than a shadow. Lysandra cleared her throat a bit and said too softly for anyone to hear, either the queen or the soldiers across the street, “She’s accepted Darrow’s decree too calmly.”
“I’d hardly call any of this calm.” But he knew what the shifter meant. Since Rowan had gone, since word of Rifthold’s fall had arrived, Aelin had been half present. Distant.
Lysandra’s pale green eyes pinned him to the spot. “It’s the calm before the storm, Aedion.”
Every one of his predatory instincts perked.
Lysandra’s eyes again drifted to Aelin’s lithe figure. “A storm is coming. A great storm.”
Not the forces lurking in Morath, not Darrow plotting in Orynth or Maeve assembling her armada—but the woman on that roof, hands braced on the edge as she crouched down.
“You’re not frightened of … ?” He couldn’t say the rest. He’d somehow grown accustomed to having the shifter guard Aelin’s back—had found the idea mighty appealing. Rowan at her right, Aedion at her left, Lysandra at her back: nothing and no one would get to their queen.
“No—no, never,” Lysandra said. Something eased in his chest. “But the more I think about it, the more … the more it seems like this was all planned, laid out long ago. Erawan had decades before Aelin was born to strike—decades during which no one with her powers, or Dorian’s powers, existed to challenge him. Yet, as fate or fortune would have it, he moves now. At a time when a Fire-Bringer walks the earth.”
“What are you getting at?” He’d considered all this before, during those long watches on the road. It was all horrifying, impossible, but—so much of their lives defied logic or normalcy. The shifter next to him proved that.
“Morath is unleashing its horrors,” Lysandra said. “Maeve stirs across the sea. Two goddesses walk hand in hand with Aelin. More than that, Mala and Deanna have watched over her the entirety of her life. But perhaps it wasn’t watching. Perhaps it was … shaping. So they might one day unleash her, too. And I wonder if the gods have weighed the costs of that storm. And deemed the casualties worth it.”
A chill snaked down his spine.
Lysandra went on, so quietly that Aedion wondered if she feared not the queen hearing, but those gods. “We have yet to see the full extent of Erawan’s darkness. And I think we have yet to see the full extent of Aelin’s fire.”
“She’s not some unwitting pawn.” He’d defy the gods, find a way to slaughter them, if they threatened Aelin, if they deemed these lands a worthy sacrifice to defeat the Dark King.
“Is it really that hard for you to just agree with me for once?”
“I never disagree.”
“You always have an answer to everything.” She shook her head. “It’s insufferable.”
Aedion grinned. “Good to know I’m finally getting under your skin. Or is it skins?”
That staggeringly beautiful face turned positively wicked. “Careful, Aedion. I bite.”
Aedion leaned in a bit closer. He knew there were lines with Lysandra—knew there were boundaries he wouldn’t cross, wouldn’t push at. Not after what she’d endured since childhood, not after she’d regained her freedom. Not after what he’d been through, too.
Even if he hadn’t yet told Aelin about it. How could he? How could he explain what had been done to him, what he’d been forced to do in those early years of conquest?
But flirting with Lysandra was harmless—for both him and the shifter. And gods, it was good to talk to her for more than a minute between forms. So he snapped his teeth at her and said, “Good thing I know how to make women purr.”
She laughed softly, but the sound died as she looked toward their queen again, the sea breeze shifting her dark silken hair. “Any minute now,” she warned him.
Aedion didn’t give a shit what Darrow thought, what he sneered about. Lysandra had saved his life—had fought for their queen and put everything on the line, including her ward, to rescue him from execution and reunite him with Aelin. He’d seen how often the shifter’s eyes had darted behind them the first few days—as if she could see Evangeline with Murtaugh and Ren. He knew even now part of her remained with the girl, just as part of Aelin remained with Rowan. He wondered if he’d ever feel it—that degree of love.
For Aelin, yes—but … it was a part of him, as his limbs were a part of him. It had never been a choice, as Lysandra’s selflessness with that little girl had been, as Rowan and Aelin had chosen each other. Perhaps it was stupid to consider, given what he’d been trained to do and what awaited them in Morath, but … He’d never tell her this in a thousand years, but looking at Aelin and Rowan, he sometimes envied them.
He didn’t even want to think about what else Darrow had implied—that a union between Wendlyn and Terrasen had been attempted over ten years ago, with marriage between him and Aelin the asking price, only to be rejected by their kin across the sea.
He loved his cousin, but the thought of touching her like that made his stomach turn. He had a feeling she returned the sentiment.
She hadn’t shown him the letter she’d written to Wendlyn. It hadn’t occurred to him until now to ask to see it. Aedion stared up at the lone figure before the vast, dark sea.
And realized he didn’t want to know.
He was a general, a warrior honed by blood and rage and loss; he had seen and done things that still drew him from his sleep, night after night, but … He did not want to know. Not yet.
Lysandra said, “We should leave before dawn. I don’t like the smell of this place.”
He inclined his head toward the fifty soldiers camped inside the temple walls. “Obviously.”
But before she could speak, blue flames sparked at Aelin’s fingertips. The signal.
Lysandra shifted into a ghost leopard, and Aedion faded into the shadows as she loosed a roar that set the nearby homes tumbling awake. People spilled out of their doors just as the soldiers threw open the gates to the temple to see what the commotion was about.
Aelin was off the roof in a few nimble maneuvers, landing with feline grace as the soldiers shoved into the street, weapons out and eyes wide.
Those eyes grew wider as Lysandra slunk up beside Aelin, snarling. As Aedion fell into step on her other side. Together, they pulled off their hoods. Someone gasped behind them.
Not at their golden hair, their faces. But at the hand wreathed in blue flame as Aelin lifted it above her head and said to the soldiers pointing crossbows at them, “Get the hell out of my temple.”
The soldiers blinked. One of the townsfolk behind them began weeping as a crown of fire appeared atop Aelin’s hair. As the cloth smothering Goldryn burned away and the ruby glowed bloodred.
Aedion smiled at the Adarlanian bastards, unhooked his shield from across his back, and said, “My lady gives you a choice: leave now … or never leave at all.”
The soldiers exchanged glances. The flame around Aelin’s head burned brighter, a beacon in the dark. Symbols have power indeed.
There she was, crowned in flame, a bastion against the gathered night. So Aedion drew the Sword of Orynth from its sheath along his spine. Someone cried out at the sight of that ancient, mighty blade.