Empire of Storms
Page 65

His father rasped, “Aedion.”
The sound of the name his mother had given him on his lips … “I want nothing from you. Unless you plan to help us, in which case I will not object to the … assistance. But beyond that, I want nothing from you.”
“I’m sorry,” his father said, those Lion’s eyes full of such grief Aedion wondered if he’d just struck a male already down.
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” he said, turning toward the door.
His father’s chair scraped against the floor. “Aedion.”
Aedion kept walking, Lysandra falling into place beside him.
“Please,” his father said as Aedion’s hand clamped down on the handle.
“Go to hell,” Aedion said, and left.
He didn’t return to the Ocean Rose. And he couldn’t stand to be around people, to be around their sounds and smells. So he strode for the dense mountain above the bay, losing himself in the jungle of leaves and shade and damp soil. Lysandra stayed a step behind him, silent as he was.
It wasn’t until he’d found a rocky outcropping jutting from the side of the mountain to overlook the bay, the town, the pristine waters beyond, that he paused. That he sat. And breathed.
Lysandra sat beside him on the flat rock, crossing her legs beneath her.
He said, “I didn’t expect to say any of that.”
She was gazing toward the nearby watchtower nestled at the base of the mountain. He watched her green eyes survey the lower level where Ship-Breaker was wrapped around a massive wheel, the spiraling exterior staircase up the tower itself, all the way up to the upper levels, where a catapult, and a turret-mounted, massive harpoon—or was it a giant crossbow?—was locked into place, its wielder’s seat and arrow aimed at an invisible enemy in the bay below. With the size of the weapon and the machine that had been rigged to launch it into the bay, he had no doubt it could smash through a hull and do lethal damage to a ship. Or spear three men on it.
Lysandra said simply, “You spoke from your heart. Perhaps it’s good he heard that.”
“We need them to work with us. I might have made an enemy of him.”
She tucked her hair over a shoulder. “Trust me, Aedion, you have not. If you’d told him to crawl over hot coals, he would have.”
“He’ll realize soon enough who, exactly, I am, and perhaps not be so desperate.”
“Who, exactly, do you think you are?” She frowned at him. “Adarlan’s Whore? Is that what you still think of yourself? The general who held his kingdom together, who saved his people when they were forgotten even by their own queen—that’s the man I know.” She snarled softly, and not at him. “And if he starts pointing fingers, I’ll remind him that he’s served that bitch in Doranelle for centuries without question.”
Aedion snorted. “I’d pay good money to see you go toe-to-toe with him. And Fenrys.”
She nudged him with an elbow. “You say the word, General, and I’ll transform into the face of their nightmares.”
“And what creature is that?”
She gave him a knowing little smile. “Something I’ve been working on.”
“I don’t want to know, do I?”
White teeth flashed. “No, you really don’t.”
He laughed, surprised he could even do so. “He’s a handsome bastard, I’ll give him that.”
“I think Maeve likes to collect pretty men.”
Aedion snorted. “Why not? She has to deal with them for eternity. They might as well be pleasant to look at.”
She laughed again, and the sound loosed a weight from his shoulders.
 
 
Bearing both Goldryn and Damaris for once, Aelin walked into the Sea Dragon two hours later and wished for the days when she could sleep without the dread or urgency of something pulling at her.
Wished for the days when she might have had the time to bed her gods-damned lover and not choose to catch a few hours of sleep instead.
She’d meant to. Last night, they’d returned to the inn, and she’d bathed faster than she’d ever washed before. She’d even emerged from the bathing room naked … and found her Fae Prince asleep atop the glowingly white bed, still clothed, looking for all the world like he’d intended to close his eyes while she washed.
And the heavy exhaustion on him … She let Rowan rest. Had curled up beside him above the blankets, still naked, and had been unconscious before her head had settled against his chest. There would be a time, she knew, when they would not be able to sleep so safely, so soundly.
A grand total of five minutes before Lysandra barged in, Rowan had awoken—and begun the process of awakening her, too. Slowly, with taunting, proprietary strokes down her bare torso, her thighs, accented with little biting kisses to her mouth, her ear, her neck.
But as soon as Lysandra had thundered through the room to steal clothes for Aedion, as soon as she’d explained where Aedion was going … the interruption had lasted. Made her remember what, exactly, she needed to accomplish today. With a man currently inclined to kill her and a scattered, petrified fleet.
Gavriel and Fenrys were now sitting with Rolfe at the table in the back of the taproom, no sign of Aedion, both a bit wide-eyed as she swaggered in.
She might have preened at the look, had Rowan not prowled in right behind her, already prepared to slit their throats.
Rolfe shot to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
“I would be very, very careful how you speak to her today, Captain,” Fenrys said with more wariness and consideration than she’d seen him use yesterday. His eyes were fixed on Rowan, who was indeed watching Rolfe as if he were dinner. “Choose your words wisely.”
Rolfe glanced at Rowan, saw his face, and seemed to get it.
Maybe that caution would make Rolfe more inclined to agree to her request today. If she played it right. If she’d played all of it right.
Aelin gave Rolfe a little smile and leaned against the vacant table beside theirs, the chipped gold lettering on the slats reading Mist-Cutter. Rowan took up a spot beside her, his knee brushing hers. Like even a few feet of distance was unbearable.
But she smiled a bit wider at Rolfe. “I came to see if you’d changed your mind. About my alliance.”
Rolfe drummed his tattooed fingers on the table, right over some gilded letters that read Thresher. And beside it … a map of the continent had been spread between Rolfe and the Fae warriors.
Not the map she really, truly needed now that she knew the damn thing worked, but—Aelin stiffened at what she beheld.
“What is that,” she said, noting the silver figurines camped across the middle of the continent, an impenetrable line from the Ferian Gap to the mouth of the Avery. And the additional figures in the Gulf of Oro. And in Melisande and Fenharrow and near Eyllwe’s northern border.
Gavriel, looking a bit like someone had knocked him in the head—gods, how had the meeting with Aedion gone?—said before Rolfe could get his throat ripped out by Rowan with whatever response he had brewing, “Captain Rolfe received word this morning. He wanted our counsel.”
“What is this,” she said, stabbing a finger near the main line of figures stretched across the middle of the continent.