Heir of Fire (57 page)

Rowan's mouth tightened into a thin line. “Bigger problems.”

•

Th
e ward-­stones ­were the last line of defense before the fortress itself. If Narrok planned to lay siege to Mistward, they ­couldn't outlast him forever—­but hopefully the barrier would wear down the creatures and their power a bit. On the battlements, in the courtyard and atop the towers, stood the demi-­Fae. Archers would take down as many men as possible once the barrier fell, and they would use the oak doors of the fortress as a bottleneck into the courtyard.

But there ­were still the creatures and Narrok, along with the darkness that they carried with them. Birds and animals streamed past the fortress as they
fl
ed—­an exodus of
fl
apping wings, padding feet, claws clicking on stone. Herding the animals to safety ­were the Little Folk, hardly more than a gleam of night-­seeing eyes. What­ever darkness Narrok and the creatures brought . . . once you went in, you did not come out.

She was standing with Rowan just beyond the gates of the courtyard, the grassy expanse of earth between the fortress and the ward-­stones feeling far too small.
Th
e animals and Little Folk had stopped appearing moments before, and even the wind had died.

“As soon as the barrier falls, I want you to put arrows through their eyes,” Rowan said to her, his bow slack in his hands. “Don't give them a chance to enthrall you—­or anyone. Leave the soldiers to the others.”

Th
ey hadn't heard or seen any of the two hundred men, but she nodded, gripping her own bow. “What about magic?”

“Use it sparingly, but if you think you can destroy them with it, don't hesitate. And don't get fancy. Take them down by any means possible.” Such icy calculation. Purebred, undiluted warrior. She could almost feel the aggression pouring o
ff
him.

A reek was rising from beyond the barrier, and some of the sentries in the courtyard behind them began murmuring. A smell from another world, from what­ever hellish creature lurked under mortal skin. Some straggling animals darted out of the trees, foaming at the mouth, the darkness behind them thickening. “Rowan,” she said as she felt rather than saw them. “
Th
ey're ­here.”

At the edge of the trees, hardly
fi
ve yards from the ward-­stones, the creatures emerged.

Celaena started.
Th
ree.

Th
ree, not two. “But the skinwalkers—” She ­couldn't
fi
nish the words as the three men surveyed the fortress.
Th
ey ­were clad in deepest black, their tunics open to reveal the Wyrdstone torques at their throats.
Th
e skinwalkers hadn't killed it—­no, because there was that same perfect male, looking straight at her. Smiling at her. As if he could already taste her.

A rabbit bolted out of the bushes, racing for the ward-­stones. Like the paw of a massive beast, the darkness behind the creatures lashed out, sweeping over the
fl
eeing animal.

Th
e rabbit fell midleap, its fur turning dull and matted, bones pushing through as the life was sucked out of it.
Th
e sentries on the walls and towers stirred, some swearing. She had stood a chance of escaping the clutches of just one of those creatures. But all three together became something ­else, something in
fi
nitely powerful.

“
Th
e barrier cannot be allowed to fall,” Rowan said to her. “
Th
at blackness will kill anything it touches.” Even as he spoke, the ­darkness stretched around the fortress. Trapping them.
Th
e barrier hummed, and the reverberations zinged against the ­soles of her boots.

She shi
ft
ed into her Fae form, wincing against the pain. She needed the sharper hearing, the strength and healing. Still, the three creatures remained on the forest edge, the darkness spreading. No sign of the two hundred soldiers.

As one, the three half turned to the shadows behind them and stepped aside, heads bowed.
Th
en, stalking out of the trees, Narrok appeared.

Unlike the others, Narrok was not beautiful. He was scarred and powerfully built, and armed to the teeth. But he, too, had skin carved with those glittering black veins, and wore that torque of obsidian. Even from this distance, she could see the devouring emptiness in his eyes. It seeped toward them like blood in a river.

She waited for him to say something, to parlay and o
ff
er a choice between yielding to the king's power or death, to give some speech to break their morale. But Narrok looked upon Mistward with a slow, almost delighted sweep of the head, drew his iron blade, and pointed at the curving ward-­stone gates.

Th
ere was nothing Celaena or Rowan could do as a whip of darkness snapped out and struck the invisible barrier.
Th
e air shuddered, and the stones whined.

Rowan was already moving toward the oak doors, shouting orders to the archers to ready themselves and use what­ever magic they had to shield against the oncoming darkness. Celaena remained where she was. Another strike, and the barrier rippled.

“Aelin,” Rowan snapped, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Get inside the gates.”

But she slung her bow across her back, and when she raised her hand, it was consumed with
fi
re. “In the woods that night, it balked from the
fl
ame.”

“To use it, you'll have to get outside the barrier, or it'll just rebound against the walls.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

“
Th
e last time, you took one look at that thing and fell under its spell.”

Th
e darkness lashed again.

“It won't be like last time,” she said, eyes on Narrok, on his three creatures. Not when she had a score to settle. Her blood heated, but she said, “I don't know what ­else to do.”

Because if that darkness reached them, then all the blades and arrows would be useless.
Th
ey ­wouldn't have a chance to strike.

A cry sounded behind them, followed by a few more, then the clash of metal on metal. Someone shouted, “
Th
e tunnel!
Th
ey've been let in through the tunnel!”

For a moment, Celaena just stood there, blinking.
Th
e escape tunnel.
Th
ey
had
been betrayed. And now they knew where the soldiers ­were: creeping through the underground network, let in perhaps because the ward-­stones, with that strange sentience, ­were too focused on the threat above to be able to contain the one below.

Th
e shouting and
fi
ghting grew louder. Rowan had stationed their weaker
fi
ghters inside to keep them safe—­right in the path of the tunnel entrance. It would be a slaughter­house. “Rowan—”

Another blow to the barrier from the darkness, and another. She began walking toward the stones, and Rowan growled. “Do not take one more step—”

She kept going. Inside the fortress, screaming had begun—­pain and death and terror. Each step away from it tore at her, but she headed to the stones, toward the megalith gates. Rowan grabbed her elbow. “
Th
at was an
order
.”

She knocked his hand away. “You're needed inside. Leave the barrier to me.”

“You don't know if it'll work—”

“It will work,” she snarled. “I'm the expendable one, Rowan.”

“You are heir to the throne of—”

“Right now, I am a woman who has a power that might save lives. Let me do this. Help the others.”

Rowan looked at the ward-­stones, at the fortress and the sentries scrambling to help below. Weighing, calculating. At last, Rowan said, “Do not engage them. You focus on that darkness and keeping it away from the barrier, and that's it. Hold the line, Aelin.”

But she didn't want to hold the line—­not when her enemy was so close. Not when the weight of those souls at Calaculla and Endovier pressed on her, screaming as loudly as the soldiers inside the fortress. She had failed all of them. She had been too late. And it was
enough
. But she nodded, like the good soldier Rowan believed she was, and said, “Understood.”

“
Th
ey will attack you the moment you set foot outside the barrier,” he said, releasing her arm. Her magic began to boil in her veins. “Have a shield ready.”

“I know” was her only answer as she neared the barrier and the swirling dark beyond.
Th
e curving stones of the gateway loomed, and she drew the sword from her back with her right hand, her le
ft
hand enveloped in
fl
ame.

Nehemia's people, butchered. Her own people, butchered.
Her
people.

Celaena stepped under the archway of stones, magic zinging and kissing her skin. Just a few steps would take her outside the barrier. She could feel Rowan lingering, waiting to see if she would survive the
fi
rst moments. But she would—­she was going to burn these things into ash and dust.

Th
is was the least she owed those murdered in Endovier and Calaculla—­the least she could do, a
ft
er so long. A monster to destroy monsters.

Th
e
fl
ames on her le
ft
hand burned brighter as Celaena stepped beyond the archway and into the beckoning abyss.

52

Th
e darkness lashed at Celaena the moment she passed beyond the invisible barrier.

A wall of
fl
ame seared across the spear of blackness, and, just as she'd gambled, the blackness recoiled. Only to strike again, swi
ft
as an asp.

She met it blow for blow, willing the
fi
re to spread, a wall of red and gold encasing the barrier behind her. She ignored the reek of the creatures, the hollowness of the air at her ears, the overwhelming throbbing in her head, so much worse beyond the protection of the wards, especially now that all three creatures ­were gathered. But she did not give them one inch, even as blood began trickling from her nose.

Th
e darkness lunged for her, simultaneously assaulting the wall, punching holes through her
fl
ame. She patched them by re
fl
ex, allowing the power to do as it willed, but with the command to protect—­to keep that barrier shielded. She took another step beyond the stone gateway.

Narrok was nowhere to be seen, but the three creatures ­were waiting for her.

Unlike the other night in the woods, they ­were armed with long, slender swords that they drew with their unearthly grace. And then they attacked.

Good.

She did not look them in the eyes, nor did she acknowledge the bleeding from her nose and the pressure in her ears. She merely called in a shield of
fi
re around her le
ft
forearm and begin swinging that ancient sword.

Whether Rowan lingered to see her break his
fi
rst order, then his next, then his next, she didn't know.

Th
e three creatures kept coming at her, swi
ft
and controlled, as if they'd had eons to practice swordplay, as if they ­were all of one mind, one body. Where she de
fl
ected one, another was there; where she punched one with
fl
ame and steel, another was ducking beneath it to grab her. She could not let them touch her, could not let herself meet their gaze.

Th
e shield around the barrier burned hot at her back, the darkness of the creatures stinging and biting at it, but she held
fi
rm. She had not lied to Rowan about that—­about protecting the wall.

One of them swept its blade at her—­not to kill. To incapacitate.

It was second nature, somehow, that
fl
ames leapt down her blade as she struck back, willing
fi
re into the sword itself. When it met the black iron of the creature, blue sparks danced, so bright that she dared look into the creature's face to glimpse—­surprise. Horror. Rage.

Th
e hilt of the sword was warm—­comforting—in her hand, and the red stone glowed as if with a
fi
re of its own.

Th
e three creatures stopped in unison, their sensual mouths pulling back from their too-­white teeth in a snarl.
Th
e one in the center, the one who had tasted her before, hissed at the sword, “Goldryn.”

Th
e darkness paused, and she used its distraction to patch her shields, a chill snaking up her spine even as the
fl
ames warmed her. She li
ft
ed the sword higher and advanced another step.

“But you are not Athril, beloved of the dark queen,” one of them said. Another said, “And you are not Brannon of the Wild
fi
re.”

“How do you—” But the words caught in her throat as a memory struck, from months ago—­a lifetime ago. Of a realm that was in-­between, of the thing that lived inside Cain speaking. To her, and—­Elena. Elena, daughter of Brannon.
You ­were brought back
, it said.
All the players in the un
fi
nished game
.

A game that had begun at the dawn of time, when a demon race had forged the Wyrdkeys and used them to break into this world, and Maeve had used their power to banish them. But some demons had remained trapped in Erilea and waged a second war centuries later, when Elena fought against them. What of the others, who had been sent back to their realm? What if the King of Adarlan, in learning of the keys, had also learned where to
fi
nd them? Where to . . . harness them?