Crown of Midnight

Then came the chronicle from ten years ago. It was thicker than all the rest—as it should be, given the events that had happened that year. But when he saw what was written about the date she had given, everything froze.

This morning, King Orlon Galathynius, his nephew and heir, Rhoe Galathynius, and Rhoe’s wife, Evalin, were found assassinated. Orlon was murdered in his bed at the royal palace in Orynth, and Rhoe and Evalin were found dead in their beds at their country estate along the River Florine. There is no word yet about the fate of Rhoe and Evalin’s daughter, Aelin.

Chaol grabbed for the first geneaology book, the one on the bloodlines of the royal houses of Adarlan and Terrasen. Was Celaena trying to tell him she knew the truth about what had happened that night—that she might know where the lost princess Aelin was hiding? That she had been there when this all happened?

He flipped through the pages, scanning the genealogies he had already read. But then he remembered something about the name Evalin Ashryver. Ashryver.

Evalin had come from Wendlyn, had been a princess of the king’s court. Hands shaking, he yanked out a book containing Wendlyn’s royal family tree.

On the last page, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius’s name was written at the bottom, and above it, her mother, Evalin’s. But the family tree traced only the female line. The female, not the male, because—

Two spots above Evalin’s name was written Mab. Aelin’s great-grandmother. She was one of the three Fae Sister-Queens: Maeve, Mora, and Mab. Mab, the youngest, the fairest, who, when she died, had been made into a goddess, known to them now as Deanna, Lady of the Hunt.

The memory hit him like a brick to the face. That Yulemas morning, when Celaena had looked so uncomfortable to be receiving the golden arrow of Deanna—the arrow of Mab.

And Chaol counted down the family tree, one after one, until—

My great-grandmother was Fae.

Chaol had to brace a hand against the desk. No, it couldn’t be. He turned back to the chronicle still lying open, and turned to the next day.

Aelin Galathynius, heir to the throne of Terrasen, died today, or sometime in the night. Before help could reach her deceased parents’ estate, the assassin who had missed her the night before returned. Her body has still not been found, though some believe it was thrown into the river behind her parents’ house.

She’d once said that Arobynn had … had found her. Found her half-dead and frozen. On a riverbank.

He was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe she merely wanted him to know that she still cared about Terrasen, or—

There was a poem scribbled at the top of the Ashryver family tree, as though some student had dashed it down it as a reminder while studying.