Heir of Fire

Aedion’s eyes took on a lethal glint. “You’ll want to hear what Ren and Murtaugh have to say.” Chaol didn’t feel like waiting so long to hear it, but there ­were two state lunches and one formal dinner before then, and he was expected to attend all of them. And present the king with his defense plans for all the events as well.

After a moment, Aedion said, “How do you stand working for him? How do you pretend you don’t know what that bastard is doing, what he’s done to innocent people, to the woman you claim to love?”

“I’m doing what I have to do.” He didn’t think Aedion would understand, anyway.

“Tell me why the Captain of the Guard, a Lord of Adarlan, is helping his enemy. That’s all the information I want from you today.”

Chaol wanted to say that, given how much he’d already told him, he didn’t have to offer a damn thing. Instead he said, “I grew up being told we ­were bringing peace and civilization to the continent. What I’ve seen recently has made me realize how much of it is a lie.”

“You knew about the labor camps, though. About the massacres.”

“It is easy to be lied to when you do not know any of those people firsthand.” But Celaena with her scars, and Nehemia with her ­people butchered . . . “It’s easy to believe when your king tells you that the people in Endovier deserve to be there because they’re criminals or rebels who tried to slaughter innocent Adarlanian families.”

“And how many of your countrymen would stand against your king if they, too, learned the truth? If they stopped to consider what it would be like if it were their family, their village, being enslaved or murdered? How many would stand if they knew what power their prince possessed—­if their prince ­rose up to fight with us?”

Chaol didn’t know, and he ­wasn’t sure he wanted to. As for Dorian . . . he could not ask that of his friend. Could not expect it. His goal was keeping Dorian safe. Even if it would cost him their friendship, he didn’t want Dorian involved. Ever.

•

The past week had been terrifying and wonderful for Dorian.

Terrifying because two more people knew his secret, and because he walked such a fine line when it came to controlling his magic, which seemed more volatile with each passing day.

Wonderful because every afternoon, he visited the forgotten workroom Sorscha had discovered tucked in a lower level of the catacombs where no one would find them. She brought books from the gods knew where, herbs and plants and salts and powders, and every day, they researched and trained and pondered.

There ­weren’t many books about dampening a power like his—­many had been burned, she’d told him. But she looked at the magic like a disease: if she could find the right channels to block, she could keep it contained. And if not, she always said, they could resort to drugging him, just enough to even out his moods. She didn’t like the idea of it, and neither did he, though it was a comfort to know the option was there.

An hour each day was all they could manage together. For that hour, regardless of the laws they ­were breaking, Dorian felt like himself again. Not twisted and reeling and stumbling through the dark, but grounded. Calm. No matter what he told Sorscha, she never judged or betrayed him. Chaol had been that person once. Yet now, when it came to his magic, he could still see fear and a hint of disgust in Chaol’s eyes.

“Did you know,” Sorscha said from her spot across the worktable, “that before magic vanished, they had to find special ways of subduing gifted prisoners?”

Dorian looked up from his book, a useless tome on garden remedies. Before magic vanished . . . at the hand of his father and his Wyrdkeys. His stomach turned. “Because they’d use their magic to break out of prison?”

Sorscha studied the book again. “That’s why a lot of the old prisons use solid iron—­it’s immune to magic.”

“I know,” he said, and she raised a brow. She was slowly starting to come alive around him—­though he’d also learned to read her subtle expressions better. “Back when my power first appeared, I tried using it on an iron door, and . . . it didn’t go well.”

“Hmm.” Sorscha chewed on her lip. It was surprisingly distracting. “But iron’s in your blood, so how does that work?”

“I think it was the gods’ way of keeping us from growing too powerful: if we keep contact with the magic, if it’s flowing through us for too long, we faint. Or worse.”

“I wonder what would happen if we increased the iron in your diet, perhaps adding a large amount of treacle to your food. We give it to anemic patients, but if we gave you a highly concentrated dose . . . it would taste awful, and could be dangerous, but—”

“But perhaps if it’s in my body, then when the magic rises up . . .” He grimaced. He might have balked at the memory of the agony when he’d tried to seal that iron door, but . . . He ­couldn’t bring himself to say no to her. “Do you have any ­here? Just something to add to a drink?”

She didn’t, but she got some. And within a quarter of an hour, Dorian said a prayer to Silba and swallowed it, cringing at the obscene sweetness. Nothing.

Sorscha’s eyes darted from his own to the pocket watch in her hand. Counting. Waiting to see if there was an adverse reaction. A minute passed. And then ten. Dorian had to go soon, and so did she, but after a while, Sorscha quietly said, “Try it. Try summoning it. The iron should be in your blood now.” He shut his eyes, and she added, “It reacts when you’re upset—­angry or scared or sad. Think about something that makes you feel that way.”

She was risking her position, her life, everything for this. For him, the son of the man who had ordered his army to destroy her village, then slaughter her family with the other unwanted immigrants squatting in Rifthold. He didn’t deserve it.

He breathed in. Out. She also didn’t deserve the world of trouble he was bringing down upon her—­or would continue to bring to her door every time he came ­here. He knew when women liked him, and he’d known from the first moment he’d seen her that she found him attractive. He’d hoped that opinion hadn’t changed for the worse, but now . . . Think of what upsets you.

Everything upset him. It upset him that she was risking her life, that he had no choice but to endanger her. Even if he took that final step toward her, even if he took her into his bed like he so badly wanted to, he was still . . . the Crown Prince. You will always be my enemy, Celaena had once said.