Heir of Fire

After a while, she sensed Rowan behind them. Yet she cared only for her young charge, who panted and cursed all the way back to the fortress.

•

When Mistward was in sight, she told Luca only one thing before she sent him ahead: keep his mouth shut about what had happened in the cave. The moment the sounds of him crashing through the brush had faded, she turned.

Rowan was standing there, panting as well, his sword now sheathed. She plunged her new blade into the earth, the ruby in the hilt glowing in a patch of sunlight.

“I will kill you,” she snarled. And launched herself at him.

Even in her Fae form, he still was faster than her, stronger, and dodged her with fluid ease. Slamming face-­first into the tree was better than colliding with the stone walls of the fortress, though not by much. Her teeth sang, but she whirled and lunged for Rowan again, now standing so close, his teeth bared. He ­couldn’t dodge her as she grabbed him by the front of his jacket and connected.

Oh, hitting him in the face felt good, even as her knuckles split and throbbed.

He snarled and threw her to the ground. The air whooshed out of her chest, and the blood trickling out of her nose shot back down her throat. Before he could sit on her, she got her legs around him and shoved with every ounce of that immortal strength. And just like that, he was pinned, his eyes wide with what could only be fury and surprise.

She hit him again, her knuckles barking in agony. “If you ever again bring someone ­else into this,” she panted, hitting him on his tattoo—­on that gods-­damned tattoo. “If you ever endanger anyone ­else the way you did today . . .” The blood on her nose splattered on his face, mingling, she noted with some satisfaction, with blood from the blows she’d given him. “I will kill you.” Another strike, a backhanded blow, and it vaguely occurred to her that he had gone still and was taking it. “I will rip out your rutting throat.” She bared her canines. “You understand?”

He turned his head to the side to spit blood.

Her blood was pounding, so wild that every little restraint she’d locked into place shattered. She shoved back against it, and the distraction cost her. Rowan moved, and then she was under him again. She’d mangled his face, but he didn’t seem to care as he growled, “I will do what­ever I please.”

“You will keep other people out of it!” she screamed, so loudly that the birds stopped chattering. She thrashed against him, gripping his wrists. “No one ­else!”

“Tell me why, Aelin.”

That gods-­damned name . . . She dug her nails into his wrists. “Because I am sick of it!” She was gulping down air, each breath shuddering as the horrific realization she’d been holding at bay since Nehemia’s death came loose. “I told her I would not help, so she orchestrated her own death. Because she thought . . .” She laughed—­a horrible, wild sound. “She thought that her death would spur me into action. She thought I could somehow do more than her—­that she was worth more dead. And she lied—­about everything. She lied to me because I was a coward, and I hate her for it. I hate her for leaving me.”

Rowan still pinned her, his warm blood dripping onto her face.

She had said it. Said the words she’d been choking on for weeks and weeks. The rage seeped from her like a wave pulling away from shore, and she let go of his wrists. “Please,” she panted, not caring that she was begging, “please don’t bring anyone ­else into it. I will do anything you ask of me. But that is my line. Anything ­else but that.”

His eyes ­were veiled as he finally let go of her arms. She gazed up at the canopy. She would not cry in front of him, not again.

He peeled back, the space between them now a tangible thing. “How did she die?”

She let the moisture against her back seep into her, cool her bones. “She manipulated a mutual acquaintance into thinking he needed to kill her in order to further his agenda. He hired an assassin, made sure I ­wasn’t around, and had her murdered.”

Oh, Nehemia. She had done it all out of a fool’s hope, not realizing what a waste it was. She could have allied with flawless Galan Ashryver and saved the world—­found a truly useful heir to the throne.

“What happened to the two men?” A cold question.

“The assassin I hunted down and left in pieces in an alleyway. And the man who hired him . . .” Blood on her hands, on her clothes, in her hair, Chaol’s horrified stare. “I gutted him and dumped his body in a sewer.”

They ­were two of the worst things she’d done, out of pure hatred and vengeance and rage. She waited for the lecture. But Rowan merely said, “Good.”

She was so surprised that she looked at him—and saw what she had done. Not his already bruised and bleeding face, or his ripped jacket and shirt, now muddy. But right where she’d gripped his forearms, the clothes ­were burned through, the skin beneath covered in angry red welts.

Handprints. She’d burned right through the tattoo on his left arm. She was on her feet in an instant, wondering if she should be on her knees begging for forgiveness instead.

It must have hurt like hell. Yet he had taken it—­the beating, the burning—­while she let out those words that had clouded her senses for so many weeks now. “I am . . . so sorry,” she started, but he held up a hand.

“You do not apologize,” he said, “for defending the people you care about.”

She supposed it was as much of an apology as she would ever get from him. She nodded, and he took that as answer enough. “I’m keeping the sword,” she said, yanking it free of the earth. She’d be hard-­pressed to find a better one anywhere in the world.

“You ­haven’t earned it.” He fell silent, then added, “But consider this a favor. Leave it in your rooms when ­we’re training.”

She would have debated, but this was a compromise, too. She wondered if he’d made a compromise any time in the last century. “What if that thing tracks us to the fortress once darkness falls?”

“Even if it does, it ­can’t get past the wards.” When she raised her brows, he said, “The stones around the fortress have a spell woven between them to keep out enemies. Even magic bounces off it.”

“Oh.” Well, that explained why they called it Mistward. A calm, if not pleasant, silence fell between them while they walked. “You know,” she said slyly, “that’s twice now you’ve made a mess of my training with your tasks. I’m fairly sure that makes you the worst instructor I’ve ever had.”