Heir of Fire

For a heartbeat, as the room thundered with roars and cries, Chaol beheld what truly made Aedion a threat—­what made him a god to these men, and why the king tolerated his insolence, ring or no ring.

Aedion was not a noble in a castle, sipping wine. He was metal and sweat, sitting in this filthy tavern, drinking their ale. Whether it was real or not, they believed he cared about them, listened to them. They preened when he remembered their names, their wives’ and sisters’ names, and slept assured that he saw them as his brothers. Aedion made sure that they believed he would fight and die for them. Thus they would fight and die for him.

And Chaol was afraid, but not for himself.

He was afraid of what would come when Aedion and Aelin ­were re­united. For he’d seen in her that same glittering ember that made people look and listen. Had seen her stalk into a council meeting with Councilor Mullison’s head and smile at the King of Adarlan, every man in that room enthralled and petrified by the dark whirlwind of her spirit. The two of them together, both of them lethal, working to build an army, to ignite their people . . . He was afraid of what they would do to his kingdom.

Because this was still his kingdom. He was working for Dorian, not Aelin—­not Aedion. And he didn’t know where all of this put him.

•

“A contest!” Aedion called, standing on the bench. Chaol hadn’t moved during the long, long hour Aedion had been saluted and toasted by half the men in this room, each one getting a turn to stand and tell his story to the general.

When Aedion had enough of being serenaded by his own enemy, his Ashryver eyes brilliant with a rush that Chaol knew was precisely because he hated each and every one of them and they ­were eating out of his palm like rabbits, the general roared for the contest.

There ­were a few shouted suggestions for drinking games, but Aedion hoisted his mug again, and silence fell. “Farthest to travel drinks for free.”

There ­were cries of Banjali, Orynth, Melisande, Anielle, Endovier, but then . . . “Quiet, all of you!” An older, gray-­haired soldier stood. “I got you all beat.” He lifted his glass to the general, and pulled a scroll from his vest. Release papers. “I just spent five years at Noll.”

Bulls-­eye. Aedion thumped the empty seat at the table. “Then you drink with us, my friend.” The room cheered again.

Noll. It was a speck on the map at the farthest end of the Deserted Peninsula.

The man sat down, and before Aedion could raise a finger to the barkeep, a fresh pint was before the stranger. “Noll, eh?” Aedion said.

“Commander Jensen, of the twenty-­fourth legion, sir.”

“How many men ­were under you, commander?”

“Two thousand—­all of us sent back ­here last month.” Jensen took a long drink. “Five years, and ­we’re done just like that.” He snapped his scarred, thick fingers.

“I take it His Majesty didn’t give you any warning?”

“With all due respect, general . . . he didn’t tell us shit. I got the word that we ­were to move out because new forces ­were coming in, and we ­weren’t needed anymore.”

Chaol kept his mouth shut, listening, as Aedion had told him to do.

“What for? Is he sending you to join another legion?”

“No word yet. Didn’t even tell us who was taking our place.”

Aedion grinned. “At least you’re not in Noll anymore.”

Jensen looked into his drink, but not before Chaol caught the shadow in the man’s eyes.

“What was it like? Off the record, of course,” Aedion said.

Jensen’s smile had faded, and when he looked up, there was no light in his eyes. “The volcanoes are active, so it’s always dark, you see, because the ash covers everything. And because of the fumes, we always had headaches—­sometimes men went mad from them. Sometimes we got nosebleeds from them, too. We got our food once a month, occasionally less than that depending on the season and when the ships could bring in supplies. The locals ­wouldn’t make the trek across the sands, no matter how much we threatened and bribed them.”

“Why? Laziness?”

“Noll isn’t much—­just the tower and town we built around it. But the volcanoes ­were sacred, and ten years ago, maybe a bit longer, apparently we . . . not my men, because I ­wasn’t there, but rumor says the king took a legion into those volcanoes and sacked the temple.” Jensen shook his head. “The locals spit on us, even the men who ­weren’t there, for that. The tower of Noll was built afterward, and then the locals cursed it, too. So it was always just us.”

“A tower?” Chaol said quietly, and Aedion frowned at him.

Jensen drank deeply. “Not that we ­were ever allowed in.”

“The men who went mad,” Aedion said, a half smile on his face. “What did they do, exactly?”

The shadows ­were back and Jensen glanced around him, not to see who was listening, but almost as if he wanted to find a way out of this conversation. But then he looked at the general and said, “Our reports say, general, that we killed them—­arrows to the throat. Quick and clean. But . . .”

Aedion leaned closer. “Not a word leaves this table.”

A vague nod. “The truth was, by the time we got our archers ready, the men who went mad had already bashed their own skulls in. Every time, as if they ­couldn’t get the pain out.”

Celaena claimed Kaltain and Roland had complained about headaches. As a result of the king’s magic being used on them, his horrible power. And she had told him she got a pounding headache when she uncovered those secret dungeons beneath the castle. Dungeons that led to . . .

“The tower—­you ­were never allowed in?” Chaol ignored Aedion’s warning glare.

“There was no door. Always seemed more decorative than anything. But I hated it—­we all did. It was just this awful black stone.”

Just like the clock tower in the glass castle. Built around the same time, if not a few years before. “Why bother?” Aedion drawled. “A waste of resources, if you ask me.”

There ­were still so many shadows in the man’s eyes, full of stories that Chaol didn’t dare ask about. The commander drained his glass and stood. “I don’t know why they bothered—­with Noll, or Amaroth. We’d sometimes send men up and down the Western Sea with messages between the towers, so we knew they had a similar one. We didn’t even really know what the hell we ­were all doing out there, anyway. There was no one to fight.”