Heir of Fire (23 page)

She slashed with her stake—­only to be grabbed by two massive hands.

Her wrists sang in agony as the
fi
ngers squeezed hard enough that she ­couldn't stab either weapon into her captor. She twisted, bringing up a foot to smash into her assailant, and caught a
fl
ash of fangs before—­ Not fangs. Teeth.

And there was no gleam of
fl
esh-­pelts. Only silver hair, shining with rain.

Rowan dragged her against him, pressing them into what appeared to be a hollowed-­out tree.

She kept her panting quiet, but breathing didn't become any easier when Rowan gripped her by the shoulders and put his mouth to her ear.
Th
e crashing footsteps had stopped.

“You are going to listen to every word I say.” Rowan's voice was so
ft
er than the rain outside. “Or ­else you are going to die to­night. Do you understand?” She nodded. He let go—­only to draw his sword and a wicked-­looking hatchet. “Your survival depends entirely on you.”
Th
e smell was growing again. “You need to shi
ft
now
. Or your mortal slowness will kill you.”

She sti
ff
ened, but reached in, feeling for some thread of power.
Th
ere was nothing.
Th
ere had to be some trigger, some
place
inside her where she could command it . . . A slow, shrieking sound of stone on metal sounded through the rain.
Th
en another. And another.
Th
ey ­were sharpening their blades. “Your magic—”

“
Th
ey do not breathe, so have no airways to cut o
ff
. Ice would slow them, not stop them. My wind is already blowing our scent away from them, but not for long.
Shi
ft
, Aelin.”

Aelin. It was not a test, not some elaborate trick.
Th
e skinwalkers did not need air.

Rowan's tattoo shone as lightning
fi
lled their little hiding spot. “We are going to have to run in a moment. What form you take when we do will determine our fates. So
breathe
, and
shi
ft
.”

Th
ough every instinct screamed against it, she closed her eyes. Took a breath.
Th
en another. Her lungs opened, full of cool, soothing air, and she wondered if Rowan was helping with that, too.

He was helping. And he was willing to meet a horrible fate in order to keep her alive. He hadn't le
ft
her alone. She hadn't been alone.

Th
ere was a mu
ffl
ed curse, and Rowan slammed his body against hers, as if he could somehow shield her. No, not shield her. Cover her, the
fl
ash of light.

She barely registered the pain—­if only because the moment her Fae senses snapped into place, she had to shove a hand against her own mouth to keep from retching. Oh, gods, the festering
smell
of them, worse than any corpse she'd ever dealt with.

With her delicately pointed ears, she could hear them now, each step they took as the three of them systematically made their way down the hill.
Th
ey spoke in low, strange voices—­at once male and female, all ravenous.

“
Th
ere are two of them now,” one hissed. She didn't want to know what power it wielded to allow it to speak when it had no airways. “A Fae male joined the female. I want him—­he smells of storm winds and steel.” Celaena gagged as the smell shoved down her throat. “
Th
e female we'll bring back with us—­dawn's too close.
Th
en we can take our time peeling her apart.”

Rowan eased o
ff
her and said quietly, not needing to be near for her to hear while he assessed the forest beyond, “
Th
ere is a swi
ft
river a third of a mile east, at the base of a large cli
ff
.” He didn't look at her as he extended two long daggers, and she didn't nod her thanks as she silently discarded her makeshi
ft
weapons and gripped the ivory hilts. “When I say
run
, you run like hell. Step where I step, and don't turn around for any reason. If we are separated, run straight—­you'll hear the river.” Order a
ft
er order—­a commander on the battle
fi
eld, solid and deadly. He peered out of the tree.
Th
e smell was nearly overpowering now, swarming from every angle. “If they catch you, you cannot kill them—­not with a mortal weapon. Your best option is to
fi
ght until you can get free and run. Understand?”

She gave another nod. Breathing was hard again, and the rain was now torrential.

“On my mark,” Rowan said, smelling and hearing things that ­were lost even to her heightened senses. “Steady . . .” She sank onto her haunches as Rowan did the same.

“Come out, come out,” one of them hissed—­so close it could have been inside the tree with them.
Th
ere was a sudden rustling in thebrush to the west, almost as if two people ­were running. In­stantly, the reek of the skinwalkers lessened as they raced a
ft
er the cracking branches and leaves that Rowan's wind led in the other direction.

“Now,” Rowan hissed, and burst out of the tree.

Celaena ran—­or tried to. Even with her sharpened vision, the brush and stones and trees proved a hindrance. Rowan raced toward the rising roar of the river, swollen from the spring rains, his pace slower than she'd expected, but . . . but he was slowing for her. Because this Fae body was di
ff
erent, and she was adjusting wrong, and—

She slipped, but a hand was at her elbow, keeping her upright. “Faster,” was all he said, and as soon as she'd found her footing, he was o
ff
again, shooting through the trees like a mountain cat.

It took all of a minute before the force of that smell gnawed on her heels and the snapping of the brush closed in. But she ­wouldn't take her eyes o
ff
Rowan, and the brightening ahead—­the end of the tree line. Not much farther until they could jump, and—

A fourth skinwalker leapt out of where it had somehow been lurking undetected in the brush. It lunged for Rowan in a
fl
ash of leathery, long limbs marred with countless scars. No, not scars—
stitches
.
Th
e stitches holding its various hides together.

She shouted as the skinwalker pounced, but Rowan didn't falter a step as he ducked and twirled with inhuman speed, slashing down with his sword and viciously slicing with the hatchet.

Th
e skinwalker's arm severed at the same moment its head toppled o
ff
its neck.

She might have marveled at the way he moved, the way he killed, but Rowan didn't stop sprinting, so Celaena raced a
ft
er him, glancing once at the body the Fae warrior had le
ft
in pieces.

Sagging bits of leather on the wet leaves, like discarded clothes. But still twitching and rustling—­as if waiting for someone to stitch it back together.

She ran faster, Rowan still bounding ahead.

Th
e skinwalkers closed in from behind, shrieking with rage.
Th
en they fell silent, until—

“You think the river can save you?” one of them panted, letting out a laugh that raked along her bones. “You think if we get wet, we'll lose our form? I have worn the skins of
fi
shes when mortals ­were scarce, female.”

She had an image then, of the chaos waiting in that river—­a
fl
ipping and near-­drowning and dizziness—­and something pulling her down, down, down to the still bottom.

“
Rowan
,” she breathed, but he was already gone, his massive body hurtling straight o
ff
the cli
ff
edge in a mighty leap.

Th
ere was no stopping the pursuit behind her.
Th
e skinwalkers ­were going to jump with them. And there would be nothing they could do to kill them, no mortal weapon they could use.

A well ripped open inside of her, vast and unyielding and horrible. Rowan had claimed no mortal weapon could kill them. But what of immortal ones?

Celaena broke through the line of trees, sprinting for the ledge that jutted out, bare granite beneath her as she threw her strength into her legs, her lungs, her arms, and
jumped
.

As she plummeted, she twisted to face the cli
ff
, to face them.
Th
ey ­were no more than three lean bodies leaping into the rainy night, shrieking with primal, triumphant, anticipated plea­sure.

“
Shi
ft
!” was the only warning she gave Rowan.
Th
ere was a
fl
ash of light to tell her he'd obeyed.

Th
en she ripped everything from that well inside her, ripped it out with both hands and her entire raging, hopeless heart.

As she fell, hair whipping her face, Celaena thrust her hands toward the skinwalkers.

“Surprise,” she hissed.
Th
e world erupted in blue wild
fi
re.

•

Celaena shuddered on the riverbank, from cold and exhaustion and terror. Terror at the skinwalkers—­and terror at what she had done.

His clothes dry thanks to shi
ft
ing, Rowan stood a few feet away, monitoring the smoldering cli
ff
s upriver. She'd incinerated the skinwalkers.
Th
ey hadn't even had time to scream.

She hunched over her knees, arms wrapped around herself.
Th
e forest was burning on either side of the river—­a radius that she didn't have the nerve to mea­sure. It was a weapon, her power. A di
ff
erent sort of weapon than blades or arrows or her hands. A curse.

It took several attempts, but at last she spoke. “Can you put it out?”

“You could, if you tried.” When she didn't respond, he said, “I'm almost done.” In a moment the
fl
ames nearest the cli
ff
s went out. How long had he been working to su
ff
ocate them? “We don't need something ­else attracted to your
fi
res.”

She might have bothered to respond to the jab, but she was too tired and cold.
Th
e rain
fi
lled the world, and for a while, silence reigned.

“Why is my shi
ft
ing so vital?” she asked at last.

“Because it terri
fi
es you,” he said. “Mastering it is the
fi
rst step toward learning to control your power. Without that control, with a blast like that, you could easily have burnt yourself out.”

“What do you mean?”

Another stormy look. “When you access your power, what does it feel like?”

She considered. “A well,” she said. “
Th
e magic feels like a well.”

“Have you felt the bottom of it?”

“Is there a bottom?” She prayed there was.

“All magic has a bottom—­a breaking point. For those with weaker gi
ft
s, it's easily depleted and easily re
fi
lled.
Th
ey can access most of their power at once. But for those with stronger gi
ft
s, it can take hours to hit the bottom, to summon their powers at full strength.”

“How long does it take you?”

“A full day.” She jolted. “Before battle, we take the time, so that when we walk onto the killing
fi
eld, we can be at our strongest. You can do other things at the same time, but some part of you is down in there, pulling up more and more, until you reach the bottom.”

“And when you pull it all out, it just—­releases in some giant wave?”

“If I want it to. I can release it in smaller bursts, and go on for a while. But it can be hard to hold it back. People sometimes ­can't tell friend from foe when they're handling that much magic.”

When she'd drawn her power on the other side of the portal months ago, she'd felt that lack of control—­known she was almost as likely to hurt Chaol as she was to hurt the demon he was facing. “How long does it take you to recover?”

“Days. A week, depending on how I used the power and whether I drained every last drop. Some make the mistake of trying to take more before they're ready, or holding on for too long, and they either burn out their minds or just burn up altogether. Your shaking isn't just from the river, you know. It's your body's way of telling you not to do that again.”

“Because of the iron in our blood pushing against the magic?”

“
Th
at's how our enemies will sometimes try to
fi
ght against us if they don't have magic—­iron everything.” He must have seen her brows rise, because he added, “I was captured once. While on a campaign in the east, in a kingdom that ­doesn't exist anymore.
Th
ey had me shackled head to toe in iron to keep me from choking the air out of their lungs.”

She let out a low whistle. “Were you tortured?”

“Two weeks on their tables before my men rescued me.” He unbuckled his vambrace and pushed back the sleeve of his right arm, revealing a thick, wicked scar curving around his forearm and elbow. “Cut me open bit by bit, then took the bones ­here and—”

“I can see very well what happened, and know exactly how it's done,” she said, stomach tightening. Not at the injury, but—­Sam. Sam had been strapped to a table, cut open and broken by one of the most sadistic killers she'd ever known.