Heir of Fire (71 page)

“Oh?”
Th
e king raised a thick, scarred brow. “I had it on good authority that you ­were planning to run away with this healer. Why would you ever do such a thing?”

Th
e prince's throat bobbed, but he kept his head high. “Because I ­can't stand the thought of her spending another minute in this ­festering shithole that you call a court.” Aedion ­couldn't help but admire him for it—­for yielding nothing until the king showed his hand. Smart man—­brave man. But it might not be enough to get them out of this alive.

“Good,” the king said. “Neither can I.”

He waved a hand, and before Aedion could bark a warning, the guards separated the prince and the girl. Four held Dorian back, and two forced Sorscha to kneel with a kick behind the knees.

She cried out as she hit the marble, but went silent—­the ­whole room went silent—­as a third guard pulled a sword and placed it lightly on the back of her slender neck.

“
Don't you dare
,” Dorian growled.

Aedion looked to Chaol, but the captain was frozen.
Th
ese ­were not his guards.
Th
eir uniforms ­were those of the men who had hunted Ren.
Th
ey had the same dead eyes, the same vileness, that had made him not at all regret killing their colleagues in the alley. He'd taken down six that night with minimal damage—­how many could he cut down now? His gaze met the captain's, and the captain
fl
icked his eyes to the guard who held Aedion's sword.
Th
at would be one of his
fi
rst moves—­get Aedion a sword so they could
fi
ght.

Because they would
fi
ght.
Th
ey would
fi
ght their way out of this, or to their deaths.

Th
e king said to Dorian, “I would choose your next words carefully, Prince.”

•

Chaol ­couldn't start the
fi
ght, not with that sword resting on Sorscha's neck.
Th
at was his
fi
rst goal: get the girl out alive.
Th
en Aedion. Dorian, the king ­wouldn't kill—­not ­here, not in this way. But Aedion and Sorscha had to get away. And that could not happen until the king called o
ff
the guard.
Th
en Dorian spoke.

“Let her go and I'll tell you anything.” Dorian took a step toward his father, palms out. “She has nothing to do with—­with what­ever this is. What­ever you think has happened.”

“But you do?”
Th
e king was still smiling.
Th
ere was a carved, round bit of familiar black stone resting on the small table beside the king. From the distance, Chaol ­couldn't see what it was, but it made his stomach turn over regardless. “Tell me,
son
: why ­were General Ashryver and Captain Westfall meeting these months?”

“I don't know.”

Th
e king clicked his tongue, and the guard raised his sword to strike. Chaol started forward as Sorscha sucked in a breath.

“No—stop!” Dorian
fl
ung out a hand.

“
Th
en answer the question.”

“I am! You bastard, I
am
! I don't know why they ­were meeting!”

Th
e guard's sword still remained up, ready to fall before Chaol could move an inch.

“Do you know that there has been a spy in my castle for several months now, Prince? Someone feeding information to my enemies and plotting against me with a known rebel leader?”

Shit.
Shit.
He had to mean Ren—­the king knew who Ren was, had sent those men to hunt him down.

“Just tell me who, Dorian, and you can do what­ever you wish with your friend.”

Th
e king didn't know, then—­if it was he or Aedion or both of them who had been meeting with Ren. He didn't know how much they'd learned about his plans, his control over magic. Aedion was somehow still keeping his mouth shut, somehow still looking ready for battle.

Aedion, who had survived for so long without hope, holding together his kingdom as best he could . . . who would never see the queen he so
fi
ercely loved. He deserved to meet her, and she deserved to have him serve in her court.

Chaol took a breath, preparing himself for the words that would doom him.

But it was Aedion who spoke.

“You want a spy? You want a traitor?” the general drawled, and
fl
ung his replicated black ring on the
fl
oor. “
Th
en ­here I am. You want to know why the captain and I ­were meeting? It was because your stupid bastard of a boy-­captain
fi
gured out that I'd been working with one of the rebels. He's been blackmailing information out of me for months to give to his father to o
ff
er
you
when the Lord of Anielle needed a favor. And you know what?” Aedion grinned at them all, the Northern Wolf incarnate. If the king was shocked about the ring, he didn't show it. “All you monsters can burn in hell. Because my queen is coming—­and she will spike you to the walls of your gods-­damned castle. And I ­can't wait to help her gut you like the pigs you are.” He spat at the king's feet, right on top of the fake ring that had stopped bouncing.

It was
fl
awless—­the rage and the arrogance and the triumph. But as he stared each of them down, Chaol's heart fractured.

Because for a
fl
icker, as those turquoise eyes met with his, there was none of that rage or triumph. Only a message to the queen that Aedion would never see. And there ­were no words to convey it—­the love and the hope and the pride.
Th
e sorrow at not knowing her as the woman she had become.
Th
e gi
ft
Aedion thought he was giving her in sparing Chaol's life.

Chaol nodded slightly, because he understood that he could not help, not at this point—­not until that sword was removed from Sorscha's neck.
Th
en he could
fi
ght, and he might still get them out alive.

Aedion didn't struggle as the guards clapped shackles around his wrists and ankles.

“I've always wondered about that ring,” the king said. “Was it the distance, or some true strength of spirit that made you so unresponsive to its suggestions? But regardless, I am so glad that you confessed to treason, Aedion.” He spoke with slow, deliberate glee. “So glad you did it in front of all these witnesses, too. It will make your execution that much easier.
Th
ough I think . . .”
Th
e king smiled and looked at the fake black ring. “I think I'll wait. Perhaps give it a month or two. Just in case any last-­minute guests have to travel a long, long way for the execution. Just in case someone gets it into her head that she can rescue you.”

Aedion snarled. Chaol bit back his own reaction. Perhaps the king had never had anything on them—­perhaps this had only been a ruse to get Aedion to confess to something, because the king knew that the general would o
ff
er up his own life instead of an innocent's.
Th
e king wanted to savor this, and savor the trap that he had now set for Aelin, even if it cost him a
fi
ne general in the pro­cess. Because once she heard that Aedion was captured, once she knew the execution date . . . she would run to Ri
ft
hold.

“A
ft
er she comes for you,” Aedion promised the king, “they'll have to scrape what's le
ft
of you o
ff
the walls.”

Th
e king only smiled.
Th
en he looked to Dorian and Sorscha, who seemed to be hardly breathing.
Th
e healer remained on the
fl
oor and did not li
ft
her head as the king braced his massive forearms on his knees and said, “And what do you have to say for yourself, girl?”

She trembled, shaking her head.

“
Th
at's
enough
,” Dorian snapped, sweat gleaming on his brow.
Th
e prince winced in pain as his magic was repressed by the iron in his system. “Aedion confessed; now let her go.”

“Why should I release the true traitor in this castle?”

•

Sorscha ­couldn't stop shaking as the king spoke.

All her years of remaining invisible, all her training,
fi
rst from those rebels in Fenharrow, then the contacts they'd sent her family to in Ri
ft
hold . . . all of it ruined.

“Such interesting letters you send to your friend. Why, I might not ever have read them,” the king said, “if you hadn't le
ft
one in the rubbish for your superior to
fi
nd. See—­you rebels have your spies, and I have mine. And as soon as you decided to start using my son . . .” She could feel the king smirking at her. “How many of his movements did you report to your rebel friends? What secrets of mine have you given away over the years?”

“Leave her alone,” Dorian growled. It was enough to set her crying. He still thought she was innocent.

And maybe, maybe he could get out of this if he was surprised enough by the truth, if the king saw his son's shock and disgust.

So Sorscha li
ft
ed her head, even as her mouth trembled, even as her eyes burned, and stared down the King of Adarlan.

“You destroyed everything that I had, and you deserve everything that's to come,” she said.
Th
en she looked at Dorian, whose eyes ­were indeed wide, his face bone-­white. “I was not supposed to love you. But I did. I do. And there is so much I wish . . . I wish we could have done together, seen together.”

Th
e prince just stared at her, then walked to the foot of the dais and dropped to his knees. “Name your price,” he said to his father. “Ask it of me, but let her go. Exile her. Banish her. Anything—say it, and it will be done.”

She began shaking her head, trying to
fi
nd the words to tell him that she hadn't betrayed him—­not her prince.
Th
e king, yes. She had reported his movements for years, in each carefully written letter to her “friend.” But never Dorian.

Th
e king looked at his son for a long moment. He looked at the captain and Aedion, so quiet and so tall—­beacons of hope for their future.

Th
en he looked again at his son, on his knees before the throne, on his knees for her, and said, “No.”

•

“No.”

Chaol thought he had not heard it, the word that cleaved through the air just before the guard's sword did.

One blow from that mighty sword.

Th
at was all it took to sever Sorscha's head.

Th
e scream that erupted out of Dorian was the worst sound that Chaol had ever heard.

Worse even than the wet, heavy thud of her head hitting the red marble.

Aedion began roaring—­roaring and cursing at the king, thrashing against his chains, but the guards hauled him away, and Chaol was too stunned to do anything other than watch the rest of Sorscha's body topple to the ground. And then Dorian, still screaming, was scrambling through the blood toward it—­toward her head, as if he could put it back.

As if he could piece her together.

65

Chaol hadn't been able to move a muscle from the moment the guard cut o
ff
Sorscha's head to the moment Dorian, still kneeling in a pool of her blood, stopped screaming.

“
Th
at is what awaits traitors,” the king said to the silent room.

And Chaol looked at the king, at his shattered friend, and drew his sword.

Th
e king rolled his eyes. “Put away your sword, Captain. I've no interest in your noble antics. You're to go home to your father tomorrow. Don't leave this castle in disgrace.”

Chaol kept his sword drawn. “I will not go to Anielle,” he growled. “And I will not serve you a moment longer.
Th
ere is one true king in this room—­there always has been. And he is not sitting on that throne.”

Dorian sti
ff
ened.

But Chaol went on. “
Th
ere is a queen in the north, and she has already beaten you once. She will beat you again. And again. Because what she represents, and what your son represents, is what you fear most: hope. You cannot steal it, no matter how many you rip from their homes and enslave. And you cannot break it, no matter how many you murder.”

Th
e king shrugged. “Perhaps. But maybe I can start with you.” He
fl
icked his
fi
ngers at the guards. “Kill him, too.”

Chaol whirled to the guards behind him and crouched, ready to
fi
ght a path out for himself and Dorian.

Th
en a crossbow snapped and he realized there had been others in the room—­hidden behind impossibly thick shadows.

He had only enough time to twist—­to see the bolt
fi
ring for him with deadly accuracy.

Only enough time to see Dorian's eyes widen, and the ­whole room plunge into ice.

•

Th
e arrow froze mid
fl
ight and dropped to the
fl
oor, shattering into a hundred pieces.

Chaol stared at Dorian in mute horror as his friend's eyes glowed a deep, raging blue, and the prince snarled at the king, “
Don't you touch him
.”

Th
e ice spread across the room, up the legs of the shocked guards, freezing over Sorscha's blood, and Dorian got to his feet. He raised both hands, and light shimmered along his
fi
ngers, a cold breeze whipping through his hair.