Heir of Fire (39 page)

“
Control
,” Rowan barked from the shore, pulling free a discarded sword from where it had been knocked into the little crevice in the wall, its golden hilt glinting. Celaena clamped on the magic so hard it su
ff
ocated. A small hole had melted where her palm had been—­but not all the way through. Not big enough to free the chain.

She could master this. She could master herself again.
Th
e well inside of her
fi
lled up and she pushed back, willing only that thread to squeeze free and into the ice, burrowing like a worm, gnawing away at the cold . . .
Th
ere was a clank of metal, and a hiss, and then— “Oh, thank the gods,” Luca moaned, hauling the length of chain out of the hole.

She spooled the thread of power back into herself, into that well, and was suddenly cold.

“Please tell me you brought food,” Luca said again.

“Is that why you came? Rowan promised you snacks?”

“I'm a growing boy.” He winced when he looked at Rowan. “And you don't say no to him.”

No, indeed, no one ever said no to him, and that was probably why Rowan thought a scheme like this was acceptable. Celaena sighed through her nose and looked at the small hole she'd made. A feat—­a miracle. As she was about to stand and help Luca navigate the way back to shore, she glanced at the ice once more. No, not the ice—­the water beneath.

Where a giant red eye was staring right at her.

35

Th
e next four words that came out of Celaena's mouth ­were so vulgar that Luca choked. But Celaena didn't move as a massive, jagged, white line gleamed unnervingly far from that red eye.

“Get o
ff
the ice
now
,” she breathed to Luca.

Because that jagged white line—­those ­were teeth. Big, rip-­your-­arm-­o
ff
-­in-­one-­bite teeth. And they ­were
fl
oating up from the depths, toward the hole she'd made.
Th
at was why there ­were no skeletons—­only the weapons that had failed the fools who'd wandered into this cave.

“Holy gods,” Luca said, peering from behind her. “What
is
that?”

“Shut up and go,” she hissed. On the shore, Rowan's eyes ­were wide, his face strained beneath his tattoo. He hadn't realized this lake ­wasn't empty.

“Now, Luca,” Rowan growled, his sword out, the blade he'd swiped from the ground still sheathed in his other hand.

It was swimming toward them, lazily. Curious. As it neared, she could make out a snaking body as pale as the stones on the bottom of the lake. She'd never seen anything so huge, so ancient, and—­and there was only a thin layer of ice keeping her separated from it.

When Luca started trembling, his tan skin going pale, Celaena surged to her feet, the ice groaning. “Don't look down,” she said, gripping his elbow. A patch of thicker ice hardened under their feet and spread—­a path for the shore. “
Go
,” she told the boy, giving him a light shove. He started into a swi
ft
shu
ffl
e-­slide. She let him get ahead, giving him time so she could guard his back, and glanced down again.

She swallowed her shout as a scaled, massive head stared up at her. Not a dragon or a wyvern, not a serpent or a
fi
sh, but something in between. It was missing an eye, the
fl
esh scarred around the empty socket. What in hell had done that? Was there something
worse
down there, swimming at the belly of the mountain? Of course—­of course she'd be le
ft
unarmed in the center of a lake lined with weapons.

“
Faster
,” Rowan barked. Luca was already halfway to the shore.

Celaena broke into Luca's same shu
ffl
e-­slide, not trusting herself to stay upright if she ran. Just as she took her third step, a
fl
ash of bone-­white snapped up through the depths, twisting like a striking asp.

Th
e long tail whipped against the ice and the world
bounced
.

She went up, legs buckling as the ice li
ft
ed from the blow, and then slammed onto her hands and knees. Celaena shoved down the magic that arose to protect and burn and maim. She scrambled and veered aside as the scaly, horned head hurtled toward the ice near her feet.

Th
e surface jolted. Farther out, but getting closer, the ice was breaking. As if all of Rowan's concentration was now spent on keeping a thin bridge of ice frozen between her and the shore. “Weapon,” she gasped out, not daring to take her attention o
ff
the creature.

“
Hurry
,” Rowan barked, and Celaena li
ft
ed her head long enough to see him slide the blade he'd found across the ice, a brisk wind spinning it toward her. Luca abandoned the blanket, shu
ffl
e-­running, and Celaena scooped up the golden-­hilted sword as she followed him. A ruby the size of a chicken egg was embedded in the hilt, and despite the age of the scabbard, the blade shone when she whipped it free, as if it had been freshly polished. Something clattered from the scabbard onto the ice—­a plain golden ring. She grabbed it, shoving it into her pocket, and ran faster, as—

Th
e ice li
ft
ed again, the
boom
of that mighty tail as horri
fi
c as the moving surface beneath her. Celaena stayed up this time, sinking onto her haunches as she clutched the sword, part of her marveling at the balance and beauty if it; but Luca, slipping and sliding, went down. She reached him in a few heartbeats, hauling him up by the back of his tunic and gripping him tight as the ice li
ft
ed again and again and again.

Th
ey got past the drop-­o
ff
, and she almost groaned with relief at the sight of the pale stone shelf beneath their feet.
Th
e ice behind them exploded up, freezing water showering them, and then—

She didn't stop as those nostrils hu
ff
ed. Didn't stop hauling Luca toward Rowan, whose brow gleamed with sweat as massive talons scraped over the ice, gouging four deep lines.

She dragged the boy the last ten yards, then
fi
ve, then they ­were on the shore and to Rowan, who let out a shuddering breath. Celaena turned in time to see something out of a nightmare trying to crawl onto the ice, its one red eye wild with hunger, its massive teeth promising a brutal and cold kind of death. As Rowan's sigh
fi
nished sounding, the ice melted, and the creature plunged below.

Back on solid ground, suddenly aware that the ice had also been a barrier, Celaena again grabbed Luca, who was looking ready to vomit, and bolted from the cave.
Th
ere was nothing keeping that creature from climbing out of the water, and the sword was about as useful as a toothpick against it. Who knew how fast it could move on land?

Luca was chanting a steady stream of prayers to various gods as Celaena yanked him down the rocky path and into the glaring a
ft
ernoon sun, stumbling near-­blind until they hit the murky woods, dodging trees mostly by luck, faster and faster downhill, and then—

A roar that shook the stones and sent the birds scattering into the air, the leaves rustling. But a roar of rage and hunger—­not of triumph. As if the creature had reached the edge of the cave and, a
ft
er millennia in the watery dark, could not withstand the sunshine. She didn't want to consider, as they kept running from the echoing roar, what might have happened if it had been night. What still might happen at nightfall.

A
ft
er 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.
Th
e 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
fl
uid ease. Slamming face-­
fi
rst 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.
Th
e 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 . . .”
Th
e 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.”

Th
at 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 horri
fi
c 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.
Th
e 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
fi
nally 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
fl
awless Galan Ashryver and saved the world—­found a truly useful heir to the throne.

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

“
Th
e assassin I hunted down and le
ft
in pieces in an alleyway. And the man who hired him . . .” Blood on her hands, on her clothes, in her hair, Chaol's horri
fi
ed stare. “I gutted him and dumped his body in a sewer.”

Th
ey ­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 le
ft
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
fi
nd a better one anywhere in the world.