The king attributed the request to an eighteen-­year-­old’s romanticism, and Aedion had swaggered about his own glory until everyone believed that he was a traitorous, butchering bastard who made a mockery of the sword just by touching it. But winning back the sword didn’t erase his failure.

Even though he’d been thirteen, and even though he’d been forty miles away in Orynth when Aelin had been killed on the country estate, he should have stopped it. He’d been sent to her land upon his mother’s death to become Aelin’s sword and shield, to serve in the court she was supposed to have ruled, that child of kings. So he should have ridden out when the castle erupted with news that Orlon Gala­thynius had been assassinated. By the time anyone did, Rhoe, Evalin, and Aelin ­were dead.

It was that reminder he’d carried with him on his back, the reminder of who the sword belonged to, and to whom, when he took his last breath and went to the Otherworld, he’d finally give it.

But now the sword, that weight he’d embraced for years, felt . . . lighter and sharper, far more fragile. Infinitely precious. The world had slipped from beneath his feet.

No one had spoken for a moment after the Captain of the Guard made his claim. Aelin is alive. Then the captain had said he’d only speak with Aedion about it.

Just to show they ­weren’t bluffing about torturing him, Ren had bloodied him up with a cool precision that Aedion grudgingly admired, but the captain had taken the blows. And whenever Ren paused, Murtaugh looking on disapprovingly, the captain said the same thing. After it became clear that the captain would either tell only Aedion or die, he’d called off Ren. The heir of Allsbrook bristled, but Aedion had dealt with plenty of young men like him in the war camps. It never took much to get them to fall in line. Aedion gave him a long, hard stare, and Ren backed down.

Which was how they wound up ­here, Chaol cleaning off his face with a scrap of his shirt. For the past few minutes, Aedion had listened to the most unlikely story he’d ever heard. The story of Celaena Sardothien, the infamous assassin, being trained by Arobynn Hamel, the story of her downfall and year in Endovier, and how she’d wound up in the ridiculous competition to become the King’s Champion. The story of Aelin, his Queen, in a death camp, and then serving in her enemy’s ­house.

Aedion braced his hands on the rail. It ­couldn’t be true. Not after ten years. Ten years without hope, without proof.

“She has your eyes,” Chaol said, working his jaw. If this assassin—an assassin, gods above—­was truly Aelin, then she was the King’s Champion. Then she was the captain’s—

“You sent her to Wendlyn,” Aedion said, his voice ragged. The tears would come later. Right now, he was emptied. Gutted. Every lie, every rumor and act and party he’d thrown, every battle, real or faked, every life he’d taken so more could live . . . How would he ever explain that to her? Adarlan’s Whore.

“I didn’t know who she was. I just thought she would be safer there because of what she is.”

“You realize you’ve only given me a bigger reason to kill you.” Aedion clenched his jaw. “Do you have any idea what kind of risk you took in telling me? I could be working for the king—­you thought I was in thrall to him, and all you had for proof against it was a quick story. You might as well have killed her yourself.” Fool—­stupid, reckless fool. But the captain still had the upper hand ­here—­the king’s noble captain, who was now toeing the line of treason. He’d wondered about the captain’s allegiance when Ren told him about the involvement of the King’s Champion with the rebels, but—­damn. Aelin. Aelin was the King’s Champion, Aelin had helped the rebels, and gutted Archer Finn. His knees threatened to buckle, but he swallowed the shock, the surprise and terror and glimmer of delight.

“I know it was a risk,” the captain said. “But the men who have those rings—­something changes in their eyes, a kind of darkness that sometimes manifests physically. I ­haven’t seen it in you since you’ve been ­here. And I’ve never seen someone throw so many parties, but only attend for a few minutes. You ­wouldn’t go to such lengths to hide your meetings with the rebels if you ­were enslaved to the king, especially when during all this time the Bane still hasn’t come, despite your assurances that it will be ­here soon. It ­doesn’t add up.” The captain met his stare. Perhaps not quite a fool, then. “I think she’d want you to know.”

The captain looked down the river toward the sea. This place reeked. Aedion had smelled and seen worse in war camps, but the slums of Renaril certainly gave them a run for their money. And Terrasen’s capital, Orynth, its once-­shining tower now a slab of filthy white stone, was well on its way to falling into this level of poverty and despair. But maybe, someday soon . . .

Aelin was alive. Alive, and as much of a killer as he was, and working for the same man. “Does the prince know?” He’d never been able to speak with the prince without remembering the days before Terrasen’s downfall; he’d never been able to hide that hatred.

“No. He ­doesn’t even know why I sent her to Wendlyn. Or that she’s—­you’re both . . . Fae.”

Aedion had never possessed a fraction of the power that had smoldered in her veins, which had burned libraries and caused such general worry that there had been talk—­in those months before the world went to hell—­of sending her somewhere so that she could learn to control it. He’d overheard debate over packing her off to various academies or tutors in distant lands, but never to their aunt Maeve, waiting like a spider in a web to see what became of her niece. And yet she’d wound up in Wendlyn, on her aunt’s doorstep.

Maeve had either never known or never cared about his inherited gifts. No, all he had ­were some of the physical traits of their immortal kin: strength, swiftness, sharp hearing, keen smell. It had made him a formidable opponent on the battlefield—­and saved his life more than once. Saved his very soul, if the captain was right about those rings.

“Is she coming back?” Aedion asked quietly. The first of the many, many questions he had for the captain, now that he’d proved himself to be more than a useless servant of the king.

There was enough agony in the captain’s eyes that Aedion knew that he loved her. Knew, and felt a tug of jealousy, if only because the captain knew her that well. “I don’t know,” Chaol admitted. If he hadn’t been his enemy, Aedion would have respected the man for the sacrifice implied. But Aelin had to come back. She would come back. Unless that return only earned her a walk to the butchering block.

He would sort through each wild thought when he was alone. He gripped the damp rail harder, fighting the urge to ask more.

But then the captain gave him a weighing look, as if he could see through every mask Aedion had ever worn. For a heartbeat, Aedion considered ­putting the blade right through the captain and dumping his body in the Avery, despite the information he possessed. The captain glanced at the blade, too, and Aedion wondered if he was thinking the same thing—­regretting his decision to trust him. The captain should regret it, should curse himself for a fool.

Aedion said, “Why ­were you tracking the rebels?”

“Because I thought they might have valuable information.” It had to be truly valuable, then, if he’d risk revealing himself as a traitor to get it.

Aedion had been willing to torture the captain—­to kill him, too. He’d done worse before. But torturing and killing his queen’s lover ­wouldn’t go over well if—when she returned. And the captain was now his greatest source of information. He wanted to know more about Aelin, about her plans, about what she was like and how he could find her. He wanted to know everything. Anything. Especially where the captain now stood on the game board—­and what the captain knew about the king. So Aedion said, “Tell me more about those rings.”

But the captain shook his head. “I want to make a bargain with you.”

 20

The black eye was still gruesome, but it improved over the next week as Celaena worked in the kitchens, tried and failed to shift with Rowan, and generally avoided everyone. The spring rains had come to stay and the kitchen was packed every night, so Celaena took to eating dinner on the shadowed steps, arriving just before the Story Keeper began speaking.