But at long last, Rowan swooped out of the cave in a leisurely flight. He made his way up to her, then flew past, heading into the woods. A message to follow. Carefully, she dragged herself through the dirt and mud and rocks until she was far enough away to slip between the trees. She followed Rowan for a ways, the forest growing denser, the rain masking all sounds.
She found him standing with crossed arms against a gnarled pine. “There are about two hundred mortal soldiers and three of those creatures in the caves. There’s a hidden network of them all along the shore.”
Her throat closed up. She made herself wait for him to go on.
“They are under the command of someone called General Narrok. The soldiers all look highly trained, but they keep well away from the three creatures.” Rowan wiped at his nose, and in the flash of lightning, she beheld the blood. “You were right. The three creatures look like men, but aren’t men. Whatever dwells inside their skin is . . . disgusting isn’t the right word. It was as if my magic, my blood—my very essence was repelled by them.” He examined the blood on his fingers. “All of them seem to be waiting.”
Three of those things. Just one had nearly killed her. “Waiting for what?”
Rowan’s animal eyes glowed as they fixed on her. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“The king never said anything about this. He—he . . .” Had something gone wrong in Adarlan? Had Chaol somehow told the king who and what she was, and the king sent these men here to . . . No, it had to have taken weeks, months, to get these creatures smuggled here. “Send word for Wendlyn’s forces—warn them right now.”
“Even if I reached Varese tomorrow, it would take over a week to get here on foot. Most of the units have been deployed in the north all spring.”
“We still need to warn them that they’re at risk.”
“Use your head. There are endless caves and places to hide along the western coastline. And yet they pick here, this access point.”
She visualized the map of the area. “The mountain road will take them past the fortress.” Her blood chilled, and even her magic, flickering in an attempt to soothe her, could not warm her as she said, “No—not past. To the fortress. They’re going after the demi-Fae.”
A slow, grave nod. “I think those bodies we found were experiments. To learn the weaknesses and strengths of the demi-Fae, to learn which ones were . . . compatible with whatever it is they do to warp beings. With these numbers, I’d suggest this unit was sent here to capture and retrieve the demi-Fae, or to wipe out a potential threat.”
Because if they could not be converted and enslaved to Adarlan, then the demi-Fae could be convinced to potentially fight for Wendlyn in a war. They could be the strongest warriors in Wendlyn’s forces—and cause more than a bit of trouble for Adarlan as a result.
She lifted her chin and said, “Then right now—right now, we’ll go down to that beach and unleash our magic on them all. While they’re sleeping.” She turned, even as part of her soul started bucking and thrashing at the thought of it.
Rowan grabbed her elbow. “If I had thought there was a way to do it, I would have suffocated them all. But we can’t—not without endangering our lives in the process.”
“Believe me, I can and I will.” They were Adarlan’s soldiers—they had butchered and pillaged and done more evil than she could stomach. She could do it. She would do it.
“No. You physically cannot harm them, Aelin. Not right now. They know enough about those Wyrdmarks to have protected their whole rutting camp from our kind of magic. Wards—like the stones around the fortress, but different. They wear iron everywhere they can, in their weapons, in their armor. They know their enemy well. We might be good, but we can’t take them on alone and walk out of those caves alive.”
Celaena paced, running her hands through her rain-wet hair, and then realized he hadn’t finished. “Say it,” she demanded.
“Narrok is in the very back of the caves, in a private chamber. He is like them, a creature wearing the skin of a man. He sends out his three monsters to retrieve the demi-Fae, and they bring them back to the cave—for him to experiment on.”
She knew, then, why Rowan had moved her into the trees, far from the beach. Not for safety, but because—because there was a demi-Fae in there right now.
“I tried to cut off her air—to make it easier for her,” Rowan said. “But they have her in too much iron, and . . . she won’t make it through the night, even if we go in there now. She is already a husk, barely able to breathe. There is no coming back from what they’ve done. They’ve fed on the very life of her, trapping her in her mind, making her relive whatever horrors and miseries she’s already encountered.”
Even the fire in her blood froze. “It truly fed on me that day in the barrows,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t managed to escape, it would have drained me like that.” A low, confirming growl rippled out of Rowan.
Nauseated, Celaena scrubbed at her face—tipped her head back to the rain trickling in from the canopy above, then finally took a long breath and faced Rowan. “We cannot kill them with our magic while they are encamped. Wendlyn’s forces are too far away, and Narrok is going after the demi-Fae with three of those monsters plus two hundred soldiers.” She was thinking aloud, but Rowan nodded anyway. “How many of the sentries at Mistward have actually seen battle?”
“Thirty or less. And some, like Malakai, are too old, but will fight anyway—and die.”
Rowan walked deeper into the woods. She followed him, if only because she knew if she took one step closer to the beach, she would go after that female. From the tension in Rowan’s shoulders, she knew he felt the same.
The rain ceased, and Celaena pulled back her hood to let the misty air soak into her too-hot face. This
area was full of shepherds and farmers and fishermen. Aside from the demi-Fae, there was no one else to fight the creatures. They had no advantage, save for knowing their territory better than their enemy. They would send word to Wendlyn, of course, and maybe, maybe help would arrive in the next week.
Rowan held up a fist, and she halted as he scanned the trees ahead and behind. With expert quietness, he unsheathed one of the blades in his vambraces. The smell hit her a second later—the stench of whatever those creatures were beneath the mortal meat.
“Only one.” He was so quiet she could hardly hear even with her Fae ears.
“That’s not reassuring,” she said with equal softness, drawing her own dagger.
Rowan pointed. “He’s coming dead at us. You head to the right for twenty yards, I’ll go left. When he’s between us, wait for my signal, then strike. No magic—it might attract too much attention if others are nearby. Keep it quick and quiet and fast.”
“Rowan, this thing—”
“Quick and quiet and fast.”
His green eyes flashed, but she held his stare. It fed on me and would have turned me into a husk, she silently said. We could easily meet that fate right now.
You were unprepared, he seemed to say. And I was not with you.
This is insane. I faced one of the defective ones, too, and it almost killed me.
Scared, Princess?
Yes, and wisely so.
But he was right. These were their woods, and they were warriors. This time, it would be different. So she nodded, a soldier accepting orders, and did not bother with farewells before she slipped into the trees. She made her footfalls light, counting the distance, listening to the forest around them, keeping her breathing steady.
She ducked behind a mossy tree and drew her other blade. The smell deepened into a steady reek that made her head pound. As the clouds overhead cleared further, the starlight faintly illuminated the low-lying mist on the loamy earth. Nothing.