“Explain,” she breathed to the woman at her side.
“It’s not my place,” was the woman’s response.
She didn’t bother to push it. Not with Chaol now in front of her, his bronze eyes wide as he took in the blood on Aelin herself.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was hoarse.
Aelin silently shook her head. Gods. Gods. Without that hood, now that she could see his features … He was exactly as she remembered—that ruggedly handsome, tan face perhaps a bit more gaunt and stubbly, but still Chaol. Still the man she’d come to love, before … before everything had changed.
There were so many things she had thought she’d say, or do, or feel.
A slender white scar slashed down his cheek. She’d given him that. The night Nehemia had died, she’d given him that, and tried to kill him.
Would have killed him. If Dorian hadn’t stopped her.
Even then, she’d understood that what Chaol had done, whom he had chosen, had forever cleaved what was between them. It was the one thing she could not forget, could not forgive.
Her silent answer seemed enough for the captain. He looked to the woman beside Aelin—to his scout. His scout—who reported to him. As though he were leading them all.
“The path ahead is clear. Stick to the eastern tunnels,” she said.
Chaol nodded. “Keep moving,” he said to the others, who had now reached his side. “I’ll catch up in a moment.” No hesitation—and no softness, either. As if he’d done this a hundred times.
They wordlessly continued on through the tunnels, casting glances Aelin’s way as they swept past. Only the young woman lingered. Watching.
“Nesryn,” Chaol said, the name an order in itself.
Nesryn stared at Aelin—analyzing, calculating.
Aelin gave her a lazy grin.
“Faliq,” Chaol growled, and the woman slid her midnight eyes toward him. If Nesryn’s family name didn’t give away her heritage, it was those eyes, slightly uptilted at the corners and lightly lined with kohl, that revealed at least one of her parents was from the Southern Continent. Interesting that the woman didn’t try to hide it, that she chose to wear the kohl even while on a mission, despite Rifthold’s less-than-pleasant policies toward immigrants. Chaol jerked his chin toward their vanishing companions. “Get to the docks.”
“It’s safer to have one of us remain here.” Again that cool voice—steady.
“Help them get to the docks, then get the hell back to the craftsman district. Your garrison commander will notice if you’re late.”
Nesryn looked Aelin up and down, those grave features never shifting. “How do we know she didn’t come here on his orders?”
Aelin knew very well who she meant. She winked at the young woman. “If I’d come here on the king’s orders, Nesryn Faliq, you’d have been dead minutes ago.”
No flicker of amusement, no hint of fear. The woman could give Rowan a run for his money for sheer iciness.
“Sunset tomorrow,” Chaol said sharply to Nesryn. The young woman stared him down, her shoulders tight, before she headed into the tunnel. She moved like water, Aelin thought.
“Go,” Aelin said to Chaol, her voice a thin rasp. “You should go—help them.” Or whatever he was doing.
Chaol’s bloodied mouth formed a thin line. “I will. In a moment.”
No invitation for her to join. Maybe she should have offered.
“You came back,” he said. His hair was longer, shaggier than it’d been months ago. “It—Aedion—it’s a trap—”
“I know about Aedion.” Gods, what could she even say?
Chaol nodded distantly, blinking. “You … You look different.”
She fingered her red hair. “Obviously.”
“No,” he said, taking one step closer, but only one. “Your face. The way you stand. You …” He shook his head, glancing toward the darkness they’d just fled. “Walk with me.”
She did. Well, it was more like walking-as-fast-as-they-could-without-running. Ahead, she could just make out the sounds of his companions hurrying through the tunnels.
All the words she’d wanted to say rushed around in her head, fighting to get out, but she pushed back against them for a moment longer.
I love you—that’s what he’d said to her the day she left. She hadn’t given him an answer other than I’m sorry.
“A rescue mission?” she said, glancing behind them. No whisper of pursuit.
Chaol grunted in confirmation. “Former magic-wielders are being hunted and executed again. The king’s new guards bring them into the tunnels to hold until it’s time for the butchering block. They like the darkness—seem to thrive on it.”
“Why not the prisons?” They were plenty dark enough, even for the Valg.
“Too public. At least for what they do to them before they’re executed.”
A chill snaked down her spine. “Do they wear black rings?” A nod. Her heart nearly stopped. “I don’t care how many people they take into the tunnels. Don’t go in again.”
Chaol gave a short laugh. “Not an option. We go in because we’re the only ones who can.”
The sewers began to reek of brine. They had to be nearing the Avery, if she’d correctly counted the turns. “Explain.”
“They don’t notice or really care about the presence of ordinary humans—only people with magic in their bloodline. Even dormant carriers.” He glanced sidelong at her. “It’s why I sent Ren to the North—to get out of the city.”
She almost tripped over a loose stone. “Ren … Allsbrook?”
Chaol nodded slowly.
The ground rocked beneath her. Ren Allsbrook. Another child of Terrasen. Still alive. Alive.
“Ren’s the reason we learned about it in the first place,” Chaol said. “We went into one of their nests. They looked right at him. Ignored Nesryn and me entirely. We barely got out. I sent him to Terrasen— to rally the rebels there—the day after. He wasn’t too happy about it, believe me.”
Interesting. Interesting, and utterly insane. “Those things are demons. The Valg. And they—”
“Drain the life out of you, feed on you, until they mak
e a show of executing you?”
“It’s not a joke,” she snapped. Her dreams were haunted by the roaming hands of those Valg princes as they fed on her. And every time she would awaken with a scream on her lips, reaching for a Fae warrior who wasn’t there to remind her that they’d made it, they’d survived.
“I know it’s not,” Chaol said. His eyes flicked to where Goldryn peeked over her shoulder. “New sword?”
She nodded. There were perhaps only three feet between them now—three feet and months and months of missing and hating him. Months of crawling out of that abyss he’d shoved her into. But now that she was here … Everything was an effort not to say she was sorry. Sorry not for what she’d done to his face, but for the fact that her heart was healed—still fractured in spots, but healed—and he … he was not in it. Not as he’d once been.
“You figured out who I am,” she said, mindful of how far ahead his companions were.
“The day you left.”
She monitored the darkness behind them for a moment. All clear.
He didn’t move closer—didn’t seem at all inclined to hold her or kiss her or even touch her. Ahead, the rebels veered into a smaller tunnel, one she knew led directly toward the ramshackle docks in the slums.
“I grabbed Fleetfoot,” he said after a moment of silence.
She tried not to exhale too loudly. “Where is she?”
“Safe. Nesryn’s father owns a few popular bakeries in Rifthold, and has done well enough that he’s got a country house in the foothills outside the city. He said his staff there would care for her in secret. She seemed more than happy to torture the sheep, so—I’m sorry I couldn’t keep her here, but with the barking—”
“I understand,” she breathed. “Thank you.” She cocked her head. “A land-owning man’s daughter is a rebel?”
“Nesryn is in the city guard, despite her father’s wishes. I’ve known her for years.”
That didn’t answer her question. “She can be trusted?”
“As you said, we’d all be dead already if she was here on the king’s orders.”