Gavriel edged closer and nudged the shape-shifter along, walking a few paces ahead with her. “Fenrys is the last person to ask. If you want an appropriate answer, that is.”
Lysandra chuckled, smiling at the Lion as they ascended the hill. Odd—to see her smile on Fenrys’s face. Fenrys caught Aelin’s eye and grimaced again, no doubt finding it equally unnerving. She chuckled.
Wings flapped ahead, and Aelin took a moment to marvel as Rowan sailed hard and fast to them. Swift, strong—unfaltering.
Gavriel fell back a few paces as Lysandra stilled beside Aedion atop the hill and shifted into her own form. She swayed a bit, and Aelin lunged—only for Aedion to beat her to it, gripping Lysandra gently under her elbow as Rowan landed and shifted himself. They all needed a nice, long rest.
Her Fae Prince said, “Dead ahead—we’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon.”
Whenever she saw Rolfe again, they’d have a little chat about how, exactly, he calculated distances on that infernal map of his.
But Rowan’s face had paled beneath the tattoos. After a moment, he added, “I can feel it—my magic can feel it.”
“Tell me it’s not under twenty feet of water.”
A swift, cutting shake of the head. “I didn’t want to risk getting too close. But it reminds me of the Sin-Eater’s temple.”
“So, a really lovely, welcoming, and relaxing place to be, then,” she said.
Aedion laughed under his breath, eyes on the horizon. Dorian and Manon hauled themselves onto the bank below, dripping wet, the witch scanning the sea of islands ahead. If she noted anything, the witch said nothing.
Rowan surveyed the island they stood atop: high, shielded by a crumbling stone wall on one side, thorns on the other. “We’ll camp here tonight. It’s secure enough.”
Aelin nearly sagged in relief. Lysandra uttered a faint thank-you to the gods.
Within minutes, they’d cleared enough of a general area, through physical and magical toiling, to find seats among the huge blocks of stone, and Aedion set about cooking: a rather sad meal of hard bread and the swamp creatures Gavriel and Rowan had hunted, deeming them safe enough to eat. Aelin didn’t watch her cousin, preferring not to know what the hell she was about to shove down her throat.
The others seemed inclined to avert their attention as well, and though Aedion managed to wield their meager spices with surprising talent, some of the meat was … chewy. Slimy. Lysandra had politely, but thoroughly, gagged at one point.
Night set in, a sea of stars twinkling into existence. Aelin couldn’t recall the last time she had been so far from civilization—perhaps on the ocean crossing to and from Wendlyn.
Aedion, seated beside her, passed the too-light skin of wine. She swigged from it, glad for the sour slide that washed away any lingering taste of the meat.
“Don’t ever tell me what that was,” Aelin murmured to him, watching the others quietly finish up their own food. Lysandra muttered her agreement.
Aedion grinned a bit wickedly, surveying the others as well. A few feet away, half in shadow, Manon monitored it all. But Aedion’s gaze lingered on Dorian, and Aelin braced herself. But her cousin’s smile turned softer. “He still eats like a fine lady.”
Dorian’s head snapped up—but Aelin bit back a laugh at the memory. Ten years ago, they’d sat around a table together and she’d told the Havilliard prince what she thought of his table manners. Dorian blinked as the memory no doubt resurfaced, even as the others glanced between them.
The king gave a magnanimous bow. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Indeed, his hands were mostly clean, his now-dry clothes immaculate.
Her own hands … Aelin fished into a pocket for her handkerchief. The thing was as filthy as the rest of her, but … better than using her pants. She plucked out the Eye of Elena from where it was usually wrapped inside, setting it on her knee as she wiped the smear of spices and fat from her fingers, then offered the scrap of silk to Lysandra. Aelin casually ran her fingers over the bent metal of the Eye as the shifter cleaned her hands, the blue stone in its core flickering with cobalt fire.
“As far as I recall,” Dorian went on with a sly grin, “you two—”
The attack happened so fast that Aelin didn’t sense or see it until it was over.
One moment, Manon was seated at the edge of the fire, the marshes a dark sprawl behind her.
The next, scales and flashing white teeth were snapping for her, erupting from the brush on the bank. And then—stillness and silence as the enormous marsh beast froze in place.
Halted by invisible hands—strong ones.
Manon’s sword was half out, her breathing ragged as she stared down the milky-pink maw spread wide enough to snap off her head. The teeth were each as long as Aelin’s thumb.
Aedion swore. The others didn’t so much as move.
But Dorian’s magic held the beast still, frozen with no ice to be seen. The same power as the one he’d wielded against the Bloodhound. Aelin surveyed him for any tether, any gleaming thread of power, and found none. He hadn’t even lifted a hand to direct it. Interesting.
Dorian said to Manon, the witch still peering into the yawning death inches before her face, “Shall I kill it or set it free?”
Aelin most certainly had an opinion on the matter, but a warning look from Rowan had her shutting her mouth. And gaping a bit at her prince.
Oh, you crafty old bastard. His harsh, tattooed face revealed nothing.
Manon glanced toward Dorian. “Free it.”
The king’s face tightened—then the beast went careening off into the dark, as if a god had hurled it across the marshes. A distant splash sounded.
Lysandra sighed. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
Aelin cut her a look. The shifter grinned.
But Aelin looked back at Rowan, holding his stare. How convenient that your shield vanished right as that thing waddled up. What an excellent opportunity for a magic lesson. What if it had gone wrong?
Rowan’s eyes glittered. Why do you think the hole opened up by the witch?
Aelin swallowed her laugh of dismay. But Manon Blackbeak was taking in the king, her hand still on her sword. Aelin didn’t bother to pretend looking as if she wasn’t watching them as the witch shifted those gold eyes to her. To the Eye of Elena still balanced on Aelin’s knee.
Manon’s lip curled back from her teeth. “Where did you get that.”
The hair on Aelin’s arms rose. “The Eye of Elena? It was a gift.”
But the witch again glanced to Dorian—as if saving her from that thing … Oh, Rowan hadn’t lowered the shield just for a magic lesson, had he? Aelin didn’t dare glance at him this time, not as Manon dipped her fingers into the muddy earth to sketch a shape.
A large circle—and two overlapping circles, one atop the other, within its circumference. “That is the Three-Faced Goddess,” Manon said, her voice low. “We call this …” She drew a rough line in the centermost circle, in the eye-shaped space where they overlapped. “The Eye of the Goddess. Not Elena.” She circled the exterior again. “Crone,” she said of the outermost circumference. She circled the interior top circle: “Mother.” She circled the bottom: “Maiden.” She stabbed the eye inside: “And the heart of the Darkness within her.”
It was Aelin’s turn to shake her head. The others didn’t so much as blink.
Manon said again, “That is an Ironteeth symbol. Blueblood prophets have it tattooed over their hearts. And those who won valor in battle, when we lived in the Wastes … they were once given those. To mark our glory—our being Goddess-blessed.”
Aelin debated chucking the gods-damned amulet into the marsh, but said, “The day I first saw Baba Yellowlegs … the amulet turned heavy and warm in her presence. I thought it was in warning. Perhaps it was in … recognition.”
Manon studied the necklace of scars marring Aelin’s throat. “Its power worked even with magic contained?”
“I was told that certain objects were … exempt.?
? Aelin’s voice strained. “Baba Yellowlegs knew the entire history of the Wyrdkeys and gates. She was the one who told me about them. Is that a part of your history, too?”
“No. Not in those terms,” Manon said. “But Yellowlegs was an Ancient—she knew things now lost to us. She ripped down the walls of the Crochan city herself.”
“The legends claim the slaughter was … catastrophic,” Dorian said.
Shadows flickered in Manon’s eyes. “That killing field, the last I heard, is still barren. Not a blade of grass grows on it. They say it’s from Rhiannon Crochan’s curse. Or from the blood that soaked it for the final three weeks of that war.”
“What is the curse, exactly?” Lysandra asked, brows furrowing.
Manon examined her iron nails, long enough that Aelin thought she wouldn’t answer. Aedion chucked the wineskin back into her lap, and Aelin swigged from it again as Manon at last replied. “Rhiannon Crochan held the gates to her city for three days and three nights against the three Ironteeth Matrons. Her sisters were dead around her, her children slaughtered, her consort spiked to one of the Ironteeth war caravans. The last Crochan Queen, the final hope of their thousand-year dynasty … She did not go gently. It was only when she fell at dawn on the fourth day that the city was truly lost. And as she lay dying on that killing field, as the Ironteeth ripped down the walls of the city around her and butchered her people … she cursed us. Cursed the three Matrons, and through them, all Ironteeth. She cursed Yellowlegs herself—who gave Rhiannon her finishing blow.”