“It ­doesn’t matter if they are assassinated or not,” Murtaugh said. “When these things arrive, I think the world will soon learn what our queen is up against.”

“Can we send a warning?” Ren demanded. “Can Rolfe get word to Wendlyn?”

“Rolfe will not get involved. I offered him promises of gold, of land when our queen returns . . . nothing can sway him. He has his territory back, and he will not risk his men again.”

“Then there has to be some blockade runner, some message we can smuggle,” Ren went on. Aedion debated informing Ren that Wendlyn hadn’t bothered to help Terrasen, but decided he didn’t particularly feel like getting into an ethical debate.

“I have sent a few that way,” Murtaugh said, “but I do not have much faith in them. And by the time they arrive, it may be too late.”

“So what do we do?” Ren pushed.

Murtaugh sipped his brandy. “We keep looking for ways to help ­here. Because I do not believe for one moment that His Majesty’s newest surprises ­were located only in the Dead Islands.”

That was an interesting point. Aedion took a sip from the brandy, but set it down. Alcohol ­wouldn’t help him sort through the jumble of forming plans. So Aedion half listened to the others as he slipped into the steady rhythm, the beat to which he calculated all his battles and campaigns.

•

Chaol watched Aedion pace in the apartment, Murtagh and Ren having left to see to their own agendas. Aedion said, “You want to tell me why you look like you’re going to vomit?”

“You know everything I know, so it’s easy to guess why,” Chaol said from his armchair, his jaw clenched. His fight with Dorian had left him in no hurry to get back to the castle, even if he needed the prince to test out his theories on that spell. Dorian had been right about Celaena—­about Chaol resenting her darkness and abilities and true identity, but . . . it hadn’t changed how he felt.

“I still don’t quite grasp your role in things, Captain,” Aedion said. “You’re not fighting for Aelin or for Terrasen; for what, then? The greater good? Your prince? Whose side does that put you on? Are you a traitor—­a rebel?”

“No.” Chaol’s blood chilled at the thought. “I’m on neither side. I only wish to help my friend before I leave for Anielle.”

Aedion’s lip pulled back in a snarl. “Perhaps that’s your problem. Perhaps not picking a side is what costs you. Perhaps you need to tell your father you’re breaking your promise.”

“I will not turn my back on my kingdom or my prince,” Chaol snapped. “I will not fight in your army and slaughter my people. And I will not break my vow to my father.” His honor might very well be all he would have left at the end of this.

“What if your prince sides with us?”

“Then I will fight alongside him, however I am able, even if it’s from Anielle.”

“So you will fight alongside him, but not for what is right. Have you no free will, no wants of your own?”

“My wants are none of your concern.” And those wants . . . “Regardless of what Dorian decides, he would never sanction the killing of innocents.”

A sneer. “No taste for blood?”

Chaol ­wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to meet his temper. Instead he went for the throat and said, “I think your queen would condemn you if you spilled one drop of innocent blood. She would spit in your face. There are good people in this kingdom, and they deserve to be considered in any course of action your side takes.”

Aedion’s eyes flicked to the scar on Chaol’s cheek. “Just like how she condemned you for the death of her friend?” Aedion gave him a slow, vicious smile, and then, almost too fast to register, the general was in his face, arms braced on the wings of the chair.

Chaol wondered if Aedion would strike him, or kill him, as the general’s features turned more lupine than he’d ever seen them, nose crinkled, teeth exposed. Aedion said, “When your men have died around you, when you have seen your women unforgivably hurt, when you have watched droves of orphaned children starve to death in the streets of your city, then you can talk to me about sparing innocent lives. Until then, the fact remains, Captain, that you have not picked a side because you are still a boy, and you are still afraid. Not of losing innocent lives, but of losing what­ever dream it is you’re clinging to. Your prince has moved on, my queen has moved on. But you have not. And it will cost you in the end.”

Chaol had nothing to say after that and quickly left the apartment. He hardly slept that night, hardly did anything but stare at his sword, discarded on his desk. When the sun ­rose, he went to the king and told him of his plans to return to Anielle.

41

The next two weeks fell into a pattern—­enough that Celaena started to find comfort in it. There ­were no unexpected stumbles or turns or pitfalls, no deaths or betrayals or nightmares made flesh. In the mornings and eve­nings, she played scullery maid. Late morning until dinner she spent with Rowan, slowly, painfully exploring the well of magic inside her—­a well that, to her horror, had no bottom in sight.

The small things—­lighting candles, putting out hearth fires, weaving a ribbon of flame through her fingers—­were still the hardest. But Rowan pushed, dragging her from ruin to ruin, the only safe places for her to lose control. At least he brought food with him now, as she was constantly starving and could hardly go an hour without eating something. Magic gobbled up energy, and she was eating double or triple what she used to.

Sometimes they would talk. Well, she would make him talk, because after telling him about Aedion and her own selfish wish for freedom, she decided that talking was . . . good. Even if she ­wasn’t able to open up about some things, she liked hearing Rowan speak. She managed to get him to tell her about his various campaigns and adventures, each more brutal and harrowing than the next. There was a ­whole giant world to the south and east of Wendlyn, kingdoms and empires she’d heard of in passing but had never known much about. Rowan was a true warrior, who had walked on and off of killing fields, led men through hell, sailed on raging seas and seen distant, strange shores.

Though she envied his long life—­and the gift of seeing the world that went along with it—­she could still feel the undercurrent of rage and grief beneath each tale, the loss of his mate that haunted him no matter how far he rode or sailed or flew. He spoke very little of his friends, who sometimes accompanied him on his journeys. She did not envy him the battles he had fought, the wars in far-­off lands, or the bloody years spent laying siege to cities of sand and stone.