Queen of Shadows, стр. 121

At the magic that now rippled through the world, free.

Darkness embrace her.

Magic.

Whatever had happened, however it had been freed, Manon didn’t care.

That mortal, human weight vanished. Strength coursed through her, coating her bones like armor. Invincible, immortal, unstoppable.

Manon tipped her head back to the sky, spread her arms wide, and roared.

The Keep was in chaos. Witches and humans were running around, shouting.

Magic.

Magic was free.

Not possible.

But she could feel it, even with the collar around her neck and that scar on her arm.

The loosing of some great beast inside her.

A beast who purred at the shadowfire.

Aelin crawled away from the door stained with her blood, away from the Valg prince who laughed as she clutched at her side and inched across the bridge, her blood a smear behind her.

The sun was still creeping around that tower.

“Dorian,” she said, her legs pushing against the glass, her blood dribbling out from between her freezing fingers, warming them. “Remember.”

The Valg prince stalked her, smiling faintly as she collapsed onto her front in the center of the bridge. The shadowed spires of the glass castle loomed around her—a tomb. Her tomb.

“Dorian, remember,” she gasped out. He’d missed her heart—barely.

“He said to retrieve you, but perhaps I’ll have my fun first.”

Two knives appeared in his hands, curved and vicious.

The sun began glinting just above the tower overhead.

“Remember Chaol,” she begged. “Remember Sorscha. Remember me.”

A boom shook the castle from somewhere on the other side of the building.

And then a great wind, a soft wind, a lovely wind, as if the heart-song of the world were carried on it.

She closed her eyes for a moment and pressed her hand against her side, drawing in a breath.

“We get to come back,” Aelin said, pushing her hand harder and harder into her wound until the blood stopped, until it was only her tears that flowed. “Dorian, we get to come back from this loss—from this darkness. We get to come back, and I came back for you.”

She was weeping now, weeping as that wind faded away and her wound knitted closed.

The prince’s daggers had gone slack in his hands.

And on his finger, Athril’s golden ring glowed.

“Fight it,” she panted. The sun angled closer. “Fight it. We get to come back.”

Brighter and brighter, the golden ring pulsed at his finger.

The prince staggered back a step, his face twisting. “You human worm.”

He had been too busy stabbing her to notice the ring she’d slipped onto his finger when she’d grabbed his hand as if to shove him away.

“Take it off,” he growled, trying to touch it—and hissing as though it burned. “Take it off!”

Ice grew, spreading toward her, fast as the rays of sunlight that now shot between the towers, refracting across every glass parapet and bridge, filling the castle with Mala Fire-Bringer’s glorious light.

The bridge—this bridge that she and Chaol had selected for this purpose, for this one moment at the apex of the solstice—was smack in the middle of it.

The light hit her, and it filled her heart with the force of an exploding star.

With a roar, the Valg prince sent a wave of ice for her, spears and lances aimed at her chest.

So Aelin flung her hands out toward the prince, toward her friend, and hurled her magic at him with everything she had.

There was fire, and light, and darkness, and ice.

But the woman—the woman was there, halfway across the bridge, her hands out before her as she got to her feet.

No blood leaked from where the ice had stabbed her. Only clean, polished skin peeked through the black material of her suit.

Healed—with magic.

All around him there was so much fire and light, tugging at him.

We get to come back, she said. As if she knew what this darkness was, what horrors existed. Fight it.

A light was burning at his finger—a light that cracked inside him.

A light that cracked a sliver into the darkness.

Remember, she said.

Her flames tore at him, and the demon was screaming. But it did not hurt him. Her flames only kept the demon at bay.

Remember.

A sliver of light in the blackness.

A cracked doorway.

Remember.

Over the demon’s screaming, he pushed—pushed, and looked out through its eyes. His eyes.

And saw Celaena Sardothien standing before him.

Aedion spat blood onto the debris. Rowan was barely remaining conscious as he leaned against the cave-in behind them, while Lorcan tried to cut a path through the onslaught of Valg fighters.

More and more poured in from the tunnels, armed and bloodthirsty, alerted by the blast.

Drained and unable to summon the full depths of their magic so soon, even Rowan and Lorcan wouldn’t be able to keep the Valg occupied for long.

Aedion had two knives left. He knew they weren’t getting out of these tunnels alive.

The soldiers came in like an unending wave, their hollow eyes lit with bloodlust.

Even down here, Aedion could hear the people screaming in the streets, either from the explosion or the magic returning to flood their land. That wind … he’d never smelled anything like it, never would again.

They’d taken out the tower. They’d done it.

Now his queen would have her magic. Maybe now she’d stand a chance.

Aedion gutted the Valg commander nearest him, black blood splattering on his hands, and engaged the two that stepped in to replace him. Behind him, Rowan’s breaths were rasping. Too labored.

The prince’s magic, draining with his blood loss, had begun faltering moments ago, no longer able to choke the air out of the soldiers’ lungs. Now it was no more than a cold wind shoving against them, keeping the bulk at bay.

Aedion hadn’t recognized Lorcan’s magic as it had blasted from him in near-invisible dark winds. But where it struck, soldiers went down. And did not rise.

It, too, had now failed him.

Aedion could scarcely lift his sword arm. Just a little longer; just a few more minutes of keeping these soldiers engaged so that his queen could remain distraction-free.

With a grunt of pain, Lorcan was engulfed by half a dozen soldiers and shoved out of sight into the blackness.

Aedion kept swinging and swinging until there were no Valg before him, until he realized that the soldiers had pulled back twenty feet and regrouped.

A solid line of Valg foot soldiers, their numbers stretching away into the gloom, stood watching him, holding their swords. Waiting for the order to strike. Too many. Too many to escape.

“It’s been an honor, Prince,” Aedion said to Rowan.

Rowan’s only reply was a rasping breath.

The Valg commander stalked to the front of the line, his own sword out. Somewhere back in the sewer, soldiers began screaming. Lorcan—that selfish prick—must have cut a path through them after all. And run.

“Charge on my mark,” the commander said, his black ring glinting as he lifted a hand.

Aedion stepped in front of Rowan, useless as it would be. They’d kill Rowan once he was dead, anyway. But at least he’d go down fighting, defending his brother. At least he would have that.