Queen of Shadows

Elide couldn’t stop crying as the witches flew northward.

She didn’t care that she was flying, or that death loomed on every side.

What Kaltain had done … She didn’t dare open her clenched fist for fear the fabric and the little stone would be ripped away in the wind.

At sunset, they landed somewhere in Oakwald. Elide didn’t care about that, either. She lay down and passed into a deep sleep, still wearing Kaltain’s dress, that bit of cloak clutched in her hand.

Someone covered her with a cloak in the night, and when she awoke, there was a set of clothes—flying leathers, a shirt, pants, boots—beside her. The witches were sleeping, their wyverns a mass of muscle and death around them. None of them stirred as Elide strode to the nearest stream, stripped off that dress, and sat in the water, watching the two pieces of her loose chain swaying in the current until her teeth were chattering.

When she had dressed, the clothes a bit big, but warm, Elide tucked that scrap of cloak and the stone it contained into one of her inner pockets.

Celaena Sardothien.

She’d never heard that name—didn’t know where to start looking. But to repay the debt she owed Kaltain …

“Don’t waste your tears on her,” Manon said from a few feet away, a pack dangling from her clean hands. She must have washed off the blood and dirt the night before. “She knew what she was doing, and it wasn’t for your sake.”

Elide wiped at her face. “She still saved our lives—and put an end to those poor witches in the catacombs.”

“She did it for herself. To free herself. And she was entitled to. After what they did, she was entitled to rip the entire damn world to shreds.”

Instead, she’d taken out a third of Morath.

Manon was right. Kaltain hadn’t cared if they’d cleared the blast. “What do we do now?”

“We’re going back to Morath,” Manon said plainly. “But you’re not.”

Elide started.

“This is as far as we can take you without raising suspicions,” Manon said. “When we return, if your uncle survived, I’ll tell him you must have been incinerated in the blast.”

And with that blast, all evidence of what Manon and her Thirteen had done to get Elide out of the dungeons would also have been erased.

But to leave her here … The world opened wide and brutal around her. “Where do I go?” Elide breathed. Endless woods and hills surrounded them. “I—I can’t read, and I have no map.”

“Go where you will, but if I were you, I’d head north, and stick to the forest. Stay out of the mountains. Keep going until you hit Terrasen.”

That had never been part of the plan. “But—but the king—Vernon—”

“The King of Adarlan is dead,” Manon said. The world stopped. “Aelin Galathynius killed him and shattered his glass castle.”

Elide covered her mouth with a hand, shaking her head. Aelin … Aelin …

“She was aided,” Manon went on, “by Prince Aedion Ashryver.”

Elide began sobbing.

“And rumor has it Lord Ren Allsbrook is working in the North as a rebel.”

Elide buried her face in her hands. Then there was a hard, iron-tipped hand on her shoulder.

A tentative touch.

“Hope,” Manon said quietly.

Elide lowered her hands and found the witch smiling at her. Barely a tilt to her lips, but—a smile, soft and lovely. Elide wondered if Manon even knew she was doing it.

But to go to Terrasen … “Things will get worse, won’t they,” Elide said.

Manon’s nod was barely perceptible.

South—she could still go south, run far, far away. Now that Vernon thought she was dead, no one would ever come looking for her. But Aelin was alive. And strong. And maybe it was time to stop dreaming of running. Find Celaena Sardothien—she would do that, to honor Kaltain and the gift she’d been given, to honor the girls like them, locked in towers with no one to speak for them, no one who remembered them.

But Manon had remembered her.

No—she would not run.

“Go north, Elide,” Manon said, reading the decision in Elide’s eyes and extending the pack. “They are in Rifthold, but I bet they won’t be there for long. Get to Terrasen and lie low. Keep off the roads, avoid inns. There’s money in that pack, but use it sparingly. Lie and steal and cheat if you have to, but get to Terrasen. Your queen will be there. I’d suggest not mentioning your mother’s heritage to her.”

Elide considered, shouldering the pack. “Having Blackbeak blood does not seem like such a horrible thing,” she said quietly.

Those gold eyes narrowed. “No,” Manon said. “No, it does not.”

“How can I thank you?”

“It was a debt already owed,” Manon said, shaking her head when Elide opened her mouth to ask more. The witch handed her three daggers, showing her where to tuck one into her boot, storing one in her pack, and then sheathing the other at her hip. Finally, she bade Elide to take off her boots, revealing the shackles she’d squeezed inside. Manon removed a small skeleton key and unlocked the chains, still clamped to her ankles.

Cool, soft air caressed her bare skin, and Elide bit her lip to keep from weeping again as she tugged her boots back on.

Through the trees, the wyverns were yawning and grumbling, and the sounds of the Thirteen laughing flitted past. Manon looked toward them, that faint smile returning to her mouth. When Manon turned back, the heir of the Blackbeak Witch-Clan said, “When war comes—which it will if Perrington survived—you should hope you do not see me again, Elide Lochan.”

“All the same,” Elide said, “I hope I do.” She bowed to the Wing Leader.

And to her surprise, Manon bowed back.

“North,” Manon said, and Elide supposed it was as much of a good-bye as she’d get.

“North,” Elide repeated, and set off into the trees.

Within minutes, she’d passed beyond the sounds of the witches and their wyverns and was swallowed up by Oakwald.

She gripped the straps of her pack as she walked.

Suddenly, the animals went silent, and the leaves rustled and whispered. A moment later, thirteen great shadows passed overhead. One of them—the smallest—lingered, sweeping back a second time, as if in farewell.

Elide didn’t know if Abraxos could see through the canopy, but she raised a hand in farewell anyway. A joyous, fierce cry echoed in response, and then the shadow was gone.

North.

To Terrasen. To fight, not run.

To Aelin and Ren and Aedion—grown and strong and alive.

She did not know how long it would take or how far she would have to walk, but she would make it. She would not look back.

Walking under the trees, the forest buzzing around her, Elide pressed a hand against the pocket inside her leather jacket, feeling the hard little lump tucked there. She whispered a short prayer to Anneith for wisdom, for guidance—and could have sworn a warm hand brushed her brow as if in answer. It straightened her spine, lifted her chin.

Limping, Elide began the long journey home.