فصل 78

CHAPTER 78

Aelin Galathynius stared at the butcher of her family, her people, her continent.

“Don’t listen to his lies,” Dorian said, flat and hollow.

Aelin studied the king’s hand, where the dark ring had been shattered away. Only a pale band of skin remained. “Who are you?” she said quietly.

Human—more and more, the king looked … human. Softer.

The king turned to Dorian, exposing his broad palms. “Everything I did—it was all to keep you safe. From him.” Aelin went still.

“I found the key,” the king went on, the words tumbling out. “I found the key and brought it to Morath. And he … Perrington. We were young, and he took me under the Keep to show me the crypt, even though it was forbidden. But I opened it with the key …” Tears, real and clear, flowed down his ruddy face. “I opened it, and he came; he took Perrington’s body—and …” He gazed at his bare hand. Watched it shake. “He let his minion take me.” “That’s enough,” Dorian said.

Aelin’s heart stumbled. “Erawan is free,” she breathed. And not only free—Erawan was Perrington. The Dark King himself had manhandled her, lived in this castle with her—and had never known, by luck or Fate or Elena’s own protection, that she was here. She had never known, either—never detected it on him. Gods above, Erawan had forced her to bow that day in Endovier and neither of them had scented or marked what the other was.

The king nodded, setting his tears splattering on his tunic. “The Eye—you could have sealed him back in with the Eye …” The look on the king’s face when she’d revealed the necklace … He’d been seeing a tool not of destruction, but of salvation.

Aelin said, “How is it possible he’s been inside Perrington all this time and no one noticed?” “He can hide inside a body like a snail in its shell. But cloaking his presence also stifles his own abilities to scent others—like you. And now you are back—all the players in the unfinished game. The Galathynius line—and the Havilliard, which he has hated so fiercely all this time. Why he targeted my family, and yours.” “You butchered my kingdom,” she managed to say. That night her parents died, there had been that smell in the room … The scent of the Valg. “You slaughtered millions.” “I tried to stop it.” The king braced a hand on the bridge, as if to keep from collapsing under the weight of the shame now coating his words. “They could find you based on your magic alone, and wanted the strongest of you for themselves. And when you were born …” His craggy features crumpled as he again addressed Dorian. “You were so strong—so precious. I couldn’t let them take you. I wrested control away for just long enough.” “To do what,” Dorian said hoarsely.

Aelin glanced at the smoke wafting toward the river far beyond. “To order the towers built,” she said, “and use that spell to banish magic.” And now that they had freed magic … the magic-wielders would be sniffed out by every Valg demon in Erilea.

The king gasped a shuddering breath. “But he didn’t know how I’d done it. He thought the magic vanished as punishment from our gods and knew nothing of why the towers were built. All this time I used my strength to keep the knowledge of it away from him—from them. All my strength—so I could not fight the demon, stop it when … when it did those things. I kept that knowledge safe.” “He’s a liar,” Dorian said, turning on his heel. There was no mercy in his voice. “I still wound up able to use my magic—it didn’t protect me at all. He’ll say anything.” The wicked will tell us anything to haunt our thoughts long after, Nehemia had warned her.

“I didn’t know,” the king pleaded. “Using my blood in the spell must have made my line immune. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. My boy—Dorian—” “You don’t get to call him that,” Aelin snapped. “You came to my home and murdered my family.” “I came to find you. I came to have you burn it out of me!” the king sobbed. “Aelin of the Wildfire. I tried to get you to do it. But your mother knocked you unconscious before you could kill me, and the demon … The demon became devoted to wiping out your line after that, so no fire could ever cleanse him from me.” Aelin’s blood turned to ice. No—no, it couldn’t be true, couldn’t be right.

“All of it was to find you,” the king said to her. “So you could save me—so you could end me at last. Please. Do it.” The king was weeping now, and his body seemed to waste away bit by bit, his cheeks hollowing out, his hands thinning.

As if his life force and the demon prince inside him had indeed been bonded—and one could not exist without the other.

“Chaol is alive,” the king murmured through his emaciated hands, lowering them to reveal red-rimmed eyes, already milky with age. “Broken, but I didn’t make the kill. There was—a light around him. I left him alive.” A sob ripped from her throat. She had hoped, had tried to give him a shot at survival— “You are a liar,” Dorian said again, his voice cold. So cold. “And you deserve this.” Light sparked at Dorian’s fingertips.

Aelin mouthed his name, trying to reel herself back in, gather her wits. The demon inside the king had hunted her not because of the threat Terrasen posed—but for the fire in her veins. The fire that could end them both.

She lifted a hand as Dorian stepped toward his father. They had to ask more, learn more— The Crown Prince tipped his head back to the sky and roared, and it was the battle cry of a god.

Then the glass castle shattered.