“I know about Aedion.” Gods, what could she even say?
Chaol nodded distantly, blinking. “You … You look different.”
She fingered her red hair. “Obviously.”
“No,” he said, taking one step closer, but only one. “Your face. The way you stand. You …” He shook his head, glancing toward the darkness they’d just fled. “Walk with me.”
She did. Well, it was more like walking-as-fast-as-they-could-without-running. Ahead, she could just make out the sounds of his companions hurrying through the tunnels.
All the words she’d wanted to say rushed around in her head, fighting to get out, but she pushed back against them for a moment longer.
I love you—that’s what he’d said to her the day she left. She hadn’t given him an answer other than I’m sorry.
“A rescue mission?” she said, glancing behind them. No whisper of pursuit.
Chaol grunted in confirmation. “Former magic-wielders are being hunted and executed again. The king’s new guards bring them into the tunnels to hold until it’s time for the butchering block. They like the darkness—seem to thrive on it.”
“Why not the prisons?” They were plenty dark enough, even for the Valg.
“Too public. At least for what they do to them before they’re executed.”
A chill snaked down her spine. “Do they wear black rings?” A nod. Her heart nearly stopped. “I don’t care how many people they take into the tunnels. Don’t go in again.”
Chaol gave a short laugh. “Not an option. We go in because we’re the only ones who can.”
The sewers began to reek of brine. They had to be nearing the Avery, if she’d correctly counted the turns. “Explain.”
“They don’t notice or really care about the presence of ordinary humans—only people with magic in their bloodline. Even dormant carriers.” He glanced sidelong at her. “It’s why I sent Ren to the North—to get out of the city.”
She almost tripped over a loose stone. “Ren … Allsbrook?”
Chaol nodded slowly.
The ground rocked beneath her. Ren Allsbrook. Another child of Terrasen. Still alive. Alive.
“Ren’s the reason we learned about it in the first place,” Chaol said. “We went into one of their nests. They looked right at him. Ignored Nesryn and me entirely. We barely got out. I sent him to Terrasen— to rally the rebels there—the day after. He wasn’t too happy about it, believe me.”
Interesting. Interesting, and utterly insane. “Those things are demons. The Valg. And they—”
“Drain the life out of you, feed on you, until they make a show of executing you?”
“It’s not a joke,” she snapped. Her dreams were haunted by the roaming hands of those Valg princes as they fed on her. And every time she would awaken with a scream on her lips, reaching for a Fae warrior who wasn’t there to remind her that they’d made it, they’d survived.
“I know it’s not,” Chaol said. His eyes flicked to where Goldryn peeked over her shoulder. “New sword?”
She nodded. There were perhaps only three feet between them now—three feet and months and months of missing and hating him. Months of crawling out of that abyss he’d shoved her into. But now that she was here … Everything was an effort not to say she was sorry. Sorry not for what she’d done to his face, but for the fact that her heart was healed—still fractured in spots, but healed—and he … he was not in it. Not as he’d once been.
“You figured out who I am,” she said, mindful of how far ahead his companions were.
“The day you left.”
She monitored the darkness behind them for a moment. All clear.
He didn’t move closer—didn’t seem at all inclined to hold her or kiss her or even touch her. Ahead, the rebels veered into a smaller tunnel, one she knew led directly toward the ramshackle docks in the slums.
“I grabbed Fleetfoot,” he said after a moment of silence.
She tried not to exhale too loudly. “Where is she?”