“This date is always difficult for the Lochan family,” Vernon said. “Cal Lochan, my brother, was a traitor, you know. A rebel leader for the few months after Terrasen was inherited by the king. But he was caught like the rest of them and put down. Difficult for us to curse his name and still miss him, isn’t it, Elide?”
It hit her like a blow. How had she forgotten? She hadn’t said the prayers, hadn’t beseeched the gods to look after him. Her father’s death-day, and she had forgotten him, as surely as the world had forgotten her. Keeping her head down wasn’t an act now, even with the Wing Leader’s eyes on her.
“You’re a useless worm, Vernon,” Manon said. “Go spew your nonsense elsewhere.”
“Whatever would your grandmother say,” Vernon mused, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “about such … behavior?” Manon’s growl chased after him as he sauntered down the hall.
Manon flung open Elide’s door, revealing a room barely big enough for a cot and a pile of clothes. She hadn’t been permitted to bring any belongings, none of the keepsakes that Finnula had hidden all these years: the small doll her mother had brought back from a trip to the Southern Continent, her father’s seal ring, her mother’s ivory comb—the first gift Cal Lochan had given Marion the Laundress while courting her. Apparently, Marion the Ironteeth Witch would have been a better name.
Manon shut the door with a backward kick.
Too small—the room was too small for two people, especially when one of them was ancient and dominated the space just by breathing. Elide slumped onto the cot, if only to put more air between her and Manon.
The Wing Leader stared at her for a long moment, and then said, “You can choose, witchling. Blue or red.”
“What?”
“Does your blood run blue or red? You decide. If it runs blue, it turns out I have jurisdiction over you. Little shits like Vernon can’t do as they will to my kind—not without my permission. If your blood runs red … Well, I don’t particularly care about humans, and seeing what Vernon does with you might be entertaining.”
“Why would you offer this?”
Manon gave her a half smile, all iron teeth and no remorse. “Because I can.”
“If my blood runs … blue, won’t it confirm what Vernon suspects? Won’t he act?”
“A risk you’ll have to take. He can try to act on it—and learn where it gets him.”
A trap. And Elide was the bait. Claim her heritage as a witch, and if Vernon took her to be implanted, Manon could have the grounds to kill him.
She had a feeling Manon might hope for that. It was not just a risk; it was a suicidal, stupid risk. But better than nothing.
The witches, who lowered their eyes for no man … Until she could get away, perhaps she might learn a thing or two about what it was like to have fangs and claws. And how to use them.
“Blue,” she whispered. “My blood runs blue.”
“Good choice, witchling,” Manon said, and the word was a challenge and an order. She turned away, but glanced over her shoulder. “Welcome to the Blackbeaks.”
Witchling. Elide stared after her. She had likely just made the biggest mistake of her life, but … it was strange.
Strange, that feeling of belonging.
26
“I’m not about to keel over dead,” Aedion said to his cousin, his queen, as she helped him walk around the roof. This was their third rotation, the moon shimmering on the tiles beneath them. It was an effort to keep upright, not from the steady throb in his side, but from the fact that Aelin—Aelin—was beside him, an arm around his waist.
A cool night breeze laced with the plume of smoke on the horizon wrapped around him, chilling the sweat on his neck.
But he angled his face away from the smoke, breathing in another, better smell. And found the source of it frowning up at him. Aelin’s exquisite scent soothed him, awakened him. He’d never get sick of that scent. It was a miracle.
But her frown—that was not a miracle. “What?” he demanded. It had been a day since she’d fought in the Pits—a day of more sleeping. Tonight, under cover of darkness, was the first he’d been able to get out of bed. If he were cooped up for another moment, he’d start tearing down the walls.
He’d had enough of cages and prisons.
“I’m making my professional assessment,” she said, keeping pace beside him.
“As an assassin, queen, or pit-brawler?”
Aelin gave him a grin—the sort that told him she was debating kicking his ass. “Don’t be jealous that you didn’t get a shot at those Valg bastards.”