Aelin’s knees threatened to buckle.
She supposed she should have included three parties in her plans: the king, Arobynn, and the rebels—who might very well have a score to settle with her after she’d gutted Archer Finn last winter. Even if Chaol was working with them.
She shut the thought down before its full impact hit her. “And the prince?”
“Alive, but still at the castle,” the rebel hissed. “Is that enough for you to put the knife down?”
Yes. No. If Chaol was now working with the rebels … Aelin lowered her knife and stepped back into a pool of moonlight trickling in from an overhead grate.
The rebel whirled and reached for one of her knives. Aelin clicked her tongue. The woman’s fingers paused on the well-polished hilt.
“I decide to spare you, and that’s how you repay me?” Aelin said, tugging back her hood. “I don’t particularly know why I’m surprised.”
The rebel let go of her knife and pulled off her own hood, revealing her pretty, tanned face—solemn and wholly unafraid. Her dark eyes fixed on Aelin, scanning. Ally or enemy?
“Tell me why you came here,” the rebel said quietly. “The captain says you’re on our side. Yet you hid from him at the Vaults tonight.”
Aelin crossed her arms and leaned against the damp stone wall behind her. “Let’s start with you telling me your name.”
“My name is not your concern.”
Aelin lifted a brow. “You demand answers but refuse to give me any in return. No wonder the captain had you sit out the meeting. Hard to play the game when you don’t know the rules.”
“I heard what happened this winter. That you went to the warehouse and killed so many of us. You slaughtered rebels—my friends.” That cool, calm mask didn’t so much as flinch. “And yet I’m now supposed to believe you were on our side all along. Forgive me if I’m not forthright with you.”
“Should I not kill the people who kidnap and beat my friends?” Aelin said softly. “Am I not supposed to react with violence when I receive notes threatening to kill my friends? Am I not supposed to gut the self-serving prick who had my beloved friend assassinated?” She pushed off the wall, stalking toward the woman. “Would you like me to apologize? Should I grovel on my knees for any of that?” The rebel’s face showed nothing—either from training or genuine iciness. Aelin snorted. “I thought so. So why don’t you take me to the captain and save the self-righteous bullshit for later?”
The woman glanced toward the darkness again and shook her head slightly. “If you hadn’t put a blade to my throat, I would have told you that we’d arrived.” She pointed to the tunnel ahead. “You’re welcome.”
Aelin debated slamming the woman into the filthy, wet wall just to remind her who, exactly, the King’s Champion was, but then ragged breathing scraped past her ears, coming from that darkness. Human breathing—and whispers.
Boots sliding and thumping against stone, more whispers—hushed demands from voices she didn’t recognize to hurry, and quiet now, and—
Aelin’s muscles locked up as one male voice hissed, “We’ve got twenty minutes until that ship leaves. Move.”
She knew that voice.
But she still couldn’t brace herself for the full impact of Chaol Westfall staggering out of the darkness at the end of the tunnel, holding a limp, too-thin man between himself and a companion, another armed man guarding their backs.
Even from the distance, the captain’s eyes locked onto Aelin’s.
He didn’t smile.
7
There were two injured people in total, one held between Chaol and his companion, the other sagging between two men she didn’t recognize. Three others—two men and another woman—guarded the rear.
The rebel they dismissed with a glance. A friend.
Aelin held each of their gazes as they hurried toward her, their weapons out. Blood was splattered on them all—red blood and black blood that she knew too well. And the two nearly unconscious people …
She also knew that emaciated, dried-out look. The hollowness on their faces. She’d been too late with the ones in Wendlyn. But somehow Chaol and his allies had gotten these two out. Her stomach flipped. Scouting—the young woman beside her had been scouting the path ahead, to make sure it was safe for this rescue.
The guards in this city weren’t corrupted just by ordinary Valg, as Arobynn had suggested.
No, there was at least one Valg prince here. In these tunnels, if the darkness was any indicator. Shit. And Chaol had been—
Chaol paused long enough for a companion to step in to help carry the injured man away. Then he was striding ahead. Twenty feet away now. Fifteen. Ten. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, and his bottom lip was split open. They’d fought their way out—
“Explain,” she breathed to the woman at her side.
“It’s not my place,” was the woman’s response.
She didn’t bother to push it. Not with Chaol now in front of her, his bronze eyes wide as he took in the blood on Aelin herself.
“Are you hurt?” His voice was hoarse.
Aelin silently shook her head. Gods. Gods. Without that hood, now that she could see his features … He was exactly as she remembered—that ruggedly handsome, tan face perhaps a bit more gaunt and stubbly, but still Chaol. Still the man she’d come to love, before … before everything had changed.
There were so many things she had thought she’d say, or do, or feel.
A slender white scar slashed down his cheek. She’d given him that. The night Nehemia had died, she’d given him that, and tried to kill him.
Would have killed him. If Dorian hadn’t stopped her.
Even then, she’d understood that what Chaol had done, whom he had chosen, had forever cleaved what was between them. It was the one thing she could not forget, could not forgive.
Her silent answer seemed enough for the captain. He looked to the woman beside Aelin—to his scout. His scout—who reported to him. As though he were leading them all.
“The path ahead is clear. Stick to the eastern tunnels,” she said.
Chaol nodded. “Keep moving,” he said to the others, who had now reached his side. “I’ll catch up in a moment.” No hesitation—and no softness, either. As if he’d done this a hundred times.
They wordlessly continued on through the tunnels, casting glances Aelin’s way as they swept past. Only the young woman lingered. Watching.
“Nesryn,” Chaol said, the name an order in itself.
Nesryn stared at Aelin—analyzing, calculating.
Aelin gave her a lazy grin.
“Faliq,” Chaol growled, and the woman slid her midnight eyes toward him. If Nesryn’s family name didn’t give away her heritage, it was those eyes, slightly uptilted at the corners and lightly lined with kohl, that revealed at least one of her parents was from the Southern Continent. Interesting that the woman didn’t try to hide it, that she chose to wear the kohl even while on a mission, despite Rifthold’s less-than-pleasant policies toward immigrants. Chaol jerked his chin toward their vanishing companions. “Get to the docks.”
“It’s safer to have one of us remain here.” Again that cool voice—steady.
“Help them get to the docks, then get the hell back to the craftsman district. Your garrison commander will notice if you’re late.”
Nesryn looked Aelin up and down, those grave features never shifting. “How do we know she didn’t come here on his orders?”
Aelin knew very well who she meant. She winked at the young woman. “If I’d come here on the king’s orders, Nesryn Faliq, you’d have been dead minutes ago.”
No flicker of amusement, no hint of fear. The woman could give Rowan a run for his money for sheer iciness.
“Sunset tomorrow,” Chaol said sharply to Nesryn. The young woman stared him down, her shoulders tight, before she headed into the tunnel. She moved like water, Aelin thought.
“Go,” Aelin said to Chaol, her voice a thin rasp. “You should go—help them.” Or whatever he was doing.
Chaol’s bloodied mouth formed a thin line. “I will. In a moment.”
No invitation for her to join. Maybe she should have offered.
“You came back,” he said. His hair was longer, shaggier than it’d been months ago. “It—Aedion—it’s a trap—”
“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.