They went down a heartbeat later.

Sentries shouted from the trees, orders of “Sound the alarm!” ringing out.

But Rowan was already running. And the sentries in the trees, their shouts lingering on the wind as they gasped for breath, were already dead.

The sky slowly bled toward dawn.

Standing at the edge of the forest that bordered the eastern side of the camp, a good two miles of rolling, grassy hills between him and the edge of the army, Lorcan monitored the stirring troops.

Gavriel had already shifted, and the mountain lion now paced near the tree line, waiting for the signal.

It was an effort not to peer behind him, though Lorcan could not see her. They’d left Elide a few miles into the forest, hidden in a copse of trees bordering a glen. Should all go poorly, she’d flee deeper into the hilly woods, up into the ancient mountains. Where far more deadly and cunning predators than Fae still prowled.

She hadn’t offered him a parting word, though she’d wished them all luck. Lorcan hadn’t been able to find the right words anyway, so he’d left without so much as a look back.

But he glanced back now. Prayed that if they didn’t return, she wouldn’t come hunting for them.

Gavriel halted his pacing, ears twitching toward the camp.

Lorcan stiffened.

A spark of his power awakened and flickered.

Death beckoned nearby.

“It’s too soon,” Lorcan said, scanning for any sign of Whitethorn’s signal. Nothing.

Gavriel’s ears lay flat against his head. And still those flutters of the dying trickled past.

CHAPTER 26

Aelin swallowed once. Twice. The portrait of uncertain fear as she lay chained on the metal table, Cairn waiting for her answer.

And then she said, her voice cracking, “When you finish breaking me apart for the day, how does it feel to know that you are still nothing?”

Cairn grinned. “Some fire left in you, it seems. Good.”

She smiled back through the mask. “You were only given the oath for this. For me. Without me, you’re nothing. You’ll go back to being nothing. Less than nothing, from what I’ve heard.”

Cairn’s fingers tightened around the flint. “Keep talking, bitch. Let’s see where it gets you.”

A rasping laugh broke from her. “The guards talk when you’re gone, you know. They forget I’m Fae, too. Can hear like you.”

Cairn said nothing.

“At least they agree with me on one front. You’re spineless. Have to tie up people to hurt them because it makes you feel like a male.” Aelin gave a pointed glance between his legs. “Inadequate in the ways that count.”

A tremor went through him. “Would you like me to show you how inadequate I am?”

Aelin huffed another laugh, haughty and cool, and gazed toward the ceiling, toward the lightening sky. The last she’d see, if she played this right.

There had always been another, a spare, to take her place should she fail. That her death would mean Dorian’s, would send those hateful gods to demand his life to forge the Lock … It was no strange thing, to hate herself for it. She’d failed enough people, failed Terrasen, that the additional weight barely landed. She wouldn’t have much longer to feel it anyway.

So she drawled toward the sky, the stars, “Oh, I know there’s not much worth seeing in that regard, Cairn. And you’re not enough of a male to be able to use it without someone screaming, are you?” At his silence, she smirked. “I thought so. I dealt with plenty of your ilk at the Assassins’ Guild. You’re all the same.”

A deep snarl.

Aelin only chuckled and adjusted her body, as if getting comfortable. “Go ahead, Cairn. Do your worst.”

Fenrys let out a warning whine.

She waited, waited, maintaining the smirk, the looseness in her limbs.

A hand slammed into her gut, hard enough she bowed around it, the air vanishing from her.

Then another blow, to her ribs, a cry rasping from her. Fenrys barked.

Locks clicked, unlocking. Hot breath tickled her ear as she was yanked up, off the table. “Maeve’s orders might hold me at bay, bitch, but let’s see how much you talk after this.”

Her chained legs failed to get under her before Cairn gripped the back of her head and slammed her face into the edge of the metal table.

Stars burst, blinding and agonizing, as metal on metal on bone cracked through her. She stumbled, falling back, her chained feet sending her sprawling.

Fenrys barked again, frantic and raging.

But Cairn was there, gripping her hair so tightly her eyes watered, and she cried out once more as he dragged her across the floor toward that great, burning brazier.

He hauled her up by her hair and shoved her masked face forward. “Let’s see how you mock me now.”

The heat instantly singed her, the flames licking so close to her skin. Oh gods, oh gods, the heat of it—

The mask warmed on her face, the chains along her body with it.

Despite herself, her plans, she shoved back, but Cairn held her firm. Pushed her toward the fire as her body strained, fighting for any pocket of cool air.

“I’m going to melt your face so badly even the healers won’t be able to fix you,” he breathed in her ear, bearing down, her limbs starting to wobble, the heat scorching her skin, the chains and mask.

He shoved her an inch closer to the flame.

Aelin’s foot slid back, between his braced legs. Now. It had to be now—

“Enjoy the fire-breathing,” he hissed, and she let him shove her another inch lower. Let him get off balance, just a fraction, as she slammed her body not up, but back into him, her foot hooking around his ankle as he staggered.

Aelin whirled, smashing her shoulder into his chest. Cairn crashed to the ground.

She ran—or tried to. With the chains at her feet, on her legs, she could barely walk, but she stumbled past him, knowing he was already twisting, already rising up.

Run—

Cairn’s hands wrapped around her calves and yanked. She went down, teeth singing as they slammed against the mask, drawing blood from her lip.

Then he was over her, raining blows on her head, her neck, her chest.

She couldn’t dislodge him, her muscles so drained from disuse, despite the healers keeping the atrophying at bay. Couldn’t flip him, either, though she tried.

Cairn fumbled behind them—for an iron poker, heating in the brazier.

Aelin thrashed, trying to get her hands up and over his head, to loop those chains around his neck. But they’d been hooked to the irons at her sides, down her back.

Fenrys’s snarling barks rang out. Cairn’s hand fumbled again for the poker. Missed.

Cairn glanced behind him to grab the poker, daring to take his eyes off her for a heartbeat.

Aelin didn’t hesitate. She rammed her head upward and slammed her masked face into Cairn’s head.

He knocked back, and she lunged toward the tent flaps.

He had more restraint than she’d estimated.

He wouldn’t kill her, and what she’d done just now, provoking him—

She’d barely made it out of her crouch when Cairn’s hands gripped her hair again.

When he hurled her with all his strength against the chest of drawers.

Aelin hit it with a crack that echoed through her body.