Heir of Fire(198)
She didn’t need a healer, and she gripped her mother’s arm to tell her as much. Yet no words would come out as the magic surged and burned. Her mother hissed and jerked back—smoke rising from her dress, from where she had gripped her. “Aelin.”
Her head gave a throb—a blast of pain, and then . . .
A wriggling, squirming inside her head.
A worm of darkness, pushing its way in. Her magic roiled, thrashing, trying to get it out, to burn it up, to save them both, but—“Aelin.”
“Get it out,” she rasped, pushing at her temples as she backed away from the table. Two of the foreign lords grabbed Dorian from the table and swept him from the room.
Her magic bucked like a stallion as the worm wriggled farther in. “Get it out.”
“Aelin.” Her father was on his feet now, hand on his sword. Half the others were standing too, but she flung out a hand—to keep them away, to warn them.
Blue flame shot out. Two people dove in time to avoid it, but everyone was on their feet as the vacated seats went up in flames.
The worm would latch into her mind and never let go.
She grabbed at her head, her magic screaming, so loud it could shatter the world. And then she was burning, a living column of turquoise flame, sobbing as the dark worm continued its work and the walls of her mind began to give.
Above her own voice, above the shouting in the hall, she heard her father’s bellow—a command to her mother, who was on her knees, hands outstretched toward her in supplication. “Do it, Evalin!”
The pillar of flame grew hotter, hot enough that people were fleeing now.
Her mother’s eyes met her own, full of pleading and pain.
Then water—a wall of water crashing down on her, slamming her to the stones, flowing down her throat, into her eyes, choking her.
Drowning her. Until there was no air for her flame, only water and its freezing embrace.
The King of Adarlan looked at her for a third time—and smiled.
•
The Valg princes enjoyed that memory, that terror and pain. And as they paused to savor it, Celaena understood. The King of Adarlan had used his power on her that night. Her parents could not have known that the person responsible for that dark worm, which had vanished as soon as she’d lost consciousness, was the man sitting beside them.
There was another one of them now—a fourth prince, living inside Narrok, who said, “The soldiers have almost taken the tunnel. Be ready to move soon.” She could feel him hovering over her, observing. “You’ve found me a prize that will interest our liege. Do not waste her. Sips only.”
She tried to summon horror—tried to feel anything at the thought of where they would take her, what they would do to her. But she could feel nothing as the princes murmured their understanding, and the memory tumbled onward.
•
Her mother thought it was an attack from Maeve, a vicious reminder of whatever debt she owed, to make them look vulnerable. In the hours afterward, as she’d lain in the ice-cold bath adjacent to her bedroom, she had used her Fae ears to overhear her parents and their court debating it from the sitting room of their suite.
It had to be Maeve. No one else could do anything like that, or know that such a demonstration—in front of the King of Adarlan, who already loathed magic—would be detrimental.
She did not want to talk, even once she was again capable of walking and speaking and acting like a princess. Insisting some normalcy might help, her mother made her go to a tea the next afternoon with Prince Dorian, carefully guarded and monitored, with Aedion sitting between them. And when Dorian’s flawless manners faltered and he knocked over the teapot, spilling on her new dress, she’d made a good show of having Aedion threaten to pummel him.