It had been an exception—an unprecedented exception—when Ghislaine’s mother had convinced the High Witch to send her daughter to a mortal school in Terrasen a hundred years ago. She had learned magic and book-things and whatever else mortals were taught, and when Ghislaine had returned twelve years later, the witch had been … different. Still a Blackbeak, still bloodthirsty, but somehow more human. Even now, a century later, even after walking on and off killing fields, that sense of impatience, of life clung to her. Manon had never known what to make of it.
“Tell me everything.”
“There’s too much to tell you in one sitting,” Ghislaine said. “But I’ll give you the basics, and if you want more, you can come back.”
An order, but this was Ghislaine’s space, and books and knowledge were her domain. Manon motioned with an iron-tipped hand for her sentinel to go on.
“Millennia ago, when the Valg broke into our world, witches did not exist. It was the Valg, and the Fae, and humans. But the Valg were … demons, I suppose. They wanted our world for their own, and they thought a good way to get it would be to ensure that their offspring could survive here. The humans weren’t compatible—too breakable. But the Fae … The Valg kidnapped and stole whatever Fae they could, and because your eyes are getting that glazed look, I’m just going to jump to the end and say the offspring became us. Witches. The Ironteeth took after our Valg ancestors more, while the Crochans got more of the Fae traits. The people of these lands didn’t want us here, not after the war, but the Fae King Brannon didn’t think it was right to hunt us all down. So he gave us the Western Wastes, and there we went, until the witch wars made us exiles again.”
Manon picked at her nails. “And the Valg are … wicked?”
“We are wicked,” Ghislaine said. “The Valg? Legend has it that they’re the origin of evil. They are blackness and despair incarnate.”
“Sounds like our kind of people.” And maybe good ones indeed to ally with, to breed with.
But Ghislaine’s smile faded. “No,” she said softly. “No, I do not think they would be our kind of people at all. They have no laws, no codes. They would see the Thirteen as weak for our bonds and rules—as something to break for amusement.”Manon stiffened slightly. “And if the Valg were ever to return here?”
“Brannon and the Fae Queen Maeve found ways to defeat them—to send them back. I would hope that someone would find a way to do so again.”
More to think about.
She turned, but Ghislaine said, “That’s the smell, isn’t it? The smell here, around some of the soldiers—like it’s wrong, from another world. The king found some way to bring them here and stuff them into human bodies.”
She hadn’t thought that far, but … “The duke described them as allies.”
“That word does not exist for the Valg. They find the alliance useful, but will honor it only as long as it remains that way.”
Manon debated the merits of ending the conversation there, but said, “The duke asked me to pick a Blackbeak coven for him to experiment on. To allow him to insert some sort of stone in their bellies that will create a Valg-Ironteeth child.”
Slowly, Ghislaine straightened, her ink-splattered hands hanging slack on either side of the chair. “And do you plan to obey, Lady?”
Not a question from a scholar to a curious student, but from a sentinel to her heir.
“The High Witch has given me orders to obey the duke’s every command.” But maybe … maybe she would write her grandmother another letter.
“Who will you pick?”
Manon opened the door. “I don’t know. My decision is due in two days.”
Ghislaine—whom Manon had seen glut herself on the blood of men—had paled by the time Manon shut the door.
Manon didn’t know how, didn’t know if the guards or the duke or Vernon or some eavesdropping human filth said something, but the next morning, the witches all knew. She knew better than to suspect Ghislaine. None of the Thirteen talked. Ever.
But everyone knew about the Valg, and about Manon’s choice.
She strode into the dining hall, its black arches glinting in the rare morning sun. Already, the pounding of the forges was ringing out in the valley below, made louder by the silence that fell as she strode between the tables, headed for her seat at the front of the room.
Coven after coven watched, and she met their gazes, teeth out and nails drawn, Sorrel a steady force of nature at her back. It wasn’t until Manon slid into her place beside Asterin—and realized it was now the wrong place, but didn’t move—that chatter resumed in the hall.
She pulled a hunk of bread toward her but didn’t touch it. None of them ate the food. Breakfast and dinner were always for show, to have a presence here.
The Thirteen didn’t say a word.
Manon stared each and every one of them down, until they dropped their eyes. But when her gaze met Asterin’s, the witch held it. “Do you have something you want to say,” Manon said to her, “or do you just want to start swinging?”
Asterin’s eyes flicked over Manon’s shoulder. “We have guests.”
Manon found the leader of one of the newly arrived Yellowlegs covens standing at the foot of the table, eyes downcast, posture unthreatening—complete submission.
“What?” Manon demanded.
The coven leader kept her head low. “We would request your consideration for the duke’s task, Wing Leader.”
Asterin stiffened, along with many of the Thirteen. The nearby tables had also gone silent. “And why,” Manon asked, “would you want to do that?”
“You will force us to do your drudgery work, to keep us from glory on the killing fields. That is the way of our Clans. But we might win a different sort of glory in this way.”
Manon held in her sigh, weighing, contemplating. “I will consider it.”
The coven leader bowed and backed away. Manon couldn’t decide whether she was a fool or cunning or brave.
None of the Thirteen spoke for the rest of breakfast.
“And what coven, Wing Leader, have you selected for me?”
Manon met the duke’s stare. “A coven of Yellowlegs under a witch named Ninya arrived earlier this week. Use them.”
“I wanted Blackbeaks.”
“You’re getting Yellowlegs,” Manon snapped. Down the table, Kaltain did not react. “They volunteered.”
Better than Blackbeaks, she told herself. Better that the Yellowlegs had offered themselves.
Even if Manon could have refused them.
She doubted Ghislaine was wrong about the nature of the Valg, but … Maybe this could work to their advantage, depending on how the Yellowlegs fared.
The duke flashed his yellowing teeth. “You toe a dangerous line, Wing Leader.”
“All witches have to, in order to fly wyverns.”
Vernon leaned forward. “These wild, immortal things are so diverting, Your Grace.”
Manon gave him a long, long look that told Vernon that one day, in a shadowy hallway, he would find himself with the claws of this wild, immortal thing in his belly.
Manon turned to go. Sorrel—not Asterin—stood stone-faced by the door. Another jarring sight.
Then Manon turned back to the duke, the question forming even as she willed herself not to say it. “To what end? Why do all of this—why ally with the Valg, why raise this army … Why?” She could not understand it. The continent already belonged to them. It made no sense.
“Because we can,” the duke said simply. “And because this world has too long dwelled in ignorance and archaic tradition. It is time to see what might be improved.”
Manon made a show of contemplating and then nodding as she strode out.
But she had not missed the words—this world. Not this land, not this continent.
This world.
She wondered whether her grandmother had considered the idea that they might one day have to fight to keep the Wastes—fight the very men who had helped them take back their home.
And wondered what would become of these Valg-Ironteeth witchlings in that world.
21
He had tried.
When the blood-soaked woman had spoken to him, when those turquoise eyes had seemed so familiar, he had tried to wrest away control of his body, his tongue. But the demon prince in him had held firm, delighting in his struggle.
He had sobbed with relief when she trapped it and raised an ancient blade over his head. Then she had hesitated—and then that other woman had fired an arrow, and she had put down the sword and left.Left him still trapped with the demon.
He could not remember her name—refused to remember her name, even as the man on the throne questioned him about the incident. Even as he returned to the exact spot in the garden and prodded the discarded shackles lying in the gravel. She had left him, and with good reason. The demon prince had wanted to feed on her, and then hand her over.
But he wished she had killed him. He hated her for not killing him.
22
Chaol left his watch on the roof of Aelin’s apartment the moment the hooded head of one of the rebels appeared and signaled that he would take over. Thank the gods.
He didn’t bother stopping in the apartment to see how Aedion was holding up. Each of his pounding steps on the wooden stairs accented the raging, thunderous beat of his heart, until it was all he could hear, all he could feel.
With the other rebels lying low or monitoring the city and Nesryn gone to make sure her father wasn’t in danger, Chaol found himself alone as he stalked through the city streets. Everyone had their orders; everyone was where they were supposed to be. Nesryn had already told him Ress and Brullo had given her the signal that all was clear on their end—and now …