Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4)(40)

“Another way of keeping control all these years,” she murmured.
“Our people are beggared. They don’t have two coppers to rub together these days, let alone to pay taxes.”
“I wouldn’t raise taxes to pay for a war,” she said sharply. “And I’d rather not whore ourselves to foreign nations for loans, either. Not yet, anyway.” Aedion’s throat tightened at the bitterness coating her tone as they both considered the other way money and men could be obtained. But he couldn’t bring himself to mention selling her hand in marriage to a wealthy foreign kingdom—not yet.
So he just said, “It’s something to start contemplating. If magic is indeed freed, we could recruit the wielders to our side—offer them training, money, shelter. Imagine a soldier who can kill with blade and magic. It could turn the tide of a battle.”Shadows flickered in her eyes. “Indeed.”
He weighed her posture, the clarity of her gaze, her tired face. Too much—she’d already faced and survived too much.
He’d seen the scars—the tattoos that covered them—peeking over the collar of her shirt every now and then. He hadn’t yet dared to ask to see them. The bandaged bite on her arm was nothing compared to that pain, and the many others she hadn’t mentioned, the scars all over her. The scars all over both of them.
“And then,” he said, clearing his throat, “there’s the blood oath.” He’d had endless hours in bed to compile this list. She stiffened enough that Aedion quickly added, “You don’t have to—not yet. But when you’re ready, I’m ready.”
“You still want to swear it to me?” Her voice was flat.
“Of course I do.” He damned caution to hell and said, “It was my right then—and now. It can wait until we get to Terrasen, but it’s going to be me who takes it. No one else.”
Her throat bobbed. “Right.” A breathless answer that he couldn’t read.
She let go of him and stalked toward one of the little training areas to test out her injured arm. Or maybe she wanted to get away from him—maybe he’d broached the topic the wrong way.
He might have hobbled off the roof had the door not opened and the captain appeared.
Aelin was already striding toward Chaol with predatory focus. He’d hate to be on the receiving end of that gait. “What is it?” she said.
He’d hate to be on the receiving end of that greeting, too.
Aedion limped for them as Chaol kicked the door shut behind him. “The Shadow Market is gone.”
Aelin drew up short. “What do you mean?”
The captain’s face was tight and pale. “The Valg soldiers. They went to the market tonight and sealed the exits with everyone inside. Then they burnt it. The people who tried to escape through the sewers found garrisons of soldiers waiting there, swords ready.”
That explained the smoke in the air, the plume on the horizon. Holy gods. The king had to have lost his mind entirely—had to have stopped caring what the general public thought.
Aelin’s arms slackened at her sides. “Why?” The slight tremor in her voice had Aedion’s hackles rising, those Fae instincts roaring to shut the captain up, to rip out his throat, to end the cause of her pain and fear—
“Because it got out that the rebels who freed him”—Chaol sent a cutting glance in Aedion’s direction—“were meeting in the Shadow Market to buy supplies.”
Aedion reached her side, close enough now to see the tightness of the captain’s face, the gauntness that hadn’t been there weeks ago. The last time they’d spoken. 
“And I suppose you blame me?” Aelin said with midnight softness.
A muscle flickered on the captain’s jaw. He didn’t even nod a greeting to Aedion, or acknowledge the months they’d spent working together, what had happened in that tower room—
“The king could have ordered their slaughter by any means,” Chaol said, the slender scar on his face stark in the moonlight. “But he chose fire.”
Aelin went impossibly still.
Aedion snarled. “You’re a prick for suggesting the attack was a message for her.”
Chaol at last turned his attention toward him. “You think it’s not true?”
Aelin cocked her head. “You came all this way to fling accusations in my face?”
“You told me to stop by tonight,” Chaol retorted, and Aedion was half tempted to punch his teeth down his throat for the tone he used. “But I came to ask why you haven’t moved on the clock tower. How many more innocent people are going to be caught in the crossfire of this?”
It was an effort to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t need to speak for Aelin, who said with flawless venom, “Are you suggesting that I don’t care?”
“You risked everything—multiple lives—to get out one man. I think you find this city and its citizens to be expendable.”
Aelin hissed, “Need I remind you, Captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves, at the mass graves? Need I remind you that I was starved and chained, and you let Duke Perrington force me to the ground at Dorian’s feet while you did nothing? And now you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring, when many of the people in this city have profited off the blood and misery of the very people you ignored?”
Aedion stifled the snarl working its way up his throat. The captain had never said that about the initial meeting with his queen. Never said he hadn’t stepped in while she was manhandled, humiliated. Had the captain even flinched at the scars on her back, or merely examined them as though she were some prize animal?
“You don’t get to blame me,” Aelin breathed. “You don’t get to blame me for the Shadow Market.”
“This city still needs protecting,” Chaol snapped.
Aelin shrugged, heading for the roof door. “Or maybe this city should burn,” she murmured. A chill went down Aedion’s spine, even though he knew she’d said it to piss off the captain. “Maybe the world should burn,” she added, and stalked off the roof.
Aedion turned to the captain. “You want to pick a fight, you come to me, not her.”
The captain just shook his head and stared across the slums. Aedion followed his gaze, taking in the capital twinkling around them.
He’d hated this city from the very first time he’d spotted the white walls, the glass castle. He’d been nineteen, and had bedded and reveled his way from one end of Rifthold to the other, trying to find something, anything, to explain why Adarlan thought it was so gods-damned superior, why Terrasen had fallen to its knees before these people. And when Aedion had finished with the women and the parties, after Rifthold had dumped its riches at his feet and begged him for more, more, more, he’d still hated it—even more than before.
And all that time, and every time after, he’d had no idea that what he truly sought, what his shredded heart still dreamed of, was dwelling in a house of killers mere blocks away.
At last, the captain said, “You look more or less in one piece.”
Aedion gave him a wolf’s grin. “And you won’t be, if you speak to her that way again.”Chaol shook his head. “Did you learn anything about Dorian while you were in the castle?”
“You insult my queen and yet have the nerve to ask me for that information?”
Chaol rubbed his brows with his thumb and forefinger. “Please—just tell me. Today has been bad enough.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been hunting the Valg commanders in the sewers since the fight in the Pits. We tracked them to their new nests, thank the gods, but found no sign of humans being held prisoner. Yet more people have vanished than ever—right under our noses. Some of the other rebels want to abandon Rifthold. Establish ourselves in other cities in anticipation of the Valg spreading.”
“And you?”
“I don’t leave without Dorian.”
Aedion didn’t have the heart to ask if that meant alive or dead. He sighed. “He came to me in the dungeons. Taunted me. There was no sign of the man inside him. He didn’t even know who Sorscha was.” And then, maybe because he was feeling particularly kind, thanks to the golden-haired blessing in the apartment beneath, Aedion said, “I’m sorry—about Dorian.”
Chaol’s shoulders sagged, as if an invisible weight pushed against them. “Adarlan needs to have a future.”
“So make yourself king.”
“I’m not fit to be king.” The self-loathing in those words made Aedion pity the captain despite himself. Plans—Aelin had plans for everything, it seemed. She had invited the captain over tonight, he realized, not to discuss anything with her, but for this very conversation. He wondered when she would start confiding in him.
These things took time, he reminded himself. She was used to a lifetime of secrecy; learning to depend on him would take a bit of adjustment.
“I can think of worse alternatives,” Aedion said. “Like Hollin.”
“And what will you and Aelin do about Hollin?” Chaol asked, gazing toward the smoke. “Where do you draw the line?”
“We don’t kill children.”
“Even ones who already show signs of corruption?”
“You don’t get the right to fling that sort of horseshit in our faces—not when your king murdered our family. Our people.”