Honestly, had she been anywhere else, she might have pulled up a chair to watch this latest little dominance battle. Thankfully, Aedion just turned toward the stairs. A moment later, they were gone.
Arobynn stalked to the demon and snatched the hood from his head.
Black, rage-filled eyes glared at them and blinked, scanning the room.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Arobynn drawled.
Stevan just smiled.
Aelin listened to Arobynn interrogate the demon, demanding to know what it was, where it had come from, what the king wanted. After thirty minutes and minimal slicing, the demon was talking about anything and everything.
“How does the king control you?” Arobynn pushed.
The demon laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Arobynn half turned to her, holding up his dagger, a trickle of dark blood sliding down the blade. “Would you like to do the honors? This is for your benefit, after all.”
She frowned at her dress. “I don’t want to get blood on it.”
Arobynn smirked and slashed his dagger down the man’s pectoral. The demon screeched, drowning out the pitter-patter of blood on the stones. “The ring,” it panted after a moment. “We’ve all got them.” Arobynn paused, and Aelin cocked her head. “Left—left hand,” it said.
Arobynn yanked off the man’s glove, revealing the black ring.
“How?”
“He has a ring, too—uses it to control us all. Ring goes on, and it doesn’t come off. We do what he says, whatever he says.”
“Where did he get the rings from?”
“Made ’em, I don’t know.” The dagger came closer. “I swear! We wear the rings, and he makes a cut on our arms—licks our blood so it’s in him, and then he can control us however he wants. It’s the blood that links us.”
“And what does he plan to do with you all, now that you’re invading my city?”
“We’re searching for the general. I won’t—won’t tell anyone he’s here … Or that she’s here, I swear. The rest—the rest I don’t know.” His eyes met hers—dark, pleading.
“Kill him,” she said to Arobynn. “He’s a liability.”
“Please,” Stevan said, his eyes still holding hers. She looked away.
“He does seem to have run out of things to tell me,” Arobynn mused.
Swift as an adder, Arobynn lunged for him, and Stevan screamed so loudly it hurt her ears as Arobynn sliced off his finger—and the ring that held it—in one brutal movement. “Thank you,” Arobynn said above Stevan’s screaming, and then slashed his knife across the man’s throat.
Aelin stepped clear of the spray of blood, holding Stevan’s stare as the light faded from his gaze. When the spray had slowed, she frowned at Arobynn. “You could have killed him and then cut off the ring.”
“Where would the fun be in that?” Arobynn held up the bloody finger and pried off the ring. “Lost your bloodlust?”
“I’d dump that ring in the Avery if I were you.”
“The king is enslaving people to his will with these things. I plan to study this one as best I can.” Of course he did. He pocketed the ring and inclined his head toward the door. “Now that we’re even, darling … shall we eat?”
It was an effort to nod with Stevan’s still-bleeding body sagging from the wall.
Aelin was seated to Arobynn’s right, as she’d always been. She’d expected Lysandra to be across from her, but instead the courtesan was beside her. No doubt meant to reduce her options to two: deal with her longtime rival, or talk to Arobynn. Or something like that.
She had bid hello to Lysandra, who’d been keeping Aedion and Rowan company in the drawing room, keenly aware of Arobynn on her heels as she shook Lysandra’s hand, subtly passing over the note she’d kept hidden in her dress all night.
The note was gone by the time Aelin leaned in to kiss the courtesan’s cheek, the peck of someone not entirely thrilled to be doing so.
Arobynn had seated Rowan to his left, with Aedion beside the warrior. The two members of her court were separated by the table to keep them from reaching her, and to leave her unprotected from Arobynn. Neither had asked what happened in the dungeon.
“I have to say,” Arobynn mused as their first course—tomato and basil soup, courtesy of vegetables grown in the hothouse in the back—was cleared away by silent servants who had been summoned now that Stevan had been dealt with. Aelin recognized some, though they didn’t look at her. They had never looked at her, even when she was living here. She knew they wouldn’t dare whisper a word about who dined at this table tonight. Not with Arobynn as their master. “You’re a rather quiet group. Or has my protégée scared you into silence?”Aedion, who had watched every bite she took of that soup, lifted an eyebrow. “You want us to make small talk after you just interrogated and butchered a demon?”
Arobynn waved a hand. “I’d like to hear more about you all.”
“Careful,” she said too quietly to Arobynn.
The King of the Assassins straightened the silverware flanking his plate. “Shouldn’t I be concerned about who my protégée is living with?”
“You weren’t concerned about who I was living with when you had me shipped off to Endovier.”
A slow blink. “Is that what you think I did?”
Lysandra stiffened beside her. Arobynn noted the movement—as he noted every movement—and said, “Lysandra can tell you the truth: I fought tooth and nail to free you from that prison. I lost half my men to the effort, all of them tortured and killed by the king. I’m surprised your friend the captain didn’t tell you. Such a pity he’s on rooftop watch tonight.”
He missed nothing, it seemed.
Arobynn looked to Lysandra—waiting. She swallowed and murmured, “He did try, you know. For months and months.”
It was so convincing that Aelin might have believed it. Through some miracle, Arobynn had no idea that the woman had been meeting with them in secret. Some miracle—or Lysandra’s own wits.
Aelin drawled to Arobynn, “Do you plan on telling me why you insisted we stay for dinner?”
“How else would I get to see you? You would have just dumped that thing on my doorstep and left. And we learned so much—so much that we could use, together.” The chill down her spine wasn’t faked. “Though I have to say, this new you is much more … subdued. I suppose for Lysandra that’s a good thing. She always looks at the hole you left in the entry wall when you threw that dagger at her head. I kept it there as a little reminder of how much we all missed you.”
Rowan was watching her, an asp ready to strike. But his brows bunched slightly, as if to say, You really threw a dagger at her head?
Arobynn began talking about a time Aelin had brawled with Lysandra and they’d rolled down the stairs, scratching and yowling like cats, so Aelin looked at Rowan a moment longer. I was a tad hotheaded.
I’m beginning to admire Lysandra more and more. Seventeen-year-old Aelin must have been a delight to deal with.
She fought the twitching in her lips. I would pay good money to see seventeen-year-old Aelin meet seventeen-year-old Rowan.
His green eyes glittered. Arobynn was still talking. Seventeen-year-old Rowan wouldn’t have known what to do with you. He could barely speak to females outside his family.
Liar—I don’t believe that for a second.
It’s true. You would have scandalized him with your nightclothes—even with that dress you have on.
She sucked on her teeth. He would probably have been even more scandalized to learn I’m not wearing any undergarments beneath this dress.
The table rattled as Rowan’s knee banged into it.
Arobynn paused, but continued when Aedion asked about what the demon had told him.
You can’t be serious, Rowan seemed to say.
Did you see any place where this dress might hide them? Every line and wrinkle would show.
Rowan shook his head subtly, his eyes dancing with a light that she’d only recently come to glimpse—and cherish. Do you delight in shocking me?
She couldn’t stop her smile. How else am I supposed to keep a cranky immortal entertained?
His grin was distracting enough that it took her a moment to notice the silence, and that everyone was staring at them—waiting.
She glanced at Arobynn, whose face was a mask of stone. “Did you ask me something?”
There was only calculating ire in his silver eyes—which might have once made her start begging for mercy. “I asked,” Arobynn said, “if you’ve had fun these past few weeks, wrecking my investment properties and ensuring that all my clients won’t touch me.”
43
Aelin leaned back in her chair. Even Rowan was staring at her now, surprise and annoyance written on his face. Lysandra was doing a good job of feigning shock and confusion—even though it had been she who had fed Aelin the details, who had made her plan so much better and broader than it had been when Aelin scribbled it out on that ship.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a little smile.
“Oh?” Arobynn swirled his wine. “You mean to tell me that when you wrecked the Vaults beyond repair, it wasn’t a move against my investment in that property—and my monthly cut of their profits? Don’t pretend it was just vengeance for Sam.”