The prince didn’t respond.

The king chuckled. “No running today, Captain?”

Chaol leveled his stare at the king, and drew Damaris—Aelin’s gift to him.

The king tapped a finger on the arm of his throne. “What would the noble people of Terrasen say if they knew Aelin of the Wildfire had such a bloody history? If they knew that she had signed her services over to me? What hope would it give them to know that even their long-lost princess was corrupted?”

“You certainly like to hear yourself speak, don’t you?”

The king’s finger stilled on the throne. “I’ll admit that I don’t know how I didn’t see it. You’re the same spoiled child who strutted about her castle. And here I was, thinking I’d helped you. I saw into your mind that day, Aelin Galathynius. You loved your home and your kingdom, but you had such a wish to be ordinary, such a wish for freedom from your crown, even then. Have you changed your mind? I offered you freedom on a platter ten years ago, and yet you wound up a slave anyway. Funny.”

Time, time, time. Let him talk …

“You had the element of surprise then,” Aelin said. “But now we know what power you wield.”

“Do you? Do you understand the cost of the keys? What you must become to use one?”

She tightened her grip on the Sword of Orynth.

“Would you like to go head-to-head with me, then, Aelin Galathynius? To see if the spells you learned, the books you stole from me, will hold out? Little tricks, Princess, compared to the raw power of the keys.”

“Dorian,” Chaol said again. The prince remained fixated on her, a hungry smile now on those sensuous lips.

“Let me demonstrate,” the king said. Aelin braced herself, her gut clenching.

He pointed at Dorian. “Kneel.”

The prince dropped to his knees. She hid her wince at the impact of bone on marble. The king’s brows knotted. A darkness began to build, cracking from the king like forks of lightning.

“No,” Chaol breathed, stepping forward. Aelin grabbed the captain by the arm before he could do something incredibly stupid.

A tendril of night slammed into Dorian’s back and he arched, groaning.

“I think there is more that you know, Aelin Galathynius,” the king said, that too-familiar blackness growing. “Things that perhaps only the heir of Brannon Galathynius might have learned.”

The third Wyrdkey.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Aelin said. The prince’s neck was taut as he panted, as the darkness whipped him.

Once—twice. Lashings.

She knew that pain. “He’s your son—your heir.”

“You forget, Princess,” the king said, “that I have two sons.”

Dorian screamed as another whip of darkness slashed his back. Black lightning flitted across his exposed teeth.

She lunged—and was thrown back by the very wards she’d drawn on her body. An invisible wall of that black pain lay around Dorian now, and his screams became unending.

Like a beast snapped from its leash, Chaol flung himself against it, roaring Dorian’s name, the blood crumbling from the cuff of his jacket with each attempt.

Again. Again. Again.

Dorian was sobbing, darkness pouring out of his mouth, shackling his hands, branding his back, his neck—

Then it vanished.

The prince sagged to the floor, chest heaving. Chaol halted midstrike, his breathing ragged, face drawn.

“Rise,” the king said.

Dorian got to his feet, his black collar gleaming as his chest heaved. “Delicious,” the thing inside the prince said. Bile burned Aelin’s throat.

“Please,” Chaol said hoarsely to the king, and her heart cracked at the word, at the agony and desperation. “Free him. Name your price. I’ll give you anything.”

“Would you hand over your former lover, Captain? I see no use in losing a weapon if I don’t gain one in return.” The king waved a hand toward her. “You destroyed my general and three of my princes. I can think of a few other Valg who are aching to get their claws into you for that—who would very much enjoy the chance to slip into your body. It’s only fair.”

Aelin dared a glance toward the window. The sun climbed higher.

“You came into my family’s home and murdered them in their sleep,” Aelin said. The grandfather clock began chiming twelve. A heartbeat later, the miserable, off-kilter clanging of the clock tower sounded. “It’s only fair,” she said to the king as she backed a step toward the doors, “that I destroy you in return.”

She tugged the Eye of Elena from under her suit. The blue stone glowed like a small star.

Not just a ward against evil.

But a key in its own right, that could be used to unlock Erawan’s tomb.

The king’s eyes went wide and he rose from his throne. “You’ve just made the mistake of your life, girl.”

He might have a point.

The noontime bells were ringing.

Yet the clock tower still stood.

Rowan swung his sword and the Wyrdhound fell back, howling as his blade pierced through stone and into the tender flesh beneath. But not enough to keep it down, to kill it. Another Wyrdhound leaped. Where they lunged, Rowan struck.

Side by side, he and Aedion had been pushed against a wall, conceding foot after foot of the passage—driven farther and farther from the spool of fuse Aedion had been forced to drop.

A clanging, miserable noise rang out.

In the span between clangs, Rowan slashed for two different Wyrdhounds, blows that would have disemboweled most creatures.

The clock tower. Noon.

The Wyrdhounds were herding them back, dodging sure-kill blows, keeping out of their reach.

To keep them from getting to the fuse.

Rowan swore and launched into an assault that engaged three of them at once, Aedion flanking him. The Wyrdhounds held their line.

Noon, he had promised Aelin. As the sun began to reach its apex on the solstice, they’d bring the tower crashing down.

The final clang of the clock tower sounded.

Noon had come and gone.

And his Fireheart, his queen, was in that castle above them—left with only her mortal training and wits to keep her alive. Perhaps not for much longer.

The thought was so abhorrent, so outrageous, that Rowan roared his fury, louder than the shrieks of the beasts.

The bellow cost his brother. One creature shot past Rowan’s guard, leaping, and Aedion barked out a curse and staggered back. Rowan smelled Aedion’s blood before he saw it.

It must have been a dinner bell to the Wyrdhounds, that demi-Fae blood. Four of them leaped for the general as one, their maws revealing flesh-shredding stone teeth.

The three others whirled for Rowan, and there was nothing he could do to get to that fuse.

To save the queen who held his heart in her scarred hands.

A few steps ahead of him, Chaol watched Aelin back toward the glass doors, just as they’d planned after seeing his men dead.

The king’s attention was fixed on the Eye of Elena around her neck. She removed it, holding it in a steady hand. “Been looking for this, have you? Poor Erawan, locked in his little tomb for so long.”

It was an effort to hold his position as Aelin kept retreating.

“Where did you find that?” the king seethed.

Aelin reached Chaol, brushing against him, a comfort and a thank-you and a good-bye as she continued past. “Turns out your ancestor didn’t approve of your hobbies. We Galathynius women stick together, you know.”

For the first time in his life, Chaol saw the king’s face go slack. But then the man said, “And did that ancient fool tell you what will happen if you wield the other key you already possess?”