Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass) (56 page)

Elide, the cunning little liar, looked outright shocked. “We’ve been in the deep wild for weeks. Is Dorian Havilliard dead?” She whispered the words, as if in horror … and as if to avoid being heard.

Another person at the table—an older, bearded man—said, “They never found his body, but if the duke’s declaring him not to be king anymore, I’d assume he’s alive. No use making proclamations against a dead man.”

Thunder rattled, almost drowning out her whisper as she said, “Would he—would he go to the North? To … her?”

They knew precisely who Elide meant. And Lorcan knew exactly why she’d come here.

She was going to leave. Tomorrow, whenever the carnival rolled out. She’d likely hire one of these boats to take her northward, and he … he would go south. To Morath.

The companions swapped glances, weighing the appearance of the young woman—and then Lorcan. He attempted to smile, to look bland and unthreatening. None of them returned the look, though he must have done something right, because the bearded man said, “She’s not in the North.”

It was Elide’s turn to go still.

The bearded man went on, “Rumor has it, she was in Ilium, trouncing soldiers. Then they say she was in Skull’s Bay last week, raising hell. Now she’s sailing elsewhere—some say to Wendlyn, some say to Eyllwe, some say she’s fleeing to the other side of the world. But she’s not in the North. Won’t be for a while, it seems. Not wise to leave your home undefended, if you ask me. But she’s barely a woman; she can’t know much about warfare at all.”

Lorcan doubted that, and doubted the bitch didn’t make a move without Whitethorn or Gavriel’s son weighing in. But Elide loosed a shuddering breath. “Why leave Terrasen at all?”

“Who knows?” The woman turned back to her food and company. “Seems like the queen has a habit of showing up where she’s least expected, unleashing chaos, and vanishing again. There’s good money to be had from the betting pool about where she’ll show up next. I say Banjali, in Eyllwe—Vross here says Varese in Wendlyn.”

“Why Eyllwe?” Elide pushed.

“Who knows? She’d be a fool indeed to announce her plans.” The woman gave Elide a sharp look as if to say to keep quiet about it.

Elide returned to her food and ale, the rain and thunder drowning the chatter in the room.

Lorcan watched her drink the entire tankard in silence. And when it seemed the least suspicious, she rose and left.

Elide went to two other taverns in the town—followed the same exact pattern. The news shifted slightly with each recounting, but the general consensus was that Aelin was on the move, perhaps south or east, and no one knew what to expect.

Elide walked out of the third tavern, Lorcan on her heels. They hadn’t spoken once since she’d gone into that first inn. He’d been too lost in contemplating what it would be like to suddenly travel on his own again. To leave her … and never see her again.

And now, staring up at the rain and the thunder, Elide said, “I was supposed to go north.”

Lorcan found himself not wanting to confirm or object. Like a useless fool, he found himself … hesitating to push her toward that original path.

She lowered her face, water and light gilding her high cheekbones. “Where do I head now? How do I find her?”

He dared say, “What did you glean from the rumors?” He’d been analyzing each tidbit of information, but wanted to see that clever mind at work.

And some small part of him wanted to see what she’d decide about their splitting ways, too.

Elide said softly, “Banjali—in Eyllwe. I think she’s going to Banjali.”

He tried not to look too relieved. He’d arrived at the same conclusion, if only because it was what Whitethorn would have done—and he’d trained the prince himself for a few decades.

She scrubbed at her face. “How … how far is it?”

“Far.”

She lowered her hands, her features stark and bone white. “How do I get there? How do …” She rubbed at her chest.

“I can get you a map,” he found himself saying. Just to see if she’d ask him to stay.

Her throat bobbed, and she shook her head, her black hair flowing. “It’d be no use.”

“Maps are always useful.”

“Not if you can’t read.”

Lorcan blinked, wondering if he’d heard her right. But color stained her pale cheeks, and that was indeed shame and despair clouding her dark eyes. “But you …” There had been no opportunity for it these weeks, he realized—no chance where she might have revealed it.

“I learned my letters, but when—when everything happened,” she said, “and I was put in that tower … My nursemaid was illiterate. So I never learned more. So I forgot what I did know.”

He wondered if he would have ever noticed if she hadn’t told him. “You seem to have survived rather impressively without it.”

He spoke without considering, but it seemed to be the right thing to say. The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “I suppose I have,” she mused.

Lorcan’s magic picked up on the garrison before he heard or scented them.

It slithered along their swords—rudimentary, half-rusted weapons—and then bathed in their rising fear, excitement, perhaps even a tinge of bloodlust.

Not good. Not when they were headed right to them.

Lorcan closed the distance to Elide. “It seems our friends at the carnival wanted to make an easy silver coin.”

The helpless desperation on her face sharpened into wide-eyed alertness. “Guards are coming?”

Lorcan nodded, the footsteps now close enough for him to count how many approached from the garrison in the heart of the town, no doubt meant to trap them between their swords and the river. If he were the betting sort, he’d gamble that the two bridges that spanned the river—ten blocks up on either side of them—were already full of guards.

“You get a choice,” he said. “Either I can end this matter here, and we can go back to the inn to learn if Nik and Ombriel wanted to get rid of us …” Her mouth tightened, and he knew her choice before he offered, “Or we can get on one of those barges and get the hell out right now.”

“The second,” she breathed.

“Good,” was his only reply as he gripped her hand and tugged her forward. Even with his power supporting her leg, she was too slow—

“Just do it,” she snapped.

So Lorcan hauled her over a shoulder, freeing his hatchet with his other hand, and ran for the water.

Elide bounced and slammed into Lorcan’s broad shoulder, craning her head enough to watch the street behind them. No sign of guards, but … that little voice who often whispered in her ear now tugged and begged her to go. To get out.

“The gates at the city entrance,” she gasped as muscle and bone pummeled into her gut. “They’ll be there, too.”

“Leave them to me.”

Elide tried not to imagine what that meant, but then they were at the docks, Lorcan sprinting for a barge, thundering down the steps of the
quay and onto the long wooden dock. The barge was smaller than the others, its one-room chamber in the center painted bright green. Empty—aside from a few boxes of cargo on its prow.

Lorcan pocketed the axe he’d thumbed free, and Elide gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into muscle, as he set her over the high lip of the barge and onto the wooden planks. She stumbled a step as her legs adjusted to the bobbing of the river, but—

Lorcan was already whirling toward the reed-slim man who barreled toward them, a knife out. “That’s
my
boat,” he bleated. He realized who, exactly, he would be fighting as he cleared the short wooden ladder onto the dock and took in Lorcan’s size, the hatchet
and
sword now in the warrior’s broad hands, and the expression of death surely on his face.

Lorcan said simply, “It’s our boat now.”

The man glanced between them. “You—you won’t clear the bridges or the city walls—”

Moments. They had only moments before the guards came—

Lorcan said to the man, “Get in.
Now
.”

The man began backing away.

Elide braced her hand on the broad, raised side of the boat and said calmly, “He will kill you before you clear the ladder. Get us out of the city, and I swear you’ll be set free once we’re clear.”

“You’ll slit my throat then, as good as you will now,” the man said, gulping in air.

Indeed, Lorcan’s hatchet bobbed in that way she’d learned meant he was about to throw it.

“I would ask you to reconsider,” Elide said.

Lorcan’s wrist twitched ever so slightly. He’d do it—he’d kill this innocent man, just to get them free—

The man’s knife drooped, then vanished into the sheath at his side. “There’s a bend in the river past the town. Drop me off there.”

That was all Elide needed to hear as the man rushed toward them,
untying lines and leaping into the boat with the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times. He and Lorcan grabbed the poles to push out into the river, and as soon as they were loose, Lorcan hissed, “If you betray us, you’ll be dead before the guards can even board.” The man nodded, now steering them toward the eastern exit of the town, as Lorcan dragged her into the one-room cabin.

The cabin interior was lined with windows, all clean enough to suggest the man took some pride in his boat. Lorcan half shoved her under a table in its center, the embroidered cloth covering it shielding her from anything but sounds: Lorcan’s footsteps going silent, though she could feel him taking up a hiding place to monitor the proceedings from within the cabin; the patter of rain on the flat roof; the thud of the pole as it occasionally knocked into the side of the barge.

Her body soon ached from holding herself still and quiet.

Was this to be her life for the foreseeable future? Hunted and hounded across the world?

And finding Aelin … How would she ever do that? She could go back to Terrasen, but she didn’t know who ruled from Orynth. If Aelin had not taken back her throne … Perhaps it was an unspoken message that danger lay there. That all was not well in Terrasen.

But to go to Eyllwe on a bit of speculation … Of all the rumors Elide had listened to in the past two hours, that captain’s reasons had been the wisest.

The world seemed to still with some unspoken tension, a ripple of fear.

But then the man’s voice was calling out again, and metal groaned—a gate. The city gates.

She stayed under the table, counting her breaths, thinking through all that she’d heard. She doubted the carnival would miss them.

And she’d bet all the money in her boot that Nik and Ombriel had been the ones who’d set the guards on them, deciding she and Lorcan
were too much of a threat—especially with the ilken hunting her. She wondered if Molly had known all along, from that very first meeting, that they were liars and had let Nik and Ombriel sell them out when the bounty was too good to pass up, the cost of loyalty too great.

Elide sighed through her nose. A splash sounded, but the boat ambled onward.

At least she’d taken the little bit of stone with her, though she’d miss her clothes, shabby as they were. These leathers were growing stuffy in the oppressive heat, and if she were to go to Eyllwe, they’d be sweltering—

Lorcan’s footsteps sounded. “Get out.”

Wincing as her ankle barked in pain, she crawled from under the table and peered around. “No trouble?”

He shook his head. He was splattered with rain or river water. She peered around him to where the man had been steering the boat. No one there—or in the rear of the boat.

“He swam to shore back at the bend,” Lorcan explained.

Elide loosed a breath. “He might very well run to town and tell them. It won’t take long for them to catch up.”

“We’ll deal with it,” Lorcan said, turning away. Too fast. He avoided her eyes too fast—

She took in the water, the stains now on the sleeves of his shirt. Like … like he’d washed his hands quickly, sloppily.

She glanced at the hatchet at his side as he strode out of the cabin. “You killed him, didn’t you?” That was what the splash had been. A body being dumped over the side.

Lorcan halted. Looked over a broad shoulder. There was nothing human in his dark eyes. “If you want to survive, you have to be willing to do what is necessary.”

“He might have had a family depending on him.” She’d seen no wedding ring, but it didn’t mean anything.

“Nik and Ombriel didn’t give us that consideration when they reported
us to the garrison.” He stalked onto the deck, and she stormed after him. Lush trees lined the river, a living shield around them.

And there—there was a
stain
on the planks, shining and dark. Her stomach rose.

“You planned to lie to me about it,” she seethed. “But how would you explain
that
?”

A shrug. Lorcan took up the pole and moved with fluid grace to the side of the barge, where he pushed them away from an approaching sandbank.

He had
killed
that man— “I
swore
to him he’d be set free.”

“You swore it, not me.”

Her fingers curled into fists. And that thing—that stone—wrapped in that bit of cloth inside her jacket began to stir.

Lorcan stilled, the pole gripped tight in his hands. “What is that,” he said too softly.