“When you lose a mate, you don’t . . .” A shake of the head. “I lost all sense of self, of time and place. I hunted them down, all the males who hurt her. I took a long while killing them. She was pregnant—­had been pregnant since I’d left her. But I’d been so enamored with my own foolish agenda that I hadn’t scented it on her. I left my pregnant mate alone.”

   Her voice broke, but she managed to say, “What did you do after you killed them?”

   His face was stark and his eyes focused on some far-­off sight. “For ten years, I did nothing. I vanished. I went mad. Beyond mad. I felt nothing at all. I just . . . left. I wandered the world, in and out of my forms, hardly marking the seasons, eating only when my hawk told me it needed to feed or it would die. I would have let myself die—­except I . . . ­couldn’t bring myself . . .” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “I might have stayed that way forever, but Maeve tracked me down. She said it was enough time spent in mourning, and that I was to serve her as prince and commander—­to work with a handful of other warriors to protect the realm. It was the first time I had spoken to anyone since that day I found Lyria. The first time I’d heard my name—­or remembered it.”

   “So you went with her?”

   “I had nothing. No one. At that point, I hoped serving her might get me killed, and then I could see Lyria again. So when I returned to Doranelle, I wrote the story of my shame on my flesh. And then I bound myself to Maeve with the blood oath, and have served her since.”

   “How—how did you come back from that kind of loss?”

   “I didn’t. For a long while I ­couldn’t. I think I’m still . . . not back. I might never be.”

   She nodded, lips pressed tight, and glanced toward the window.

   “But maybe,” he said, quietly enough that she looked at him again. He didn’t smile, but his eyes ­were inquisitive. “Maybe we could find the way back together.”

   He would not apologize for today, or yesterday, or for any of it. And she would not ask him to, not now that she understood that in the weeks she had been looking at him it had been like gazing at a reflection. No wonder she had loathed him.

   “I think,” she said, barely more than a whisper, “I would like that very much.”

   He held out a hand. “Together, then.”

   She studied the scarred, callused palm, then the tattooed face, full of a grim sort of hope. Someone who might—­who did understand what it was like to be crippled at your very core, someone who was still climbing inch by inch out of that abyss.

   Perhaps they would never get out of it, perhaps they would never be ­whole again, but . . . “Together,” she said, and took his outstretched hand.

   And somewhere far and deep inside her, an ember began to glow.

   Part Two

   Heir of Fire

   36

   “Things are ready for your meeting to­night with Captain Westfall?” Aedion could have sworn Ren Allsbrook bristled as he bit out the name.

   Seated beside the young lord on the ledge of the roof of the ware­house apartment, Aedion considered Ren’s tone, decided it ­wasn’t enough of a challenge to warrant a verbal slap, and gave a nod as he went back to cleaning his nails with one of his fighting knives.

   Ren had been recovering for days now, after the captain had set him up in the guest room of the apartment. The old man had refused to take the main bedroom, saying he’d prefer the couch, but Aedion wondered what exactly Murtaugh had observed when they arrived in the apartment. If he suspected who the own­er was—­Celaena or Aelin or both—­he revealed nothing.

   Aedion hadn’t seen Ren since the opium den, and didn’t really know why he’d bothered to come to­night. He said, “You’ve managed to build yourself a network of lowlifes ­here. That’s a far cry from the lofty towers of Allsbrook Castle.”

   Ren’s jaw tightened. “You’re a far cry from the white towers of Orynth, too. We all are.” A breeze ruffled Ren’s shaggy hair. “Thank you. For—­helping that night.”

   “It was nothing,” Aedion said coolly, giving him a lazy smile.

   “You killed for me, then hid me. That isn’t nothing. I owe you.”

   Aedion was plenty used to accepting gratitude from other men, from his men, but this . . . “You should have told me,” he said, dropping the grin as he watched the golden lights twinkling across the city, “that you and your grandfather had no home.” Or money. No wonder Ren’s clothes ­were so shabby. The shame Aedion had felt that night had almost overwhelmed him—­and had haunted him for the past few days, honing his temper to a near-­lethal edge. He’d tried working it off with the castle guards, but sparring with the men who protected the king had only sharpened it.

   “I don’t see how it’s relevant to anything,” Ren said tightly. Aedion could understand pride. The kind Ren had went deep, and admitting this vulnerability was as hard for him as it was for Aedion to accept Ren’s gratitude. Ren said, “If you find out how to break the spell on magic, you’re going to do it, right?”

   “Yes. It could make a difference in what­ever battles lie ahead.”

   “It didn’t make a difference ten years ago.” Ren’s face was a mask of ice, and then Aedion remembered. Ren hardly had a drop of magic. But Ren’s two elder sisters . . . The girls had been away at their mountain school when everything went to hell. A school for magic.

   As if reading his thoughts, as if this ­were a reprieve from the city below them, Ren said, “When the soldiers dragged us to the butchering blocks, that was what they mocked my parents about. Because even with their magic, my sisters’ school was defenseless—­they could do nothing against ten thousand soldiers.”

   “I’m sorry,” Aedion said. That was all he could offer for the time being, until Aelin returned.

   Ren looked right at him. “Going back to Terrasen will be . . . hard. For me, and for my grandfather.” He seemed to struggle with the words, or just with the idea of telling anyone anything, but Aedion gave him the time he needed. At last Ren said, “I’m not sure I’m civilized enough anymore. I don’t know if . . . if I could be a lord, even. If my people would want me as lord. My grandfather is better suited, but he’s an Allsbrook by marriage and he says he ­doesn’t want to rule.”

   Ah. Aedion found himself actually pausing—­contemplating. The wrong word, the wrong reaction, could make Ren shut up forever. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. So he said, “My life has been war and death for the past ten years. It will probably be war and death for the next few as well. But if there’s ever a day when we find peace . . .” Gods, that word, that beautiful word. “It’ll be a strange transition for all of us. For what­ever it’s worth, I don’t see how the people of Allsbrook ­wouldn’t embrace a lord who spent years trying to break Adarlan’s rule—­or a lord who spent years in poverty for that dream.”