The iron smothered her. It had snuffed out the

fire in her veins, as surely as if the flames had

been doused.

She could hear the water, even in the iron

box, even with the iron mask and chains

adorning her like ribbons of silk. The roaring;

the endless rushing of water over stone. It

filled the gaps between her screaming.

A sliver of island in the heart of a mistveiled

river, little more than a smooth slab of

rock amid the rapids and falls. That’s where

they’d put her. Stored her. In a stone temple

built for some forgotten god.

As she would likely be forgotten. It was

better than the alternative: to be remembered

for her utter failure. If there would be anyone

left to remember her. If there would be

anyone left at all.

She would not allow it. That failure.

She would not tell them what they wished

to know.

No matter how often her screams drowned

out the raging river. No matter how often the

snap of her bones cleaved through the

bellowing rapids.

She had tried to keep track of the days.

But she did not know how long they had

kept her in that iron box. How long they had

forced her to sleep, lulled into oblivion by the

sweet smoke they’d poured in while they

traveled here. To this island, this temple of

pain.

She did not know how long the gaps lasted

between her screaming and waking. Between

the pain ending and starting anew.

Days, months, years—they bled together,

as her own blood often slithered over the

stone floor and into the river itself.

A princess who was to live for a thousand

years. Longer.

That had been her gift. It was now her

curse.

Another curse to bear, as heavy as the one

placed upon her long before her birth. To

sacrifice her very self to right an ancient

wrong. To pay another’s debt to the gods who

had found their world, become trapped in it.

And then ruled it.

She did not feel the warm hand of the

goddess who had blessed and damned her with

such terrible power. She wondered if that

goddess of light and flame even cared that she

now lay trapped within the iron box—or if the

immortal had transferred her attentions to

another. To the king who might offer himself

in her stead and in yielding his life, spare their

world.

The gods did not care who paid the debt. So

she knew they would not come for her, save

her. So she did not bother praying to them.

But she still told herself the story, still

sometimes imagined that the river sang it to

her. That the darkness living within the sealed

coffin sang it to her as well.

Once upon a time, in a land long since

burned to ash, there lived a young princess

who loved her kingdom …

Down she would drift, deep into that

darkness, into the sea of flame. Down so deep

that when the whip cracked, when bone

sundered, she sometimes did not feel it.

Most times she did.

It was during those infinite hours that she

would fix her stare on her companion.

Not the queen’s hunter, who could draw out

pain like a musician coaxing a melody from

an instrument. But the massive white wolf,

chained by invisible bonds. Forced to witness

this. There were some days when she could not

stand to look at the wolf. When she had come

so close, too close, to breaking. And only the

story had kept her from doing so.

Once upon a time, in a land long since

burned to ash, there lived a young princess

who loved her kingdom …

Words she had spoken to a prince. Once—

long ago.

A prince of ice and wind. A prince who had

been hers, and she his. Long before the bond

between their souls became known to them.

It was upon him that the task of protecting

that once-glorious kingdom now fell.

The prince whose scent was kissed with

pine and snow, the scent of that kingdom she

had loved with her heart of wildfire.

Even when the dark queen presided over

the hunter’s ministrations, the princess

thought of him. Held on to his memory as if it

were a rock in the raging river.

The dark queen with a spider’s smile tried

to wield it against her. In the obsidian webs

she wove, the illusions and dreams she spun at

the

The iron smothered her. It had snuffed out the fire in her veins, as surely as if the flames had been doused. She could hear the water, even in the iron box, even with the iron mask and chains adorning her like ribbons of silk. The roaring; the endless rushing of water over stone. It filled the gaps between her screaming.

A sliver of island in the heart of a mistveiledriver, little more than a smooth slab of rock amid the rapids and falls. That’s where they’d put her. Stored her. In a stone temple built for some forgotten god. As she would likely be forgotten. It was better than the alternative: to be remembered for her utter failure. If there would be anyone left to remember her. If there would be anyone left at all.

She would not allow it. That failure. She would not tell them what they wished

to know.

No matter how often her screams drowned out the raging river. No matter how often the snap of her bones cleaved through the

bellowing rapids. She had tried to keep track of the days.

But she did not know how long they had kept her in that iron box. How long they had forced her to sleep, lulled into oblivion by the sweet smoke they’d poured in while they traveled here. To this island, this temple of pain.

She did not know how long the gaps lasted between her screaming and waking. Between the pain ending and starting anew.

Days, months, years—they bled together,

as her own blood often slithered over the

stone floor and into the river itself.

A princess who was to live for a thousand

years. Longer.

That had been her gift. It was now her

curse.

Another curse to bear, as heavy as the one

placed upon her long before her birth. To

sacrifice her very self to right an ancient

wrong. To pay another’s debt to the gods who

had found their world, become trapped in it.

And then ruled it.

She did not feel the warm hand of the

goddess who had blessed and damned her with

such terrible power. She wondered if that

goddess of light and flame even cared that she

now lay trapped within the iron box—or if the

immortal had transferred her attentions to

another. To the king who might offer himself

in her stead and in yielding his life, spare their

world.

The gods did not care who paid the debt. So

she knew they would not come for her, save

her. So she did not bother praying to them.

But she still told herself the story, still

sometimes imagined that the river sang it to

her. That the darkness living within the sealed

coffin sang it to her as well.

Once upon a time, in a land long since

burned to ash, there lived a young princess

who loved her kingdom …

Down she would drift, deep into that

darkness, into the sea of flame. Down so deep

that when the whip cracked, when bone

sundered, she sometimes did not feel it.

Most times she did.

It was during those infinite hours that she

would fix her stare on her companion.

Not the queen’s hunter, who could draw out

pain like a musician coaxing a melody from

an instrument. But the massive white wolf,

chained by invisible bonds. Forced to witness

this.

There were some days when she could not

stand to look at the wolf. When she had come

so close, too close, to breaking. And only the

story had kept her from doing so.

Once upon a time, in a land long since

burned to ash, there lived a young princess

who loved her kingdom …

Words she had spoken to a prince. Once—

long ago.

A prince of ice and wind. A prince who had

been hers, and she his. Long before the bond

between their souls became known to them.

It was upon him that the task of protecting

that once-glorious kingdom now fell.

The prince whose scent was kissed with

pine and snow, the scent of that kingdom she

had loved with her heart of wildfire.

Even when the dark queen presided over

the hunter’s ministrations, the princess

thought of him. Held on to his memory as if it

were a rock in the raging river.

The dark queen with a spider’s smile tried

to wield it against her. In the obsidian webs

she wove, the illusions and dreams she spun at

the culmination of each breaking point, the

queen tried to twist the memory of him as a

key into her mind.

They were blurring. The lies and truths and

memories. Sleep and the blackness in the iron

coffin. The days bound to the stone altar in the

center of the room, or hanging from a hook in

the ceiling, or strung up between chains

anchored into the stone wall. It was all

beginning to blur, like ink in water.

So she told herself the story. The darkness

and the flame deep within her whispered it,

too, and she sang it back to them. Locked in

that coffin hidden on an island within the

heart of a river, the princess recited the story,

over and over, and let them unleash an

eternity of pain upon her body.

Once upon a time, in a land long since

burned to ash, there lived a young princess

who loved her kingdom …

The snows had come early.

Even for Terrasen, the first of the autumnal

flurries had barreled in far ahead of their

usual arrival.

Aedion Ashryver wasn’t entirely sure it

was a blessing. But if it kept Morath’s legions

from their doorstep just a little longer, he’d

get on his knees to thank the gods. Even if

those same gods threatened everything he

loved. If beings from another world could be

considered gods at all.

Aedion supposed he had more important

things to contemplate, anyway.

In the two weeks since he’d been reunited

with his Bane, they’d seen no sign of

Erawan’s forces, either terrestrial or airborne.

The thick snow had begun falling barely three

days after his return, hindering the alreadyslow

process of transporting the troops from

their assembled armada to the Bane’s

sweeping camp on the Plain of Theralis.

The ships had sailed up the Florine, right to

Orynth’s doorstep, banners of every color

flapping in the brisk wind off the Staghorns:

the cobalt and gold of Wendlyn, the black and

crimson of Ansel of Briarcliff, the

shimmering silver of the Whitethorn royals

and their many cousins. The Silent Assassins,

scattered throughout the fleet, had no banner,

though none was needed to identify them—

not with their pale clothes and assortment of

beautiful, vicious weapons.

The ships would soon rejoin the rearguard

left at the Florine’s mouth and patrol the coast

from Ilium to Suria, but the footsoldiers—

most hailing from Crown Prince Galan

Ashryver’s forces—would go to the front.

A front that now lay buried under several

feet of snow. With more coming.

Hidden above a narrow mountain pass in

the Staghorns behind Allsbrook, Aedion

scowled at the heavy sky.

His pale furs blended him into the gray and

white of the rocky outcropping, a hood

concealing his golden hair. And keeping him

warm. Many of Galan’s troops had never seen

snow, thanks to Wendlyn’s temperate climate.

The Whitethorn royals and their smaller force

were hardly better off. So Aedion had left

Kyllian, his most trusted commander, in

charge of ensuring that they were as warm as

could be managed.

They were far from home, fighting for a

queen they did not know or perhaps even

believe in. That frigid cold would sap spirits

and sprout dissent faster than the howling

wind charging between these peaks.

A flicker of movement on the other side of

the pass caught Aedion’s eye, visible only

because he knew where to look.

She’d camouflaged herself better than he

had. But Lysandra had the advantage of

wearing a coat that had been bred for these

mountains.

Not that he’d said that to her. Or so much

as glanced at her when they’d departed on this

scouting mission.

Aelin, apparently, had secret business in

Eldrys and had left a note with Galan and her

new allies to account for her disappearance.

Which allowed Lysandra to accompany them

on this task.

No one had noticed, in the nearly two

months they’d been maintaining this ruse, that

the Queen of Fire had not an ember to show

for it. Or that she and the shape-shifter never

appeared in the same place. And no one, not

the Silent Assassins of the Red Desert, or

Galan Ashryver, or the troops that Ansel of

Briarcliff had sent with the armada ahead of

the bulk of her army, had picked up the slight

tells that did not belong to Aelin at all. Nor

had they noted the brand on the queen’s wrist

that no matter what skin she wore, Lysandra

could not change.

She did a fine job of hiding the brand with

gloves or long sleeves. And if a glimmer of

scarred skin ever showed, it could be excused

as part of the manacle markings that

remained.

The fake scars she’d also added, right

where Aelin had them. Along with the laugh

and wicked grin. The swagger and stillness.

Aedion could barely stand to look at her.

Talk to her. He only did so because he had to

uphold this ruse, too. To pretend that he was

her faithful cousin, her fearless commander

who would lead her and Terrasen to victory,

however unlikely.

So he pl