Tower of Dawn

And as she saw her father standing there, as her sister shoved past, her children pouring out in a shrieking gaggle …

Nesryn fell to her knees and wept.

Duva. The khagan’s now-youngest daughter.

She smiled at them as they approached—and the expression was not human.

It was Valg.

“If she survived, if she is grown, she might have the shifter gift, too. But it doesn’t matter if she does or does not. What matters … She is my family. All I have left. And I have looked for her for a very long time.”

Nesryn fired the third arrow. A spider screamed as it found its mark. The others fell back.

“Find her,” Falkan said, taking a step toward the horrors churning below. “My fortune—all of it is for her. And I may have failed her in this life. But not in my death.”

“We wait for the Queen of the Valg,” the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. “Who in this world calls herself Maeve.”

“She hunted down the people responsible for it and obliterated them. What the hell have you bothered to do these years?”

Borte scowled. “He’s my betrothed.”

He had seen Aelin do terrible things.

He still dreamed of her gutting Archer Finn in cold blood. Still dreamed of what she’d left of Grave’s body in that alley. Still dreamed of her butchering men like cattle, in Rifthold and in Endovier, and knew just how unfeeling and brutal she could turn. He had quarreled with her earlier this summer about it—the checks on her power. The lack of them.

But Sartaq turned to her, examining her from head to toe and back again. There was little that he missed. “They didn’t mention that you’re beautiful.”

Fear will get you killed as easily as a weapon.”

“Neith’s Arrow,” Sartaq said after uncounted minutes, leaning back against the rock.

Nesryn dragged her gaze from the stars to find his face limned in moonlight, silver dancing along the pure onyx of his braid.

He rested his forearms on his knees. “That’s what my spies called you, what I called you until you arrived. Neith’s Arrow.” The Goddess of Archery—and the Hunt, originally hailing from an ancient sand-swept kingdom to the west, now enfolded into the khaganate’s vast pantheon.