Empire of Storms

Rolfe is shocked by Celaena/Aelin’s presence, as he does not know about Aelin’s true identity. Acting as Celaena, Aelin confirms that Rolfe no longer participates in enslavement and now offers sanctuary to any former enslaved persons who come to Skull’s Bay. She taunts Rolfe and flirts with Rowan before Lysandra enters the room, shifted to resemble Aelin. Rolfe is shocked by the two Aelins, and Lysandra shifts back into her own form. Aelin asks Rowan, Dorian, Fenrys, and Gavriel to affirm her identity to Rolfe, and they do.

Rolfe refuses to help Aelin’s cause and ejects her, Dorian, and the Fae warriors from his office. Eager to meet his son, Gavriel asks Aelin where Aedion is, but Aelin refuses to tell him; meanwhile, Lysandra slips away to warn Aedion. Aelin, Dorian, and Rowan return to the inn and update each other on their journeys, the arrival of the cadre, the movement of Maeve and Erawan’s armadas, and the encounter with Erawan. Aelin reveals her plan to go to the Stone Marshes to find the Lock. She needs a map to do it, but first she needs to make sure that the map works.

Aedion and Lysandra set a trap for Rolfe with the Amulet of Orynth (the Wyrdkey). Lysandra transforms herself into a random woman, posing as a sex worker in an alley while Aedion leans close to her as if he is a potential customer. Aelin has sent them, hoping that Rolfe will be drawn to the amulet, thereby proving that the maps on his hands can sense Wyrdkeys and possibly also the Lock. Aedion feels uncomfortable with their ruse, given the fact that both he and Lysandra have past experience with nonconsensual sexual encounters. Sent by Aelin, Dorian arrives to check on them. Aedion is cold to him, and when Dorian leaves, Lysandra chides Aedion for his bitterness, reasoning that Dorian could not control the evil that his father and the Valg demon inside him wrought upon the continent. Aedion tells her that Dorian reminds him of the trauma of losing his family, but he agrees to try to be friendlier. He also asks Lysandra to come with him when he finally meets his father, Gavriel. The barmaid from Rolfe’s tavern appears in the dead-end alley, possibly sent by Rolfe to look for the amulet. She leaves, and Aedion and Lysandra wonder what she thought she was looking for.

Elide is tired of responding to her mother’s name while she and Lorcan travel with the troupe. During their sojourns on the road, Lorcan asks Elide about the layout of Morath, specifically the dungeons and the creatures bred within. Elide gives him some information about the dungeons. She and Lorcan argue, and the black stone that Kaltain gave her (which is actually the portal-opening Wyrdkey) hums with magic in her pocket. Lorcan senses the magic and intuits Elide’s hopelessness about their situation. He contemplates Aelin’s decision to give up the Ring of Athril, which could make her invulnerable to the Valg, in exchange for Rowan’s freedom from Maeve. Lorcan now has this ring, along with a fake Wyrdkey that he believes to be legitimate.

Back at camp, Elide and Lorcan must share a tent for the first time. Lorcan offers to stand guard outside the tent while Elide bathes. He hears her hide something under her bed before she slips into the bath. He washes her clothes and returns them, seeing for the first time the scars around her ankles. She tells him that her uncle Vernon is a commander at Morath and kept her imprisoned in the dungeons, hoping to use her for a dark breeding experiment. She also tells Lorcan about the chains that she was forced to wear. Horrified, Lorcan offers to kill Vernon on Elide’s behalf.

Aelin is pleased at the success of her plan to prove the efficacy of Rolfe’s magical map. Aelin and Rowan break into Gavriel and Fenrys’s room at the inn. Aelin asks them about Maeve’s plans. Fenrys and Gavriel share the truth about their blood oath to Maeve; unlike the bond between Rowan and Aelin that is built on love, the bonds between Maeve and the remaining cadre are built on Maeve’s desire to control them. Fenrys reveals that he requested to train Aelin in order to get away from Maeve, but his request was rejected. Gavriel and Fenrys tell Aelin that Rolfe has new weaponry from the Southern Continent: firelances that can be operated by a single man. Aelin questions Maeve’s motive for sending her armada to Eyllwe. Aelin and Rowan leave and kiss passionately in an alley, confessing the truth of their romantic feelings.

Aedion ponders where in Skull’s Bay to meet his father, Gavriel. When he returns to the room that he shares with Lysandra and Dorian, Lysandra stumbles into the room, naked and exhausted after using her shifting magic. Aedion rubs her back until she falls asleep. The next morning, Lysandra, unfazed by the fact that Aedion has seen her naked, accompanies him to the tavern to find Gavriel and Fenrys. Aedion can immediately tell that Gavriel is his father. He verbally attacks Gavriel and blames him for his mother’s death, reliving painful past history. Gavriel tries to apologize, but Aedion storms out and finds a spot along the coast to breathe, surprised at his own vehemence. 

Meanwhile, Aelin wakes after resting with Rowan and is annoyed that they have not yet had the time or energy to consummate their relationship physically. She and Rowan join Fenrys and Gavriel and go to the tavern to meet with Rolfe. Rolfe does not yet agree to Aelin’s alliance but reveals that Erawan plans to strike Eyllwe.

Aelin is horrified, as Eyllwe has no standing army and is therefore defenseless. She begs Rolfe to help, but he refuses again. She begs him to summon the Mycenians. Lysandra knows that Rolfe is Mycenian, but Rolfe denies his heritage, so Aelin uses the Wyrdkey to harness her power, a display that shocks Rolfe. Rowan asks Rolfe about the movement of Erawan’s armies, and when Dorian arrives, Aelin makes as if to leave, bringing her entourage with her. Rolfe is surprised that she is willing to leave so easily, but his quartermaster announces that several Valg ships and sea wyverns are coming to Skull’s Bay, having been summoned by Aelin’s magic. The sea wyverns will easily access the harbor. As Aelin leaves, Rolfe tries to encourage her to help him, but she refuses until he agrees to aid her in the fight against Erawan. In exchange, she promises to give him official control of the archipelago and grant him a title recognized by Terrasen and Adarlan. Aelin and Rowan then form a battle plan.

Everyone takes their positions for the battle. Dorian is in one of the towers, Lysandra is in the sea in her new sea dragon form, and Aelin, Rowan, Aedion, Gavriel, Fenrys, and Rolfe are aboard the ship called The Sea Dragon. Most of Rolfe’s men are shocked by Lysandra’s transformation, as the sea dragons of Mycenian heritage were thought to be myth.

In the battle, Rowan uses his wind magic to propel The Sea Dragon forward to meet the Valg ships. Rolfe questions the plan, but Aelin asks him to get the ship as close to the enemy forces as possible so that Aelin can use her power to destroy them. She invokes her carranam bond with Rowan—a magical bond that allows two Fae to communicate telepathically and gives them an advantage in battle. As she harnesses his power alongside hers, she dives more deeply into her power and brings forth more flame than ever before. She becomes possessed by the goddess Deanna, who uses the Wyrdkey around her neck as a portal and turns Aelin’s power to moonfire. As Aelin fights to remember who she is and regain control of her body, Deanna destroys most of the ships, including Rolfe’s, before Aelin can regain consciousness and control.

Aelin wakes up in the water, experiencing shock from her use of power and from Deanna’s possession of her body. Fenrys and Rowan find her and drag her safely onto the reef. Lysandra, in her sea dragon form, ferries Rolfe and as many of Rolfe’s men as possible to safety. After fighting off some of the sea wyverns and war ships, she sees three more sea wyverns coming for her. Aelin and the cadre stand on one side of the reef and Rolfe and his men stand on the other; they are all helpless as Lysandra faces off against three more enemies.

As Aedion watches the sea wyverns approach Lysandra, he realizes that these three are three times the size of Lysandra’s sea dragon form. He watches as Lysandra tricks one of the wyvern bulls into following her toward the ship. She crashes into the ship and the bull following her is impaled on one of the ship’s beams. The next bull she leads toward Dorian. When the wyvern chasing Lysandra gets within range, Dorian freezes it, then lets Rolfe’s men use a catapult to hit it with a boulder, shattering its frozen body. When the next wyvern attacks, Lysandra flees toward the chain, and as the wyvern leaps into the air, Aedion aims the firelance and fires, killing it. Lysandra collapses on the beach. Aelin and the cadre join her, and Aelin apologizes for putting her in such danger. As Lysandra struggles to recover, Aedion tells her that he plans to marry her whenever she will have him. When she returns to human form, Gavriel watches as Aedion scoops her into his arms and carries her to safety.

Rolfe, Rowan, and Aelin debrief after the battle. Rolfe tells Aelin that he received the magic tattoos on his hand when he was 16 and was enslaved aboard another pirate’s ship. He got the tattoos in a bargain with a man he met on an island after his ship was wrecked. He wanted to be a pirate lord, and the man promised that he would be, but he later discovered that the price of this wish was the life of his mother and sister, both of whom died when they took their own boat out to try to find Rolfe.

After the meeting, Aelin and Rowan discuss Deanna’s role in the events to come, unsettled by the goddess’s desire to use Aelin as a conduit for power. Aelin and Rowan reaffirm their feelings for each other and consummate their relationship on the beach.

Rowan and Aelin have sex three times on the beach before returning to the inn. Lysandra teases Aelin, who is pleased that Lysandra has recovered. Aelin finally tells everyone that the Amulet of Orynth is the third Wyrdkey. She then takes out the mangled Eye of Elena, an amulet that allows her to speak with the spirit of Elena, the daughter of the Fae king, Brannon. She tells Dorian that he should meet his ancestor. She describes her past meetings with Elena and Brannon and explains her trickery in sending Lorcan away with a fake Wyrdkey in hopes that he will return with the other two. She also stresses the importance of finding the Lock. She takes out two old books and begins a ritual to summon Elena’s spirit. When Elena appears, she confesses that her mother is Mala Fire-Bringer, who sacrificed her mortal body to forge the Lock in order to help defeat Erawan. Elena begs them to find the Lock in the Stone Marshes, revealing that it was left in a city that has since vanished underwater. Elena leaves, and Aelin hatches a plan for Rolfe to take half his fleet, rally the Mycenians, and sail north to help Terrasen. Meanwhile, the other half of his fleet will be split between defending the archipelago and sailing to Eyllwe to find the Lock. They sail away, and three days into their journey, they see a wyvern. Aelin and Dorian stop the troops from shooting it and watch as Manon falls off Abraxos and into the ocean.