Empire of Storms

Lorcan and Elide track Aelin to the Stone Marshes, then stop and camp for the night. Elide asks Lorcan about Maeve, and although he admits to being in love with Maeve, he carries no hope of being with her. Elide tells him that love should make someone happy; she reasons that what he has with Maeve is not love, given that she will kill him for disobeying her. Lorcan admits that he enjoys spending time with Elide, and she promises to hide him in Perranth, stressing that he always has a place with her. They kiss passionately, but Lorcan pulls back, sensing an army of ilken coming their way.

Aelin and the others spend two days wandering the Stone Marshes in search of the Lock. When they camp for the night, Rowan lets his shield slip slightly, and a swamp monster almost attacks Manon, and Dorian uses his magic to stop it; Rowan’s engineered this scenario to help Dorian practice his magic use. Manon sees the Eye of Elena and asks Aelin about it, explaining that the symbols appear to depict the Three-Faced Goddess—the three faces representing the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Manon also shares the story of the destruction of the Crochan city and the curse that Rhiannon Crochan laid upon the Ironteeth Witches as she died, turning the land of the witch kingdom into the Wastes and dooming the witches to difficulty with fertility. Manon hopes to return to the Wastes and break the curse.

Later, Fenrys and Gavriel beg Lorcan to take Aelin and run. They think that Maeve will wait until Aelin is weakened from fighting Erawan to strike and harm her. They also tell Rowan that Maeve replaced him with Cairn, another Fae male who is notoriously sadistic. Fenrys and Gavriel think that Maeve sent them to kill Lorcan quickly instead of torturing him to death slowly because she fears that Lorcan may join Aelin’s cause. Fenrys asks Rowan to kill him before he is forced to harm Aelin because of the blood oath, and Rowan agrees.

Manon and Dorian discuss the future of people who have Valg blood, like the Ironteeth witches. Manon wonders if everyone with any Valg heritage will be banished to the Valg realm when Aelin defeats Erawan, but Dorian thinks that Aelin will get to decide. Manon is uneasy about the idea of Aelin wielding the Wyrdkeys and asks Dorian why he doesn’t seek to do the same. He confesses that he was the one who brought down the glass castle; he states that his control over his power and rage is tenuous, as he is still reeling from the loss of Sorscha. 

They reach the Lock by midday, finding a temple. On top of an altar, Manon, Rowan, and Aelin find a chest covered in Wyrdmarks. Aelin cautions them not to touch it, as it could contain a magical trap. Rowan hears Lorcan’s warning call, which tells him that 500 ilken are headed toward them.

Lorcan and Elide through the marshes ash Lorcan projects his power in short bursts in all directions. He does not want the ilken to get the Wyrdkey, and for Elide’s sake, he does not want the ilken to kill Aelin.

Meanwhile, Aelin panics, trying to come up with a plan to fight the 500 ilken. Lysandra plans to rouse the swamp monsters to distract the ilken. Aedion, Gavriel, and Fenrys plan to drive the ilken toward Aelin, Rowan, and Dorian, who will blast them with their magic. Rowan is angry when Aelin suggests using the Wyrdkey to amplify her magic as she did on the ship, and Aedion is angry at Aelin for using her magic in the first place and summoning Erawan’s forces to them. Aelin and Rowan share a tender moment before the fighting starts. Aelin then channels her power, blazing into an inferno as the ilken approach.

Lorcan sees Rowan and the others across the field; it is too far for Elide to see. Elide is wearing the ring of Athril to remain safe from the Valg. Seeing Aelin erupt into flame, Lorcan uses his magic to shield himself and Elide as they come within the line of fire for Aelin’s magic.

Meanwhile, Lysandra tells Aedion that the swamp beasts are agitated, and as Aedion watches Aelin erupt into flame, he is shocked and horrified by the depths of her power. He thinks that there must be a price for such power. Aelin’s magic burns the ilken while Dorian and Rowan’s magic shreds them, and Aedion, Gavriel, and Fenrys shoot others out of the sky with arrows.

Lorcan keeps his shield up as the marsh boils. He sees Rowan walk toward Aelin, embracing her as matching crowns of fire appear atop Rowan’s and Aelin’s heads. When the last of the ilken are dead, Aelin’s power is drained. Lorcan drops his shield, and he and Elide head toward the rest of the group, though Lorcan does not see Fenrys and Gavriel disappear.

Lorcan and Elide approach Aelin’s entourage. Elide is hesitant to be with Lorcan, given his negative history with Aelin. This hurts Lorcan, though he tries to appear unbothered. When they get closer, Gavriel and Fenrys act on the bond with Maeve and attack Lorcan in their animal forms (lion and wolf, respectively). Gavriel pins Lorcan, but as Fenrys goes in for the kill, Elide throws herself atop Lorcan. Fenrys bites a massive chunk out of her arm, and Lorcan resurrects his shield. However, he knows that Elide will die if he does not let Fenrys or Gavriel heal her, so he lowers his shield even as Elide begs him not to.

Gavriel heals Elide, and Rowan tells Gavriel and Fenrys that because Lorcan and Elide are under Aelin’s protection, killing Lorcan would be an act of war. This statement allows Gavriel and Fenrys to resist the bond’s command to kill Lorcan. Once Elide is healed, Aelin and Aedion approach her, and Aelin tells her when Elide’s mother saved Aelin’s life, she asked Aelin to tell Elide how much her mother loved her. Elide is also relieved to see that Manon is safe. Elide tells Aelin that she survived because of Manon and Lorcan. She then gives Aelin the Wyrdkey/stone that Kaltain—a woman formerly possessed by a Valg—gave to her. Elide relays Kaltain’s message about the key and the lock. Dorian appears and is shocked and ashamed that he did not treat Kaltain better, given that she has now turned the tide in the war by giving Aelin a second Wyrdkey. 

Rowan and Lorcan talk. Rowan is happy to see that Lorcan has been softened by his time with Elide. Lorcan is worried that Aelin’s power will consume her. Rowan explains that this is why he embraced Aelin during the battle. He admits that she is everything to him, and he needed to reassure himself that she was still there. Rowan and Lorcan ask each other about their plans, but neither reveals anything significant.

When the group returns to the temple and opens the chest, they find a witch mirror. Manon explains that a witch mirror can see the past, present, or future, and it can also be used to amplify blasts. She says that Erawan is building towers lined with witch mirrors to incinerate Aelin’s armies. They have already built two, but Manon does not know how many more are being built or how many witches are in each tower. As they journey toward the coast, Lorcan tries to claim Elide, and Manon and Aelin resist this dynamic until Elide tells them that she chooses Lorcan. Aelin is exhausted by using so much power. Suddenly, she sees ships from Melisande in the distance and a red-haired woman on the beach. Aelin greets Ansel of Briarcliff, Queen of the Wastes, who owes her a life debt.

Ansel and Aelin briefly catch up before Manon enters the conversation, angered that Ansel claims to speak for the Wastes even though she is not a witch. Ansel replies that no witches have been looking after the Wastes, so she speaks for its inhabitants. Ansel explains that when Aelin used her name in a pit fight in Queen of Shadows, this action sent a message to Ansel to ready her army. Half of her army went to aid Terrasen. Later, when Aelin sent her a letter from Ilium, she readied the rest of her army and went to the Kingdom of Melisande. The queen assumed that Ansel was there to help and let Ansel’s troops in the front gate. Ansel and her army took over the city and its fleet, then sailed south to meet Aelin in Eyllwe. Aedion is shocked and angered that Aelin did not tell him of her plans, especially when he criticized her for her lack of allies.

Lysandra confesses her fear of losing people to Aedion as the danger around them increases, and the two decide to become a couple. Lysandra apologizes for her past, but Aedion tells her that her past does not matter.

Ansel and Aelin discuss future battle plans for their armies aboard one of Ansel’s ships. Aedion wants Aelin to include him in more of her schemes, but she refuses. Aelin asks Ansel to find the lost Crochan witches, whom she infers must be alive if the Ironteeth witches continue to hunt them. She tells Ansel to share some of the Wastes with them in return. Manon is angry that the Wastes are being discussed without her input, but Aelin reveals the intel of Ansel’s spies: that the Ironteeth Matrons agreed to help Erawan in exchange for him breaking the curse and returning the Wastes to them. The spies have also learned that Maeve, not Erawan, is the one setting fires to Eyllwe; Maeve hopes to discredit Aelin and framing her for the fires.

Later, Rowan and Aelin plan more battle strategies, and Aelin asks him to do something for her. Meanwhile, Manon cannot sleep, and when Dorian visits her, they become intimate. Elide and Lorcan almost have a conversation about their relationship, but they are interrupted when many crew members rush to the deck. Maeve’s armada appears on the horizon.