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But as hertouch, her soul with it, her breath reet any better when Nesryn said, "The stygian spiders are Valg"

Silence

"We encountered their kin, the kharankui, deep in the Dagul Fells They cah a teuard the entrance, should it ever reappear"

"This cannot end well," Fenrys reement

"They feed on dreams and years and life," Falkan said, a hand on his own chest "Asprinces drain a huor and leave only a dried corpse behind She wouldn’t put it past the spiders to have a siift

"What does thisAelin’s neck

"Will they join Erawan’s forces is the better question," Lorcan challenged with a face like stone

"They do not answer to Erawan," Nesryn said quietly, and Aelin knew Knew froave her, the sympathy and fear, knew in her bones before Nesryn even finished "The stygian spiders, the kharankui, answer to their Valg queen The only Valg queen To Maeve"

CHAPTER 50

Rowan’s hands tightened on Aelin’s shoulders as the words settled into her, hollow and cold "Maeve is a Valg queen?" he breathed

Aelin said nothing Couldn’t find the words

Her power roiled She didn’t feel it

Nesryn nodded solemnly "Yes The kharankui told us the entire history"

And so Nesryn did as well Of how Maeve had so or bored with her husband, Orcus Erawan’s elder brother Of hoan, Orcus, and Mantyx had torn apart worlds to find her, Orcus’swife, and only halted here because the Fae had risen to challenge thenize, in the form she had taken

The life she had crafted for herself The minds of all the Fae who had existed that she had ripped into, convincing the the minds of Mab and Mora, the two sister-queens who had ruled Doranelle Including Brannon himself

"The spiders claimed," Nesryn went on, "that even Brannon didn’t know Even now, in the Afterworld, he doesn’t know That was how deep Maeve’s poent into his mind, into all their minds She made herself their true queen"

The words, the truth, pelted Aelin, one after another

Elide’s face hite as death "But she fears the healers" A nod toward Yrene "She keeps that owl, you said--an enslaved Fae healer--should the Valg ever discover her"

For that was the other piece of it The other thing Nesryn had revealed, Chaol and Yrene adding in their own accounts

The Valg were parasites And Yrene could cure their huht be able to do with so s or collars

But what had infested Duva … A Valg princess

Aelin leaned back into her chair, her head resting against the solid wall of Rowan’s body His hands shook against her shoulders Shook as he seemed to realize what, exactly, had ripped into his mind Where Maeve’s power had come froeless, and had outlasted any other Why Maeve’s poas darkness

"It is also why she fears fire," Sartaq said, jerking his chin to Aelin "Why she fears you so"

And why she’d wanted to break her To be just like that enslaved healer bound in owl fored to cut her once," Aelin said at last That quiet, ancient darkness pushed in, dragging her down, down, down--"I saw her blood flow black Then it changed to red" She blew out a breath, pulling out of the darkness, the silence that wanted to devour her whole Made herself straighten Peer at Fenrys "You said that her blood tasted ordinary to you when you swore the oath"

The white wolf shifted back into his Fae body His bronze skin was ashen, his dark eyes swirowled, "It didn’t taste any different to lamour--like the form she maintains," Gavriel mused