Kingdom of Ash

He’d felt nothing in the bond since that day on the beach. Nothing.

She wasn’t dead, because the bond still existed, yet … it was silent.

He’d puzzled over it during the long hours they’d traveled, during his hours on watch. Even the hours when he should have been sleeping.

He hadn’t felt pain in the bond that day in Eyllwe. He’d felt it when Dorian Havilliard had stabbed her in the glass castle, had felt the bond—what he’d so stupidly thought was the carranam bond between them—stretching to the breaking point as she’d come so, so close to death.

Yet that day on the beach, when Maeve had attacked her, then had Cairn whip her—

Rowan clenched his jaw hard enough to hurt, even as his stomach roiled. He glanced to Goldryn, lying beside him on the bedroll.

Gently, he set the blade before him, staring into the ruby in the center of its hilt, the stone smoldering in the firelight.

Aelin had felt the arrow he’d received during the fight with Manon at Temis’s temple. Or enough of a jolt that she’d known, in that moment, that they were mates.

Yet he hadn’t felt anything at all that day on the beach.

He had a feeling he knew the answer. Knew that Maeve was likely the cause of it, the damper on what was between them. She’d gone into his head to trick him into thinking Lyria was his mate, had fooled the very instincts that made him a Fae male. It wouldn’t be beyond her powers to find a way to stifle what was between him and Aelin, to keep him from knowing that she’d been in such danger, and now to keep him from finding her.

But he should have known. About Aelin. Shouldn’t have waited to get the wyverns and the others. Should have flown right to the beach, and not wasted those precious minutes.

Mate. His mate.

He should have known about that, too. Even if rage and grief had turned him into a miserable bastard, he should have known who she was, what she was, from the moment he’d bitten her at Mistward, unable to stop the urge to claim her. The moment her blood had landed on his tongue and it had sung to him, and then refused to leave him alone, its taste lingering for months.

Instead, they’d brawled. He’d let them brawl, so lost in his anger and ice. She’d been just as raging as he, and had spat such a hateful, unspeakable thing that he’d treated her like any of the males and females who had been under his command and mouthed off, but those early days still haunted him. Though Rowan knew that if he ever mentioned the brawling they’d done with a lick of shame, Aelin would curse him for a fool.

He didn’t know what to do about the tattoo down his face, his neck and arm. The lie it told of his loss, and the truth it revealed of his blindness.

He’d come to love Lyria—that had been true. And the guilt of it ate him alive whenever he thought of it, but he could understand now. Why Lyria had been so frightened of him for those initial months, why it had been so damn hard to court her, even with that mating bond, its truth unknown to Lyria as well. She had been gentle, and quiet, and kind. A different sort of strength, yes, but not what he might have chosen for himself.

He hated himself for thinking it.

Even as the rage consumed him at the thought, at what had been stolen from him. From Lyria, too. Aelin had been his, and he had been hers, from the start. Longer than that. And Maeve had thought to break them, break her to get what she wanted.

He wouldn’t let that go unpunished. Just as he could not forget that Lyria, regardless of what truly existed between them, had been carrying their child when Maeve had sent those enemy forces to his mountain home. He would never forgive that.

I will kill you, Aelin had said when she’d heard what Maeve had done. How badly Maeve had manipulated him, shattered him—and destroyed Lyria. Elide had told him every word of the encounter, over and over. I will kill you.

Rowan stared into the burning heart of Goldryn’s ruby.

He prayed that fire, that rage, had not broken. He knew how many days it had been, knew who Maeve had promised would oversee the torture. Knew the odds were stacked against her. He’d spent two weeks strapped on an enemy’s table. Still bore the scar on his arm from one of their more creative devices.

Hurry. They had to hurry.

Rowan leaned forward, resting his brow against Goldryn’s hilt. The metal was warm, as if it still held a whisper of its bearer’s flame.

He had not set foot in Akkadia since that last, horrible war. Though he’d led Fae and mortal soldiers alike to victory, he’d never had any desire to see it again.

But to Akkadia they would go.

And if he found her, if he freed her … Rowan did not let himself think beyond that.

To the other truth that they would face, the other burden. Tell Rowan that I’m sorry I lied. But tell him it was all borrowed time anyway. Even before today, I knew it was all just borrowed time, but I still wish we’d had more of it.

He refused to accept that. Would never accept that she would be the ultimate cost to end this, to save their world.

Rowan scanned the blanket of stars overhead.

While all other constellations had wheeled past, the Lord of the North remained, the immortal star between his antlers pointing the way home. To Terrasen.

Tell him he has to fight. He must save Terrasen, and remember the vows he made to me.

Time was not on their side, not with Maeve, not with the war unleashing itself back on their own continent. But he had no intention of returning without her, parting request or no, regardless of the oaths he’d sworn upon marrying her to guard and rule Terrasen.

And tell him thank you—for walking that dark path with me back to the light.

It had been his honor. From the very beginning, it had been his honor, the greatest of his immortal life.

An immortal life they would share together—somehow. He’d allow no other alternative.

Rowan silently swore it to the stars.

He could have sworn the Lord of the North flickered in response.

CHAPTER 6

The winter winds off the rough waves had chilled Chaol Westfall from the moment he’d emerged from his quarters belowdecks. Even with his thick blue cloak, the damp cold seeped into his bones, and now, as he scanned the water, it seemed the heavy cloud cover wasn’t likely to break anytime soon. Winter was creeping over the continent, as surely as Morath’s legions.

The brisk dawn had revealed nothing, only the roiling seas and the stoic sailors and soldiers who had kept this ship traveling swiftly northward. Behind them, flanking them, half of the khagan’s fleet followed. The other half still lingered in the southern continent as the rest of the mighty empire’s armada rallied. They’d only be a few weeks behind if the weather held.

Chaol sent a prayer on the briny, icy wind that it would. For despite the size of the fleet gathered behind him, and despite the thousand ruk riders who were just taking to the skies from their roosts on the ships for morning hunts over the waves, it might still not be enough against Morath.

And they might not arrive fast enough for that army to make a difference anyway.

Three weeks of sailing had brought them little news of the host his friends had assembled and supposedly brought to Terrasen, and they’d kept far enough from the coast to avoid any enemy ships—or wyverns. But that would change today.

A delicate, warm arm looped through his, and a head of brown-gold hair leaned against his shoulder. “It’s freezing out here,” Yrene murmured, scowling at the wind-whipped waves.

Chaol pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “The cold builds character.”

She huffed a laugh, the steam of her breath torn away by the wind. “Spoken like a man from the North.”

Chaol slid his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. “Am I not keeping you warm enough these days, wife?”

Yrene blushed, and elbowed him in the ribs. “Cad.”

Over a month later, and he was still marveling at the word: wife. At the woman by his side, who had healed his fractured and weary soul.

His spine was secondary to that. He’d spent these long days on the ship practicing how he might fight—whether by horseback or with a cane or from his wheeled chair—during the times when Yrene’s power became drained enough that the life-bond between them stretched thin and the injury took over once more.