Kingdom of Ash

She’d taken one look at the spread wings—a hawk’s wings—across her back and kissed him. Kissed him until his own clothes were gone, and she was astride him, neither bothering with words, or capable of finding them.

Her back had healed by morning, though it remained tender in a few spots along her spine, and in the hours that they’d ridden closer to Endovier, she’d found the invisible weight of the ink to be steadying.

She’d gotten out. She’d survived.

From Endovier—and Maeve.

And now it was upon her to ride like hell for the North, to try to save her people before Morath wiped them away forever. Before Erawan and Maeve arrived to do just that.

But it did not stop the heaviness, that tug toward the west. To look to the place that she had taken so long to escape, even after she’d been physically freed.

After lunch, she found Elide on her right, riding in silence under the trees. Riding taller than she’d seen the girl before. A blush on her cheeks.

Aelin had a feeling she knew precisely why that blush bloomed there, that if she looked behind to where Lorcan rode, she’d find him with a satisfied, purely male smile.

But Elide’s words were anything but those of a lovesick maiden.

“I didn’t think I’d really get to see Terrasen again, once Vernon took me out of Perranth.”

Aelin blinked. And even the blush on Elide’s face faded, her mouth tightening.

Of all of them, only Elide had seen Morath. Lived there. Survived it.

Aelin said, “There was a time when I thought I’d never see it again, too.”

Elide’s face grew contemplative. “When you were an assassin, or when you were a slave?”

“Both.” And maybe Elide had come to her side just to get her to talk, but Aelin explained, “It was a torture of another kind, when I was at Endovier, to know that home was only miles away. And that I would not be able to see it one last time before I died.”

Elide’s dark eyes shone with understanding. “I thought I’d die in that tower, and no one would remember that I had existed.”

They had both been captives, slaves—of a sort. They had both worn shackles. And bore the scars of them.

Or, Elide did. The lack of them on Aelin still ripped at her, an absence that she’d never thought she’d regret.

“We made it out in the end, though,” Aelin said.

Elide reached over to squeeze Aelin’s hand. “Yes, we did.”

Even if she now wished for it to be over. All of it. Her every breath felt weighed down by it, that wish.

They continued on after that, and just as Aelin spied the fork in the road—the crossroads that would take them to the salt mines themselves—a warning cry went up from the rukhin, soaring along the edge between the forest and mountains.

Aelin instantly had Goldryn drawn. Rowan armed himself beside her, and the entire army pausing as they scanned the woods, the skies.

She heard the warning just as a dark shape shot past, so large it blotted out the sun above the forest canopy.

Wyvern.

Bows groaned, and the ruks were racing by, chasing after that wyvern. If an Ironteeth scout spotted them—

Aelin readied her magic. The wyvern banked toward them, barely visible through the latticework of branches.

But light flared then. Blasted back the rukhin—harmlessly.

Not light. But ice, flickering and flashing before it turned to flame.

Rowan recognized it, too. Roared the order to hold their fire.

It was not Abraxos who landed at the crossroads. And there was no sign of Manon Blackbeak.

Light flashed again. And then Dorian Havilliard stood there, his jacket and cape stained and worn.

Aelin galloped down the road toward him, Rowan and Elide beside her, the others at their backs.

Dorian lifted a hand, his face grave as death, even as his eyes widened at the sight of her.

But Aelin sensed it then.

What Dorian carried.

The Wyrdkeys.

All three of them.

CHAPTER 88

Aedion’s arm and ribs were on fire.

Worse than the searing heat of the firelances, worse than any level of Hellas’s burning realm.

He’d regained consciousness as the healer began her first stitches. Had clamped down on the leather bit she’d offered and roared around the pain while she sewed him up.

By the time she’d finished, he’d fainted again. He woke minutes later, according to the soldiers assigned to make sure he didn’t die, and found the pain somewhat eased, but still sharp enough that using his sword arm would be nearly impossible. At least until his Fae heritage healed him—faster than mortal men.

That he hadn’t died of blood loss and could attempt to move his arm as he ordered his armor strapped back on him and stumbled into the city streets, aiming for the wall, was thanks to that Fae heritage. His mother’s, yes, but mostly from his father.

Had Gavriel heard, across the sea or wherever their hunt for Aelin had taken him, that Terrasen was about to fall? Would he care?

It didn’t matter. Even if part of him wished the Lion were there. Rowan and the others certainly, but the steady presence of Gavriel would have been a balm to these men. Perhaps to him.

Aedion gritted his teeth, swaying as he scaled the blood-slick stairs to the city walls, dodging bodies both human and Valg. An hour—he’d been down for an hour.

Nothing had changed. Valg still swarmed the walls and both the southern and western gates; but Terrasen’s forces held them off. In the skies, the number of Crochans and Ironteeth had thinned, but barely. The Thirteen were a distant, vicious cluster, ripping apart whoever flew in their path.

And down at the river … red blood stained the snowy banks. Too much red blood.

He stumbled a step, losing sight of the river for a moment while soldiers dispatched the Valg grunts before him. When they passed, Aedion could scarcely breathe while he scanned the bloodied banks. Soldiers lay dead all around, but—there. Closer to the city walls than he’d realized.

White against the snow and ice, she still fought. Blood leaking down her sides. Red blood.

But she didn’t retreat into the water. Held her ground.

It was foolish—unnecessary. Ambushing them had been far more effective.

Yet Lysandra fought, tail snapping spines and giant maw ripping off heads, right where the river curved past the city. He knew something was wrong then. Beyond the blood on her.

Knew Lysandra had learned something that they had not. And in holding her ground, tried to signal them on the walls.

His head spinning, arm and ribs throbbing, Aedion scanned the battlefield. A group of soldiers charged at her. A whack of her tail had the spears snapped, their bearers along with them.

But another group of soldiers tried to charge past her, on the riverside.

Aedion saw what they bore, what they tried to carry, and swore. Lysandra smashed apart one longboat with her tail, but couldn’t reach the second cluster of soldiers—bearing another.

They reached the icy waters, boat splashing, and Lysandra lunged. Right as she was swarmed by another group of soldiers, so many spears and lances that she had no choice but to face them. Allowing the boat, and the soldiers carrying it, to slip past.

Aedion noted where those soldiers were headed, and began shouting his orders. His head swam with each command.

In Lysandra sneaking to the river through the tunnels, she’d had the element of surprise. But it had also revealed to Morath that another path existed into the city. One right below their feet.

And if they got through the grate, if they could get inside the walls …

Fighting against the fuzziness growing in his head, Aedion began signaling. First to the shifter holding the line, trying so valiantly to keep those forces at bay. Then to the Thirteen, perilously high in the skies, to get back to the walls—to stop Morath’s creeping before it was too late.

High up, the cries of the wind bleeding into those of the dying and injured, Manon saw the general’s signal, the careful pattern of light that he’d shown her the night before.

A command to hurry to the walls—immediately. Just her and the Thirteen.

The Crochans held the tide of the Ironteeth at bay, but to fall back, to leave—

Prince Aedion signaled again. Now. Now. Now.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.