Kingdom of Ash

But Evalin Ashryver held Aelin’s gaze, the softness turning hard and gleaming as fresh steel. It is the strength of this that matters, Aelin.

Aelin’s fingers dug into her chest as she mouthed, The strength of this.

Evalin nodded.

Cairn’s hissed threats danced through the coffin, his knife scraping and scraping.

Evalin’s face didn’t falter. You are my daughter. You were born of two mighty bloodlines. That strength flows through you. Lives in you.

Evalin’s face blazed with the fierceness of the women who had come before them, all the way back to the Faerie Queen whose eyes they both bore.

You do not yield.

Then she was gone, like dew under the morning sun.

But the words lingered.

Blossomed within Aelin, bright as a kindled ember.

You do not yield.

Cairn scraped his dagger over the metal, right above her head. “When I cut you up this time, bitch, I’m going to—”

Aelin slammed her hand into the lid.

Cairn paused.

Aelin pounded her fist into the iron again. Again.

You do not yield.

Again.

You do not yield.

Again. Again.

Until she was alive with it, until her blood was raining onto her face, washing away the tears, until every pound of her fist into the iron was a battle cry.

You do not yield.

You do not yield.

You do not yield.

It rose in her, burning and roaring, and she gave herself wholly to it. Distantly, close by, wood crashed. Like someone had staggered into something. Then shouting.

Aelin hammered her fist into the metal, the song within her pulsing and cresting, a tidal wave racing for the shore.

“Get me that gloriella!”

The words meant nothing. He was nothing. Would always be nothing.

Over and over, she pounded against the lid. Over and over, that song of fire and darkness flared through her, out of her, into the world.

You do not yield.

Something hissed and crackled nearby, and smoke poured through the lid.

But Aelin kept striking. Kept striking until the smoke choked her, until its sweet scent dragged her under and away.

And when she awoke chained on the altar, she beheld what she had done to the iron coffin.

The top of the lid had been warped. A great hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin.

As if it had come so very close to breaking entirely.

On a dark hilltop overlooking a sleeping kingdom, Rowan froze.

The others were already halfway down the hill, leading the horses along the dried slope that would take them over Akkadia’s border and onto the arid plains below.

His hand dropped from the stallion’s reins.

He had to have imagined it.

He scanned the starry sky, the slumbering lands beyond, the Lord of the North above.

It hit him a heartbeat later. Erupted around him and roared.

Over and over and over, as if it were a hammer against an anvil.

The others whirled to him.

That raging, fiery song charged closer. Through him.

Down the mating bond. Down into his very soul.

A bellow of fury and defiance.

From down the hill, Lorcan rasped, “Rowan.”

It was impossible, utterly impossible, and yet—

“North,” Gavriel said, turning his bay gelding. “The surge came from the North.”

From Doranelle.

A beacon in the night. Power rippling into the world, as it had done in Skull’s Bay.

It filled him with sound, with fire and light. As if it screamed, again and again, I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.

And then silence. Like it had been cut off.

Extinguished.

He refused to think of why. The mating bond remained. Stretched taut, but it remained.

So he sent the words along it, with as much hope and fury and unrelenting love as he had felt from her. I will find you.

There was no answer. Nothing but humming darkness and the Lord of the North glistening above, pointing the way north. To her.

He found his companions waiting for his orders.

He opened his mouth to voice them, but halted. Considered. “We need to draw Maeve out—away from Aelin.” His voice rumbled over the drowsy buzzing of insects in the grasses. “Just long enough for us to infiltrate Doranelle.” For even with the three of them together, they might not be enough to take on Maeve.

“If she hears we’re coming,” Lorcan countered, “Maeve will spirit Aelin away again, not come to meet us. She’s not that foolish.”

But Rowan looked to Elide, the Lady of Perranth’s eyes wide. “I know,” he said, his plan forming, as cold and ruthless as the power in his veins. “We’ll draw out Maeve with a different sort of lure, then.”

CHAPTER 13

The spider spoke true.

Keeping hidden amongst the ice-crusted rocks of a jagged mountain peak, Manon and the Thirteen peered down into the small pass.

At the camp of red-cloaked witches, the location confirmed by the Shadows just an hour ago.

Manon glanced over her shoulder, to where Dorian was nearly invisible against the snow, the spider in her plain human form beside him.

The depthless eyes of the creature met hers, shining with triumph.

Fine. Cyrene, or whatever she called herself, might live. Where it would lead them, she’d see. The horrors the spider had mentioned in Morath—

Later.

Manon scanned the darkening blue skies. None of them had questioned when Manon had sailed off on Abraxos hours earlier. And none of her Thirteen now asked where she’d gone as they monitored their ancient enemy’s camp.

“Seventy-five that we can see,” Asterin murmured, eyes fixed on the bustling camp. “What in hell are they doing out here?”

Manon didn’t know. The Shadows hadn’t been able to glean anything.

Tents surrounded small campfires—and every few moments, figures departed and arrived on brooms. Her heart thundered in her chest.

The Crochans. The other half of her heritage.

“We move on your command,” Sorrel said, a careful nudge.

Manon drew in a breath, willing the snow-laced wind to keep her cold and steady during this next encounter. And what would come after.

“No nails or teeth,” Manon ordered the Thirteen. Then she looked over her shoulder once more to the king and spider. “You may stay here, if you wish.”

Dorian gave her a lazy smile. “And miss the fun?” Yet she caught the gleam in his eye—the understanding that perhaps he alone could grasp. That she was not just about to face an enemy, but a potential people. He subtly nodded. “We all go in.”

Manon merely nodded back and rose. The Thirteen stood with her.

It was the matter of a few minutes before warning cries rang out.

But Manon kept her hands in the air as Abraxos landed at the edge of the Crochan camp, the Thirteen and their wyverns behind her, Vesta bearing both Dorian and the spider.

Spears and arrows and swords pointed at them with lethal accuracy.

A dark-haired witch stalked past the armed front line, a fine blade in her hand as her eyes fixed on Manon.

Crochans. Her people.

Now—now would be the time to make the speech she’d planned. To free those words that she’d tethered within herself.

Asterin turned toward her in silent urging.

Yet Manon’s lips didn’t move.

The dark-haired one kept her brown eyes fixed on Manon. Over one shoulder, a polished wood staff gleamed. Not a staff—a broom. Beyond the witch’s billowing red cloak, gold-bound twigs shimmered.

High ranking, then, to have such fine bindings. Most Crochans used simpler metals, the poorest just twine.

“What interesting replacements for your ironwood brooms,” the Crochan said. The others were as stone-faced as the Thirteen. The witch glanced toward where Dorian sat atop Vesta’s mount, likely monitoring all with that clear-eyed cunning. “And interesting company you now keep.” The witch’s mouth curled slightly. “Unless things have become so sorry for your ilk, Blackbeak, that you have to resort to sharing.”

A snarl rumbled from Asterin.

But the witch had identified her—or at least what Clan they hailed from. The Crochan sniffed at the spider-shifter. Her eyes shuttered. “Interesting company indeed.”

“We mean you no harm,” Manon finally said.