Kingdom of Ash

Kaltain’s lips curved upward. “I am not allowed to say, either.” When he opened his mouth to ask more, she cut him off. “There are other forces at work. Beyond what is tangible and what is known.”

He glanced toward Damaris. “Other gods?”

Kaltain’s silence was answer enough. But—another time. He’d contemplate it another time.

“I never thought to summon you,” he admitted. “You, who knew Morath’s true horrors. I didn’t realize …” He let the words trail off as he rose to his feet.

“That there’d be anything left of me to summon?” she finished. He winced. “The key ate away much—but not everything.”

“Is the third one indeed at Morath, then?”

She nodded gravely. Her body shimmered, fading swiftly. “Though I do not know where he kept it. I wasn’t … ready to receive the second one before I took matters into my own hands.” She ran her slender fingers over the black scar snaking down her arm.

He’d never spoken to her—not really. Had barely given her more than a passing glance, or grimaced his way through polite conversation with her.

And yet here she stood, the woman who had taken out a third of Morath, who had devoured a Valg prince from sheer will alone.

“How did you do it?” he whispered. “How did you break free of its control?” He had to know. If he was walking into hell itself, if it was more than likely he’d wind up with a new collar around his throat, he had to know.

Kaltain studied his neck before she met his stare. “Because I raged against it. Because I did not feel that I deserved the collar.”

The truth of her words slammed into him as surely as if she’d shoved his chest.

Kaltain only asked, “You drew the summoning marks for a reason. What is it you wish to know?”

Dorian tucked away the truth she’d thrown at him, the mirror she held up to all he’d once been and had become. He had not been a true prince—not in spirit, not in deeds. He’d tried to be, but too late. He had acted too late. He doubted he was doing much better as king. Certainly not when he’d dismissed Adarlan out of his own guilt and anger, questioned whether it should be saved.

As if there were ever a possibility that it didn’t deserve to be.

He asked at last, “Am I ready to go to Morath?”

She alone would know. Had witnessed things far worse than any Manon or Elide had beheld.

Kaltain again glanced to Damaris. “You know the answer.”

“You won’t try to convince me not to go?”

But Kaltain’s mouth tightened as her onyx gown began to blend into the gathered night. “You know what you will face there. It is not for me to tell you if you are ready.”

His mouth went dry.

Kaltain said, “Everything you have heard about Morath is true. True, and still there is more that is worse than you can imagine. Stay to the keep. It is Erawan’s stronghold, and likely the only place he would trust to store the key.”

Dorian nodded, his heart beginning to hammer. “I will.”

She took a step toward him, but halted as her edges rippled further. “Don’t linger too long, and don’t attract his attention. He is arrogant, and wholly self-absorbed, and will not bother to look too closely at what might creep through his halls. Be quick, Dorian.”

A tremor went through his hands, but he balled them into fists. “If I can kill him, should I take the chance?”

“No.” She shook her head. “You would not walk away from it. He has a chamber deep in the keep—it is where he stores the collars. He will bring you there if he catches you.”

He straightened. “I—”

“Go to Morath, as you have planned. Retrieve the key, and nothing more. Or you will find yourself with a collar around your neck again.”

He swallowed. “I can barely shift.”

Kaltain gave him a half smile as she dissolved into the moonlight. “Can’t you?”

And then she was gone.

Dorian stared at the place she’d stood, the Wyrdmarks already vanished. Only Damaris remained standing there, witness to the truth it had somehow sensed he needed to hear.

So Dorian felt for that tangle in his magic, the place where raw power eddied and emerged as whatever he wished.

Let go—the shifting magic’s command. Let go of everything. Let go of that wall he’d built around himself the moment the Valg prince had invaded him, and look within. At himself. Perhaps what the sword had asked him to do in summoning Kaltain instead.

Who do you wish to be?

“Someone worthy of my friends,” he said into the quiet night. “A king worthy of his kingdom.” For a heartbeat, snow-white hair and golden eyes flashed into his mind. “Happy,” he whispered, and wrapped a hand around Damaris’s hilt. Let go of that lingering scrap of terror.

The ancient sword warmed in his hand, a friendly and swift heat.

It flowed up through his fingers, his wrist. To that place within him where all those truths had dwelled, where it became warmth edged with sharpest pain.

And then the world grew and expanded, the trees rising, the ground approaching—

He made to touch his face, but found he had no hands.

Only soot-black wings. Only an ebony beak that allowed no words past it.

A raven. A—

A soft inhale of air had him twisting his neck—far more easily in this form—toward the trees. Toward Manon, standing in the shadows of an oak, her bloody, filthy hand braced against the trunk as she stared at him. At the transformation.

Dorian fumbled for the thread of power that held him in this strange, light form. Instantly, the world swaying, he grew and grew, back into his human body, Damaris cold and still at his feet. His clothes somehow intact. Perhaps through whatever differences existed between his raw magic and a true shifter’s gift.

But Manon’s lip curled back from her teeth. Her golden eyes glowed like embers. “When, exactly, were you going to inform me that you were about to retrieve the third Wyrdkey?”

CHAPTER 34

“We need to retreat,” Galan Ashryver panted to Aedion as they stood by the water tent deep in their army’s ranks, the Crown Prince splattered with blood both red and black.

Three days of fighting in the frigid wind and snow, three days of being pushed northward mile by mile. Aedion had the soldiers on rotation to the front lines, and those who managed to catch a few minutes of sleep returned to the fighting with heavier and heavier feet.

He’d left the front line himself minutes ago, only after Kyllian had ordered him to, going so far as to throw Aedion behind him, the Bane roughly passing him along until he was here, the Crown Prince of Wendlyn gulping down water by the farthest reaches of their forces. The prince’s olive skin was ashen, his Ashryver eyes dim as they monitored soldiers rushing or trudging past.

“We retreat here, and we stand to be chased all the way to Orynth.” Aedion’s raw throat ached with each word.

He had never seen an army so large. Even at Theralis, all those years ago.

Galan handed Aedion his waterskin, and Aedion drank deeply. “I will follow you, cousin, to however this may end, but we cannot keep this up. Not for another full night.”

Aedion knew that. Had realized it after the fighting had continued under cover of darkness.

When the men had started asking why Aelin of the Wildfire did not burn away their enemies. Did not at least give them light by which to fight.

Why she had vanished again.

Lysandra had donned her wyvern form to battle the ilken, but she had been forced to yield, to fall behind their lines. Good for killing ilken, yes, but also a large target for Morath’s archers and spear-throwers.

Ahead, too close for comfort, screams and clashing weapons rose toward the sky. Even the Fae royals’ magic was beginning to waver, their soldiers with them. Where it failed, the Silent Assassins lay waiting, shredding apart Valg and ilken alike with swift efficiency. But there were only so many of them. And still no sign of Ansel of Briarcliff’s additional army.

Soon, the red-haired queen had promised with uncharacteristic graveness only hours ago, the legion with her already dwindling rapidly. The rest of my army will be here soon.