Kingdom of Ash

“How can you have looked at Kaltain and not seen what awaits you?” She held up her arm and pointed to where Kaltain’s scar had been. “Erawan will catch you. You cannot go.”

“We will lose this war if I do not go,” he snapped. “How do you not care about that?”

“I care,” she hissed. “I care if we lose this war. I care if I fail to rally the Crochans. I care if you go into Morath and do not return, not as something worth living.” He only blinked. Manon spat on the mossy ground. “Now do you wish to tell me that caring is not such a bad thing? Well, this is what comes of it.”

“This is why I didn’t say anything,” he breathed.

Her heart turned raging, its pulse echoing through her body, though her words were cold as ice. “You wish to go to Morath?” She prowled up to him, and he didn’t back down an inch. “Then prove it. Prove you are ready.”

“I don’t need to prove anything to you, witchling.”

She gave him a brutal, wicked smile. “Then perhaps prove it to yourself. A test.” He’d deceived her, had lied to her. This man who she’d believed held no secrets between them. She didn’t know why it made her want to shred everything within sight. “We fly to the Ferian Gap with the dawn.” He started, but she went on, “Join us. We will have need of a spy on the inside. Someone who can sneak past the guards to tell us what and who lies within.” She barely heard herself over the roaring in her head. “Let’s see how well you can shape-shift then, princeling.”

Manon forced herself to hold his stare. To let her words hang between them.

Then he turned on his heel, aiming for the camp. “Fine. But find yourself another tent to sleep in tonight.”

CHAPTER 41

They reached the sea under cover of darkness, warned of its arrival by the briny scent that crept into the cave, then the rougher waters that pushed past, and then finally the roar of the surf.

Maeve’s eyes might have been everywhere, but they weren’t fixed on the cave mouth that opened onto a cove along Wendlyn’s western shore. Nor were they on that cove when the boat landed on its sandy beach, then vanished back into the caves before anyone could so much as attempt to thank the creatures who had hauled them without rest.

Aelin watched the boat until it disappeared, trying not to stare too long at the clean, unstained sand beneath her boots, while the others debated where they might be along the coastline.

A few hours of hurrying northward, into Wendlyn’s lands, and they got their answer: close enough to the nearest port.

The tide was with them, and with the gold they’d pilfered from the barrow-wights, it was a matter of Rowan and Lorcan simply crossing their arms before a ship was secured. With Wendlyn’s armada sailing for Terrasen’s shores, the rules about border crossings had been revoked. Gone were the several boat transfers to reach the continent across the sea, the security measures. No mere tyrant squatted in Adarlan, but a Valg king with an aerial legion.

It made it easier for the messages she dispatched to go out, too. Whether the letter to Aedion and Lysandra would reach them was up to the gods, she supposed, since they seemed hell-bent on being their puppet masters. Perhaps they might not bother with her now, if Dorian was heading for the third key, if he might take her place.

She did not dwell on it for long.

The ship was a step above ramshackle, all the finer vessels commandeered for the war, but it seemed steady enough to make the weeks-long crossing. For the gold they paid, the captain yielded his own quarters to Aelin and Rowan. If the man knew who they were, what they were, he said nothing.

Aelin didn’t care. Only that they sailed with the midnight tide, Rowan’s magic propelling them swiftly out to the moonlit sea.

Far from Maeve. From her gathered forces.

From the truth that Aelin might have glimpsed that day in Maeve’s throne room, the dark blood that had turned to red.

She hadn’t told the others. Didn’t know if that moment had been real, or a trick of the light. If it had been another dreamscape, or some fragment that had blended into the very real memory of Connall’s death.

She’d deal with it later, Aelin decided as she stood by the prow, the others long since having gone to their own quarters belowdecks. Only Rowan remained, perched on the mainmast as he scanned every horizon for signs of pursuit.

They’d evaded Maeve. For now. Tonight, at least, she wouldn’t know where to find them. Until word spread of the strangers in that port, of the ship they’d paid a king’s fortune to take them into war-torn hell. The messages Aelin had sent.

At least Maeve didn’t know where the Wyrdkeys were. They still had that in their favor.

Though Maeve was likely to bring her army across the sea to hunt them down. Or simply aid in Terrasen’s demise.

Aelin’s power stirred, a thunderhead groaning in her blood. She ground her teeth and paid it no attention.

Everything relied upon them reaching the continent before Maeve and her forces. Or before Erawan could destroy too much of the world.

Aelin leaned into the sea breeze, letting it seep into her skin, her hair, letting it wash away the dark of the caves, if the dark of the prior months could not be eased entirely. Letting it soothe her fire into slumbering embers.

These weeks at sea would be endless, even with Rowan’s magic propelling them.

She’d use each day to train, to work with sword and dagger and bow until her hands were blistered, until new calluses formed. Until the thinness returned to muscle.

She’d rebuild it—what she had been.

Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she’d do it. If only for Terrasen.

Rowan swooped from the mast, shifting as he reached her side at the rail. He surveyed the night-black sea beyond them. “You should rest.”

She slid him a glance. “I’m not tired.” Not a lie, not in some regards. “Want to spar?”

He frowned. “Training can start tomorrow.”

“Or tonight.” She held his piercing stare, matched his dominance with her own.

“It can wait a few hours, Aelin.”

“Every day counts.” Against Erawan, even a day of training would count.

Rowan’s jaw tightened. “True,” he said at last. “But it can still wait. There are … there are things we need to discuss.”

The silent words rose in his animal-bright eyes. About you and me.

Her mouth went dry. But Aelin nodded.

In silence, they strode into their spacious quarters, its only decoration the wall of windows that overlooked the churning sea behind them. A far cry from a queen’s chamber, or any she might have purchased as Adarlan’s assassin.

At least the bed built into the wall looked clean enough, the sheets crisp and stainless. But Aelin headed for the oak desk anchored to the floor, and leaned against it while Rowan shut the door.

In the dim lantern light, they stared at each other.

She’d endured Maeve and Cairn; she’d endured Endovier and countless other horrors and losses. She could have this conversation with him. The first step toward rebuilding herself.

Aelin knew Rowan could hear her thundering heart as the space between them went taut. She swallowed once. “Elide and Lorcan told you … told you everything that was said on that beach.”

A curt nod, wariness flooding his eyes.

“Everything that Maeve said.”

Another nod.

She braced herself. “That I’m—we’re mates.”

Understanding and something like relief replaced that wariness. “Yes.”

“I’m your mate,” she said, needing to voice it. “And you are mine.”

Rowan crossed the room, but halted a few feet from the desk on which she leaned. “What of it, Aelin?” His question was low, rough.

“Don’t you …” She scrubbed at her face. “You know what she did to you, to …” She couldn’t say her name. Lyria. “Because of it.”

“I do know.”

“And?”

“And what do you wish me to say?”

She pushed off the desk. “I wish you to tell me how you feel about it. If …”