Kingdom of Ash

Aelin waved a hand. “Fine, fine. You won’t try to kill Lorcan for what happened in Eyllwe, and in exchange, we won’t invite him to anything.” Her grin was nothing short of wicked.

This was the sort of court he’d be joining—this whirlwind of … Lorcan didn’t know what the word was for it. He doubted any of his five centuries had prepared him for it, though.

Aelin extended a hand. “You know how this goes, then. Or are you too old to remember?”

Lorcan glared and knelt, offering up the dagger at his side.

A fool. He was a fool.

And yet his hands shook slightly as he gave the queen the knife.

Aelin weighed the blade, a golden ring capped with an obscenely large emerald adorning her finger. A wedding band. Likely from the barrow-wight trove she’d pilfered. He glanced to where Whitethorn stood to the side. Sure enough, a golden ring lay on the warrior’s own finger, a ruby built into the band. And peeking above the collar of Rowan’s jacket, two fresh scars lay.

A pair of them now marked the queen’s own throat.

“Done gawking?” Aelin asked Lorcan coolly.

He scowled. Even with the holy ritual they were about to partake in, the queen found a way to be irreverent. “Say it.”

Her lips curved again. “Do you, Lorcan Salvaterre, swear upon your blood and eternal soul, to be loyal to me, to my crown, and to Terrasen for the rest of your life?”

He blinked. Maeve had intoned a lengthy list of questions in the Old Language when he’d sworn her oath. But he said, “I do. I swear it.”

Aelin sliced the dagger across her forearm, and her blood shone bright as the ruby in the sword at her side. “Then drink.”

His last chance to back out from this.

But he glanced toward Elide again. And saw hope—just a glimmer of it—lighting her face.

So Lorcan took the queen’s arm in his hands and drank.

The taste of her—jasmine, lemon verbena, and crackling embers—filled his mouth. Filled his soul, as something burned and settled within him.

An ember of warmth. Like a piece of that raging magic had come to rest inside his very soul.

Swaying a bit, he let go of her arm.

“Welcome to the court,” Aelin said. “Here’s your first and only order: protect Terrasen and its people.”

The command settled in him, too, another little spark that glowed down deep.

Then the queen pivoted on her heel and walked away—no, walked up to Elide.

Lorcan tried and failed to stand. His body, it seemed, still needed a moment.

So he could only watch as Aelin said to Elide, “I am not offering you the blood oath.”

Vow or no, he debated throwing the queen into the ocean for the devastation that clouded Elide’s face. But the Lady of Perranth kept her chin high. “Why?”

Aelin took Elide’s hand with a gentleness that cooled Lorcan’s rising temper. “Because when we return to Terrasen, if I am to be given the throne, then you cannot be bound to me.” Elide’s brows crossed. “Perranth is the second-most powerful House in Terrasen,” Aelin explained. “Four of its lords have decided that I am unfit for the throne. I need a majority to win it back.”

“And if I am sworn to you, it jeopardizes the integrity of my vote,” Elide finished.

Aelin nodded, and let go of her hand to turn to all of them. In the rising sun, the queen was bathed in gold. “Terrasen is over two weeks away, if the winter storms don’t interfere. We’ll use this time to train and plan.”

“Plan for what?” Fenrys asked, coming closer.

A member of this court. Of Lorcan’s own court. The three of them once again bound—and yet freer than they’d ever been. Lorcan half wondered why the queen didn’t offer the oath to Gavriel, but she spoke again.

“My task cannot be completed without the keys. I assume that their new bearers will eventually seek me out, if the third is found and they decide not to finish things themselves.” She glanced to Rowan, who nodded. As if they’d already discussed this. “So rather than waste vital time roaming the continent in pursuit of them, we will indeed go to Terrasen. Especially if Maeve is bringing her army to its shores as well. And if I am not allowed to lead from my throne, then I shall just have to do so from the battlefields.”

She meant to fight. The queen—Lorcan’s queen—meant to fight against Morath. And Maeve, should the worst happen. And then she’d die for them all.

“To Terrasen, then,” Fenrys said.

“To Terrasen,” Elide echoed.

Aelin gazed westward, toward the kingdom that was all that stood between Erawan and conquest. Toward Lorcan’s new home. As if she could see the dread-lord’s legions unleashing upon it. And Maeve’s immortal host creeping at their backs, a host Lorcan and his companions had once commanded.

Aelin merely strode to the center of the deck, the sailors giving them a wide berth. She unsheathed Goldryn and her dagger, then lifted her brows at Whitethorn in silent challenge.

The warrior-prince obeyed, unsheathing his blade and hatchet before sinking into a defensive crouch.

Training—retraining her body. No whisper of her power manifested, yet her eyes burned bright.

Aelin angled her weapons. “To Terrasen,” she said at last.

And began.

CHAPTER 43

Dorian began small.

First, by changing his eyes to black. Solid black, like the Valg. Then by turning his skin into an icy, pale shade, the sort that never saw sunlight. His hair, he left dark, but he managed to make his nose more crooked, his mouth thinner.

Not a full shift, but one done in pieces. Weaving the image together in himself, forming the tapestry of his new face, new skin, during the long, silent flight up the spine of the Fangs.

He hadn’t told Manon it was likely a suicide mission, too. He’d barely talked to her at all since the forest clearing. They’d left with the dawn, when she’d announced to Glennis and the Crochans what she planned to do. They could fly to the Ferian Gap and return to that hidden camp within the Fangs in four days, if they were lucky.

She’d asked the Crochans to meet them there. To trust her enough to return to their mountain camp and wait.

They had said yes. Maybe it was the grave the Thirteen had dug all day, but the Crochans said yes. A tentative trust—just this once.

So Dorian had flown with Asterin. Had used each frigid hour northward to slowly alter his body.

You want to go to Morath so badly, Manon had hissed again before they’d left, then let’s see if you can do it.

A test. One he was glad to excel at. If only to throw in her face.

Manon knew of a back door that only the wyverns took into the Northern Fang, along with any human grunts unlucky enough to be bound to this place. Asterin and Manon had left the Thirteen farther in the mountains before approaching, and even then they’d stopped far away enough from any scouts that they’d spent hours hiking on foot, taking Asterin’s mare with them. Abraxos had snarled and tugged on the reins, but Sorrel had held him firmly.

The two mammoth peaks flanking the Gap grew larger with each passed mile. Yet as he approached the southern side of the Fang, he hadn’t realized how massive, exactly, they were.

Large enough to hold an aerial host. To train and breed them.

This was what his father and Erawan had built. What Adarlan had become.

No wyverns circled in the skies, but their roars and shrieks echoed from the pass as he strode for the ancient gates that opened into the mountain itself. Behind him, led by a chain, Asterin’s blue mare followed.

Another trainer bringing back his mount after a trip for some air. The few guards—mortal men—at the gates barely blinked as he appeared around a rocky bend.

Dorian’s palms turned sweaty within his gloves. He prayed the shifting held.

He would have no way of knowing, though he supposed few here would recognize his natural face. He’d picked coloring close enough to his own that should the tapestry within himself unravel, someone might dismiss the altering of his skin tone, his eyes, as a trick of the light.

Narene huffed, yanking on the reins. Not wanting to go near this place.

He didn’t blame her. The reek from the mountain set his knees wobbling.