Kingdom of Ash

She picked at the blister on her right hand, hissing. “We could start a secret society—for people who don’t sleep well.”

“As long as Lorcan isn’t invited, I’m in.”

Aelin huffed a laugh. “Let it go.”

His face turned stony. “I said I would.”

“You clearly haven’t.”

“I’ll let it go when you stop running yourself ragged at dawn.”

“I’m not running myself ragged. Rowan is overseeing it.”

“Rowan is the only reason you’re not limping everywhere.”

Truth. Aelin curled her aching hands into fists and slid them into her pockets. Fenrys said nothing—didn’t ask why she didn’t warm her fingers. Or the air around them.

He just turned to her and blinked three times. Are you all right?

A gull’s cry pierced the gray world, and Aelin blinked back twice. No.

It was as much as she’d admit. She blinked again, thrice now. Are you all right?

Two blinks from him, too.

No, they were not all right. They might never be. If the others knew, if they saw past the swagger and temper, they didn’t let on.

None of them commented that Fenrys hadn’t once used his magic to leap between places. Not that there was anywhere to go in the middle of the sea. But even when they sparred, he didn’t wield it.

Perhaps it had died with Connall. Perhaps it had been a gift they had both shared, and touching it was unbearable.

She didn’t dare peer inward, to the churning sea inside her. Couldn’t.

Aelin and Fenrys stood by the field as the sun arced higher, burning off the mists.

After a long minute, she asked, “When you took the oath to Maeve, what did her blood taste like?”

His golden brows narrowed. “Like blood. And power. Why?”

Aelin shook her head. Another dream, or hallucination. “If she’s on our heels with this army, I’m just … trying to understand it. Her, I mean.”

“You plan to kill her.”

The gruel in her stomach turned over, but Aelin shrugged. Even as she tasted ash on her tongue. “Would you prefer to do it?”

“I’m not sure I’d survive it,” he said through his teeth. “And you have more of a reason to claim it than I do.”

“I’d say we have an equal claim.”

His dark eyes roved over her face. “Connall was a better male than—than how you saw him that time. Than what he was in the end.”

She gripped his hand and squeezed. “I know.”

The last of the mists vanished. Fenrys asked quietly, “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

He didn’t mean his brother.

She shook her head. “I know enough.” She surveyed her cold, blistered hands. “I know enough,” she repeated.

He stiffened, a hand going to the sword at his side. Not at her words, but—

Rowan dove from the skies, a full-out plunge.

He shifted a few feet from the ground, landing with a predator’s grace as he ran the last steps toward them.

Goldryn sang as she unsheathed it. “What?”

Her mate just pointed to the skies.

To what flew there.

CHAPTER 45

Rock roared against rock, and Yrene braced a hand on the shuddering stones of Westfall Keep as the tower swayed. Down the hallway, people screamed, some wailing, some lunging over family members to cover them with their bodies while debris rained.

Dawn had barely broken, and the battle was already raging.

Yrene pressed herself into the stones, heart hammering, counting the breaths until the shaking stopped. The last assault, it had been six.

She got to three, mercifully.

Five days of this. Five days of this endless nightmare, with only the blackest hours of the night offering reprieve.

She had barely seen Chaol for more than a passing kiss and embrace. The first time, he’d been sporting a wound to the temple that she’d healed away. The next, he’d been leaning heavily on his cane, covered in dirt and blood, much of it not his own.

It was the black blood that had made her stomach turn. Valg. There were Valg out there. Infesting human hosts. Too many for her to cure. No, that part would come after the battle. If they survived.

Soon, too soon, the injured and dying had begun pouring in. Eretia had organized a sick bay in the great hall, and it was there that Yrene had spent most of her time. Where she’d been headed, after managing a few hours of dreamless sleep.

The tower steadied itself, and Yrene announced to no one in particular, “The ruks are still holding off the tide. Morath only fires the catapults because they cannot breach the keep walls.”

It was only partially true, but the families crouched in the hall, their bedrolls and precious few belongings with them, seemed to settle.

The ruks had indeed disabled many of the catapults that Morath had hauled here, but a few remained—just enough to hammer the keep, the city. And while the ruks might have been holding off the tide, it would not be for long.

Yrene didn’t want to know how many had fallen. She only saw the number of riders in the great hall and knew it would be too many. Eretia had ordered the injured ruks to take up residence in one of the interior courtyards, assigning five healers to oversee them, and the space was so full you could barely move through it.

Yrene hurried onward, mindful of the debris scattered on the tower stair. She’d nearly snapped her neck yesterday slipping on a piece of fallen wood.

The groans of the injured reached her long before she entered the great hall, the doors flung open to reveal row after row of soldiers, from the khaganate and Anielle alike. The healers didn’t have cots for all, so many had been laid on bedrolls. When those had run out, cloaks and blankets piled over cold stone had been used.

Not enough—not enough supplies, and not enough healers. They should have brought more from the rest of the host.

Yrene rolled up her sleeves, aiming for the wash station near the doors. Several of the children whose families sheltered in the keep had taken up the task of emptying dirty tubs and filling them with hot water every few minutes. Along with the basins by the wounded.

Yrene had balked to let children witness such bloodshed and pain, but there was no one else to do it. No one else so eager to help.

Anielle’s lord might have been a grand bastard, but its people were a brave, noble-hearted group. One that had left more of a mark on her husband than his hateful father.

Yrene scrubbed her hands, though she’d washed them before coming down here, and shook them dry. They couldn’t waste their precious few cloths on drying their hands.

Her magic had barely refilled, despite the sleep she’d gotten. She knew that if she looked to the battlements, she’d spy Chaol using his cane, perhaps even atop the battle-horse they’d outfitted with his brace. His limp had been deep when she’d last seen him, just yesterday afternoon.

He hadn’t complained, though—hadn’t asked her to stop expending her power. He’d fight whether he was standing or using the cane or the chair or a horse.

Eretia met Yrene halfway across the hall floor, her dark skin shining with sweat. “They’re bringing in a rider. Her throat’s been slashed by talons, but she’s still breathing.”

Yrene suppressed her shudder. “Poison on the talons?” So many of the Valg beasts possessed it.

“The scout who flew by to warn us of her arrival wasn’t sure.”

Yrene pulled her tool kit from the satchel at her hip, scanning the hall for a place to work on the incoming rider. Not much room—but there, by the washbasins where she’d just cleaned her hands. Enough space. “I’ll meet them at the doors.” Yrene made to hurry for the gaping entryway.

But Eretia gripped Yrene’s upper arm, her thin fingers digging gently into her skin. “You’ve rested enough?”

“Have you?” Yrene shot back. Eretia had still been here when Yrene had trudged to bed hours ago, and it seemed Eretia had either arrived well before Yrene this morning, or hadn’t left at all.

Eretia’s brown eyes narrowed. “I am not the one who needs to be careful of how much I push myself.”

Yrene knew Eretia didn’t mean in regard to Chaol and the link between their bodies.