Kingdom of Ash

“Why aren’t you fighting this?” Ren’s eyes blazed. “You just handed over that sword—”

“I don’t give a shit.” Aedion didn’t bother to keep his exhaustion, his disappointment and anger, from his voice. “Let him have the sword, and the army. I don’t give a shit.”

Ren didn’t stop him as Aedion ducked into his tent and didn’t emerge until dawn.

The Lords of Terrasen had stripped General Ashryver of his sword.

The word spread from campfire to campfire, rippling through the ranks.

The soldier was new to the Bane, had been accepted into their ranks only this summer. An honor, even with war upon them. An honor, though the soldier’s family had wept to see him depart.

To fight for Prince Aedion, to fight for Terrasen—it had been worth it, the weight of leaving his farmstead home behind. Leaving behind that sweet-faced farmer’s daughter whom he’d never gotten the chance to so much as kiss.

It had been worth it then. But not now.

The friends he’d made in the months of training and fighting were dead.

Huddled around the too-small campfire, the soldier was the last of them, the fresh-faced recruits who’d been so eager to test themselves against the Valg at the start of summer.

In the dead heart of winter, he now called himself a fool. If he bothered to speak at all.

Words had become unnecessary, foreign. As foreign as his half-frozen body, which never warmed, though he slept as close to the fire as he dared. If sleep found him, with the screaming of the wounded and dying. The knowledge of what hunted them northward.

There was no one left to help them. Save them. The queen they’d thought amongst them had been a lie. A shape-shifter’s deception. Where Aelin Galathynius now fought, what she had deemed more important than them, he didn’t know.

The frigid night pressed in, threatening to devour the small fire before him. The soldier inched closer to the flame, shuddering beneath his worn cloak, every ache and scrape from the day throbbing.

He wouldn’t abandon this army, though. Not as some of the others were murmuring. Even with Prince Aedion stripped of his title, even with their queen gone, he wouldn’t abandon this army.

He had sworn an oath to protect Terrasen. To protect his family. He’d hold to it.

Even if he now knew he’d never see them again.

Snow was still falling when they renewed their flight.

It fell for the next two days, chasing them northward for each long mile.

Darrow’s decree had little bearing. Kyllian outright refused to make any calls without Aedion’s approval. Refused to don armor fitting of his rank. Refused to take the war tent.

Aedion knew he’d earned that loyalty long ago. Just as the Bane had earned his. But it didn’t stop him from hating it, just a bit. From wishing Kyllian would take over in full.

Lysandra’s leg was healed enough to ride, but he saw little of her. She kept to Ren’s side, the two of them traveling near the healers, should her stitches pull. When Aedion did glimpse her, she often stared him down until he wanted to vomit.

By the third day, the scouts were rushing to them. Reporting that Morath had gained, and was closing in behind—fast.

Aedion knew how this would go. Saw every trudging step and hunger-tight face around him.

Orynth was half a day off. Were it over easy terrain, they might stand a chance of getting behind its ancient walls. But between them and the city lay the Florine River. Too wide to cross without boats. The nearest bridge too far south to risk.

At this time of the year, it still might not yet have frozen. And even so, with the river so wide and deep, the layer of ice that often coated it only went so far. For their army to cross, they’d have to risk the ice collapsing.

There were other ways to Orynth. To go straight north into the Staghorns, and cut back south to the city nestled at their foot. But each hour delayed allowed Morath’s host to gain ground.

Aedion was riding beside Kyllian when Elgan galloped up beside them, horse puffing curls of hot air into the snow-thick day. “The river is ten miles straight ahead,” Elgan said. “We have to make our decision now.”

To risk the bridge to the south, or the time it’d take to go to the long route northward. Ren, spotting their gathering, urged his horse closer.

Kyllian waited for the order. Aedion arched a brow. “You’re the general.”

“Horseshit,” Kyllian spat.

Aedion only turned to Elgan. “Any word on the status of the ice?”

Elgan shook his head. “No word on it, or the bridge.”

Endless, whirling snow lay ahead. Aedion didn’t dare glance behind at the trudging, stooping lines of soldiers.

Ren, as silently as he’d come, pulled back to where he rode at Lysandra’s side.

Wings fluttered through the wind and snow, and then a falcon was shooting skyward, one leg awkwardly straight beneath it.

“Keep riding,” was all Aedion said to his companions.

Lysandra returned within an hour. She addressed Ren and Ren alone, and then the young lord was galloping to Aedion’s side, where Kyllian and Elgan still rode.

Ren’s face had gone ashen. “There’s no ice on the Florine. And Morath scouts snuck ahead and razed the southern bridge.”

“They’re herding us northward,” Elgan murmured.

Ren nodded. “They’ll be upon us by tomorrow morning.”

They would not have time to consider making a run for the northern entrance to Orynth. And with the Florine mere miles ahead, too wide and deep to cross, too frigid to dare swim, and Morath closing in from behind, they were utterly trapped.

CHAPTER 54

Chaol hand-fed an apple to Farasha, the beautiful black mare skittish after her unprecedented flight.

It seemed even Hellas’s horse could be frightened, though Chaol supposed any wise person would find dangling hundreds of feet in the air to be unnerving.

“Someone else could do that for you.” Leaning against the stable wall of the keep, Yrene watched him work, monitoring each deeply limping step. “You should rest.”

Chaol shook his head. “She doesn’t know what the hell is happening. I’d like to try to calm her before she beds down.”

Before battle tomorrow—before they might stand a chance of actually saving Anielle.

He was still working through all that had transpired these months he’d been gone. The battles and losses. Where Dorian had gone with Manon and the Thirteen. Chaol could only pray his friend was successful—and that he didn’t take it upon himself to forge the Lock.

Needing to unravel all he’d learned, he’d left Aelin and the others near the Great Hall to find whatever food they could, immediately bringing Farasha down here with him. Mostly for the safety of everyone around the Muniqi horse, since Farasha had tried to take a chunk out of the soldier nearest her the moment her hood had come off. Even the hood hadn’t concealed from her what, exactly, was happening to the oversized crate they’d buckled her into.

But Farasha hadn’t bitten off his hand before she nibbled at the apple, so Chaol prayed she’d forgive him for the rough flight. Part of him half wondered if the mare knew that his back ached, that he needed his cane, but that he chose to be here.

He ran a hand down her ebony mane, then patted her strong neck. “Ready to trample some Valg grunts tomorrow, my friend?”

Farasha huffed, angling a dark eye at him as if to say, Are you?

Chaol smiled, and Yrene laughed softly. “I should head back to the hall,” his wife said. “See who needs help.” But she lingered.

Their eyes met over Farasha’s powerful back.

He came around the horse, still mindful of her biting. “I know,” he said quietly.

Yrene angled her head. “Know what?”

Chaol interlaced their fingers. And then laid their hands atop her still-flat abdomen.

“Oh,” was all Yrene said, her mouth popping open. “I—How?”

Chaol’s heart thundered. “It’s true, then.”

Her golden eyes scanned his. “Do you want it to be?”

Chaol slid a hand against her cheek. “More than I ever realized.”

Yrene’s smile was wide and lovely enough to fracture his heart. “It’s true,” she breathed.