Kingdom of Ash

Enough so that the ruks wrenched the siege ladders from the keep walls. Enough so that Lord Chaol shouted down to him and Gavriel to scale a siege ladder and get the hell back up here.

Gavriel obeyed, spotting the iron ladder cleared of Morath soldiers, being held in place only long enough for them to climb back up to the battlements.

But the khagan’s forces were near. And a nudge at Lorcan’s shoulder told him not to run, but to fight.

So Lorcan listened. He didn’t bother to shout to Gavriel, now half up the ladder, before he plunged into the fray.

He’d been bred for battle. Regardless of what queen he served, whether she was Fae or Valg or human, this was what he had been trained to do. What some part of him sang to do.

Lorcan plowed his own path toward the advancing khagan lines, some Morath soldiers fleeing in his wake. Some falling before he reached them, his magic snapping their lives away.

Soon now. They’d win the field soon, and the song in his blood would quiet.

Part of him didn’t want it to end, even as his body began to scream to rest.

Yet when the battle was done, what would remain?

Nothing. Elide had made that clear enough. She loved him, but she hated herself for it.

He hadn’t deserved her anyway.

She deserved a life of peace, of happiness. He didn’t know such things. Had thought he’d glimpsed them during the months they’d traveled together, before everything went to hell, but now he knew he was not meant for anything like it.

But this battlefield, this death-song around him … This, he could do. This, he could savor.

The golden helmets of the khagan’s army became clear, their fiery horses unfaltering. Finer than any host he’d fought beside in a mortal kingdom. In many immortal kingdoms, too.

Obeying the death-song in his blood, Lorcan let his shields drop. He did not wish it to be easy. He wanted to feel each blow, see his enemy’s life drain out beneath his sword.

He didn’t care what came of it. No one would care if he made it back to the keep anyway. He didn’t balk as he engaged the ten soldiers who charged for him.

Perhaps he deserved what happened next. Deserved it for his pathetic thoughts, or his arrogance in lowering his shields.

One moment, he was handily sending the Morath grunts back to their dark maker. One moment, he was grinning, even as he tasted their vile blood spraying the air.

A flash of metal at his back. Lorcan whirled, sword rising, but too late.

The Valg soldier’s blade swept upward. Lorcan arched, bellowing as flesh tore along his spine. No armor—there had been no armor to fit them across their torsos.

The Morath soldier moved again, more adept than the others. Perhaps the man he’d infested had some skill on the battlefield, something the demon wielded to its advantage.

Lorcan could barely lift his sword before the soldier plunged his own into Lorcan’s gut.

Lorcan fell, sword clattering. Icy mud sucked at his face, as if it would swallow him whole. Pull him down into the dark depths of Hellas’s realm, where he deserved to be.

The earth shook beneath thundering hooves, and arrows screamed overhead.

Then there was roaring. And then blackness.

CHAPTER 59



The khagan’s army took no prisoners.

A few of Morath’s soldiers tried to escape into the city. Standing beside Aelin on the keep battlements, Rowan watched the ruks pick them off with lethal efficiency.

His ears still rang with the din of battle, his breath a rasping beat echoed by Aelin. Already, the small wounds on him had begun to heal, a tingling itch beneath his stained clothes. The gash he’d taken to his leg, however, would need longer.

Across the plain, stretching toward the horizon, the khagan’s army made sure their kills stayed down. Swords and spears flashed in the afternoon light as they rose and fell, severing heads. Rowan had always remembered the chaos and rush of battle, but this—the dazed, weary aftermath—this, he’d forgotten.

Healers already made their way over the battlefield, their white banners stark against the sea of black and gold. Those who needed more intensive help were carried off by ruks and brought right to the chaos of the Great Hall.

Atop the blood-slick battlements, their allies and companions around them, Rowan wordlessly passed Aelin the waterskin. She drank deeply, then handed it to Fenrys.

An unleashing and release. That’s what the battle had been for his mate.

“Minimal losses,” Princess Hasar was saying, a hand braced on a small section of the battlement wall that was not coated in black or red gore. “The foot soldiers got hit hardest; the Darghan remain mostly intact.”

Rowan nodded. Impressive—more than impressive. The khagan’s army had been a beautifully coordinated force, moving across the plain as if they were farmers reaping wheat. Had he not been swept into the dance of battle, he might have stopped to marvel at them.

The princess turned to Chaol, seated in a wheeled chair, his face grim. “On your end?”

Chaol glanced to his father, who observed the battlefield with crossed arms. His father said without looking at them, “Many. We’ll leave it at that.”

Pain seemed to flicker in the bastard’s eyes, but he said nothing more.

Chaol gave Hasar an apologetic frown, his hands tightening on the chair’s arms. The soldiers of Anielle, however bravely they’d fought, were not a trained unit. Many of those who had survived were seasoned warriors who’d fought the wild men up in the Fangs, Chaol had told Rowan earlier. Most of the dead had not.

Hasar at last looked Aelin over. “I heard you put on a show today.”

Rowan braced himself.

Aelin turned from the battlefield and inclined her head. “You look as if you did, too.”

Indeed, Hasar’s ornate armor was splattered with black blood. She’d been in the thick of it, atop her Muniqi horse, and had ridden right up to the gates. But the princess made no further comment.

Irritation, deep and nearly hidden, flashed in Aelin’s eyes. Yet she didn’t speak again—didn’t push the princess about their next steps. She just watched the battlefield once more, chewing on her lip.

She’d barely stopped during the battle, halting only when there had been no more Valg left to kill. And in the minutes since the walls had been cleared, she’d remained quiet—distant. As if she was still climbing out of that calm, calculating place she’d descended into while fighting. She hadn’t bothered to remove any of her armor. The bronze battle-crown was caked with blood, her hair matted with it.

Chaol’s father had taken one look at her armor, at Rowan’s, and gone white with rage. Yet Chaol had merely wheeled his chair to his father’s side, snarling something too soft for Rowan to hear, and the man backed off.

For now. They had bigger things to consider. Things that drove his mate to gnaw on her lip. When Prince Kashin’s army might arrive, if they would indeed head northward to Terrasen. If today had been enough to win them over.

Two shapes took form in the sky. Kadara and Salkhi, soaring for the keep at an almost unchecked speed.

People scrambled out of the ruks’ way as Sartaq and Nesryn landed on the battlements, sliding off their saddles and stalking right up to them.

“We have a problem,” Nesryn said, her face ashen.

Indeed, Sartaq’s lips were bloodless. Both of their scents were drenched in fear.