Kingdom of Ash

A breath passed. The dark smudge began to take form, rising into the blue sky.

Flying toward them.

“Ilken?” Ren squinted as he shielded his eyes against the glare.

“Too big,” Aedion breathed.

Closer, the mass flying above the teeming army became clearer. Larger.

“Wyverns,” Aedion said, dread curdling in his stomach.

The Ironteeth aerial legion had been unleashed at last.

“Oh gods,” Ren whispered.

Against a terrestrial siege, Orynth might have held out—a few days or weeks, but they could have lasted.

But with the thousand or so Ironteeth witches who soared toward them on those wyverns … They would not need their infernal towers to destroy this city, the castle. To rip open the city gates and walls and let in Morath’s hordes.

The soldiers began to spot the wyverns. People cried out, along the battlements. Up in the castle looming behind them.

This siege would not even get the chance to be a siege.

It would end today. Within a few hours.

Racing feet skidded to a halt, and then Lysandra was there, panting. “Tell me what to do, where to go.” Her emerald eyes were wide with terror—helpless terror and despair. “I can change into a wyvern, try to keep them—”

“There are over a thousand Ironteeth,” Aedion said, his voice hollow in his ears. Her fear whetted something sharp and dangerous in him, but he refrained from reaching for her. “There is nothing you or we can do.”

A few dozen of the Ironteeth had sacked Rifthold in a matter of hours.

This host …

Aedion focused on his breathing, on keeping his head high as soldiers began to step away from their positions along the walls.

Unacceptable.

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE,” he bellowed. “HOLD THE LINE, AND DO NOT BALK.”

The roared command halted those who’d looked prone to bolt, at least. But it didn’t stop the shaking swords, the stench of their rising fear.

Aedion turned to Lysandra and Ren. “Get Rolfe’s firelances up on the higher towers and buildings. See if they can burn the Ironteeth from the sky.”

When Ren hesitated, Aedion snarled, “Do it now.”

Then Ren was racing toward where the Pirate Lord stood with his Mycenian soldiers.

“It won’t do anything, will it?” Lysandra said softly.

Aedion just said, “Take Evangeline and go. There is a small tunnel in the bottom level of the castle that leads into the mountains. Take her and go.”

She shook her head. “To what end? Morath will find us all anyway.”

His commanders were sprinting toward him, and for the first time since he’d known them, there was true dread shining in the eyes of the Bane. In Elgan’s eyes.

But Aedion kept his attention fixed on Lysandra. “Please. I am begging you. I am begging you, Lysandra, to go.”

Her chin lifted. “You are not asking our other allies to run.”

“Because I am not in love with our other allies.”

For a heartbeat, she blinked at him.

Then her face crumpled, and Aedion only stared at her, unafraid of the words he’d spoken. Only afraid of the dark mass that swept toward them, staying within formation above that endless army. Afraid of what that legion would do to her, to Evangeline.

“I should have told you,” Aedion said, voice breaking. “Every day after I realized it, all these months. I should have told you every day.”

Lysandra began to cry, and he brushed away her tears.

His commanders reached him, ashen and panting. “Orders, General?”

He didn’t bother to tell them that he wasn’t their general. It wouldn’t matter what the hell he was called in a few hours anyway.

Yet Lysandra remained at his side. Made no move to run.

“Please,” he said to her.

Lysandra only linked her fingers through his in silent answer. And challenge.

His heart cracked at that refusal. At the hand, shaking and cold, that clung to his.

He squeezed her fingers tightly, and did not let go as he faced his commanders. “We—”

“Wyverns from the north!”

The screamed warning shattered down the battlements, and Aedion and Lysandra ducked as they whirled toward the attack coming at their backs.

Thirteen wyverns raced from the Staghorns, plunging toward the city walls.

And as they shot toward Orynth, people and soldiers screaming and fleeing before them, the sun hit the smaller wyvern leading the attack.

Lighting up wings like living silver.

Aedion knew that wyvern. Knew the white-haired rider atop it.

“HOLD FIRE,” he bellowed down the lines. His commanders echoed the order, and all the arrows that had been pointed upward now halted.

“It’s …,” Lysandra breathed, her hand dropping from his while she walked forward a step, as if in a daze. “It …”

Soldiers still fell back from the city walls as Manon Blackbeak and her Thirteen landed along them, right before Aedion and Lysandra.

It was not the witch he had last seen on a beach in Eyllwe.

No, there was nothing of that cold, strange creature in the face that smiled grimly at him. Nothing of her in that remarkable crown of stars atop her brow.

A crown of stars.

For the last Crochan Queen.

Panting, rasping breaths neared, and Aedion glanced away from Manon Blackbeak to see Darrow hurry onto the city walls, gaping at the witch and her wyvern, at Aedion for not firing at her—her, whom Darrow believed to be an enemy come to parley before their slaughter.

“We will not surrender,” Darrow spat.

Asterin Blackbeak, her blue wyvern beside Manon’s, let out a low laugh.

Indeed, Manon’s lips curved in cool amusement as she said to Darrow, “We have come to ensure that you don’t, mortal.”

Darrow hissed, “Then why has your master sent you to speak with us?”

Asterin laughed again.

“We have no master,” Manon Blackbeak said, and it was indeed a queen’s voice that she spoke with, her golden eyes bright. “We come to honor a friend.”

There was no sign of Dorian amongst the Thirteen, but Aedion was reeling enough that he didn’t have the words to ask.

“We came,” Manon said, loud enough that all on the city walls could hear, “to honor a promise made to Aelin Galathynius. To fight for what she promised us.”

Darrow said quietly, “And what was that?”

Manon smiled then. “A better world.”

Darrow took a step back. As if disbelieving what stood before him, in defiance of the legion that swept toward their city.

Manon only looked to Aedion, that smile lingering. “Long ago, the Crochans fought beside Terrasen, to honor the great debt we owed the Fae King Brannon for granting us a homeland. For centuries, we were your closest allies and friends.” That crown of stars blazed bright upon her head. “We heard your call for aid.” Lysandra began weeping. “And we have come to answer it.”

“How many,” Aedion breathed, scanning the skies, the mountains. “How many?”

Pride and awe filled the Witch-Queen’s face, and even her golden eyes were lined with silver as she pointed toward the Staghorns. “See for yourself.”

And then, breaking from between the peaks, they appeared.