Kingdom of Ash

But then they were all inching through the drifts, the scout guiding them past half-buried tents. Even under the trees, there was little shelter.

Yet then they were at the edge of the camp, the blinding snows roaring past. Veiling what the scout pointed to as she said, “Look.”

At his side, Aelin stumbled a step. Rowan reached for her to keep her from falling.

But she hadn’t been falling. She’d been lurching forward—as if to run ahead.

Rowan saw at last what she beheld. Who emerged between the trees.

Against the snow, he was nearly invisible with his white fur. Would have been invisible were it not for the golden flame flickering between his proud, towering antlers.

The Lord of the North.

And at his feet, all around him … The Little Folk.

Snow clinging to her lashes, a small sound came out of Aelin as the creature nearest curled its hand, beckoning. As if to say, Follow us.

The others gaped in silence at the magnificent, proud stag who had come to greet them.

To guide home the Queen of Terrasen.

But then the wind began to whisper, and it was not the song that Rowan usually heard.

No, it was a voice that they all heard as it streamed past them.

Doom is upon Orynth, Heir of Brannon. You must hurry.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold skittered down Rowan’s skin.

“The storm,” Aelin blurted, the words swallowed by the snow.

You must hurry. We will show you the way, swift and unseen.

Aelin only stilled. Said to that voice, as ancient as the trees, as old as the rocks between them, “You have already helped me so many times.”

And you have given much yourself, Heir of Brannon. We who remember him know he would have made such a choice, had he been able to do so. Oakwald shall never forget Brannon, or his Heir.

Aelin straightened, scanned the trees, the snow-whipped wind.

Dryad. That was the word he sought. Dryad. A tree spirit.

“What is your cost?” Aelin asked, her voice louder now.

“Do you really want to ask?” Fenrys muttered. Rowan snarled at him.

But Aelin had gone still as she waited for the dryad to answer. The voice of Oakwald, of the Little Folk and creatures who had long cared for it.

A better world, the dryad replied at last. Even for us.

 

The army was a flurry of activity as it hauled itself into preparing to march—to race northward.

But Aelin dragged Rowan into their tent. To the pile of books Chaol and Yrene had brought from the southern continent.

She ran a finger over the titles, searching, scanning.

“What are you doing?” her mate asked.

Aelin ignored the question and hummed as she found the book she sought. She leafed through it, careful not to tear the ancient pages. “A stupid cow I might be,” she muttered, rotating the book to show Rowan the page she sought, “but not without options.”

Rowan’s eyes danced. You’re including me in this particular scheme, Princess?

Aelin smirked. I wouldn’t want you to feel left out.

He angled his head. “We need to hurry, then.”

Listening to the ruckus of the readying army beyond their tent, Aelin nodded. And began.

CHAPTER 104



The sweat and blood on him quickly freezing, Aedion panted as he leaned against the battered city walls and watched the encamped enemy pull back for the night.

A sick sort of joke, a cruel torment, for Morath to halt at each sundown. As if it were some sort of civility, as if the creatures who infested so many of the soldiers below required light.

He knew why Erawan had ordered it so. To wear them down day by day, to break their spirits rather than let them go out in raging glory.

It wasn’t just the victory or conquest that Erawan desired, but their complete surrender. Their begging for it to be over, for him to end them, rule them.

Aedion ground his teeth as he limped down the battlements, the light quickly fading, the temperature plummeting.

Five days.

The weapons they’d estimated running out in three or four days had lasted until today. Until now.

Down the wall, one of the Mycenians sent a plume of flame onto the Valg still trying to scale the siege ladder. Where it burned, demons fell away.

Rolfe stood by the woman wielding the firelance, his face as bloodied and sweaty as Aedion’s.

A black-armored hand clamped onto the battlement beside Aedion as he passed by, grappling for purchase.

Barely looking, Aedion slammed out his ancient shield. A yelp and fading cry was his only confirmation that the rogue soldier had gone tumbling to the ground.

Rolfe smiled grimly as Aedion halted, the weight of his armor like a thousand stones. Overhead, Crochans and Ironteeth flew slowly back across the city walls, red capes drooping over brooms, leathery wings beating irregularly. Aedion watched the sky until he saw the riderless wyvern he looked for every day, every night.

Spotting him, too, Lysandra banked and began a slow, pained descent toward the city wall.

So many dead. More and more each day. Those lost lives weighed his every step. Nothing he could do would ever make it right—not really.

“The archers are out,” Aedion said to Rolfe by way of greeting as Lysandra drew closer, blood both her own and from others on her wings, her chest. “No more arrows.”

Rolfe jerked his chin toward the Mycenian warrior still setting off her firelance in sputtering fits and bursts.

Lysandra landed, shifting in a flash, and was instantly at Aedion’s side, tucked under his shield arm. A soft, swift kiss was their only greeting. The only thing he looked forward to every night.

Sometimes, once they’d been bandaged and eaten something, he’d manage to get more than that. Often, they didn’t bother to wash up before finding a shadowed alcove. Then it was nothing but her, the sheer perfection of her, the small sounds she made when he licked up her throat, when his hands slowly, so slowly, explored each inch of her. Letting her set the pace, show him and tell him how far she wished to go. But not that final joining, not yet.

Something for them both to live for—that was their unspoken vow.

She reeked of Valg blood, but Aedion still pressed another kiss to Lysandra’s temple before he looked back at Rolfe. The Pirate Lord smiled grimly.

Well aware that these would likely be their final days. Hours.

The Mycenian warrior aimed her firelance again, and the lingering Valg tumbled away into the darkness, little more than melted bones and fluttering cloth.

“That’s the last of it,” Rolfe said quietly.

It took Aedion a heartbeat to realize he didn’t mean the final soldier of the evening.

The Mycenian warrior set down her firelance with a heavy, metallic thud.

“The firelances are done,” Rolfe said.

 

Darkness fell over Orynth, so thick even the flames of the castle shriveled.

On the castle battlements, Darrow silent at her side, Evangeline watched the trudging lines of soldiers come in from the walls, from the skies.

Bone drums began to beat.

A heartbeat, as if the enemy army on the plain were one massive, rising beast now readying to devour them.

Most days, they only beat from sunup to sundown, the noise blocked out by the din of battle. That they had started it anew as the sun vanished … Her stomach churned.

“Tomorrow,” Lord Sloane murmured from where he stood beside Darrow. “Or the day after. It will be done then.”