Close now. The khaganate’s army had pushed closer and closer to besieged Orynth, flaming and shattered. If they could continue to hold their advantage, they might very well break them against the walls, as they had destroyed Morath’s legion in Anielle.

They had to act swiftly, though. The enemy swarmed both city gates, determined to break in. The southern gate held, the siege towers that had been attacking it moments ago now in ruins.

But the western gate—it would not remain sealed for long.

Salkhi rising up from the melee to catch his breath, Nesryn dared to gauge how many rukhin still flew. Despite the Crochans and rebel Ironteeth, they were outnumbered, but the rukhin were fresh. Ready and eager for battle.

It was not the number of remaining rukhin that snatched the breath from her chest.

But what came up behind them.

Nesryn dove. Dove for Sartaq, Kadara ripping the throat from a wyvern midflight.

The prince was panting, splattered with blue and black blood, as Nesryn fell into flight beside him. “Put out the call,” she shouted over the din, the roar of the wind. “Get to the city walls! To the southern gate!”

Sartaq’s eyes narrowed beneath his helmet, and Nesryn pointed behind them.

To the secondary dark host creeping at their backs. Right from Perranth, where they had no doubt been hidden.

The rest of Morath’s host. Ironteeth witches and wyverns with them.

This battle had been a trap. To lure them here, to expend their forces defeating this army.

While the rest snuck behind and trapped them against Orynth’s walls.

 

The western gate sundered at last.

Aedion was ready when it did. When the battering ram knocked through, iron screaming as it yielded. Then there were Morath soldiers everywhere.

Shield to shield, Aedion had arranged his men into a phalanx to greet them.

It was still not enough. The Bane could do nothing to stop the tide that poured from the battlefield, pushing them back, back, back up the passageway. And even Ren, leading the men atop the walls, could not halt the flow that surged over them.

They had to shut the gate again. Had to find a way to get it shut.

Aedion could barely draw breath, could barely keep his legs under him.

A warning horn rang out. Morath had sent a second army. Darkness shrouded the full extent of their ranks.

Valg princes—lots of them. Morath had been waiting.

Ren shouted down to him over the fray, “They cleared the southern gate! They’re getting as many of our forces as they can behind the walls!”

To regroup and rally before meeting the second army. But with the western gate still open, Morath teeming through, they’d never stand a chance.

He had to get the gate shut. Aedion and the Bane stabbed and slashed, a wall for Morath to break against. But it would not be enough.

A wyvern came crashing toward the gate, flipping across the ground as it rolled toward them. Aedion braced for the impact, for that huge body to shatter through the last of the gate.

Yet the felled beast halted, squashing soldiers beneath its bulk, right at the archway.

Blocking the way. A barricade before the western gate.

Intentionally so, Aedion realized as a golden-haired warrior leaped from the wyvern’s saddle, the dead Ironteeth witch still dangling there, throat gushing blue blood down the leathery sides.

The warrior ran toward them, a sword in one hand, the other drawing a dagger. Ran toward Aedion, his tawny eyes scanning him from head to toe.

His father.

CHAPTER 108

Morath’s soldiers clawed and crawled over the fallen wyvern blocking their path. They filled the archway, the passage.

A golden shield held them at bay. But not for long.

Yet the reprieve Gavriel bought them allowed the Bane to drain the last dregs of their waterskins, to pluck up fallen weapons.

Aedion panted, an arm braced against the gate passageway. Behind Gavriel’s shield, the enemy teemed and raged.

“Are you hurt?” his father asked. His first words to him.

Aedion managed to lift his head. “You found Aelin,” was all he said.

Gavriel’s face softened. “Yes. And she sealed the Wyrdgate.”

Aedion closed his eyes. At least there was that. “Erawan?”

“No.”

He didn’t need the specifics on why the bastard wasn’t dead. What had gone wrong.

Aedion pushed off the wall, swaying. His father steadied him with a hand to the elbow. “You need rest.”

Aedion yanked his arm out of Gavriel’s grip. “Tell that to the soldiers who have already fallen.”

“You will fall, too,” his father said, sharper than he’d ever heard, “if you don’t sit down for a minute.”

Aedion stared the male down. Gavriel stared right back.

No bullshit, no room for argument. The face of the Lion.

Aedion just shook his head.

Gavriel’s golden shield buckled under the onslaught of the Valg still teeming beyond it.

“We have to get the gate shut again,” Aedion said, pointing to the two cleaved but intact doors pushed against the walls. Access to them blocked by the Morath grunts still trying to break past Gavriel’s shield. “Or they’ll overrun the city before our forces can regroup.” Getting behind the walls would make no difference if the western gate was wide open.

His father followed his line of sight. Looked upon the soldiers trying to get past his defenses, their flow forced to a trickle by the wyvern he’d so carefully downed before them.

“Then we shall shut them,” Gavriel said, and smiled grimly. “Together.”

The word was more of a question, subtle and sorrowful.

Together. As father and son. As the two warriors they were.

Gavriel—his father. He had come.

And looking at those tawny eyes, Aedion knew it was not for Aelin, or for Terrasen, that his father had done it.

“Together,” Aedion rasped.

Not just this obstacle. Not just this battle. But whatever would come afterward, should they survive. Together.

Aedion could have sworn something like joy and pride filled Gavriel’s eyes. Joy and pride and sorrow, heavy and old.

Aedion strode back to the line of the Bane, motioning the soldier beside him to make room for Gavriel to join their formation. One great push now, and they’d secure the gate. Their army would enter through the southern one, and they’d find some way to rally before the new army reached the city. But the western one, they’d clear it and seal it. Permanently.

Father and son, they would do this. Defeat this.

But when his father did not join his side, Aedion turned.

Gavriel had gone directly to the gate. To the golden line of his shield, now pushing back, back, back. Shoving that wall of enemy soldiers with it, buckling with every heartbeat. Down the passage. Through the archway.

No.

Gavriel smiled at him. “Close the gate, Aedion,” was all his father said.

And then Gavriel stepped beyond the gates. That golden shield spreading thin.

No.

The word built, a rising scream in Aedion’s throat.

But Bane soldiers were rushing to the gate doors. Heaving them closed.

Aedion opened his mouth to roar at them to stop. To stop, stop, stop.

Gavriel lifted his sword and dagger, glowing golden in the dying light of the day. The gate shut behind him. Sealing him out.