Kingdom of Ash

But as Manon went in search of Glennis’s own hearth, the Crochans looked her way.

Some tipped their heads toward her. Some offered grim nods.

She saw to it that the Thirteen were tending to their hands, and found herself unable to sit. To let the weight of the day catch up to her.

Around them, around each fire, Crochans argued quietly on whether to return home or head farther south into Eyllwe. Yet if they went into Eyllwe, what would they do? Manon barely heard as the debate raged, Glennis letting each of the seven ruling hearths arrive at its own decision.

Manon didn’t linger to hear what they chose. Didn’t bother to ask them to fly northward.

Asterin stalked to Manon’s side, offering her a strip of dried rabbit while the Thirteen ate, the Crochans continuing their quiet debates. The wind sang through the trees, hollow and keening.

“Where do we go at dawn?” Asterin asked. “Do we follow them, or head northward?”

Did they cling to this increasingly futile quest to win them over, or did they abandon it?

Manon studied her bleeding, aching hands, the iron nails crusted with dirt.

“I am a Crochan,” she said. “And I am an Ironteeth witch.” She flexed her fingers, willing the stiffness from them. “The Ironteeth are my people, too. Regardless of what my grandmother may decree. They are my people, Blueblood and Yellowlegs and Blackbeak alike.”

And she would bear the weight of what she’d created, what she’d trained, forever.

Asterin said nothing, though Manon knew she listened to every word. Knew the Thirteen had stopped eating to listen, too.

“I want to bring them home,” Manon said to them, to the wind that flowed all the way to the Wastes. “I want to bring them all home. Before it is too late—before they become something unworthy of a homeland.”

“So what are you going to do?” Asterin asked softly, but not weakly.

Manon finished the strip of dried meat, and swigged from her waterskin.

The answer did not lie in picking one over the other, Crochan over Ironteeth. It never had.

“If the Crochans will not rally a host, then I’ll find another. One already trained.”

“You cannot go to Morath,” Asterin breathed. “You won’t get within a hundred miles. The Ironteeth host might be already too far gone to even consider siding with you.”

“I’m not going to Morath.” Manon slid her frozen hand into her pocket. “I’m going to the Ferian Gap. To whatever of the host remains there under Petrah Blueblood’s command. To ask them to join us.”

Asterin and the Thirteen had been stunned into silence. Letting them dwell on it, Manon had turned into the trees. Had picked up Dorian’s scent and followed it.

And seen him conversing with the spirit of Kaltain Rompier, the woman healed and lucid in death. Freed from her terrible torment. Shock had rooted Manon to the spot.

Then she’d heard of Dorian’s plans to infiltrate Morath. Morath, where the third and final Wyrdkey was kept. He’d known, and hadn’t told her.

Kaltain had vanished into the night air and then Dorian had shifted. Into a beautiful, proud raven.

He hadn’t been training to entertain himself. Not at all.

Manon snarled, “When, exactly, were you going to inform me that you were about to retrieve the third Wyrdkey?”

Dorian blinked at her, his face the portrait of calm assurance. “When I left.”

“When you flew off as a raven or a wyvern, right into Erawan’s net?”

The temperature in the clearing plunged. “What difference does it make if I told you weeks ago or now?”

She knew there was nothing kind, nothing warm on her face. A witch’s face. A Blackbeak’s face. “Morath is suicide. Erawan will find you in any form you wear, and you will wind up with a collar around your throat.”

“I don’t have another choice.”

“We agreed,” Manon said, pacing a step. “We agreed that looking for the keys was no longer a priority—”

“I knew better than to argue with you about it.” His eyes glowed like blue fire. “My path doesn’t impact your own. Rally the Crochans, fly north to Terrasen. My road leads to Morath. It always has.”

“How can you have looked at Kaltain and not seen what awaits you?” She held up her arm and pointed to where Kaltain’s scar had been. “Erawan will catch you. You cannot go.”

“We will lose this war if I do not go,” he snapped. “How do you not care about that?”

“I care,” she hissed. “I care if we lose this war. I care if I fail to rally the Crochans. I care if you go into Morath and do not return, not as something worth living.” He only blinked. Manon spat on the mossy ground. “Now do you wish to tell me that caring is not such a bad thing? Well, this is what comes of it.”

“This is why I didn’t say anything,” he breathed.

Her heart turned raging, its pulse echoing through her body, though her words were cold as ice. “You wish to go to Morath?” She prowled up to him, and he didn’t back down an inch. “Then prove it. Prove you are ready.”

“I don’t need to prove anything to you, witchling.”

She gave him a brutal, wicked smile. “Then perhaps prove it to yourself. A test.” He’d deceived her, had lied to her. This man who she’d believed held no secrets between them. She didn’t know why it made her want to shred everything within sight. “We fly to the Ferian Gap with the dawn.” He started, but she went on, “Join us. We will have need of a spy on the inside. Someone who can sneak past the guards to tell us what and who lies within.” She barely heard herself over the roaring in her head. “Let’s see how well you can shape-shift then, princeling.”

Manon forced herself to hold his stare. To let her words hang between them.

Then he turned on his heel, aiming for the camp. “Fine. But find yourself another tent to sleep in tonight.”

CHAPTER 41



They reached the sea under cover of darkness, warned of its arrival by the briny scent that crept into the cave, then the rougher waters that pushed past, and then finally the roar of the surf.

Maeve’s eyes might have been everywhere, but they weren’t fixed on the cave mouth that opened onto a cove along Wendlyn’s western shore. Nor were they on that cove when the boat landed on its sandy beach, then vanished back into the caves before anyone could so much as attempt to thank the creatures who had hauled them without rest.

Aelin watched the boat until it disappeared, trying not to stare too long at the clean, unstained sand beneath her boots, while the others debated where they might be along the coastline.

A few hours of hurrying northward, into Wendlyn’s lands, and they got their answer: close enough to the nearest port.

The tide was with them, and with the gold they’d pilfered from the barrow-wights, it was a matter of Rowan and Lorcan simply crossing their arms before a ship was secured. With Wendlyn’s armada sailing for Terrasen’s shores, the rules about border crossings had been revoked. Gone were the several boat transfers to reach the continent across the sea, the security measures. No mere tyrant squatted in Adarlan, but a Valg king with an aerial legion.