Good—it felt so damned good—
Elide snatched her foot from his grip. Closed her legs. Tightly.
Lorcan gave her a half smile that made her toes curl.
But then he said, “You are well and truly Lady of Perranth now.”
She knew. She’d thought about it endlessly during these hard days of travel. “This is what you really wish to talk about?”
His fingers didn’t halt their miraculous, sinful work. “We haven’t spoken of it. About Vernon.”
“What of it?” she said, trying and failing for nonchalance. But he looked up at her from beneath his thick lashes. Well aware of her evasion. Elide loosed a breath, peering up at the tent’s peaked ceiling. “Does it make me any better than Vernon—how I chose to punish him in the end?”
She hadn’t regretted it the first day. Or the second. But these long miles, as it had become clear that Vernon was likely dead, she’d wondered.
“Only you can decide that, I think,” Lorcan said. Yet his fingers paused on her foot. “For what it’s worth, he deserved it.” His dark power rumbled through the room.
“Of course you’d say that.”
He shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “Perranth will recover, you know,” he offered. “From Morath’s sacking. And all Vernon did to it before now.”
That had been the other thought that weighed heavily with each mile northward. That her city, her father and mother’s city, had been decimated. That Finnula, her nursemaid, might be among the dead. That any of its people might be suffering.
“That’s if we win this war,” Elide said.
Lorcan resumed his soothing strokes. “Perranth will be rebuilt,” was all he said. “We’ll see that it is.”
“Have you ever done it? Rebuilt a city?”
“No,” he admitted, his thumbs coaxing the pain from her aching bones. “I have only destroyed them.” His eyes lifted to hers, searching and open. “But I should like to try. With you.”
She saw the other offer there—to not only build a city, but a life. Together.
Heat rose to her cheeks as she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “For however long we have.”
For if they survived this war, there was still that between them: his immortality.
Something shuttered in Lorcan’s eyes at that, and she thought he’d say more, but his head dipped. Then he began to unlace her other boot.
“What are you doing?” Her words were a breathless rush.
His deft fingers—gods above, those fingers—made quick work of her laces. “You should soak that foot. And soak in general. As I said, you work too hard.”
“You said I should rest more.”
“Because you work too hard.” He jerked his chin toward the bath as he pulled off the boot and helped her rise. “I’ll go find some food.”
“I already ate—”
“You should eat more.”
Giving her privacy without the awkwardness of her needing to ask for it. That’s what he was trying to do.
Barefoot before him, Elide peered into his granite-hewn face. Shrugged out of her cloak, then jacket. Lorcan’s throat bobbed.
She knew he could hear her heart as it began racing. Could likely scent every emotion on her. But she said, “I need help. Getting into the bath.”
“Do you, now.” His voice was near-guttural.
Elide bit her lip, her breasts becoming heavy, tingling. “I might slip.”
His eyes drifted down her body, but he made no move. “A dangerous time, bath time.”
Elide found it in herself to walk toward the copper tub. He trailed a few feet behind, giving her space. Letting her steer this.
Elide halted beside the tub, steam wafting past. She tugged the hem of her shirt from her pants.
Lorcan watched every move. She wasn’t entirely certain he was breathing.
But—her hands stalled. Uncertain. Not of him, but this rite, this path.
“Show me what to do,” she breathed.
“You’re doing just fine,” Lorcan ground out.
But she gave him a helpless look, and he prowled closer. His fingers found the loose hem of her shirt. “May I?” he asked quietly.
Elide whispered, “Yes.”
Lorcan still studied her eyes, as if reading the sincerity of that word. Deeming it true.
Gently, he pulled the fabric from her. Cool air kissed her skin, pebbling it. The flexible band around her breasts remained, but Lorcan’s gaze remained on her own. “Tell me what you want next,” he said roughly.
Hand shaking, Elide grazed a finger over the band.
Lorcan’s own hands shook as he unbound it. As he revealed her to the air, to him.
His eyes seemed to go wholly black as he took in her breasts, her uneven breathing. “Beautiful,” he murmured.
Elide’s mouth curled as the word settled within her. Gave her enough courage that she lifted her hands to his jacket and began unbuckling, unbuttoning. Until Lorcan’s own chest was bare, and she ran her fingers over the smattering of dark hair across the sculpted planes. “Beautiful,” she said.
Lorcan trembled—with restraint, with emotion, she didn’t know. That darling purr of his rumbled into her as she pressed her mouth against his pectoral.
His hand drifted to her hair, each stroke unbinding her braid. “We only go as far and long as you want,” he said. Yet she dared to glance down his body—to what strained under his pants.
Her mouth went dry. “I—I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Anything you do will be enough,” he said.
She lifted her head, scanning his face. “Enough for what?”
Another half smile. “Enough to please me.” She scoffed at the arrogance, but Lorcan brushed his mouth against her neck. His hands bracketed her waist, his thumbs grazing her ribs. But no higher.
Elide arched into the touch, a small sound escaping her as his lips brushed just beneath her ear. And then his mouth found hers, gentle and thorough.
Her hands twined around his neck, and Lorcan lifted her, carrying her not to the bath, but to the cot behind them, his lips never leaving hers.
Home. This, with him. This was home, as she had never had. For however long they might share it.
And when Lorcan laid her out on the cot, his breathing as uneven as her own, when he paused, letting her decide what to do, where to take this, Elide kissed him again and whispered, “Show me everything.”
So Lorcan did.
There was a gate, and a coffin.
She had chosen neither.
She stood in a place that was not a place, mist wreathing her, and stared at them. Her choices.
A thumping pounded from within the coffin, muffled female screams and pleading rising.
And the gate, the black arch into eternity—blood ran down its sides, seeping into the dark stone. When the gate had finished with the young king, this blood was all that remained.
“You’re no better than me,” Cairn said.
She turned to him, but it was not the warrior who had tormented her standing in the mists.
Twelve of them lurked there, formless and yet present, ancient and cold. As one they spoke. “Liar. Traitor. Coward.”
The blood on the gate soaked into the stone, as if the gate itself devoured even this last piece of him. The one who had gone in her place. The one she’d let go in her place.
The thumping from within the coffin didn’t cease.
“That box will never open,” they said.
She blinked, and she was inside that box—the stone so cold, the air stifling. Blinked, and she was pounding on the lid, screaming and screaming. Blinked, and there were chains on her, a mask clamped over her face—
Aelin awoke to dim braziers and the pine-and-snow scent of her mate wrapped around her. Outside their tent, the wind howled, setting the canvas walls swaying and swelling.
Tired. She was so, so tired.
Aelin stared into the dark for long hours and did not sleep again.
Even with the cover of Oakwald, despite the wider path that Aelin incinerated on either side of the ancient road running up through the continent like a withered vein, she could feel Endovier looming. Could feel the Ruhnn Mountains jutting toward them, a wall against the horizon.
She rode near the front of the company, not saying much as the morning, then the afternoon passed. Rowan stayed by her side, always remaining on her left—as if he might be a shield between her and Endovier—while she sent out plumes of flame that melted ancient trees ahead. Rowan’s wind stifled any smoke from alerting the enemy of their approach.
He’d finished the tattoos the night before. Had taken a small hand mirror to show her what he’d done. The tattoo he’d made for them.
She’d taken one look at the spread wings—a hawk’s wings—across her back and kissed him. Kissed him until his own clothes were gone, and she was astride him, neither bothering with words, or capable of finding them.
Her back had healed by morning, though it remained tender in a few spots along her spine, and in the hours that they’d ridden closer to Endovier, she’d found the invisible weight of the ink to be steadying.
She’d gotten out. She’d survived.
From Endovier—and Maeve.
And now it was upon her to ride like hell for the North, to try to save her people before Morath wiped them away forever. Before Erawan and Maeve arrived to do just that.
But it did not stop the heaviness, that tug toward the west. To look to the place that she had taken so long to escape, even after she’d been physically freed.
After lunch, she found Elide on her right, riding in silence under the trees. Riding taller than she’d seen the girl before. A blush on her cheeks.
Aelin had a feeling she knew precisely why that blush bloomed there, that if she looked behind to where Lorcan rode, she’d find him with a satisfied, purely male smile.
But Elide’s words were anything but those of a lovesick maiden.
“I didn’t think I’d really get to see Terrasen again, once Vernon took me out of Perranth.”
Aelin blinked. And even the blush on Elide’s face faded, her mouth tightening.
Of all of them, only Elide had seen Morath. Lived there. Survived it.
Aelin said, “There was a time when I thought I’d never see it again, too.”
Elide’s face grew contemplative. “When you were an assassin, or when you were a slave?”
“Both.” And maybe Elide had come to her side just to get her to talk, but Aelin explained, “It was a torture of another kind, when I was at Endovier, to know that home was only miles away. And that I would not be able to see it one last time before I died.”
Elide’s dark eyes shone with understanding. “I thought I’d die in that tower, and no one would remember that I had existed.”
They had both been captives, slaves—of a sort. They had both worn shackles. And bore the scars of them.
Or, Elide did. The lack of them on Aelin still ripped at her, an absence that she’d never thought she’d regret.
“We made it out in the end, though,” Aelin said.
Elide reached over to squeeze Aelin’s hand. “Yes, we did.”
Even if she now wished for it to be over. All of it. Her every breath felt weighed down by it, that wish.
They continued on after that, and just as Aelin spied the fork in the road—the crossroads that would take them to the salt mines themselves—a warning cry went up from the rukhin, soaring along the edge between the forest and mountains.
Aelin instantly had Goldryn drawn. Rowan armed himself beside her, and the entire army pausing as they scanned the woods, the skies.
She heard the warning just as a dark shape shot past, so large it blotted out the sun above the forest canopy.
Wyvern.
Bows groaned, and the ruks were racing by, chasing after that wyvern. If an Ironteeth scout spotted them—
Aelin readied her magic. The wyvern banked toward them, barely visible through the latticework of branches.
But light flared then. Blasted back the rukhin—harmlessly.
Not light. But ice, flickering and flashing before it turned to flame.
Rowan recognized it, too. Roared the order to hold their fire.
It was not Abraxos who landed at the crossroads. And there was no sign of Manon Blackbeak.
Light flashed again. And then Dorian Havilliard stood there, his jacket and cape stained and worn.
Aelin galloped down the road toward him, Rowan and Elide beside her, the others at their backs.
Dorian lifted a hand, his face grave as death, even as his eyes widened at the sight of her.
But Aelin sensed it then.
What Dorian carried.
The Wyrdkeys.
All three of them.
CHAPTER 88
Aedion’s arm and ribs were on fire.
Worse than the searing heat of the firelances, worse than any level of Hellas’s burning realm.
He’d regained consciousness as the healer began her first stitches. Had clamped down on the leather bit she’d offered and roared around the pain while she sewed him up.
By the time she’d finished, he’d fainted again. He woke minutes later, according to the soldiers assigned to make sure he didn’t die, and found the pain somewhat eased, but still sharp enough that using his sword arm would be nearly impossible. At least until his Fae heritage healed him—faster than mortal men.
That he hadn’t died of blood loss and could attempt to move his arm as he ordered his armor strapped back on him and stumbled into the city streets, aiming for the wall, was thanks to that Fae heritage. His mother’s, yes, but mostly from his father.
Had Gavriel heard, across the sea or wherever their hunt for Aelin had taken him, that Terrasen was about to fall? Would he care?
It didn’t matter. Even if part of him wished the Lion were there. Rowan and the others certainly, but the steady presence of Gavriel would have been a balm to these men. Perhaps to him.
Aedion gritted his teeth, swaying as he scaled the blood-slick stairs to the city walls, dodging bodies both human and Valg. An hour—he’d been down for an hour.
Nothing had changed. Valg still swarmed the walls and both the southern and western gates; but Terrasen’s forces held them off. In the skies, the number of Crochans and Ironteeth had thinned, but barely. The Thirteen were a distant, vicious cluster, ripping apart whoever flew in their path.
And down at the river … red blood stained the snowy banks. Too much red blood.
He stumbled a step, losing sight of the river for a moment while soldiers dispatched the Valg grunts before him. When they passed, Aedion could scarcely breathe while he scanned the bloodied banks. Soldiers lay dead all around, but—there. Closer to the city walls than he’d realized.
White against the snow and ice, she still fought. Blood leaking down her sides. Red blood.
But she didn’t retreat into the water. Held her ground.
It was foolish—unnecessary. Ambushing them had been far more effective.
Yet Lysandra fought, tail snapping spines and giant maw ripping off heads, right where the river curved past the city. He knew something was wrong then. Beyond the blood on her.
Knew Lysandra had learned something that they had not. And in holding her ground, tried to signal them on the walls.
His head spinning, arm and ribs throbbing, Aedion scanned the battlefield. A group of soldiers charged at her. A whack of her tail had the spears snapped, their bearers along with them.
But another group of soldiers tried to charge past her, on the riverside.
Aedion saw what they bore, what they tried to carry, and swore. Lysandra smashed apart one longboat with her tail, but couldn’t reach the second cluster of soldiers—bearing another.
They reached the icy waters, boat splashing, and Lysandra lunged. Right as she was swarmed by another group of soldiers, so many spears and lances that she had no choice but to face them. Allowing the boat, and the soldiers carrying it, to slip past.
Aedion noted where those soldiers were headed, and began shouting his orders. His head swam with each command.
In Lysandra sneaking to the river through the tunnels, she’d had the element of surprise. But it had also revealed to Morath that another path existed into the city. One right below their feet.
And if they got through the grate, if they could get inside the walls …
Fighting against the fuzziness growing in his head, Aedion began signaling. First to the shifter holding the line, trying so valiantly to keep those forces at bay. Then to the Thirteen, perilously high in the skies, to get back to the walls—to stop Morath’s creeping before it was too late.
High up, the cries of the wind bleeding into those of the dying and injured, Manon saw the general’s signal, the careful pattern of light that he’d shown her the night before.
A command to hurry to the walls—immediately. Just her and the Thirteen.
The Crochans held the tide of the Ironteeth at bay, but to fall back, to leave—
Prince Aedion signaled again. Now. Now. Now.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
River, he signaled. Enemy.
Manon cast her gaze to the earth far below. And saw what Morath was covertly trying to do.
“To the walls!” she called to the Thirteen, still a hammer behind her, and made to steer Abraxos toward the city, tugging on the reins to have him fly high above the fray.
Asterin’s warning cry reached her a heartbeat too late.
Shooting from below, a predator ambushing prey, the massive bull aimed right for Abraxos.
Manon knew the rider as the bull slammed into Abraxos, claws and teeth digging deep.
Iskra Yellowlegs was already smiling.
The world tilted and spun, but Abraxos, roaring in pain, kept in the air, kept flapping.
Even as Iskra’s bull pulled back his head—only to close his jaws around Abraxos’s throat.
CHAPTER 89
Iskra’s bull gripped him by the neck, but Abraxos kept them in the air.
At the sight of those powerful jaws around Abraxos’s throat, the fear and pain in his eyes—
Manon couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think around the terror rushing through her, so blinding and sickening that for a few heartbeats, she was frozen. Wholly frozen.
Abraxos, Abraxos—
Hers. He was hers, and she was his, and the Darkness had chosen them to be together.
She had no sense of time, no sense of how long had passed between that bite and when she again moved. It could have been a second, it could have been a minute.
But then she was drawing an arrow from her nearly depleted quiver. The wind threatened to rip it from her fingers, but she nocked it to her bow, the world spinning-spinning-spinning, the wind roaring, and aimed.
Iskra’s bull bucked as her arrow landed—just a hairsbreadth from his eye.
But he did not let go.
He didn’t have the deep grip to rip out Abraxos’s throat, but if he crunched down long enough, if he cut off her mount’s air supply—
Manon unleashed another arrow. The wind shifted it enough that she struck the beast’s jaw, barely embedding in the thick hide.
Iskra was laughing. Laughing as Abraxos fought and could not get free—
Manon looked for any of the Thirteen, for anyone to save them. Save him.
He who mattered more than any other, whom she would trade places with if the Three-Faced Goddess allowed it, to have her own throat gripped in those terrible jaws—
But the Thirteen had been scattered, Iskra’s coven plowing their ranks apart. Asterin and Iskra’s Second were claw-to-claw as their wyverns locked talons and plunged toward the battlefield.
Manon gauged the distance to Iskra’s bull, to the jaws around the neck. Weighed the strength of the straps on the reins. If she could swing down, if she was lucky, she might be able to slash at the bull’s throat, just enough to pry him off—
But Abraxos’s wings faltered. His tail, trying so valiantly to strike the bull, began to slow.
No.
No.
Not like this. Anything but this.
Manon slung her bow over her back, half-frozen fingers fumbling with the straps and buckles of the saddle.
She couldn’t bear it. Wouldn’t bear it, this death, his pain and fear before it.
She might have been sobbing. Might have been screaming as his wingbeats faltered again.
She’d leap across the gods-damned wind, rip that bitch from the saddle, and slit her mount’s throat—
Abraxos began to fall.
Not fall. But dive—trying to get lower. To reach the ground, hauling that bull with him.
So Manon might survive.
“PLEASE.” Her scream to Iskra carried across the battlefield, across the world. “PLEASE.”
She would beg, she would crawl, if it bought him the chance to live.
Her warrior-hearted mount. Who had saved her far more than she had ever saved him.
Who had saved her in the ways that counted most.
“PLEASE.” She screamed it—screamed it with every scrap of her shredded soul.
Iskra only laughed. And the bull did not let go, even as Abraxos tried and tried to get them closer to the ground.
Her tears ripped away in the wind, and Manon freed the last of the buckles on her saddle. The gap between the wyverns was impossible, but she had been lucky before.
She didn’t care about any of it. The Wastes, the Crochans and Ironteeth, her crown. She didn’t care about any of it, if Abraxos was not there with her.
Abraxos’s wings strained, fighting with that mighty, loving heart to reach lower air.
Manon sized up the distance to the bull’s flank, ripping off her gloves to free her iron nails. As strong as any grappling hook.
Manon rose in the saddle, sliding a leg under her, body tensing to make the jump ahead. And she said to Abraxos, touching his spine, “I love you.”
It was the only thing that mattered in the end. The only thing that mattered now.
Abraxos thrashed. As if he’d try to stop her.
Manon willed strength to her legs, to her arms, and sucked in a breath, perhaps her last—
Shooting from the heavens, faster than a star racing across the sky, a roaring form careened into Iskra’s bull.
Those jaws came free of Abraxos’s neck, and then they were falling, twisting.
Manon had enough sense to grab onto the saddle, to cling with everything she had as the wind threatened to tear her from him.
His blood streamed upward as they fell, but then his wings spread wide, and he was banking, flapping up. He steadied enough that Manon swung into the saddle, strapping herself in as she whirled to see what had occurred behind her. Who had saved them.
It was not Asterin.
It was not any of the Thirteen.
But Petrah Blueblood.
And behind the Heir to the Blueblood Witch-Clan, now slamming into Morath’s aerial legion from where they’d crept onto the battlefield from high above the clouds, were the Ironteeth.
Hundreds of them.
Hundreds of Ironteeth witches and their wyverns crashed into their own.
Petrah and Iskra pulled apart, the Blueblood Heir flapping toward Manon while Abraxos fought to stay upright.
Even with the wind, the battle, Manon still heard Petrah as the Blueblood Heir said to her, “A better world.”
Manon had no words. None, other than to look toward the city wall, to the force trying to enter through the river grates. “The walls—”
“Go.” Then Petrah pointed to where Iskra had paused in midair to gape at what unfolded. At the act of defiance and rebellion so unthinkable that many of the Morath Ironteeth were equally stunned. Petrah bared her teeth, revealing iron glinting in the watery sunlight. “She’s mine.”
Manon glanced between the city walls and Iskra, turning toward them once more. Two against one, and they would surely smash her to bits—
“Go,” Petrah snarled. And when Manon again hesitated, Petrah only said, “For Keelie.”
For the wyvern Petrah had loved—as Manon loved Abraxos. Who had fought for Petrah to her last breath, while Iskra’s bull slaughtered her.
So Manon nodded. “Darkness embrace you.”
Abraxos began soaring for the wall, his wingbeats unsteady, his breathing shallow.
He needed to rest, needed to see a healer—
Manon glanced behind her just as Petrah slammed into Iskra.
The two Heirs went tumbling toward the earth, clashing again, wyverns striking.
Manon couldn’t turn away if she wished.
Not as the wyverns peeled apart and then banked, executing perfect, razor-sharp turns that had them meeting once more, rising up into the sky, tails snapping as they locked talons.
Up and up, Iskra and Petrah flew. Wyverns slashing and biting, claws locking, jaws snapping. Up through the levels of fighting in the skies, up through Crochans and Ironteeth, up through the wisps of clouds.
A race, a mockery of the mating dance of the wyverns, to rise to the highest point of the sky and then plummet down to the earth as one.
Ironteeth halted their fighting. Crochans stilled in midair. Even on the battlefield, Morath soldiers looked up.
The two Heirs shot higher and higher and higher. And when they reached a place where even the wyverns could not draw enough air into their lungs, they tucked in their wings, locked claws, and plunged headfirst toward the earth.
Manon saw the trap before Iskra did.
Saw it the moment Petrah broke free, golden hair streaming as she drew her sword and her wyvern began to circle.
Tight, precise circles around Iskra and her bull as they plummeted.
So tight that Iskra’s bull did not have the space to open its wings. And when it tried, Petrah’s wyvern was there, tail or jaws snapping. When it tried, Petrah’s sword was there, slashing ribbons into the beast.
Iskra realized it then.
Realized it as they fell and fell and fell, and Petrah circled them, so fast that Manon wondered if the Blueblood Heir had been practicing these months, training for this very moment.
For the vengeance owed to her and Keelie.
The very world seemed to pause.
Petrah and her wyvern circled and circled, blood from Iskra’s wyvern raining upward, the beast more frantic with every foot closer to the earth.
But Petrah had not opened her wyvern’s wings, either. Had not pulled on the reins to bank her mount.
“Pull out,” Manon breathed. “Bank now.”
Petrah did not. Two wyverns dropped toward the earth, dark stars falling from the sky.
“Stop,” Iskra barked.
Petrah didn’t deign to respond.
They couldn’t bank at that speed. And soon Petrah wouldn’t be able to bank at all. Would break herself on the ground, right alongside Iskra.
“Stop!” Fear turned Iskra’s order into a sharp cry.
No pity for her kindled in Manon. None at all.
The ground neared, brutal and unyielding.
“You mad bitch, I said stop!”
Two hundred feet to the earth. Then a hundred. Manon couldn’t get down a breath.
Fifty feet.
And as the ground seemed to rise to meet them, Manon heard Petrah’s only words to Iskra like they had been carried on the wind.
“For Keelie.”
Petrah’s wyvern flung out its wings, banking sharper than any wyvern Manon had ever witnessed. Rising up, wing tip grazing the icy ground before it shot back into the skies.
Leaving Iskra and her bull to splatter on the earth.
The boom rumbled past Manon, thundering through the world.
Iskra and her bull did not rise again.
Abraxos gave a groan of pain, and Manon twisted in the saddle, her heart raging.
Iskra was dead. The Yellowlegs Heir was dead.
It didn’t fill her with the joy it should have. Not with that vulnerable grate on the city wall under attack.
So she snapped the reins, and Abraxos soared for the city walls, and then Sorrel and Vesta were beside her, Asterin coming in fast from behind. They flew low, beneath the Ironteeth now fighting Ironteeth, the Ironteeth still fighting Crochans. Aiming for the spots where the river flowed right up to their sides.
Already, a longboat had reached them. Already, arrows were flying from the small grate—guards frantic to keep the enemy at bay.
The Morath soldiers were so preoccupied with their target ahead that they did not look behind until Abraxos was upon them.
His blood streamed past her as he landed, snapping with talons and teeth and tail. Sorrel and Vesta took care of the others, the longboat soon in splinters.
But it was not enough. Not even close.
“The rocks,” Manon breathed, steering Abraxos toward the other side of the river.
He understood. Her heart strained to the point of agony at pushing him, but he soared to the other side of the river and hauled one of the smaller boulders back across. The Thirteen saw her plan and followed, swift and unfaltering.
Every one of his wingbeats was slower than the last. He lost height with each foot they crossed the river.
But then he made it, just as another group of Morath soldiers were trying to enter the small, vulnerable passage. Manon slammed the stone into the water before it. The Thirteen dropped their stones as well, the splashes carrying over the city walls.
More and more, each trip across the river slower than the last.
But then there were rocks piled up, breaking the surface. Then rising above it, blocking out all access to the river tunnel. Just high enough to seal it over—but not give a leg up to the Morath soldiers swarming on the other bank.
Abraxos’s breathing was labored, his head sagging.
Manon twisted in the saddle to order her Second to halt piling the rocks, but Asterin had already done so. Her Second pointed to the city walls above them. “Get inside!”
Manon didn’t waste time arguing. Snapping Abraxos’s reins, Manon sent him flying over the city walls, his blood raining on the soldiers fighting there.
He made it to the castle battlements before his strength gave out.
Before he hit the stones and slid, the boom of impact ringing across Orynth.
He slammed into the side of the castle itself, wings limp, and Manon was instantly freeing herself from the saddle as she screamed for a healer.
The wound to his neck was so much worse than she’d thought.
And still he’d fought for her. Stayed in the skies.
Manon shoved her hands against the deep bite wound, blood rushing past her fingers like water through a cracked dam. “Help is coming,” she told him, and found her voice to be a broken rasp. “They’re coming.”
The Thirteen landed, Sorrel sprinting into the castle to no doubt drag a healer out if she had to, and then there were eleven pairs of hands on Abraxos’s neck.
Staunching the flow of his blood. Pressing as one, to keep that precious blood inside him while the healer was found.
Manon couldn’t look at them, couldn’t do anything but close her eyes and pray to the Darkness, to the Three-Faced Mother as she held her hands over the bleeding gashes.
Racing footsteps sounded over the battlement stones, and then Sorrel was there beside Manon, her hands rising to cover his wounds, too.
An older woman unpacked a kit, warning them to keep applying pressure.
Manon didn’t bother to tell her that they weren’t going anywhere. None of them were.
Even while the battle raged in the skies and on the land below.
Lysandra could barely draw in breath, each flap of her wings heavier than the last as she aimed for the place where she’d seen Manon Blackbeak and her coven go crashing to the castle battlements.
She’d shifted into a wyvern herself, using the chaos of the Ironteeth rebels’ arrival as a distraction, but the draining of her magic had taken its toll. And the fighting, the wounds that even she could not staunch …
Lysandra spied the two figures hauling a familiar golden-haired warrior up the castle stairs just as she hit the battlements, the witches whirling toward her.
But Lysandra willed herself to shift, forcing her body to do it one last time, to return to that human form. She’d barely finished shoving on the pants and shirt she’d stashed in a pack by the castle wall when Ren Allsbrook and a Bane soldier reached the top of the battlements, a half-conscious Aedion between them.
There was so much blood on him.
Lysandra ran for them, ignoring her deep limp, the splintering pain rippling in her left leg, in her right shoulder. Down the battlements, a healer worked on the injured Abraxos, the Thirteen, coated in his blood, now standing vigil.
“What happened?” Lysandra skidded to a halt before Aedion, who managed to lift his head to give her a grim smile.
“Valg prince,” Ren said, his own body coated in blood, face pale with exhaustion.
Oh gods.
“He didn’t walk away,” Aedion rasped.
Ren snapped, “And you didn’t rest long enough, you stupid bastard. You tore your stitches.”
Lysandra ran her hands over Aedion’s face, his brow. “Let’s get you to a healer—”
“I’ve already seen one,” Aedion grunted, setting his feet on the ground and trying to straighten. “They brought me up here to rest.” As if such a thing was a ridiculous idea.
Ren indeed unlooped Aedion’s arm from around his shoulder. “Sit down, before you fall and crack your head on the stones.” Lysandra was inclined to agree, but then Ren said, “I’m heading back to the walls.”
“Wait.”
Ren turned toward her, but Lysandra didn’t speak until the Bane soldier helped Aedion to sit against the side of the castle itself.
“Wait,” she said again to Ren when he opened his mouth, her heart thundering, nausea coiling in her gut. She whistled, and Manon Blackbeak and the Thirteen looked her way. She waved them over, her arm barking in pain.
“You’re hurt,” Aedion growled.
Lysandra ignored him as the witches stalked over, so much blood and gore on all of them.
She asked Manon, “Will Abraxos live?”
A shallow nod, the Witch-Queen’s golden eyes dull.
Lysandra didn’t have it in her for relief. Not with the news she’d flown back so desperately to deliver. She swallowed the bile in her throat, then pointed to the battlefield. To its dark, misty heart. “They have the witch tower up again. It’s moving this way. I just saw it myself. The witches have gathered atop it.”
Absolute silence.
And as if in answer, the tower erupted.
Not toward them, but skyward. A flash of light, a boom louder than thunder, and then a portion of the sky became empty.
Where Ironteeth, rebels and the faithful alike, had been fighting, where Crochans had been weaving between them, there was nothing.
Just ash.
Lysandra’s voice broke as the tower continued moving. A straight, unbreakable line toward Orynth. “They mean to blast apart the city.”
Hands and arms coated in Abraxos’s blood, Manon stared at the battlefield. Stared at where all those witches, Ironteeth and Crochan fighting for either army, had just … vanished.
Everything her grandmother had claimed about the witch towers was true.
And it was not Kaltain and her shadowfire that fueled that blast of destruction, but Ironteeth witches.
Young Ironteeth witches who offered themselves up. Who made the Yielding as they leaped into the mirror-lined pit within the tower.
An ordinary Yielding might take out twenty, thirty witches around her. Maybe more, if she was older and more powerful.
But a Yielding amplified by the power of those witch mirrors … One blast, and the castle looming above them would be rubble. Another blast, maybe two, and Orynth would follow it.
Ironteeth swarmed the tower, a vicious wall keeping the Crochans and rebel Ironteeth out.
A few Crochans indeed tried to break through those defenses.
Their red-clad bodies fell to the earth in pieces.
Petrah, now within the confines of her coven, even made a run for the tower. To rip it down.
They were beaten back by a swarm of Ironteeth.
The tower advanced. Closer and closer.
It would be within range soon. Another few minutes, and that tower would be close enough for its blast to reach the castle. To wipe away this army, this remnant of resistance, forever.
There would be no survivors. No second chances.
Manon turned to Asterin and said quietly, “I need another wyvern.”
Her Second only stared at her.
Manon repeated, “I need another wyvern.”
Abraxos was in no shape to fly. Wouldn’t be for hours or days.
Aedion Ashryver rasped, “No one is getting through that wall of Ironteeth.”
Manon bared her teeth. “I am.” She pointed at the shape-shifter. “You can carry me.”
Aedion snarled, “No.”
But Lysandra shook her head, sorrow and despair in her green eyes. “I can’t—the magic is drained. If I had an hour—”
“We have five minutes,” Manon snapped. She whirled to the Thirteen. “We have trained for this. To break apart enemy ranks. We can get through them. Take apart that tower.”
But they all looked at one another. Like they’d had some unspoken conversation and agreement.
The Thirteen stalked toward their own mounts. Sorrel clasped Manon’s shoulder as she passed, then climbed onto her wyvern’s back. Leaving Asterin before Manon.
Her Second, her cousin, her friend, smiled, eyes bright as stars. “Live, Manon.”
Manon blinked.
Asterin smiled wider, kissed Manon’s brow, and whispered again, “Live.”
Manon didn’t see the blow coming.
The punch to her gut, so hard and precise that it knocked the wind from her. Sent her to her knees.
She was struggling to get a breath down, to get up, when Asterin reached Narene and mounted the blue mare, gathering the reins. “Bring our people home, Manon.”
Manon knew then. What they were going to do.
Her legs failed her, her body failed her, as she tried to get to her feet. As she rasped, “No.”
But Asterin and the Thirteen were already in the skies.
Already in formation, that battering ram that had served them so well. Spearing toward the battlefield. Toward the approaching witch tower.
Manon clawed her way to the battlement ledge, and hauled herself to her feet. Leaned against the stones, panting, trying to get air into her lungs so she might find some way to get airborne, find some Crochan and steal her broom—
But there were no witches here. No brooms to be found. Abraxos remained unconscious.
Manon was distantly aware of the shifter and Prince Aedion coming up beside her, Lord Ren with them. Distantly aware of the silence that fell over the castle, the city, the walls.
As all of them watched that witch tower approach, their doom gathering within it.
As the Thirteen raced for it, raced against the wind and death itself.
A wall of Ironteeth rose up before the tower, blocking their path.
A hundred against twelve.
Inside the witch tower, close enough now that Manon could see through the open archway of the uppermost level, a young witch in black robes stepped toward the hollowed interior.
Stepped toward where Manon’s grandmother stood, gesturing to the pit below.
The Thirteen neared the enemy in their path and did not falter.
Manon dug her fingers into the stones so hard her iron nails cracked. Began shaking her head, something in her chest fracturing completely.
Fracturing as the Thirteen slammed into the Ironteeth blockade.
The maneuver was perfect. More flawless than any they’d done. A lethal phalanx that speared through the enemy’s ranks. Aiming right for the tower.
Seconds. They had seconds until that young witch summoned the power and unleashed the Yielding in a blast of blackness.
The Thirteen punched through the Ironteeth, spreading wide, pushing them to the side.
Clearing a path right to the tower as Asterin swept in from the back, aiming for the uppermost level.
Imogen went down first.
Then Lin.
And Ghislaine, her wyvern swarmed by their enemy.
Then Thea and Kaya, together, as they had always been.
Then the green-eyed demon twins, laughing as they went. Then the Shadows, Edda and Briar, arrows still firing. Still finding their marks.
Then Vesta, roaring her defiance to the skies.
And then Sorrel. Sorrel, who held the way open for Asterin, a solid wall for Manon’s Second as she soared in. A wall against whom the waves of Ironteeth broke and broke.
The young witch inside the tower began glowing black, steps from the pit.
Beside Manon, Lysandra and Aedion wrapped their arms around each other. Ready for the end heartbeats away.
And then Asterin was there. Asterin was barreling toward that open stretch of air, for the tower itself, bought with the lives of the Thirteen. With their final stand.
Manon could only watch, watch and watch and watch, shaking her head as if she could undo it, as Asterin removed her leathers, the shirt beneath.
As Asterin rose in the saddle, freed of the buckles, a dagger in hand as her wyvern aimed straight for the tower.
Manon’s grandmother turned then. Away from the pit, the acolyte about to leap inside and destroy them all.
Asterin hurled her dagger.
The blade flew true.
It plunged into the acolyte’s back, sending the witch sprawling to the stones. A foot away from the drop to the pit.
Asterin drew the twin swords from the sheaths at her hips and slammed her wyvern into the side of the tower. The crack of bone on rock echoed across the world.
But Asterin was already leaping. Already arching through the air, swords raised, wyvern tumbling away beneath, Narene’s body broken on impact.
Manon began screaming then.
Screaming, endless and wordless, as that thing in her chest, as her heart, shattered.
As Asterin landed in the witch tower’s open archway, swords swinging at the witches who rushed to kill her. They might as well have been blades of grass. Might as well have been mist, for how easily Asterin cut them down, one after another, driving forward, toward the Matron who had branded the letters on stark display across Asterin’s abdomen.
UNCLEAN
Twirling, twisting, blades flying, Asterin slaughtered her way toward Manon’s grandmother.
The High Witch of the Blackbeak Clan backed away, shaking her head. Her mouth moved, as if she breathed, “Asterin, no—”
But Asterin was already there.
And it was not darkness, but light—light, bright and pure as the sun on snow, that erupted from Asterin.
Light, as Asterin made the Yielding.
As the Thirteen, their broken bodies scattered around the tower in a near-circle, made the Yielding as well.
Light. They all burned with it. Radiated it.
Light that flowed from their souls, their fierce hearts as they gave themselves over to that power. Became incandescent with it.
Asterin tackled the Blackbeak Matron to the ground, Manon’s grandmother little more than a shadow against the brightness. Then little more than a scrap of hate and memory as Asterin exploded.
As she and the Thirteen Yielded completely, and blew themselves and the witch tower to smithereens.
CHAPTER 90
Manon sank to the stones of the castle battlements and did not move for a long, long while.
She didn’t hear those who spoke to her, who touched her shoulder. Didn’t feel the cold.
The sun arced and descended.
At some point, she lay down upon the stones, curled against the wall. When she awoke, a wing had covered her, and warm breath whispered across her head as Abraxos dozed.
She had no words in her. Nothing but a ringing silence.
Manon got to her feet, easing past the wing that had shielded her.
The dawn was breaking.
And where that witch tower had stood, where the army had been, only blasted earth remained.
Morath had drawn back. Far back.
The city and walls still stood.
She roused Abraxos with a hand to his side.
He couldn’t fly, not yet, so they walked together.
Down the battlement steps. Out through the castle gates and into the city streets beyond.
She didn’t care that others followed. More and more of them.
The streets were filled with blood and rubble, all of it gilded by the rising sun.
She didn’t feel the warmth of that sun on her face while they walked through the southern gate and onto the plain beyond. She didn’t care that someone had opened the gate for them.
At her side, Abraxos nudged aside piles of Valg soldiers, clearing a path for her. For all those who trailed in their wake.
It was so quiet. Inside her, and on the plain.
So quiet, and empty.
Manon crossed the still battlefield. Didn’t stop until she reached the center of the blast radius. Until she stood in its heart.
Not a trace of the tower. Or those who had been in it, around it. Even the stones had been melted into nothing.
Not a trace of the Thirteen, or their brave, noble wyverns.
Manon fell to her knees.
Ashes rose, fluttering, soft as snow as they clung to the tears on her face.
Abraxos lay beside her, his tail curling around her while she bowed over her knees and wept.
Behind her, had she looked, she would have seen Glennis. And Bronwen. Petrah Blueblood.
Aedion Ashryver and Lysandra and Ren Allsbrook.
Prince Galan and Captain Rolfe and Ansel of Briarcliff, Ilias and the Fae royals beside them.
Had she looked, she would have seen the small white flowers they bore. Would have wondered how and where they had gotten them in the dead heart of winter.
Had she looked, she would have seen the people gathered behind them, so many they streamed all the way to the city gates. Would have seen the humans standing side by side with the Crochans and Ironteeth.
All come to honor the Thirteen.
But Manon did not look. Even when the leaders who had come with her, walked with her all this way, began to lay their flowers upon the blasted, bloodied earth. Even when their tears flowed, dropping into the ashes alongside their offerings of tribute.
They didn’t speak. And neither did the streaming line of people who came after them. A few bore flowers, but many brought small stones to lay on the site. Those who had neither laid down whatever personal effects they could offer. Until the blast site was covered, as if a garden had grown from a field of blood.
Glennis stayed until the end.
And when they were alone on the silent battlefield, Manon’s great-grandmother put a hand on her shoulder and said quietly, her voice somehow distant, “Be the bridge, be the light. When iron melts, when flowers spring from fields of blood—let the land be witness, and return home.”
Manon didn’t hear the words. Didn’t notice when even Glennis returned to the city looming at her back.
For hours, Manon knelt on the battlefield, Abraxos at her side. As if she might stay with them, her Thirteen, for a little while longer.
And far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom.
CHAPTER 91
Dorian hadn’t believed it—hadn’t dared to hope for what he saw.
A foreign army, marching northward. An army he’d grown up studying. There were the khagan’s foot soldiers, and the Darghan cavalry. There were the legendary ruks, magnificent and proud, soaring above them in a sea of wings.
He’d aimed as close to the head of the army as he could get, wondering which of the royals had come. Wondering if Chaol was with them. If the presence of this miraculous army meant his friend had succeeded against all odds.
The ruks had spied him then.
Chased him, and he’d begun signaling as he’d neared. Hoping they’d pause.
But then he’d landed at the crossroads. And then he’d seen them. Seen her.
Aelin, galloping for him. Rowan at her side, Elide and the others with her.
Maeve had believed Aelin had headed to Terrasen. And here she was, with the khagan’s army.
Aelin’s smile faded the moment she grew close. As if she sensed what he bore.
“Where’s Manon?” was all she asked.
“Terrasen,” he breathed, panting slightly. “And likely with the Crochans, if it went according to plan.”
She opened her mouth, eyes wide, but another rider came galloping down the road.
The world went quiet.
The approaching rider halted, another—a beautiful woman Dorian could only describe as golden—right behind.
But Dorian stared at the rider before him. At the posture of the body, the commanding seat he possessed.
And as Chaol Westfall dismounted and ran the last few feet toward Dorian, the King of Adarlan wept.
Chaol didn’t hide his tears, the shaking that overtook him as he collided with Dorian and embraced his king.
No one said a word, though Chaol knew they were all gathered. Knew Yrene stood behind him, crying with them.
He just held his friend, his brother.
“I knew you’d do it,” Dorian said, voice raw. “I knew you’d find a way. For all of it.”
The army. The fact that he was now standing.
Chaol only gripped Dorian tighter. “You have one hell of a story to tell yourself.”
Dorian pulled back, his face solemn.
A story, Chaol realized, that might not be as happy as his own.
Yet before whatever doom Dorian carried could fall upon them, Chaol gestured to where Yrene had dismounted and now wiped away her tears.
“The woman responsible for this,” Chaol said, motioning to his standing, his walking, to the army stretching down the road. “Yrene Towers. A healer at the Torre Cesme. And my wife.”
Yrene bowed, and Chaol could have sworn a flicker of sorrow darkened Dorian’s eyes. But then his king was taking Yrene’s hands, lifting her from her bow. And though that sorrow still edged his smile, Dorian said to her, “Thank you.”
Yrene went scarlet. “I’ve heard so much about you, Your Majesty.”
Dorian only winked, a ghost of the man he’d been before. “All bad things, I hope.”
Yrene laughed, and the joy on her face—the joy that Chaol knew was for both of them—made him love her all over again.
“I have always wanted a sister,” Dorian said, and leaned to kiss Yrene on either cheek. “Welcome to Adarlan, Lady.”
Yrene’s smile turned softer—deeper, and she laid a hand on her abdomen. “Then you shall be pleased to hear that you’ll soon be an uncle.”
Dorian whirled to him. Chaol nodded, unable to find the words to convey what flooded his heart.
But Dorian’s smile dimmed as he faced where Aelin now leaned against a tree, Rowan and Elide beside her.
“I know,” Aelin said, and Chaol knew she didn’t mean about the pregnancy.
Dorian closed his eyes, and Chaol laid a hand on his king’s shoulder at whatever burden he was about to reveal.
“I retrieved the third from Morath,” Dorian said.
Chaol’s knees buckled, and Yrene was instantly there, an arm around his waist.
The Wyrdkeys.
Chaol asked Dorian, “You have all three now?”
Dorian nodded once.
A look from Rowan had his cadre peeling off to make sure none from the army got close enough to hear.
“I snuck into Morath to get the third,” Dorian said.
“Holy gods,” Aelin breathed. Chaol just blinked.
“That was the easy part,” Dorian said, paling. The khaganate royals emerged from the ranks, and Dorian smiled at Nesryn. Then nodded to the royals. Introductions would come later.
“Maeve was there,” Dorian said to Aelin.
Flame danced at Aelin’s fingertips as she rested her hand atop Goldryn. The fire seemed to sink into the blade, the ruby flickering. “I know,” she said quietly.
Dorian’s brows rose. Aelin just shook her head, motioning him to continue as the cadre returned.
“Maeve discovered my presence, and …” Dorian sighed, and the whole story came tumbling out.
When he was done, Chaol was glad Yrene had kept her arm around his waist. Silence fell, thick and taut. Dorian had destroyed Morath.
“I have little doubt,” Dorian admitted, “that both Erawan and Maeve survived Morath’s collapsing. It likely only served to enrage them.”
It didn’t stop Chaol from marveling at his friend, the others gawking.
“Well done,” Lorcan said, scanning the king from head to toe. “Well done indeed.”
Aelin let out an impressed whistle. “I wish I could have seen it,” she said to Dorian, shaking her head. Then she turned to Rowan. “Your uncle and Essar came through, then. They kicked Maeve to the curb.”
The Fae Prince snorted. “You said your letter was strongly worded. I should have believed you.” Aelin sketched a bow. Chaol hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about, but Rowan went on, “So if Maeve cannot be Queen of the Fae, she will find herself another throne.”
“Bitch,” Fenrys spat. Chaol was inclined to agree.
“Our worst fears have been confirmed, then,” Prince Sartaq said, glancing to his siblings. “A Valg king and queen united.” A nod toward Elide. “Your uncle did not lie.”
“Maeve has no army now,” Dorian reminded them. “Just her power.”
Nesryn cringed. “The hybrids she created with the princesses might be disaster enough.”
Chaol glanced to Yrene, the woman who held the greatest weapon against the Valg within her own body.
“When did you leave Morath?” Rowan asked.
“Three days ago,” Dorian said.
Rowan turned to Aelin, ashen-faced as she remained leaning against the tree. Chaol wondered if she did so only because her own legs might not be able to support her. “Then at least we know that Erawan has not yet come to Terrasen.”
“His Ironteeth host went ahead of him,” Dorian said.
“We know,” Chaol said. “They’re already at Orynth.”
Dorian shook his head. “That’s impossible. They left soon after I did. I’m surprised you didn’t see them flying past in the Ruhnns.”
Silence.
“The full Ironteeth host isn’t yet at Orynth,” Aelin said softly. Too softly.
“I counted over a thousand in the host that I flew with,” Dorian said. “Many bore soldiers with them—all Valg.”
Chaol closed his eyes, and Yrene’s arm tightened around him in silent comfort.
“We knew the rukhin would be outnumbered anyway,” Nesryn said.
“There won’t be anything left of Terrasen for the rukhin to defend,” Prince Kashin said, rubbing his jaw. “Even if the Crochans arrived before us.”
The Queen of Terrasen pushed off from the tree at last. “We have two choices, then,” she said, her voice unwavering despite the hell that swept upon them. “We continue north, as fast as we can. See what there is to fight when we arrive at Terrasen. I might be able to bring down a good number of those wyverns.”
“And the other option?” Princess Hasar asked.
Aelin’s face was stark. “We have the three Wyrdkeys. We have me. I can end this now. Or at least take Erawan out of play before he can find us, steal those keys back, and rule over this world and all others.”
Rowan started, shaking his head. But Aelin held up a hand. And even the Fae Prince stood down. “It’s not my choice alone.”
And Chaol realized that it was indeed a queen standing before them, not the assassin he’d dragged out of a salt mine a few miles down the road. Not even the woman he’d seen in Rifthold.
Dorian squared his shoulders. “The choice is also mine.”
Slowly, so slowly, Aelin looked at him. Chaol braced himself. Her voice was deadly soft as she said to Dorian, “You retrieved the third key. Your role in this is done.”
“Like hell it is,” Dorian said, sapphire eyes flashing. “The same blood, the same debt, flows in my veins.”
Chaol’s hands curled at his sides as he fought to keep his mouth shut. Rowan seemed to be doing the same as the two rulers squared off.
Aelin’s face remained unmoved—distant. “You’re so eager to die?”
Dorian didn’t retreat. “Are you?”
Silence. Utter silence in the clearing.
Then Aelin shrugged, as if the weight of entire worlds didn’t hang in the balance. “Regardless of who will put the keys back into the gate, this is a fate that belongs to all of us. So all of us should decide.” Her chin lifted. “Do we continue on to war, hope we make it to Orynth in time, and then destroy the keys? Or do we destroy the keys now, and then you continue northward.” A pause, horrible and unbearable. “Without me.”
Rowan was shaking, whether with restraint or in dread, Chaol couldn’t tell.
Aelin said, unwavering and calm, “I would like to put it to a vote.”
A vote.
Rowan had never heard of anything so absurd.
Even as part of him glowed with pride that she had chosen now, here, as the moment when that new world she had promised would rise.
A world in which a few did not hold all the power, but many. Beginning with this, this most vital choice. This unbearable fate.
All of them had moved farther down the road, and it was not lost on Rowan that they stood at a crossroads. Or that Dorian and Aelin and Chaol stood in the heart of that crossroads, merely a few miles from the salt mines. Where so much of this had begun, just over a year ago.
There was a dull roar in Rowan’s ears as the debate raged.
He knew he should fall on his knees and thank Dorian for retrieving the third key. But he hated the king all the same.
He hated this path they’d been put on, a thousand years ago. Hated that this choice lay before them, when they had already fought so much, given so much.
Prince Kashin was saying, “We march on a hundred thousand enemy troops, possibly more. That number will not change when the Wyrdgate is closed. We will need the Fire-Bringer to cut through them.”
Princess Hasar shook her head. “But there is the possibility of that army’s collapse should Erawan vanish. Cut off the beast’s head and the body could die.”
“That’s a big risk to take,” Chaol said, his jaw tight. “Erawan’s removal from all this might help, or it might not. An enemy army this big, full of Valg who might be eager to fill his place, could be impossible to stop at this point.”
“Then why not use the keys?” Nesryn asked. “Why not bring the keys north and use them, destroy the army, and—”
“The keys cannot be wielded,” Dorian cut in. “Not without destroying the bearer. We’re not entirely sure a mortal could withstand the power.” He nodded toward Aelin, silent and watchful while it took all of Rowan’s training not to hurl up his guts. “Just putting them back in the gate requires everything.” He added tightly, “From one of us.”
Rowan knew he should be arguing against this, should be bellowing.
Dorian went on, “I should do it.”
“No.” The word broke from Chaol—and Aelin. Her first word since this debate had begun.
But it was Fenrys who asked Chaol, voice deadly soft, “You’d rather my queen die than your king?”
Chaol stiffened. “I’d rather neither of my friends die. I’d rather none of this happen.”
Before Fenrys could snarl his answer, Yrene cut in. “So when the Lock is forged and the Wyrdgate is sealed, the gods will be gone?”
“Good riddance,” Fenrys muttered.
But Yrene stiffened at the casual dismissal, and put a hand over her heart. “I love Silba. Dearly. When she is gone from this world, will my powers cease to exist?” She gestured to the gathered group.
“Doubtful,” Dorian said. “That cost, at least, was never demanded.”
“What of the other gods in this world?” Nesryn asked, frowning. “The thirty-six of the khaganate. Are they not gods as well? Will they be sent away, or just these twelve?”
“Perhaps our gods are of a different sort,” Princess Hasar mused.
“Can they not help us, then?” Yrene asked, sorrow for the goddess who had blessed her still darkening her golden eyes. “Can they not intervene?”
“There are indeed other forces at work in this world,” Dorian said, touching Damaris’s hilt. The god of truth—that’s who had blessed Gavin’s sword. “But I think if those forces had been able to aid us in this manner, they would have done so already.”
Aelin tapped her foot on the ground. “Expecting divine handouts is a waste of our time. And not the topic at hand.” She fixed her burning stare on Dorian. “We are also not debating who shall pay the cost.”
“Why.” Rowan’s low question was out before he could halt it.
Slowly, his mate turned toward him. “Because we’re not.” Sharp, icy words. She cut Dorian a look, and the King of Adarlan opened his mouth. “We’re not,” she snarled.
Dorian opened his mouth again, but Rowan caught his eye. Held his stare and let him read the words there. Later. We shall debate this later.
Whether Aelin noted their silent conversation, whether she beheld Dorian’s subtle nod, she didn’t let on. She only said, “We don’t have time to waste on endless debate.”
Lorcan nodded. “Every moment we have all three keys is a risk of Erawan finding us, and finally gaining what he seeks. Or Maeve,” he added, frowning. “But even with that, I would go north—let Aelin put a dent in Morath’s legions.”
“Be objective,” Aelin growled. She surveyed them all. “Pretend you do not know me. Pretend I am no one, and nothing to you. Pretend I am a weapon. Do you use me now, or later?”
“You are not no one, though,” Elide said quietly. “Not to a good many people.”
“The keys go back in the gate,” Aelin said a bit coldly. “At some point or another. And I go with them. We are deciding whether that is now, or in a few weeks.”
Rowan couldn’t bear it. To hear another word. “No.”
Everyone halted once more.
Aelin bared her teeth. “Not doing anything isn’t an option.”
“We hide them again,” Rowan said. “He lost them for thousands of years. We can do it again.” He pointed to Yrene. “She could destroy him all on her own.”
“That is not an option,” Aelin growled. “Yrene is with child—”
“I can do it,” Yrene said, stepping from Chaol’s side. “If there’s a way, I could do it. See if the other healers could help—”
“There will be Valg by the thousands for you to destroy or save, Lady Westfall,” Aelin said with that same cold. “Erawan could slaughter you before you even get the chance to touch him.”
“Why are you allowed to give up your life for this, and no one else?” Yrene challenged.
“I am not the one carrying a child within me.”
Yrene blinked slowly. “Hafiza might be able to—”
“I will not play a game of what-ifs and mights,” Aelin said, in a tone that Rowan had heard so rarely. That queen’s tone. “We vote. Now. Do we put the keys back in the gate immediately, or continue to Terrasen and then do it if we are able to stop that army?”
“Erawan can be stopped,” Yrene pushed, unfazed by the queen’s words. Unafraid of her wrath. “I know he can. Without the keys, we can stop him.”
Rowan wanted to believe her. Wanted more than anything he’d ever desired in his life to believe Yrene Westfall. Chaol, glancing at Dorian, seemed inclined to do the same.
But Aelin pointed at Princess Hasar. “How do you vote?”
Hasar held Aelin’s stare. Considered for a moment. “I vote to do it now.”
Aelin just pointed to Dorian. “You?”
Dorian tensed, the unfinished debate still raging in his face. But he said, “Do it now.”
Rowan closed his eyes. Barely heard the other rulers and their allies as they gave their replies. He walked to the edge of the trees, prepared to run if he began to vomit.
Then Aelin said, “You’re last, Rowan.”
“I vote no. Not now, not ever.”
Her eyes were cold, distant. The way they’d been in Mistward.
“It’s decided, then,” Chaol said quietly. Sadly.
“At dawn, the Lock will be forged and the keys go back into the gate,” Dorian finished.
Rowan just stared and stared at his mate. His reason for breathing.
Elide asked softly, “What is your vote, Aelin?”
Aelin tore her eyes from Rowan, and he felt the absence of that stare like a frozen wind as she said, “It doesn’t matter.”
CHAPTER 92
Aelin didn’t say that asking them to vote hadn’t just been about letting them decide, as free peoples of the world, how to seal its fate. She didn’t say that it had also been a coward’s thing to do. To let someone else decide for her. To choose the road ahead.
They camped that night at Endovier, the salt mines a mere three miles down the road.
Rowan made them set up their royal tent. Their royal bed.
She didn’t eat with the others. Could barely touch the food Rowan laid on the desk. She was still sitting in front of it, roast rabbit now cold, poring over those useless books on Wyrdmarks when Rowan said from across the table, “I do not accept this.”
“I do.” The words were flat, dead.
As she would be, before the sun had fully risen. Aelin shut the ancient tome before her.
Only a few days separated them from Terrasen’s border. Perhaps she should have agreed to do this now, but on the condition that it was on Terrasen soil. Terrasen soil, rather than by Endovier.
But every passing day was a risk. A terrible risk.
“You have never accepted anything in your life,” Rowan snarled, shooting to his feet and bracing his hands on the table. “And now you are suddenly willing to do so?”
She swallowed against the ache in her throat. Surveyed the books she’d combed through thrice now to no avail. “What am I supposed to do, Rowan?”
“You damn it all to hell!” He slammed his fist on the table, rattling the dishes. “You say to hell with their plans, their prophecies and fates, and you make your own! You do anything but accept this!”
“The people of Erilea have spoken.”
“To hell with that, too,” he growled. “You can start your free world after this war. Let them vote for their own damned kings and queens, if they want to.”
She let out a growl of her own. “I do not want this burden for one second longer. I do not want to choose and learn I made the wrong choice in delaying it.”
“So you would have voted against it, then. You would have gone to Terrasen.”
“Does it matter?” She shot to her feet. “The votes weren’t in my favor anyway. Hearing that I wanted to go to Orynth, to fight one last time, would have only swayed them.”
“You’re the one who’s about to die. I’d say you get to have a voice in it.”
She bared her teeth. “This is my fate. Elena tried to get me out of it. And look where it landed her—with a cabal of vengeful gods swearing to end her eternal soul. When the Lock is forged, when I close the gate, I will be destroying another life alongside my own.”
“Elena has had a thousand years of existence, either living or as a spirit. Forgive me if I don’t give a shit that her time has now come to an end, when you only received twenty years.”
“I got to twenty years because of her.”
Not even twenty. Her birthday was still months away. In a spring she would not see.
Rowan began pacing, his stalking steps eating up the carpet. “This mess is because of her, too. Why should you bear its weight alone?”
“Because it was always mine to begin with.”
“Bullshit. It could have as easily been Dorian. He’s willing to do it.”
Aelin blinked. “Elena and Nehemia said Dorian wasn’t ready.”
“Dorian walked into and out of Morath, went toe to toe with Maeve, and brought the whole damn place crashing down. I’d say he’s as ready as you are.”
“I won’t allow him to sacrifice himself in my stead.”
“Why?”
“Because he is my friend. Because I won’t be able to live with myself if I let him go.”
“He said he would do it, Aelin.”
“He doesn’t know what he wants. He’s barely emerging from the horrors he endured.”
“And you aren’t?” Rowan challenged, wholly unfazed. “He’s a grown man. He can make his own choices—we can make choices without you lording over them.”
She bared her teeth. “It’s been decided.”
He crossed his arms. “Then you and I will do it. Together.”
Her heart stopped in her chest.
He went on, “You are not forging the Lock alone.”
“No.” Her hands began shaking. “That is not an option.”
“According to whom?”
“According to me.” She couldn’t breathe around the thought—of him being erased from existence. “If it was possible, Elena would have told me. Someone with my bloodline has to pay.”
He opened his mouth, but beheld the truth in her face, her words. He shook his head. “I promised you we’d find a way to pay this debt—together.”
Aelin surveyed the scattered books. Nothing—the books, that scrap of hope they’d offered had amounted to nothing. “There isn’t an alternative.” She dragged her hands through her hair. “I don’t have an alternative,” she amended. No card up her sleeve, no grand reveal. Not for this.
“We don’t do it tomorrow, then,” he pushed. “We wait. Tell the others we want to reach Orynth first. Maybe the Royal Library has some texts—”
“What is the point in a vote if we ignore its outcome? They decided, Rowan. Tomorrow, it will be over.”
The words rang hollow and sickly within her.
“Let me find another way.” His voice broke, but his pacing didn’t falter. “I will find another way, Aelin—”
“There is no other way. Don’t you understand? All of this,” she hissed, arms splaying. “All of this has been to keep you alive. All of you.”
“With you as the asking price. To atone for some lingering guilt.”
She slammed a hand atop the stack of ancient books. “Do you think I want to die? Do you think any of this is easy, to look at the sky and wonder if it’s the last I’ll see? To look at you, and wonder about those years we won’t have?”
“I don’t know what you want, Aelin,” Rowan snarled. “You haven’t been entirely forthcoming.”
Her heart thundered. “I want it to be over, one way or another.” Her fingers curled into fists. “I want this to be done.”
He shook his head. “I know. And I know what you went through, that those months in Doranelle were hell, Aelin. But you can’t stop fighting. Not now.”
Her eyes burned. “I held on for this. For this purpose. So I can put the keys back in the gate. When Cairn ripped me apart, when Maeve tore away everything I knew, it was only remembering that this task relied upon my survival that kept me from breaking. Knowing that if I failed, all of you would die.” Her breathing turned uneven, sharp. “And since then, I’ve been so damned stupid in thinking that perhaps I wouldn’t have to pay the debt, that I might see Orynth again. That Dorian might do it instead.” She spat on the ground. “What sort of person does that make me? To have been filled with dread when he arrived today?”
Rowan again opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off, her voice breaking. “I thought I could escape it—just for a moment. And as soon as I did, the gods brought Dorian sweeping right back into my path. Tell me that’s not intentional. Tell me that those gods, or whichever forces might also rule this world, aren’t roaring that I should still be the one to forge the Lock.”
Rowan just stared at her for a long moment, his chest heaving. Then he said, “What if those forces didn’t lead Dorian into our path so you alone might pay the debt?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What if they brought you together. To not pick one or the other, but to share the burden. With each other.”
Even the fire in the braziers seemed to pause.
Rowan’s eyes glowed as he blazed ahead. “That day you destroyed the glass castle—when you joined hands, your power … I’d never seen anything like it. You were able to meld your powers, to become one. If the Lock demands all of you, then why not give half? Half of each of you—when you both bear Mala’s blood?”
Aelin slid slowly into her chair. “I—we don’t know it will work.”
“It’s better than walking into your own execution with your head bowed.”
She snarled. “How could I ever ask him to do it?”
“Because it is not your burden alone, that’s why. Dorian knows this. Has accepted it. Because the alternative is losing you.” The rage in his eyes fractured, right along with his voice. “I would go in your stead, if I could.”
Her own heart cracked. “I know.”
Rowan fell to his knees before her, putting his head in her lap as his arms wrapped around her waist. “I can’t bear it, Aelin. I can’t.”
She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wanted that thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair.
