Red cloaks flowing on the wind, they filled the northern skies. So many he could not count them, nor the swords and bows and weapons they bore upon their backs, their brooms flying straight and unwavering.
Thousands. Thousands of them descended upon Orynth. Thousands of them now swept over the city, his soldiers gaping upward at the stream of fluttering red, undaunted and untroubled by the enemy force darkening the horizon. One by one by one, they alit upon the empty castle battlements.
An aerial legion to challenge the Ironteeth.
The Crochans had returned at last.
CHAPTER 82
Every Crochan who could fly and wield a sword had come.
For days, they had raced northward, keeping deep to the mountains, then cutting low over Oakwald before making a wide circuit to avoid Morath’s detection.
Indeed, as Manon and the Thirteen perched on the city walls, the Crochans streaming overhead while they made their way to whatever landing place they might find on the castle battlements, it was still hard to believe they had made it.
And without an hour to spare.
The farther north they had flown, the more Crochans had fallen into the lines. As if the crown of stars Manon wore was a lodestone, summoning them to her.
Every mile, more appeared from the clouds, the mountains, the forest. Young and old, wise-eyed or fresh-faced, they came.
Until five thousand trailed behind Manon and the Thirteen.
“They’ve completely stopped,” breathed the shape-shifter beside Aedion, pointing toward the battlefield.
Far out, Morath’s host had halted.
Utterly halted. As if in doubt and shock.
“Your grandmother is with them,” Asterin murmured to Manon. “I can feel it.”
“I know.” Manon turned to the young general-prince. “We shall handle the Ironteeth.”
His turquoise eyes were bright as the day above them as he gestured to the plain. “By all means, go right ahead.”
Manon’s mouth quirked to the side, then she jerked her chin to the Thirteen. “We shall be on your castle’s battlements. I leave one of my sentinels here with you, should you need to send word.” A nod to Vesta, and the red-haired witch made no move to fly as the others peeled off toward the great, towering palace. Manon had never seen its like—even the former glass castle in Rifthold had been nothing compared to it.
Manon smiled at the old man who had hissed at her, showing all her teeth. “You’re welcome,” she said, and with a snap of the reins, was airborne.
Morath had halted completely.
As if reassessing their strategy now that the Crochans had appeared from the mists of legend. Not hunted nearly as close to extinction as they’d believed, it seemed.
It left Manon and the army she’d raised the chance to catch their breath, at least.
And a night to sleep, if fitfully. She’d met with the mortal leaders during dinner, when it became apparent that Morath would not be finishing them off today.
Five thousand Crochans would not win this war. They would not stop a hundred thousand soldiers. But they could keep the Ironteeth legions at bay—keep them from sacking the city and letting in the demon hordes.
Long enough for whatever small miracle, Manon didn’t know. She hadn’t dared ask, and none of the mortals had posed the question, either.
Could the city outlast a hundred thousand soldiers hammering its walls and gates? Perhaps.
But not with the witch tower still operational on the plain. She had little doubt that it was currently being repaired, a new wyvern being hitched up. Perhaps that was why they had halted—to give themselves time to get that tower up again. And blast the Crochans into oblivion.
Only the dawn would reveal what the Ironteeth chose to do. What they’d accomplished.
Manon and the Thirteen, Bronwen and Glennis with them, spent hours organizing the Crochans. Assigning them to certain flanks of the Ironteeth based on Manon’s knowledge of their enemy’s formations.
She’d created those formations. Had planned to lead them.
And when that was done, when the meeting with the mortal rulers was over, all of them still grim-faced but not quite so near panic, Manon and the Thirteen found a chamber in which to sleep.
A few candles burned in the spacious room, but no furniture filled it. Nothing save the bedrolls they brought in. Manon tried not to look too long at hers, to mark the scent that had faded with every mile northward.
Where Dorian was, what he was doing—she didn’t let herself think about.
If only because doing so would send her flying southward again, all the way to Morath.
In the dim room, Manon sat on her bedroll, the Thirteen seated around her, and listened to the chaos of the castle.
The place was little more than a tomb, the ghosts of its riches haunting every corner. She wondered what this room had once been—a meeting room, a place to sleep, a study … There were no indicators.
Manon leaned her head back against the cold stones of the wall behind her, her crown discarded by her boots.
Asterin spoke first, cutting through the silence of the coven. “We know their every move, every weapon. And now the Crochans do, too. The Matrons are likely in a panic.”
She’d never seen her grandmother in a panic, but Manon huffed a dark laugh. “We shall see tomorrow, I suppose.” She surveyed her Thirteen. “You have come with me this far, but tomorrow it will be your own kind that we face. You may be fighting friends or lovers or family members.” She swallowed. “I will not blame you if you cannot do it.”
“We have come this far,” Sorrel said, “because we are all prepared for what tomorrow will bring.”
Indeed, the Thirteen nodded. Asterin said, “We are not afraid.”
No, they were not. Looking at the clear eyes around her, Manon could see that for herself.
“I’d expected at least some,” Vesta groused, “from the Ferian Gap to join us.”
“They don’t understand,” Ghislaine said. “What we even offered them.”
Freedom—freedom from the Matrons who had forged them into tools of destruction.
“A waste,” Asterin grumbled. Even the green-eyed demon twins nodded.
Silence fell again. Despite their clear eyes, her Thirteen were well aware of the limitations of five thousand Crochans against the Ironteeth, and the army beneath it.
So Manon said, looking them each in the eye, “I would rather fly with you than with ten thousand Ironteeth at my side.” She smiled slightly. “Tomorrow, we will show them why.”
Her coven grinned, wicked and defiant, and touched two fingers to their brows in deference.
Manon returned the gesture, bowing her head as she did. “We are the Thirteen,” she said. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”
Evangeline had decided that she no longer wished to be page to Lord Darrow, but rather a Crochan witch.
One of the women even went so far as to give the wide-eyed girl an extra red cloak, which Evangeline was still wearing when Lysandra tucked her into bed. She’d help Darrow tomorrow, Evangeline promised as she nodded off. After she made sure the Crochans had all the help they needed.
Lysandra had smiled at that, despite the odds still stacked so high against them. Manon Blackbeak—now Manon Crochan, she supposed—had been blunt in her assessment. The Crochans could keep the Ironteeth at bay, perhaps defeat them if they were truly lucky, but the hosts of Morath were still there to contend with. Once the army marched again, their plans to defend the walls would remain the same.
Unable and unwilling to fall asleep on the cot beside Evangeline’s bed, Lysandra found herself wandering the halls of the rambling, ancient castle. What a home it would have made for her and Evangeline. What a court.
Perhaps she’d unconsciously followed his scent, but Lysandra wasn’t at all surprised when she entered the Great Hall and found Aedion before the dying fire.
He stood alone, and she had little doubt he’d been that way for a while now.
He turned before she’d barely made it through the doorway. Watched her every step.
Because I am not in love with our other allies. How the words changed everything and yet nothing. “You should be asleep.”
Aedion gave her a half smile. “So should you.”
Silence fell between them as they stared at each other.
She could have spent all night like that. Had spent many nights like that, in another beast’s skin. Just watching him, taking in the powerful lines of his body, the unbreakable will in his eyes.
“I thought we were going to die today,” she said.
“We were.”
“I’m still angry with you,” she blurted. “But …”
His brows rose, light she had not seen for some time shining from his face. “But?”
She scowled. “But I shall think about what you said to me. That’s all.”
A familiar, wicked grin graced his lips. “You’ll think about it?”
Lysandra lifted her chin, looking down her nose at him as much as she could while he towered over her. “Yes, I will think about it. What I plan to do.”
“About the fact that I am in love with you.”
“Och.” He knew that the swaggering arrogance would knock her off-kilter. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Is there something else I’m supposed to call it?” He took a single step toward her, letting her decide if she’d allow it. She did.
“Just …” Lysandra pressed her lips together. “Don’t die tomorrow. That’s all I ask.”
“So you can have time to think about what you plan to do with my declaration.”
“Precisely.”
Aedion’s grin turned predatory. “May I ask something of you, then?”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to make requests, but fine.”
That wolfish grin remained as he whispered in her ear, “If I don’t die tomorrow, may I kiss you when the day is done?”
Lysandra’s face heated as she pulled back, yielding a step. She was a trained courtesan, gods above. Highly trained. And yet the simple request reduced her knees to wobbling.
She mastered herself, squaring her shoulders. “If you don’t die tomorrow, Aedion, then we’ll talk. And see what comes of it.”
Aedion’s wolfish grin didn’t so much as falter. “Until tomorrow night, then.”
Hell waited for them tomorrow. Perhaps their doom. But she wouldn’t kiss him, not now. Wouldn’t give that sort of promise or farewell.
So Lysandra walked from the hall, heart racing. “Until tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 83
Dorian flew and flew. Along the spine of the Fangs, Oakwald a winter-bare sprawl to his right, he soared northward for nearly two days before he dared to stop.
Picking a clearing amid a tangle of ancient trees, he crashed through the branches, hardly registering the sting through his thick wyvern’s hide. He shifted as soon as he hit the snow, his magic instantly thawing the frozen stream wending through the space.
Then he fell to his knees and drank. Deep, panting gulps of water.
Finding food was an easier endeavor than he’d anticipated. He had no need of a snare or arrows to catch the lean rabbit that cowered nearby. No need of knives to skin it. Or a spit.
When his thirst and hunger had been sated, when a glance at the sky told him no enemy approached, Dorian drew the marks. Just one more time.
He had to be on his way soon. But for this, he could delay his flight northward a little while longer. Damaris, it seemed, also agreed. It summoned who he wished this time.
Gavin appeared in the circle of bloody Wyrdmarks, paler and murkier in the morning light.
“You found it, then,” the ancient king said by way of greeting. “And left Erawan with one hell of a mess to clean up.”
“I did.” Dorian put a hand to his jacket pocket. To the terrible power thrumming there. It had taken every ounce of his concentration during his mad flight from Morath to block out its whispering. His shiver was not from the frigid air alone.
“Then why summon me?”
Dorian met the man’s gaze. King to king. “I wanted to tell you that I attained it—so you might have a chance to say goodbye. To Elena, I mean. Before the Lock is forged.”
Gavin stilled. Dorian didn’t shy from the king’s assessing stare.
After a moment, Gavin said a shade softly, “Then I suppose I will also be saying farewell to you.”
Dorian nodded. He was ready. Had no other choice but to be ready.
Gavin asked, “Have you decided on it, then? That you will be the one sacrificed?”
“Aelin is in the north,” Dorian said. “When I find her, I suppose we’ll decide what to do.” Who would be the one who joined the three keys. And did not walk away from it. “But,” he admitted, “I am hoping she might have come up with another solution. One for Elena, too.”
Aelin had escaped Maeve. Perhaps she’d be as lucky in finding a way to escape their fate.
A phantom wind blew the strands of Gavin’s long hair across his face. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “For even considering it.” But grief shone in the king’s eyes. He knew precisely how impossible it would be.
So Dorian said, “I’m sorry. For what success with the Lock will mean for both of you.”
Gavin’s throat bobbed. “My mate made her choice long ago. She was always prepared to face the consequences, even if I was not.”
Just as Sorscha had made her own choices. Followed her own path.
And for once, the memory of her did not ache. Rather, it gleamed, a shining challenge. To make it count. For her, and so many others. For himself, too.
“Do not give up on life so easily,” Gavin said. “It is the life I had with Elena that allows me to even consider parting from her now. A good life—as good as any that could be hoped for.” He inclined his head. “I wish the same for you.”
Before Dorian could voice what surged in his heart at the words, Gavin glanced skyward. His dark brows narrowed. “You need to go.” For the booming of wings filled the air. Thousands of wings.
The Ironteeth legion at Morath had still rallied after the keep’s collapse, it seemed. And now made its long flight northward to Orynth, likely infinitely more eager to tear into his friends.
He prayed Maeve was not in that host. That she remained licking her wounds in Morath with Erawan. Until the rest of their horrors marched, the spider-princesses with them.
But despite the approaching army, Dorian touched Damaris’s hilt and said, “I will take care of it. Of Adarlan. For whatever time I have left. I will not abandon it.”
The sword glowed warm.
And Gavin, despite the loss that loomed for him, smiled slightly. As if he felt the warmth of the sword, too. “I know,” he said. “I have always known that.”
Damaris’s warmth held steady.
Dorian swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “When the Wyrdgate is sealed, will I be able to open this sort of portal again?” Will I be able to see you, seek your counsel?
Gavin faded. “I don’t know.” He added quietly, “But I hope so.”
Dorian put a hand over his heart and bowed deeply.
And as Gavin disappeared into the snow and sun, Dorian could have sworn the king bowed back.
Minutes later, when wings blotted out the sun, no one noticed the lone wyvern that rose from Oakwald and fell into line with the teeming host.
CHAPTER 84
There was no armor left in the castle’s depleted arsenal. And none would have fit wyverns anyway.
What had survived Adarlan’s occupation or been acquired since its fall had been distributed, and though Prince Aedion had offered to have a blacksmith weld sheets of metal to form breastplates, Manon had taken one look at the repurposed doors they’d use and known they would be too heavy. Against the Ironteeth legion, speed and agility would be their greatest allies.
So they would head into battle as they always had: with nothing but their blades, their iron teeth and nails, and their cunning.
Standing on a large balcony atop the uppermost tower of the castle of Orynth, Morath’s army spread far below, Manon watched the rising sun and knew it could very well be her last.
But the Thirteen, many of them leaning against the balcony rail, did not look eastward.
No, their attention was on the enemy, stirring in the rising light. Or on the two Crochans who stood with Manon, brooms in hand and swords already strapped across their backs.
It had not been a shock to see Bronwen arrive this morning dressed for battle. But Manon had paused when Glennis emerged with a sword, hair braided back.
They had already gone over the details. And had done so thrice last night. And now, in the light of the breaking day, they lingered atop the ancient tower.
Far out, deep in Morath’s teeming ranks, a horn rang out.
Slowly, a great beast awakening from a deep sleep, Morath’s host began to move.
“It’s about time,” Asterin muttered beside Manon, her braided hair bound with a strip of leather across her brow.
Ironteeth wyverns became airborne, lumbering against the weight of their armor.
It wouldn’t win the day, though. No, the Ironteeth, after a heavy start, soon filled the skies. A thousand at least. Where the Ferian Gap host was, Manon didn’t want to know. Not yet.
On the towers of the castle, on the roofs of the city and along the battlement walls, the Crochan army straightened their brooms at their sides, ready for the signal to fly.
A signal from Bronwen, from the carved horn at her side. The horn was cracked and browned with age, the symbols carved into it so worn they were barely visible.
Noting Manon’s stare, Bronwen said, “A relic from the old kingdom. It belonged to Telyn Vanora, a young, untried warrior during the last days of the war, who was near the gates when Rhiannon fell. My ancestor.” She ran a hand over the horn. “She blew this horn to warn our people that Rhiannon had been killed, and to flee the city. Just after she got out the warning call, the Blueblood Matron slaughtered her. But it gave our people enough time to run. To survive.” Silver lined Bronwen’s dark eyes. “It is my honor to blow this horn again today. Not to warn our people, but to rally them.”
None of the Thirteen looked Bronwen’s way, but Manon knew they heard each word.
Bronwen put a hand on her leather breastplate. “Telyn is here today. In the hearts of every Crochan who got out, who made it this far. All of them who fell in the witch wars are with us, even if we cannot see them.”
Manon thought of those two presences she’d felt while fighting the Matrons and knew Bronwen’s words to be true.
“It is for them that we fight,” Bronwen said, her stare falling to the approaching army. “And for the future we stand to gain.”
“A future we all stand to gain,” Manon said, and met the eyes of the Thirteen. Though they did not smile, the fierceness in their faces spoke enough.
Manon turned to Glennis. “You truly intend to fight?”
Glennis nodded, firm and unyielding. “Five hundred years ago, my mother chose the future of the royal bloodline over fighting beside her loved ones. And though she never regretted her choice, the weight of what she left behind wore on her. I have carried her burden my entire life.” The crone gestured to Bronwen, then to Asterin. “All of us who fight here today do so with someone standing invisible behind us.”
Asterin’s gold-flecked black eyes softened a bit. “Yes,” was all Manon’s Second said as her hand drifted to her abdomen.
Not in memory of the hateful word branded there, of what had been done to her.
In memory of the stillborn witchling who had been thrown by Manon’s grandmother into the fire before Asterin had a chance to hold her.
In memory of the hunter whom Asterin had loved, as no Ironteeth ever had loved a man, and had never gone back to, for shame and fear. The hunter who had never stopped waiting for her to return, even when he was an old man.
For them, for the family she had lost, Manon knew her Second would fight today. So it might never happen again.
Manon would fight today to make sure it never did, too.
“So we come to it after five hundred years,” said Glennis, her voice unwavering yet distant, as if pulled into the depths of memory. The rising sun bathed the white walls of Orynth in gold. “The final stand of the Crochans.”
As if the words themselves were a signal, Bronwen lifted the horn of Telyn Vanora to her lips and blew.
Most believed the Florine River flowed down from the Staghorns, right past the western edge of Orynth before cutting across the lowlands.
But most didn’t know that the ancient Fae King had built his city wisely, digging sewers and subterranean streams that carried the fresh mountain water directly into the city itself. All the way beneath the castle.
A torch lifted high, Lysandra peered into one of those underground waterways, the dark water eddying as it flowed through the stone tunnel and out the city walls. Her breath curled in front of her as she said to the group of Bane soldiers who’d accompanied her, “Lock the grate once I’m out.”
A grunt was her only confirmation.
Lysandra frowned at the heavy iron grate across the subterranean river, the metal bands as thick as her forearm. It had been Lord Murtaugh who’d suggested this particular route of attack, his knowledge of the waterways beneath the city and castle beyond even Aedion’s awareness.
Lysandra braced herself for the plunge, knowing the water would be cold. Beyond cold.
But Morath was moving, and if she did not get into position soon, she might very well be too late.
“Gods be with you,” one of the Bane soldiers said.
Lysandra gave the man a tight smile. “And with you all.”
She didn’t let herself reconsider. She just walked right off the stone ledge.
The plunge was swift, bottomless. The cold ripped the air from her lungs, but she was already shifting, light and heat filling her body as her bones warped, as skin vanished. Her magic pulsed, draining quickly at the expenditure making this body required, but then it was done.
Distantly, above the surface, the Bane swore. Whether in fear or awe, she didn’t care.
Surfacing enough to gulp down a breath, Lysandra submerged again. Even in this form, the cold tore at her, the water murky and dim, but she swam with the current, letting it guide her on its way out of the ancient tunnel.
Beneath the city walls. Into the wider Florine, where the cold grew nearly unbearable. Thick blocks of ice drifted overhead, veiling her from enemy eyes.
She swam down the river, right along the eastern flank of Morath’s host, and waited for her signal.
The Crochans took to the skies, a wave of red that swept over the city and its walls.
Atop the southern section of the wall, Ren at his side, Aedion tipped his head back as he watched them soar into the air above the plain.
“You really think they can fight against that?” Ren nodded toward the oncoming sea of Ironteeth witches and wyverns.
“I think we don’t have any other choice but to hope they can,” Aedion said, unslinging his bow from across his back. Ren did the same.
At the silent signal, archers down the city walls took up their bows.
Scattered amongst them, Rolfe’s Mycenians positioned their firelances, bracing the metal contraptions on the wall itself.
Morath marched. There would be no more delays, no more surprises. This battle would unfold.
Aedion glanced toward the curve of the Florine, the ice sheets glaringly bright in the morning sun. He shut out the dread in his heart. They were too desperate, too outnumbered, for him to deny Lysandra the task she’d taken on today.
A look over his shoulder had Aedion confirming that Bane soldiers had the catapults primed atop the battlements, the Fae royals ready to use their depleted magic to levitate the enormous blocks of river-stone into place. And on the city walls, Fae archers remained watchful as they waited for their own signal.
Aedion nocked an arrow into his bow, arm straining as he pulled back the string.
As one, the army gathered on the city walls did the same.
“Let’s make this a fight worthy of a song,” Aedion said.
CHAPTER 85
Manon and the Thirteen shot into the skies as the Crochan army flowed below, a red tide rushing toward the sea of black ahead.
Forcing the Ironteeth legion to choose: their ancient enemies or their new ones.
It was a test, and one Manon had wanted to make early. To see how many of the Ironteeth would heed the command to plow forward, and how many might break from their orders, the temptation of battling the Thirteen too much to bear. And a test, she supposed, for the Matrons and the Heirs who led their legion—would they fall for it? Split their forces to swarm the Ironteeth, or continue their assault on the Crochans?
Higher and higher, Manon and the Thirteen rose, the two armies nearing each other.
The Crochans didn’t hesitate as their swords glinted in the sun, pointing toward the oncoming wyverns.
The Ironteeth had not trained against an enemy able to fight back. An enemy who could be airborne, smaller and faster, and strike where they were weakest: the riders. That was the Crochans’ goal—to bring down the riders, not the beasts.
But to do so, they’d need to brave the snapping jaws and spiked tails, the poison coating them. And if they could navigate around the wyverns, then the matter would remain of facing the flying arrows, and the trained warriors atop the beasts. It would not be easy, and it would not be quick.
The Thirteen rose so high that the air became thin. High enough that Manon could see to the very back of the host, where the horrific, unmistakable bulk of Iskra Yellowlegs’s wyvern flew.
A challenge and a promise of a confrontation to come. Manon knew, despite the distance, that Iskra had marked her.
No sign of Petrah. Or of the two remaining Matrons. Who had replaced the Yellowlegs crone to become High Witch, Manon didn’t know. Or care. Perhaps her grandmother had convinced them not to appoint Iskra or a new one just yet—to clear the way for her own path to queendom.
Just as Manon’s head turned light at the altitude, fifty or so wyverns peeled away from the enemy’s host. Flying upward—racing for them, beasts freed of their tether. Hungry for the glory and bragging rights that killing the Thirteen would win.
Manon smiled.
The two armies slammed into each other.
Loosing a breath, Manon yanked once on Abraxos’s reins.
Her fierce-hearted wyvern flung out his wings as he arched—and plummeted.
The world tilted while they twisted and plunged down, down, down, the Thirteen falling with them. They tore through wisps of cloud, the clashing army blurring, the castle and city looming below.
And when the Ironteeth were close enough that Manon could see they were Yellowlegs and Bluebloods, Abraxos banked sharply to one side and a current launched him right into the heart of them.
The Thirteen snapped into formation behind her, a battering ram that smashed through the Ironteeth.
Manon’s bow sang as she fired arrow after arrow.
At the first spray of blue blood, some part of her slipped away.
But she kept firing. And Abraxos kept flying, ripping apart wing and throat with his tail and teeth.
And so it began.
Even in the river, the thunder of marching feet rumbled past Lysandra.
They didn’t see the large white snout that periodically broke through the ice floes to huff down a breath. The sky was dark now, thick with the clashing of wyverns and Crochans.
Bodies occasionally plunged into the river, Ironteeth and Crochan alike.
The Crochans who thrashed, who were still alive, Lysandra covertly carried to the far shore. What they made of her, they didn’t say. She didn’t linger long enough to let them.
The Ironteeth who fell into the river were dragged to the bottom and pinned to the rocks.
She’d had to look away each time she did it.
Lysandra’s snout broke the surface as a sharp horn shattered over the din, right from the city walls. Not a warning call, but an unleashing.
Lysandra dove to the bottom. Dove and then pushed up, mighty tail thrashing to launch her toward the surface.
She broke from the ice and the water, arcing through the air, and slammed right into Morath’s eastern flank.
Soldiers screamed as she unleashed herself in a whirlwind of teeth and claws and a massive, snapping tail.
Where the white sea dragon moved, black blood sprayed.
And just when the soldiers mastered their terror enough to launch arrows and spears at the opalescent scales enforced with Spidersilk, she twisted and flipped back into the deep river, vanishing beneath the ice. Spears plunged into the turquoise waters, missing their mark, but Lysandra was already racing past.
The sea dragon’s body—river dragon, she supposed—didn’t slow. She pushed it to its limit, the great lungs working like a bellows.
The river curved, and she used it to her advantage as she leaped from the water again.
The soldiers, so focused on the damage she’d done up ahead, didn’t look her way until she was upon them.
She had all of a glance to the city walls, where a wave of black now crashed against them, siege ladders rising and arrows flying, bursts of flame amid it all, before she returned to the river’s icy depths.
Black blood streamed from her maw, from her tails and claws, as she doubled back, the shadow of the witches warring overhead upon the ice above her.
So she fought, the ice floes her shield. Attacking, then moving; destabilizing the eastern flank with every assault, forcing them to flee from the river’s edge to crowd the center ranks.
Slowly, the turquoise waters of the Florine clouded blue and black.
Still, Lysandra kept ripping bites from the side of the behemoth that launched itself upon Orynth.
The heat off the firelances scorched Aedion’s cheek, warming his helmet to near-discomfort.
A small price, as the bursts of flame sent the Valg foot soldiers at the walls scrambling back. Where their archers felled the enemy, more came. And where the firelances melted them away, only scorched earth and melted armor remained. But there was not enough—not even close.
Above, beyond the walls, the Ironteeth and Crochans clashed.
So violently, so quickly, that a blue mist hung in the skies from the bloodshed.
He couldn’t determine who had the upper hand. The Thirteen fought amongst them, and where they plunged into the fray, Ironteeth and their mounts tumbled. Crushing Valg foot soldiers beneath them.
Iron siege ladders rose again, aiming for the city walls. Answering blasts from the firelances sent those already on them to the ground as charred corpses. But more Valg scrambled up, the fear of flame not enough to deter them.
Sprinting to the nearest ladder, Aedion nocked arrow after arrow, firing at the soldiers creeping up its rungs. Clean shots through the gaps in the dark armor.
The archers around him did the same, and the Bane soldiers behind him settled into fighting stances, waiting for the first to breach the walls.
At the city gates, flame blasted and raged. He’d concentrated many of the Mycenians at either of the two gates into Orynth, their most vulnerable weakness along the walls.
That the fire kept flaring as it did told him enough: Morath was making its push there.
Rolfe’s order to Conserve fire! set a pit of dread forming in his gut, but Aedion focused on the siege ladder. His bow twanged, and another soldier tumbled away. Then another.
Down the wall, Ren had taken on the other nearby siege ladder, the lord’s bow singing.
Aedion dared a glance to the army ahead. They had amassed close enough now.
Falling back, letting an archer take his place, he lifted his sword, signaling the Bane at the catapults, the Fae royals and archers near them. “Now!”
Wood snapped and groaned. Boulders as large as wagons soared over the walls. Each had been oiled, and gleamed in the sun while they rose.
And when the boulders reached their peak, just as they began to plummet toward the enemy, the Fae archers unleashed their flaming arrows.
They struck the oil-slick boulders right before the stones slammed into the earth.
Flame erupted, flowing right into the holes that Aedion had ordered drilled into the rock, right into the nest of the explosive powders they’d again taken from the precious reserves of Rolfe’s firelances.
The boulders blasted apart in balls of flame and stone.
Along the city walls, soldiers cheered at the carnage that the smoking ruins revealed. Nothing but melted, squashed, or shattered Valg grunts. Every place the six catapults had fired upon now had a ring of charred ground around it.
“Reposition!” Aedion roared. The Bane were already heaving against the wheels that would rotate the catapults on their wooden stands. Within seconds, they had aimed at another spot; within seconds, the Fae royals were lifting more oiled boulders from the stockpile Darrow had acquired over weeks and weeks.
He didn’t give Morath a chance to recover. “Fire!”
Boulders soared, flaming arrows following.
The explosions on the battlefield shook the city walls this time.
Another cheer went up, and Aedion motioned the Bane and Fae royals to halt. Let Morath think that their stock was depleted, that they only had a few lucky shots in their arsenal.
Aedion turned back to the siege ladder as the first of the Valg grunts cleared the walls.
The man was killed before his feet finished touching the ground, courtesy of a waiting Bane soldier.
Aedion unstrapped the shield from across his back and angled his sword as the wave of soldiers crested the walls.
But it was not a Valg foot soldier who appeared next, climbing over the ladder with ease.
The young man’s face was cold as death, his black eyes lit with unholy hunger.
A black collar was clasped around his throat.
A Valg prince had come.
CHAPTER 86
“Focus on the ladder,” Aedion snarled to the soldiers shrinking from the handsome demon prince who stepped onto the city walls as if he were merely entering a room.
He wore no armor. Nothing but a black tunic cut to his lithe body.
The Valg prince smiled. “Prince Aedion,” purred the thing inside it, drawing a sword from a dark sheath at his side. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Aedion struck.
He did not have magic, did not have anything to combat the dark power in the prince’s veins, but he had speed. He had strength.
Aedion feinted with his sword, that ordinary, nameless sword, and the prince swung with his own blade—just as Aedion slammed his shield into the man’s side.
Driving him back. Not toward the ladder, but to the Mycenian who wielded the firelance—
The Mycenian was dead.
The prince chuckled, and a whip of dark power lashed for Aedion.
Aedion ducked, shield rising. As if it would do anything against that power.
Darkness struck metal, and Aedion’s arm sang with the reverberations.
But the pain, the life-draining agony, did not occur.
Aedion instantly parried, a slash upward that the Valg prince dodged with a hop to the side.
The demon’s eyes were wide as he took in the shield. Then Aedion.
Then the Valg prince hissed, “Fae bastard.”
Aedion didn’t know what it meant, didn’t care as he took another blast upon his shield, the battlements already slick with blood both black and red. If the Mycenian nearby was dead, then there was another down by Ren’s ladder—
The Valg prince unleashed blast after blast of power.
Aedion took each one upon his shield, the prince’s power bouncing off as if it were a spray of water upon stone. And for every burst of power sent his way, Aedion swung his sword.
Steel met steel; darkness clashed with ancient metal. Aedion had the vague sense of soldiers Valg and human alike halting as he and the demon prince battled their way across the city wall.
He kept his feet beneath him, as Rhoe had taught him. As Quinn had taught him, and Cal Lochan. As all his mentors and the warriors he’d admired above all others had taught him. For this moment, when he would be called to defend Orynth’s very walls.
It was for them he swung his sword, for them he took blow after blow.
The Valg prince hissed with every blast, as if enraged that his power could not break that shield.
Rhoe’s shield.
There was no magic in it. Brannon had never borne it. But one of them had forged it, one of the unbroken line of kings and queens who had come after him, who had loved their kingdom more than their own lives. Who had carried this shield into battle, into war, to defend Terrasen.
And as Aedion and the Valg prince fought along the walls, as that ancient shield refused to yield, he wondered if there was a different sort of power in the metal. One that the Valg could never and would never understand. Not true magic, not as Brannon and Aelin had. But something just as strong—stronger.
That the Valg might never break, no matter how they tried.
Aedion’s sword sang, and the Valg prince roared as Aedion connected with his arm, slashing deep.
Black blood sprayed. Aedion leaped upon the advantage, shoving with the shield and stabbing with his blade.
But the prince had been waiting.
Had set a trap, his own body as the bait.
And as Aedion slammed into the Valg prince, the demon drew a dagger from his sword belt and struck. Right where Aedion’s armor exposed just a sliver near his armpit, vulnerable with the outstretched position of his arm.
The knife plunged in, rending flesh and muscle and bone.
Pain, white-hot and blinding, threatened to make him splay his hand, to drop his sword. Only Aedion’s training, only those years of work, kept his feet under him as he leaped back, wrenching free of the knife.
The Valg prince chuckled, and Aedion was dimly aware of the fighting along the walls, the shouting and dying and flares of fire, as the prince smiled down at the bloodied dagger.
Bringing it to his sensual mouth, the prince dragged his tongue along the blade. Licked Aedion’s blood clean off. “Exquisite,” the demon breathed, shuddering with pleasure.
Aedion backed away another step, his arm burning and burning and burning, blood pooling inside his armor.
The prince stalked after him.
A whip of dark power launched for Aedion, and he again took it on his shield. Let it send him tumbling to the ground, landing atop the ironclad body of one of the Bane.
His breath turned sharp as the knife that had stabbed him.
The prince paused before Aedion. “Feasting on you will be a delight.”
Aedion hefted his shield over himself, bracing for the blow.
The prince made to lift the bloodied dagger to his mouth again, eyes rolling back in his head.
Those eyes went wide as an arrow broke the skin of his throat. Right above the collar.
The prince gagged, whirling toward the arrow that had come not from Aedion, but from behind. Right into the path of Ren Allsbrook and the firelance he bore in his arms.
Ren slammed his hand into the release hatch, and flame erupted.
Aedion ducked, coiling his body beneath his shield as the flame threatened to melt his own bones.
The world was heat and light. Then nothing. Only the shouts of battle and dying men.
Aedion managed to lower his shield.
Where the Valg prince had been, a pile of ashes and a black Wyrdstone collar remained.
Aedion panted, a hand going to his bleeding side. “I had him.”
Ren only shook his head, and pivoted on a boot, unleashing the firelance upon the nearest Valg soldiers.
The Lord of Allsbrook turned back to him, mouth open to say something. But Aedion’s head swam, his body plunging into a coldness he’d never known. Then there was nothing.
The battle was so much worse than Evangeline had imagined.
The sound alone made her quake in her bones, and only delivering messages to Lord Darrow where he stood on one of the higher castle balconies saved her from curling into a ball.
Her breath was a ragged, dry thing as she raced back onto the balcony, to where Darrow stood by the stone railing, two other Terrasen lords beside him. “From Kyllian,” Evangeline managed to say, bobbing a curtsy, as she had each time she’d delivered a message.
Battles were no place for manners, she knew—Aelin certainly would have said that. But she kept doing it, the curtsying, even when her legs trembled. Couldn’t stop herself.
Kyllian’s messenger had met her at the castle stairs, and now waited for Darrow’s reply. It was as close to the fighting as she’d gotten. Not that being up here was any better.
Pressing herself against the stones of the tower wall, Evangeline let Darrow read the letter. The Crochans and wyverns were so much closer up here. This high, she stood on their level, the world a blur below. Evangeline laid her palms flat against the icy stones, as if she could draw some strength from them.
Even with the roar of battle, she heard Darrow declare to the other lords, “Aedion has been wounded.”
Evangeline’s stomach dropped, nausea—oily and thick—surging. “Is he all right?”
The two other lords ignored her, but Darrow looked her way. “He has lost consciousness, and they have moved him into a building near the wall. Healers are working on him as we speak. They will move him here as soon as he is capable of withstanding it.”
Evangeline staggered to the balcony rail, as if she might see that building amid the sea of chaos by the city walls.
She had never had a brother, or a father. She hadn’t yet decided which one she would like Aedion to be. And if he was so injured that it warranted a message to Darrow—
She pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to contain the bile that burned her throat.
Murmuring sounded, and then there was a hand on her shoulder. “Lord Gunnar will see to delivering my reply,” Darrow said. “You will remain here with me. I might have need of you.”
The words were stern, but the hand on her shoulder was kind.
Evangeline only nodded, sick and miserable, and clung to the balcony rail, as if her grip might somehow keep Aedion on this side of life.
“Hot refreshments, Sloane,” Darrow ordered, his voice brooking no room for argument.
The other lord peeled away. Evangeline didn’t know how long passed after that. How long it took until the lord arrived, and Darrow pressed a scalding mug into her fingers. “Drink.”
Evangeline obeyed, finding it to be broth of some sort. Beef, maybe. She didn’t care.
Her friends were down there. Her family, the one she’d made.
Far out, near the river, a blur of motion was her only indication that Lysandra still lived.
No word arrived about Aedion’s fate.
So Evangeline lingered on the tower, Darrow silent beside her, and prayed.
CHAPTER 87
Even moving as fast as they could, the khagan’s army was too slow. Too slow, and too large, to reach Terrasen in time.
In the week that they’d been pushing northward, Aelin begging Oakwald, the Little Folk, and Brannon for forgiveness as she razed a path through the forest, they were only just now nearing Endovier, and the border mere miles beyond it. From there, if they were lucky, it’d be another ten days to Orynth. And would likely become a disaster if Morath had kept forces stationed at Perranth after the city’s capture.
So they’d chosen to skirt the city on its western flank, going around the Perranth Mountains rather than cutting to the lowlands for the easier trek across the land. With Oakwald as their cover, they might be able to sneak up on Morath at Orynth.
If there was anything left of Orynth by the time they arrived. They were still too far for the ruk riders to do any sort of scouting, and no messengers had crossed their paths. Even the wild men of the Fangs, who had remained with them and now swore to march to Orynth to avenge their kin did not know of a faster path.
Aelin tried not to think of it. Or about Maeve and Erawan, wherever they might be. Whatever they might have planned.
Endovier, the only outpost of civilization they’d seen in a week, would be their first news since leaving the Ferian Gap.
She tried not to think of that, either. Of the fact that they would be passing through Endovier tomorrow, or the day after. That she’d see those gray mountains that had housed the salt mines.
Lying on her stomach atop her cot—no point in making anyone set up a royal bed for her and Rowan when they would be marching within a few hours—Aelin winced against the stinging burn along her back.
The clink of Rowan’s tools and the crackle of the braziers were the only sounds in their tent.
“Will it be done tonight?” she asked as he paused to dip his needle in the pot of salt-laced ink.
“If you stop talking,” was his dry reply.
Aelin huffed, rising onto her elbows to peer over a shoulder at him. She couldn’t see what he inked, but knew the design. A replica of what he’d written on her back this spring, the stories of her loved ones and their deaths, written right where her scars had been. Exactly where they’d been, as if he had their memory etched in his mind.
But another tattoo lay there now. A tattoo that sprawled across her shoulder bones as if it were a pair of spread wings. Or so he’d sketched for her.
The story of them. Rowan and Aelin.
A story that had begun in rage and sorrow and become something entirely different.
She was glad to have him leave it at that. At the happiness.
Aelin rested her chin atop her hands. “We’ll be near Endovier soon.”
Rowan resumed working, but she knew he’d listened to every word, thought through his response. “What do you want to do about it?”
She winced at the sting of a particularly sensitive spot near her spine.
“Burn it to the ground. Blast the mountains into rubble.”
“Good. I’ll help you.”
A small smile curved her lips. “The fabled warrior-prince wouldn’t tell me to avoid carelessly expending my strength?”
“The fabled warrior-prince would tell you to stay the course, but if destroying Endovier will help, then he’ll be right there with you.”
Aelin fell silent while Rowan continued working for another few minutes.
“I don’t remember the tattoo taking this long the last time.”
“I’ve made improvements. And you’re getting a whole new marking.”
She hummed, but said nothing more for a time.
Rowan kept at it, wiping away blood when necessary.
“I don’t think I can,” Aelin breathed. “I don’t think I can stand to even look at Endovier, let alone destroy it.”
“Do you want me to?” A calm, warrior’s question. He would, she knew. If she asked him, he’d fly to Endovier and turn it into dust.
“No,” she admitted. “The overseers and slaves are all gone anyway. There’s no one to destroy, and no one to save. I just want to pass it and never think of it again. Does that make me a coward?”
“I’d say it makes you human.” A pause. “Or whatever a similar saying might be for the Fae.”
She frowned at her interlaced fingers beneath her chin. “It seems I’m more Fae these days than anything. I even forget sometimes—when the last time was that I was in my human body.”
“Is that a good or bad thing?” His hands didn’t falter.
“I don’t know. I am human, deep down, Faerie Queen nonsense aside. I had human parents, and their parents were human, mostly, and even with Mab’s line running true … I’m a human who can turn into Fae. A human who wears a Fae body.” She didn’t mention the immortal life span. Not with all they had ahead of them.
“On the other hand,” Rowan countered, “I’d say you were a human with Fae instincts. Perhaps more of them than human ones.” She felt him smirk. “Territorial, dominant, aggressive …”
“Your skills when it comes to complimenting women are unparalleled.”
His laugh was a brush of hot air along her spine. “Why can’t you be both human and Fae? Why choose at all?”
“Because people always seem to demand that you be one thing or another.”
“You’ve never bothered to give a damn what other people demand.”
She smiled slightly. “True.”
She gritted her teeth as his needle pierced along her spine. “I’m glad you’re here—that I’ll see Endovier again for the first time with you here.”
To face that part of her past, that suffering and torment, if she couldn’t yet look too closely at the last several months.
His tools, the numbing pain, halted. Then his lips brushed the top of her spine, right above the start of the new tattoo. The same tattoo he’d had Gavriel and Fenrys inking on his own back these past few days, whenever they stopped for the night. “I’m glad to be here, too, Fireheart.”
For however much longer the gods would allow it.
Elide slumped onto her cot, groaning softly as she bent to untie the laces of her boots. A day of helping Yrene in the wagon was no easy task, and the prospect of rubbing salve into her ankle and foot seemed nothing short of divine. The work, at least, kept the swarming thoughts at bay: what she’d done to Vernon, what had befallen Perranth, what awaited them at Orynth, and what they could ever do to defeat it.
From the cot opposite hers, Lorcan only watched, an apple half peeled in his hands. “You should rest more often.”
Elide waved him off, yanking away her boot, then her sock. “Yrene is pregnant—and throwing up every hour or so. If she doesn’t rest, I’m not going to.”
“I’m not entirely certain Yrene is fully human.” Though the voice was gruff, humor sparked in Lorcan’s eyes.
Elide fished the tin of salve from her pocket. Eucalyptus, Yrene had said, naming a plant Elide had never heard of, but whose smell—sharp and yet soothing—she very much enjoyed. Beneath the pungent herb lay lavender, rosemary, and something else mixed in with the opaque, pale liniment.
A rustle of clothing, and then Lorcan was kneeling before her, Elide’s foot in his hands. Nearly swallowed by his hands, actually. “Let me,” he offered.
Elide was stunned enough that she indeed let him take the tin from her grip, and watched in silence as Lorcan dipped his fingers into the ointment. Then began rubbing it into her ankle.
His thumb met the spot on her ankle where bone ground against bone. Elide let out a groan. He carefully, with near-reverence it seemed, began easing the ache away.
These hands had slaughtered their way across kingdoms. Bore the faint scars to prove it. And yet he held her foot as if it were a small bird, as if it were something … holy.
They had not shared a bed—not when these cots were too small, and Elide often passed out after dinner. But they shared this tent. He’d been careful, perhaps too careful, she sometimes thought, to give her privacy when changing and bathing.
Indeed, a tub steamed away in the corner of the tent, kept warm courtesy of Aelin. Many of the camp baths were warm thanks to her, to the eternal gratitude of royal and foot soldier alike.
Alternating long strokes with small circles, Lorcan slowly coaxed the pain from her foot. Seemed content to do just that all night, should she wish it.
But she was not half-asleep. For once. And each brush of his fingers on her foot had her sitting up, something warming in her core.
His thumb pushed along the arch of her foot, and Elide indeed let out a small noise. Not at the pain, but—
Heat flared in her cheeks. Grew warmer as Lorcan looked up at her beneath his lashes, a spark of mischief lighting his dark eyes.
Elide gaped a bit. Then smacked his shoulder. Rock-hard muscle greeted her. “You did that on purpose.”
Still holding her gaze, Lorcan’s only answer was to repeat the motion.
