Kingdom of Ash

CHAPTER 111

Nesryn had not anticipated the ilken. How terrible even a few dozen would be.

Nimble and vicious, they swept over the front lines of Morath’s teeming ranks. Black as the fallen night and more than eager to meet the ruks in combat.

Sartaq had given the order to unleash whatever burning arrows they could find. The heat of one scorched Nesryn’s fingers as she picked a target amongst the dark fray and fired.

The flame speared into the night, right for an ilken poised to tear into a Darghan horse. The arrow struck true, and the ilken’s shriek reached even Nesryn’s ears. The Darghan rider stabbed deep with his sulde, and the ilken’s screeching was cut off. A lucky, brave blow.

Nesryn was reaching for another arrow and supplies when the Darghan rider fell.

Not dead—the ilken was not dead, but feigning it. The beautiful horse’s scream of pain rent the night as talons ripped open its chest. Another slash and the rider’s sternum was shredded.

Nesryn fumbled for the flint to light the oil-soaked cloth around the arrowhead.

Up and down the battlefield, ilken attacked. Riders, both equine and rukhin, fell.

And looming at the back of the battlefield, as if waiting for their grand entrance, waiting to pick off what was left of them, a new sort of darkness squatted.

The Valg princesses. In their new, kharankui bodies. Erawan’s final surprise.

Nesryn aimed and fired her arrow, scanning for Sartaq. The prince had led a unit of rukhin deeper into the enemy lines, a battered Borte, Falkan, and Yeran flanking him.

A desperate, final push.

One that none of them were likely to walk or fly away from.

Yrene’s breath was tight in her throat, her heart a wild beat through her entire body, yet the fear she thought she’d yield to had not taken over. Not yet.

Not as Lysandra, in ruk form, landed on the city walls, steadily enough that Yrene and Elide could quickly dismount. Right where Chaol and Dorian fought, a desperate effort to keep the Valg off the walls.

The smallest of their concerns. For nearby, slaughtering their way closer—those were ilken.

Silba save them all.

Chaol saw her first. His eyes flared with pure terror. “Get back to the castle.”

Yrene did no such thing. And as Dorian turned, she said to the king, “We have need of you, Your Majesty.”

Chaol shoved from the wall, his limp deep. “Get back to the castle.”

Yrene ignored him again. So did Dorian as the king gutted the Valg before him, shoved the demon over the wall, and hurried to Yrene. “What is it?”

Elide pointed to the southern gate. To the fire that flared amid the attacking darkness.

Dorian’s blood-splattered face drained of color. “She has nothing left.”

“We know,” Elide said, her mouth tightening. “Which is why we need you.”

Chaol must have realized the plan before his king. Because her husband whirled to her, shield and sword hanging at his sides. “You can’t.”

Elide quickly, succinctly, explained their reckless, mad idea. The Lady of Perranth’s idea.

Yrene tried not to shake. Tried not to tremble as she realized that they were, indeed, about to do this.

But Elide merely climbed onto the shifter’s leathery back and beckoned the king to follow. And Dorian, to his credit, did not hesitate.

Yet Chaol dropped his sword and shield to the bloody stones, and gripped Yrene’s face between his hands. “You can’t,” he said again, voice breaking. “You can’t.”

Yrene put her hands atop Chaol’s and brought them brow to brow. “You are my joy,” was all she said to him.

Her husband, her dearest friend, closed his eyes. The reek of Valg blood and metal clung to him, and yet beneath it—beneath it, that was his scent. The smell of home.

Chaol at last opened his eyes, the bronze of them so vivid. Alive. Utterly alive. Full of trust, and understanding, and pride.

“Go save the world, Yrene,” he whispered, and kissed her brow.

Yrene let that kiss sink into her skin, a mark of protection, of love that she’d carry with her into hell and beyond it.

Chaol turned to where Dorian sat with Elide atop the shifter, the love on her husband’s face hardening to something fierce and determined. “Keep her safe,” was all Chaol said. Perhaps the only order, Yrene realized, he would ever give his king. Their king.

It was why she loved him. Why she knew that the child in her womb would never spend a single moment wondering if it was loved.

Dorian bowed his head. “With my life.” Then the king offered a hand to help Yrene onto Lysandra’s back. “Let’s make it count.”

Manon’s chest burned with each inhale, but Abraxos flew unfalteringly through the melee.

So many. Too many.

And the new horrors that Morath had unleashed, the ilken amongst them …

Screams and blood filled the skies. Crochan and Ironteeth and ruks—those were ruks—fought for their very existence.

Any hope of victory that Aelin Galathynius had brought with her was slipping away.

Manon and Abraxos smashed through the Ironteeth lines, diving to rip apart ilken and foot soldier. Wind-Cleaver was a leaden weight in her hand. She could no longer discern her sweat from blood.

The Queen of Terrasen had come, an army with her, and it would still not be enough.

Lorcan knew Maeve had come. Could feel her presence in his bones, a dark, terrible song through the world. A Valg song.

He fought far down the city walls, Whitethorn and Fenrys nearby, Aedion unleashing himself upon soldier after soldier with a ferocity that Lorcan knew came from deep, brutal grief.

Gavriel was dead. Had died to give his son and those at the western gate a chance to shut them again.

Lorcan tucked away the pang in his chest at the thought of it. That the Lion was no more. Which of them would be next?

Light flared beyond the wall. Darkness devoured it. Too swiftly, too easily.

Aelin had to be insane. Must have lost all her wits, if she thought she could take on not just Maeve, but Erawan, too.

Yet Rowan halted. Would have been run through by a Valg soldier if Lorcan hadn’t hurled a dagger straight through the demon’s face.

With a nod to Lorcan and Fenrys, Rowan shifted, a hawk instantly soaring over the walls.

Lorcan looked to Fenrys. Found the male bristling. Aware of the change beyond the walls. It was time.

“We finish this together,” Fenrys snarled, and shifted as well, a white wolf leaping clean off the battlements and into the city streets below. Toward the gate.

Lorcan glanced at the castle, where he knew Elide was watching.

He said his silent farewell, sending what remained of his heart on the wind to the woman who had saved him in every way that mattered.

Then Lorcan ran for the gate—to the dark queen who threatened all he’d come to want, to hope for. He’d come to hope. Had found there was something better out there. Someone better.

And he’d go down swinging to defend all of it.

It was a dance, and one that Aelin had spent her entire life practicing.

Not just the movements of her sword, her shield. But the smirk she kept on her face as she met each blast of darkness, as she realized over and over and over who her dance partners were.

Where they advanced a step, Aelin sent out a plume of fire. Didn’t let her own doubt show, didn’t dare wonder if they could tell that the fire was mostly color and light.

They still dodged it. Avoided it.

Waiting for her to plunge down deep, to make that killing blow they anticipated.

And though her fire deflected the darkness, though Goldryn was a burning song in her hand, she knew their power would break through soon.

The keys were gone. And so was the Fire-Bringer.

They would have no use for her. No need to enslave her, save to torment her.

It could go either way. Death or enslavement.

But there would be no keys, no ability for Erawan to craft more Wyrdstone, or bring in his Valg to possess others.

Aelin lunged with Goldryn, spearing for Erawan as she raised her shield against Maeve. She sent a wave of flame searing for their sides, herding them closer together.

Erawan blasted it back, but Maeve halted. Halted while Aelin leaped away a step, panting.

The coppery tang of blood coated her mouth. A herald of the looming burnout.

Maeve watched Aelin’s flame sizzle through the snow, melting it down to the dried grasses of Theralis. An undulating sea of green in the warmer months. Now a muddy, blood-soaked ruin.

“For a god,” Maeve said, their first words since this dance had begun minutes or hours or an eternity ago, “you do not seem so willing to smite us.”

“Symbols have power,” Aelin panted, smiling as she flipped Goldryn in her hand, the flame hissing through the air. “Strike you down too quickly and it will ruin the impact.” Aelin drew up every shred of swaggering arrogance and winked at Erawan. “She wants me to wear you down, you see. Wants me to tire you, so those healers up in the castle can finish you off with little trouble.”

“Enough.” Maeve slammed out her power, and Aelin lifted her shield, flame deflecting the onslaught.

But barely. The impact rippled into her bones, her blood.

Aelin didn’t let herself so much as wince as she hurled a whip of flame toward Maeve, and the dark queen danced back. “Just wait—she’ll spring the trap shut on you soon enough.”

“She is a liar and a fool,” Maeve spat. “She seeks to drive us apart because she knows we can defeat her together.” Again, that dark power rallied around Maeve.

The dark king only stared at Aelin with those golden, burning eyes, and smiled. “Indeed. You—”

He paused. Those golden eyes lifted above Aelin. Above the gates and wall behind her. To something high above.

Aelin didn’t dare to look. To take her attention away for that long. To hope.

But the gold in Erawan’s eyes glowed. Glowed—with rage and perhaps a kernel of fear.

He twisted his head toward Maeve. “There are healers in that castle.”

“Of course there are,” Maeve snapped.

Yet Erawan stilled. “There are skilled healers there. Ripe with power.”

“Straight from the Torre Cesme,” Aelin said, nodding solemnly. “As I told you.”

Erawan only looked at Maeve. And that doubt flickered again.

He glanced to Aelin. To her fire, her sword. She bowed her head.

Erawan hissed at Maeve, “If she spoke true, you are carrion.”

And before Aelin could muster an ember to strike, a dark, sinewy form swept from the blackness behind Erawan and snatched him up. An ilken.

Aelin didn’t waste her power trying to down them, not with the ilken’s defenses against magic. Not with Maeve tracking Erawan as he was carried into the skies. Over the city.

Against two Valg rulers, she should have already been dead. Against the female before her, Aelin knew it was still just a matter of time. But if Yrene, if her friends, could take down Erawan …

“Just us, then,” Maeve said, lips curving into that spider’s smile. The smile of the horrendous creatures that launched themselves at Orynth.

Aelin lifted Goldryn again. “That’s precisely how I wanted it,” she said. Truth.

“But I know your secret, Heir of Fire,” Maeve crooned, and struck again.