Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

Had Aelin been here, she might have heated it within a heartbeat. He shut out the tightness in his chest. Had Aelin been here, one breath from her and the five thousand troops they’d exhausted themselves killing today would have been ash on the wind. None of the lords around him had questioned where their queen was. Why she hadn’t been on the field today. Perhaps they hadn’t dared. Ren said, “If we move the armies south without permission from Darrow and the other lords, we’ll be committing treason.” “Treason, when we’re saving our own damn kingdom?” Ravi demanded. “Darrow and the others fought in the last war,” Sol said to his brother. “And lost it,” Ravi challenged. “Badly.” He nodded toward Aedion. “You were at Theralis. You saw the slaughter.”

Ravi continued, “I say we head south. Mass our forces at the border, rather than let Morath creep so close to Orynth.” “And let any allies we might still have in the South not have so far to travel when joining with us,” Ren added. “Galan Ashryver and Ansel of the Wastes will go where we tell them—the Fae and assassins, too,” Ravi pushed. “The rest of Ansel’s troops are making their way northward now. We could meet them. Perhaps have them hammer from the west while we strike from the north.” A sound idea, and one Aedion had contemplated. Yet to convince Darrow … He’d head to the other camp tomorrow, perhaps catch Darrow before he returned to the capital. Once he saw to it that the injured were being cared for. But it seemed Darrow didn’t want to wait for the morning.

“General Ashryver.” A male voice sounded from outside—young and calm. Aedion grunted in answer, and it was certainly not Darrow who entered, but a tall, dark-haired, and gray-eyed man. No armor, though his mud-splattered dark clothes revealed a toned body beneath. A letter lay in his hands, which he extended to Aedion as he crossed the tent with graceful ease, then bowed. Aedion took the letter, his name written on it in Darrow’s handwriting. “Lord Darrow bids you to join him tomorrow,” the messenger said, jerking his chin toward the sealed letter. “You, and the army.” “What’s the point of the letter,” Ravi muttered, “if you’re just going to tell him what it says?” The messenger threw the young lord a bemused glance. “I asked that, too, milord.” “Then I’m surprised you’re still employed,” Aedion said. “Not employed,” the messenger said. “Just … collaborating.” Aedion opened the letter, and it indeed conveyed Darrow’s order. “For you to have gotten here so fast, you’d have needed to fly,” he said to the messenger. “This must have been written before the battle even started this morning.” The messenger smirked. “I was handed two letters. One was for victory, the other defeat.” Bold—this messenger was bold, and arrogant, for someone at Darrow’s beck and call. “What’s your name?” “Nox Owen.” The messenger bowed at the waist. “From Perranth.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Ren said, scanning the man anew. “You’re a thief.” “Former thief,” Nox amended, winking. “Now rebel, and Lord Darrow’s most trusted messenger.” Indeed, a skilled thief would make for a smart messenger, able to slip in and out of places unseen. But Aedion didn’t care what the man did or didn’t do. “I assume you’re not riding back tonight.” A shake of the head. Aedion sighed. “Does Darrow realize that these men are exhausted and though we won the field, it was not an easy victory by any means?” “Oh, I’m sure he does,” Nox said, dark brows rising high with that faint amusement. “Tell Darrow,” Ravi cut in, “that he can come meet us, then. Rather than make us move an entire army just to see him.” “The meeting is an excuse,” Sol said quietly. Aedion nodded. At Ravi’s narrowed brows, his elder brother clarified, “He wants to make sure that we don’t …” Sol trailed off, aware of the thief who listened to every word. But Nox smiled, as if he grasp...

Aedion stopped long enough to greet those men, to offer a hand on the shoulder or a word of reassurance. Some would last the night. Many wouldn’t. He halted at other fires as well. To commend the fighting done, whether the soldiers hailed from Terrasen or the Wastes or Wendlyn. At a few of them, he even shared in their ales or meals. Rhoe had taught him that—the art of making his men want to follow him, die for him. But more than that, seeing them as men, as people with families and friends, who had as much to risk as he did in fighting here. It was no burden, despite the exhaustion creeping over him, to thank them for their courage, their swords. But it did take time. The sun had fully set, the muddy camp cast in deep shadows amid the fires, by the time he neared Kyllian’s tent.

“Aedion.” He’d know that voice if he were blind. Lysandra stepped from behind a tent, her face clean despite her muddy clothes. He halted, finally feeling the weight of the dirt and gore on himself. “What.” She ignored his tone. “I could fly to Darrow tonight. Give him whatever message you want.” “He wants us to move the army back to him, and then to Orynth,” Aedion said, making to continue to Kyllian’s tent. “Immediately.” She stepped in his path. “I can go, tell him this army needs time to rest.” “Is this some attempt to reenter my good graces?” He was too tired, too weary, to bother beating around the truth. Her emerald eyes went as cold as the winter night around them. “I don’t give a damn about your good graces. I care about this army being worn down with unnecessary movements.”

“How do you even know what was said in the tent?” He knew the answer as soon as he’d voiced the question. She’d been in some small, unnoticed form. Precisely why so many kingdoms and courts had hunted down and killed any shifters. Unparalleled spies and assassins. She crossed her arms. “If you don’t want me sitting in on your war councils, then say so.” He took in her face, her stiff posture. Exhaustion lay heavy on her, her golden skin pale and eyes haunted. He didn’t know where she was staying in this camp. If she even had a tent. Guilt gnawed on him for a heartbeat. “When, exactly, will our queen make her grand return?” Her mouth tightened. “Tonight, if you think it wise.” “To miss the battle and only appear to bask in the glory of victory? I doubt the troops would find that heartening.” “Then tell me where, and when, and I’ll do it.” “Just as you blindly obeyed our queen, you’ll now obey me?” “I obey no man,” she snarled. “But I’m not fool enough to believe I know more about armies and soldiers than you do. My pride is not so easily bruised.” Aedion took a step forward. “And mine is?” “What I did, I did for her, and for this kingdom. Look at these men, your men—look at the allies we’ve gathered and tell me that if they knew the truth, they would be so eager to fight.” “The Bane fought when we believed her dead. It would be no different.” “It might be for our allies. For the people of Terrasen.” She didn’t back down for a moment. “Go ahead and punish me for the rest of ...

The damn gall of this man!!!

She was a stupid fool. A stupid fool, to have said anything, and to now feel something in her chest crumpling. She had enough dignity left not to beg.

Lysandra made her way toward the comfortable tent Sol of Suria had given her near his. A kind, sharply clever man—who had no interest in women. The younger brother, Ravi, had eyed her, as all men did. But he’d kept a respectful distance, and had talked to her, not her chest, so she liked him, too. Didn’t mind having a tent in their midst.

The commentary of lys opinion of men kinda changed which is good .

An honor, actually. She’d gone from having to crawl into the beds of lords, doing whatever they asked of her with a smile, to fighting beside them. And she was now a lady herself. One whom both the Lords of Suria and the Lord of Allsbrook recognized, despite Darrow spitting on it.

It’s so sad that she barely gets to see the decency of men. Kinda has her see the different side of men where their not always so vile.

Lysandra trudged into her tent, sighing in exhausted relief as she shouldered her way through the flaps, aiming for her cot. Sleep, cold and empty, found her before she could remember to remove her boots.

“As far as you could see from the air,” Princess Hasar countered, twirling the end of her long, dark braid. “Who is to say what might be lurking amid the ranks?” How many Valg demons, the princess didn’t need to add. Of all the royal siblings, Hasar had taken Princess Duva’s infestation and their sister Tumelun’s murder at her hand the most personally. Had sailed here to avenge both her sisters, and to ensure it didn’t happen again. If this war had not been so desperate, Chaol might have paid good coin to see Hasar rip into Valg hides.

At his side, Yrene wrapped her fingers around Chaol’s and squeezed. He hadn’t realized how cold, how trembling, his hand had become until her warmth seeped into him. Because the intended target of that enemy army now marching to the northwest … Anielle. “Your father has not kneeled to Morath,” Hasar mused, flicking her heavy braid over the shoulder of her embroidered sky-blue jacket. “It must make Erawan nervous enough that he saw the need to send such an army to crush it.”

“Does Anielle have an army?” Sartaq asked, the prince’s dark eyes steady. Chaol straightened, hand balling into a fist, as if it could keep the dread pooling in his stomach at bay. Hurry—they had to hurry. “Not one able to take on ten thousand soldiers. The keep might survive a siege, but not indefinitely, and it wouldn’t be able to fit the city’s population.” Only his father’s chosen few. Silence fell, and Chaol knew they were waiting for him to speak, to voice the question himself. He hated every word that came out of his mouth. “Is it worth it to launch our troops here and march to save Anielle?”

“There might not be an Anielle left by the time we get there,” Hasar said with more gentleness than the sharp-faced princess usually bothered with. Enough so that Chaol reined in the urge to tell them that was precisely why they had to move now. “If the southern half of Adarlan is beyond help, then we might land near Meah.” She pointed to the city in the north of the kingdom. “March near the border, and set ourselves up to intercept them.” “Or we could go directly to Terrasen, and sail up the Florine to Orynth’s doorstep,” Sartaq mused.

his heart to calm. He hadn’t the faintest idea where Dorian might be, if he’d gone with Aelin to Terrasen. The soldiers Nesryn and Sartaq had interrogated had not known. What would his friend have chosen? He could almost hear Dorian yelling at him for even hesitating, hear him ordering Chaol to stop wondering where he’d gone and hurry to Anielle. “Anielle lies near the Ferian Gap,” Hasar said, “which is also controlled by Morath, and is another outpost for the Ironteeth and their wyverns. By bringing our forces so far inland, we risk not only the army marching for Anielle, but finding a host of witches at our backs.” She met Chaol’s gaze, her face as unflinching as her words. “Would saving the city gain us anything?” “It is his home,” Yrene said quietly, but not weakly, her chin refusing to dip even an inch in the royals’ presence. “I’d think that would be all the proof we need to defend it.” Chaol tightened his hand around hers in silent thanks. Dorian would have said the same.

Sartaq ignored her, his eyes meeting Chaol’s once more. A spark lit their steady depths. “We avoid the Avery until Anielle. March inland. And when the city is secure, we begin a campaign northward, along the Avery.” Nesryn pushed off the wall to prowl to the prince’s side. “Into the Ferian Gap? We’d be facing the witches, then.” Sartaq gave her a half grin. “Then it’s a good thing we have ruks.” Hasar leaned over the map. “If we secure the Ferian Gap, then we could possibly march all the way to Terrasen, taking the inland route.” She shook her head. “But what of the armada?” “They wait to intercept Kashin’s fleet,” Sartaq said. “We take the soldiers, the Darghan cavalry, the ruks, and they wait for the rest of the army to arrive and tell them to meet us here.” Hope stirred in Chaol’s chest.

Chaol had given Yrene the title owed to her in marrying him: Lady Westfall. He wondered if he could stomach being called Lord. If it mattered at all, given what bore down upon the city on the Silver Lake. If it would matter at all if they didn’t make it in time. Sartaq braced a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Hold the defenses for as long as you can, Lord Westfall. The ruks will be a day or so behind you, the foot soldiers a week behind that.” Chaol clasped Sartaq’s hand, then Hasar’s. “Thank you.” Hasar’s mouth curved into a half smile. “Thank us if we save your city.”

Everything. She had given everything for this, and had been glad to do it. Aelin lay in darkness, the slab of iron like a starless night overhead. She’d awoken in here. Had been in here for … a long time. Long enough she’d relieved herself. Hadn’t cared. Perhaps it had all been for nothing. The Queen Who Was Promised. Promised to die, to surrender herself to fulfill an ancient princess’s debt. To save this world.

Silent tears pooled in her mask. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t leaving this place. This box. She would never again feel the buttery warmth of the sun on her hair, or a sea-kissed breeze on her cheeks. She couldn’t stop crying, ceaseless and relentless. As if some dam had cracked open inside her the moment she’d seen the blood dribble down Maeve’s face. She didn’t care if Cairn saw the tears, smelled them. Let him break her until she was bloody smithereens on the floor. Let him do it over and over again. She wouldn’t fight. Couldn’t bear to fight.

“I’ve been thinking how to repay you when I let you out.” Aelin blocked out his words. Did nothing but gaze into the dark. She was so tired. So, so tired. For Terrasen, she had gladly done this. All of it. For Terrasen, she deserved to pay this price. She had tried to make it right. Had tried, and failed. And she was so, so tired. Fireheart. The whispered word floated through the eternal night, a glimmer of sound, of light. Fireheart. The woman’s voice was soft, loving. Her mother’s voice. Aelin turned her face away. Even that movement was more than she could bear. Fireheart, why do you cry? Aelin could not answer. Fireheart. The words were a gentle brush down her cheek. Fireheart, why do you cry? And from far away, deep within her, Aelin whispered toward that ray of memory, Because I am lost. And I do not know the way.

But Aelin did not hear him as she found a woman lying beside her. A mirror—or a reflection of the face she’d bear in a few years’ time. Should she live that long. Borrowed time. Every moment of it had been borrowed time. Evalin Ashryver ran gentle fingers down Aelin’s cheek. Over the mask. Aelin could have sworn she felt them against her skin. You have been very brave, her mother said. You have been very brave, for so very long. Aelin couldn’t stop the silent sob that worked its way up her throat. But you must be brave a little while longer, my Fireheart. She leaned into her mother’s touch. You must be brave a little while longer, and remember … Her mother placed a phantom hand over Aelin’s heart. It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.

Aelin managed to slide a hand up to her chest, to cover her mother’s fingers. Only thin fabric and iron met her skin. But Evalin Ashryver held Aelin’s gaze, the softness turning hard and gleaming as fresh steel. It is the strength of this that matters, Aelin. Aelin’s fingers dug into her chest as she mouthed, The strength of this. Evalin nodded. Cairn’s hissed threats danced through the coffin, his knife scraping and scraping.

Evalin’s face didn’t falter. You are my daughter. You were born of two mighty bloodlines. That strength flows through you. Lives in you. Evalin’s face blazed with the fierceness of the women who had come before them, all the way back to the Faerie Queen whose eyes they both bore. You do not yield. Then she was gone, like dew under the morning sun. But the words lingered. Blossomed within Aelin, bright as a kindled ember. You do not yield.

THE POWER OF MOTHER’S LOVE!!!😭😭🫶🏼❤️❤️

Aelin slammed her hand into the lid. Cairn paused. Aelin pounded her fist into the iron again. Again. You do not yield. Again. You do not yield. Again. Again. Until she was alive with it, until her blood was raining onto her face, washing away the tears, until every pound of her fist into the iron was a battle cry. You do not yield. You do not yield. You do not yield. It rose in her, burning and roaring, and she gave herself wholly to it. Distantly, close by, wood crashed. Like someone had staggered into something. Then shouting. Aelin hammered her fist into the metal, the song within her pulsing and cresting, a tidal wave racing for the shore. “Get me that gloriella!” The words meant nothing. He was nothing. Would always be nothing. Over and over, she pounded against the lid. Over and over, that song of fire and darkness flared through her, out of her, into the world. You do not yield. Something hissed and crackled nearby, and smoke poured through the lid. But Aelin kept striking. Kept striking until the smoke choked her, until its sweet scent dragged her under and away. And when she awoke chained on the altar, she beheld what she had done to the iron coffin. The top of the lid had been warped. A great hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin. As if it had come so very close to breaking entirely.

Even with chains, she’s powerful and her will to live is so powerful and tear jerking 🫶🏼😭

On a dark hilltop overlooking a sleeping kingdom, Rowan froze. The others were already halfway down the hill, leading the horses along the dried slope that would take them over Akkadia’s border and onto the arid plains below. His hand dropped from the stallion’s reins. He had to have imagined it. He scanned the starry sky, the slumbering lands beyond, the Lord of the North above. It hit him a heartbeat later. Erupted around him and roared. Over and over and over, as if it were a hammer against an anvil. The others whirled to him. That raging, fiery song charged closer. Through him. Down the mating bond. Down into his very soul. A bellow of fury and defiance. From down the hill, Lorcan rasped, “Rowan.” It was impossible, utterly impossible, and yet— “North,” Gavriel said, turning his bay gelding. “The surge came from the North.” From Doranelle. A beacon in the night. Power rippling into the world, as it had done in Skull’s Bay. It filled him with sound, with fire and light. As if it screamed, again and again, I am alive, I am alive, I am alive. And then silence. Like it had been cut off. Extinguished. He refused to think of why. The mating bond remained. Stretched taut, but it remained. So he sent the words along it, with as much hope and fury and unrelenting love as he had felt from her. I will find you.

I fucking can’t!! 😭😭😭🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 her defiance against Maeve, gave a signal to Rowan!!

He opened his mouth to voice them, but halted. Considered. “We need to draw Maeve out—away from Aelin.” His voice rumbled over the drowsy buzzing of insects in the grasses. “Just long enough for us to infiltrate Doranelle.” For even with the three of them together, they might not be enough to take on Maeve. “If she hears we’re coming,” Lorcan countered, “Maeve will spirit Aelin away again, not come to meet us. She’s not that foolish.”

But Rowan looked to Elide, the Lady of Perranth’s eyes wide. “I know,” he said, his plan forming, as cold and ruthless as the power in his veins. “We’ll draw out Maeve with a different sort of lure, then.”

Asterin turned toward her in silent urging. Yet Manon’s lips didn’t move. The dark-haired one kept her brown eyes fixed on Manon. Over one shoulder, a polished wood staff gleamed. Not a staff—a broom. Beyond the witch’s billowing red cloak, gold-bound twigs shimmered. High ranking, then, to have such fine bindings. Most Crochans used simpler metals, the poorest just twine. “What interesting replacements for your ironwood brooms,” the Crochan said. The others were as stone-faced as the Thirteen. The witch glanced toward where Dorian sat atop Vesta’s mount, likely monitoring all with that clear-eyed cunning. “And interesting company you now keep.” The witch’s mouth curled slightly. “Unless things have become so sorry for your ilk, Blackbeak, that you have to resort to sharing.” A snarl rumbled from Asterin.

dying light. “So,” an ancient voice said as the ranks stepped back to reveal the one to whom the Crochan had pointed. Not yet bent with age, but her hair was white with it. Her blue eyes, however, were clear as a mountain lake. “The hunters have now become the hunted.” The ancient witch paused at the edge of her ranks, surveying Manon. There was kindness on the witch’s face, Dorian noted—and wisdom. And something, he realized, like sorrow. It didn’t halt him from sliding a hand onto Damaris’s pommel, as if he were casually resting it. “We sought you so we might speak.” Manon’s cold, calm voice rang out over the rocks. “We mean you no harm.” Damaris warmed at the truth in her words.

“I am Glennis. My family served the Crochan royals, long before the city fell.” The ancient witch’s eyes went to the strip of red cloth tying Manon’s braid. “Rhiannon found you, then.” Dorian had listened when Manon had explained to the Thirteen the truth about her heritage, and who her grandmother had bade her to slaughter in the Omega. Manon kept her chin up, even as her golden eyes flickered. “Rhiannon didn’t make it out of the Ferian Gap.” “Bitch,” a witch snarled, others echoing it. Manon ignored it and asked the ancient Crochan, “You knew her, then?” The witches fell silent. The crone inclined her head, that sorrow filling her eyes once more. Dorian didn’t need Damaris’s confirming warmth to know her next words were true. “I was her great-grandmother.” Even the whipping wind quieted. “As I am yours.”

room flashed, the red marble stained with blood, the thud of a head on stone the only sound beyond his screaming. I was not supposed to love you. The Yellowlegs’s head halted near his boots, the blue blood gushing onto the snow and dirt. He didn’t hear, didn’t care, that the fourth wyvern soared toward him. Manon bellowed his name, and Crochan arrows fired. The Yellowlegs sentinel’s eyes stared at no one, nothing. A gaping maw opened before him, jaws stretching wide. Manon screamed his name again, but he couldn’t move. The wyvern swept down, and darkness yawned wide as those jaws closed around him. As Dorian let his magic rip free of its tethers. One heartbeat, the wyvern was swallowing him whole, its rancid breath staining the air. The next, the beast was on the ground, corpse steaming.

Steaming, from what he’d done to it. Not to it, but to himself. The body he’d turned into solid flame, so hot it had melted through the wyvern’s jaws, its throat, and he had passed through the beast’s mouth as if it were nothing but a cobweb. The Yellowlegs rider who’d survived the crash drew her sword, but too late. Glennis put an arrow through her throat. Silence fell. Even the battle above died

WTF

out. The Thirteen landed, splattered in blue and black blood. So different from Sorscha’s red blood—his own red blood. Then there were iron-tipped hands gripping his shoulders, and gold eyes glaring into his own. “Are you daft?” He only glanced to the Yellowlegs witch’s head, still feet away. Manon’s own gaze turned toward it. Her mouth tightened, then she let go of him and whirled to Glennis. “I’m sending out my Shadows to scout for others.” “Any enemy survivors?” Glennis scanned the empty skies. Whether his magic surprised them, shocked them, neither Glennis nor the Crochans rushing to tend to their wounded let on. “All dead,” Manon said. But the dark-haired Crochan who’d first intercepted them stormed at Manon, her sword out. “You did this.” Dorian gripped Damaris, but made no move to draw it. Not while Manon didn’t back down. “Saved your asses? Yes, I’d say we did.” The witch seethed. “You led them here.” “Bronwen,” Glennis warned, wiping blue blood from her face. The young witch—Bronwen—bristled. “You think it mere coincidence that they arrive, and then we’re attacked?” “They fought with us, not against us,” Glennis said. She turned to Manon. “Do you swear it?” Manon’s golden eyes glowed in the firelight. “I swear it. I did not lead them here.” Glennis nodded, but Dorian stared at Manon. Damaris had gone cold as ice. So cold the golden hilt bit into his skin. Glennis, somehow satisfied, nodded again. “Then we shall talk—later.” Bronwen spat on the bloody ground and pr...

For long hours while they worked to repair camp and Crochans, Manon monitored the frosty skies. Eight dead. It could have been worse. Much worse. Though she would take the lives of those eight Crochans with her, learn their names so she might remember them. Manon spent the long night helping the Thirteen haul the fallen wyverns and Ironteeth riders to another ridge. The ground was too hard to bury them, and pyres would be too easily marked, so they opted for snow. She didn’t dare ask Dorian to use his power to assist them. She’d seen that look in his eyes. Like he knew.

All would bleed; too many would die. Would Glennis have welcomed them? Perhaps, but the other Crochans hadn’t seemed so inclined to do so. And the fact remained that they did not have the time to waste in wooing them. So she’d picked the only method she knew: battle. Had soared off on her own earlier that day, to where she knew Ironteeth would be patrolling nearby, waited until the great northern wind carried her scent southward. And then bided her time.

“Eat something,” Glennis said, gesturing to the bubbling cauldron. To what smelled like goat stew. Manon didn’t bother objecting before she obeyed, gathering one of the small earthenware bowls beside the fire. Another way to demonstrate trust: to eat their food. Accept it. So Manon did, devouring a few bites before Dorian followed her lead and did the same. When they were both eating, Glennis sat on a stone and sighed. “It’s been over five hundred years since an Ironteeth witch and a Crochan shared a meal. Since they sought to exchange words in peace. Interrupted, perhaps, only by your mother and father.” “I suppose so,” Manon said mildly, pausing her eating.

The crone’s mouth twitched toward a smile, despite the battle, the draining night. “I was your father’s grandmother,” she clarified at last. “I myself bore your grandfather, who mated a Crochan Queen before she died giving birth to your father.” Another thing they’d inherited from the Fae: their difficulty conceiving and the deadly nature of childbirth. A way for the Three-Faced Goddess to keep the balance, to avoid flooding the lands with too many immortal children who would devour her resources.

Co the Cochans can bore male children but the iron witches: black beak, yellowlegs, and blue bloods who only can bore girls In which it seems 🤔

The Crochans had always given birth to more males than the Ironteeth, and had adopted the Fae habit of selecting mates—if not a true mating bond, then in spirit. She’d always thought it outlandish and strange. Unnecessary.

So man on has chance to be the mixed iron witch who can possibly bore a male hierarchy and have a mate!! Since she’s part Cochran!!!!

“After your mother never returned, your father was asked to couple with another young witch. He was the sole carrier of the Crochan bloodline, you see, and should your mother and you not have survived the birthing, it would end with him. He didn’t know what had happened to either of you. If you were alive, or dead. Didn’t even know where to look. So he agreed to do his duty, agreed to help his dying people.” Her great-grandmother smiled sadly. “All who met Tristan loved him.” Tristan. That had been his name. Had her grandmother even known it before she’d killed him? “A young witch was chosen for him especially. But he did not love her—not with your mother as his true mate, the song of his soul. Tristan made it work nonetheless. Rhiannon was the result of that.”

WAIT TRISTAN?!!! As in CC TRISTAN??!!!

Another sad smile. “You can thank my mother for that. Rhiannon Crochan’s youngest daughter gave birth during the siege on the Witch-City. With our armies felled and only the city walls to hold back the Ironteeth legions, and with so many of her children and grandchildren slaughtered and her mate spiked to the city walls, Rhiannon had the heralds announce that it had been a stillbirth. So the Ironteeth would never know that one Crochan might yet live. That same night, just before Rhiannon began her three-day battle against the Ironteeth High Witches, my mother smuggled the baby princess out on her broom.” The crone’s throat bobbed. “Rhiannon was her dearest friend—a sister to her. My mother wanted to stay, to fight until the end, yet she was asked to do this for her people. Our people. Until the day of her death, my mother believed Rhiannon went to hold the gates against the High Witches as a distraction. To get that last Crochan scion out while the Ironteeth looked the other way.”

and then Bronwen was there, her brown eyes blazing. “Don’t answer, Glennis.” Such disrespect, such informality to an elder— Bronwen leveled her burning stare on Manon. “You are not our queen, despite what your blood might suggest. Despite this little skirmish. We do not, and will never, answer to you.”

And then there will be no hope of beating them.” She kept her hands at her sides, resisting the urge to unsheathe her iron claws. “A host of many kingdoms rallies in Terrasen. Join them.” “Terrasen didn’t come to our aid five hundred years ago,” another voice said, coming closer. The pretty, brown-haired witch from earlier. Her broom, too, was bound in fine metal—silver to Bronwen’s gold. “I don’t see why we should bother helping them now.” “I thought you lot were a bunch of self-righteous do-gooders,” Manon crooned. “Surely this would be your sort of thing.” The young witch bristled, but Glennis held up a withered hand. It wasn’t enough to stop Bronwen, though, as the witch looked Manon over and snarled, “You are not our queen. We will never fly with you.” Bronwen and the younger witch stormed away, the gathered Crochan guards parting to let them pass. Manon found Glennis wincing slightly. “Our family, you will find, has a hotheaded streak.”

Ruthless. What Manon had done tonight, leading the Ironteeth to this camp … Dorian didn’t have a word for it other than ruthless.

Cyrene angled her head as if listening to something. “It was strange, mortal king, to find that I had a new place within me with the return of magic. To find that something new had taken root.” Her small hand drifted to her middle, just above her navel. “A little seed of power. I will the shift, think of what I wish to be, and the change starts within here first. Always, the heat comes from here.” The spider settled her stare on him. “If you wish to be something, king-with-no-crown, then be it. That is the secret to the shifting. Be what you wish.” He avoided the urge to roll his eyes, though Damaris warmed in his grip. Be what you wish—a thing far easier said than done. Especially with the weight of a crown.

Cyrene chuckled. “Do not think of the eye color so much as demand it.” “How did you learn this without instruction?” “The power is in me now,” the spider said simply. “I listened to it.” Dorian let a tendril of his magic snake toward the spider. She tensed. But his magic brushed up against her, gentle and inquisitive as a cat. Raw magic, to be shaped as he desired. He willed it toward her—willed it to find that seed of power within her. To learn it. “What are you doing,” the spider breathed, shifting on her feet. His magic wrapped around her, and he could feel it—each hateful, horrible year of existence. Each— His mouth dried out. Bile surged in his throat at the scent his magic detected. He’d never forget that scent, that vileness. He’d bear the mark on his throat forever as proof. Valg. The spider, somehow, was Valg. And not possessed, but born. He kept his face neutral. Uninterested. Even as his magic located that glowing, beautiful bit of magic. Stolen magic. As the Valg stole all things. Took everything they wanted.

“I can make a bargain with you, you know,” Cyrene whispered. “When the time comes, I will make sure you are spared.” Damaris went colder than ice. Dorian met her stare. Withdrew his magic, and could have sworn that seed of shape-shifting power trapped within her reached for him. Tried to beg him not to go. He smiled at the spider. She smiled back. And then he struck. Invisible hands wrapped around her neck and twisted. Right as his magic plunged into her navel, into where the stolen seed of human magic resided, and wrapped around it. He held on, a baby bird in his hands, as the spider died. Studied the magic, every facet of it, before it seemed to sigh in relief and fade into the wind, free at last. Cyrene slumped to the ground, eyes unseeing. Half a thought and Dorian had her incinerated. No one came to inquire after the stench that rose from her ashes. The black stain that lingered beneath them. Valg. Perhaps a ticket for him into Morath, and yet he found himself staring at that dark stain on the half-thawed earth. He let go of Damaris, the blade reluctantly quieting. He’d find his way into Morath. Once he mastered the shifting. The spider and all her kind could burn in hell.

She cut him a drily amused glance before seating herself on the bedroll and unlacing her boots. But her fingers halted as her nostrils flared. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder at him. “What did you do.” Dorian held her stare. “You did what you had to today,” he said simply. “I did as well.” He didn’t bother trying to touch Damaris where it lay nearby. She sniffed him again. “You killed the spider.” No judgment in her face, just raw curiosity. “She was a threat,” he admitted. And a Valg piece of shit. Wariness now flooded her eyes. “She could have killed you.” He gave her a half smile. “No, she couldn’t have.” Manon assessed him again, and he withstood it. “You have nothing to say about my own … choices?” “My friends are fighting and likely being killed in the North,” Dorian said. “We don’t have the time to spend weeks winning the Crochans over.” There it was, the brutal truth. To gain some degree of welcome here, they’d had to cross that line. Perhaps such callous decisions were part of wearing a crown. He’d keep her secret—so long as she wished it hidden.

Manon turned on her side, propping her head with a hand, her white hair spilling from its braid to frame her face. “You can’t use that magic of yours to simply … compel them, can you?” Dorian huffed a laugh. “Not that I know of.” “Maeve wormed her way into Prince Rowan’s mind to convince him to take a false mate.” “I don’t even know what Maeve’s power is,” Dorian said, cringing. What the Fae Queen had done to Rowan, what she was now doing to the Queen of Terrasen … “And I’m not entirely certain I want to start experimenting on potential allies.” Manon sighed through her nose. “My training did not include these things.” He wasn’t surprised. “You want my honest opinion?” Her golden eyes pinned him to the spot as she gave a curt nod. “Find the thing they need, and use it to your advantage. What would prompt them to rally behind you, to see you as their Crochan Queen? Fighting in battle tonight won some degree of trust, but not immediate acceptance. Perhaps Glennis might know.”

So Dorian said, “Aelin needed Captain Rolfe and his people shaken out of centuries of hiding in order to rally the Mycenian fleet. She learned they would only return to Terrasen when a sea dragon reappeared at last, one of their long-lost allies on the waves. So she engineered it to happen: provoked a small Valg fleet to attack Skull’s Bay while it lay mostly defenseless, and then used the battle to showcase the sea dragon that arrived to aid them, summoned from air and magic.” “The shifter,” Manon said. Dorian nodded. “And the Mycenians bought it?” “Absolutely,” Dorian drawled. “Aelin learned what the Mycenians needed in order to be convinced to join her cause. What sort of thing might the Crochans require to do the same?”