Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

And sometimes, he spoke along the bond between them, sending his soul on the wind to wherever she was held captive, entombed. I will find you.

“The leg and spine, your body would eventually heal,” Rowan went on as Lorcan continued his stalking approach. “But what Lorcan Salvaterre will do to you …” A low, joyless laugh. “You won’t recover from that, friend.”

“She brought an army to keep us out?” Elide asked. Lorcan glanced at Rowan, his dark eyes full of warning. “Or to keep Aelin in.”

Manon gave him a look that might have sent a lesser man running. “They’re still blue.” Gods above, she was beautiful. He wondered when it would stop feeling like a betrayal to think so.

This wasn’t just a breaking of her body. But a breaking of her—of the fire she’d come to love. To destroy the part of her that sang.

Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey. He would not obey. And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.

Over and over, the queen screamed it. “Take it off, take it off, take it off!”

They had taken her scars. Maeve had taken them all away.

“You once told me at Mistward that if I ever took a whip to you, then you’d skin me alive.” His eyes didn’t stray from hers as he said with lethal quiet, “I took it upon myself to bestow that fate on Cairn on your behalf.

A shudder went through Rowan, and his head dipped slightly. “Are you …” He seemed to grapple with the right word. “Can I hold you?”

“I’m so tired, Rowan.” His heart strained again. “I know, Fireheart.”

The Little Folk peeked from those birch branches, from the rocks, from behind stalagmites. Slowly, deeply, Aelin bowed to them. Rowan could have sworn all those tiny heads lowered in answer.

A reminder—and a vow, more sacred than the wedding oaths they’d sworn on that ship. To walk this path together, back from the darkness of the iron coffin. To face what waited in Terrasen, ancient promises to the gods be damned.

Perhaps they were all doomed to limited sunrises.

His last chance to back out from this. But he glanced toward Elide again. And saw hope—just a glimmer of it—lighting her face. So Lorcan took the queen’s arm in his hands and drank.

“The choice of how our people’s future shall be shaped is yours,” Manon told each of the witches assembled, all the Blackbeaks who might fly to war and never return. “But I will tell you this.” Her hands shook, and she fisted them on her thighs. “There is a better world out there. And I have seen it.”

A moment later, Chaol was glad he was sitting down. Nesryn breathed, “Holy gods.” Chaol was inclined to agree as Aelin Galathynius, Rowan Whitethorn, and several others entered the tent.

Perhaps Aelin would not remember, perhaps their encounter years ago had meant nothing to her at all, but Chaol drew Yrene forward. “Aelin, allow me to introduce—” “Yrene Towers,” the queen breathed as his wife stepped to his side. The two women stared at each other.

“So that Aedion knows she placed his needs before her own.” Gavriel bowed his head. “I would say yes, if she offered.” “I know.” Rowan clapped his oldest friend on the back. “She knows, too.”

“I have never heard Lorcan apologize for anything. Even when Maeve whipped him for a mistake, he did not apologize to her.” “And that means he earns my forgiveness?” “No. But you have to realize that he swore the blood oath to Aelin for you. For no one else. So he could remain near you. Even knowing well enough that you will have a mortal lifespan.”

But Chaol ran his thumb over her wedding band. “I’ll have to win this war quickly, then, so I can have our house built by the summer.” She rolled her eyes. “A noble reason to defeat Erawan.”

Chaol’s father said simply, “Last I looked you were not Queen of Adarlan.” “No, but your son is Hand to the King, which means he outranks you.” Aelin smiled with horrific sweetness at Chaol. “Haven’t you told him that?”

Manon was glowing, as if the stars atop her head pulsed through her body. A wondrous and mighty beauty, like no other in the world. Like no one had ever been, or would be again. And slowly, as if savoring each step, Manon stalked toward her grandmother.

A call went down the line. The queen has come.

She was no helpless princess. She had never been.

Chaol shook his head and gestured to the field, to the black mare and her rider. “I call Farasha Hellas’s horse. I’ve done so from the moment I met her.” As if meeting that horse, bringing her here, was not as much for him as it was for this. For this desperate race across an endless battlefield.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield. His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he’d felled, and waited for his last breaths.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it. Fire erupted. Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame. A tidal wave of it. Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

Maeve’s death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen’s salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

She took his hand, and interlaced their fingers. It was more intimate than anything they’d shared, more vulnerable than she’d ever allowed herself to be. “An alliance,” she said, throat bobbing, “between you and me.” Her golden eyes lifted to his, the offer gleaming there. To marry. To unite their peoples in the strongest, most unbreakable of terms.

Yrene hadn’t been able to stop her hands from shaking as she’d hovered them over Aelin’s unconscious body. There had been no sign of harm beyond a few already-healing cuts and slices from the battle itself. Nothing at all beyond a sleeping, tired woman. Who held the might of a god within her veins.

Manon offered a silent prayer on the wind that the sacred flame the young scout bore would burn steadfast over the long, dangerous miles. All the way to the killing fields of Terrasen.

The Lion gazed northward, eyes flickering. “I hope you are right.” No attempt at denial—that all Gavriel had done and would do was for Aedion alone. That he was marching north, into sure hell, for Aedion.

“You—” A smile from him, and Maeve stopped being able to speak. Dorian said into the dark chasm of her mind, I was a slave once. You didn’t really think I’d allow myself to be so once again, did you?

The king I wish to be is the opposite of what you are. He gave Maeve a smile. And there is only one witch who will be my queen.

Vernon’s face went the color of spoiled milk. “You mean to leave me in their hands, utterly defenseless?” “I was defenseless when you let my leg remain unhealed,” she said, a steady sort of calm settling over her. “I was a child then, and I survived. You’re a grown man.” She let her lips curl in another smile. “We’ll see if you do, too.”

But Aedion kept his attention fixed on Lysandra. “Please. I am begging you. I am begging you, Lysandra, to go.” Her chin lifted. “You are not asking our other allies to run.” “Because I am not in love with our other allies.”

An aerial legion to challenge the Ironteeth. The Crochans had returned at last.

Dorian lifted a hand, his face grave as death, even as his eyes widened at the sight of her. But Aelin sensed it then. What Dorian carried. The Wyrdkeys. All three of them.

The Thirteen neared the enemy in their path and did not falter. Manon dug her fingers into the stones so hard her iron nails cracked. Began shaking her head, something in her chest fracturing completely. Fracturing as the Thirteen slammed into the Ironteeth blockade. The maneuver was perfect. More flawless than any they’d done. A lethal phalanx that speared through the enemy’s ranks. Aiming right for the tower.

And it was not darkness, but light—light, bright and pure as the sun on snow, that erupted from Asterin. Light, as Asterin made the Yielding. As the Thirteen, their broken bodies scattered around the tower in a near-circle, made the Yielding as well. Light. They all burned with it. Radiated it. Light that flowed from their souls, their fierce hearts as they gave themselves over to that power. Became incandescent with it.

“Be the bridge, be the light. When iron melts, when flowers spring from fields of blood—let the land be witness, and return home.”

The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d escaped shackles twice now—only to wind up back here. A temporary freedom. Borrowed time. She’d left Goldryn in their tent. The sword would be of little use where they were going.

Aelin turned away from the Fire-Bringer. And said to none of them in particular, “I should like to make a bargain with you.” The gods stilled. Deanna hissed, “A bargain? You dare to ask for a bargain?”

Aelin’s fingers curled, palm pressing into the pounding heart beneath. This will lead you home. The archway to Erilea inched closed. World-walker. Wayfarer. Others had done it before. She would find a way, too. A way home.

A weak hand landed on his back, running over the tattoo he’d inked. As if tracing the symbols he’d hidden there, in a desperate, wild hope. “I came back,” she rasped.

God-killer. That’s what she was. A god-killer. She didn’t regret it. Not one bit.

No more endless well of power. She had to conserve it, wield it to her best advantage. And use the training that had been instilled in her for the past ten years. She had been an assassin long before she’d mastered her power.

Her name was Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius. And she would not be afraid.

But she had not remained outside the southern gate to defeat them. Only to buy time. For those in the city she loved so greatly to get away. To run, and live to fight tomorrow. She had made it home. It was enough.