Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

“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.”

Aelin sketched a mocking bow to the Lord of Anielle. “On that lovely parting note, we’re going to finish up our dinners. Enjoy your evening, we’ll see you on the battlements tomorrow, and please do rot in hell.” Then Aelin was turning away, a hand guiding her husband inside. But not before the queen threw a grin over her shoulder to Yrene and Chaol and said, eyes bright—with joy and warmth this time, “Congratulations.” How she knew, Yrene had no idea. But the Fae possessed a preternatural sense of smell. Yrene smiled all the same as she bowed her head—just before Aelin slammed the door in the Lord of Anielle’s face.

“The Little Folk truly knew,” Fenrys mused, rubbing his jaw. “What you were.” They had always known her, the Little Folk. Had saved her life ten years ago, and saved their lives these past few weeks. They had known her, and left gifts for her. Tribute, she’d thought, to Brannon’s Heir. Not to … Gavriel murmured, “The Faerie Queen of the West.” Silence. Aelin blurted, “Is that an actual title?” “It is now,” Fenrys muttered. Aelin shot him a look. “With Sellene as the Fae Queen of the East,” Rowan mused. No one spoke for a good minute. Aelin sighed up at the ceiling. “What’s another fancy title, I suppose?” They didn’t answer, and Aelin tried not to let the weight of that title settle too heavily. All it implied. That she might not only look after the Little Folk on this continent, but with the cadre, begin a new homeland for any Fae who might wish to join them. For any of the Fae who had survived the slaughter in Terrasen ten years ago and might wish to return. A fool’s dream. One that she would likely not come to see. To create. “The Faerie Queen of the West,” Aelin said, tasting the words on her tongue. Wondering how long she’d get to call herself such. From the heavy quiet, she knew her companions were contemplating the same. And from the pain in Rowan’s eyes, the rage and determination, she knew he was already calculating if it might somehow spare her from the sacrificial altar. But that would come later. After tomorrow. If they survived.

Two princesses, one golden and one silver. One young and one ancient. Both the cost of sealing that gate to eternity.

Open, fresh air. The stars just visible through the narrow window. No Wyrdstone coffin. No gate poised to devour her whole. But she knew they were watching, somehow. Those wretched gods. Even here, they were watching. Waiting. A sacrifice. That’s all she was to them. Nausea churned in her gut, but Aelin ignored it, ignored the tremors rippling through her. The heat under her skin. Aelin turned onto her side, nestling closer into Rowan’s solid warmth, Elena’s muffled screams still ringing in her ears. No, she would not be helpless again.

Her golden eyes blazed. “If you want a softhearted woman who will weep over hard choices and ultimately balk from them, then you’re in the wrong bed.” “I’m not in anyone’s bed right now.”

“Because while you might be older, might be deadly in a thousand different ways, deep down, you’re afraid. You don’t know how to ask me to stay, because you’re afraid of admitting to yourself that you want it. You’re afraid. Of yourself more than anyone else in the world. You’re afraid.” For several heartbeats, she just stared at him. Then she snarled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” and stalked away. His low laugh ripped after her. Her spine stiffened. But Manon did not turn back. Afraid. Of admitting that she felt any sort of attachment. It was preposterous. And it was, perhaps, true.

Manon peered up at the ancient witch. “Fly well.” It was really all there was left to say. Manon’s failure was not due to Glennis, not due to anyone but herself, she supposed. You’re afraid. It was true. She had tried, but not really tried to win the Crochans. To let them see any part of her that meant something. To let them see what it had done to her, to learn she had a sister and that she had killed her. She didn’t know how, and had never bothered to learn. You’re afraid. Yes, she was. Of everything. Glennis lowered her hand from Manon’s shoulder. “May your path carry you safely through war and back home at last.” She didn’t feel like telling the crone there was no home for her, or the Thirteen. Glennis turned her face toward the sky, sighing once. Then her white brows narrowed. Her nostrils flared. Manon leapt to her feet. “Run,” Glennis breathed. “Run now.” Manon drew Wind-Cleaver and did no such thing. “What is it.” “They’re here.” How Glennis had scented them on the wind, Manon didn’t care. Not as three wyverns broke from the clouds, spearing for their camp. She knew those wyverns, almost as well as she knew the three riders who sent the Crochans into a frenzy of motion. The Matrons of the Ironteeth Witch-Clans had found them. And come to finish what Manon had started that day in Morath.

But Glennis’s stare, Manon realized, was not on the Blueblood Matron. Or even on Manon’s own grandmother, her black robes billowing as she sneered at Manon. It was on the Yellowlegs Matron, hunched and hateful between them. On the crown of stars atop the crone’s thinned white hair. Glennis’s sword shook slightly. And just as Manon realized what the Matron had worn here, Bronwen appeared at Glennis’s side and breathed, “Rhiannon’s crown.” Worn by the Yellowlegs Matron to mock these witches. To spit on them.

She was not a broken-spirited Wing Leader unsure of her place in the world. She was not ashamed of the truth before her. She was not afraid.

Gone was the witch who had slept and wished for death. Gone was the witch who had raged at the truth that had torn her to shreds. And in her place, fighting as if she were the very wind, unfaltering against the Matrons, stood someone Dorian had not yet met.

No one seemed to breathe at all as Manon plunged Bronwen’s sword into the icy earth beneath and bent to take the crown of stars from the Yellowlegs witch’s fallen head. He had never seen a crown like it. A living, glowing thing that glittered in her hand. As if nine stars had been plucked from the heavens and set to shine along the simple silver band. The crown’s light danced over Manon’s face as she lifted it above her head and set it upon her unbound white hair. Even the mountain wind stopped. Yet a phantom breeze shifted the strands of Manon’s hair as the crown glowed bright, the white stars shining with cores of cobalt and ruby and amethyst. As if it had been asleep for a long, long time. And now awoke. That phantom wind pulled Manon’s hair to the side, silver strands brushing across her face. And beside him, around him, the Thirteen touched two fingers to their brow in deference. In allegiance to the queen who stared down the two remaining High Witches. The Crochan Queen, crowned anew. The sacred fire leaped and danced, as if in joyous welcome.

Her grandmother spat on the ground, baring her rusted teeth. This death, though … It was not her death to claim. It did not belong to the parents whose spirits lingered at her side, who might have been there all along, leading her toward this. Who had not left her, even with death separating them. No, it did not belong to them, either. She looked behind her. Toward the Second waiting beside Dorian. Tears slid down Asterin’s face. Of pride—pride and relief. Manon beckoned to Asterin with an iron-tipped hand.

Wordlessly, Manon handed Bronwen her sword, nodding in thanks. Then she removed the crown of stars and extended it toward Glennis. “This belongs to you,” she said, her voice low. The Crochans murmured, shifting. Glennis took the crown, and the stars dimmed. A small smile graced the crone’s face. “No,” she said, “it does not.” Manon didn’t move as Glennis lifted the crown and set it again on Manon’s head. Then the ancient witch knelt in the snow. “What was stolen has been restored; what was lost has come home again. I hail thee, Manon Crochan, Queen of Witches.” Manon stood fast against the tremor that threatened to buckle her legs. Stood fast as the other Crochans, Bronwen with them, dropped to a knee. Dorian, standing amongst them, smiled, brighter and freer than she’d ever seen. And then the Thirteen knelt, two fingers going to their brows as they bowed their heads, fierce pride lighting their faces. “Queen of Witches,” Crochan and Blackbeak declared as one voice. As one people.

Worry and dread gnawing at him, Rowan slipped from the room, the din of preparations greeting him the moment he entered the hall. A heartbeat later, the door opened behind him, and steps fell into sync with his own, along with a familiar, wicked scent. “They burned her.” Rowan glanced sidelong at Fenrys. “What?” But Fenrys nodded to a passing healer. “Cairn—and Maeve, through her orders.” “Why are you telling me this?” Fenrys, blood oath or no, what he’d done for Aelin or no, was not privy to these matters. No, it was between him and his mate, and no one else. Fenrys threw him a grin that didn’t meet his eyes. “You were staring at her half the night. I could see it on your face. You’re all thinking it—why doesn’t she just burn the enemy to hell?” Rowan aimed for the washing station down the hall. A few soldiers and healers stood along the metal trough, scrubbing their faces to shake the sleep or nerves. Fenrys said, “He put her in those metal gauntlets. And one time, he heated them over an open brazier. There …” He stumbled for words, and Rowan could barely breathe. “It took the healers two weeks to fix what he did to her hands and wrists. And when she woke up, there was nothing but healed skin. She couldn’t tell what had been done and what was a nightmare.”

Not helpless. Not contained. Never again. Death became a melody in her blood, every movement a dance as the tide of soldiers pouring from the tower slowed.

Death had been her curse and her gift and her friend for these long, long years. She was happy to greet it again under the golden morning sun.

Yet when the battle was done, what would remain? Nothing. Elide had made that clear enough. She loved him, but she hated herself for it. He hadn’t deserved her anyway. She deserved a life of peace, of happiness. He didn’t know such things. Had thought he’d glimpsed them during the months they’d traveled together, before everything went to hell, but now he knew he was not meant for anything like it. But this battlefield, this death-song around him … This, he could do. This, he could savor.

Rowan said to him, “Use your magic. Jump to the field, find him, and bring him back.” Relief crumpled Elide’s chest. Until Fenrys said, “I can’t.” “You didn’t use it once during the battle,” Rowan challenged. “You should be fully primed to do it.” Fenrys blanched beneath the blood on his face, and cast pleading eyes to Elide. “I can’t.” Silence fell on the battlements. Then Rowan growled, “You won’t.” He pointed with a bloody finger to the battlefield. “You’d let him die, and for what? Aelin forgave him.” His tattoo scrunched as he snarled again. “Save him.” Fenrys swallowed. But Aelin said, “Leave it, Rowan.”

She had made him a promise. She had sworn him an oath, all those months ago. I will always find you.

He was not dead. He was not dead. I will always find you.

The mare—Farasha—yanked so hard on the reins that Elide was nearly hurled across the stones. But she planted her feet, leg screaming, and said to the horse, “I have need of you, fierce-heart.” She met Farasha’s dark, raging eyes. “I have need of you.” Her voice broke. “Please.” And gods above, that horse stilled. Blinked.

“The power,” Fenrys said quietly to him, gripping the gore-slick wall. “It was the one thing Connall and I shared.” “I know,” Rowan said. He shouldn’t have pushed. “I’m sorry.” Fenrys just nodded. “I haven’t been able to stomach it since then. I—I’m not even certain I can use it again,” he said, and repeated, “I’m sorry.”

The odds of her finding Lorcan, let alone before the dam burst … Still Elide kept riding. Racing against death itself. Princess Hasar said quietly, “The girl is a fool. The bravest I’ve ever seen, but a fool nonetheless.” Aelin said nothing, her eyes distant. Like she’d retreated into herself at the realization that this sliver of hope was about to be washed away. Her friends with it. “Hellas guards Lorcan,” Fenrys murmured. “And Anneith, his consort, watches over Elide. Perhaps they will find each other.” “Hellas’s horse,” Chaol said. They turned toward him, dragging their eyes from the field. 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. She had found him. The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary. Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, “You have to let me go.” Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness. Elide didn’t shift her focus from the keep ahead. “No.” That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. “You have to. You have to, Elide. I’m too heavy—and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time.” “No.” The salt of her tears filled his nose. Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself. “I love you,” he whispered in Elide’s ear. “I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken.” Her tears flowed past him in the wind. “And I will be with you …” His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. “I will be with you always.” He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep. So Lorcan kissed Elide’s cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. “I love you,” he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist. Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk. “No.” There were no tears ...

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew. “Three months,” Rowan breathed. The others stilled. “Three months,” he said again, his knees wobbling. “She’s been making the descent into her power for three months.” Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they’d freed her because she had kept making the plunge. To gather up the full might of her magic. Not for the Lock, not for Erawan. But for Maeve’s death blow. A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it …

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, “That power is no blessing.” “Tell that to your soldiers,” Fenrys snarled, standing, too. “I did not mean it that way,” Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

“Of course I’m afraid. Anyone in their right mind would be. But my task is more important than fear, I think.”

“We could make an alliance. Between Adarlan, and the Crochans. And any Ironteeth who might follow me.” It was her answer, he realized. To his request for a convincing reason to remain. 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.”

She would be his wife, his queen. She was already his equal, his match, his mirror in so many ways. And with their union, the world would know it. But he could see the bars of the cage that would creep closer, tighter, every day. And either break her wholly, or turn her into something neither of them wished her to ever be. “You would marry me, all so we could aid Terrasen in this war?” “Aelin is willing to die to end this conflict. Why should she bear the brunt of sacrifice?” And there it was, her answer, though he knew she didn’t realize it. Sacrifice.

Then she drew up the blankets around them both. He didn’t so much as flinch as she scooted closer, into the solid muscle of his body. No, Dorian only draped an arm over her, and pulled her tightly against him. Manon was still listening to his breathing when she fell asleep, warm in his arms. She awoke at dawn to a cold bed. Manon took one look at the empty place where the king had been, at the lack of supplies and that ancient sword, and knew. Dorian had gone to Morath. And had taken the two Wyrdkeys with him.

Lorcan let out a low groan as he surfaced from the warm, heavy embrace of darkness. “You are one lucky bastard.” Too soon. Too damn soon after hovering near death to hear Fenrys’s drawl. Lorcan cracked open an eye, finding himself lying on a cot in a narrow chamber. A lone candle illuminated the space, dancing in the golden hair of the Fae warrior who sat in a wooden chair at the foot of his bed. Fenrys’s smirk was a slash of white. “You’ve been out for a day. I drew the short stick and had to look after you.” A lie. For whatever reason, Fenrys had chosen to be here.

“Well, since you’re not dead,” Fenrys began, but Lorcan was already asleep.

“Then it will be the scar I treasure most.” Fenrys would laugh until he cried to hear him speak this way, but Lorcan didn’t care. To hell with the rest of them.

Even the wind did not jostle the flame as Manon lifted it, a torch in the new day. The Crochan crowd parted, revealing a straight path toward Bronwen’s hearth. The witch was already waiting, her coven gathered around her. Each step was a drumbeat of war. An answer to a question posed long ago. Bronwen’s eyes were bright as Manon stopped. Manon only said, “Your queen summons you to war.” And touched her flame to that in Bronwen’s hearth. Light flared, bright and dancing. Bronwen picked up a branch of her own, a long log burning in the fire. “The Vanora will fly.”

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. Hearth to hearth, the Flame of War went. Over snow-blasted mountains and amongst the trees of tangled forests, hiding from the enemies that prowled the skies. Through long, bitterly cold nights where the wind howled as it tried to wipe out any trace of that flame. But the wind did not succeed, not against the flame of the queen. So hearth to hearth, it went. To remote villages where people screamed and scattered as a young-faced woman descended from the skies on a broom, waving her torch high. Not to signal them, but the few women who did not run. Who walked toward the flame, the rider, as she called out, “Your queen summons you to war. Will you fly?” Trunks hidden in attics were thrown open. Folded swaths of red cloth pulled from within. Brooms left in closets, beside doorways, tucked under beds, were brought out, bound in gold or silver or twine. And swords—ancient and beautiful—were drawn from beneath floorboards, or hauled down from haylofts, their metal shining as bright and fresh as the day they had been forged in a city now lying in ruin. Witches, the townsfolk whispered, husbands wide-eyed and disbelieving as the women took to the skies, red cloaks billowing. Witches amongst us all this time.

Witches, here amongst us. Witches, now going to war. A rising tide of witches, who took to the skies in their red cloaks, swords strapped to their backs, brooms shedding years of dust with each mile northward. Witches who bade their families farewell, offering no explanation before they kissed their sleeping babes and vanished into the starry night. Mile after mile, across the darkening world, the call went out, ceaseless and unending as the eternal flame that passed from hearth to hearth. “Fly, fly, fly!” they shouted. “To the queen! To war!” Far and wide, through snow and storm and peril, the Crochans flew.

Maeve leaned back, studying him again. “You want what I want. Erawan has it. Does that not make you and I allies of a sort?” “You must be mad, to think I would ever give you the keys.” “Am I? What would you do with them, Dorian? Destroy them?” “What would you do? Conquer the world?” Maeve laughed. “Oh, nothing so common as that. I would make sure that Erawan and his brothers can never return.” Damaris remained warm in his hand. The queen spoke the truth. Or some part of it.

“Give Aedion time. When we reach Orynth, I have a feeling that Aedion will be happier to see you than he lets on.” “I am bringing back his queen, and riding with an army. I think he’d be happy to see his most hated enemy, if they did that for him.” Worry paled the Lion’s tanned features. Not for the reunion, but for what his son might be facing in the North. Chaol considered. “My father is a bastard,” he said quietly. “He has been in my life from my conception. Yet he never once bothered to ask the questions you pose,” Chaol said. “He never once cared enough to do so. He never once worried. That will be the difference.” “If Aedion chooses to forgive me.” “He will,” Chaol said. He’d make Aedion do it. “Why are you so certain?” Chaol considered his words carefully before he again met Gavriel’s striking gaze. “Because you are his father,” he said. “And no matter what might lie between you, Aedion will always want to forgive you.” There it was, his own secret shame, still warring within him after all his father had done. Even after the trunk full of his mother’s letters. “And Aedion will realize, in his own way, that you went to save Aelin not for her sake or Rowan’s, but for his. And that you stayed with them, and march in this army, for his sake, too.” 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.

“I am a world-walker,” Maeve said. “I have traveled between universes. Do you think moving between rooms will be so hard?” “Something kept you from going to Terrasen all these years.” Maeve’s jaw tightened. “Brannon Galathynius was aware of my gifts to move between places. The wards around his kingdom prevent me from doing so.” “So you could not transport Erawan’s armies there for him.” “No. I can only enter on foot. There are too many of them, anyway, for me to hold the portal that long.” “Erawan is aware of your gift, so he’ll likely have taken steps to guard his own room.” “Yes, and I have spent my time here slowly unraveling them. He is not so skilled a spellworker as he thinks.” A smug, triumphant smile.

“You care about them—the spiders.” “You will find, Your Majesty, that a loyal friend is a rare thing indeed. They are not so easy to sacrifice.” “You offered up six of them to those princesses.” “And I shall remember that for as long as I live,” Maeve said, and some kernel of emotion indeed danced over her face. “They went willingly. I tell myself that whenever I look upon them now and see nothing of the creatures I knew. They wished to help me.” Her eyes met his. “Not all Valg are evil.” “Erawan is.” “Yes,” she said, and her eyes darkened. “He and his brothers … they are the worst of our kind. Their rule was through fear and pain. They delight in such things.” “And you do not?” Maeve twirled an inky strand around a finger. And didn’t answer.

A trap within a trap. One he had formed from the moment he’d seen her. It had been a simple trick. To shift his mind, as if he were shifting his body. To make her see one thing when she glimpsed inside it. To make her see what she wished to believe: his jealousy and resentment of Aelin; his desperation; his naive foolishness. He had let his mind become such things, let it lure her in. And every time she had come close, falling for those slips in his power, his magic had studied her own. Just as it had studied Cyrene’s stolen kernel of shape-shifting, so had it learned Maeve’s ability to creep into the mind, seize it. It had only been a matter of waiting for her to make her move, to let her lay the trap she’d close to seal him to her forever. “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? She thrashed, but he held her firm. You will free me, she hissed, and the voice was not that of a beautiful queen, but something vicious and cold. Starved and hateful. You’re old as the earth, and yet you thought I would truly fall for your offer. He chuckled, letting a wisp of his fire burn her. Maeve shrieked, silent and endless in their minds. I’m surprised you fell for my trap. I will kill you for this. Not if I kill you first. His fire became a living thing, wrapping around her pale throat. In the real world, in the place where their bodies existed. You hurt my friend, he said with lethal calm. It will not be so very difficult to end you for it. Is this the king you wish to be? Torturing a helpless female? He laughed again. You are not helpless. And if I could, I would seal you in an iron box for eternity. Dorian glanced to the windows. To the night beyond. He had to go—quickly. But he still said, 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.

A groan rumbled through the mountain beneath them. Morath shuddered. Maeve’s eyes widened further. A crack louder than thunder echoed through the stones. The tower swayed. Dorian’s mouth curved upward. You didn’t think I spent all those hours merely searching, did you? He wouldn’t allow it to exist another day—that chamber...

And so Morath began to crumble. Smiling at Maeve, Dorian pulled out. Pulled away, even as he held her mind. The tower shuddered again. Maeve’s breath hitched. You can’t leave me like this. He’ll find me, he’ll take me— As you would have taken me? Dorian shifted into a crow, flapping in the air of the chamber. Morath groaned again, and above it rose a screech of rage, so piercing and unearthly that his bones quailed. Tell Erawan, Dorian said, halting on the windowsill, that I did it for Adarlan. For Sorscha and Kaltain and all those destroyed by it. As Adarlan itself had been destroyed. But from utter ruin, it might be built again. If not by him, then by others. Perhaps that would be his first and only gift to Adarlan as its king: a clean slate, should they survive this war.

A king—he could be a king to Adarlan in these last days that remained for him. Wipe away the stain and rot of what it had become. So it might start anew. Become who it wished to be. Dorian caught a swift wind, sailing hard and fast. And when he looked behind him, at the mountain and valley that reeked of death, at the place where so many terrible things had begun, Dorian smiled and brought Morath’s towers crashing down.

Punish them all, Kaltain had made Aelin once promise. And Vernon, from what Elide had told Aelin, seemed likely to have been at the top of Kaltain’s list.

Aedion just stared into the flame. “It would have been an honor,” Ren said. “To serve in this court. With you.” Aedion shut his eyes, swallowing hard. “It would have been an honor indeed.”

“I threw up earlier,” Evangeline whispered. Aedion said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Better than shitting your pants, sweetheart.” Evangeline let out a belly laugh that made her clutch the cup to keep from spilling. Aedion grinned, and ruffled her red-gold hair. “The battle won’t be pretty,” he said as Evangeline sipped her milk. “And you will likely throw up again. But just remember that this fear of yours? It means you have something worth fighting for—something you care so greatly for that losing it is the worst thing you can imagine.” He pointed to the frost-covered windows. “Those bastards out there on the plain? They have none of that.” He laid his hand on hers and squeezed gently. “They have nothing to fight for. And while we might not have their numbers, we do have something worth defending. And because of that, we can overcome our fear. We can fight against them, to the very end. For our friends, for our family …” He squeezed her hand again at that. “For those we love …” He dared to look up at Lysandra, whose green eyes were lined with silver. “For those we love, we can rise above that fear. Remember that tomorrow. Even if you throw up, even if you spend the whole night in the privy. Remember that we have something to fight for, and it will always triumph.” Evangeline nodded. “I will.”

Aedion ruffled her hair once more and walked to the door, pausing on the threshold. He met Lysandra’s stare, her eyes emerald-bright. “I lost my family ten years ago. Tomorrow I will fight for the new one I’ve made.” Not only for Terrasen and its court and people. But also for the two ladies in this room. I wanted it to be you in the end. He almost spoke her words then. Almost said them back to Lysandra as something like sorrow and longing entered her face. But Aedion ducked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.