Kingdom of Ash

The enemy’s army arrived not in three days, or four, but five.

A blessing and a curse, Nesryn decided. A blessing, for the time it granted them to prepare, for the ruks to carry some of the most vulnerable of Anielle’s people to a snow-blasted camp beyond the Fangs.

And a curse for the fear it allowed to fester in the keep, now teeming with those who would not or could not make the journey. By sunset on the fourth day, they could see the black lines marching for them through the swaths of Oakwald that they hewed down.

By dawn on the fifth day, they were near the outskirts of the lake, the plain.

Nesryn sat atop Salkhi on one of the keep’s spires, Borte on Arcas beside her.

“For a demon army, they march slower than my ej’s own mother.”

Nesryn snorted. “Armies have supply trains—and this one had a river to cross and a forest to fell.”

Borte sniffed. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble for such a small city.”

Indeed, the ruk riders had not been impressed by Anielle, certainly not after camping in Antica before their passage to these lands.

“Save this city, take the Ferian Gap to the north of it, and we could clear a path northward. It might be an ugly place, but it’s vital.”

“Oh, the land is beautiful,” Borte said, gazing toward the lake sparkling under the winter light, steam from the nearby hot springs drifting across its surface. “But the buildings …” She made a face.

Nesryn chuckled. “You may be right.”

For a few moments, they watched the army creep closer. People were fleeing in the streets now, rushing up the keep’s endless steps and battlements.

“I’m surprised Sartaq will let his future empress fly against them,” Borte said slyly. The girl had relentlessly teased her these weeks.

Nesryn scowled. “Where’s Yeran?”

Borte stuck out her tongue, despite the army inching toward them. “Burning in hell, for all I care.”

Even away from their respective aeries and ancient rivalries, the betrothed pair had not warmed to each other. Or perhaps it was part of the game the two of them played, had been playing for years now. To feign loathing, when it was so clear they’d slaughter anyone who posed a threat to the other.

Nesryn lifted her brows, and Borte crossed her arms, her twin braids blowing in the wind. “He’s bringing the last two healers to the keep.” Indeed, a near-black ruk flapped up from the plain.

“No inclination to finally wed before the battle?”

Borte recoiled. “Why would I?”

Nesryn smirked. “So you might have your wedding night?”

Borte barked a laugh. “Who says I haven’t already?”

Nesryn gaped.

But Borte only inclined her head, clicked her tongue at Arcas, and rider and ruk dove into the brisk sky.

Nesryn stared after Borte until she’d reached the plain, passing by Yeran and his ruk in a daring maneuver that some might have interpreted to be a giant, vulgar gesture to the warrior.

Yeran’s dark ruk screeched in outrage, and Nesryn smiled, knowing Yeran was likely doing the same, even with the two healers riding with him.

Yet Nesryn’s smile proved short-lived as she again beheld the marching army nearer and nearer with each minute. An unbroken, untiring mass of steel and death.

Would they camp until dawn, or attack at nightfall? Would the siege be quick and lethal, or long and brutal? She’d seen their supply trains. They were prepared to stay for as long as it took to bring this city to rubble.

And wipe out every soul dwelling within.

The bone drums began at sundown.

Yrene stood on the highest parapet of the keep, counting the torches sprawling into the night, and fought to keep her dinner down.

It was no different from the other meals she’d eaten today, she told herself. The meals she had struggled to consume without gagging.

The parapet was filled with soldiers and onlookers alike, all gazing toward the army at the border of the plain that separated them from the city’s edge, all listening in hushed silence to the relentless drumming.

A steady, horrible beat. Meant to unnerve, to break one’s will.

She knew they’d continue all night. Deprive them of rest, make them dread the dawn.

The keep was as full as it could stand, hallways crammed with bedrolls. She and Chaol had yielded their room to a family of five, the children too young to make the trip to the Wastes, even on a ruk’s back. In the frigid air, an infant might go blue with cold in minutes.

Yrene ran a hand over the waist-high stone wall. Thick, ancient stone. She beseeched it to hold out.

Catapults. There were catapults in the army below. She’d heard Falkan’s latest report at breakfast. The plain itself was still littered with enough boulders from the days it had been a part of the lake that Morath would have no problem finding things to hurl at them.

The warning had kept Yrene busy all day, relocating families who had taken rooms on the lake side of the keep or those who slept too close to windows or outer walls. Last-minute, and foolish not to consider it before now, but she’d been so focused these past five days on getting everyone in that she hadn’t thought of things like catapults and shattering blocks of heavy stone.

She’d moved their healing supplies, too. To an inner chamber where it would take the entire keep collapsing to destroy what was inside. The Torre healers had brought what they could from the fleet, but they’d made more when they arrived. Not their best work, not by any means, but Eretia had ordered that the salves and tonics need only to function, not dazzle, and to keep mixing.

All was set. All was ready. Or as ready as they might ever be.

So Yrene lingered on the battlements, listening to the bone drums for a while longer.

Chaol told himself it was not his last night with his wife. He’d still made the best of it, and they had rested as much as they could stand before they were up, hours before dawn.

The rest of the keep was awake, too, the ruks restless on the tower roofs and battlements, the click and scrape of their talons on the stones echoing in every hall and chamber.

The drums kept pounding. Had pounded all night.

He’d kissed Yrene good-bye, and she’d seemed like she wanted to say more but had opted to hold him for a long, precious minute before they parted ways.

It would not be the last time he saw her, he promised himself as he aimed for the battlements where his father, Sartaq, and Nesryn had agreed to meet at dawn.

The prince and Nesryn had not yet arrived, but his father stood in armor Chaol had not glimpsed since childhood. Since his father had ridden to serve Adarlan’s wishes. To conquer this continent.

It still fit him well, the muted metal scratched and dented. Not the finest piece of armor from the family arsenal beneath the keep, but the sturdiest. A sword hung at his hip, and a shield lay against the battlement wall. Around them, sentries tried not to watch, though their fear-wide eyes tracked every movement.

The drums pounded on.

Chaol came up beside his father, his own dark tunic reinforced with armor at his shoulders, forearms, and shins.

A cane of ironwood had been sheathed down Chaol’s back, for when Yrene’s magic began to fade, and his chair waited just inside the great hall, for when her power depleted entirely.

What his father had made of it when Chaol had explained yesterday, he hadn’t let on. Hadn’t said a single word.

Chaol cast a sidelong glance at the man staring toward the army whose fires began winking out one by one under the rising light.

“They used the bone drums during the last siege of Anielle,” his father said, not a tremor in his voice. “Legend says they beat the drums for three days and three nights before they attacked, and that the city was so rife with terror, so mad with sleeplessness, that they didn’t stand a chance. Erawan’s armies and beasts shredded them apart.”

“They did not have ruks fighting with them then,” Chaol said.

“We’ll see how long they last.”

Chaol gritted his teeth. “If you do not have hope, then your men will not last long, either.”

His father stared toward the plain, the army revealed with each minute.

“Your mother left,” the man said at last.

Chaol didn’t hide his shock.

His father gripped the stone parapet. “She took Terrin and left. I don’t know where they fled. As soon as we realized we’d been surrounded by enemies, she took her ladies-in-waiting, their families. Departed in the dead of night. Only your brother bothered to leave a note.”

His mother, after all she’d endured, all she’d survived in this hellish house, had finally walked out. To save her other son—their promise of a future. “What did Terrin say?”

His father smoothed his hand over the stone. “It doesn’t matter.”

It clearly did. But now wasn’t the time to push, to care.

There was no fear on his father’s face. Just cold resignation.

“If you do not lead these men today,” Chaol growled, “then I will.”

His father looked at him at last, his face grave. “Your wife is pregnant.”

The shock roiled through Chaol like a physical blow.

Yrene—Yrene—

“A skilled healer she might be, but a deft liar, she is not. Or have you not noticed her hand frequently resting on her stomach, or how green she turns at mealtime?”

Such mild, casual words. As if his father weren’t ripping the ground out from beneath him.

Chaol opened his mouth, body tensing. To yell at his father, to run to Yrene, he didn’t know.

But then the bone drums stopped.

And the army began to advance.