Kingdom of Ash

Rowan had been speaking to the captain of their ship when the ruk had flown past.

According to her mate, the ruk nearly slammed right into the ship thanks to the dense fog on the sea. A scout—from an armada to the south.

A skeleton crew had remained amongst them, though the scout hadn’t been privy to the royals’ plans. All she knew was that the khagan’s army had gone to Anielle.

Where they would go after that—to Rifthold, to Eyllwe—had not been decided.

So Aelin would help them decide. Make sure that when this business with Anielle was over, the khagan’s army marched northward. To Terrasen.

And nowhere else. Whatever she needed to do to convince them, offer them in exchange for it, she’d pay it. Even if hauling ass to Anielle had meant delaying her own return to Terrasen.

She supposed it’d be better to return with an army behind her than alone.

Yet now, standing in the royals’ war tent, Aelin still couldn’t quite believe just how many the khagan had sent. With more to come, Prince Sartaq had claimed.

They’d wended through the neatly organized tents and soldiers, both on foot and the downright awe-inspiring cavalry. The Darghan, the legendary riders from the steppes of the khaganate. The royal family’s mother-people, who had taken the continent for themselves.

And then they’d seen the ruks, and even miserable Lorcan had sworn in awe at the mighty, beautiful birds adorned with ornate armor, and the armed riders atop them. The scout had been one thing. An army of them had been glorious.

A glance at Rowan told her that shrewd mind was already calculating a plan.

So Aelin asked casually, flashing the royals a grin, “Where did you all plan on going after this?”

Princess Hasar, as shrewd as Aelin’s mate, returned her smile—a razor-sharp thing of little beauty. “Doubtless, you’re about to begin some scheme to convince us to go to Terrasen.”

The room tensed, but Aelin snorted. “Begin? Who says I’m not already in the thick of it?”

“Gods help us,” Chaol muttered. Rowan echoed the sentiment.

Hasar opened her mouth, but Prince Sartaq cut in, “Where we march will be decided after Anielle is secured.” The prince’s face remained grave, calculating—but not cold. Aelin had decided within moments that she liked him. And liked him even more when it came out that he had just been crowned the khagan’s Heir. With Nesryn as his potential bride.

Potential, to Aelin’s amusement, because Nesryn herself wasn’t so keen on being empress of the mightiest empire in the world.

But what Sartaq had said—

Elide blurted, “You mean to not go to Terrasen?”

Aelin kept still, her fingers curling at her sides.

Prince Sartaq said carefully, “It had been our initial plan to go north, but there might be other places like Anielle in need of liberation.”

“Terrasen needs aid,” Rowan said, his face the portrait of steely calm as he surveyed their new allies and old friends.

“And yet Terrasen has not called for it,” Hasar countered, utterly unfazed by the wall of Fae warriors glowering at her. Exactly the sort of person Aelin had hoped she’d be when she wrote to her all those months ago.

Chaol cleared his throat. Gods above, Chaol was walking again. And married to Yrene Towers, who had healed him.

A thread in a tapestry. That’s what it had felt like the night she’d left the gold for Yrene in Innish. Like pulling a thread in a tapestry, and seeing just how far and wide it went.

All the way to the southern continent, it seemed. And it had rippled back with an army and a healed, happy friend. Or as happy as any of them might be at the moment.

Aelin met Chaol’s stare. “Focus on winning this battle,” he said, nodding once in understanding at the fire she knew smoldered in her eyes, “and then we shall decide.”

Princess Hasar smirked at Aelin. “So be sure to impress us.”

Again, that tension rippled through the room.

Aelin held the princess’s stare. Smiled slightly. And said nothing.

Nesryn shifted on her feet, as if well aware what that silence could mean.

“How solid are the keep walls?” Gavriel asked Chaol, gently steering the conversation away.

Chaol rubbed at his jaw. “They’ve withstood sieges before, but Morath has been hammering them for days. The battlements are solid enough, but another few blows from the catapults and towers might start coming down.”

Rowan crossed his arms. “The walls were breached today?”

“They were,” Chaol said grimly. “By a siege tower. The ruks couldn’t arrive in time to pull it down.” Nesryn cringed, but Sartaq did not offer an apology. Chaol went on, “We secured the walls, but the Valg soldiers cut down a number of our men—from Anielle, that is.”

Aelin surveyed the map, blocking out the challenge of the fierce-eyed princess who was a mirror in so many ways. “So how do we play it? Do we slam through the lines, or pick them off one by one?”

Nesryn stabbed a finger onto the map, right atop the Silver Lake. “What if we pushed them to the lake itself?”

Hasar hummed, all traces of taunting gone. “Morath placed itself foolishly in their greed to sack the city. They didn’t estimate being trampled by the Darghan, or picked apart by the rukhin.”

Aelin glanced sidelong to Rowan. Found him already staring at her.

We’ll convince them to go to Terrasen, her mate said silently.

Chaol leaned forward, back quivering a bit, and ran a finger over the lake’s western shore. “This section of the lake, unfortunately, is shallow a hundred yards from the shore. The army might be able to wade out there, draw us into the water.”

“A few hours in that water,” Yrene countered, mouth a tight line, “would kill them. The hypothermia would set in quickly. Maybe within minutes, depending on the wind.”

“That’s if the Valg fall victim to such things,” Hasar said. “They don’t die like true men in most ways, and you claim they hail from a land of darkness and cold.” So the royals truly knew about their enemies, then. “We might push them into the water to find they don’t care at all. And in doing so, risk exposing our troops to the elements.” The princess jabbed the keep walls. “We’re better off pushing them right into the stone, breaking them apart against it.”

Aelin was inclined to agree.

Lorcan opened his mouth to say something no doubt unpleasant, but footsteps squelching in mud outside the tent had them whirling toward the entrance long before a pretty, dark-haired young woman burst in, twin braids swinging. “You wouldn’t believe—”

She halted upon seeing Aelin. Seeing the Fae males. Her mouth popped into an O.

Nesryn chuckled. “Borte, meet—”

Another set of steps in the mud, heavier and slower than Borte’s quick movements, and then a young man stumbled in, his skin not the gold-kissed brown of Borte or the royals, but pale. “It’s back,” he panted, gaping at Nesryn. “For days now, I swore I felt something, noted changes, but today it just all came back.”

Nesryn angled her head, her curtain of dark hair sliding over an armored shoulder. “Who …”

Borte squeezed the young man’s arm. “Falkan. It’s Falkan, Nesryn.”

Prince Sartaq stalked to Nesryn’s side, graceful as any Fae warrior. “How.”

But the young man had turned toward Aelin, eyes narrowing. As if trying to place her.

Then he said, “The assassin from the market in Xandria.”

Aelin arched a brow. “Hopefully, the horse I stole didn’t belong to you.”

A cough from Fenrys. Aelin threw the warrior a grin over her shoulder.

The young man’s eyes darted over her face, then landed on the enormous emerald on her finger. The even bigger ruby in Goldryn’s hilt.

Borte blurted to Nesryn, “One minute, we were eating dinner at the campfire, then the next, Falkan clutched his stomach like he was going to puke up his guts all over everyone”—a glare from Falkan at Borte—“and then his face was young. He’s young.”

“I was always young,” Falkan muttered. “I just didn’t look it.” His gray eyes again found Aelin’s. “I gave you a piece of Spidersilk.”

For a heartbeat, the then and the now blended and wobbled. “The merchant,” Aelin murmured. She’d last seen him in the Red Desert—looking twenty years older. “You sold your youth to a stygian spider.”

“You two know each other?” Nesryn gaped.

“The threads of fate weave together in strange ways,” Falkan said, then smiled at Aelin. “I never got your name.”

Hasar chuckled from the other side of the desk. “You already know it, shifter.”

Before Falkan could figure it out, Fenrys stepped forward. “Shifter?”

But Nesryn said, “And Lysandra’s uncle.”

Aelin slumped into the chair beside Chaol’s. Rowan laid a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up, she found him near laughter. “What’s so funny, exactly?” she hissed.

Rowan smirked. “That for once, you are the one who gets knocked on your ass by a surprise.”

Aelin stuck out her tongue. Borte grinned, and Aelin winked at the girl.

But Falkan said to Aelin and her companions, “You know my niece.”

His brother must have been a great deal older to have sired Lysandra. There was nothing of Falkan in her friend’s face, though Lysandra had also forgotten her original form.

“Lysandra is my friend, and Lady of Caraverre,” Aelin said. “She is not with us,” she added upon Falkan’s hopeful glance toward the tent flaps. “She’s in the North.”

Borte had gone back to studying the Fae males. Not their considerable beauty, but their size, their pointed ears, their weapons and elongated canines. Aelin whispered conspiratorially to the girl, “Make them roll over before you offer them a treat.”

Lorcan glared, but Fenrys shifted in a flash, the enormous white wolf filling the space.

Hasar swore, Sartaq backing away a step, but Borte beamed. “You are all truly Fae, then.”

Gavriel, ever the gallant knight, sketched a bow. Lorcan, the bastard, just crossed his arms.

Yet Rowan smiled at Borte. “Indeed we are.”

Borte whirled to Aelin. “Then you are Aelin Galathynius. You look just how Nesryn said.”

Aelin grinned at Nesryn, the woman leaning against Sartaq’s side. “I hope you only said horrible things about me.”

“Only the worst,” Nesryn said with dead flatness, though her mouth twitched.

But Falkan whispered, “The queen,” and fell to his knees.

Hasar laughed. “He never showed that sort of awe when he met us.”

Sartaq lifted his brows. “You told him to turn into a rat and scuttle away.”

Aelin hoisted up Falkan by the shoulder. “I can’t have my friend’s uncle kneeling on the ground, can I?”

“You said you were an assassin.” Falkan’s eyes were so wide the whites around them gleamed. “You stole horses from the Lord of Xandria—”

“Yes, yes,” Aelin said, waving a hand. “It’s a long story, and we’re in the middle of a war council, so …”

“Piss off?” Falkan finished.

Aelin laughed, but glanced to Nesryn and Sartaq. The former jerked her chin to Falkan. “He’s become our spy of sorts. He joins us in these meetings.”

Aelin nodded, then winked at the shifter. “I suppose you didn’t need me to slay that stygian spider after all.”

But Falkan tensed, his attention going to Nesryn and Sartaq, to Borte, still gawking at the Fae males. “Do they know?”

Aelin had a feeling she’d need to sit down again. Chaol indeed patted the chair beside him, earning a chuckle from Yrene.

Doing herself a favor, Aelin indeed sat, Rowan taking up his place behind her, both of his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. His thumb ran along the nape of her neck, then drifted over the mating marks again scarring one side thanks to the seawater they’d used to seal them.

But as her muscles soothed beneath that loving touch, her soul with it, her breath remained tight.

It didn’t get any better when Nesryn said, “The stygian spiders are Valg.”

Silence.

“We encountered their kin, the kharankui, deep in the Dagul Fells. They came into this world through a temporary crack between realms, and remained afterward to guard the entrance, should it ever reappear.”

“This cannot end well,” Fenrys muttered. Elide hummed her agreement.

“They feed on dreams and years and life,” Falkan said, a hand on his own chest. “As my friends have said the Valg do.”

Aelin had seen Valg princes drain a human of every last drop of youth and vigor and leave only a dried corpse behind. She wouldn’t put it past the spiders to have a similar gift.

“What does this mean for the war?” Rowan asked, his thumbs still stroking Aelin’s neck.

“Will they join Erawan’s forces is the better question,” Lorcan challenged with a face like stone.

“They do not answer to Erawan,” Nesryn said quietly, and Aelin knew. Knew from the look Chaol gave her, the sympathy and fear, knew in her bones before Nesryn even finished. “The stygian spiders, the kharankui, answer to their Valg queen. The only Valg queen. To Maeve.”