Kingdom of Ash

Chaol’s back strained, pain lashing down his spine. Whether from his wife’s healing within the castle walls or from the hours of fighting, he had no idea.

Didn’t care, as he and Dorian galloped through the southern gate into Orynth, the two of them little more than unmarked riders amid the army racing in. Bracing for the impact of the fresh host marching toward them.

Night would soon fall. Morath would not wait until dawn. Not with the darkness that hovered above them like some sort of awful cloud.

What flew and scuttled in that darkness, what waited for them …

Dorian was nearly slumped in his saddle, shield strapped over his back, Damaris sheathed at his side.

“You look how I feel,” Chaol managed to say.

Dorian slid sapphire eyes toward him, a spark of humor lighting the haunted depths. “I know a king shouldn’t slouch,” he said, rubbing at his blood-and-dirt-splattered face. “But I can’t bring myself to care.”

Chaol smiled grimly. “We have worse to worry about.”

Much worse.

They hurried toward the castle, turning up the hill that would take them to its doors, when a horn cut across the battlefield.

A warning.

With the view the hill offered, they could clearly see it. What sent the soldiers racing toward them with renewed urgency.

Morath was picking up speed.

As if realizing that their prey was on its last legs and not wishing to let them recover.

Chaol glanced to Dorian, and they reined their horses back toward the city walls. The khagan’s soldiers did so as well, running down the hills they’d been scaling.

Back toward the battlements. And the hell soon to be unleashed upon it once more.

Slumped against a dead wyvern, Aelin drained the last of her waterskin.

Beside her, Ansel of Briarcliff panted through her gritted teeth while healer’s magic pulled the edges of her wound together. A nasty, deep slice to Ansel’s arm.

Bad enough that Ansel hadn’t been able to hold a weapon. So they had halted, just as the tide of the battle had shifted, their enemy now fleeing Orynth’s walls.

Aelin’s head swam, her magic down to the dregs, her limbs leaden. The roar of battle still buzzed in her ears.

Covered in gore and mud, no one recognized either queen where they’d fallen to their knees, so close to the southern gates. Soldiers ran past, trying to get into the city before the army at their backs arrived.

Just a minute. She needed to only catch her breath for a minute. Then they’d hurry to the southern gate. Into Orynth.

Into her home.

Ansel swore, swaying, and the healer shot out a hand to brace her.

Not good. Not at all.

Aelin knew what and who marched toward them.

Lysandra had returned to the skies long ago, rejoining the rebel Ironteeth and Crochans. Where Rowan now was, where the cadre was, she didn’t know. Had lost them hours or days or lifetimes ago.

Rowan was safe—the mating bond told her enough. No mortal wounds. And through the blood oath, she knew Fenrys and Lorcan still breathed.

Whether she could say that for the rest of her friends, she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know, not yet.

The healer finished Ansel, and when the woman turned, Aelin held up a hand. “Go help someone who needs it,” Aelin rasped.

The healer didn’t hesitate before she hurried off, sprinting toward the sound of screaming.

“We need to get into the city,” Ansel murmured, leaning her head against the ironclad hide behind her. “Before they shut the gate.”

“We do,” Aelin said, willing strength to her exhausted legs so she might stand. Assess how far away that final, crushing host was.

A plan. She’d had a plan for this. They all had.

But time hadn’t been on her side. Perhaps her luck had faded with the gods she’d destroyed.

Aelin swallowed against the dryness in her mouth and grunted as she got to her feet. The world swayed, but she stayed upright. Managed to grab the reins of a passing Darghan rider and order her to stop.

To take the red-haired queen half-delirious on the ground.

Ansel barely protested when Aelin heaved her into the saddle behind the soldier.

Aelin stood beside the felled wyvern, watching her friend until she’d passed through the southern gate. Into Orynth.

Slowly, Aelin turned to the rising wave of darkness.

She had doomed them.

Behind her, the southern gate groaned shut.

The boom echoed into her bones.

Soldiers left on the field shouted in panic, but orders went out. Form the lines. Ready for battle.

She could do this. Adjust the plan.

She still scanned the skies for a white-tailed hawk.

No sign of him.

Good. Good, she told herself.

Aelin shut her eyes for a heartbeat. Put a hand on her chest. As if it might steady her, prepare her, for what squatted in the approaching darkness.

Soldiers shouted as they rallied, the screams of the injured and dying ringing throughout, wings booming everywhere.

Still Aelin remained there for a moment longer, just beyond the gates to her city. Her home. Still she pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the heart thundering beneath, feeling the dust of every road she had traveled these ten years to return here.

For this moment. For this purpose.

So she whispered it to herself, one last time. The story.

Her story.

Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …

Yrene had halted her healing only for a few minutes. Her power flowed, strong and bright, undimming despite the work she’d been doing for hours.

But she’d stopped, needing to see what had happened. Hearing that their soldiers, with victory in hand, had fled back to the city walls, had only sent her running for the castle battlements faster, Elide with her. As she had been all day, helping her.

Elide winced as they took the stairs up to the battlements, but made no complaint. The lady scanned the crowded space, looking for someone, something. Her gaze settled on an old man, a child with remarkable red-gold hair beside him. Messengers approached him, then darted away.

A leader—someone in charge, Yrene realized after Elide did, already limping to them.

The old man faced them as they approached, and started. At the sight of Elide.

Yrene stopped caring about the introductions as her gaze landed on the battlefield.

On the army—another army—marching on them, half veiled in darkness. Six kharankui at their front lines.

The khagan’s soldiers had gathered by the walls, both outside and within the city. The southern gate now stood closed.

Not enough. Not nearly enough to face what marched, fresh and unwearied. The creatures she could just barely make out teeming within its ranks. Valg princesses—there were Valg princesses amongst them.

Chaol. Where was Chaol—

Elide and the old man were speaking. “We cannot face that number of soldiers and walk away,” the lady said, her voice so unlike any tone Yrene had heard from her. Commanding and cold. Elide pointed to the battlefield. The darkness—holy gods, the darkness—that massed over it.

A chill slithered over Yrene’s body.

“Do you know what that is?” Elide asked too quietly. “Because I do.”

The old man only swallowed.

Yrene knew it then. What was in that darkness. Who was in it.

Erawan.

The last of the sun vanished, setting the bloodied snows in hues of blue.

A flash of light flared behind them, and the child whirled, a sob breaking from her throat as a stunningly beautiful woman, bloodied and battered, appeared. She wrapped a cloak around her naked body like a gown, not even shivering with the cold.

A shape-shifter. She opened her arms to the girl, embracing her.

Lysandra, Chaol had called her. A lady in Aelin’s court. Unknown niece to Falkan Ennar.

Lysandra turned to the old man. “Aedion and Rowan sent up the order, Darrow. Any who can are to evacuate immediately.”

The old man—Darrow—just stared toward the battlefield. At a loss for words as that army prowled closer and closer and closer.

As two figures took form at its head.

And walked, unhindered, toward the city walls, darkness swarming around them.

Erawan. The golden-haired young man. She’d know it if she were blind.

A dark-haired, pale-skinned woman strode at his side, robes billowing around her on a phantom wind.

“Maeve,” Lysandra breathed.

People began screaming then. In terror and despair.

Maeve and Erawan had come. To personally oversee Orynth’s fall.

They stalked toward the city gates, the darkness behind them gathering, the army at their backs swelling. Pincers clicked within that darkness. Creatures who could devour life, joy.

Oh gods.

“Lord Darrow,” Elide cut in, sharp and commanding. “Is there a way out of the city? Some sort of back door through the mountains that the children and elderly could take?”

Darrow dragged his eyes from the approaching Valg king and queen.

It was helplessness and despair that filled them. That broke his voice as he said, “No route that will allow them to escape in time.”

“Tell me where it is,” Lysandra ordered. “So they might try, at least.” She grabbed for the girl’s arm. “So Evangeline might try to run.”

A defeat. What had seemed like a triumphant victory was about to become an absolute defeat. A butchering.

Led by Maeve and Erawan, now a mere hundred yards from the city walls.

Only ancient stone and iron stood between them and Orynth.

Darrow hesitated. In shock. The old man was in shock.

But Evangeline pointed a finger. Out toward the gates, toward Maeve and Erawan. “Look.”

And there she was.

In the deepening blues of descending night, amid the snow beginning to fall, Aelin Galathynius had appeared before the sealed southern gate.

Had appeared before Erawan and Maeve.

Her unbound hair billowed in the wind like a golden banner, a last ray of light with the dying of the day.

Silence fell. Even the screaming stopped as all turned toward the gate.

But Aelin did not balk. Did not run from the Valg queen and king who halted as if in delight at the lone figure who dared face them.

Lysandra let out a strangled sob. “She—she has no magic left.” The shifter’s voice broke. “She has nothing left.”

Still Aelin lifted her sword.

Flames ran down the blade.

One flame against the darkness gathered.

One flame to light the night.

Aelin raised her shield, and flames encircled it, too.

Burning bright, burning undaunted. A vision of old, reborn once more.

The cry went down the castle battlements, through the city, along the walls.

The queen had come home at last.

The queen had come to hold the gate.