Kingdom of Ash

The four of them strode in silence through the trees. Down the ancient road to the salt mines.

It was the only place the scouts weren’t watching.

Every step closer made her queasy, a slow sweat breaking down her spine. Rowan kept his hand gripped around hers, his thumb brushing over her skin.

Here, in this horrible, dead place of so much suffering—here was where she would face her fate. As if she had never escaped it, not really.

Under the cover of darkness, the mountains in which the mines were carved were little more than shadows. The great wall that surrounded the death camp was nothing but a stain of blackness.

The gates had been left open, one broken on its hinges. Perhaps the freed slaves had tried to rip it down on their way out.

Aelin’s fingers tightened on Rowan’s as they passed beneath the archway and entered the open grounds of the mines. There, in the center—there stood the wooden posts where she had been whipped. On her first day, on so many days.

And there, in the mountain to her left—that was where the pits were. The lightless pits they’d shoved her into.

The buildings of the mines’ overseers were dark. Husks.

It took all her self-control to keep from looking at her wrists, where the shackle scars had been. To not feel the cold sweat sliding down her back and know no scars lay there, either. Just Rowan’s tattoo, inked over smooth skin.

As if this place were a dream—some nightmare conjured by Maeve.

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.

“I never thought we’d see this place again,” Dorian murmured. “Certainly not like this.” None of the king’s steps faltered, his face somber as he gripped Damaris’s hilt. Ready to meet whatever awaited them.

The pain she knew was coming.

No, she had not ever really escaped at all, had she?

They halted near the center of the dirt yard. Elena had walked her through forging the Lock, putting the keys back into the gate. Though there would be no great display of magic, no threat to any around them, she had wanted to be away. Far from anyone else.

In the moonlight, Chaol’s face was pale. “What do you need us to do?”

“Be here,” Aelin said simply. “That is enough.”

It was the only reason she was still able to endure standing here, in this hateful place.

She met Dorian’s inquiring stare and nodded. No use in wasting time.

Dorian embraced Chaol, the two of them speaking too quietly for Aelin to hear.

Aelin only began to sketch a Wyrdmark in the dirt, large enough for her and Dorian to stand in. There would be two, overlapping with each other: Open. Close.

Lock. Unlock.

She’d learned them from the start. Had used them herself.

“No sweet farewells, Princess?” Rowan asked as she traced the mark with her foot.

“They seem dramatic,” Aelin said. “Far too dramatic, even for me.”

But Rowan halted her, the second symbol half-finished. Tipped back her chin. “Even when you’re … there,” he said, his pine-green eyes so bright under the moon. “I am with you.” He laid a hand on her heart. “Here. I am with you here.”

She laid her own hand on his chest, and breathed his scent deep into her lungs, her heart. “As I am with you. Always.”

Rowan kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered onto her mouth. “Come back to me.”

Then Rowan retreated, just beyond the unfinished marks.

The absence of his scent, his heat, filled her with cold. But she kept her shoulders back. Kept her breathing steady as she memorized the lines of Rowan’s face.

Dorian, eyes shining bright, stepped onto the marks. Aelin said to Rowan, “Seal the last one when we’re done.”

Her prince, her mate, nodded.

Dorian drew out a folded bit of cloth from his jacket. Opened it to reveal two slivers of black stone. And the Amulet of Orynth.

Her stomach roiled, nausea at their otherworldliness threatening to bring her to her knees. But she took the Amulet of Orynth from him.

“I thought you might be the one who wished to open it,” Dorian said quietly.

Here in the place where she’d suffered and endured, here in the place where so many things had begun.

Aelin weighed the ancient amulet in her palms, ran her thumbs along the golden seam of its edges. For a heartbeat, she was again in that cozy room in a riverside estate, her mother beside her, bequeathing the amulet into her care.

Aelin traced her fingers over the Wyrdmarks on the back. The runes that spelled out her hateful fate: Nameless is my price.

Written here, all this time, for so many centuries. A warning from Brannon, and a confirmation. Their sacrifice. Her sacrifice.

Brannon had raged at those gods, had marked the amulet and laid all those clues for her to one day find. So she might understand. As if she could somehow defy this fate. A fool’s hope.

Aelin turned the amulet back over, brushing her fingers along the immortal stag on its front.

Borrowed time. It had all been borrowed time.

The gold sealing the amulet melted away in her hands, hissing as it dropped onto the icy dirt. With a twist, she pulled apart the two sides of the amulet.

The unearthly reek of the third key hit her, beckoning. Whispered in languages that did not exist in Erilea and never would.

Aelin only dumped the sliver of Wyrdkey into Dorian’s awaiting hand. It clinked against the other two, and the sound might have echoed into eternity, into all worlds.

Dorian shuddered, Chaol and Rowan flinching.

Aelin just pocketed the two halves of the amulet. A piece of Terrasen to take with her. Wherever they were about to go.

Aelin met Rowan’s stare one last time. Saw the words there. Come back to me.

She’d take those words, that face with her, too. Even when the Lock demanded everything, that would remain. Would always remain.

She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. Broke Rowan’s piercing stare. And then sliced open her palm. Then Dorian’s.

The stars seemed to shift closer, the mountains peering over Aelin’s and Dorian’s shoulders, as she sliced her knife a third time, down her forearm. Deep and wide, skin splitting.

To open the gate, she must become the gate.

Erawan had begun the process of turning Kaltain Rompier into that gate—had put the stone within her arm not for safekeeping, but to prepare her body for the other stones. To turn her into a living Wyrdgate that he might control.

Just one sliver in her body had destroyed Kaltain. To put all three in her own …

My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, and I will not be afraid.

I will not be afraid.

I will not be afraid.

“Ready?” Aelin breathed.

Dorian nodded.

With a final look at the stars, one final look at the Lord of the North standing guard over Terrasen mere miles away, Aelin took the shards from Dorian’s outstretched palm.

And as she and Dorian joined bloodied hands, as their magic roared through them and wove together, blinding and eternal, Aelin slammed the three Wyrdkeys into the open wound of her arm.

Rowan sealed the Wyrdmarks with a swipe of his foot through the icy earth.

Just as Aelin clapped her palm upon her arm, sealing the three Wyrdkeys into her body while her other hand gripped Dorian’s.

It had to work. It had to have been why their paths had crossed, why Aelin and Dorian had found each other twice now, in this exact place. He could accept no other alternative. He couldn’t have let her go otherwise.

Rowan didn’t breathe. Beside him, he wasn’t sure if Chaol did, either.

But while Aelin and Dorian still stood there, heads high despite the fear he scented coursing through them, their faces had gone vacant. Empty.

No flash of light.

No flare of power.

Aelin and Dorian simply stood, hands united, and stared ahead.

Blank. Unseeing. Frozen.

Gone.

Here, but gone. As if their bodies were shells.

“What happened?” Chaol breathed.

Aelin’s hand fell from where it had been clapped onto her arm and dangled limply at her side. Revealing that open wound. The black slivers of rock shoved inside it.

Something in Rowan’s chest, intricate and essential, began to strain. Began to go taut.

The mating bond.

Rowan lurched forward a step, a hand on his chest.

No. The mating bond writhed, as if in agony, as if in terror. He halted, Aelin’s name on his lips.

Rowan fell to his knees as the three Wyrdkeys within Aelin’s arm dissolved into her blood.

Like dew in the sun.