Kingdom of Ash

As it had been once before, so it was again.

The beginning and end and eternity, a torrent of light, of life that flowed between them, two halves of a cleaved bloodline.

Mist swirled, veiling the solid ground beneath. An illusion, perhaps—for their minds to bear where they now stood. A place that was not a place, in a chamber of many doors. More doors than they could ever hope to count. Some made of air, some of glass, some of flame and gold and light.

A new world beyond each; a new world beckoning.

But they remained there, in the crossroads of all things.

In bodies that were not their bodies, they stood amid all those doorways, their power pouring out, pooling before them. Blending and merging, a ball of light, of creation, hovering in midair.

Every ember that flowed from them into the growing sphere before them, into the Lock taking form, would not return. It would not replenish.

A well running dry. Forever.

More and more and more, ripping from them with each breath. Creation and destruction.

The sphere swirled, its edges warping, shrinking. Forming into the shape they’d chosen, a thing of gold and silver. The Lock that would seal all these infinite doors forever.

Still they gave over their power, still the forming of the Lock demanded more.

And it began to hurt.

She was Aelin and yet she was not.

She was Aelin and yet she was infinite; she was all worlds, she was—

She was Aelin.

She was Aelin.

And by letting the keys into her, they had entered the true Wyrdgate. A step, or a thought, or a wish would allow them to access any world they desired. Any possibility.

An archway lingered behind them. An archway that would smell of pine and snow.

Slowly, the Lock formed, light turning to metal—to gold and silver.

Dorian was panting, his jaw stretched tight, as they gave and gave and gave their power toward it. Never to see it again.

It was agony. Agony like nothing she had known.

She was Aelin. She was Aelin and not the things that she’d set in her arm, not this place that existed beyond reason. She was Aelin; she was Aelin; and she had come here to do something, had come here promising to do something—

She fought her rising scream as her power rippled away, like peeling skin from her bones. Precisely how Cairn had done it, delighted in it. She had outlasted him, though. Had escaped Maeve’s clutches. She had outlasted them both. To do this. To come here.

But she had been wrong.

She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stomach it, this loss and pain and growing madness as a new truth became clear:

They would not leave this place. Would have nothing left anyway. They would dissolve, mist to float into the fog around them.

It was agony like Dorian had never known. His very self, unraveled thread by thread.

The shape of the Lock, Elena had told Aelin, did not matter. It could have been a bird or a sword or a flower for all this place, this gate, cared. But their minds, what was left of them as they frayed, chose the shape they knew, the one that made the most sense. The Eye of Elena, born again—the Lock once more.

Aelin began screaming. Screaming and screaming.

His magic ripped away from that sacred, perfect place inside him.

It would kill them to forge it. It’d kill them both. They had come here out of the desperate hope they’d both leave.

And if they did not halt, if they did not stop this, neither would.

He tried to move his head. Tried to tell her. Stop.

His magic tore out of him, the Lock drinking it down, a force not to be leashed. An insatiable hunger that devoured them.

Stop. He tried to speak. Tried to pull back.

Aelin was sobbing now—sobbing through her teeth.

Soon. Soon now, the Lock would take everything. And that final destruction would be the most brutal and painful of all.

Would the gods make them watch as they claimed Elena’s soul? Would he even have the chance, the ability, to try to help her, as he had promised Gavin? He knew the answer.

Stop.

Stop.

“Stop.”

Dorian heard the words and for a heartbeat did not recognize the speaker.

Until a man appeared from one of those impossible-yet-possible doorways. A man who looked of flesh and blood, as they were, and yet shimmered at his edges.

His father.