Kingdom of Ash
Page 59

Lysandra closed her eyes.
Hay rustled, and she knew he’d risen to his feet, knew it as his words speared from above her bowed head. “Get out of my tent.”
She wasn’t certain she could move enough to obey, though she wished to. Needed to.
Fight back. She should fight back. Rage at him as he lashed at her, needing an outlet for his fear and despair.
Lysandra opened her eyes, peering up at him. At the rage on his face, the hatred.
She managed to stand, her body bleating in pain. Managed to look him in the eye, even as Aedion said again with quiet cold, “Get out.”
Barefoot in the snow, naked beneath her cloak. Aedion glanced at her bare legs, as if realizing it. And not caring.
So Lysandra nodded, clutching Ansel’s cloak tighter, and strode into the frigid night.
“Where is she?” Ren asked, a mug of what smelled like watery soup in one hand, a chunk of bread in the other. The lord scanned the tent as if he would find her under the cot, the hay.
Aedion stared at the precious few logs burning in the brazier, and said nothing.
“What have you done?” Ren breathed.
Everything was about to end. Had been doomed since Maeve had stolen Aelin. Since his queen and the shifter had struck their agreement.
So it didn’t matter, what he’d said. He hadn’t cared if it wasn’t fair, wasn’t true.
Didn’t care if he was so tired he couldn’t muster shame at his pinning on her the blame for the sure defeat they’d face in a matter of days before Perranth’s walls.
He wished she’d smacked him, had screamed at him.
But she had let him rage. And had walked out into the snow, barefoot.
He’d promised to save Terrasen, to hold the lines. Had done so for years.
And yet this test against Morath, when it had counted … he had failed.
He’d muster the strength to fight again. To rally his men. He just … he needed to sleep.
Aedion didn’t notice when Ren left, undoubtedly in search of the shifter with whom he was so damned enamored.
He should summon his Bane commanders. See how they thought to manage this disaster.
But he couldn’t. Could do nothing but stare into that fire as the long night passed.
CHAPTER 35
She had not trusted this world, this dream. The companions who had walked with her, led her here. The warrior-prince with pine-green eyes and who smelled of Terrasen.
Him, she had not dared to believe at all. Not the words he spoke, but the mere fact that he was there. She did not trust that he’d removed the mask, the irons. They had vanished in other dreams, too—dreams that had proved false.
But the Little Folk had told her it was true. All of this. They had said it was safe, and she was to rest, and they would look after her.
And that terrible, relentless pressure writhing in her veins—it had eased. Just enough to think, to breathe and act beyond pure instinct.
She’d siphoned off as much as she dared, but not all. Certainly not all.
So she had slept. She’d done that, too, in those other dreams. Had lived through days and weeks of stories that then washed away like footprints in the sand.
Yet when she opened her eyes, the cave remained, dimmer now. The thrumming power had nestled deeper, slumbering. The ache in her ribs had faded, the slice down her forearm had healed—but the scab remained.
The only mark on her.
Aelin prodded it with a finger. Dull pain echoed in response.
Smooth—not the scab, but her finger. Smooth like glass as she rubbed the pads of her thumb and forefinger together.
No calluses. Not on her fingers, on her palms. Utterly blank, wiped of the imprint from the years of training, or the year in Endovier.
But this new scab, this faint throbbing beneath it—that remained, at least.
Curled on the rock floor, she took in the cave.
The white wolf lay at her back, snoring softly. Their sphere of transparent flame still burned around them, easing the strain ember by ember. But not wholly.
Aelin swallowed, tasting ash.
Her magic opened an eye in response.
Aelin sucked in a breath. Not here—not yet.
She whispered it to the flame. Not yet.
But the flame around her and the wolf flared and thickened, blotting out the cave. She clenched her jaw.
Not yet, she promised it. Not until it could be done safely. Away from them.
Her magic pushed against her bones, but she ignored it. Leashed it.
The bubble of flame shrunk, protesting, and grew transparent once more. Through it she could make out a water-carved basin, the slumbering forms of her other companions.
The warrior-prince slept only a few feet from the edge of her fire, tucked into an alcove in the cave wall. Exhaustion lay heavy upon him, though he had not disarmed himself.
A sword hung from his belt, its ruby smoldering in the light of her fire.
She knew that sword. An ancient sword, forged in these lands for a deadly war.
It had been her sword, too. Those erased calluses had fit its hilt so perfectly. And the warrior-prince now bearing it had found the sword for her. In a cave like this one, full of the relics of heroes long since sent to the Afterworld.
She studied the tattoo snaking down the side of his face and neck, vanishing into his dark clothes.
I am your mate.
She had wanted to believe him, but this dream, this illusion she’d been spun …
Not an illusion.
He had come for her.
Rowan.
Rowan Whitethorn. Now Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, her husband and king-consort. Her mate.
She mouthed his name.
He had come for her.
Rowan.
Silently, so smoothly that not even the white wolf awoke, she sat up, a hand clutching the cloak that smelled of pine and snow. His cloak, his scent woven through the fibers.
She rose to her feet, legs sturdier than they’d been. A thought had the bubble of flame expanding as she crossed the few feet toward the sleeping prince.
She peered down at his face, handsome and yet unyielding.
His eyes opened, meeting hers as if he’d known where to find her even in sleep.
An unspoken question arose in those green eyes. Aelin?
She ignored the silent inquiry, unable to bear opening that silent channel between them again, and surveyed the powerful lines of his body, the sheer size of him. A gentle wind kissed with ice and lightning brushed against her wall of flame, an echo of his silent inquiry.
Her magic flared in answer, a ripple of power dancing through her.
As if it had found a mirror of itself in the world, as if it had found the countermelody to its own song.
Not once in those illusions or dreams had it done that. Had her own flame leaped in joy at his nearness, his power.
He was here. It was him, and he’d come for her.
The flame melted into nothing but cool cave air. Not melted, but rather sucked inside herself, coiling, a great beast straining at the leash.
Rowan. Prince Rowan.
He sat up slowly, a stillness settling over him.
He knew. He’d said it to her earlier, before she’d let oblivion claim her. I am your mate.
They must have told him, then. Their companions. Elide and Lorcan and Gavriel. They’d all been on that beach where everything had gone to hell.
Her magic surged, and she rolled her shoulders, willing it to sleep, to wait—just a while longer.
She was here. They were both here.
What could she ever say to him, to explain it, to make it right? That he’d been used so foully, had suffered so greatly, because of her?
There was blood on him. So much blood, soaking into his dark clothes. From the smears on his neck, the arcs under his fingernails, it seemed he’d tried to wash some off. But the scent remained.
She knew that smell—who it belonged to.
Her spine tightened, her limbs tensing. Working past her clenched jaw, she inhaled sharply. Forced a long breath out through her teeth. Forced herself to work past the scent of Cairn’s blood. What it did to her. Her magic thrashed, howling.
And she made herself say to him, to her prince who smelled of home, “Is he alive?”
Cold rage flickered across Rowan’s eyes. “No.”
Dead. Cairn was dead. The tautness in her body eased—just slightly. Her flame, too, banked. “How?”
No remorse dimmed his face. “You once told me at Mistward that if I ever took a whip to you, then you’d skin me alive.” His eyes didn’t stray from hers as he said with lethal quiet, “I took it upon myself to bestow that fate on Cairn on your behalf. And when I was done, I took the liberty of removing his head from his body, then burning what remained.” A pause, a ripple of doubt. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you the chance to do it yourself.”