Kingdom of Ash

Lorcan lingered by the edge of the ruk encampment, barely taking in the magnificent birds or their armored riders as they settled down for the night. A few, he knew, would not yet find their rest, instead bearing them and needed supplies back to the keep towering over the city and plain.

He didn’t care, didn’t marvel that he was soon to be airborne on one of those incredible beasts. Didn’t care that tomorrow, they would all take on the dark army gathered beyond.

He’d fought in more battles, more wars, than he cared to remember. Tomorrow would be little different, save for the demons they’d slay, rather than men or Fae.

Demons like his former queen, apparently.

He had offered himself to her, had wanted her, or believed he did. And she had laughed at him. He didn’t know what it meant. About her, about himself.

He’d thought his darkness, Hellas’s gifts, had been drawn to her, that they’d been matched.

Perhaps the dark god had wanted him not to swear fealty to Maeve, but to kill her. To get close enough to do so.

Lorcan didn’t adjust his cape against the gust of frigid air off the distant lake. Rather, he leaned into the cold, into the ice on the wind. As if it might rip away the truth.

“We’re leaving.”

Elide’s low voice cut through the roaring silence of his thoughts.

“The ruks are ready,” she added.

There was no fear or pity on her face, her black hair gilded by the torches and campfires. Of all of them, she’d mastered the news with little difficulty, stepping up to the desk as if she’d been born on a battlefield.

“I didn’t know,” he said, voice strained.

Elide knew what he meant. “We have bigger things to worry about anyway.”

He took a step toward her. “I didn’t know,” he said again.

She tipped her head back to study his face and pursed her mouth, a muscle ticking in her jaw. “Do you want me to give you some sort of absolution for it?”

“I served her for nearly five hundred years. Five hundred years, and I just thought her to be immortal and cold.”

“That sounds like the definition of a Valg to me.”

He bared his teeth. “You live for eons and see what it does to you, Lady.”

“I don’t see why you’re so shocked. Even with her being immortal and cold, you loved her. You must have accepted those traits. What difference does it make what we call her, then?”

“I didn’t love her.”

“You certainly acted like you did.”

Lorcan snarled, “Why is that the point you keep returning to, Elide? Why is it the one thing you cannot let go of?”

“Because I’m trying to understand. How you could come to love a monster.”

“Why?” He pushed into her space. She didn’t balk one step.

Indeed, her eyes were blazing as she hissed, “Because it will help me understand how I did the same.”

Her voice snagged on the last words, and Lorcan stilled as they settled into them. He’d never … he’d never had anyone who—

“Is it a sickness?” she demanded. “Is it something broken within you?”

“Elide.” Her name was a rasp on his lips. Lorcan dared reach a hand for her.

But she pulled out of reach. “If you think that because you swore the blood oath to Aelin, it means anything for you and me, you’re sorely mistaken. You’re immortal—I’m human. Let us not forget that little fact, either.”

Lorcan nearly recoiled at the words, their horrible truth. He was five hundred years old. He should walk away—he shouldn’t be so damned bothered by any of this. And yet Lorcan snarled, “You’re jealous. That’s what truly eats away at you.”

Elide barked a laugh that he’d never heard before, cruel and sharp. “Jealous? Jealous of what? That demon you served?” She squared her shoulders, a wave cresting before it smashed into the shore. “The only thing that I am jealous of, Lorcan, is that she is rid of you.”

Lorcan hated that the words landed like a blow. That he had no defenses left where she was concerned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of it, Elide.”

There, he’d said it, and laid it out before her. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

But Elide’s face did not warm. “I don’t care,” she said, turning on her heel. “And I don’t care if you walk off that battlefield tomorrow.”

Jealous. The idea of it, of being jealous of Maeve for commanding Lorcan’s affection for centuries. Elide limped toward the readying party of ruks, grinding her teeth so hard her jaw ached.

She was almost to the first of the saddled birds when a voice said behind her, “You should have ignored him.”

Elide halted, finding Gavriel following. “Pardon me?”

The Lion’s usually warm face was grave—disapproving. “You might as well have kicked a male already down.”

Elide hadn’t uttered a cross word to Gavriel in all the time she’d known him, but she said, “I don’t see how this is any of your business.”

“I have never heard Lorcan apologize for anything. Even when Maeve whipped him for a mistake, he did not apologize to her.”

“And that means he earns my forgiveness?”

“No. But you have to realize that he swore the blood oath to Aelin for you. For no one else. So he could remain near you. Even knowing well enough that you will have a mortal lifespan.”

The birds shifted on their feet, rustling their wings in anticipation of flight.

She knew. Had known it the moment he’d knelt before Aelin. Weeks later, Elide hadn’t known what to do with it, the knowledge that Lorcan had done this for her. The longing to talk to him, to work with him as they had. She’d hated herself for it. For not trying to hold on to her anger longer.

It was why she’d gone after him tonight. Not to punish him, but herself. To remind herself of who he’d sold their queen to, how profoundly mistaken she had been.

And her parting line to him … it was a lie. A disgusting, hateful lie.

Elide turned to Gavriel again. “I don’t—”

The Lion was gone. And for the cold flight over the army, then over the sea of darkness spread between it and the ancient city, even that wise voice who had whispered for the entirety of her life had gone quiet.

Nesryn lingered by Salkhi, a hand on her mount’s feathered side, and watched the party soar into the skies. The twenty ruks hadn’t just been bearing Aelin Galathynius and her companions, Chaol and Yrene included, but also more healers, supplies, and a few horses, hooded and corralled into wooden pens that the birds could carry. Including Chaol’s own horse, Farasha.

“I wish I could go with them,” Borte sighed from where she was rubbing down Arcas. “To fight alongside the Fae.”

Nesryn gave her an amused, sidelong glance. “You’ll get that opportunity soon enough, if we march to Terrasen after this.”

Nearby, a distinctly male snort of derision sounded.

“Go eavesdrop on someone else, Yeran,” Borte snapped toward her betrothed.

But the Berlad captain only answered back, “A fine commander you are, mooning over the Fae like a doe-eyed girl.”

Borte rolled her eyes. “When they teach me their killing techniques and I use them to wipe you off the map at our next Gathering, you can tell me all about my mooning.”

The handsome captain stormed over from his own ruk, and Nesryn ducked her head to hide her smile, finding herself immensely interested in brushing Salkhi’s brown feathers. “You’ll be my wife then, according to your bargain with my hearth-mother,” he said, crossing his arms. “It would be unseemly for you to kill your own husband in the Gathering.”

Borte smiled with poisoned sweetness at her betrothed. “I’ll just have to kill you some other time, then.”

Yeran grinned back, the portrait of wicked amusement. “Some other time, then,” he promised.

Nesryn didn’t fail to note the light that gleamed in the captain’s eyes. Or the way Borte bit her lip, just barely, her breath hitching.

Yeran leaned in to whisper something in Borte’s ear that made the girl’s eyes widen. And apparently stunned her enough that when Yeran prowled to his ruk, the portrait of swaggering arrogance, Borte blushed furiously and returned to cleaning her ruk.

“Don’t ask,” she muttered.

Nesryn held up her hands. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Borte’s blush remained for minutes afterward, her cleaning near-frantic.

Easy, graceful steps sounded in the snow, and Nesryn knew who approached before the rukhin even straightened to attention. Not at the fact that Sartaq was prince and Heir, but that he was their captain. Of all the rukhin in this war, not just the Eridun aerie.

He waved them off, scanning the night sky and ruks still soaring, shielded by Rowan Whitethorn from any enemy arrows that might find their mark. Sartaq had barely come up beside Nesryn when Borte patted Arcas, tossed her brush into her supply pack, and walked into the night.

Not to give them privacy, Nesryn realized. Not when Yeran prowled from his own ruk’s side a heartbeat later, trailing Borte at a lazy pace. The girl looked over her shoulder once, and there was anything but annoyance on her face as she noted Yeran at her heels.

Sartaq chuckled. “At least they’re a little more clear about it now.”

Nesryn snorted, brush gliding over Salkhi’s feathers. “I’m as confused as ever.”

“The riders whose tents lie on either side of Borte’s aren’t.”

Nesryn’s brows rose, but she smiled. “Good. Not about the riders, but—about them.”

“War does strange things to people. Makes everything more urgent.” He ran a hand down the back of her head, his fingers twining in her hair before he murmured in her ear, “Come to bed.”

Heat flared through her body. “We’ve a battle to launch tomorrow. Again.”

“And a day of death has made me want to hold you,” the prince said, giving her that disarming grin she had no defenses against. Especially as he added, “And do other things with you.”

Nesryn’s toes curled in her boots. “Then help me finish cleaning Salkhi.”

The prince lunged so fast for the brush Borte had discarded that Nesryn laughed.