Kingdom of Ash

Cairn tied her to the altar and left her.

Fenrys didn’t enter until long after she’d awoken.

The blood was still leaking from where Cairn had also left the glass in her legs, her feet.

It was not a wolf who slipped into the stone chamber, but a male.

Each of Fenrys’s steps told her enough before she beheld the deadness of his eyes, the pallor of his usually golden skin. He stared at nothing, even as he stopped before where she lay chained.

Beyond words, unsure her throat would even work, Aelin blinked three times. Are you all right?

Two blinks answered. No.

Lingering salt tracks streaked his cheeks.

Her chains rustled as she stretched a shaking finger toward him.

Silently, he slid his hand into hers.

She mouthed the words, even though he likely couldn’t make them out with the slit of the mask’s mouth. I’m sorry.

His grip only tightened.

His gray jacket was unbuttoned at the top. It gaped open wide enough to reveal a hint of the muscled chest beneath. As if he hadn’t bothered to seal it back up in his hurry to leave.

Her stomach turned over. What he’d undoubtedly had to do afterward, with his twin’s body still lying on the veranda tiles behind him …

“I didn’t know he hated me so much,” Fenrys rasped.

Aelin squeezed his hand.

Fenrys closed his eyes, drawing in a shaking breath. “She gave me leave only to take out the glass. When it’s out, I—I go back over there.” He pointed with his chin toward the wall where he usually sat. He made to examine her legs, but she squeezed his hand again, and blinked twice. No.

Let him stay in this form for a while longer, let him mourn as a male and not a wolf. Let him stay in this form so she could hear a friendly voice, feel a gentle touch—

She began to cry.

She couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop it once it started. Hated every tear and shuddering breath, every jerk of her body that sent lightning through her legs and feet.

“I’ll get them out,” he said, and she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t start to explain that it wasn’t the glass, the shredded skin down to the bone.

He wasn’t coming. He wasn’t coming to get her.

She should be glad. Should be relieved. She was relieved. And yet … and yet …

Fenrys drew out a pair of pincers from the tool kit that Cairn had left on a table nearby. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, Aelin turned her head away while the first piece of glass slid from her knee. Flesh and sinew sundered anew.

Salt overpowered the tang of her blood, and she knew he was crying. The scent of their tears filled the tiny room as he worked.

Neither of them said a word.