Kingdom of Ash

Human no more.

Aelin’s breath rasped in her ears—her permanently arched, immortal ears—with each step back toward the camped army. Rowan remained at her side, a hand around her waist.

He hadn’t let go of her once. Not once, since she’d come back.

Since she’d walked through worlds.

She could see them still. Even walking in silence under the trees, the darkness yielding toward the grayish light before dawn, she could see each and every one of those worlds she’d broken through.

Perhaps she’d never stop seeing them. Perhaps she alone in this world and all others knew what lay beyond the invisible walls separating them. How much life dwelled and thrived. Loved and hated and struggled to claw out a living.

So many worlds. More than she could contemplate. Would her dreams forever be haunted by them? To have glimpsed them, but been unable to explore—would that longing take root?

Oakwald’s branches formed a skeletal lattice overhead. Bars of a cage.

As her body, and this world, might be.

She shook off the thought. She had lived—lived, when she should have died. Even if her mortal self … that had been killed. Melted away.

The outer edges of the camp neared, and Aelin peered down at her hands. Cold—that was a trace of cold now biting into them.

Altered in every way.

Dorian said as they approached the first of the rukhin, “What are you going to tell them?”

The first words any of them had spoken since they’d begun the trek back here.

“The truth,” Aelin said.

She supposed it was all she had to offer them, after what she’d done.

She said to Dorian, “I’m sorry—about your father.”

The chill wind brushed the strands of Dorian’s hair off his brow. “So am I,” he said, resting a hand atop Damaris’s hilt.

At his side, Chaol kept silent, though he glanced at the king every now and then. He’d look out for Dorian. As he always had, Aelin supposed.

They passed the first of the ruks, the birds eyeing them, and found Lorcan, Fenrys, Gavriel, and Elide waiting by the edge of the tents.

Chaol and Dorian murmured something about gathering the other royals, and peeled away.

Aelin remained close to Rowan as they approached their court. Fenrys scanned her from head to toe, nostrils flaring as he scented her. He staggered a step closer, horror creeping across his face. Gavriel only paled.

Elide gasped. “You did it, didn’t you?”

But it was Lorcan who answered, stiffening, as if sensing the change that had come over her, “You—you’re not human.”

Rowan snarled in warning. Aelin just looked at them, the people who’d given so much and chosen to follow her here, their doom still remaining. To succeed, and yet to utterly fail.

Erawan remained. His army remained.

And there would be no Fire-Bringer, no Wyrdkeys, no gods to assist them.

“They’re gone?” Elide asked softly.

Aelin nodded. She’d explain later. Explain it to all of them.

God-killer. That’s what she was. A god-killer. She didn’t regret it. Not one bit.

Elide asked Lorcan, “Do you—do you feel any different?” The lack of the gods who’d watched over them.

Lorcan peered up at the trees overhead, as if reading the answer in their entangled branches. As if searching for Hellas there. “No,” he admitted.

“What does it mean,” Gavriel mused, the first rays of sun beginning to gild his golden hair, “for them to be gone? Is there a hell-realm whose throne now sits vacant?”

“It’s too early for that sort of philosophical bullshit,” Fenrys said, and offered Aelin a half smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. Reproach lay there—not for her choice, but in not telling them. Yet he still tried to make light of it.

Doomed—that lovely, wolfish grin might be in its final days of existence.

They might all be in their last days of existence now. Because of her.

Rowan read it in her eyes, her face. His hand tightened on her waist. “Let’s find the others.”

Standing inside one of the khagan’s fine war tents, Dorian held his hands out before a fire of his own making and winced. “That meeting could have gone better.”

Chaol, seated across the fire, Yrene in his lap, toyed with the end of his wife’s braid. “It really could have.”

Yrene frowned. “I don’t know how she didn’t walk out and leave everyone to rot. I would have.”

“Never underestimate the power of guilt when it comes to Aelin Galathynius,” Dorian said, and sighed. The fire he’d summoned fluttered.

“She sealed the Wyrdgate.” Yrene scowled. “The least they could do is be grateful for it.”

“Oh, I have no doubt they are,” Chaol said, frowning now as well. “But the fact remains that Aelin promised one thing, and did the opposite.”

Indeed. Dorian didn’t quite know what to think of Aelin’s choice. Or that she’d even told them about it—about trading Erawan for Elena. The gods betraying her in turn.

And then Aelin destroying them for it.

“Typical,” Dorian said, trying for humor and failing. Some part of him still felt as if he were in that place-of-places.

Especially when some part of him had been given up.

The magic that had felt bottomless only yesterday now had a very real, very solid stopping point. A mighty gift, yes, but he did not think he’d ever again be capable of shattering glass castles or enemy strongholds.

He hadn’t yet decided whether it was a relief.

It was more power, at least, than Aelin had been left with. Gifted with, it sounded like. Aelin had burned through every ember of her own magic. What she now possessed was all that remained of what Mala had given her to seal the gate—to punish the gods who had betrayed them both.

The idea of it still made Dorian queasy. And the memory of Aelin choosing to throw him out of that non-place still made him grind his teeth. Not at her choice, but that his father—

He’d think about his father later. Never.

His nameless father, who had come for him in the end.

Chaol hadn’t asked about it, hadn’t pushed. And Dorian knew that whenever he was ready to talk about it, his friend would be waiting.

Chaol said, “Aelin didn’t kill Erawan. But at least Erawan can never bring over his brothers. Or use the keys to destroy us all. We have that. She—you both did that.”

There would be no more collars. No more rooms beneath a dark fortress to hold them.

Yrene ran her fingers through Chaol’s brown hair, and Dorian tried to fight the ache in his chest at the sight. At the love that flowed so freely between them.

He didn’t resent Chaol for his happiness. But it didn’t stop the sharp slicing in his chest every time he saw them. Every time he saw the Torre healers, and wished Sorscha had found them.

“So the world was only partly saved,” Yrene said. “Better than nothing.”

Dorian smiled at that. He adored his friend’s wife already. Likely would have married her, too, if he’d had the chance.

Even if his thoughts still drifted northward—to a golden-eyed witch who walked with death beside her and did not fear it. Did she think of him? Wonder what had become of him in Morath?

“Aelin and I still have magic,” Dorian said. “Not like it was before, but we still have it. We’re not entirely helpless.”

“Enough to take on Erawan?” Chaol said, his bronze eyes wary. Well aware of the answer. “And Maeve?”

“We’ll have to figure out a way,” Dorian said. He prayed it was true.

But there were no gods left to pray to at all.

Elide kept one eye on Aelin while they washed themselves in the queen’s tent. One eye on the deliciously warm water that had been brought in.

And kept warm by the woman in the tub beside her own.

As if in defiance of the horrible meeting they’d had with the khaganate royals upon Aelin’s unexpected return.

Triumphant. But only in some regards.

One threat defeated. The other fumbled.

Aelin had hid it well, but the queen had her tells, too. Her utter stillness—the predatory angle of her head. The former had been present this morning. Utter stillness while she’d been questioned, criticized, shouted at.

The queen had not been this quiet since the day she’d escaped Maeve.

And it was not trauma that bowed her head, but guilt. Dread. Shame.

Nearly shoulder-deep in the high, long tubs, Elide had been the one to suggest a bath. To give Prince Rowan a chance to fly high and wide and take some of the edge off his temper. To give Aelin a moment to settle herself.

She’d planned to bathe this morning anyway. Though she’d imagined a different partner in the bath beside hers.

Not that Lorcan knew that. He’d only kissed her temple before striding off into the morning—to join Fenrys and Gavriel in readying the army to move out. Keep plunging northward.

Aelin scrubbed at her long hair, the flowing mass of it draped over her body. In the light of the braziers, the tattoos on the queen’s back seemed to flow like a living black river.

“So your magic is still there?” Elide blurted.

Aelin slid turquoise eyes over to her. “Is your water warm?”

Elide snorted, dragging her fingers through the water. “Yes.”

“You wish to know how much, exactly.”

“Am I allowed to know?”

“I wasn’t lying in the meeting,” Aelin said, voice still hollow. She’d stood there and taken every shouted question from Princess Hasar, every frown of disapproval from Prince Sartaq. “It’s …” She lifted her arms, and positioned her hands in the air above each other, a foot of space between them. “Here’s where the bottom was before,” she said, wriggling her lower fingers. She lifted her bottom hand until it hovered two inches from her top hand. “Here’s where it is now.”

“You’ve tested it?”

“I can feel it.” Those turquoise eyes, despite all she’d done, were heavy. Solemn. “I’ve never felt a bottom before. Felt it without having to look for it.” Aelin dunked her sudsy scalp in the water, scrubbing free the bubbles and oils. “Not so impressive, is it?”

“I never cared if you had magic or not.”

“Why? Everyone else did.” A flat question. Yes, when they’d been children, so many had feared what manner of power Aelin possessed. What she’d grow into.

“Who you are isn’t your magic,” Elide said simply.

“Isn’t it?” Aelin rested her head on the back of the tub. “I liked my magic. Loved it.”

“And being human?” Elide knew she shouldn’t have dared ask, but it slipped out.

Aelin glanced sidelong at her. “Am I still human, deep down, without a human body to possess?”

Elide considered. “I suppose you’re the only person who can decide that.”

Aelin hummed, dunking under the water again.

When she emerged, Elide asked, “Are you afraid? Of facing Erawan in battle?”

Aelin hugged her knees, her tattoo flexing across her back. She was quiet for a long while.

“I am afraid of not reaching Orynth in time,” she said at last. “If Erawan chooses to drag his carcass up there to fight me, I’ll deal with it then.”

“And Maeve? What if she arrives with Erawan, too?”

But Elide knew the answer. They would die. All of them.

There had to be some way—some way to defeat both of them. She supposed Anneith would be of no help now. And perhaps it was time for her to rely upon herself anyway. Even if the timing could have been far better.

“So many questions, Lady of Perranth.”

Elide blushed, and reached for the soap, scrubbing her arms down. “Sorry.”

“Do you now see why I didn’t have you take the blood oath?”

“The Fae males challenge you all the time.”

“Yes, but I like having you not bound to me.” A soft sigh. “I didn’t plan for any of this.”

“For what?”

“To survive the Lock. The gate. To actually have to … rule. To live. I’m in uncharted territory, it seems.”

Elide considered. Then pulled the golden ring from her finger. Silba’s ring—not Mala’s.

“Here,” she said, extending the ring between their tubs, suds dripping off her fingers.

Aelin blinked at the ring. “Why?”

“Because between the two of us, you’re more likely to face Erawan or Maeve.”

Aelin didn’t reach for it. “I’d rather you keep it.”

“And I’d rather you have it,” Elide challenged, holding the queen’s stare. She asked softly, “Haven’t you given enough, Aelin? Won’t you let one of us do something for you?”

Aelin glanced down to the ring. “I failed. You realize that, don’t you?”

“You put the keys back in the gate. That is not failure. And even if you had failed in that, I would give this ring to you.”

“I owe it to your mother to see that you survive this.”

Elide’s chest tightened. “You owe it to my mother to live, Aelin.” She leaned closer, practically pushing the ring into Aelin’s face. “Take it. If not for me, then for her.”

Aelin stared at the ring again. And then took it.

Elide tried not to sigh as the queen slid it onto her finger.

“Thank you,” Aelin murmured.

Elide was about to answer when the tent flaps opened, icy air howling in—along with Borte. “You didn’t invite me for a bath?” the rukhin asked, frowning dramatically at the queen.

Aelin’s lips curved upward. “I thought rukhin were too tough for baths.”

“Do you see how nice the men keep their hair? You think that doesn’t imply an obsession with cleanliness?” Borte strode across the royal tent and plopped onto the stool beside the queen’s tub. Not at all seeming to care that the queen or Elide were naked.

It took all of Elide’s will not to cover herself up. At least with Aelin in the adjacent tub, the lip of the bath was high enough to offer them privacy. But with Borte sitting above them like this—

“Here are my thoughts,” Borte declared, flicking the end of one of her braids.

Aelin smiled slightly.

“Hasar is cranky and cold. Sartaq is used to these conditions and doesn’t care. Kashin is trying to make the best of it, because he’s so damned nice, but they’re all just a little nervous that we’re marching on a hundred thousand soldiers, potentially more on the way, and that Erawan is not out of commission. Neither is Maeve. So they’re pissed. They like you, but they’re pissed.”

“I’d gathered as much,” Aelin said drily, “when Hasar called me a stupid cow.”

It had taken all of Elide’s restraint not to lunge for the princess. And from the growl that had come from the Fae males, even Lorcan, gods above, she knew it had been just as difficult for them.

Aelin had only inclined her head to the princess and smiled. Just as she was smiling now.

Borte waved off Aelin’s words. “Hasar calls everyone a stupid cow. You’re in good company.” Another smile from Aelin at that. “But I’m not here to talk about that. I want to talk about you and me.”

“My favorite subject,” Aelin said, chuckling slightly.

Borte grinned. “You’re alive. You made it. We all thought you’d be dead.” She drew a line across her neck for emphasis, and Elide cringed. “Sartaq is probably going to have me leading one of the flanks into battle, but I’ve done that. Been good at that.” That grin widened. “I want to lead your flank.”

“I don’t have a flank.”

“Then who shall you ride with into battle?”

“I hadn’t gotten that far,” Aelin said, lifting a brow. “Since I expected to be dead.”

“Well, when you do, expect me to be in the skies above you. I’d hate for the battle to be dull.”

Only the fierce-eyed rukhin would have the nerve to call marching on a hundred thousand soldiers dull.

But before Aelin could say anything, or Elide could ask Borte whether the ruks were ready against the wyverns, the ruk rider was gone.

When Elide looked to Aelin, the queen’s face was somber.

Aelin nodded toward the tent flaps. “It’s snowing.”

“It’s been snowing with little rest for days now.”

Aelin’s swallow was audible. “It’s a northern snow.”

The storm slammed into the camp, so fierce that Nesryn and Sartaq had given the ruks orders to hunker down for the day and night.

As if crossing into Terrasen days earlier had officially put them into brutal winter.

“We keep going north,” Kashin was saying, lounging by the fire in Hasar’s sprawling tent.

“Like there is another option,” Hasar snipped, sipping from her mulled wine. “We’ve come this far. We might as well go all the way to Orynth.”

Nesryn, seated on a low sofa with Sartaq, still wondered what, exactly, she was doing in these meetings. Wondered at the fact that she sat with the royal siblings, the Heir to the khaganate at her side.

Empress. The word seemed to hang over her every breath, every movement.

Sartaq said, “Our people have faced odds like this before. We’ll face them again.”

Indeed, Sartaq had stayed up long into the night these weeks reading the accounts and journals of khaganate warriors and leaders from generations past. They’d brought a trunk of them from the khaganate—for this reason. Most Sartaq had already read, he’d told her. But it never hurt to refresh one’s mind.

If it bought them a shot against a hundred thousand soldiers, she wouldn’t complain.

“We won’t be facing them at all if this storm doesn’t let up,” Hasar said, frowning toward her sealed tent flaps. “When I return to Antica, I am never leaving again.”

“No taste for adventure, sister?” Kashin smiled faintly.

“Not when it’s in a frozen hell,” Hasar grumbled.

Nesryn huffed a soft laugh, and Sartaq slipped his arm around her shoulders. A casual, careless bit of contact.

“We keep going,” Sartaq said. “All the way to the walls of Orynth. We swore as much, and we do not renege on our promises.”

Nesryn would have fallen in love with him for that statement alone. She leaned into him, savoring his warmth, in silent thanks.

“Then let us pray,” Kashin said, “that this storm does not slow us so much that there’s nothing left of Orynth to defend.”