Kingdom of Ash

The room was spinning slightly. Even the droplet of her mother’s magic couldn’t steady her.

Worse. Worse than anything Aelin had imagined hearing from Vernon’s lips.

“Did Maeve bring her army?” Her cool, unruffled voice sounded far, far away.

“She brought no one but herself.”

“No army—none at all?”

Vernon drank again. “Not that I saw before Erawan packed me off on a wyvern in the dead of night. Claimed I had asked too many questions and I was better suited to be stationed here.”

Erawan or Maeve had to have known. Somehow. That they’d wind up here, and planted Vernon in their path. To tell them this.

“Did she say where her army was?” Not Terrasen—if it had gone ahead to Terrasen …

“She did not, but I assumed her forces had been left near the coast, to await orders on where to sail.”

Aelin shoved aside her rising nausea. “Did you learn what Maeve and Erawan plan to do?”

“Face you, I’d wager.”

She made herself lean back in her seat, her face bored, casual. “Do you know where Erawan keeps the third Wyrdkey?”

“What’s that?”

Not a misleading question. “A sliver of black stone—like the one planted in Kaltain Rompier’s arm.”

Vernon’s eyes shuttered. “She had the fire gift, too, you know. I tremble to think what might happen if Erawan put the stone within your arm.”

She ignored him. “Well?”

Vernon finished his ale. “I don’t know if he had another beyond what was in Kaltain’s arm.”

“He did. He does.”

“Then I don’t know where it is, do I? I only knew of the one my cunning little niece stole.”

Aelin refrained from grinding her teeth. Maeve and Erawan—united. And not a whisper of where Dorian and Manon were with the two other keys.

She didn’t acknowledge the walls that began pressing in, the cold sweat again sliding down her back. “Why did Maeve ally with Erawan?”

“I was not privy to that discussion. I was dispatched here quickly.” A flash of annoyance. “But Maeve somehow has … influence over Erawan.”

“What happened to the Ironteeth stationed here at the Gap?”

“Called northward. To Terrasen. They were given orders to join with the legion already on its way after routing the army at the border, then at Perranth.”

Oh gods. It took all her training to think past the roaring in her head.

“One hundred thousand soldiers march on Orynth,” Vernon said, chuckling. “Will that fire of yours be enough to stop them?”

Aelin put a hand on Goldryn’s hilt, her heart thundering. “How far are they from the city?”

Vernon shrugged. “They were already within a few days’ march when the Ironteeth legion left here.”

Aelin calculated the distance, the terrain, the size of their own army. They were two weeks away at best—if the weather didn’t hinder them. Two weeks through dense forest and enemy territory.

They’d never make it in time.

“Do Maeve and Erawan go to join them?”

“I’d assume so. Not with the initial group, for reasons I was not told, but they will go to Orynth. And face you there.”

Her mouth turned dry. Aelin rose.

Vernon frowned at her. “Don’t you wish to ask if I know of Erawan’s weaknesses, or any surprises in store for you?”

“I have everything I need to know.” She jerked her chin to Fenrys and Gavriel and the former peeled away from the wall to open the door. The latter, however, began tightening Vernon’s chains once more. Anchoring him to the chair, binding his hands to the arms.

“Aren’t you going to unchain me?” Vernon demanded. “I gave you what you wished.”

Aelin took a step into the hall, noting the fury on Lorcan’s face. He’d heard every word—including her oath not to let him slaughter Vernon.

Aelin threw Vernon a crooked smile over her shoulder. “I said nothing about unchaining you.”

Vernon went still.

Aelin shrugged. “I said none of us would kill you. It’s not our fault if you can’t get out of those chains, is it?”

The blood drained from Vernon’s face.

Aelin said quietly, “You chained and locked my friend in a tower for ten years. Let’s see how you enjoy the experience.” She let her smile turn vicious. “Though, once the trainers here are dealt with, I don’t think there will be anyone left to feed you. Or bring you water. Or even hear your screaming. So I doubt you’ll make it to ten years before the end claims you, but two days? Three? I can accept that, I think.”

“Please,” Vernon said as Gavriel reached for the door handle—to seal the man inside.

“Marion saved my life,” Aelin said, holding the man’s gaze. “And you gleefully bowed to the man who killed her. Perhaps even told the King of Adarlan where to find us. All of us.”

“Please!” Vernon shrieked.

“You should have conserved that tankard of ale,” was all Aelin said before she nodded to Gavriel.

Vernon began screaming as the door shut. And Aelin turned the key.

Silence filled the hall.

Aelin met Elide’s wide-eyed stare, Lorcan savagely satisfied at her side.

“It won’t be quick this way,” Aelin said, extending the key to Elide. The rest of the question hung there.

Vernon kept screaming, pleading for them to come back, to unchain him.

Elide studied the sealed door. The desperate man behind it.

The Lady of Perranth took the outstretched key. Pocketed it. “We should find a better way to seal that room.”

“Our worst fears have been confirmed,” Aelin said to Rowan, leaning over a railing of one of the Northern Fang’s balconies, peering to the army gathered on the Gap floor. To where their companions now headed, the task of permanently sealing the chamber in which Vernon sat chained completed. Where they should be headed, too. But she had paused here. Taken a moment.

Rowan laid a hand on her shoulder. “We will face them together. Maeve and Erawan.”

“And the hundred thousand soldiers marching on Orynth?”

“Together, Fireheart,” was all he said.

She found only centuries of training and cool calculation within his face. That unbreakable will.

She rested her head against his shoulder, her temple digging into the light armor. “Will we make it? Will there be anything left at all?”

He brushed the hair from her face. “We will try. That is the best we can do.” The words of a commander who had walked on and off killing fields for centuries.

He joined their hands, and together they gazed at the army below. The shred of salvation it offered.

Had she been a fool, to expend those three hard-won months of descent into her power on that army, rather than Maeve? Maeve and Erawan? Even if she began now, it wouldn’t, could never, be the same.

“Don’t burden yourself with the what-ifs,” Rowan said, reading the words on her face.

I don’t know what to do, she said silently.

He kissed the top of her head. Together.

And as the wind howled through the peaks, Aelin realized that her mate, perhaps, did not have a solution, either.