Kingdom of Ash

It was breaking apart.

The mating bond.

Bowed over his knees, Rowan panted, a hand on his chest as the bond frayed.

He clung to it, wrapped his magic, his soul around it, as if it might keep her, wherever she was, from going to a place he could not follow.

He did not accept it. Would never accept this fate. Never.

Distantly, he heard Dorian and Chaol debating something. He didn’t care.

The mating bond was breaking.

And there was nothing he could do but hold on.

One by one, the gods strode through the archway into their own world. Some sneered down at her as they passed.

They would not take Erawan.

Would not … would not do anything.

Her chest was hollow, her soul gutted out, and yet this …

And yet this …

Aelin clawed at the mist-shrouded ground-that-was-not-ground as the last of them vanished. Until only one remained.

A pillar of light and flame. Shining in the mists.

Mala lingered on the threshold of her world.

As if she remembered.

As if she remembered Elena, and Brannon, and who knelt before her. Blood of her blood. The recipient of her power. Her Heir.

“Seal the gate, Fire-Bringer,” Mala said softly.

But the Lady of Light still hesitated.

And from far away, Aelin heard another woman’s voice.

Make sure that they’re punished someday. Every last one of them.

They will be, she’d sworn to Kaltain.

They had lied. Had betrayed Elena and Erilea, as they had believed themselves betrayed.

Their green sun-drenched world rippled away ahead.

Groaning, Aelin climbed to her feet.

She was no lamb to slaughter. No sacrifice on an altar of the greater good.

And she was not done yet.

Aelin met Mala’s burning stare.

“Do it,” Mala said quietly.

Aelin looked past her, toward that pristine world they had sought to return to for so long. And realized that Mala knew—saw the thoughts in her own head.

“Aren’t you going to stop me?”

Mala only held out a hand.

In it lay a kernel of white-hot power. A fallen star.

“Take it. One last gift to my bloodline.” She could have sworn Mala smiled. “For what you offered on her behalf. For fighting for her. For all of them.”

Aelin staggered the few steps to the goddess, to the power she offered in her hand.

“I remember,” Mala said softly, and the words were joy and pain and love. “I remember.”

Aelin took the kernel of power from her palm.

It was the sunrise contained in a seed.

“When it is done, seal the gate and think of home. The marks will guide you.”

Aelin blinked, the only sign of confusion she could convey as that power filled and filled and filled her, melding into the broken spots, the empty places.

Mala held out her hand again, and an image formed within it. Of the tattoo across Aelin’s back.

The new tattoo, of spread wings, the story of her and Rowan written in the Old Language amongst the feathers.

A flick of Mala’s fingers and symbols rose from it. Hidden within the words, the feathers.

Wyrdmarks.

Rowan had hidden Wyrdmarks in her tattoo.

Had inked Wyrdmarks all over it.

“A map home,” Mala said, the image fading. “To him.”

He’d suspected, somehow. That it might come to this. Had asked her to teach him so he might make this gamble.

And when Aelin looked behind her, to the archway into her own world, she indeed could … feel them. As if the Wyrdmarks he’d secretly inked onto her were a rope. A tether home.

A lifeline into eternity.

One last deceit.

Another voice whispered past then, a fragment of memory, spoken on a rooftop in Rifthold. What if we go on, only to more pain and despair?

Then it is not the end.

That power flowed and flowed into Aelin. Her lips curved upward.

It was not the end. And she was not finished.

But they were.

“To a better world,” Mala said, and walked through the doorway into her own.

A better world.

A world with no gods. No masters of fate.

A world of freedom.

Aelin approached the archway to the gods’ realm. To where Mala now walked across the shimmering grass, little more than a shaft of sunlight herself.

The Lady of Light halted—and lifted an arm in farewell.

Aelin smiled and bowed.

Far out, striding over the hills, the gods paused.

Aelin’s smile turned into a grin. Wicked and raging.

It did not falter as she found the world she sought. As she dipped into that eternal, terrible power.

She had been a slave and a pawn once before. She would never be so again.

Not for them. Never for them.

The gods began shouting, running toward her, as Aelin ripped open a hole in their sky.

Right into a world she had seen only once. Had accidentally opened a portal into one night in a stone castle. Distant, baying howls cracked from the bleak gray expanse.

A portal into a hell-realm. A door now thrown open.

Aelin was still smiling when she closed the archway into the gods’ world.

And left them to it, the sounds of their outraged, frightened screams ringing out.

There was still one last task to seal the gate forever.

Aelin unfurled her palm, studying the Lock she had forged. She let it float into the heart of this misty, door-filled space.

She was not afraid. Not as she opened her other palm, and power poured forth.

Mala’s final gift. And defiance.

The force of a thousand exploding suns ruptured from Aelin’s palm.

Lock. Close. Seal.

She willed it, willed it, and willed it. Willed it to close as she offered over her power.

But not that last bit of self.

The debt has already been paid enough.

A map home, a map inked in the words of universes, would lead the way.

More and more and more. But not all.

She would not give it up. Her innermost self.

She would not surrender.

They would not take this lingering kernel of her.

She would not yield it.

Light flowed through the Lock, fracturing like a prism, shooting to all those infinite doorways.

Closing and sealing and shutting. An archway to everywhere now sealing.

They would not destroy her. They would not be allowed to take this.

Come back to me.

More and more and more, Mala’s last power funneling out of her and into the Lock.

They would not win. They couldn’t take it—couldn’t have her.

She refused.

She was screaming now. Screaming and roaring her defiance.

A beam of light shot to the archway behind her. Beginning to seal it, too.

She would live. She would live, and they could all go to hell.

A better world. With no gods, no fates.

A world of their own making.

Aelin bellowed and bellowed, the sound ringing out across all worlds.

They would not beat her. They would not get to take this, this most essential kernel of self. Of soul.

Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom.…

Her kingdom. Her home. She would see it again.

It was not over.

Behind her, the archway slowly sealed.

The odds were slim; the odds were insurmountable. She had not been destined to escape this—to reach this point and still be breathing.

Aelin’s hand drifted to her heart and rested there.

It is the strength of this that matters, her mother had said, long ago. Wherever you go, Aelin, no matter how far, this will lead you home.

No matter where she was.

No matter how far.

Even if it took her beyond all known worlds.

Aelin’s fingers curled, palm pressing into the pounding heart beneath. This will lead you home.

The archway to Erilea inched closed.

World-walker. Wayfarer.

Others had done it before. She would find a way, too. A way home.

No longer the Queen Who Was Promised. But the Queen Who Walked Between Worlds.

She would not go quietly.

She was not afraid.

So Aelin ripped out her power. Ripped out a chunk of what Mala had given her, a force to level a world, and flung it toward the Lock.

The final bit. The last bit.

And then Aelin leaped through the gate.