Kingdom of Ash

She was falling.

Falling and being thrown.

The Wyrdgate sealed behind her, and yet she was not home.

As it closed, all worlds overlapped.

And she now fell through them.

One after another after another. Worlds of water, worlds of ice, worlds of darkness.

She slammed through them, faster than a shooting star, faster than light.

Home.

She had to find home—

Worlds of lights, worlds of towers that stretched to the skies, worlds of silence.

So many.

There were so many worlds, all of them miraculous, all of them so precious and perfect that even as she fell through them, her heart broke to see them.

Home. The way home—

She fumbled for the tether, the bond in her soul. Inked into her flesh.

Come back to me.

Aelin plunged through world after world after world.

Too fast.

She would hit her own world too fast, and miss it completely.

But she could not slow. Could not stop.

Tumbling, flipping over herself, she passed through them one by one by one by one by one.

It is the strength of this that matters. Wherever you go, Aelin, no matter how far, this will lead you home.

Aelin roared, a spark of self flashing through the sky.

The tether grew stronger. Tighter. Reeling her in.

Too fast. She had to slow—

She plummeted into the last of herself, into what remained, grappling for any sort of power to slow her racing.

She passed through a world where a great city had been built along the curve of a river, the buildings impossibly tall and glimmering with lights.

Passed through a world of rain and green and wind.

Roaring, she tried to slow.

She passed through a world of oceans with no land to be seen.

Close. Home was so close she could nearly smell the pine and snow. If she missed it, if she passed by it—

She passed through a world of snowcapped mountains under shining stars. Passed over one of those mountains, where a winged male stood beside a heavily pregnant female, gazing at those very stars. Fae.

They were Fae, but this was not her world.

She flung out a hand, as if she might signal them, as if they might somehow help her when she was nothing but an invisible speck of power—

The winged male, beautiful beyond reason, snapped his head toward her as she arced across his starry sky.

He lifted a hand, as if in greeting.

A blast of dark power, like a gentle summer night, slammed into her.

Not to attack—but to slow her down.

A wall, a shield, that she tore and plunged through.

But it slowed her. That winged male’s power slowed her, just enough.

Aelin vanished from his world without a whisper.

And there it was.

There it was, the pine and the snow, the snaking spine of the mountains up her continent, the tangle of Oakwald to the right, the Wastes to the left. A land of many peoples, many beings.

She saw them all, familiar and foreign, fighting and at peace, in sprawling cities or hidden deep within the wilds. So many people, revealed to her. Erilea.

She threw herself into it. Grabbed the tether and bellowed as she hauled herself toward it. Down it.

Home.

Home.

Home.

It was not the end. She was not finished.

She willed herself, willed the world to halt. Just as the Wyrdgate slammed shut with a thunderous crack, all other doors with it.

And Aelin plunged back into her own body.

The Wyrdmarks faded into the rocky ground as the sun rose over Endovier.

Rowan was on his knees before Aelin, readying for her last breaths, for the end that he hoped would somehow take him, too.

He’d make it his end. When she went, he’d go.

But then he’d felt it. As the sun rose, he’d felt it, that surge down the frayed mating bond.

A blast of heat and light that welded the broken strands.

He didn’t dare to breathe. To hope.

Even as Aelin collapsed to her knees where the Wyrdmarks had been.

Rowan was instantly there, reaching for her limp body.

A heartbeat echoed in his ears, into his own soul.

And that was her chest, rising and falling. And those were her eyes, opening slowly.

The scent of Dorian’s and Chaol’s tears replaced the salt of Endovier as Aelin stared up at Rowan and smiled.

Rowan held her to his chest and wept in the light of the rising sun.

A weak hand landed on his back, running over the tattoo he’d inked. As if tracing the symbols he’d hidden there, in a desperate, wild hope. “I came back,” she rasped.

She was warm, but … cold, somehow. A stranger in her own body.

Aelin sat up, groaning at the ache along her bones.

“What happened?” Dorian asked, held upright by the arm Chaol had around his waist.

Aelin cupped her palms before her. A small lick of flame appeared within them.

Nothing more.

She looked at Rowan, then Chaol, and Dorian, their faces so haggard in the rising light of day.

“It’s gone,” she said quietly. “The power.” She turned her hands, the flame rolling over them. “Only an ember remains.”

They didn’t speak.

But Aelin smiled. Smiled at the lack of that well within her, that churning sea of fire. And what did remain—a significant gift, yes, but nothing beyond the ordinary.

All that remained of what Mala had given her, in thanks for Elena.

But—

Aelin reached inward, toward that place inside her soul.

She put a hand to her chest. Put a hand there and felt the heart beating within.

The Fae heart. The cost.

She had given all of herself. Had given up her life.

The human life. Her mortality. Burned away, turned to nothing but dust between worlds.

There would be no more shifting. Only this body, this form.

She told them so. And told them what had occurred.

And when she was done, when Rowan remained holding her, Aelin held out her hand once more, just to see.

Perhaps it had been a final gift of Mala’s, too. To preserve this piece of her that now formed in her hand—this droplet of water.

Her mother’s gift.

What Aelin had saved until the end, had not wanted to part with until the very last dregs of her were given to the Lock, to the Wyrdgate.

Aelin held out her other hand, and the kernel of flame sputtered to life within it.

An ordinary gift. A Fire-Bringer no more.

But Aelin all the same.