Kingdom of Ash

by Sarah J. Maas

  A soft whine echoed into the box. A warning.

  Aelin lowered her hands just as the lock grated and the door groaned open.

  Cairn’s footsteps were faster this time. Urgent.

  “Relieve yourself in the hall and wait by this door,” he snapped at Fenrys.

  Aelin braced herself as those steps halted. A grunt and hiss of metal, and firelight poured in. She blinked against it, but kept still.

  They’d anchored her irons into the box itself. She’d learned that the hard way.

  Cairn didn’t say anything as he unfastened the chains from their anchor.

  The most dangerous time for him, right before he moved her to the anchors on the altar. Even with her feet and hands bound, he took no chances.

  He didn’t today, either, despite not bothering with the gauntlets.

  Perhaps they’d melted away over that brazier, along with her skin.

  Cairn yanked her upright as half a dozen guards silently appeared in the doorway. Their faces held no horror at what had been done to her.

  She’d seen these males before. On a bloodied bit of beach.

  “Varik,” Cairn said, and one of the guards stepped forward, Fenrys now at his side by the door, the wolf as tall as a pony. Varik’s sword rested against Fenrys’s throat.

  Cairn gripped her chains, tugging her against his chest as they walked toward the guards, the wolf. “You make a move, and he dies.”

  Aelin didn’t tell him she wasn’t entirely sure she had the strength to try anything, let alone run.

  Heaviness settled into her.

  She didn’t fight the black sack shoved over her head as they passed through the arched doorway. Didn’t fight as they walked down that hall, though she counted the steps and turns.

  She didn’t care if Cairn was smart enough to add in a few extras to disorient her. She counted them anyway. Listened to the rush of the river, growing louder with each turn, the rising mist that chilled her exposed skin, slicking the stones beneath her feet.

  Then open air. She couldn’t see it, but it grazed damp fingers over her skin, whispering of the gaping openness of the world.

  Run. Now.

  The words were a distant murmur.

  She had no doubt the guard’s blade remained at Fenrys’s throat. That it would spill blood. Maeve’s order of restraint bound Fenrys too well—along with that strange gift of his to leap between short distances, as if he were moving from one room to another.

  She’d long since lost hope he’d find some way to use it, to bear them away from here. She doubted he’d miraculously reclaim the ability, should the guard’s sword strike.

  Yet if she heeded that voice, if she ran, was the cost of his life worth her own?

  “You’re debating it, aren’t you,” Cairn hissed in her ear. She could feel his smile even through the sack blinding her. “If the wolf’s life is a fair cost to get away.” A lover’s laugh. “Try it. See how far you get. We’ve a few minutes of walking left.”

  She ignored him. Ignored that voice whispering to run, run, run.

  Step after step, they walked. Her legs shook with the effort.

  It told her enough about how long she had been here. How long she had not been able to properly move, even with the healers’ ministrations to keep her muscles from wasting away.

  Cairn led her up a winding staircase that had her rasping for breath, the mist fading away to cool night air. Sweet smells. Flowers.

  Flowers still existed. In this world, this hell, flowers bloomed somewhere.

  The water’s bellow faded behind them to a blessedly dull rushing, soon replaced by merry trickling ahead. Fountains. Cold, smooth tiles bit into her feet, and through the hood flickering fire cast golden ripples. Lanterns.

  The air tightened, grew still. A courtyard, perhaps.

  Lightning pulsed down her thighs, her calves, warning her to slow, to rest.

  Then open air yawned again wide around her, the water once more roaring.

  Cairn halted, yanking her against his towering body, his various weapons digging into her chains, her skin. The other guards’ clothes rustled as they stopped, too. Fenrys’s claws clicked on stone, the sound no doubt meant to signal her that he remained nearby.

  She realized why he’d feel the need to do so as a female voice that was both young and old, amused and soulless, purred, “Remove the hood, Cairn.”

  It vanished, and Aelin needed only a few blinks to take everything in.

  She had been here before.

  Had been on this broad veranda overlooking a mighty river and waterfalls, had walked through the ancient stone city she knew loomed at her back.

  Had stood in this very spot, facing the dark-haired queen lounging on a stone throne atop the dais, mist wreathing the air around her, a white owl perched on the back of her seat.

  Only one wolf lay sprawled at her feet this time. Black as night, black as the queen’s eyes, which settled on Aelin, narrowing with pleasure.

  Maeve seemed content to let Aelin look. Let her take it in.

  Maeve’s deep purple gown glistened like the mists behind her, its long train draped over the few steps of the dais. Pooling toward—

  Aelin beheld what glittered at the base of those steps and went still.

  Maeve’s red lips curved into a smile as she waved an ivory hand. “If you will, Cairn.”

  The male didn’t hesitate as he hauled Aelin toward what lay on the ground.

  Shattered glass, piled and arranged in a neat circle.

  He halted just outside, the first of the thick shards an inch from Aelin’s bare toes.

  Maeve motioned to the black wolf at her feet and he rose, plucking up something from the throne’s broad arm before trotting to Cairn.

  “I thought your rank should at least be acknowledged,” Maeve said, that spider’s smile never faltering as Aelin beheld what the wolf offered to the guard beside Cairn. “Put it on her,” the queen ordered.

  A crown, ancient and glimmering, shone in the guard’s hands. Crafted of silver and pearl, fashioned into upswept wings that met in its peaked center, encircled with spikes of pure diamond, it shimmered like the moon’s rays had been captured within as the guard set it upon Aelin’s head.

  A terrible, surprising weight, the cool metal digging into her scalp. Far heavier than it looked, as if it had a core of solid iron.

  A different sort of shackle. It always had been.

  Aelin reined in the urge to recoil, to shake the thing from her head.

  “Mab’s crown,” Maeve said. “Your crown, by blood and birthright. Her true Heir.”

  Aelin ignored the words. Stared toward the circle of glass shards.

  “Oh, that,” Maeve said, noting her attention. “I think you know how this shall go, Aelin of the Wildfire.”

  Aelin said nothing.

  Maeve gave a nod.

  Cairn shoved her forward, right into the glass.

  Her bare feet sliced open, new skin shrieking as it ripped.

  She inhaled sharply through her teeth, swallowing her cry just as Cairn pushed her onto her knees.

  The breath slammed from her at the impact. At each shard that sliced and dug in deep.

  Breathe—breathing was key, was vital.

  She pulled her mind out, away, inhaling and exhaling. A wave sweeping back from the shore, then returning.

  Warmth pooled beneath her knees, her calves and ankles, the coppery scent of her blood rising to blend into the mists.

  Her breath turned jagged as she began shaking, as a scream surged within her.

  She bit her lip, canines piercing flesh.

  She would not scream. Not yet.

  Breathe—breathe.

  The tang of her blood coated her mouth as she bit down harder.

  “A pity that there’s no audience to witness this,” said Maeve, her voice far away and yet too near. “Aelin Fire-Bringer, wearing her proper Faerie Queen’s crown at last. Kneeling at my feet.”

  A tremor shudde
red through Aelin, rocking her body enough that the glass found new angles, new entries.

  She drifted further back, away. Each breath tugged her out to sea, to a place where words and feelings and pain became a distant shore.

  Maeve snapped her fingers. “Fenrys.”

  The wolf padded past and sat himself beside her throne. But not before he glanced at the black wolf. Just a turn of the head.

  The black wolf returned the look, bland and cold. And that was enough for Maeve to say, “Connall, you may finally tell your twin what you wish to say.”

  A flash of light.

  Aelin inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, over and over. Barely registered the beautiful dark-haired male who now stood in place of the wolf. Bronze-skinned like his twin, but without the wildness, without the mischief shining from his face. He wore a warrior’s layered clothes, black to Fenrys’s usual gray, twin knives hanging at his sides.

  The white wolf stared up at his twin, rooted to the spot by that invisible bond.

  “Speak freely, Connall,” Maeve said, her faint smile remaining. The barn owl perched on the back of her throne watched with solemn, unblinking eyes. “Let your brother know these words are your own and not of my command.”

  A booted foot nudged Aelin’s spine, a subtle jab forward. Harder into the glass.

  No amount of breathing could draw her far enough away to rein in the muffled whimper.

  She hated it—hated that sound, as much as she hated the queen before her and the sadist at her back. But it still made its way out, barely audible over the thundering falls.

  Fenrys’s dark eyes shot toward her. He blinked four times.

  She could not bring herself to blink back. Her fingers curled and uncurled in her lap.

  “You brought this upon yourself,” Connall said to Fenrys, drawing his brother’s attention once more. His voice was as icy as Maeve’s. “Your arrogance, your unchecked recklessness—was this what you wanted?” Fenrys didn’t answer. “You couldn’t let me have this—have any part of this for myself. You took the blood oath not to serve our queen, but so you couldn’t be bested by me for once in your life.”

  Fenrys bared his teeth, even as something like grief dimmed his stare.

  Another burning wave washed through her knees, across her thighs. Aelin closed her eyes against it.

  She would endure this, would bear down on this.

  Her people had suffered for ten years. Were likely suffering now. For their sake, she would do this. Embrace it. Outlast it.

  Connall’s rumbling voice rippled past her.

  “You are a disgrace to our family, to this kingdom. You whored yourself to a foreign queen, and for what? I begged you to control yourself when you were sent to hunt Lorcan. I begged you to be smart. You might as well have spat in my face.”

  Fenrys snarled, and the sound must have been some secret language between them, because Connall snorted. “Leave? Why would I ever want to leave? And for what? That?” Even with her eyes shut, Aelin knew he pointed toward her. “No, Fenrys. I will not leave. And neither will you.”

  A low whine cut the damp air.

  “That will be all, Connall,” Maeve said, and light flashed, penetrating even the darkness behind Aelin’s lids.

  She breathed and breathed and breathed.

  “You know how quickly this can end, Aelin,” Maeve said. Aelin kept her eyes shut. “Tell me where you hid the Wyrdkeys, swear the blood oath … The order doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

  Aelin opened her eyes. Lifted her bound hands before her.

  And gave Maeve an obscene gesture, as filthy and foul as she’d ever made.

  Maeve’s smile tightened—just barely. “Cairn.”

  Before Aelin could inhale a bracing breath, hands slammed onto her shoulders. Pushed down.

  She couldn’t stop her scream then.

  Not as he shoved her into a burning pit of agony that raced up her legs, her spine.

  Oh gods—oh gods—

  From far away, Fenrys’s snarl sliced through her screaming, followed by Maeve’s lilting, “Very well, Cairn.”

  The pressure on her shoulders lightened.

  Aelin bowed over her knees. A full breath—she needed to get a full breath down.

  She couldn’t. Her lungs, her chest, only heaved in shallow, rasping pants.

  Her vision blurred, swimming, the blood that had spread beyond her knees rippling with it.

  Endure; outlast—

  “My eyes told me an interesting tidbit of information this morning,” Maeve drawled. “An account that you were currently in Terrasen, readying the little army you gathered for war. You, and Prince Rowan, and my two disgraced warriors. Along with your usual group.”

  Aelin hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to it.

  That sliver of hope, foolish and pathetic. That sliver of hope that he’d come for her.

  She had told him not to, after all. Had told him to protect Terrasen. Had arranged everything for him to make a desperate stand against Morath.

  “Useful, to have a shape-shifter to play your part as queen,” Maeve mused. “Though I wonder how long the ruse can last without your special gifts to incinerate Morath’s legions. How long until the allies you collected start asking why the Fire-Bringer does not burn.”

  It was no lie. The details, her plan with Lysandra … There was no way for Maeve to know them unless they were truth. Could Maeve have made a lucky guess in lying about it? Yes—yes, and yet …

  Rowan had gone with them. They’d all gone to the North. And had reached Terrasen.

  A small mercy. A small mercy, and yet …

  The glass around her sparkled in the mist and moonlight, her blood a thick stain wending through it.

  “I do not wish to wipe away this world, as Erawan does,” said Maeve, as if they were no more than two friends conversing at one of Rifthold’s finest tea courts. If any still existed after the Ironteeth had sacked the city. “I like Erilea precisely the way it is. I always have.”

  The glass, the blood, the veranda and moonlight eddied in her vision.

  “I have seen many wars. Sent my warriors to fight in them, end them. I have seen how destructive they are. The very glass you lay on comes from one of those wars, you know. From the glass mountains in the South. They once were sand dunes, but dragons burned them to glass during an ancient and bloody conflict.” A hum of amusement. “Some claim it’s the hardest glass in the world. The most unyielding. I thought, given your own fire-breathing heritage, you might appreciate its origins.”

  A click of the tongue, and then Cairn was there again, hands on her shoulders.

  Pushing.

  Harder and harder. Gods, gods, gods—

  There were no gods to save her. Not really.

  Aelin’s screams echoed off rock and water.

  Alone. She was alone in this. It would be of no use to beg the white wolf to help her.

  The hands on her shoulders pulled away.

  Heaving, bile burning her throat, Aelin once more curled over her knees.

  Endure; outlast—

  Maeve simply continued, “The dragons didn’t survive that war. And they never rose again.” Her lips curved, and Aelin knew Maeve had ensured it.

  Other fire-wielders—hunted and killed.

  She didn’t know why she felt it then. That shred of sorrow for creatures that had not existed for untold centuries. Who would never again be seen on this earth. Why it made her so unspeakably sad. Why it mattered at all, when her very blood was shrieking in agony.

  Maeve turned to Connall, remaining in Fae form beside the throne, raging eyes still fixed on his brother. “Refreshments.”

  Aelin knelt in that glass as food and drink were gathered. Knelt as Maeve dined on cheese and grapes, smiling at her the entire time.

  Aelin couldn’t stop the shaking that overtook her, the brutal numbness.

  Deep, deep, she drifted.

  It did not matter if Rowan wasn’t coming. If t
he others had obeyed her wishes to fight for Terrasen.

  She would save it in her own way, too. For as long as she could. She owed Terrasen that much. Would never fully repay that debt.

  From far away, the words echoed, and memory shimmered. She let it pull her back, pull her out of her body.

  She sat beside her father on the few steps descending into the open-air fighting ring of the castle.

  It was more temple than brawling pit, flanked by weathered, pale columns that for centuries had witnessed the rise of Terrasen’s mightiest warriors. This late in the summer afternoon, it was empty, the light golden as it streamed in.

  Rhoe Galathynius ran a hand down his round shield, the dark metal scarred and dinged from horrors long since vanquished. “Someday,” he said as she traced one of the long scratches over the ancient surface, “this shield will pass to you. As it was given to me, and to your great-uncle before me.”

  Her breath was still jagged from the training they’d done. Only the two of them—as he’d promised. The hour once a week that he set aside for her.

  Her father placed the shield on the stone step below them, its thunk reverberating through her sandaled feet. It weighed nearly as much as she did, yet he carried it as if it were merely an extension of his arm.

  “And you,” her father went on, “like the many great women and men of this House, shall use it to defend our kingdom.” Her eyes rose to his face, handsome and unlined. Solemn and kingly. “That is your charge, your sole duty.” He braced a hand on the rim of the shield, tapping it for emphasis. “To defend, Aelin. To protect.”

  She had nodded, not understanding. And her father had kissed her brow, as if he half hoped she’d never need to.

  Cairn ground her into the glass again.

  No sound remained in her for screaming.

  “I am growing bored of this,” Maeve said, her silver tray of food forgotten. She leaned forward on her throne, the owl behind her rustling its wings. “Do you believe, Aelin Galathynius, that I will not make the sacrifices necessary to obtain what I seek?”

  She had forgotten how to speak. Had not uttered a word here, anyway.

  “Allow me to demonstrate,” Maeve said, straightening. Fenrys’s eyes flared with warning.