Kingdom of Ash

by Sarah J. Maas

  He didn’t care. Not when the dim light revealed the delicate woman lying facedown on the end of his cot, the lower half of her body still on the wooden chair where Fenrys had been. Her arms cradled her head, one outstretched toward him. Reaching for his hand, mere inches from hers.

  Elide.

  Her dark hair spilled across the blanket, across his shins, veiling much of her face.

  Wincing at the lingering ache in his body, Lorcan stretched his arm just enough to touch her fingers.

  They were cold, their tips so much smaller than his. They contracted, pulling away as she sucked in a sharp, awakening breath.

  Lorcan savored every feature as she grimaced at a crick in her neck. But her eyes settled on him.

  She went still as she found him staring at her, awake and utterly in awe of the woman who had ridden through hell to find him …

  Tired. She looked spent, yet her chin remained unbowed.

  Lorcan had no words. He’d given her everything on the back of that horse anyway.

  But Elide asked, “How do you feel?”

  Aching. Exhausted. Yet finding her sitting at his bedside … “Alive,” he said, and meant it.

  Her face remained unreadable, even as her eyes dipped to his body. The blanket had slid down enough to reveal most of his torso, though it still hid the scarred-over wound in his abdomen. Yet he’d never felt so keenly naked.

  It was an effort to keep his breathing steady beneath her sharp-eyed gaze. “Yrene said you would have died, if they hadn’t gotten to you when they did.”

  “I would have died,” he said, voice like gravel, “if you hadn’t braved hell to find me.”

  Her gaze lifted to his. “I made you a promise.”

  “So you said.”

  Was that a hint of color stealing across her pale cheeks? But she didn’t balk. “You said some interesting things, too.”

  Lorcan tried to sit up, but his body gave a burst of pain in protest.

  Elide explained, “Yrene warned that though the wounds are healed, some soreness will linger.”

  Lorcan gritted his teeth around the sharp stab in his back, his stomach. He managed to get onto his elbows, and deemed that progress enough. “It’s been a while since I was so gravely injured. I’d forgotten what an inconvenience it is.”

  A faint smile tugged on her mouth.

  His heart halted. The first smile she had given him in months and months. Since that day on the ship, when he’d touched her hand as they’d swayed in their hammocks.

  Her smile faded, but the color on her cheeks lingered. “Did you mean it? What you said.”

  He held her stare. Let some inner wall within him come crumbling down. Only for her. For this sharp-eyed, cunning little liar who had slipped through every defense and ironclad rule he’d ever made for himself. He let her see that in his face. Let her see all of it, as no one had ever done before. “Yes.”

  Her mouth tightened, but not in displeasure.

  So Lorcan said softly, “I meant every word.” His heart thundered, so wildly it was a wonder she couldn’t hear it. “And I will until the day I fade into the Afterworld.”

  Lorcan didn’t breathe as Elide gently reached out her hand. And interlaced their fingers. “I love you,” she whispered.

  He was glad he was lying down. The words would have knocked him to his knees. Even now, he was half inclined to bow before her, the true owner of his ancient, wicked heart.

  “I have loved you,” she went on, “from the moment you came to fight for me against Vernon and the ilken.” The light in her eyes stole his breath. “And when I heard you were somewhere on that battlefield, the only thing I wanted was to be able to tell you that. It was the only thing that mattered.”

  Once, he might have scoffed. Declared that far bigger things mattered, in this war especially. And yet the hand grasping his … He’d never known anything more precious.

  Lorcan ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “I am sorry, Elide. For all of it.”

  “I know,” she said softly, and no regret or hurt dimmed her face. Only clear, unwavering calm shone there. The face of the mighty lady she was growing into, and had already become, and who would rule Perranth with wisdom in one hand and compassion in the other.

  They stared at each other for minutes. For a blessed eternity.

  Then Elide untangled their hands and rose. “I should return to help Yrene.”

  Lorcan caught her hand again. “Stay.”

  She arched a dark brow. “I’m only going to the Great Hall.”

  Lorcan caressed his thumb over the back of her hand once more. “Stay,” he breathed.

  For a heartbeat, he thought she’d say no, and was prepared to be fine with it, to accept these last few minutes as more of a gift than he’d deserved.

  But then Elide sat on the edge of his cot, right beside his shoulder, and ran a hand through his hair. Lorcan closed his eyes, leaning into the touch, unable to stop the deep purr that rolled through his chest.

  She made a low noise of wonder, perhaps something more, and her fingers stroked again.

  “Say it,” she whispered, fingers stilling in his hair.

  Lorcan opened his eyes, finding her gaze. “I love you.”

  She swallowed hard, and Lorcan gritted his teeth as he sat up fully. This close, he had forgotten how much he towered over her. Atop that horse, she had been a force of nature, a defiant storm. His blanket slipped dangerously low, but he let it lie where it pooled in his lap.

  He didn’t miss the dip of her stare. Or the long, upward drag of her eyes along his torso. He could almost feel it, lingering on every muscle and scar.

  A soft groan came out of him as she continued to look her fill. Asking for things that he sure as hell was in no shape to give her. And that she might not yet be ready to give him, declarations aside.

  He was immediately challenged to prove his resolve as Elide ran slightly shaking fingers across the new scar on his abdomen.

  “Yrene said you might always have this,” she said, her hand mercifully falling away.

  “Then it will be the scar I treasure most.” Fenrys would laugh until he cried to hear him speak this way, but Lorcan didn’t care. To hell with the rest of them.

  Another one of those small smiles curved her lips, and Lorcan’s hands tightened in the sheets with the effort it took not to taste that smile, to worship it with his own mouth.

  But this new, fragile thing humming between them … He would not risk it for all the world.

  Elide, thank the gods, had no such worries. None at all, it seemed, as she lifted a hand to his cheek and ran her thumb along it. Every breath was an effort of control.

  Lorcan held absolutely still as she brought her mouth to his. Brushed her lips across his own.

  She pulled back. “Rest, Lorcan. I’ll be here again when you wake.”

  Anything she asked, he’d give her. Anything at all.

  Too shaken by that soft, beautiful kiss to bother with words, he lay back down.

  She smiled at his utter obedience, and, as if she couldn’t help herself, leaned in once more.

  This kiss lingered. Her mouth traced his, and at the slight pressure of her lips, the gentle request, he answered with his own.

  The taste of her threatened to undo him entirely, and the tentative brush of her tongue against his own drew another rolling purr from deep in his chest. But Lorcan let Elide explore him, slowly and sweetly, giving her whatever she asked.

  And when her mouth became more insistent, when her breathing turned ragged, he slipped a hand around her neck to cup her nape. She opened for him, and at her low moan, Lorcan thought he’d fly out of his skin.

  His hand slipped from her nape to run down her back, savoring the warm, unbreakable body beneath the layers of clothes. Elide arched into the touch, another of those small noises coming from her. As if she’d been just as starved for him.

  But Lorcan made himself pull away. Made himself withdraw his hand from her lower back.
Panting slightly, sharing breath, he said onto her mouth, “Later. Go help the others.”

  Dark eyes glazed with desire met his, and Lorcan adjusted the fall of the blanket over his lap. “Go help the others,” he repeated. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to sleep.”

  The unspoken request lingered, and Elide pulled back, studying him once more.

  “Sleep only,” Lorcan said, not bothering to hide the heat rising in his stare. “For now.”

  Until she was ready. Until she told him, showed him, she wished to share everything with him. That final claiming.

  But until then, he wanted her here. Sleeping at his side, where he might watch over her. As she had watched over him.

  Elide’s face was flushed as she rose, her hands shaking. Not from fear, but from the same effort that it now took Lorcan not to reach for her.

  He’d very much enjoy driving her out of her mind. Slowly teaching her all he knew about pleasure, about wanting. He had little doubt he’d be learning a good number of things from her, too.

  Elide seemed to read that on his face, and her cheeks reddened further. “Later, then,” she breathed, limping to the door.

  Lorcan sent a flicker of his power to wrap around her ankle. The limp vanished.

  A hand on the knob, she gave him a small, grateful nod. “I missed that.”

  He heard the unspoken words as she disappeared into the busy hall.

  I missed you.

  Lorcan allowed himself a rare smile.

  CHAPTER 65

  Dorian had gone to Morath.

  Had flown from the camp on wings of his own making. He would have chosen some sort of small, ordinary bird, Manon knew. Something even the Thirteen would not have noted.

  Manon stood at the edge of the outlook, gazing eastward.

  Crunching snow told her Asterin approached. “He left, didn’t he.”

  She nodded, unable to find words. She had offered him everything, and had thought he’d meant to accept it. Had thought he did accept it, with what they’d done afterward.

  Yet it had been a farewell. One last coupling before he ventured into the jaws of death. He would not cage her, would not accept what she’d given.

  As if he knew her better than she knew herself.

  “Do we go after him?”

  In the breaking light of dawn, the camp was stirring. Today—today they would decide where to go. Today, she’d dare ask the Crochans to follow. Would they heed her?

  But to head to Morath, where they would be recognized long before they approached, to head back into hell …

  The sun rose, full and golden, as if it were the solitary note of a song filling the world.

  Manon opened her mouth.

  “Terrasen calls for aid!” A young Crochan’s voice rang through the camp.

  Manon and Asterin whirled, others following suit as the witch sprinted for Glennis’s tent. The crone emerged as the witch skidded to a halt. A scout, no doubt, breathless and hair wind-tossed.

  “Terrasen calls for aid,” the scout panted, bracing her hands on her knees as she bent over to gulp down breaths. “Morath routed them at the border, then at Perranth, and advances on Orynth as we speak. They will sack the city within a week.”

  Worse news than Manon had anticipated. Even if she’d needed it, waited for it.

  The Thirteen closed in, Bronwen a step behind, and Manon didn’t dare breathe as Glennis stared toward the immortal flame burning in the fire pit mere feet away. The Flame of War.

  Then she turned toward Manon. “What say you, Queen of Witches?”

  A challenge and a dare.

  Manon lifted her chin at the two paths before her.

  One to the east, to Morath. The other northward, to Terrasen and battle.

  The wind sang, and in it, she heard the answer.

  “I shall answer Terrasen’s call,” Manon said.

  Asterin stepped to her side, fearless as she surveyed the assembled camp. “As shall I.”

  Sorrel flanked Manon’s right. “So shall the Thirteen.”

  Manon waited, hardly daring to acknowledge the thing that began burning in her chest.

  Then Bronwen stepped up, her dark hair blowing in the chill wind. “The Vanora hearth shall fly north.”

  Another witch squared her shoulders. “So shall the Silian.”

  And so it went.

  Until the leaders of all seven of the Great Hearths stood gathered there.

  Until Glennis said to Manon, “Long ago, Rhiannon Crochan rode at King Brannon’s side into battle. So has her likeness been reborn, so shall the old alliances be forged anew.” She gestured to the eternal flame. “Light the Flame of War, Queen of Witches, and rally your host.”

  Manon’s heart raced, so wildly it pulsed in her palms, but she picked up a birch branch set amongst the kindling.

  No one spoke as she plunged it into the eternal flame.

  Red and gold and blue leaped upon the wood, devouring it. Manon withdrew the branch only when it had caught, deep and true.

  Even the wind did not jostle the flame as Manon lifted it, a torch in the new day.

  The Crochan crowd parted, revealing a straight path toward Bronwen’s hearth. The witch was already waiting, her coven gathered around her.

  Each step was a drumbeat of war. An answer to a question posed long ago.

  Bronwen’s eyes were bright as Manon stopped.

  Manon only said, “Your queen summons you to war.”

  And touched her flame to that in Bronwen’s hearth.

  Light flared, bright and dancing.

  Bronwen picked up a branch of her own, a long log burning in the fire. “The Vanora will fly.”

  She withdrew the wood and stalked to the next clan’s hearth, where she plunged that kernel of the sacred fire into their pit. Again the light flared, just as Bronwen declared, loud and clear as the breaking day around them, “Your queen summons you to war. The Vanora fly with her. Will you?”

  The hearth leader only said, “The Redbriar will fly,” and ignited her own torch before hurrying to the next clan’s fire.

  Hearth to hearth. Until all seven in the camp had accepted and ignited the fire.

  Then, and only then, did the young scout from the final clan take her burning torch, grab her broom, and leap into the skies. To find the next clan, to tell them the call had gone out.

  Manon and the Thirteen, the Crochans around them, watched until the scout was nothing but a smoldering speck against the sky, then nothing at all.

  Manon offered a silent prayer on the wind that the sacred flame the young scout bore would burn steadfast over the long, dangerous miles.

  All the way to the killing fields of Terrasen.

  Hearth to hearth, the Flame of War went.

  Over snow-blasted mountains and amongst the trees of tangled forests, hiding from the enemies that prowled the skies. Through long, bitterly cold nights where the wind howled as it tried to wipe out any trace of that flame.

  But the wind did not succeed, not against the flame of the queen.

  So hearth to hearth, it went.

  To remote villages where people screamed and scattered as a young-faced woman descended from the skies on a broom, waving her torch high.

  Not to signal them, but the few women who did not run. Who walked toward the flame, the rider, as she called out, “Your queen summons you to war. Will you fly?”

  Trunks hidden in attics were thrown open. Folded swaths of red cloth pulled from within. Brooms left in closets, beside doorways, tucked under beds, were brought out, bound in gold or silver or twine.

  And swords—ancient and beautiful—were drawn from beneath floorboards, or hauled down from haylofts, their metal shining as bright and fresh as the day they had been forged in a city now lying in ruin.

  Witches, the townsfolk whispered, husbands wide-eyed and disbelieving as the women took to the skies, red cloaks billowing. Witches amongst us all this time.

  Village to village, where hearths that had
never once gone fully dark blazed in answer. Always one rider going out, to find the next hearth, the next bastion of their people.

  Witches, here amongst us. Witches, now going to war.

  A rising tide of witches, who took to the skies in their red cloaks, swords strapped to their backs, brooms shedding years of dust with each mile northward.

  Witches who bade their families farewell, offering no explanation before they kissed their sleeping babes and vanished into the starry night.

  Mile after mile, across the darkening world, the call went out, ceaseless and unending as the eternal flame that passed from hearth to hearth.

  “Fly, fly, fly!” they shouted. “To the queen! To war!”

  Far and wide, through snow and storm and peril, the Crochans flew.

  CHAPTER 66

  Aelin awoke to the scent of pine and snow, and knew she was home.

  Not in Terrasen, not yet, but in the sense she would always be home, if Rowan was with her.

  His steady breaths filled her right ear, the sound of the well and truly asleep, and the arm he’d draped across her middle was a solid, warm weight. Silvery light glazed the ancient stones of the ceiling.

  Morning—or a cloudy day. The halls beyond the room offered shards of sound that she sorted through, piece by piece, as if she were assembling a broken mirror that might reveal the world beyond.

  Apparently, it had been three days since the battle. And the rest of the khagan’s army, led by Prince Kashin, his third-eldest son, had arrived.

  It was that tidbit that had her rising fully to consciousness, a hand sliding to Rowan’s arm. A caress of a touch, just to see how deeply the rejuvenating sleep held him. Three days, they’d slept here, unaware of the world. A dangerous, vulnerable time for any magic-wielder, when their bodies demanded a deep sleep to recover from expending so much power.

  That was another sliver she’d picked up: Gavriel sat outside their door. In mountain lion form. People drew quiet when they approached, not realizing that as soon as they passed him, their whispers of That strange, terrifying cat could be detected by Fae ears.

  Aelin ran a finger over the seam of Rowan’s sleeve, feeling the corded muscle beneath. Clear—her head, her body felt clear. Like the first icy breath inhaled on a winter’s morning.