“They’ll be within the archers’ range in about an hour,” Elgan reported. Darrow’s orders be damned. Kyllian was still general, yes, but every report his friend received, Aedion got as well.
“Remind them to make their shots count. Pick targets.”
The Bane knew that without being told. The others—they had proved their mettle in these battles, but a reminder never hurt.
Elgan aimed for the sections of the city walls that Ren and the Fae nobles had deemed the best advantage for their archers. Against a hundred thousand troops, they might only stand to thin the lines, but to let the enemy charge unchallenged at the walls would be utter folly. And break the spirit of these people before they met their end.
“What is that?” Ren murmured. Pointing to the horizon.
Sharp—Ren’s eyes had to be sharper than most humans, since it was still just a smudge on the horizon to Aedion.
A breath passed. The dark smudge began to take form, rising into the blue sky.
Flying toward them.
“Ilken?” Ren squinted as he shielded his eyes against the glare.
“Too big,” Aedion breathed.
Closer, the mass flying above the teeming army became clearer. Larger.
“Wyverns,” Aedion said, dread curdling in his stomach.
The Ironteeth aerial legion had been unleashed at last.
“Oh gods,” Ren whispered.
Against a terrestrial siege, Orynth might have held out—a few days or weeks, but they could have lasted.
But with the thousand or so Ironteeth witches who soared toward them on those wyverns … They would not need their infernal towers to destroy this city, the castle. To rip open the city gates and walls and let in Morath’s hordes.
The soldiers began to spot the wyverns. People cried out, along the battlements. Up in the castle looming behind them.
This siege would not even get the chance to be a siege.
It would end today. Within a few hours.
Racing feet skidded to a halt, and then Lysandra was there, panting. “Tell me what to do, where to go.” Her emerald eyes were wide with terror—helpless terror and despair. “I can change into a wyvern, try to keep them—”
“There are over a thousand Ironteeth,” Aedion said, his voice hollow in his ears. Her fear whetted something sharp and dangerous in him, but he refrained from reaching for her. “There is nothing you or we can do.”
A few dozen of the Ironteeth had sacked Rifthold in a matter of hours.
This host …
Aedion focused on his breathing, on keeping his head high as soldiers began to step away from their positions along the walls.
Unacceptable.
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE,” he bellowed. “HOLD THE LINE, AND DO NOT BALK.”
The roared command halted those who’d looked prone to bolt, at least. But it didn’t stop the shaking swords, the stench of their rising fear.
Aedion turned to Lysandra and Ren. “Get Rolfe’s firelances up on the higher towers and buildings. See if they can burn the Ironteeth from the sky.”
When Ren hesitated, Aedion snarled, “Do it now.”
Then Ren was racing toward where the Pirate Lord stood with his Mycenian soldiers.
“It won’t do anything, will it?” Lysandra said softly.
Aedion just said, “Take Evangeline and go. There is a small tunnel in the bottom level of the castle that leads into the mountains. Take her and go.”
She shook her head. “To what end? Morath will find us all anyway.”
His commanders were sprinting toward him, and for the first time since he’d known them, there was true dread shining in the eyes of the Bane. In Elgan’s eyes.
But Aedion kept his attention fixed on Lysandra. “Please. I am begging you. I am begging you, Lysandra, to go.”
Her chin lifted. “You are not asking our other allies to run.”
“Because I am not in love with our other allies.”
For a heartbeat, she blinked at him.
Then her face crumpled, and Aedion only stared at her, unafraid of the words he’d spoken. Only afraid of the dark mass that swept toward them, staying within formation above that endless army. Afraid of what that legion would do to her, to Evangeline.
“I should have told you,” Aedion said, voice breaking. “Every day after I realized it, all these months. I should have told you every day.”
Lysandra began to cry, and he brushed away her tears.
His commanders reached him, ashen and panting. “Orders, General?”
He didn’t bother to tell them that he wasn’t their general. It wouldn’t matter what the hell he was called in a few hours anyway.
Yet Lysandra remained at his side. Made no move to run.
“Please,” he said to her.
Lysandra only linked her fingers through his in silent answer. And challenge.
His heart cracked at that refusal. At the hand, shaking and cold, that clung to his.
He squeezed her fingers tightly, and did not let go as he faced his commanders. “We—”
“Wyverns from the north!”
The screamed warning shattered down the battlements, and Aedion and Lysandra ducked as they whirled toward the attack coming at their backs.
Thirteen wyverns raced from the Staghorns, plunging toward the city walls.
And as they shot toward Orynth, people and soldiers screaming and fleeing before them, the sun hit the smaller wyvern leading the attack.
Lighting up wings like living silver.
Aedion knew that wyvern. Knew the white-haired rider atop it.
“HOLD FIRE,” he bellowed down the lines. His commanders echoed the order, and all the arrows that had been pointed upward now halted.
“It’s …,” Lysandra breathed, her hand dropping from his while she walked forward a step, as if in a daze. “It …”
Soldiers still fell back from the city walls as Manon Blackbeak and her Thirteen landed along them, right before Aedion and Lysandra.
It was not the witch he had last seen on a beach in Eyllwe.
No, there was nothing of that cold, strange creature in the face that smiled grimly at him. Nothing of her in that remarkable crown of stars atop her brow.
A crown of stars.
For the last Crochan Queen.
Panting, rasping breaths neared, and Aedion glanced away from Manon Blackbeak to see Darrow hurry onto the city walls, gaping at the witch and her wyvern, at Aedion for not firing at her—her, whom Darrow believed to be an enemy come to parley before their slaughter.
“We will not surrender,” Darrow spat.
Asterin Blackbeak, her blue wyvern beside Manon’s, let out a low laugh.
Indeed, Manon’s lips curved in cool amusement as she said to Darrow, “We have come to ensure that you don’t, mortal.”
Darrow hissed, “Then why has your master sent you to speak with us?”
Asterin laughed again.
“We have no master,” Manon Blackbeak said, and it was indeed a queen’s voice that she spoke with, her golden eyes bright. “We come to honor a friend.”
There was no sign of Dorian amongst the Thirteen, but Aedion was reeling enough that he didn’t have the words to ask.
“We came,” Manon said, loud enough that all on the city walls could hear, “to honor a promise made to Aelin Galathynius. To fight for what she promised us.”
Darrow said quietly, “And what was that?”
Manon smiled then. “A better world.”
Darrow took a step back. As if disbelieving what stood before him, in defiance of the legion that swept toward their city.
Manon only looked to Aedion, that smile lingering. “Long ago, the Crochans fought beside Terrasen, to honor the great debt we owed the Fae King Brannon for granting us a homeland. For centuries, we were your closest allies and friends.” That crown of stars blazed bright upon her head. “We heard your call for aid.” Lysandra began weeping. “And we have come to answer it.”
> “How many,” Aedion breathed, scanning the skies, the mountains. “How many?”
Pride and awe filled the Witch-Queen’s face, and even her golden eyes were lined with silver as she pointed toward the Staghorns. “See for yourself.”
And then, breaking from between the peaks, they appeared.
Red cloaks flowing on the wind, they filled the northern skies. So many he could not count them, nor the swords and bows and weapons they bore upon their backs, their brooms flying straight and unwavering.
Thousands. Thousands of them descended upon Orynth. Thousands of them now swept over the city, his soldiers gaping upward at the stream of fluttering red, undaunted and untroubled by the enemy force darkening the horizon. One by one by one, they alit upon the empty castle battlements.
An aerial legion to challenge the Ironteeth.
The Crochans had returned at last.
CHAPTER 82
Every Crochan who could fly and wield a sword had come.
For days, they had raced northward, keeping deep to the mountains, then cutting low over Oakwald before making a wide circuit to avoid Morath’s detection.
Indeed, as Manon and the Thirteen perched on the city walls, the Crochans streaming overhead while they made their way to whatever landing place they might find on the castle battlements, it was still hard to believe they had made it.
And without an hour to spare.
The farther north they had flown, the more Crochans had fallen into the lines. As if the crown of stars Manon wore was a lodestone, summoning them to her.
Every mile, more appeared from the clouds, the mountains, the forest. Young and old, wise-eyed or fresh-faced, they came.
Until five thousand trailed behind Manon and the Thirteen.
“They’ve completely stopped,” breathed the shape-shifter beside Aedion, pointing toward the battlefield.
Far out, Morath’s host had halted.
Utterly halted. As if in doubt and shock.
“Your grandmother is with them,” Asterin murmured to Manon. “I can feel it.”
“I know.” Manon turned to the young general-prince. “We shall handle the Ironteeth.”
His turquoise eyes were bright as the day above them as he gestured to the plain. “By all means, go right ahead.”
Manon’s mouth quirked to the side, then she jerked her chin to the Thirteen. “We shall be on your castle’s battlements. I leave one of my sentinels here with you, should you need to send word.” A nod to Vesta, and the red-haired witch made no move to fly as the others peeled off toward the great, towering palace. Manon had never seen its like—even the former glass castle in Rifthold had been nothing compared to it.
Manon smiled at the old man who had hissed at her, showing all her teeth. “You’re welcome,” she said, and with a snap of the reins, was airborne.
Morath had halted completely.
As if reassessing their strategy now that the Crochans had appeared from the mists of legend. Not hunted nearly as close to extinction as they’d believed, it seemed.
It left Manon and the army she’d raised the chance to catch their breath, at least.
And a night to sleep, if fitfully. She’d met with the mortal leaders during dinner, when it became apparent that Morath would not be finishing them off today.
Five thousand Crochans would not win this war. They would not stop a hundred thousand soldiers. But they could keep the Ironteeth legions at bay—keep them from sacking the city and letting in the demon hordes.
Long enough for whatever small miracle, Manon didn’t know. She hadn’t dared ask, and none of the mortals had posed the question, either.
Could the city outlast a hundred thousand soldiers hammering its walls and gates? Perhaps.
But not with the witch tower still operational on the plain. She had little doubt that it was currently being repaired, a new wyvern being hitched up. Perhaps that was why they had halted—to give themselves time to get that tower up again. And blast the Crochans into oblivion.
Only the dawn would reveal what the Ironteeth chose to do. What they’d accomplished.
Manon and the Thirteen, Bronwen and Glennis with them, spent hours organizing the Crochans. Assigning them to certain flanks of the Ironteeth based on Manon’s knowledge of their enemy’s formations.
She’d created those formations. Had planned to lead them.
And when that was done, when the meeting with the mortal rulers was over, all of them still grim-faced but not quite so near panic, Manon and the Thirteen found a chamber in which to sleep.
A few candles burned in the spacious room, but no furniture filled it. Nothing save the bedrolls they brought in. Manon tried not to look too long at hers, to mark the scent that had faded with every mile northward.
Where Dorian was, what he was doing—she didn’t let herself think about.
If only because doing so would send her flying southward again, all the way to Morath.
In the dim room, Manon sat on her bedroll, the Thirteen seated around her, and listened to the chaos of the castle.
The place was little more than a tomb, the ghosts of its riches haunting every corner. She wondered what this room had once been—a meeting room, a place to sleep, a study … There were no indicators.
Manon leaned her head back against the cold stones of the wall behind her, her crown discarded by her boots.
Asterin spoke first, cutting through the silence of the coven. “We know their every move, every weapon. And now the Crochans do, too. The Matrons are likely in a panic.”
She’d never seen her grandmother in a panic, but Manon huffed a dark laugh. “We shall see tomorrow, I suppose.” She surveyed her Thirteen. “You have come with me this far, but tomorrow it will be your own kind that we face. You may be fighting friends or lovers or family members.” She swallowed. “I will not blame you if you cannot do it.”
“We have come this far,” Sorrel said, “because we are all prepared for what tomorrow will bring.”
Indeed, the Thirteen nodded. Asterin said, “We are not afraid.”
No, they were not. Looking at the clear eyes around her, Manon could see that for herself.
“I’d expected at least some,” Vesta groused, “from the Ferian Gap to join us.”
“They don’t understand,” Ghislaine said. “What we even offered them.”
Freedom—freedom from the Matrons who had forged them into tools of destruction.
“A waste,” Asterin grumbled. Even the green-eyed demon twins nodded.
Silence fell again. Despite their clear eyes, her Thirteen were well aware of the limitations of five thousand Crochans against the Ironteeth, and the army beneath it.
So Manon said, looking them each in the eye, “I would rather fly with you than with ten thousand Ironteeth at my side.” She smiled slightly. “Tomorrow, we will show them why.”
Her coven grinned, wicked and defiant, and touched two fingers to their brows in deference.
Manon returned the gesture, bowing her head as she did. “We are the Thirteen,” she said. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”
Evangeline had decided that she no longer wished to be page to Lord Darrow, but rather a Crochan witch.
One of the women even went so far as to give the wide-eyed girl an extra red cloak, which Evangeline was still wearing when Lysandra tucked her into bed. She’d help Darrow tomorrow, Evangeline promised as she nodded off. After she made sure the Crochans had all the help they needed.
Lysandra had smiled at that, despite the odds still stacked so high against them. Manon Blackbeak—now Manon Crochan, she supposed—had been blunt in her assessment. The Crochans could keep the Ironteeth at bay, perhaps defeat them if they were truly lucky, but the hosts of Morath were still there to contend with. Once the army marched again, their plans to defend the walls would remain the same.
Unable and unwilling to fall asleep on the cot beside Evangeline’s bed, Lysandra found herself wandering the halls of the rambling, ancie
nt castle. What a home it would have made for her and Evangeline. What a court.
Perhaps she’d unconsciously followed his scent, but Lysandra wasn’t at all surprised when she entered the Great Hall and found Aedion before the dying fire.
He stood alone, and she had little doubt he’d been that way for a while now.
He turned before she’d barely made it through the doorway. Watched her every step.
Because I am not in love with our other allies. How the words changed everything and yet nothing. “You should be asleep.”
Aedion gave her a half smile. “So should you.”
Silence fell between them as they stared at each other.
She could have spent all night like that. Had spent many nights like that, in another beast’s skin. Just watching him, taking in the powerful lines of his body, the unbreakable will in his eyes.
“I thought we were going to die today,” she said.
“We were.”
“I’m still angry with you,” she blurted. “But …”
His brows rose, light she had not seen for some time shining from his face. “But?”
She scowled. “But I shall think about what you said to me. That’s all.”
A familiar, wicked grin graced his lips. “You’ll think about it?”
Lysandra lifted her chin, looking down her nose at him as much as she could while he towered over her. “Yes, I will think about it. What I plan to do.”
“About the fact that I am in love with you.”
“Och.” He knew that the swaggering arrogance would knock her off-kilter. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Is there something else I’m supposed to call it?” He took a single step toward her, letting her decide if she’d allow it. She did.
“Just …” Lysandra pressed her lips together. “Don’t die tomorrow. That’s all I ask.”
“So you can have time to think about what you plan to do with my declaration.”
“Precisely.”
Aedion’s grin turned predatory. “May I ask something of you, then?”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to make requests, but fine.”
That wolfish grin remained as he whispered in her ear, “If I don’t die tomorrow, may I kiss you when the day is done?”
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