Kingdom of Ash

CHAPTER 104

The sweat and blood on him quickly freezing, Aedion panted as he leaned against the battered city walls and watched the encamped enemy pull back for the night.

A sick sort of joke, a cruel torment, for Morath to halt at each sundown. As if it were some sort of civility, as if the creatures who infested so many of the soldiers below required light.

He knew why Erawan had ordered it so. To wear them down day by day, to break their spirits rather than let them go out in raging glory.

It wasn’t just the victory or conquest that Erawan desired, but their complete surrender. Their begging for it to be over, for him to end them, rule them.

Aedion ground his teeth as he limped down the battlements, the light quickly fading, the temperature plummeting.

Five days.

The weapons they’d estimated running out in three or four days had lasted until today. Until now.

Down the wall, one of the Mycenians sent a plume of flame onto the Valg still trying to scale the siege ladder. Where it burned, demons fell away.

Rolfe stood by the woman wielding the firelance, his face as bloodied and sweaty as Aedion’s.

A black-armored hand clamped onto the battlement beside Aedion as he passed by, grappling for purchase.

Barely looking, Aedion slammed out his ancient shield. A yelp and fading cry was his only confirmation that the rogue soldier had gone tumbling to the ground.

Rolfe smiled grimly as Aedion halted, the weight of his armor like a thousand stones. Overhead, Crochans and Ironteeth flew slowly back across the city walls, red capes drooping over brooms, leathery wings beating irregularly. Aedion watched the sky until he saw the riderless wyvern he looked for every day, every night.

Spotting him, too, Lysandra banked and began a slow, pained descent toward the city wall.

So many dead. More and more each day. Those lost lives weighed his every step. Nothing he could do would ever make it right—not really.

“The archers are out,” Aedion said to Rolfe by way of greeting as Lysandra drew closer, blood both her own and from others on her wings, her chest. “No more arrows.”

Rolfe jerked his chin toward the Mycenian warrior still setting off her firelance in sputtering fits and bursts.

Lysandra landed, shifting in a flash, and was instantly at Aedion’s side, tucked under his shield arm. A soft, swift kiss was their only greeting. The only thing he looked forward to every night.

Sometimes, once they’d been bandaged and eaten something, he’d manage to get more than that. Often, they didn’t bother to wash up before finding a shadowed alcove. Then it was nothing but her, the sheer perfection of her, the small sounds she made when he licked up her throat, when his hands slowly, so slowly, explored each inch of her. Letting her set the pace, show him and tell him how far she wished to go. But not that final joining, not yet.

Something for them both to live for—that was their unspoken vow.

She reeked of Valg blood, but Aedion still pressed another kiss to Lysandra’s temple before he looked back at Rolfe. The Pirate Lord smiled grimly.

Well aware that these would likely be their final days. Hours.

The Mycenian warrior aimed her firelance again, and the lingering Valg tumbled away into the darkness, little more than melted bones and fluttering cloth.

“That’s the last of it,” Rolfe said quietly.

It took Aedion a heartbeat to realize he didn’t mean the final soldier of the evening.

The Mycenian warrior set down her firelance with a heavy, metallic thud.

“The firelances are done,” Rolfe said.

Darkness fell over Orynth, so thick even the flames of the castle shriveled.

On the castle battlements, Darrow silent at her side, Evangeline watched the trudging lines of soldiers come in from the walls, from the skies.

Bone drums began to beat.

A heartbeat, as if the enemy army on the plain were one massive, rising beast now readying to devour them.

Most days, they only beat from sunup to sundown, the noise blocked out by the din of battle. That they had started it anew as the sun vanished … Her stomach churned.

“Tomorrow,” Lord Sloane murmured from where he stood beside Darrow. “Or the day after. It will be done then.”

Not victory. Evangeline knew that now.

Darrow said nothing, and Lord Sloane clapped him on the shoulder before heading inside.

“What happens at the end?” Evangeline dared ask Darrow.

The old man gazed across the city, the battlefield full of such terrible darkness.

“Either we surrender,” he said, voice hoarse, “and Erawan makes slaves of us all, or we fight until we’re all carrion.”

Such stark, harsh words. Yet she liked that about him—that he did not soften anything for her. “Who shall decide what we do?”

His gray eyes scanned her face. “It would fall upon us, the Lords of Terrasen.”

Evangeline nodded. Enemy campfires flickered to life, their flames seeming to echo the beat of their bone drums.

“What would you decide?” Darrow’s question was quiet, tentative.

She considered it. No one had ever asked her such a thing.

“I should have very much liked to live at Caraverre,” Evangeline admitted. She knew he did not recognize it, but it didn’t matter now, did it? “Murtaugh showed me the land—the rivers and mountains right nearby, the forests and hills.” An ache throbbed in her chest. “I saw the gardens by the house, and I would have liked to have seen them in spring.” Her throat tightened. “I would have liked for that to have been my home. For this … for all of Terrasen to have been my home.”

Darrow said nothing, and Evangeline set a hand on the castle stones, gazing to the west now, as if she could see all the way to Allsbrook and the small territory in its shadow. To Caraverre.

“That’s what Terrasen has always meant to me, you know,” Evangeline went on, speaking more to herself. “As soon as Aelin freed Lysandra, and offered to let us join her court, Terrasen has always meant home. A place where … where the sort of people who hurt us don’t get to live. Where anyone, regardless of who they are and where they came from and what their rank is can dwell in peace. Where we can have a garden in the spring, and swim in the rivers in the summer. I’ve never had such a thing before. A home, I mean. And I would have liked for Caraverre, for Terrasen, to have been mine.” She chewed on her lip. “So I would choose to fight. Until the very end. For my home, new as it is. I choose to fight.”

Darrow was silent for so long that she peered up at him.

She’d never seen his eyes so sad, as if the weight of all his years truly settled upon them.

Then he only said, “Come with me.”

She followed him down the battlements and into the warmth of the castle, along the various winding hallways, all the way to the Great Hall, where a too-small evening meal was being laid out. One of their last.

No one bothered to look up from their plates as Evangeline and Darrow passed between the long tables crammed with drained and injured soldiers.

Darrow didn’t look at them, either, as he went right up to the line of people waiting for their food. Right up to Aedion and Lysandra, their arms looped around each other while they waited their turn. As it should have been from the start—the two of them together.

Aedion, sensing Darrow’s approach, turned. The general looked worn through.

He knew, then. That tomorrow or the day after would be their last. Lysandra gave Evangeline a small smile, and Evangeline knew that she was aware, too. Would try to find a way to get her out before the end.

Even if Evangeline would never allow it.

Darrow unbuckled the sword at his side and extended it to Aedion.

Silence began to ripple through the hall at the sight of the sword—Aedion’s sword. The Sword of Orynth.

Darrow held it between them, the ancient bone pommel gleaming. “Terrasen is your home.”

Aedion’s haggard face remained unmoved. “It has been since the day I arrived here.”

“I know,” Darrow said, gazing at the sword. “And you have defended it far more than any natural-born son would ever be expected to. Beyond what anyone might ever reasonably be asked to give. You have done so without complaint, without fear, and have served your kingdom nobly.” He extended the sword. “You will forgive a proud old man who sought to do so as well.”

Aedion slid his arm from Lysandra’s shoulder, and took the sword in his hands. “Serving this kingdom has been the great honor of my life.”

“I know,” Darrow repeated, and glanced down to Evangeline before he looked to Lysandra. “Someone very wise recently told me that Terrasen is not merely a place, but an ideal. A home for all those who wander, for those who need somewhere to welcome them with open arms.” He inclined his head to Lysandra. “I formally recognize Caraverre and its lands, and you as its lady.”

Lysandra’s fingers found Evangeline’s and squeezed tight.

“For your unwavering courage in the face of the enemy gathered at our doorstep, for all you have done to defend this city and kingdom, Caraverre shall be recognized, and yours forevermore.” A glance between her and Aedion. “Any heirs you bear shall inherit it, and their heirs after them.”

“Evangeline is my heir,” Lysandra said thickly, resting a warm hand on her shoulder.

Darrow smiled slightly. “I know that, too. But I should like to say one more thing, on this perhaps final night of ours.” He inclined his head to Evangeline. “I never fathered any offspring, nor did I adopt any. It would be an honor to name such a wise, brave young lady as my heir.”

Absolute silence. Evangeline blinked—and blinked again.

Darrow went on in the stunned quiet, “I should like to face my enemies knowing that the heart of my lands, of this kingdom, will beat on in the chest of Evangeline. That no matter the gathering shadow, Terrasen will always live in someone who understands its very essence without needing to be taught. Who embodies its very best qualities.” He gestured to Lysandra. “If that is agreeable to you.”

To make her his ward—and a lady … Evangeline clasped Darrow’s hand. He squeezed back.

“I …” Lysandra blinked, and turned to her, eyes bright. “It is not my call, is it?”

So Evangeline smiled up at Darrow. “I would very much like that.”

The bone drums beat all night long.

What new horrors would be unleashed with the dawn, Manon didn’t know.

Sitting beside Abraxos in the aerie tower, she stared with him at the endless sea of blackness.

It would be over soon. The desperate hope of Aelin Galathynius had flickered out.

Would any be able to escape once the city walls were breached? And where would they even go? Once Erawan’s shadow settled, would there be any stopping him?

Dorian—Dorian could. If he had gotten the keys. If he had survived.

He might be dead. Might be marching on them right now, a black collar around his throat.

Manon leaned her head against Abraxos’s warm, leathery side.

She would not be able to see her people home. To bring them to the Wastes.

Tomorrow—in her wicked, old bones she knew it would be tomorrow that the city walls fell at last. They had no weapons left beyond swords and their own defiance. That would only last so long against the endless force waiting for them.

Abraxos shifted his wing so that it shielded her from the wind.

“I would have liked to have seen it,” Manon said quietly. “The Wastes. Just once.”

Abraxos huffed, nudging her gently with his head. She stroked a hand over his snout.

And even with the darkness squatting on the battlefield, she could picture it—the rolling, vibrant green that flowed to a thrashing gray sea. A shining city along its shore, witches soaring on brooms or wyverns in the skies above it. She could hear the laughter of witchlings in the streets, the long-forgotten music of their people floating on the wind. A wide, open space, lush and evergreen.

“I would have liked to have seen it,” Manon whispered again.