Kingdom of Ash

CHAPTER 13

The spider spoke true.

Keeping hidden amongst the ice-crusted rocks of a jagged mountain peak, Manon and the Thirteen peered down into the small pass.

At the camp of red-cloaked witches, the location confirmed by the Shadows just an hour ago.

Manon glanced over her shoulder, to where Dorian was nearly invisible against the snow, the spider in her plain human form beside him.

The depthless eyes of the creature met hers, shining with triumph.

Fine. Cyrene, or whatever she called herself, might live. Where it would lead them, she’d see. The horrors the spider had mentioned in Morath—

Later.

Manon scanned the darkening blue skies. None of them had questioned when Manon had sailed off on Abraxos hours earlier. And none of her Thirteen now asked where she’d gone as they monitored their ancient enemy’s camp.

“Seventy-five that we can see,” Asterin murmured, eyes fixed on the bustling camp. “What in hell are they doing out here?”

Manon didn’t know. The Shadows hadn’t been able to glean anything.

Tents surrounded small campfires—and every few moments, figures departed and arrived on brooms. Her heart thundered in her chest.

The Crochans. The other half of her heritage.

“We move on your command,” Sorrel said, a careful nudge.

Manon drew in a breath, willing the snow-laced wind to keep her cold and steady during this next encounter. And what would come after.

“No nails or teeth,” Manon ordered the Thirteen. Then she looked over her shoulder once more to the king and spider. “You may stay here, if you wish.”

Dorian gave her a lazy smile. “And miss the fun?” Yet she caught the gleam in his eye—the understanding that perhaps he alone could grasp. That she was not just about to face an enemy, but a potential people. He subtly nodded. “We all go in.”

Manon merely nodded back and rose. The Thirteen stood with her.

It was the matter of a few minutes before warning cries rang out.

But Manon kept her hands in the air as Abraxos landed at the edge of the Crochan camp, the Thirteen and their wyverns behind her, Vesta bearing both Dorian and the spider.

Spears and arrows and swords pointed at them with lethal accuracy.

A dark-haired witch stalked past the armed front line, a fine blade in her hand as her eyes fixed on Manon.

Crochans. Her people.

Now—now would be the time to make the speech she’d planned. To free those words that she’d tethered within herself.

Asterin turned toward her in silent urging.

Yet Manon’s lips didn’t move.

The dark-haired one kept her brown eyes fixed on Manon. Over one shoulder, a polished wood staff gleamed. Not a staff—a broom. Beyond the witch’s billowing red cloak, gold-bound twigs shimmered.

High ranking, then, to have such fine bindings. Most Crochans used simpler metals, the poorest just twine.

“What interesting replacements for your ironwood brooms,” the Crochan said. The others were as stone-faced as the Thirteen. The witch glanced toward where Dorian sat atop Vesta’s mount, likely monitoring all with that clear-eyed cunning. “And interesting company you now keep.” The witch’s mouth curled slightly. “Unless things have become so sorry for your ilk, Blackbeak, that you have to resort to sharing.”

A snarl rumbled from Asterin.

But the witch had identified her—or at least what Clan they hailed from. The Crochan sniffed at the spider-shifter. Her eyes shuttered. “Interesting company indeed.”

“We mean you no harm,” Manon finally said.

The witch snorted. “No threats from the White Demon?”

Oh, she knew, then. Who Manon was, who they all were.

“Or are the rumors true? That you broke with your grandmother?” The witch brazenly surveyed Manon from head to boot. A bolder look than Manon usually allowed her enemies to make. “Rumor also claims you were gutted at her hand, but here you are. Hale and once more hunting us. Perhaps the rumors about your defection aren’t true, either.”

“She broke from her grandmother,” said Dorian, sliding off Vesta’s wyvern and prowling toward Abraxos. The Crochans tensed, but made no move to attack. “I pulled her from the sea months ago, when she lay upon Death’s doorstep. Saw the iron shards my friends removed from her abdomen.”

The Crochan’s dark brows rose, again taking in the beautiful, well-spoken male. Perhaps noting the power that radiated from him—and the keys he bore. “And who, exactly, are you?”

Dorian gave the witch one of those charming smiles and sketched a bow. “Dorian Havilliard, at your service.”

“The king,” one of the Crochans murmured from near the wyverns.

Dorian winked. “That I am, too.”

The head of the coven, however, studied him—then Manon. The spider. “There is more to be explained, it seems.”

Manon’s hand itched for Wind-Cleaver at her back.

But Dorian said, “We’ve been looking for you for two months now.” The Crochans again tensed. “Not for violence or sport,” he clarified, the words flowing in a silver-tongued melody. “But so we might discuss matters between our peoples.”

The Crochans shifted, boots crunching in the icy snow.

The coven leader asked, “Between Adarlan and us, or between the Blackbeaks and our people?”

Manon slid off Abraxos at last, her mount huffing anxiously as he eyed their glinting weapons. “All of us,” Manon said tightly. She jerked her chin to the wyverns. “They will not harm you.” Unless she signaled the command. Then the Crochans’ heads would be torn from their bodies before they could draw their swords. “You can stand down.”

One of the Crochans laughed. “And be remembered as fools for trusting you? I think not.”

The coven leader slashed a silencing glare toward the brown-haired sentinel who’d spoken, a pretty, full-figured witch. The witch shrugged, sighing skyward.

The coven leader turned to Manon. “We will stand down when we are ordered to do so.”

“By whom?” Dorian scanned their ranks.

Now would be the time for Manon to say who she was, what she was. To announce why she had truly come.

The coven leader pointed deeper into the camp. “Her.”

Even from a distance, Dorian had marveled at the brooms the Crochans sat astride to soar through the sky. But now, surrounded by them … No mere myths. But warriors. Ones all too happy to end them.

Bloodred capes flowed everywhere, stark against the snow and gray peaks. Though many of the witches were young-faced and beautiful, there were just as many who appeared middle-aged, some even elderly. How old they must have been to become so withered, Dorian couldn’t fathom. He had little doubt they could kill him with ease.

The coven leader pointed toward the neat rows of tents, and the gathered warriors parted, the wall of brooms and weapons shining in the dying light.

“So,” an ancient voice said as the ranks stepped back to reveal the one to whom the Crochan had pointed. Not yet bent with age, but her hair was white with it. Her blue eyes, however, were clear as a mountain lake. “The hunters have now become the hunted.”

The ancient witch paused at the edge of her ranks, surveying Manon. There was kindness on the witch’s face, Dorian noted—and wisdom. And something, he realized, like sorrow. It didn’t halt him from sliding a hand onto Damaris’s pommel, as if he were casually resting it.

“We sought you so we might speak.” Manon’s cold, calm voice rang out over the rocks. “We mean you no harm.”

Damaris warmed at the truth in her words.

“This time,” the brown-haired witch who’d spoken earlier muttered. Her coven leader elbowed her in warning.

“Who are you, though?” Manon instead asked the crone. “You lead these covens.”

“I am Glennis. My family served the Crochan royals, long before the city fell.” The ancient witch’s eyes went to the strip of red cloth tying Manon’s braid. “Rhiannon found you, then.”

Dorian had listened when Manon had explained to the Thirteen the truth about her heritage, and who her grandmother had bade her to slaughter in the Omega.

Manon kept her chin up, even as her golden eyes flickered. “Rhiannon didn’t make it out of the Ferian Gap.”

“Bitch,” a witch snarled, others echoing it.

Manon ignored it and asked the ancient Crochan, “You knew her, then?”

The witches fell silent.

The crone inclined her head, that sorrow filling her eyes once more. Dorian didn’t need Damaris’s confirming warmth to know her next words were true. “I was her great-grandmother.” Even the whipping wind quieted. “As I am yours.”