Kingdom of Ash

CHAPTER 23

Elide had never seen such a place as Doranelle.

The City of Rivers, they called it. She’d never imagined that a city could be built in the heart of several as they met and poured into a mighty basin.

She didn’t let the awe show on her face as she strode through the winding, neat streets.

Fear was another companion that she kept at bay. With the Fae’s heightened sense of smell, they could detect things like emotion. And though a good dose of fear would aid in her cover, too much would spell her doom.

Yet this place seemed like a paradise. Pink and blue flowers draped from windowsills; little canals wended between some of the streets, ferrying people in bright, long boats.

She’d never seen so many Fae, had never thought they’d be utterly normal. Well, as normal as possible, with their grace and those ears and canines. Along with the animals rushing around her, flitting past, so many forms she couldn’t keep track of them. All perfectly content to go about their daily business, buying everything from crusty loaves of bread to jugs of some sort of oil to vibrant swaths of fabric.

Yet ruling over everything, squatting in the palace on the eastern side of Doranelle, was Maeve. And this city, Rowan had told Elide, had been built from stone to keep Brannon or any of his descendants from razing it to the ground.

Elide fought the limp that grew with each step farther into the city—farther away from Gavriel’s magic. She’d left them in the forested foothills where they’d camped the night before, and Lorcan had again tried to argue against her going. But she’d rummaged through their various packs until she’d found what she needed: berries Gavriel had gathered yesterday, a spare belt and dark green cape from Rowan, a wrinkled white shirt from Lorcan, and a tiny mirror he used for shaving.

She hadn’t said anything when she’d found the white strips of linen at the bottom of Lorcan’s bag. Waiting for her next cycle. She hadn’t been able to find the words, anyway. Not with what it would crumple in her chest to even think them.

Elide kept her shoulders loose, though her face remained tight as she paused at the edge of a pretty little square around a burbling fountain. Vendors and shoppers milled about, chatting in the midmorning sunshine. Elide paused by the square’s arched entrance, putting her back to it, and fished the little mirror out of her cloak pocket, careful not to jostle the knives hidden there as well.

She flicked open the compact, frowning at her reflection—half of the expression not entirely faked. She’d crushed the berries at dawn and carefully lined her eyes with the juices, turning them red-rimmed and miserable-looking. As if she’d been weeping for weeks.

Indeed, the face that pouted back at her was rather wretched.

But it wasn’t the reflection she wanted to see. But rather the square behind her. Surveying it outright might raise too many questions, but if she was merely staring into a compact mirror, no more than a self-conscious girl trying to fix her frazzled appearance … Elide smoothed some strands of her hair while monitoring the square beyond.

A hub of sorts. Two taverns lined its sides, judging by the wine barrels that served as tables out front and the empty glasses atop them, yet to be collected. Between the two taverns, one seemed to attract more males, some in warrior garb. Of the three squares she’d visited, the taverns she’d spotted, this was the only one with soldiers.

Perfect.

Elide smoothed her hair again, shut the compact, and turned back to the square, lifting her chin. A girl trying to muster some dignity.

Let them see what they wanted to see, let them look at the white shirt she’d donned in lieu of the leather witches’ jacket, the green cape draped over herself belted across the middle, and think her an unfashionable, unworldly traveler. A girl far out of her element in this lovely, well-dressed city.

She approached the seven Fae lounging outside the tavern, sizing up who talked most, laughed loudest, who the five males and two females often turned to. One of the females wasn’t a warrior, but rather clothed in soft, feminine pants and a cornflower-blue tunic that fit her lush figure like a glove.

Elide marked the one who they seemed to glance to the most in confirmation and hope of approval. A broad-shouldered female, her dark hair cropped close to her head. She bore armor on her shoulders and wrists—finer than what the other males wore. Their commander, then.

Elide lingered a few feet away, a hand rising to clutch her cape where it draped across her heart, the other fiddling with the golden ring on her finger, the invaluable heirloom little more than a lover’s keepsake. Gnawing on her lip, she cast uncertain, darting eyes on the soldiers, on the tavern. Sniffled a little.

The other female—the one in the fine blue clothes—noticed her first.

She was beautiful, Elide realized. Her dark hair falling in a thick, glossy braid down her back, her golden-brown skin shone with an inner light. Her eyes were soft with kindness. And concern.

Elide took that concern as invitation and stumbled up to them, head bowing. “I—I—I’m sorry to interrupt,” she blurted, speaking more to the dark-haired beauty.

The stammer had always made people uncomfortable, had always made them foolishly off guard and eager to get away. To tell her what she needed to know.

“Is something wrong?” The female’s voice was husky—lovely. The sort of voice Elide had always imagined great beauties possessing, the sort of voice that made men fall all over themselves. From the way some of the males around her had been smiling, Elide had no doubt the female had that effect on them, too.

Elide wobbled her lip, chewed on it. “I—I was looking for someone. He said he’d be here, but …” She glanced to the warriors, and toyed with the ring on her finger again. “I s-s-saw your uniforms and thought y-you might know him.”

The merriment of the little company had died out, replaced by wariness. And pity—from the beauty. Either at the stutter or what she so clearly saw: a young woman pining for a lover who likely was not there.

“What’s his name?” asked the taller female, perhaps the other’s sister, judging by their same dusky skin and dark hair.

Elide swallowed hard enough to make her throat bob rather pathetically. “I—I hate to bother you,” she demurred. “But you all looked very k-k-kind.”

One of the males muttered something about getting another round of drinks, and two of his companions decided to join him. The two males who lingered seemed inclined to go as well, but a sharp look from their commander had them staying.

“It’s not a bother,” the beauty said, waving a manicured hand. She was as short as Elide, though she carried herself like a queen. “Would you like us to fetch you some refreshments?”

People were easy to flatter, easy to trick, regardless of whether they had pointy ears or round.

Elide stepped closer. “No, thank you. I wouldn’t want to trouble y-you.”

The female’s nostrils flared as Elide halted close enough to touch them. No doubt smelling the weeks on the road. But she politely said nothing, though her eyes roved over Elide’s face.

“Your friend’s name,” the commander urged, her gruff voice the opposite of her sister’s.

“Cairn,” Elide whispered. “His name is Cairn.”

One of the males swore; the other scanned Elide from head to toe.

But the two females had gone still.

“H-he serves the queen,” Elide said, eyes leaping from face to face, the portrait of hope. “Do you know him?”

“We know him,” the commander said, her face dark. “You—you are his lover?”

Elide willed her face to redden, thinking of all the mortifying moments on the road: her cycle, having to explain when she needed to relieve herself … “I need to speak with him,” was all Elide said. Learning Maeve’s whereabouts would come later.

The dark-haired beauty said a shade too quietly, “What is your name, child?”

“Finnula,” Elide lied, naming her nursemaid.

“Here’s a bit of advice,” the second male drawled, sipping from his ale. “If you escaped Cairn, don’t go looking for him again.”

His commander shot him a look. “Cairn is blood-sworn to our queen.”

“Still makes him a prick,” the male said.

The female growled, viciously enough that the male wisely went to see about their drinks.

Elide made her shoulders curve inward. “You—you know him, then?”

“Cairn was supposed to meet you here?” the beauty asked instead.

Elide nodded.

The two females exchanged glances. The commander said, “We don’t know where he is.”

Lie. She saw the look between them, between sisters. The decision to not tell her, either to protect the helpless mortal girl they believed her to be, or out of some loyalty to him. Or perhaps to all Fae who decided to find beds in mortal realms and then ignore the consequences months later. Lorcan had been the result of such a union, and then discarded to the mercy of these streets.

The thought was enough to set her grinding her teeth, but Elide kept her jaw relaxed.

Don’t be angry, Finnula had taught her. Be smart.

She made note of that. Not to appear too pathetic at the next tavern. Or like a jilted lover who might be carrying his child.

For she’d have to go to another one. And if she got an answer the next time, she’d have to go to another after that to confirm it.

“Is—is the queen in residence?” Elide said, that beseeching, whining voice grating on her own ears. “He s-s-said he travels with her now, but if she is not here—”

“Her Majesty is not at home,” the commander said, sharply enough that Elide knew her patience was wearing thin. Elide didn’t allow her knees to buckle, didn’t allow her shoulders to sag with anything but what they took to be disappointment. “But where Cairn is, as I said, we do not know.”

Maeve was not here. They had that in their favor, at least. Whether it was luck or due to their own scheming, she didn’t care. But Cairn … She’d learn nothing more from these females. So Elide bowed her head. “Th-thank you.”

She backed away before the females could say more, and made a good show of waiting by the fountain for five minutes. Fifteen. The clock on the square struck the hour, and she knew they were still watching as she did her best attempt at a dejected walk to the other entrance to the square.

She kept it up for a few blocks, wandering with no direction, until she ducked into a narrow pass-through and heaved a breath.

Maeve was not in Doranelle. How long would that remain true?

She had to find Cairn—swiftly. Had to make her next performance count.

She’d need to be less pathetic, less needy, less weepy. Perhaps she’d added too much redness around her eyes.

Elide fished out the mirror. Swiping her pinky under one eye, she rubbed at some of the red stain. It didn’t budge. Moistening the tip of her pinky with her tongue, she ran her finger across her lower lid again. It lessened—slightly.

She was about to do it again when movement flashed in the mirror.

Elide whirled, but too late.

The dark-haired beauty from the tavern was standing behind her.

Lorcan had never felt the weight of the hours so heavily upon him.

While he scouted the southern border of that army, watching the soldiers on their rotations, noting the main arteries of the camp, he kept one eye upon the city.

His city—or it had been. He’d never imagined, even during the childhood he’d spent surviving in its shadows, that it would become an enemy stronghold. That Maeve, while she’d whipped and punished him for any defiance or for her own amusement, would become as great a foe as Erawan. And to send Elide into Maeve’s clutches—it had taken all of his will to let her walk away.

If Elide was captured, if she was found out, he wouldn’t hear of it, know of it. She had no magic to wield, save for the keen eyes of the goddess at her shoulder and an uncanny ability to remain unnoticed, to play into expectations. There would be no flash of power, no signal to alert him that she was in danger.

But he stayed away. Had watched her cross that bridge earlier, his breath tight in his chest, and pass unquestioned and unnoticed by the guards posted at either end. While Maeve did not allow demi-Fae or humans to live within Doranelle’s borders without proving their worth, they could still visit—briefly.

Then he’d gone about scouting. He knew Whitethorn had ordered him to study the southern edge, this edge, because it was precisely where she’d emerge. If she emerged.

Whitethorn and Gavriel had divided up the other camps, the prince claiming the west and north, the Lion taking the eastern camp above the waterfall’s basin.

The afternoon sun was sinking toward the distant sea when they returned to their little base.

“Anything?” Rowan’s question rumbled to them.

Lorcan shook his head. “Not from Elide, not from my scouting. The sentries’ rotations are strict, but not impenetrable. They posted scouts in the trees six miles up.” He knew some of them. Had commanded them. Were they now his enemy?

Gavriel shifted and slumped onto a boulder, equally out of breath. “They’ve got aerial patrols on the eastern camp. And sentries out by the forest’s border.”

Rowan leaned against a towering pine and crossed his arms. “What manner of birds?”

“Raptors, mostly,” Gavriel said. Highly trained soldiers, then. They’d always been the sharpest of the scouts. “I didn’t recognize any from your House.”

They either had all been in that armada, now in Terrasen, or Maeve had put them down.

Rowan ran a hand over his jaw. “The western plain camp is as tightly guarded. The northern one less so, but the wolves in the passes are likely doing half the work for them.”

They didn’t bother to discuss what that army might have been gathered to do. Where it might be headed. If Maeve’s defeat off the Eyllwe coast might be enough to lead her into an alliance with Morath—and to bring this army to crush Terrasen at last.

Lorcan gazed down the wooded hillside, ears straining for any cracking branches or leaves.

A half hour. He’d wait a half hour before going down that hill.

He forced himself to listen to Whitethorn and Gavriel lay out entry points and exit strategies for each camp, forced himself to join in that debate. Forced himself to also discuss the possible entrances and exits from Doranelle itself, where they might go in the city, how they might get over and back across without bringing down the wrath of that army. An army they’d once overseen and commanded. None of them mentioned it, though Gavriel kept glancing to the tattoos inked on his hands. How many more lives would he need to add before they were through? His soldiers not felled by enemy blows, but by his own blade?

The sun inched closer to the horizon. Lorcan began pacing.

Too long. It had taken too long.

The others had fallen silent, too. Gazing down the hill. Waiting.

A slight tremor rocked Lorcan’s hands, and he balled them into fists, squeezing hard. Five minutes. He’d go in five minutes, Aelin Galathynius and their plan be damned.

Aelin had been trained to endure torture. Elide … He could see those scars on her from the shackles. See her maimed foot and ankle. She had endured too much suffering and terror already. He couldn’t allow her to face another heartbeat of it—

Twigs snapped under light feet, and Lorcan shot upright, a hand going to his sword.

Whitethorn thumbed free the hatchet at his side, a knife appearing in his other hand, and Gavriel drew his sword.

But then a two-note whistle echoed, and Lorcan’s legs wobbled so violently he sat back onto the rock where he’d been perched.

Gavriel whistled back, and Lorcan was grateful for it. He wasn’t sure he had the breath.

Then she was there, panting from the climb, her cheeks rosy in the cool night air.

“What happened?” Whitethorn asked.

Lorcan scanned her face, her posture.

She was fine. She was unhurt. There was no enemy on her tail.

Elide’s eyes met his. Wary and uncertain. “I met someone.”

Elide had thought she was about to die.

Or had at least believed that she was going to be sold out to Maeve when she’d faced the dark-haired beauty in the shadowed alley.

She’d told herself, in those heartbeats, that she’d do her best to withstand the torture sure to come, to keep her companions’ location secret even if they broke apart her body. But the prospect of what they’d do to her …

The female held up a delicate hand. “I only wish to talk. In private.” She gestured farther down the alley, to a doorstop covered with a metal awning. To shield them from any eyes—those on the ground and above.

Elide followed her, a hand sliding to the knife in her pocket. The female led the way, no weapons to be seen, her gait unhurried.

But when they halted in the shadows beneath the awning, the female held up a hand once more.

Golden flame danced between her fingers.

Elide recoiled, and the fire vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “My name is Essar,” the female said softly. “I am a friend—of your friends, I believe.”

Elide said nothing.

“Cairn is a monster,” Essar said, taking a step closer. “Stay far from him.”

“I need to find him.”

“You played the part of his mistreated lover well enough. You have to know something about him. What he does.”

“If you know where he is, please tell me.” She wasn’t above begging.

Essar ran an eye over Elide. Then she said, “He was in this city until yesterday. Then he went out to the eastern camp.” She pointed with a thumb over a shoulder. “He’s there now.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not terrorizing the patrons of every fine establishment in this town, glutting himself on the coin Maeve gave him when he took the blood oath.”

Elide blinked. She had hoped some of the Fae might be opposed to Maeve, especially after the battle in Eyllwe, but to find such outright distaste …

Essar then added, “And because my sister—the soldier you spoke with—told me. She saw him in the camp this morning, smirking like a cat.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because you are wearing Lorcan’s shirt, and Rowan Whitethorn’s cloak. If you do not believe me, inform them who told you and they will.”

Elide cocked her head to the side.

Essar said softly, “Lorcan and I were involved for a time.”

They were in the midst of war, and had traveled for thousands of miles to find their queen, and yet the tightness that coiled in Elide’s gut at those words somehow found space. Lorcan’s lover. This delicate beauty with a bedroom voice had been Lorcan’s lover.

“I’ll be missed if I’m gone for too long, but tell them who I am. Tell them that I told you. If it’s Cairn they seek, that is where he shall be. His precise location, I don’t know.” Essar backed away a step. “Don’t go asking after Cairn at other taverns. He isn’t well regarded, even amongst the soldiers. And those who do follow him … You do not wish to attract their interest.”

Essar made to turn away, but Elide blurted, “Where did Maeve go?”

Essar looked over her shoulder. Studied her. The female’s eyes widened. “She has Aelin of the Wildfire,” Essar breathed.

Elide said nothing, but Essar murmured, “That was … that was the power we felt the other night.” Essar swept back toward Elide. Gripped her hands. “Where Maeve went a few days ago, I don’t know. She did not announce it, did not take anyone with her. I often serve her, am asked to … It doesn’t matter. What matters is Maeve is not here. But I do not know when she will return.”

Relief again threatened to send Elide crumpling to the ground. The gods, it seemed, had not abandoned them just yet.

But if Maeve had taken Aelin to the outpost where they’d lied that the Valg prince had been contained …

Elide gripped Essar’s hands, finding them warm and dry. “Does your sister know where Cairn resides in the camp?”

For long minutes, then an hour, they had talked. Essar left and returned with Dresenda, her sister. And in that alley, they had plotted.

Elide finished telling Rowan, Lorcan, and Gavriel what she’d learned. They sat in stunned silence for a long minute.

“Just before dawn,” Elide repeated. “Dresenda said the watch on the eastern camp is weakest at dawn. That she’d find a way for the guards to be occupied. It’s our only window.”

Rowan was staring into the trees, as if he could see the layout of the camp, as if he were plotting his way in, way out.

“She didn’t confirm if Aelin was in Cairn’s tent, though,” Gavriel cautioned. “Maeve is gone—Aelin might be with her, too.”

“It’s a risk we take,” Rowan said. A risk, perhaps, they should have considered.

Elide glanced to Lorcan, who had been silent throughout. Even though it had been his lover who had helped them, perhaps guided by Anneith herself. Or at least had been tipped off by the scent on Elide’s clothes.

“You think we can trust her?” Elide asked Lorcan, though she knew the answer.

Lorcan’s dark eyes shifted to her. “Yes, though I don’t see why she’d bother.”

“She’s a good female, that’s why,” Rowan said. At Elide’s lifted brow, he explained, “Essar visited Mistward this spring. She met Aelin.” He cut a glare toward Lorcan. “And asked me to tell you that she sends her best.”

Elide hadn’t seen anything that came close to pining in Essar’s face, but gods, she was beautiful. And smart. And kind. And Lorcan had let her go, somehow.

Gavriel cut in, “If we move on the eastern camp, we need to figure out our plan now. Get into position. It’s miles away.”

Rowan gazed again toward that distant camp.

“If you’re debating flying there right now,” Lorcan growled, “then you’ll deserve whatever misery comes of your stupidity.” Rowan flashed his teeth, but Lorcan said, “We all go in. We all go out.”

Elide nodded, in agreement for once. Lorcan seemed to stiffen in surprise.

Rowan arrived at that conclusion, too, because he crouched and plunged a knife into the mossy earth. “This is Cairn’s tent,” he said of the dagger, and fished for a nearby pinecone. “This is the southern entrance to the camp.”

And so they planned.

Rowan had parted from his companions an hour ago, sending them to take up their positions.

They would not all go in, all go out.

Rowan would break into the eastern camp, taking the southernmost entrance. Gavriel and Lorcan would be waiting for his signal near the east entrance, hidden in the forest just beyond the rolling, grassy hills on that side of the camp. Ready to unleash hell when he sent a flare of his magic, diverting soldiers to their side while Rowan made his run for Aelin.

Elide would wait for them farther in that forest. Or flee, if things went badly.

She’d protested, but even Gavriel had told her that she was mortal. Untrained. And what she’d done today … Rowan didn’t have the words to convey his gratitude for what Elide had done. The unexpected ally she’d found.

He trusted Essar. She’d never liked Maeve, had outright said she did not serve her with any willingness or pride. But these last few hours before dawn, when so many things could go wrong …

Maeve was not here. That much, at least, had gone right.

Rowan lingered in the steep hills above the southern entrance to the camp. He’d easily kept hidden from the sentries in the trees, his wind masking any trace of his scent.

Down below, spread across the grassy eastern plain, the army camp glittered.

She had to be there. Aelin had to be there.

If they had come so close but wound up being the very thing that had caused Maeve to take Aelin away again, to bring her along to the outpost …

Rowan pushed against the weight in his chest. The bond within him lay dark and slumbering. No indication of her proximity.

Essar had no idea that Aelin was being kept here until Elide informed her. How many others hadn’t known? How well had Maeve hidden her?

If Aelin wasn’t in that camp tomorrow, they’d find Cairn, at least. And get some answers then. Give him a taste of what he’d done—

Rowan shut out the thought. He didn’t let himself think of what had been done to her.

He’d do that tomorrow, when he saw Cairn. When he repaid him for every moment of pain.

Overhead, the stars shone clear and bright, and though Mala had only once appeared to him at dawn, on the foothills across this very city, though she might be little more than a strange, mighty being from another world, he offered up a prayer anyway.

Then, he had begged Mala to protect Aelin from Maeve when they entered Doranelle, to give her strength and guidance, and to let her walk out alive. Then, he had begged Mala to let him remain with Aelin, the woman he loved. The goddess had been little more than a sunbeam in the rising dawn, and yet he had felt her smile at him.

Tonight, with only the cold fire of the stars for company, he begged her once more.

A curl of wind sent his prayer drifting to those stars, to the waxing moon silvering the camp, the river, the mountains.

He had killed his way across the world; he had gone to war and back more times than he cared to remember. And despite it all, despite the rage and despair and ice he’d wrapped around his heart, he’d still found Aelin. Every horizon he’d gazed toward, unable and unwilling to rest during those centuries, every mountain and ocean he’d seen and wondered what lay beyond … It had been her. It had been Aelin, the silent call of the mating bond driving him, even when he could not feel it.

They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here.