Kingdom of Ash

CHAPTER 25

Cairn had let her rot in the box for a while.

It was quieter here, no endless, droning roar of the river.

Nothing but that pressure, building and building and building under her skin, in her head. She could not outrun it, even in oblivion.

But still the irons dug in, chafing against her skin. Wetness pooled beneath her as time wheeled by. As Maeve undoubtedly brought that collar closer with each hour.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

She drifted down again, into a pocket of the dark, where she told herself that story—the story—over and over.

Who she was, what she was, what she stood to destroy should she yield to the near-airlessness of the box, to the rising strain.

It wouldn’t matter, though. Once that collar went around her neck, how long would it take until the Valg prince within pried from her everything Maeve wished to know? Violated and delved into every inner barrier to mine those vital secrets?

Cairn would begin again soon. It would be wretched. And then the healers would return with their sweet-smelling smoke, as they had come these months, these years, however long it had been.

But she’d seen beyond them, for an instant. Had seen canvas fabric draped overhead, rushes covered with woven rugs beneath their sandaled feet. Braziers smoldered all around.

A tent. She was in a tent. Murmuring sounded outside—not nearby, but close enough for her Fae hearing to pick up. People speaking in both her tongue and the Old Language, someone muttering about the cramped camp conditions.

An army camp, full of Fae.

A more secure location, Cairn had said. Maeve had wanted her here, to guard her from Morath. Until Maeve clamped the cold Wyrdstone collar around her neck.

But then oblivion swept in. When she awoke, cleaned and without an ache, she knew Cairn was soon to begin. His canvas had been wiped bare, ready for him to paint red. His terrible, grand finale, not to pry information from her, not with Maeve’s triumph at hand, but for his own pleasure.

Aelin was ready, too.

They hadn’t chained her to an altar this time. But to a metal table, set within the center of the large tent. He’d had them bring in the comforts of home—or whatever Cairn might consider home.

A tall chest of drawers stood by one canvas wall. She doubted it held clothes.

Fenrys lay beside it, head on his front paws, sleeping. For once, sleeping. Grief laid heavy on him, dulling his coat, dimming his bright eyes.

Another table had been placed near the one on which she lay. A cloth covered three humped objects on it. Beside the one closest, a patch of black velvet also had been left out. For the instruments he’d use on her. The way a merchant might display his finest jewels.

Two chairs sat facing each other on the other side of the second table, before the large brazier full to the brim with crackling logs. The smoke curled upward, up, up—

A small hole had been cut into the tent’s ceiling. And through it …

Aelin couldn’t fight the trembling in her mouth at the night sky, at the pinpricks of light shining in it.

Stars. Just two, but there were stars overhead. The sky itself … it was not the heaviness of full night, but rather a murky, graying black.

Dawn. Likely an hour or so away, if the stars remained out. Perhaps she would last long enough to see sunlight.

Fenrys’s eyes shot open, and he lifted his head, ears twitching.

Aelin took steadying breaths as Cairn shoved through the tent flaps, offering a glimpse of fires and lightening darkness beyond. Nothing else.

“Enjoy your rest?”

Aelin said nothing.

Cairn ran a hand down the metal table’s edge. “I’ve been debating what to do with you, you know. How to really savor this, make it special for us both before our time is through.”

Fenrys’s snarl rumbled through the tent. Cairn just swept the cloth from the smaller table.

Low metal dishes on three legs, piled with unlit logs.

Aelin stiffened as he hauled one over, and set it beneath the foot of the metal table. A smaller brazier, its legs cut short for its bowl to hover barely above the ground.

He set the second brazier below the table’s center. The third at the head.

“We’ve played with your hands before,” Cairn said, straightening. Aelin began shaking, began tugging on the chains anchoring her arms above her head. His smile grew. “Let’s see how your entire body reacts to flame without your special little gift. Perhaps you’ll burn like the rest of us.”

Aelin yanked uselessly, her feet sliding against the still-cool metal.

Not like this—

Cairn reached into his pocket and withdrew some flint.

This wasn’t just a breaking of her body. But a breaking of her—of the fire she’d come to love. To destroy the part of her that sang.

He’d melt her skin and bones until she feared the flame, until she hated it, as she hated those healers who had come again and again to repair her body, to hide what was real from what had been a dream.

Fenrys’s snarl rolled on, endless.

Cairn said mildly, “You can scream all you like, if it pleases you.”

The table would turn red-hot, and the scent of burning flesh would fill her nose, and she wouldn’t be able to stop it, stop him; she would sob in agony, as the burns went so deep, through skin and into bone—

The pressure in her body, her head, faded. It became secondary as Cairn fished a rolled pouch from his other pocket. He set it upon the swath of black velvet, and she could make out the indents of the slender tools inside. “For when heating the table grows boring,” he said, patting the tool kit. “I want to see how far the burns go inside your skin.”

Bile shot up her throat as he weighed the flint in his hands and stepped closer.

She began fraying then, who she was and had been melting away as her own body would soon melt when this table heated.

The hand she’d been dealt. It was the hand she had been dealt, and she would endure it. Even as a word took form on her tongue.

Please.

She tried to swallow it. Tried to keep it locked in as Cairn crouched beside the table, flint raised.

You do not yield.

You do not yield.

You do not yield.

“Wait.”

The word was a rasp.

Cairn paused. Rose from his crouch. “Wait?”

Aelin shook, her breathing ragged. “Wait.”

Cairn crossed his arms. “Do you have something you’d like to say at last?”

He’d let her promise anything to him, to Maeve. And then would still light those fires. Maeve would not hear of her yielding for days.

Aelin made herself meet his stare, her gauntlet-covered fingers pressing into the iron slab beneath her.

One last chance.

She’d seen the stars overhead. It was as great a gift as any she’d received, greater than the jewels and gowns and art she’d once coveted and amassed in Rifthold. The last gift she would receive, if she played the hand she’d been dealt. If she played him right.

To end this, end her. Before Maeve could put the Wyrdstone collar around her neck.

Dawn neared, the stars dimming one by one.

Rowan lurked by the southernmost entrance to the camp, his power thrumming.

Cairn’s tent lay in the center of the camp. A mile and a half lay between Rowan and his prey.

When the guards began their shift change, he’d rip the air from their lungs. Would rip the air from the lungs of every soldier in his path. How many would he know? How many had he trained? A small part of him prayed the number would be few. That if they knew him, they’d be wise and stand down. He had no intention of stopping, though.

Rowan freed the hatchet from his side, a long knife already glinting in the other.

A killing calm had settled over him hours ago. Days ago. Months ago.

Only a few more minutes.

The six guards at the camp entrance stirred from their watches. The sentries in the trees behind him, unaware of his presence this night, would spot the action the moment their fellow sentries went down. And certainly spot him the moment he broke from the trees, crossing the narrow strip of grass between the forest and camp.

He’d debated flying in, but the aerial patrols had circled all night, and if he faced them, expending more power than he needed to while also fighting off the arrows and magic sure to be firing from below … He’d waste vital reserves of his energy. So on foot it would be, a hard, brutal run to the center of the camp. Then out, either with Aelin or Cairn.

Still alive. He had to keep Cairn alive for now. Long enough to clear this camp and reach a spot where they could slice every answer from him.

Go, a quiet voice urged. Go now.

Essar’s sister had advised to wait until dawn. When the shift was weakest. When she’d make sure certain guards didn’t arrive on time.

Go now.

That voice, warm and yet insistent, tugged. Pushed him toward the camp.

Rowan bared his teeth, his breathing roughening. Lorcan and Gavriel would be waiting for the signal, a flare of his magic, when he got far enough into the camp.

Now, Prince.

He knew that voice, had felt its warmth. And if the Lady of Light herself whispered at his ear …

Rowan didn’t give himself time to consider, to rage at the goddess who urged him to act but would gladly sacrifice his mate to the Lock.

So Rowan steeled himself, willing ice into his veins.

Calm. Precise. Deadly.

Every swing of his blades, every blast of his power, had to count.

Rowan speared his magic toward the camp entrance.

The guards grabbed for their throats, feeble shields wobbling around them. Rowan shattered them with half a thought, his magic tearing the air from their lungs, their blood.

They went down a heartbeat later.

Sentries shouted from the trees, orders of “Sound the alarm!” ringing out.

But Rowan was already running. And the sentries in the trees, their shouts lingering on the wind as they gasped for breath, were already dead.

The sky slowly bled toward dawn.

Standing at the edge of the forest that bordered the eastern side of the camp, a good two miles of rolling, grassy hills between him and the edge of the army, Lorcan monitored the stirring troops.

Gavriel had already shifted, and the mountain lion now paced near the tree line, waiting for the signal.

It was an effort not to peer behind him, though Lorcan could not see her. They’d left Elide a few miles into the forest, hidden in a copse of trees bordering a glen. Should all go poorly, she’d flee deeper into the hilly woods, up into the ancient mountains. Where far more deadly and cunning predators than Fae still prowled.

She hadn’t offered him a parting word, though she’d wished them all luck. Lorcan hadn’t been able to find the right words anyway, so he’d left without so much as a look back.

But he glanced back now. Prayed that if they didn’t return, she wouldn’t come hunting for them.

Gavriel halted his pacing, ears twitching toward the camp.

Lorcan stiffened.

A spark of his power awakened and flickered.

Death beckoned nearby.

“It’s too soon,” Lorcan said, scanning for any sign of Whitethorn’s signal. Nothing.

Gavriel’s ears lay flat against his head. And still those flutters of the dying trickled past.