Kingdom of Ash

CHAPTER 28

Aelin ran.

Her weakened legs stumbled on the grass, her still-bound hands restricting the full range of motion, but she ran. Picked a direction, any direction but the river mists to her left, and ran.

The sun was rising, and the army camp … There was motion behind her. Shouting.

She blocked it out and aimed right. Toward the rising sun, as if it were Mala’s own welcoming embrace.

She couldn’t get down enough air through the mask’s thin slit, but she kept moving, racing past tents, past soldiers who whipped their heads toward her, as if puzzled. She clenched the poker in her ironclad hands, refusing to see what the commotion was, if Cairn raged behind her.

But then she heard them. Bellowed orders.

Rushing steps in the grass behind, closing in. People ahead alerted by their cries.

Bare feet flying over the ground, her exhausted legs screamed to stop.

Still Aelin aimed for the eastern horizon. Toward the trees and mountains, toward the sun cresting over them.

And when the first of the soldiers blocked her path, shouting to stop, she angled the iron poker and did not falter.

Death sang to Lorcan.

From the birds of prey that speared farther and farther into the camp, he knew Whitethorn was close to Cairn’s tent.

Soon now, they’d get the signal.

Lorcan and Gavriel steadied their breathing, readying their power. It thrummed through them, twin waves cresting.

But death began beckoning elsewhere in the camp.

Closer to them. Moving fast.

Lorcan scanned the brightening sky, the line of the first tents. The entrance with the guards.

“Someone’s making a move this way,” Lorcan murmured to Gavriel. “But Whitethorn’s still over there.”

Fenrys. Or Connall, perhaps. Maybe Essar’s sister, who he’d never liked. But he wouldn’t give a shit about that if she hadn’t betrayed them.

He pointed north of the entrance. “You take that side. Be ready to strike from the flank.”

Gavriel sped off, a predator ready to pounce unseen when Lorcan attacked head-on.

Death glimmered. Whitethorn was nearly at the camp’s center. And that force approaching their eastern entrance …

To hell with waiting.

Lorcan broke from the cover of trees, dark power swirling, primed to meet whatever broke through the line of tents.

Freeing the sword at his side, he searched the sky, the camp, the world as death flickered, as the rising sun gilded the rolling grasses and set the dew steaming.

Nothing. No indication of what, of who—

He’d reached the first of the hollows that flowed to the camp edge, the dips narrow and steep, when Aelin Galathynius appeared.

Lorcan didn’t expect the sob in his throat as she raced between the tents, as he beheld the iron mask and the chains on her, hands still bound.

As he beheld the blood soaking her skin, the short white shift, her hair, longer than he’d last seen and plastered to her head with gore.

His knees stopped working, and even his magic faltered at the sight of her wild, desperate race for the camp’s edge.

Soldiers ran toward her.

Lorcan surged into motion, flaring his magic up and wide. Not to her, but to Whitethorn, still charging for the center of the camp.

She’s here, she’s here, she’s here, he signaled.

But Lorcan was too far, the grassy bumps and hollows between them now endless, as ten soldiers converged on Aelin, blocking her path toward the open field.

One swung his sword, a strike that would cleave her skull in two.

The fool didn’t realize who he faced. What he faced.

That it wasn’t a fire-breathing queen bound in iron who charged at him, but an assassin.

With a twist, arms lifting, Aelin met that sword head-on.

Just as she’d planned.

The male’s sword fell short of his intended target, but hit precisely where she wished.

In the center of the chains that bound her hands.

Iron snapped.

Then the male’s sword was in her freed hands. Then his throat was spraying blood.

Aelin whirled, slamming into the other soldiers who stood between her and freedom. Even as he ran for her, Lorcan could only gape at what unfolded.

She struck before they knew where to turn. Slash, duck, lunge.

She got her other hand on one of their daggers.

Then it was over. Then there was nothing between her and the camp entrance but the six guards drawing their weapons—

Lorcan lashed out with his magic, a lethal net of power that had those guards crashing to their knees. Necks snapped.

Aelin didn’t falter as they wilted to the ground. She charged past, aiming straight for the field and hills. To where Lorcan ran for her.

He signaled again. To me, to me.

Whether Aelin recognized it, or him, she still raced his way.

Whole. Her body looked whole, and yet she was so thin, her blood-splattered legs straining to keep her upright.

A rolling field of steep bumps and hollows lay between them. Lorcan swore.

She wouldn’t make it, not over that terrain, not drained like that—

But she did.

Aelin vanished into the first dip, and Lorcan’s magic flared over and over. To her, to Whitethorn.

And then she was up, cresting the hill, and he could see the slowness taking over, the sheer exhaustion from a body at its limit.

Arrows twanged from bows, and a wall of them shot into the sky. Aiming for her on those exposed hills.

Lorcan sent a wave of his power snapping them away.

Still more fired. Single shots this time, from so many directions he couldn’t trace their sources. Trained archers, some of Maeve’s best. Aelin had to—

She already was.

Aelin began zagging, depriving them of an easy target.

Left to right, she darted over the hills, slower with each bump she cleared, each step toward Lorcan as he raced to her, a hundred yards remaining between them.

An arrow speared for her back, but Aelin lunged to the side, skidding in grass and dirt. She was up again in a heartbeat, weapons still in hand, charging for the hills and hollows between them.

Another arrow aimed for her, and Lorcan made to snap it away. A wall of glittering gold got there first.

From the north, leaping over the hollows, charged Gavriel. Aelin disappeared into a dip in the earth, and when she emerged, the Lion ran at her side, a golden shield around her. Not close to her—but in the air around them. Unable to fully touch her with the iron mask, the chains draped around her torso. The iron gauntlets on her hands.

Soldiers were spilling out of the camp, and Lorcan sent a black wind whipping for them. Where it touched them, they died. And those who did not found an impenetrable shield barring the way to the field.

He spread it as wide as he could. Blood oath or no, they were still his people. His soldiers. He’d prevent their deaths, if he could. Save them from themselves.

Aelin was stumbling now, and Lorcan cleared the last of the hills between them.

He opened his mouth, to shout what, he didn’t know, but a cry pierced the blue sky.

The sob that came out of Aelin at the hawk’s bellow of fury cracked Lorcan’s chest.

But she kept running for the trees, for their cover. Lorcan and Gavriel fell into step beside her, and when she again stumbled, those too-thin legs giving out, Lorcan gripped her under the arm and hauled her along.

Fast as a shooting star, Rowan dove for them. He reached them as they passed the first of the trees, shifting as he landed. They threw themselves into a halt, Aelin sprawling onto the pine-covered ground.

Rowan was instantly before her, hands going to the mask on her face, the chains, the blood coating her arms, her torn body—

Aelin let out another sob, and then moaned, “Fenrys.”

It took Lorcan a moment to understand. Took her pointing behind them, to the camp, as she said again, as if speech was beyond her, “Fenrys.” Her breath was a wet rasp. A plea. A broken, bloody plea.

Fenrys remained with Cairn. In the camp. Aelin pointed again, sobbing.

Rowan turned from his mate.

The rage in Rowan’s eyes could devour the world. And that rage was about to extract the sort of vengeance only a mated male could command.

Rowan’s canines flashed, but his voice was deadly soft as he said to Lorcan, “Take her to the glen.” A jerk of his chin to Gavriel. “You’re with me.”

With a final look toward Aelin, his frozen rage a brewing storm on the wind, the prince and the Lion were gone, charging back toward the chaotic, bloody camp.