Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas

She arched a brow. He shrugged, watching the field again, the mists still clinging to its farthest reaches. “I don’t sleep well these days.” He cut her a sidelong glance. “I don’t suppose I’m the only one.”

She picked at the blister on her right hand, hissing. “We could start a secret society—for people who don’t sleep well.”

“As long as Lorcan isn’t invited, I’m in.”

Aelin huffed a laugh. “Let it go.”

His face turned stony. “I said I would.”

“You clearly haven’t.”

“I’ll let it go when you stop running yourself ragged at dawn.”

“I’m not running myself ragged. Rowan is overseeing it.”

“Rowan is the only reason you’re not limping everywhere.”

Truth. Aelin curled her aching hands into fists and slid them into her pockets. Fenrys said nothing—didn’t ask why she didn’t warm her fingers. Or the air around them.

He just turned to her and blinked three times. Are you all right?

A gull’s cry pierced the gray world, and Aelin blinked back twice. No.

It was as much as she’d admit. She blinked again, thrice now. Are you all right?

Two blinks from him, too.

No, they were not all right. They might never be. If the others knew, if they saw past the swagger and temper, they didn’t let on.

None of them commented that Fenrys hadn’t once used his magic to leap between places. Not that there was anywhere to go in the middle of the sea. But even when they sparred, he didn’t wield it.

Perhaps it had died with Connall. Perhaps it had been a gift they had both shared, and touching it was unbearable.

She didn’t dare peer inward, to the churning sea inside her. Couldn’t.

Aelin and Fenrys stood by the field as the sun arced higher, burning off the mists.

After a long minute, she asked, “When you took the oath to Maeve, what did her blood taste like?”

His golden brows narrowed. “Like blood. And power. Why?”

Aelin shook her head. Another dream, or hallucination. “If she’s on our heels with this army, I’m just … trying to understand it. Her, I mean.”

“You plan to kill her.”

The gruel in her stomach turned over, but Aelin shrugged. Even as she tasted ash on her tongue. “Would you prefer to do it?”

“I’m not sure I’d survive it,” he said through his teeth. “And you have more of a reason to claim it than I do.”

“I’d say we have an equal claim.”

His dark eyes roved over her face. “Connall was a better male than—than how you saw him that time. Than what he was in the end.”

She gripped his hand and squeezed. “I know.”

The last of the mists vanished. Fenrys asked quietly, “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

He didn’t mean his brother.

She shook her head. “I know enough.” She surveyed her cold, blistered hands. “I know enough,” she repeated.

He stiffened, a hand going to the sword at his side. Not at her words, but—

Rowan dove from the skies, a full-out plunge.

He shifted a few feet from the ground, landing with a predator’s grace as he ran the last steps toward them.

Goldryn sang as she unsheathed it. “What?”

Her mate just pointed to the skies.

To what flew there.





CHAPTER 45

Rock roared against rock, and Yrene braced a hand on the shuddering stones of Westfall Keep as the tower swayed. Down the hallway, people screamed, some wailing, some lunging over family members to cover them with their bodies while debris rained.

Dawn had barely broken, and the battle was already raging.

Yrene pressed herself into the stones, heart hammering, counting the breaths until the shaking stopped. The last assault, it had been six.

She got to three, mercifully.

Five days of this. Five days of this endless nightmare, with only the blackest hours of the night offering reprieve.

She had barely seen Chaol for more than a passing kiss and embrace. The first time, he’d been sporting a wound to the temple that she’d healed away. The next, he’d been leaning heavily on his cane, covered in dirt and blood, much of it not his own.

It was the black blood that had made her stomach turn. Valg. There were Valg out there. Infesting human hosts. Too many for her to cure. No, that part would come after the battle. If they survived.

Soon, too soon, the injured and dying had begun pouring in. Eretia had organized a sick bay in the great hall, and it was there that Yrene had spent most of her time. Where she’d been headed, after managing a few hours of dreamless sleep.

The tower steadied itself, and Yrene announced to no one in particular, “The ruks are still holding off the tide. Morath only fires the catapults because they cannot breach the keep walls.”

It was only partially true, but the families crouched in the hall, their bedrolls and precious few belongings with them, seemed to settle.

The ruks had indeed disabled many of the catapults that Morath had hauled here, but a few remained—just enough to hammer the keep, the city. And while the ruks might have been holding off the tide, it would not be for long.

Yrene didn’t want to know how many had fallen. She only saw the number of riders in the great hall and knew it would be too many. Eretia had ordered the injured ruks to take up residence in one of the interior courtyards, assigning five healers to oversee them, and the space was so full you could barely move through it.