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

Aedion didn’t look for a shifter in the ranks. Ilken flew low over Morath’s teeming mass. She’d undoubtedly go for them first.

Aedion halted his horse in the center of their host, the iced-over Lanis almost buried beneath the snow that had fallen the night before. Morath knew it existed, though. Those Valg princes had likely studied the terrain thoroughly. Had likely studied him thoroughly, too, his technique and skill. He knew he’d face one of them before it was done, perhaps all of them. It wouldn’t end well.

Yet as long as they risked the crossing, he didn’t care. Endymion and Sellene, the only Fae still left with a whisper of power, were stationed just behind the first of the Bane.

The eyes of his own soldiers were a phantom touch between his shoulder blades, on his helmeted head. He had not prepared a speech to rally them.

A speech would not keep these men from dying today.

So Aedion drew the Sword of Orynth, hefted his shield, and joined the Bane’s steady beat.

Conveying all the defiance and rage in his heart, he clashed the ancient sword against the dented, round metal.

Rhoe’s shield.

Aedion had never told Aelin. Had wanted to wait until they returned to Orynth to reveal that the shield he’d carried, had never lost, had belonged to her father. And so many others before that.

It had no name. Even Rhoe had not known its age. And when Aedion had spirited it away from Rhoe’s room, the only thing he grabbed when the news came that his family had been butchered, he had let the others forget about it, too.

Even Darrow had not recognized it. Worn and simple, the shield had gone unnoticed at Aedion’s side, a reminder of what he’d lost. What he’d defend to his final breath.

The soldiers from their allies’ armies picked up the beat as Morath reached the edge of the river. A barked command from the two Valg princes on horseback had the first of the foot soldiers crossing the ice, the ilken holding back near the center. To strike when they’d been worn down.

Ren Allsbrook and their remaining archers kept hidden behind the lines, picking targets amongst those winged terrors.

On and on, Aedion and their army banged their swords against their shields.

Closer and closer, Morath’s army spilled onto the frozen river.

Aedion held the beat, their enemy not realizing the sound served another purpose.

To mask the cracking of the ice deep below.

Morath advanced until they were nearly across the river.

Enda and Sellene needed no shouted order. A wind swept over the ice, then slammed into it, between the cracks they’d been creating. Then they shoved the ice apart. Tore it to shreds.

One heartbeat, Morath was marching toward them.

The next, they plunged down, water splashing, shouts and screams filling the air. The ilken shot forward to grab soldiers drowning under the weight of their armor.

But Ren Allsbrook was waiting, and at his bellowed order, the archers fired upon the exposed ilken. Blows to the wings sent them tumbling to the ice, into the water. Going under, some ilken dragged by their own thrashing soldiers.

The Valg princes each lifted a hand, as if they were of one mind. The army halted at the shore. Watching as their brethren drowned. Watching as Endymion and Sellene kept ripping the ice apart, forbidding it to freeze over again.

Aedion dared to smile at the sight of the drowning soldiers.

He found the two Valg princes smiling back at him from across the river. One ran a hand over the black collar at his throat. A promise and reminder of precisely what they’d do to him.

Aedion inclined his head in mocking invitation. They could certainly try.

The Fae royals’ power broke at last, heralded by the ice that formed over the drowning soldiers, sealing them beneath the dark water.

A gust of black wind from the Valg princes and their soldiers didn’t so much as look down as they began marching over the ice, ignoring the banging fists beneath their feet.

Aedion guided his horse behind the front line, to where Kyllian and Elgan were mounted on their own steeds. Two thousand of the enemy had gone into the river at most. None would emerge.

Barely a dent in the force now advancing.

Aedion didn’t have words for his commanders, who had known him for most of his life, perhaps better than anyone. They had no words for him, either.

When Morath reached their shore at last, swords bright in the gray day, Aedion let out a roar and charged.



The ilken had learned that a shape-shifter was amongst them, and wore a wyvern’s skin. Lysandra realized it after she’d swept for them, leaping from the army’s ranks to slam into a cluster of three.

Three others had been waiting, hiding in the horde below. An ambush.

She’d barely taken out two, snapping off their heads with her spiked tail, before their poisoned claws had forced her to flee. So she’d drawn the ilken back toward her own lines, right into the range of Ren’s archers.

They’d gotten the ilken down—barely. Shots to the wings that allowed Lysandra to rip their heads from their bodies.

As they’d fallen, she’d dove for the ground, shifting as she went. She landed as a ghost leopard, and unleashed herself upon the foot soldiers already pushing against Terrasen’s joined shields.

The skilled unity of the Bane was nothing against the sheer numbers forcing them back. The Fae warriors, the Silent Assassins—Ansel and Galan’s few remaining soldiers spread between them—neither of those lethal units could halt them, either.