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

Rowan just stared at her for a long moment, his chest heaving. Then he said, “What if those forces didn’t lead Dorian into our path so you alone might pay the debt?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What if they brought you together. To not pick one or the other, but to share the burden. With each other.”

Even the fire in the braziers seemed to pause.

Rowan’s eyes glowed as he blazed ahead. “That day you destroyed the glass castle—when you joined hands, your power … I’d never seen anything like it. You were able to meld your powers, to become one. If the Lock demands all of you, then why not give half? Half of each of you—when you both bear Mala’s blood?”

Aelin slid slowly into her chair. “I—we don’t know it will work.”

“It’s better than walking into your own execution with your head bowed.”

She snarled. “How could I ever ask him to do it?”

“Because it is not your burden alone, that’s why. Dorian knows this. Has accepted it. Because the alternative is losing you.” The rage in his eyes fractured, right along with his voice. “I would go in your stead, if I could.”

Her own heart cracked. “I know.”

Rowan fell to his knees before her, putting his head in her lap as his arms wrapped around her waist. “I can’t bear it, Aelin. I can’t.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wanted that thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair.

Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.”

She gazed at him, at the life she saw in his face. All that he offered.

All that she might have, too.



“I need to ask you to do something.”

Aelin’s voice roused Dorian from a fitful sleep. He sat up on his cot. From the silence of the camp, it had to be the dead of night. “What?”

Rowan was standing guard behind her, watching the army camp beneath the trees. Dorian caught his emerald gaze—saw the answer he already needed.

The prince had come through on his silent promise earlier.

Aelin’s throat bobbed. “Together,” she said, her voice cracking. “What if we forged the Lock together?”

Dorian knew her plan, her desperate hope, before she laid it out. And when she finished, Aelin only said, “I am sorry to even ask you.”

“I am sorry I didn’t think of it,” he replied, and pushed to his feet, tugging on his boots.

Rowan turned toward them now. Waiting for an answer that he knew Dorian would give.

So Dorian said to them both, “Yes.”

Aelin closed her eyes, and he couldn’t tell if it was from relief or regret. He laid a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t want to know what the argument had been like between her and Rowan to get her to agree, to accept this. For Aelin to have even said yes …

Her eyes opened, and only bleak resolve lay within. “We do it now,” she said hoarsely. “Before the others. Before good-byes.”

Dorian nodded. She only asked, “Do you want Chaol to be there?”

He thought about saying no. Thought about sparing his friend from another good-bye, when there was such joy on Chaol’s face, such peace.

But Dorian still said, “Yes.”





CHAPTER 93

The four of them strode in silence through the trees. Down the ancient road to the salt mines.

It was the only place the scouts weren’t watching.

Every step closer made her queasy, a slow sweat breaking down her spine. Rowan kept his hand gripped around hers, his thumb brushing over her skin.

Here, in this horrible, dead place of so much suffering—here was where she would face her fate. As if she had never escaped it, not really.

Under the cover of darkness, the mountains in which the mines were carved were little more than shadows. The great wall that surrounded the death camp was nothing but a stain of blackness.

The gates had been left open, one broken on its hinges. Perhaps the freed slaves had tried to rip it down on their way out.

Aelin’s fingers tightened on Rowan’s as they passed beneath the archway and entered the open grounds of the mines. There, in the center—there stood the wooden posts where she had been whipped. On her first day, on so many days.

And there, in the mountain to her left—that was where the pits were. The lightless pits they’d shoved her into.

The buildings of the mines’ overseers were dark. Husks.

It took all her self-control to keep from looking at her wrists, where the shackle scars had been. To not feel the cold sweat sliding down her back and know no scars lay there, either. Just Rowan’s tattoo, inked over smooth skin.

As if this place were a dream—some nightmare conjured by Maeve.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d escaped shackles twice now—only to wind up back here. A temporary freedom. Borrowed time.

She’d left Goldryn in their tent. The sword would be of little use where they were going.

“I never thought we’d see this place again,” Dorian murmured. “Certainly not like this.” None of the king’s steps faltered, his face somber as he gripped Damaris’s hilt. Ready to meet whatever awaited them.