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

Loud—they must have been so loud—

But Aedion didn’t budge, though Lysandra unwrapped her leg from around his waist. Just as the sentry walked past, eyes down.

Walked past quickly.

Aedion tracked the man the entire time, nothing human in Aedion’s eyes. An apex predator who had found his prey at last.

No, not prey. Never with him.

But his partner. His mate.

When the sentry had vanished around the corner, no doubt running to tell everyone what he’d interrupted, when Aedion leaned to kiss her again, Lysandra halted him with a gentle hand to his mouth. “Tomorrow,” she said softly.

Aedion let out a snarl—though one without any bite.

“Tomorrow,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek, stepping out of his arms. “Live through tomorrow, fight through tomorrow, and we’ll … continue.”

His breathing was ragged, eyes wary. “Was this from pity?” A broken, miserable question.

Lysandra slid her hand against his stubble-coated cheek and pressed her mouth against his. Let herself taste him again. “It is because I am sick of all this death. And I needed you.”

Aedion made a low, pained sound, so Lysandra kissed him a final time. Went so far as to run her tongue along the seam of his lips. He opened for her, and then they were tangled in each other again, teeth and tongues and hands roaming, touching, tasting.

But Lysandra managed to extract herself again, her breathing as jagged as his own.

“Tomorrow, Aedion,” she breathed.



“We have enough left in our arsenal for our archers to use for another three days, maybe four if they conserve their stores,” Lord Darrow said, arms crossed as he read through the tally.

Manon didn’t dislike the old man—part of her even admired his iron-fisted control. But these war councils each evening were beginning to tire her.

Especially when they brought bleaker and bleaker news.

Yesterday, there had been one more standing in this chamber. Lord Murtaugh.

Today, only his grandson sat in a chair, his eyes red-rimmed. A living wraith.

“Food stores?” Aedion asked from the other side of the table. The general-prince had seen better days, too. They all had. Every face in this room had the same bleak, battered expression.

“We have food for a month at least,” Darrow said. “But none of that will matter without anyone to defend the walls.”

Captain Rolfe stepped up to the table. “The firelances are down to the dregs. We’ll be lucky if they last through tomorrow.”

“Then we conserve them, too,” Manon said. “Use them only for any higher-ranking Valg that make it over the city walls.”

Rolfe nodded. Another man she begrudgingly admired—though his swaggering could grate.

It was an effort not to look to the sealed doors to the chamber. Where Asterin and Sorrel should have been waiting. Defending.

Instead, Petrah and Bronwen stood there. Not as her new Second and Third, but just representatives from their own factions.

“Let’s say we make the arrows last for four days,” Ansel of Briarcliff said, frowning deeply. “And make the firelances last for three, if used conservatively. Once they’re out, what remains?”

“The catapults still work,” provided one of the silver-haired Fae royals. The female one.

“They’re for inflicting damage far out on the field, though,” said Prince Galan, who, like Aedion, bore Aelin’s eyes. “Not close fighting.”

“Then we have our swords,” Aedion said hoarsely. “Our courage.”

The latter, Manon knew, was running low, too.

“We can keep the Ironteeth at bay,” Manon said, “but cannot also aid you at the walls.”

They were indeed fighting a relentless tide that did not diminish.

“So is this the end, then?” Ansel asked. “In four, five days, we offer our necks to Morath?”

“We fight to the last of us,” Aedion growled. “To the very last one.”

Even Lord Darrow did not object to that. So they departed, meeting over.

There wasn’t anything else to discuss. Within a few days, they’d all be a grand feast for the crows.





CHAPTER 103

The storm had halted their army entirely.

On the first morning, it raged so fiercely that Rowan hadn’t been able to see a few feet before him. Ruks had been grounded, and only the hardiest of scouts had been sent out—on land.

So the army sat there. Not fifty miles over Terrasen’s border. A week from Orynth.

Had Aelin possessed her full powers—

Not her full powers. Not anymore, Rowan reminded himself as he sat in their war tent, his mate and wife and queen on the low-lying sofa beside him.

Aelin’s full powers were now … he didn’t quite know. Where they’d been at Mistward, perhaps. When she still had that self-inflicted damper. Not as little as when she’d arrived, but not as much as when she’d encircled all of Doranelle with her flame.

Certainly not enough to face Erawan and walk away. And Maeve.

He didn’t care. Didn’t give a shit whether she had all the power of the sun, or not an ember.

It had never mattered to him anyway.

Outside, the wind howled, the tent shuddering.

“Is it always this bad?” Fenrys asked, frowning at the shaking tent walls.