Kingdom of Ash

Days of near-silent travel passed.

Three days, if whatever senses Rowan and Gavriel possessed proved true. Perhaps the latter carried a pocket watch. Aelin didn’t particularly care.

She used each of those days to consider what had been done, what lay before her. Sometimes, the roar of her magic drowned out her thoughts. Sometimes it slumbered. She never heeded it.

They sailed through the darkness, the river below so black that they might as well have been drifting through Hellas’s realm.

It was near the end of the fourth day through the dark and rock, their escorts hauling the boat tirelessly, that Rowan murmured, “We’re entering barrow-wight territory.”

Gavriel twisted from his spot by the prow. “How can you tell?”

Sprawled beside him, still in wolf form, Fenrys cocked his ears forward.

She hadn’t asked him why he remained in his wolf’s body. No one asked her why she remained in her Fae form, after all. But she supposed that if he donned his Fae form, he might feel inclined to talk. To answer questions that he was perhaps not yet ready to discuss. Might begin simply screaming and screaming at what had been done to them, to Connall.

Rowan pointed with a tattooed finger toward an alcove in the wall. Shadow veiled its recesses, but as the blue light of the lantern touched it, gold glittered along the rocky floor. Ancient gold.

“What’s a barrow-wight?” Elide whispered.

“Creatures of malice and thought,” Lorcan answered, scanning the passageway, a hand drifting to the hilt of his sword. “They covet gold and treasure, and infested the ancient tombs of kings and queens so they might dwell amongst it. They hate light of any kind. Hopefully, this will keep them away.”

Elide cringed, and Aelin felt inclined to do the same.

Instead, she dredged up enough speech to ask Rowan, “Are these the same ones beneath the burial mounds we visited?”

Rowan straightened, eyes sparking at her question—or at the fact that she’d spoken at all. He’d kept by her these days, a silent, steady presence. Even when they’d slept, he’d remained a few feet away, still not touching, but just there. Close enough that the pine-and-snow scent of him eased her into slumber.

Rowan braced a hand along the boat’s rim. “There are many barrow-wight mounds across Wendlyn, but no others between the Cambrians and Doranelle beyond those we went to. As far as we know,” he amended. “I didn’t realize their tombs had been carved so deep.”

“The wights needed some way in, with the tomb doors likely sealed above,” Gavriel observed, studying a larger alcove that appeared on the right ahead. Not an alcove, but a dry cave mouth that flowed to the edge of the river before rising out of sight.

“Stop the boat,” Aelin said.

Silence at the order, even from Rowan.

Aelin pointed to the lip of shore by the cave mouth. “Stop the boat,” she repeated.

“I don’t think we can,” Elide murmured. Indeed, the two of them had resorted to using a bucket to see to their needs these few days, the males engaging in whatever conversation they could to make the silence more bearable.

But the boat headed for the alcove, its speed banking. Fenrys eased to his feet, sniffing the air as they neared the shore ledge. Rowan and Lorcan leaned out to brace their hands against the stone to keep them from colliding too hard.

Aelin didn’t wait for the boat to cease rocking before she grabbed a lantern and leaped onto the river-smooth ground.

Rowan swore, jumping after her. “Stay here,” he warned whoever remained on the boat.

Aelin didn’t bother to see who obeyed as she strode into the cave.

The queen had been reckless before Cairn and Maeve had worked on her for two months, but it seemed she’d had any bit of common sense flayed from her.

Lorcan refrained from saying that, though, as he found himself and Elide alone in the boat. Gavriel and Fenrys had gone after Rowan and Aelin, their path marked only by the fading gleam of blue light on the walls.

Not firelight. She hadn’t shown an ember since they’d entered the cave.

Elide remained sitting across from him on the left side of the boat, her back resting along the curved edge. She had been silent these past few minutes, watching the now-dark cave mouth.

“Barrow-wights are nothing to fear if you’re armed with magic,” Lorcan found himself saying.

Her dark eyes slid to him. “Well, I don’t have any, so forgive me if I remain alert.”

No, she’d once told him that while magic flowed in the Lochan bloodline, she had none to speak of. He’d never told her that he’d always considered her cleverness to be a mighty magic on its own, regardless of Anneith’s whisperings.

Elide went on, “It’s not the wights I’m worried about.”

Lorcan assessed the quiet river flowing by, the caves around them, before he said, “It will take time for her to readjust.”

She stared at him with those damning eyes.

He braced his forearms on his knees. “We got her back. She’s with us now. What more do you want?” From me, he didn’t need to add.

Elide straightened. “I don’t want anything.” From you.

He clenched his teeth. This was where they’d have it out, then. “How much longer am I supposed to atone?”

“Are you growing bored with it?”

He snarled.

She only glared at him. “I hadn’t realized you were even atoning.”

“I came here, didn’t I?”

“For whom, exactly? Rowan? Aelin?”

“For both of them. And for you.”

There. Let it be laid before them.

Despite the blue glow of the lantern, he could make out the pink that spread across her cheeks. Yet her mouth tightened. “I told you on that beach: I want nothing to do with you.”

“So one mistake and I am your eternal enemy?”

“She is my queen, and you summoned Maeve, then told her where the keys were, and you stood there while they did that to her.”

“You have no idea what the blood oath can do. None.”

“Fenrys broke the oath. He found a way.”

“And had Aelin not been there to offer him another, he would have died.” He let out a low, joyless laugh. “Perhaps that’s what you would have preferred.”

She ignored his last comment. “You didn’t even try.”

“I did,” he snarled. “I fought it with everything I had. And it was not enough. If she’d ordered me to slit your throat, I would have. And if I had found a way to break the oath, I would have died, and she might very well have killed you or taken you afterward. On that beach, my only thought was to get Maeve to forget about you, to let you go—”

“I don’t care about me! I didn’t care about me on that beach!”

“Well, I do.” His growled words echoed across the water and stone, and he lowered his voice. Worse things than wights might come sniffing down here. “I cared about you on that beach. And your queen did, too.”

Elide shook her head and looked away, looked anywhere, it seemed, but at him.

This was what came of opening that door to a place inside him that no one had ever breached. This mess, this hollowness in his chest that made him keep needing to make things right.

“Resent me all you like,” he said, damning the hoarseness of his words. “I’m sure I’ll survive.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes. “Fine,” she said, her voice brittle.

He hated that brittleness more than anything he’d ever encountered. Hated himself for causing it. But he had limits to how low he’d crawl.

He’d said his piece. If she wanted to wash her hands of him forever, then he would find a way to respect that. Live with it.

Somehow.

The cave ascended for a few feet, then leveled out and wended into the stone. A rough-hewn passage carved not by water or age, Rowan realized, but by mortal hands. Perhaps the long-dead kings and lords had taken the subterranean river to deposit their dead before sealing the tombs to sunlight and air above, the knowledge of the pathways dying off with their kingdoms.

A faint glow pulsed from the lantern Aelin held, bathing the cave walls in blue. He’d quickly caught up to her, and now strode at her side, Fenrys trotting at her heels and Gavriel taking up the rear.

Rowan hadn’t bothered to free his weapons. Steel was of little use against the wights. Only magic might destroy them.

Why Aelin had needed to stop, what she’d needed to see, he could only guess as the passage opened into a small cavern, and gold gleamed.

Gold all around—and a shadow clothed in tattered black robes lurking by the sarcophagus in the center.

Rowan snarled in warning but Aelin didn’t strike.

Her hand curled at her side, but she remained still. The wight hissed. Aelin just watched it.

As if she wouldn’t, couldn’t, touch her power.

Rowan’s chest strained. Then he sent a whip of ice and wind through the cave.

The wight shrieked once, and was gone.

Aelin stared at where it had been for a heartbeat, and then glanced at him over a shoulder. Gratitude shone in her eyes.

Rowan only gave her a nod. Don’t worry about it.

Yet Aelin turned away, shutting off that silent conversation as she surveyed the space.

Time. It would take time for her to heal. Even if he knew his Fireheart would pretend otherwise.

So Rowan looked, too. Across the tomb, beyond the sarcophagus and treasure, an archway opened into another chamber. Perhaps another tomb, or an exit passage.

“We don’t have time to find a way out,” Rowan murmured as she strode into the tomb. “And the caves remain safer than the surface.”

“I’m not looking for a way out,” she said in that calm, unmoved voice. She stooped, swiping up a fistful of gold coins stamped with a forgotten king’s face. “We’re going to need to fund our travels. And the gods know what else.”

Rowan arched a brow.

Aelin shrugged and shoved the gold into the pocket of her cloak. “Unless the pitiful clinking I heard from your coin purse didn’t indicate you were low on funds.”

That spark of wry humor, the taunting … She was trying. For his sake, or the others’, maybe her own, she was trying.

He could offer her nothing less, too. Rowan inclined his head. “We are indeed in dire need of replenishing our coffers.”

Gavriel coughed. “This does belong to the dead, you know.”

Aelin added another fistful of coins to her pocket, beginning a circuit around the treasure-laden tomb. “The dead don’t need to buy passage on a ship. Or horses.”

Rowan gave the Lion a slashing grin. “You heard the lady.”

A flash ruptured from where Fenrys had been sniffing at a trunk of jewels, and then a male was standing there. His gray clothes worn, but intact—in better shape than the hollowed-out look in his eyes.

Aelin paused her looting.

Fenrys’s throat bobbed, as if trying to remember speech. Then he said hoarsely, “We needed more pockets.” He patted his own for emphasis.

Aelin’s lips curved in a hint of a smile. She blinked at Fenrys—three times.

Fenrys blinked once in answer.

A code. They’d made up some silent code to communicate when he’d been ordered to remain in his wolf form.

Aelin’s smile remained, just barely, as she walked to the golden-haired male, his bronze skin ashen. She opened her arms in silent offer.

To let him decide if he wished for contact. If he could endure it.

Just as Rowan would let her decide if she wished to touch him.

A small sigh broke from Fenrys before he folded Aelin into his arms, a shudder rippling through him. Rowan couldn’t see her face, perhaps didn’t need to, as her hands gripped Fenrys’s jacket, so tightly they were white-knuckled.

A good sign—a small miracle, that either of them wished, could be touched. Rowan reminded himself of it, even while some intrinsic, male part of him tensed at the contact. A territorial Fae bastard, she’d once called him. He’d do his best not to live up to that title.

“Thank you,” Aelin said, her voice small in a way that made Rowan’s chest crack further. Fenrys didn’t answer, but from the anguish on his face, Rowan knew no thanks were in order.

They pulled away, and Fenrys cupped her cheek. “When you are ready, we can talk.”

About what they’d endured. To unravel all that had happened.

Aelin nodded, blowing out a breath. “Likewise.”

She resumed shoving gold into her pockets, but glanced back to Fenrys, his face drawn. “I gave you the blood oath to save your life,” she said. “But if you do not want it, Fenrys, I … we can find some way to free you—”

“I want it,” Fenrys said, no trace of his usual swaggering humor. He glanced to Rowan, and bowed his head. “It is my honor to serve this court. And serve you,” he added to Aelin.

She waved a hand in dismissal, though Rowan didn’t fail to note the sheen in her eyes as she stooped to gather more gold. Giving her a moment, he strode to Fenrys and clasped his shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.” He added, stumbling a bit on the word, “Brother.”

For that’s what they would be. Had never been before, but what Fenrys had done for Aelin … Yes, brother was what Rowan would call him. Even if Fenrys’s own—

Fenrys’s dark eyes flickered. “She killed Connall. Made him stab himself in the heart.”

A pearl-and-ruby necklace scattered from Gavriel’s fingers.

The temperature in the tomb spiked, but there was no flash of flame, no swirl of embers.

As if Aelin’s magic had surged, only to be leashed again.

Yet Aelin continued shoving gold and jewels into her pockets.

She’d witnessed it, too. That slaughter.

But it was Gavriel, approaching on silent feet even with the jewels and gold on the floor, who clasped Fenrys’s other shoulder. “We will make sure that debt is paid before the end.”

The Lion had never uttered such words—not toward their former queen. But fury burned in Gavriel’s tawny gaze. Sorrow and fury.

Fenrys took a steadying breath and stepped away, the loss on his face mingling with something Rowan couldn’t place. But now wasn’t the time to ask, to pry.

They filled their pockets with as much gold as they could fit, Fenrys going so far as to remove his gray jacket to form a makeshift pack. When it was nearly drooping to the floor with gold, the threads straining, he silently headed back down the passageway. Gavriel, still wincing at their shameless looting, stalked after him a moment later.

Aelin continued picking her way amongst the treasure, however. She’d been more selective than the rest of them, examining pieces with what Rowan had assumed was a jeweler’s eye. The gods knew she’d owned enough finery to tell what would fetch the highest price at market.

“We should go,” he said. His own pockets were near to bursting, his every step weighed down.

She rose from a rusted metal chest she’d been riffling through.

Rowan remained still as she approached, something clenched in her palm. It was only when she stopped close enough for him to touch her that she unfurled her fingers.

Two golden rings lay there.

“I don’t know the Fae customs,” she said. The thicker ring held an elegantly cut ruby within the band itself, while the smaller one bore a sparkling rectangular emerald mounted atop, the stone as large as her fingernail. “But when humans wed, rings are exchanged.”

Her fingers trembled—just slightly. Too many unspoken words lay between them.

Yet now was not the time for that conversation, for that healing.

Not when they had to be on their way as swiftly as possible, and this offer she’d made him, this proof that she still wanted what lay between them, the vows they’d sworn …

“I assume the sparkly emerald is for me,” Rowan said with a half smile.

She huffed a laugh. The soft, whispered sound was as precious as the rings she’d found for them in this hoard.

She took his hand, and he tried not to shudder in relief, tried not to fall to his knees as she slid the ruby ring onto his finger. It fit him perfectly, the ring no doubt forged for the king lying in this barrow.

Silently, Rowan grasped her own hand and eased on the emerald ring. “To whatever end,” he whispered.

Silver lined her eyes. “To whatever end.”

A reminder—and a vow, more sacred than the wedding oaths they’d sworn on that ship.

To walk this path together, back from the darkness of the iron coffin. To face what waited in Terrasen, ancient promises to the gods be damned.

He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “I’ll make the tattoo again.” She swallowed, but nodded. “And,” he added, “I’d like to add another. To me—and to you.”

Her brows flicked up, but he squeezed her hand. You’ll have to wait and see, Princess.

Another hint of a smile. She didn’t balk from the silent words this time. Typical.

He opened his mouth to voice the question he’d been dying to ask for days now. May I kiss you? But she pulled her hand from his.

Admiring the wedding band sparkling on her finger, her mouth tightened as she turned over her palm. “I’ll need to retrain.”

Not a single callus marked her hands.

Aelin frowned at her too-thin body. “And pack on some muscle again.” A slight quiver graced her words, but she curled her hands into fists at her sides and smirked at her clothes—the Mistward clothes. “It’ll be just like old times.”

Trying. She was dredging up that swagger and trying. So he would, too. Until she didn’t need to any more.

Rowan gave her a crooked grin. “Just like old times,” he said, following her out of the barrow and back toward the ebony river, “but with far less sleep.”

He could have sworn the passageway heated. But Aelin kept going.

Later. That conversation, this unfinished business between them, would come later.