Kingdom of Ash

Lorcan was given the last watch of the night, which allowed him to witness the sunrise over the now-distant horizon.

Would he ever see it again—Wendlyn, Doranelle, any of that eastern land?

Perhaps not, considering what they sailed to in the west, and the immortal army Maeve had no doubt set on their heels. Perhaps they were all doomed to limited sunrises.

The others roused, venturing onto the deck to learn what the morning brought. Nothing, he almost told them from where he stood by the prow. Water and sun and a whole lot of nothing.

Fenrys spotted him and bared his teeth. Lorcan gave him a mocking smile.

Yes, that fight would come later. He’d welcome it, the chance to ease the tightness from his bones, to let Fenrys tear into him a bit.

He wouldn’t kill the wolf, though. Fenrys might try to kill him, but Lorcan wouldn’t do it. Not after what Fenrys had endured—what he’d managed to do.

Elide emerged from belowdecks, hair braided and smooth. As if she’d been up before the dawn. She barely looked his way, though he knew she was well aware of his location. Lorcan blocked out the hollow pang in his chest.

But Aelin spied him, and there was more clarity in her face than there’d been these past few days as she stalked for where he stood. More of that swagger in her gait, too.

The sleeves of her white shirt had been rolled to the elbow, her hair braided back. Goldryn and a long knife hung from her belt. Ready for training. Primed for it, judging by the bristling energy that buzzed around her.

Lorcan met her halfway, descending the small stairs.

Whitethorn lingered nearby, also dressed for sparring, the wariness in his eyes telling Lorcan enough: the prince had no idea what this was about.

But the young queen crossed her arms. “Do you plan to sail with us to Terrasen?”

An unnecessary question for dawn, and in the middle of the sea. “Yes.”

“And you plan to join us in this war?”

“I’m certainly not going there to enjoy the weather.”

Amusement glittered in her eyes, though her face remained grim. “Then this is how it’s going to work.”

Lorcan waited for the list of orders and demands, but the queen was only watching him, that amusement fading into something steel-hardened.

“You were Maeve’s second-in-command,” she said, and Elide turned their way. “And now that you aren’t, it leaves you as a powerful Fae male whose allegiances I don’t know or really trust. Not when Maeve’s army is likely on the move toward the continent at this very moment. So I can’t have you in my kingdom, or traveling with us, when you might very well sell information to get back into Maeve’s good graces, can I?”

He opened his mouth, bristling at the haughty tone, but Aelin went on. “So I’ll make you an offer, Lorcan Salvaterre.” She tapped her bare forearm. “Swear the blood oath to me, and I’ll let you roam wherever you wish.”

Fenrys cursed behind them, but Lorcan barely heard it over the roaring in his head.

“And what, exactly,” he managed to say, “do I get out of it?”

Aelin’s eyes slid over her shoulder. To where Elide watched, mouth agape. When the queen met Lorcan’s gaze again, a touch of sympathy had softened the steely arrogance. “You will be allowed into Terrasen. That is what you will get. Where you choose to live within Terrasen’s borders will not be my decision.”

Not her decision, or his. But that of the dark-haired female gawking at them.

“And if I refuse?” Lorcan dared ask.

“Then you will never be allowed to set foot in my kingdom, or to travel further with us—not with the keys in the balance, and Maeve’s army at our backs.” That sympathy remained. “I can’t trust you enough to let you join us any other way.”

“But you’ll let me swear the blood oath?”

“I want nothing from you, and you want nothing from me. The only order I shall ever give you is the one I would ask of any citizen of Terrasen: to protect and defend our kingdom and its people. You can live in a hut in the Staghorns for all I care.”

She meant it, too. Swear the blood oath, swear never to harm her kingdom, and she’d give him freedom. And if he refused … He would never see Elide again.

“I don’t have another choice,” Aelin said quietly, so the others might not hear. “I can’t risk Terrasen.” She still held her arm toward him. “But I would not take something as precious away from you.”

“What you don’t realize is that is no longer a possibility.”

Again, that hint of a smile and glance over her shoulder toward Elide. “It is.” Her turquoise eyes were bright as she looked back at him, and there was wisdom on Aelin’s face that he had perhaps never noticed before. A queen’s face. “Believe me, Lorcan, it is.”

He shut down the hope that filled his chest, foreign and unwanted.

“But Terrasen will not survive this war, she will not survive this war, without you.”

And even if the queen before him gave her immortal life to forge the Lock, to stop Erawan, Lorcan’s blood oath to protect her kingdom would hold.

“It’s your choice,” she said simply.

Lorcan allowed himself to look to Elide, foolish as it might be.

She had a hand on her throat, her dark eyes so wide.

It didn’t matter if she still offered him a home in Perranth, if the queen spoke true.

But what did matter was that Aelin Galathynius had meant her promise: he was too powerful, his allegiances too murky, for her to allow him to roam with her, to enter her kingdom unfettered. She’d let him go, keep him out of Terrasen, even if Erawan’s hordes were descending, just to avoid the other threat at their backs: Maeve.

And Elide would not survive it, this war, if all of them were dead.

He couldn’t accept it, that possibility. Foolish and useless as it was, he couldn’t allow it to pass. To have either Erawan’s beasts or her uncle Vernon come to claim her again.

Fool. He was an ancient, stupid fool.

Yet the god at his shoulder did not tell him to run, or to fight.

His choice, then. He wondered what the goddess who whispered to Elide made of this.

Wondered what the woman herself was going to make of this as he said to Aelin, “Fine.”

“Gods spare us,” Fenrys murmured.

Aelin’s lips curved in that hint of a smile, amused and yet edged with a touch of cruelty, as she glanced to the wolf. “You’ll have to let him live, you realize,” she said to Fenrys, lifting a brow. “No to-the-death dueling. No vengeance-fighting. Can you stomach it?”

Lorcan bristled as Fenrys looked him over. Lorcan let him see every bit of dominance in his stare.

Fenrys sent all of his raging back. Not as much as what Lorcan possessed, but enough to remind him that the White Wolf of Doranelle could bite if he wished. Lethally.

Fenrys just turned to the queen. “If I tell you he’s a prick and a miserable bastard to be around, will it change your mind?”

Lorcan snarled, but Aelin snorted. “Isn’t that why we love Lorcan, though?” She gave him a smile that told Lorcan she remembered every detail of their initial encounters in Rifthold—when he’d shoved her face-first into a brick wall. Aelin said to Fenrys, “We’ll only invite him to Orynth on holidays.”

“So he can ruin the festivities?” Fenrys scowled. “I, for one, cherish my holidays. I don’t need a misanthrope raining on them.”

Gods above. Lorcan cut Rowan a look, but the warrior-prince was watching his queen carefully. As if he knew precisely what manner of storm brewed beneath her skin.

Aelin waved a hand. “Fine, fine. You won’t try to kill Lorcan for what happened in Eyllwe, and in exchange, we won’t invite him to anything.” Her grin was nothing short of wicked.

This was the sort of court he’d be joining—this whirlwind of … Lorcan didn’t know what the word was for it. He doubted any of his five centuries had prepared him for it, though.

Aelin extended a hand. “You know how this goes, then. Or are you too old to remember?”

Lorcan glared and knelt, offering up the dagger at his side.

A fool. He was a fool.

And yet his hands shook slightly as he gave the queen the knife.

Aelin weighed the blade, a golden ring capped with an obscenely large emerald adorning her finger. A wedding band. Likely from the barrow-wight trove she’d pilfered. He glanced to where Whitethorn stood to the side. Sure enough, a golden ring lay on the warrior’s own finger, a ruby built into the band. And peeking above the collar of Rowan’s jacket, two fresh scars lay.

A pair of them now marked the queen’s own throat.

“Done gawking?” Aelin asked Lorcan coolly.

He scowled. Even with the holy ritual they were about to partake in, the queen found a way to be irreverent. “Say it.”

Her lips curved again. “Do you, Lorcan Salvaterre, swear upon your blood and eternal soul, to be loyal to me, to my crown, and to Terrasen for the rest of your life?”

He blinked. Maeve had intoned a lengthy list of questions in the Old Language when he’d sworn her oath. But he said, “I do. I swear it.”

Aelin sliced the dagger across her forearm, and her blood shone bright as the ruby in the sword at her side. “Then drink.”

His last chance to back out from this.

But he glanced toward Elide again. And saw hope—just a glimmer of it—lighting her face.

So Lorcan took the queen’s arm in his hands and drank.

The taste of her—jasmine, lemon verbena, and crackling embers—filled his mouth. Filled his soul, as something burned and settled within him.

An ember of warmth. Like a piece of that raging magic had come to rest inside his very soul.

Swaying a bit, he let go of her arm.

“Welcome to the court,” Aelin said. “Here’s your first and only order: protect Terrasen and its people.”

The command settled in him, too, another little spark that glowed down deep.

Then the queen pivoted on her heel and walked away—no, walked up to Elide.

Lorcan tried and failed to stand. His body, it seemed, still needed a moment.

So he could only watch as Aelin said to Elide, “I am not offering you the blood oath.”

Vow or no, he debated throwing the queen into the ocean for the devastation that clouded Elide’s face. But the Lady of Perranth kept her chin high. “Why?”

Aelin took Elide’s hand with a gentleness that cooled Lorcan’s rising temper. “Because when we return to Terrasen, if I am to be given the throne, then you cannot be bound to me.” Elide’s brows crossed. “Perranth is the second-most powerful House in Terrasen,” Aelin explained. “Four of its lords have decided that I am unfit for the throne. I need a majority to win it back.”

“And if I am sworn to you, it jeopardizes the integrity of my vote,” Elide finished.

Aelin nodded, and let go of her hand to turn to all of them. In the rising sun, the queen was bathed in gold. “Terrasen is over two weeks away, if the winter storms don’t interfere. We’ll use this time to train and plan.”

“Plan for what?” Fenrys asked, coming closer.

A member of this court. Of Lorcan’s own court. The three of them once again bound—and yet freer than they’d ever been. Lorcan half wondered why the queen didn’t offer the oath to Gavriel, but she spoke again.

“My task cannot be completed without the keys. I assume that their new bearers will eventually seek me out, if the third is found and they decide not to finish things themselves.” She glanced to Rowan, who nodded. As if they’d already discussed this. “So rather than waste vital time roaming the continent in pursuit of them, we will indeed go to Terrasen. Especially if Maeve is bringing her army to its shores as well. And if I am not allowed to lead from my throne, then I shall just have to do so from the battlefields.”

She meant to fight. The queen—Lorcan’s queen—meant to fight against Morath. And Maeve, should the worst happen. And then she’d die for them all.

“To Terrasen, then,” Fenrys said.

“To Terrasen,” Elide echoed.

Aelin gazed westward, toward the kingdom that was all that stood between Erawan and conquest. Toward Lorcan’s new home. As if she could see the dread-lord’s legions unleashing upon it. And Maeve’s immortal host creeping at their backs, a host Lorcan and his companions had once commanded.

Aelin merely strode to the center of the deck, the sailors giving them a wide berth. She unsheathed Goldryn and her dagger, then lifted her brows at Whitethorn in silent challenge.

The warrior-prince obeyed, unsheathing his blade and hatchet before sinking into a defensive crouch.

Training—retraining her body. No whisper of her power manifested, yet her eyes burned bright.

Aelin angled her weapons. “To Terrasen,” she said at last.

And began.