Kingdom of Ash

Atop the highest tower of the castle of Orynth, on the broad balcony that overlooked the world far below, the healer sent out another flare of power.

The white glow seared the night, casting the tower stones in stark relief.

A beacon, a challenge to the dark king who battled Aelin Galathynius below.

Here I am, the power sang through the night. Here I am.

Erawan answered.

His rage, his fear, his hatred filled the wind as he swept in, carried in an ilken’s gangly limbs. He smiled at the young healer whose hands glowed with pure light, as if already tasting her blood. Savoring the destruction of what she offered, the gift she’d been given.

His sheer presence set people in the castle below screaming as they fled.

Not death incarnate, but something far worse. Something nearly as ancient, and almost as powerful.

The ilken swept over the tower, dropping him onto the balcony stones. Erawan landed with the grace of a cat, barely winded as he straightened.

As he smiled at her.

“I never thought you’d do it, you know,” Maeve said, her dark power coiling around her as Aelin panted. A cramp had begun low in her back and now lashed its way up her spine, down her legs. “That you’d be foolish enough to put the keys back into the gate. What happened to that glorious vision you once showed me, Aelin? Of you in this very city, your worshipping masses crying your name. Was it simply too dull for you, to be revered?”

Aelin rallied herself with every breath, Goldryn still burning bright.

Let her talk—let her gloat and ramble. Every second she had to recover, to regain a fraction of her strength, was a blessing.

Erawan had taken the bait, had let the doubt she’d planted take root in his mind. She had known it was only a matter of time until he sensed Yrene’s power. She only prayed Yrene Towers was ready to meet him.

“I had always hoped that you and I were true equals, in a way,” Maeve went on. “That you, more than Erawan, understood the true nature of power. Of what it means to wield it. What a disappointment that deep down, you wished to be so ordinary.”

The shield had become unbearably heavy. Aelin didn’t dare look behind her to see where Erawan had gone. What he was doing. She’d felt Yrene’s flare of power, had dared hope it might even be a signal, a lure, but nothing since then. It had drawn Erawan away, though. It was enough.

The darkness around Maeve writhed. “The Queen Who Was Promised is no more,” she said, clicking her tongue. “Now you’re nothing but an assassin with a crown. And a commoner’s gift of magic.”

Twin whips of brutal power speared for Aelin’s either side.

Throwing up her shield, swinging Goldryn with her other arm, Aelin deflected, flame flashing.

The shield buckled, but Goldryn burned steady.

But she felt it. The familiar, unending pain. The shadows that could devour.

Pressing closer. Eating away at her power.

Maeve glanced to the blazing sword. “Clever of you, to imbue the sword with your own gifts. No doubt done before you yielded everything to the Wyrdgate.”

“A precaution, should I not return,” Aelin panted. “A weapon to kill Valg.”

“We shall see.” Maeve struck again. Again.

Forcing Aelin to concede a step. Then another.

Back toward the invisible line she’d drawn between them and the southern gate.

Maeve stalked forward, her dark hair and robes billowing. “You have denied me two things, Aelin Galathynius. The keys I sought.” Another whip of power sliced for Aelin. Her flame barely deflected it this time. “And the great duel I was promised.”

As if Maeve opened the lid to a chest on her power, plumes of darkness erupted.

Aelin sliced with Goldryn, the fire within the blade unfaltering. But it was not enough. And as Aelin retreated another step, one of those plumes snapped across her legs.

Aelin couldn’t stop the scream that shattered from her throat. She went down, shield scattering in the icy mud.

Training kept her fingers clenched on Goldryn.

But pressure, unbearable and slithering, began to push into her head.

“Wake up.”

The world shifted. Snow replaced by firelight. The ground for a slab of iron.

The pressure in her head writhed, and Aelin bowed over her knees, refusing to acknowledge it. Real—this battle, the snow and blood, this was real.

“Wake up, Aelin,” Maeve whispered.

Aelin blinked. And found herself in the iron box, Maeve leaning over the open lid. Smiling. “We’re here,” the Fae Queen said.

Not Fae. Valg. Maeve was Valg—

“You’ve been dreaming,” Maeve said, running a finger over the mask still clamped to her face. “Such strange, wandering dreams, Aelin.”

No. No, it had been real. She managed to lift her head enough to peer down at herself. At the shift and too-thin body. The scars still on her.

Still there. Not wiped away. No new skin.

“I can make this easy for you,” Maeve went on, brushing Aelin’s hair back with gentle, loving strokes. “Tell me where the Wyrdkeys are, swear the blood oath, and these chains, this mask, this box … all of it will go away.”

They hadn’t yet begun. To tear her apart.

All of it a dream. One long nightmare. The keys remained unbound, the Lock unforged.

A dream, while they’d sailed here. Wherever here was.

“What say you, niece? Will you spare yourself? Yield to me?”

You do not yield.

Aelin blinked.

“It’s easier, isn’t it,” Maeve mused, bracing her forearms against the lip of the coffin. “To remain here. So you needn’t make such terrible choices. To let the others share the burden. Bear its cost.” A hint of a smile. “Deep down, that’s what haunts you. That wish to be free.”

Freedom—she’d known it. Hadn’t she?

“It’s what you fear most—not me, or Erawan, or the keys. That your wish to be free of the weight of your crown, your power, will consume you. Embitter you until you do not recognize your own self.” Her smile widened. “I wish to spare you from that. With me, you shall be free in a way you’ve never imagined, Aelin. I swear it.”

An oath.

She had sworn an oath. To Terrasen. To Nehemia. To Rowan.

Aelin closed her eyes, shutting out the queen above her, the mask, the chains, the iron box.

Not real.

This was not real.

Wasn’t it?

“I know you’re tired,” Maeve went on, gently, coaxingly. “You gave and gave and gave, and it was still not enough. It will never be enough for them, will it?”

It wouldn’t. Nothing she had ever done, or would do, would be enough. Even if she saved Terrasen, saved Erilea, she’d still need to give more, do more. The weight of it already crushed her.

“Cairn,” Maeve said.

Strolling footsteps sounded nearby. Scuffing on stone.

Tremors shook her, uncontrollable and unsummoned. She knew that gait, knew—

Cairn’s hateful, sneering face appeared beside Maeve’s, the two of them studying her. “How shall we start, Majesty?”

He’d spoken the words to her already. They had done this dance so many times.

Bile coated her throat. She couldn’t stop shaking. She knew what he’d do, how he’d begin. Would never stop feeling it, the whisper of the pain.

Cairn ran a hand over the rim of the coffin. “I broke some part of you, didn’t I?”

I name you Elentiya, “Spirit That Could Not Be Broken.”

Aelin traced her metal-encrusted fingers over her palm. Where a scar should be. Where it still remained. Would always remain, even if she could not see it.

Nehemia—Nehemia, who had given everything for Eyllwe. And yet …

And yet, Nehemia had still felt the weight of her choices. Still wished to be free of her burdens.

It had not made her weak. Not in the slightest.

Cairn surveyed her chained body, assessing where he would begin. His breathing sharpened in anticipatory delight.

Her hands curled into fists. Iron groaned.

Spirit that could not be broken.

You do not yield.

She would endure it again, if asked. She would do it. Every brutal hour and bit of agony.

And it would hurt, and she would scream, but she’d face it. Survive against it.

Arobynn had not broken her. Neither had Endovier.

She would not allow this waste of existence to do so now.

Her shaking eased, her body going still. Waiting.

Maeve blinked at her. Just once.

Aelin sucked in a breath—sharp and cool.

She did not want it to be over. Any of it.

Cairn faded into the wind. Then the chains vanished with him.

Aelin sat up in the coffin. Maeve backed away all of a step.

Aelin surveyed the illusion, so artfully wrought. The stone chamber, with its braziers and hook from the ceiling. The stone altar. The open door and roar of the river beyond.

She made herself look. To face down that place of pain and despair. It would always leave a mark, a stain on her, but she would not let it define her.

Hers was not a story of darkness.

This would not be the story. She would fold it into herself, this place, this fear, but it would not be the whole story. It would not be her story.

“How,” Maeve simply asked.

Aelin knew a world and a battlefield raged beyond them. But she let herself linger in the stone chamber. Climbed from the iron coffin.

Maeve only stared at her.

“You should have known better,” Aelin said, the lingering embers within her shining bright. “You, who feared captivity and did all this to avoid it. You should have known better than to trap me. Should have known I’d find a way.”

“How,” Maeve asked again. “How did you not break?”

“Because I am not afraid,” Aelin said. “Your fear of Erawan and his brothers drove you, destroyed you. If there was ever anything worthwhile to destroy.”

Maeve hissed, and Aelin chuckled. “And then there was your fear of Brannon. Of me. Look what it brought about.” She gestured to the room around them, the world beyond it. “This is all you’ll have left of Doranelle. This illusion.”

Maeve’s power rumbled through the room.

Aelin’s lips pulled back from her teeth. “You hurt my mate. Hurt the woman you tricked him into thinking was his mate. Killed her, and broke him.”

Maeve smiled slightly. “Yes, and I enjoyed every moment of it.”

Aelin answered the queen’s smile with one of her own. “Did you forget what I told you on that beach in Eyllwe?”

When Maeve merely blinked at her again, Aelin attacked.

Blasting with a shield of fire, she drove Maeve to the side—and launched a spear of blue flame.

Maeve dodged the assault with a wall of dark power, but Aelin went on the offensive, striking again and again and again. Those words she’d snarled to Maeve in Eyllwe rang between them: I will kill you.

And she would. For what Maeve had done, to her, to Rowan and Lyria, to Fenrys and Connall and so many others, she’d wipe her from memory.

Half a thought and Goldryn was again in her hand, the blade singing with flame.

Even if it took her last breaths, she’d go down swinging for this.

Maeve met her each blow, and they burned and raged through the room.

The altar cracked. Melted away.

The hook from the ceiling dissolved into molten ore that hissed upon the stones.

She blasted away the spot where Fenrys had sat, chained by invisible bonds.

Again and again, the last embers of her fire rallying, sweat beading on her brow, Aelin struck at Maeve.

The iron coffin heated, glowing red. Only here, in this illusion, might it do so.

Maeve had thought to trap her once more.

But the queen would not be the one walking away this time.

Aelin pivoted, driving Maeve back. Toward the smoldering coffin.

Step by step, she pushed her toward it. Herded her.

Darkness fanned through the room, blocking the rain of fiery arrows that shot for Maeve, and the queen dared to glance over a shoulder to the red-hot fate that awaited her.

Maeve’s face went whiter than death.

Aelin rasped a laugh, and angled Goldryn, gathering her power one last time.

But a flicker of motion caught her eye—to the right.

Elide.

Elide stood there, terror written over her features. She reached a hand for Aelin in warning, “Watch—”

Maeve sent a whip of black for the Lady of Perranth.

No—

Aelin lunged, fire leaping for Elide, to block that fatal blow.

She realized her mistake within a heartbeat. Realized it as her hands passed through Elide’s body, and her friend disappeared.

An illusion. She had fallen for an illusion, and had left herself open, vulnerable—

Aelin twisted back toward Maeve, flames rising again, but too late.

Hands of shadow wrapped around her throat. Immovable. Eternal.

Aelin arched, gasping for any bit of air as those hands squeezed and squeezed—

The chamber melted away. The stones beneath her became mud and snow, the roar of the river replaced by the din of battle. They flashed between one heartbeat and the next, between illusion and truth. Warm air for bitter wind, life for sure death.

Aelin wreathed her hands in flame, ripping at the shadow lashed around her throat.

Maeve stood before her, robes billowing as she panted. “Here is what shall happen, Aelin Galathynius.”

Plumes of shadow shot for her, snapping and tearing, and no flame, no amount of sheer will could keep them at bay. Not as they tightened, wrenching away any breath to scream.

Her fire guttered.

“You will swear the blood oath to me. And then you and I will fix this mess you’ve made. You, and the King of Adarlan will fix what you have done. You may be Fire-Bringer no longer, but you will still have your uses.”

A wind kissed with snow brushed past her. No.

Another flash of light behind Aelin, and Maeve paused.

The shadows squeezed, and Aelin arched again, a soundless scream breaking through her.

“You may be asking yourself why I’d ever think you’d agree to it. What I might have against you.” A low laugh. “The very things that you seek to protect—that’s what I shall destroy, should you defy me. What is most precious to you. And when I have finished doing that, you will kneel.”

No, no—

Darkness pulsed from Maeve, and Aelin’s vision wavered.

A wave of ice-kissed wind blasted it back.

Just enough for her to get a breath down. To lift her head and see the tattooed hand that now stretched down for her. Reaching for her—an offer to rise. Rowan.

Behind him, two others appeared. Lorcan and Fenrys, the latter in wolf form.

The cadre, who had not halted that day to help her at Mistward—but who did so now.

But Rowan kept his hand outstretched to Aelin, that offer to stand unfaltering, and didn’t take his eyes off Maeve as he bared his teeth and snarled.

But it was Fenrys who struck first. Who had been waiting for this moment, this opportunity.

Fangs bared, fur bristling, he charged at Maeve. Going right for her pale throat.

Aelin struggled, and Rowan shouted his warning, but too late.

Lost in his vengeance, his fury, the white wolf leapt for Maeve.

A whip of darkness slashed for him.

Fenrys’s yelp of pain echoed through her bones before he hit the ground. Blood leaked from the wound—the deep slash down his face.

So fast. Barely more than a blink.

Rowan’s and Lorcan’s power surged, rallying to strike. Fenrys struggled to his feet. Again, darkness snapped for him. Ripped across his face. As if Maeve knew precisely where to strike.

Fenrys went down again, blood splattering on the snow. A flash of light, and he shifted into his Fae form. What she’d done to his face—

No. No—

Aelin managed to rally enough air to rasp, “Run.”

Rowan glanced at her then. At the warning.

Just as Maeve struck once more.

As if she had been holding back her power—waiting for them. For this.

A wave of blackness enveloped her mate. Enveloped Lorcan and Fenrys, too.

Their magic flared, illumining the darkness like lightning behind a cloud. Yet it was not enough to free themselves from Maeve’s grip. Ice and wind blasted against it, again and again. Brutal, calculated strikes.

Maeve’s power swelled.

The ice and wind stopped. The other magic within the darkness stopped. Like it had been swallowed.

And then they began screaming.

Rowan began screaming.