Aedion opened the letter, and it indeed conveyed Darrow’s order. “For you to have gotten here so fast, you’d have needed to fly,” he said to the messenger. “This must have been written before the battle even started this morning.”
The messenger smirked. “I was handed two letters. One was for victory, the other defeat.”
Bold—this messenger was bold, and arrogant, for someone at Darrow’s beck and call. “What’s your name?”
“Nox Owen.” The messenger bowed at the waist. “From Perranth.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Ren said, scanning the man anew. “You’re a thief.”
“Former thief,” Nox amended, winking. “Now rebel, and Lord Darrow’s most trusted messenger.” Indeed, a skilled thief would make for a smart messenger, able to slip in and out of places unseen.
But Aedion didn’t care what the man did or didn’t do. “I assume you’re not riding back tonight.” A shake of the head. Aedion sighed. “Does Darrow realize that these men are exhausted and though we won the field, it was not an easy victory by any means?”
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Nox said, dark brows rising high with that faint amusement.
“Tell Darrow,” Ravi cut in, “that he can come meet us, then. Rather than make us move an entire army just to see him.”
“The meeting is an excuse,” Sol said quietly. Aedion nodded. At Ravi’s narrowed brows, his elder brother clarified, “He wants to make sure that we don’t …” Sol trailed off, aware of the thief who listened to every word. But Nox smiled, as if he grasped the meaning anyway.
Darrow wanted to ensure that they didn’t take the army from here and march southward. Had cut them off before they could do so, with this order to move tomorrow.
Ravi growled, at last getting the gist of his brother’s words.
Aedion and Ren swapped glances. The Lord of Allsbrook frowned, but nodded.
“Rest wherever you can find a fire to welcome you, Nox Owen,” Aedion said to the messenger. “We travel at dawn.”
Aedion set out to find Kyllian to convey the order. The tents were a maze of exhausted soldiers, the injured groaning amongst them.
Aedion stopped long enough to greet those men, to offer a hand on the shoulder or a word of reassurance. Some would last the night. Many wouldn’t.
He halted at other fires as well. To commend the fighting done, whether the soldiers hailed from Terrasen or the Wastes or Wendlyn. At a few of them, he even shared in their ales or meals.
Rhoe had taught him that—the art of making his men want to follow him, die for him. But more than that, seeing them as men, as people with families and friends, who had as much to risk as he did in fighting here. It was no burden, despite the exhaustion creeping over him, to thank them for their courage, their swords.
But it did take time. The sun had fully set, the muddy camp cast in deep shadows amid the fires, by the time he neared Kyllian’s tent.
Elgan, one of the Bane captains, clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, the man’s grizzled face set in a grim smile. “Not a bad first day, whelp,” Elgan grumbled. He’d called Aedion that since those initial days in the Bane’s ranks, had been one of the first men here to treat him not as a prince who had lost his kingdom, but as a warrior fighting to defend it. Much of his battlefield training, he owed to Elgan. Along with his life, considering the countless times the man’s wisdom and quick sword had saved him.
Aedion grinned at the aging captain. “You fought well, for a grandfather.” The man’s daughter had given birth to a son just this past winter.
Elgan growled. “I’d like to see you wield a sword so well when you’re my age, boy.”
Then he was gone, aiming for a campfire that held several other older commanders and captains. They noticed Aedion’s attention and lifted their mugs in salute.
Aedion only inclined his head, and continued on.
“Aedion.”
He’d know that voice if he were blind.
Lysandra stepped from behind a tent, her face clean despite her muddy clothes.
He halted, finally feeling the weight of the dirt and gore on himself. “What.”
She ignored his tone. “I could fly to Darrow tonight. Give him whatever message you want.”
“He wants us to move the army back to him, and then to Orynth,” Aedion said, making to continue to Kyllian’s tent. “Immediately.”
She stepped in his path. “I can go, tell him this army needs time to rest.”
“Is this some attempt to reenter my good graces?” He was too tired, too weary, to bother beating around the truth.
Her emerald eyes went as cold as the winter night around them. “I don’t give a damn about your good graces. I care about this army being worn down with unnecessary movements.”
“How do you even know what was said in the tent?” He knew the answer as soon as he’d voiced the question. She’d been in some small, unnoticed form. Precisely why so many kingdoms and courts had hunted down and killed any shifters. Unparalleled spies and assassins.
She crossed her arms. “If you don’t want me sitting in on your war councils, then say so.”
He took in her face, her stiff posture. Exhaustion lay heavy on her, her golden skin pale and eyes haunted. He didn’t know where she was staying in this camp. If she even had a tent.
Guilt gnawed on him for a heartbeat. “When, exactly, will our queen make her grand return?”
Her mouth tightened. “Tonight, if you think it wise.”
“To miss the battle and only appear to bask in the glory of victory? I doubt the troops would find that heartening.”
“Then tell me where, and when, and I’ll do it.”
“Just as you blindly obeyed our queen, you’ll now obey me?”
“I obey no man,” she snarled. “But I’m not fool enough to believe I know more about armies and soldiers than you do. My pride is not so easily bruised.”
Aedion took a step forward. “And mine is?”
“What I did, I did for her, and for this kingdom. Look at these men, your men—look at the allies we’ve gathered and tell me that if they knew the truth, they would be so eager to fight.”
“The Bane fought when we believed her dead. It would be no different.”
“It might be for our allies. For the people of Terrasen.” She didn’t back down for a moment. “Go ahead and punish me for the rest of your life. For a thousand years, if you wind up Settling.”
With Gavriel for his father, he might very well. He tried not to dwell on the possibility. He’d barely interacted with the Fae royals or their soldiers beyond what was necessary. And they mostly kept to themselves. Yet they did not sneer at him for his demi-Fae status; didn’t really seem to care what blood flowed in his veins so long as he kept them alive.
“We have enough enemies as it is,” Lysandra went on. “But if you truly wish to make me one of them as well, that’s fine. I don’t regret what I did, nor will I ever.”
“Fine,” was all he could think to say.
She shrewdly looked him over. As if weighing the man within. “It was real, Aedion,” she said. “All of it. I don’t care if you believe me or not. But it was real for me.”
He couldn’t bear to hear it. “I have a meeting,” he lied, and stepped around her. “Go slither off somewhere else.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes, quickly hidden. He was the worst sort of bastard for it.
But he continued into Kyllian’s tent. She didn’t come after him.
She was a stupid fool.
A stupid fool, to have said anything, and to now feel something in her chest crumpling.
She had enough dignity left not to beg. To not watch Aedion go into Kyllian’s tent and wonder if it was for a meeting, or because he was seeking to remind himself of life after so much killing today. To not give one inch of space to the burning in her eyes.
Lysandra made her way toward the comfortable tent Sol of Suria had given her near his. A kind, sharply clever man—who had
no interest in women. The younger brother, Ravi, had eyed her, as all men did. But he’d kept a respectful distance, and had talked to her, not her chest, so she liked him, too. Didn’t mind having a tent in their midst.
An honor, actually. She’d gone from having to crawl into the beds of lords, doing whatever they asked of her with a smile, to fighting beside them. And she was now a lady herself. One whom both the Lords of Suria and the Lord of Allsbrook recognized, despite Darrow spitting on it.
It might have filled her with gladness had battle not worn her out so completely that the walk back to the tent seemed endless. Had the general-prince not filleted her spirit so thoroughly.
Every step was an effort, the mud sucking at her boots.
She turned down an alley of tents, the banners shifting from the white stag on emerald green of the Bane to the twin silver fish on vibrant turquoise of those belonging to the House of Suria. Only fifty more feet to her tent, then she could lie down. The soldiers knew who she was, what she was. None, if they glanced twice in her direction, called out to her in the way men had done in Rifthold.
Lysandra trudged into her tent, sighing in exhausted relief as she shouldered her way through the flaps, aiming for her cot.
Sleep, cold and empty, found her before she could remember to remove her boots.
CHAPTER 11
“You’re sure of this?” His heart pounding, Chaol braced a hand on the desk in the quarters he shared with Yrene and pointed to the map that Nesryn and Sartaq had spread before them.
“The soldiers we questioned had been given orders on where to rendezvous,” Sartaq said from the other side of the desk, still clad in his rukhin flying clothes. “They were far enough behind the others that they would have needed directions.”
Chaol rubbed a hand over his jaw. “And you got a count on the army?”
“Ten thousand strong,” Nesryn said, still leaning against the nearby wall. “But no sign of the Ironteeth legions. Only foot soldiers, and about a thousand cavalry.”
“As far as you could see from the air,” Princess Hasar countered, twirling the end of her long, dark braid. “Who is to say what might be lurking amid the ranks?”
How many Valg demons, the princess didn’t need to add. Of all the royal siblings, Hasar had taken Princess Duva’s infestation and their sister Tumelun’s murder at her hand the most personally. Had sailed here to avenge both her sisters, and to ensure it didn’t happen again. If this war had not been so desperate, Chaol might have paid good coin to see Hasar rip into Valg hides.
“The soldiers didn’t divulge that information,” Sartaq admitted. “Only their intended location.”
At his side, Yrene wrapped her fingers around Chaol’s and squeezed. He hadn’t realized how cold, how trembling, his hand had become until her warmth seeped into him.
Because the intended target of that enemy army now marching to the northwest …
Anielle.
“Your father has not kneeled to Morath,” Hasar mused, flicking her heavy braid over the shoulder of her embroidered sky-blue jacket. “It must make Erawan nervous enough that he saw the need to send such an army to crush it.”
Chaol swallowed the dryness in his mouth. “But Erawan has already sacked Rifthold,” he said, pointing to the capital on the coast, then dragging a finger inland along the Avery. “He controls most of the river. Why not send the witches to sack it instead? Why not sail right up the Avery? Why take an army so far to the coast, then all the way back?”
“To clear the way for the rest,” Yrene said, her mouth a tight line. “To instill as much terror as possible.”
Chaol blew out a breath. “In Terrasen. Erawan wants Terrasen to know what’s coming, that he can take his time and expend forces on destroying swaths of land.”
“Does Anielle have an army?” Sartaq asked, the prince’s dark eyes steady.
Chaol straightened, hand balling into a fist, as if it could keep the dread pooling in his stomach at bay. Hurry—they had to hurry. “Not one able to take on ten thousand soldiers. The keep might survive a siege, but not indefinitely, and it wouldn’t be able to fit the city’s population.” Only his father’s chosen few.
Silence fell, and Chaol knew they were waiting for him to speak, to voice the question himself. He hated every word that came out of his mouth. “Is it worth it to launch our troops here and march to save Anielle?”
Because they couldn’t risk the Avery, not when Rifthold sat at its entrance. They’d have to find a place to land and march inland. Across the plains, over the Acanthus, into Oakwald, and to the very foothills of the White Fangs. Days of travel on horseback—the gods knew how long an army would take.
“There might not be an Anielle left by the time we get there,” Hasar said with more gentleness than the sharp-faced princess usually bothered with. Enough so that Chaol reined in the urge to tell them that was precisely why they had to move now. “If the southern half of Adarlan is beyond help, then we might land near Meah.” She pointed to the city in the north of the kingdom. “March near the border, and set ourselves up to intercept them.”
“Or we could go directly to Terrasen, and sail up the Florine to Orynth’s doorstep,” Sartaq mused.
“We don’t know what we’ll find in either,” Nesryn countered quietly, her cool voice filling the room. A different woman in some ways than the one who’d gone with Chaol to the southern continent. “Meah could be overrun, and Terrasen might be facing its own siege. The days it would take for our scouts to fly northward would waste vital time—if they return at all.”
Chaol drew in a deep breath, willing his heart to calm. He hadn’t the faintest idea where Dorian might be, if he’d gone with Aelin to Terrasen. The soldiers Nesryn and Sartaq had interrogated had not known. What would his friend have chosen? He could almost hear Dorian yelling at him for even hesitating, hear him ordering Chaol to stop wondering where he’d gone and hurry to Anielle.
“Anielle lies near the Ferian Gap,” Hasar said, “which is also controlled by Morath, and is another outpost for the Ironteeth and their wyverns. By bringing our forces so far inland, we risk not only the army marching for Anielle, but finding a host of witches at our backs.” She met Chaol’s gaze, her face as unflinching as her words. “Would saving the city gain us anything?”
“It is his home,” Yrene said quietly, but not weakly, her chin refusing to dip even an inch in the royals’ presence. “I’d think that would be all the proof we need to defend it.”
Chaol tightened his hand around hers in silent thanks. Dorian would have said the same.
Sartaq studied the map once more. “The Avery splits near Anielle,” he murmured, running a finger along it. “It veers southward to the Silver Lake and Anielle, and then the other branch runs northward, past the Ferian Gap, skirting along the Ruhnns and up to nearly the border of Terrasen itself.”
“I can read a map, brother,” Hasar growled.
Sartaq ignored her, his eyes meeting Chaol’s once more. A spark lit their steady depths. “We avoid the Avery until Anielle. March inland. And when the city is secure, we begin a campaign northward, along the Avery.”
Nesryn pushed off the wall to prowl to the prince’s side. “Into the Ferian Gap? We’d be facing the witches, then.”
Sartaq gave her a half grin. “Then it’s a good thing we have ruks.”
Hasar leaned over the map. “If we secure the Ferian Gap, then we could possibly march all the way to Terrasen, taking the inland route.” She shook her head. “But what of the armada?”
“They wait to intercept Kashin’s fleet,” Sartaq said. “We take the soldiers, the Darghan cavalry, the ruks, and they wait for the rest of the army to arrive and tell them to meet us here.”
Hope stirred in Chaol’s chest.
“But that still leaves us at least a week behind the army marching for Anielle,” Nesryn said.
Truth—they’d never catch up to them in time. Any delay could cost untold lives. “They need to be warned,” Chaol
said. “Anielle must be warned, and given time to prepare.”
Sartaq nodded. “I can be there in a few days’ flight.”
“No,” Chaol said, and Yrene lifted a brow. “If you can spare me a ruk and a rider, I’ll go myself. Stay here, and ready the ruks to fly. Tomorrow, if possible. A day or two at most.” He gestured to Hasar. “Dock the ships and lead the troops inland, as swiftly as they can march.”
Yrene’s eyes turned wary, well aware of what and whom he would face in Anielle. The homecoming he had never pictured, certainly not under these circumstances.
“I’m coming with you,” his wife said.
He squeezed her hand again, as if to say, I’m not at all surprised to hear that.
Yrene squeezed right back.
Sartaq and Hasar nodded, and Nesryn opened her mouth as if she’d object, but nodded, too.
They’d leave tonight, under cover of darkness. Finding Dorian again would have to wait. Yrene chewed on her lip, no doubt calculating what they’d need to pack, what to tell the other healers.
He prayed they’d be swift enough, prayed that he could figure out what the hell to say to his father, after the oath he’d broken, after all that lay between them. And more than that, what he’d say to his mother, and the not-so-young brother he’d left behind when he’d chosen Dorian over his birthright.
Chaol had given Yrene the title owed to her in marrying him: Lady Westfall.
He wondered if he could stomach being called Lord. If it mattered at all, given what bore down upon the city on the Silver Lake.
If it would matter at all if they didn’t make it in time.
Sartaq braced a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Hold the defenses for as long as you can, Lord Westfall. The ruks will be a day or so behind you, the foot soldiers a week behind that.”
Chaol clasped Sartaq’s hand, then Hasar’s. “Thank you.”
Hasar’s mouth curved into a half smile. “Thank us if we save your city.”
CHAPTER 12
Everything. She had given everything for this, and had been glad to do it.
Kingdom of Ash Page 11