Rowan’s knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen. For it, too, to be calmed.
It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.
Then silence. Utter silence.
Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.
Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.
The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.
Not a pillar of fire.
But Aelin.
Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.
The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.
The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.
The silence turned reverent.
A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.
She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.
“Mala’s Heir,” Yrene breathed.
Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.
The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.
And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.
For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.
For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.
A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.
She’d kept that power coiled in herself even after she’d been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.
Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she’d known. She’d felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.
She had come here for this reason.
A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.
Nothing more.
Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.
Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.
As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.
Back into Aelin.
Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.
Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.
Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.
But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.
Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.
She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.
Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.
And then sweet darkness.
CHAPTER 62
The Crochans did not scatter to the winds.
As one, the Thirteen and the Crochans flew to the southwest, toward the outer reaches of the Fangs. To another secret camp, since the location of the other was well and truly compromised. Farther from Terrasen, but closer to Morath, at least.
A small comfort, Dorian thought, when they found a secure place to camp for the night. The wyverns might have been able to keep going, but the Crochans on their brooms could not fly for so long. They’d flown until darkness had nearly blinded them all, landing only after the Shadows and Crochans had agreed on a secure place to stay.
Watches were set, both on the ground and in the sky. If the two surviving Matrons were to retaliate for their humiliating defeat, it would be now. The Crochans and Asterin had spent much of their time today laying misleading tracks, but only time would tell if they’d escaped.
The night was frigid enough that they took the time to erect tents, the wyverns huddling together against one of the rocky overhangs. And though no fires would have been wiser, the cold threatened to be so lethal that Glennis had taken the sacred flame from the glass orb where it was held while traveling and ignited her fire. Others had followed suit, and while glamours would be in place to hide the camp, the fires, from enemy eyes, Dorian couldn’t entirely forget that the Ironteeth Matrons had found them regardless.
They hadn’t spoken of where they were going next. What they would do. If they would part ways at last, or remain as one united group.
Manon had not asked or pushed them for an alliance, to go to war. Hadn’t demanded to know where they flew, such was their dire need to get far from their camp this morning.
But tomorrow, Dorian thought as he slid under the blankets of his bedroll, a lick of flame of his own making warming the space, tomorrow would force them to confront a few things.
Bone-tired, chilled despite the magic that warmed him, Dorian slumped his head against the roll of supplies he used for a pillow.
Sleep had almost dragged him under when a burst of cold slithered into the tent, then vanished. He knew who it was before she sat beside his bedroll, and when he opened his eyes, he found Manon with her knees drawn up, arms braced atop them.
She stared into the dimness of his tent, the space illumined with silvery light from the glowing stars on her brow.
“You don’t have to wear it all the time,” he said. “We’re allowed to take them off.”
Golden eyes slid toward him. “I’ve never seen you wear a crown.”
“The past few months haven’t provided much access to the royal collection.” He sat up. “And I hate wearing them anyway. They dig mercilessly into my head.”
A hint of a smile. “This is not so heavy.”
“Since it seems made of light itself, I’d imagine not.” Though that crown would weigh heavily in other ways, he knew.
“So you’re talking to me,” she said, not bothering to segue gracefully.
“I talked to you before.”
“Is it because I am now queen?”
“You were queen prior to today.”
Her golden eyes narrowed, scanning him for the answer she sought. Dorian let her do it, and returned the favor. Her breathing was steady, her posture at ease for once.
“I thought it would be more satisfying. To see her run.” Her grandmother. “When you killed your father, what did you feel?”
“Rage. Hate.” He didn’t balk from the truth in his words, the ugliness.
She chewed on her lower lip, no sign of those iron teeth. A rare, silent admission of doubt. “Do you think I should have killed her?”
“Some might say yes. But humiliating her like that,” he said, considering, “might weaken her and the Ironteeth forces more than her death. Killing her might have rallied the Ironteeth against you.”
“I killed the Yellowlegs Matron.”
“You killed her, spared the Blueblood witch, and your grandmother fled. That’s a demoralizing defeat. Had you killed them all, even killed just your grandmother and the Yellowlegs Matron, it could have turned their deaths into noble sacrifices on behalf of the Ironteeth Clans.”
She nodded, her golden eyes settling on him again with that preternatural clarity and stillness. “I am sorry,” she said. “For how I spoke when I learned of your plans to go to Morath.”
He was stunned enough that he just blinked. Stunned enough that humor was his only shield as he said, “Seems like that Crochan do-gooder behavior is rubbing off
on you, Manon.”
A half smile at that. “Mother help me if I ever become so dull.”
But Dorian’s amusement faded away. “I accept your apology.” He held her gaze, letting her see the truth in it.
It seemed answer enough for her. Answer, and somehow the final clue to what she sought.
Her golden eyes guttered. “You’re leaving,” she breathed. “Tomorrow.”
He didn’t bother to lie. “Yes.”
It was time. She had faced her grandmother, had challenged what she’d created. It was time for him to do the same. He didn’t need Damaris’s confirming warmth or the spirits of the dead to tell him that.
“How?”
“You witches have brooms and wyverns. I’ve learned to make my own wings.”
For a few breaths, she said nothing. Then she lowered her knees, twisting to face him fully. “Morath is a death trap.”
“It is.”
“I—we cannot go with you.”
“I know.”
He could have sworn fear entered her eyes. Yet she didn’t rage at him, roar at him—didn’t so much as snarl. She only asked, “You’re not afraid to go alone?”
“Of course I’m afraid. Anyone in their right mind would be. But my task is more important than fear, I think.”
Anger flickered over her face, her shoulders tensing.
Then it faded and was replaced by something he had seen only earlier today—that queen’s face. Steady and wise, edged with sorrow and bright with clarity. Her eyes dipped to the bedroll, then lifted to meet his own. “And if I asked you to stay?”
The question also took him by surprise. He carefully thought through his answer. “I’d need a very convincing reason, I suppose.”
Her fingers went to the buckles and buttons of her leathers, and began to loosen them. “Because I don’t want you to go,” was all she said.
His heart thundered as she revealed inch after inch of bare, silken skin. Not a seductive removal of her clothing, but rather an offer laid bare.
Her fingers began to shake, and Dorian moved at last, helping her to remove her boots, then her sword belt. He left her jacket open, the swells of her breasts just visible between the lapels. They rose and fell in an uneven rhythm that only turned more unsteady as she reached between them and began to remove his own jacket.
Dorian let her. Let her peel off his jacket, then the shirt beneath.
Outside, the wind howled.
And when they kneeled before each other, bare from the waist up, that crown of stars still atop her head, Manon said softly, “We could make an alliance. Between Adarlan, and the Crochans. And any Ironteeth who might follow me.”
It was her answer, he realized. To his request for a convincing reason to remain.
She took his hand, and interlaced their fingers.
It was more intimate than anything they’d shared, more vulnerable than she’d ever allowed herself to be. “An alliance,” she said, throat bobbing, “between you and me.”
Her golden eyes lifted to his, the offer gleaming there.
To marry. To unite their peoples in the strongest, most unbreakable of terms.
“You don’t want that,” he said with equal quiet. “You would never want to be shackled to any man like that.”
He could see the truth there, in her beautiful face. That she agreed with him. But she shook her head, the starlight dancing on her hair. “The Crochans have not offered to fly to war. I have not yet dared ask them. But if I had the strength of Adarlan beside me, perhaps they might be convinced at last.”
If they had not been convinced by today’s triumph, then nothing would change their minds. Even their queen offering up the freedom she craved so badly.
That Manon would even consider it, though …
Dorian twined a wave of her silver hair around his finger. For a heartbeat, he allowed himself to drink her in.
She would be his wife, his queen. She was already his equal, his match, his mirror in so many ways. And with their union, the world would know it.
But he could see the bars of the cage that would creep closer, tighter, every day. And either break her wholly, or turn her into something neither of them wished her to ever be.
“You would marry me, all so we could aid Terrasen in this war?”
“Aelin is willing to die to end this conflict. Why should she bear the brunt of sacrifice?”
And there it was, her answer, though he knew she didn’t realize it.
Sacrifice.
Dorian’s other hand went to the buttons of her pants, and freed them with a few, deft maneuvers. Revealing the long, thick scar across her abdomen.
Would he have shown the restraint that Manon did today, had he faced her grandmother?
Absolutely not.
He ran his fingers over the scar. Over it, and then up her stomach. Up and up, her skin pebbling beneath his touch, until he halted just over her heart. Until he laid his palm flat against it, the curve of her breast rising to meet his hand with each unsteady breath she took.
“You were right,” she said quietly. “I am afraid.” Manon laid her hand over his. “I am afraid that you will go into Morath and return as something I do not know. Something I shall have to kill.”
“I know.” Those same fears haunted his steps.
Her fingers tightened on his, pressing harder. As if she were trying to imprint his hand upon the heart racing beneath. “Would you stay here, if we had this alliance between us?”
He heard every word left unspoken.
So Dorian brushed his mouth against hers. Manon let out a small sound.
Dorian kissed her again, and her tongue met his, hungry and searching. Then her hands were plunging into his hair, both of them rising onto their knees to meet halfway.
She moaned, her hands sliding from his hair down his chest, down to his pants. She stroked him through the material, and Dorian groaned into her mouth.
Time spun out, and there was only Manon, a living blade in his arms. Their pants joined their shirts and jackets on the ground, and then he was laying her upon his bedroll.
Manon drew her hands from him to remove the glittering crown atop her head, but he halted her with a phantom touch. “Don’t,” he said, voice near-guttural. “Leave it on.”
Her eyes turned to molten gold, going heavy-lidded as she writhed, tipping her head back.
His mouth went dry at the beauty that threatened to undo him, the temptation that his every instinct roared to claim. Not the body, but what she had offered.
He almost said yes, then.
Was almost selfish enough, greedy enough for her, that he nearly said yes. Yes, he would take her as his queen. So he might never have to say farewell to this, so that this magnificent, fierce witch might remain by his side for all his days.
Manon reached for him, fingers digging into his shoulders, and Dorian rose over her, finding her mouth in a plundering kiss.
A shift of her hips, and he was buried, the heated silk of her enough to make him forget that they had a camp around them, or kingdoms to protect.
He did not bother with phantom touches. He wanted her all for himself, skin to skin.
Every thrust into her, Manon answered with a rolling, demanding movement of her own. Stay. The word echoed in each breath.
Dorian took one of her legs and hefted it higher, angling him closer. He groaned at the perfection of it, and Manon swallowed the sound with a kiss of her own, a hand clamping on his backside to propel him harder, faster.
Dorian gave Manon what she wanted. Gave himself what he wanted. Over and over and over.
As if this might last forever.
Manon’s breathing was as ragged as Dorian’s when they pulled apart at last.
She could barely move her limbs, barely get down enough air as she gazed at the tent ceiling. Dorian, as spent as she, didn’t bother to try to speak.
What was left to be said anyway?
She’d laid out what she wanted. Had spoken as much o
f the truth as she dared voice.
In its wake, a sated sort of clarity shone. Such as she had not felt in a long, long time.
His sapphire eyes lingered on her face, and Manon turned toward him. Slowly removed her crown of stars and set it aside.
Then she drew up the blankets around them both.
He didn’t so much as flinch as she scooted closer, into the solid muscle of his body.
No, Dorian only draped an arm over her, and pulled her tightly against him.
Manon was still listening to his breathing when she fell asleep, warm in his arms.
She awoke at dawn to a cold bed.
Manon took one look at the empty place where the king had been, at the lack of supplies and that ancient sword, and knew.
Dorian had gone to Morath. And had taken the two Wyrdkeys with him.
CHAPTER 63
Aedion and Kyllian kept their panicking troops in line as they marched, all the way to the banks of the Florine.
There was no use running northward. Not when the bone drums began pounding. And grew louder with every passing minute that Aedion ordered their legion into formation.
Stalking for the front lines, his armor so heavy it could have been made of stone, the lack of the ancient sword at his side like some phantom limb, Aedion said to Ren, “I need you to do me a favor.”
Ren, buckling on his quiver, didn’t bother to look up. “Don’t tell me to run.”
“Never.” Close—they were so close to Theralis. How fitting it would have been to at last die on the field where Terrasen had fallen a decade ago. To have his blood soak into the earth where so many of the court he’d loved had died, for his bones to join theirs, unmarked on the plain.
“I need you to call for aid.”
Ren looked up then. His scarred face was leaner than it had been weeks ago. When was the last time any of them had a proper meal? Or a full night’s rest? Where Lysandra was, what form she wore, Aedion didn’t know. He had not sought her out last night, and she had stayed away from him entirely.
“I’m no one now,” Aedion said, the lines of soldiers parting for them. Bane and Fae, Silent Assassin and Wendlynian and Wastes-hailing soldier alike. “But you are Lord of Allsbrook. Send out messengers. Send out Nox Owen. Call for aid. Dispatch them to every direction, to anyone they might find. Tell Nox and the others to beg if they have to, but tell them to say that Terrasen calls for aid.”
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