Kingdom of Ash

by Sarah J. Maas

  “To hell with that, too,” he growled. “You can start your free world after this war. Let them vote for their own damned kings and queens, if they want to.”

  She let out a growl of her own. “I do not want this burden for one second longer. I do not want to choose and learn I made the wrong choice in delaying it.”

  “So you would have voted against it, then. You would have gone to Terrasen.”

  “Does it matter?” She shot to her feet. “The votes weren’t in my favor anyway. Hearing that I wanted to go to Orynth, to fight one last time, would have only swayed them.”

  “You’re the one who’s about to die. I’d say you get to have a voice in it.”

  She bared her teeth. “This is my fate. Elena tried to get me out of it. And look where it landed her—with a cabal of vengeful gods swearing to end her eternal soul. When the Lock is forged, when I close the gate, I will be destroying another life alongside my own.”

  “Elena has had a thousand years of existence, either living or as a spirit. Forgive me if I don’t give a shit that her time has now come to an end, when you only received twenty years.”

  “I got to twenty years because of her.”

  Not even twenty. Her birthday was still months away. In a spring she would not see.

  Rowan began pacing, his stalking steps eating up the carpet. “This mess is because of her, too. Why should you bear its weight alone?”

  “Because it was always mine to begin with.”

  “Bullshit. It could have as easily been Dorian. He’s willing to do it.”

  Aelin blinked. “Elena and Nehemia said Dorian wasn’t ready.”

  “Dorian walked into and out of Morath, went toe to toe with Maeve, and brought the whole damn place crashing down. I’d say he’s as ready as you are.”

  “I won’t allow him to sacrifice himself in my stead.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he is my friend. Because I won’t be able to live with myself if I let him go.”

  “He said he would do it, Aelin.”

  “He doesn’t know what he wants. He’s barely emerging from the horrors he endured.”

  “And you aren’t?” Rowan challenged, wholly unfazed. “He’s a grown man. He can make his own choices—we can make choices without you lording over them.”

  She bared her teeth. “It’s been decided.”

  He crossed his arms. “Then you and I will do it. Together.”

  Her heart stopped in her chest.

  He went on, “You are not forging the Lock alone.”

  “No.” Her hands began shaking. “That is not an option.”

  “According to whom?”

  “According to me.” She couldn’t breathe around the thought—of him being erased from existence. “If it was possible, Elena would have told me. Someone with my bloodline has to pay.”

  He opened his mouth, but beheld the truth in her face, her words. He shook his head. “I promised you we’d find a way to pay this debt—together.”

  Aelin surveyed the scattered books. Nothing—the books, that scrap of hope they’d offered had amounted to nothing. “There isn’t an alternative.” She dragged her hands through her hair. “I don’t have an alternative,” she amended. No card up her sleeve, no grand reveal. Not for this.

  “We don’t do it tomorrow, then,” he pushed. “We wait. Tell the others we want to reach Orynth first. Maybe the Royal Library has some texts—”

  “What is the point in a vote if we ignore its outcome? They decided, Rowan. Tomorrow, it will be over.”

  The words rang hollow and sickly within her.

  “Let me find another way.” His voice broke, but his pacing didn’t falter. “I will find another way, Aelin—”

  “There is no other way. Don’t you understand? All of this,” she hissed, arms splaying. “All of this has been to keep you alive. All of you.”

  “With you as the asking price. To atone for some lingering guilt.”

  She slammed a hand atop the stack of ancient books. “Do you think I want to die? Do you think any of this is easy, to look at the sky and wonder if it’s the last I’ll see? To look at you, and wonder about those years we won’t have?”

  “I don’t know what you want, Aelin,” Rowan snarled. “You haven’t been entirely forthcoming.”

  Her heart thundered. “I want it to be over, one way or another.” Her fingers curled into fists. “I want this to be done.”

  He shook his head. “I know. And I know what you went through, that those months in Doranelle were hell, Aelin. But you can’t stop fighting. Not now.”

  Her eyes burned. “I held on for this. For this purpose. So I can put the keys back in the gate. When Cairn ripped me apart, when Maeve tore away everything I knew, it was only remembering that this task relied upon my survival that kept me from breaking. Knowing that if I failed, all of you would die.” Her breathing turned uneven, sharp. “And since then, I’ve been so damned stupid in thinking that perhaps I wouldn’t have to pay the debt, that I might see Orynth again. That Dorian might do it instead.” She spat on the ground. “What sort of person does that make me? To have been filled with dread when he arrived today?”

  Rowan again opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off, her voice breaking. “I thought I could escape it—just for a moment. And as soon as I did, the gods brought Dorian sweeping right back into my path. Tell me that’s not intentional. Tell me that those gods, or whichever forces might also rule this world, aren’t roaring that I should still be the one to forge the Lock.”

  Rowan just stared at her for a long moment, his chest heaving. Then he said, “What if those forces didn’t lead Dorian into our path so you alone might pay the debt?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What if they brought you together. To not pick one or the other, but to share the burden. With each other.”

  Even the fire in the braziers seemed to pause.

  Rowan’s eyes glowed as he blazed ahead. “That day you destroyed the glass castle—when you joined hands, your power … I’d never seen anything like it. You were able to meld your powers, to become one. If the Lock demands all of you, then why not give half? Half of each of you—when you both bear Mala’s blood?”

  Aelin slid slowly into her chair. “I—we don’t know it will work.”

  “It’s better than walking into your own execution with your head bowed.”

  She snarled. “How could I ever ask him to do it?”

  “Because it is not your burden alone, that’s why. Dorian knows this. Has accepted it. Because the alternative is losing you.” The rage in his eyes fractured, right along with his voice. “I would go in your stead, if I could.”

  Her own heart cracked. “I know.”

  Rowan fell to his knees before her, putting his head in her lap as his arms wrapped around her waist. “I can’t bear it, Aelin. I can’t.”

  She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wanted that thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair.

  Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.”

  She gazed at him, at the life she saw in his face. All that he offered.

  All that she might have, too.

  “I need to ask you to do something.”

  Aelin’s voice roused Dorian from a fitful sleep. He sat up on his cot. From the silence of the camp, it had to be the dead of night. “What?”

  Rowan was standing guard behind her, watching the army camp beneath the trees. Dorian caught his emerald gaze—saw the answer he already needed.

  The prince had come through on his silent promise earlier.

  Aelin’s throat bobbed. “Together,” she said, her voice cracking. “What if we forged the Lock together?”

  Dorian knew her plan, her desperate hope, before she laid it out. And when she finished, Aelin only said, “I am sorry to even ask y
ou.”

  “I am sorry I didn’t think of it,” he replied, and pushed to his feet, tugging on his boots.

  Rowan turned toward them now. Waiting for an answer that he knew Dorian would give.

  So Dorian said to them both, “Yes.”

  Aelin closed her eyes, and he couldn’t tell if it was from relief or regret. He laid a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t want to know what the argument had been like between her and Rowan to get her to agree, to accept this. For Aelin to have even said yes …

  Her eyes opened, and only bleak resolve lay within. “We do it now,” she said hoarsely. “Before the others. Before good-byes.”

  Dorian nodded. She only asked, “Do you want Chaol to be there?”

  He thought about saying no. Thought about sparing his friend from another good-bye, when there was such joy on Chaol’s face, such peace.

  But Dorian still said, “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 93

  The four of them strode in silence through the trees. Down the ancient road to the salt mines.

  It was the only place the scouts weren’t watching.

  Every step closer made her queasy, a slow sweat breaking down her spine. Rowan kept his hand gripped around hers, his thumb brushing over her skin.

  Here, in this horrible, dead place of so much suffering—here was where she would face her fate. As if she had never escaped it, not really.

  Under the cover of darkness, the mountains in which the mines were carved were little more than shadows. The great wall that surrounded the death camp was nothing but a stain of blackness.

  The gates had been left open, one broken on its hinges. Perhaps the freed slaves had tried to rip it down on their way out.

  Aelin’s fingers tightened on Rowan’s as they passed beneath the archway and entered the open grounds of the mines. There, in the center—there stood the wooden posts where she had been whipped. On her first day, on so many days.

  And there, in the mountain to her left—that was where the pits were. The lightless pits they’d shoved her into.

  The buildings of the mines’ overseers were dark. Husks.

  It took all her self-control to keep from looking at her wrists, where the shackle scars had been. To not feel the cold sweat sliding down her back and know no scars lay there, either. Just Rowan’s tattoo, inked over smooth skin.

  As if this place were a dream—some nightmare conjured by Maeve.

  The irony wasn’t lost on her. She’d escaped shackles twice now—only to wind up back here. A temporary freedom. Borrowed time.

  She’d left Goldryn in their tent. The sword would be of little use where they were going.

  “I never thought we’d see this place again,” Dorian murmured. “Certainly not like this.” None of the king’s steps faltered, his face somber as he gripped Damaris’s hilt. Ready to meet whatever awaited them.

  The pain she knew was coming.

  No, she had not ever really escaped at all, had she?

  They halted near the center of the dirt yard. Elena had walked her through forging the Lock, putting the keys back into the gate. Though there would be no great display of magic, no threat to any around them, she had wanted to be away. Far from anyone else.

  In the moonlight, Chaol’s face was pale. “What do you need us to do?”

  “Be here,” Aelin said simply. “That is enough.”

  It was the only reason she was still able to endure standing here, in this hateful place.

  She met Dorian’s inquiring stare and nodded. No use in wasting time.

  Dorian embraced Chaol, the two of them speaking too quietly for Aelin to hear.

  Aelin only began to sketch a Wyrdmark in the dirt, large enough for her and Dorian to stand in. There would be two, overlapping with each other: Open. Close.

  Lock. Unlock.

  She’d learned them from the start. Had used them herself.

  “No sweet farewells, Princess?” Rowan asked as she traced the mark with her foot.

  “They seem dramatic,” Aelin said. “Far too dramatic, even for me.”

  But Rowan halted her, the second symbol half-finished. Tipped back her chin. “Even when you’re … there,” he said, his pine-green eyes so bright under the moon. “I am with you.” He laid a hand on her heart. “Here. I am with you here.”

  She laid her own hand on his chest, and breathed his scent deep into her lungs, her heart. “As I am with you. Always.”

  Rowan kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered onto her mouth. “Come back to me.”

  Then Rowan retreated, just beyond the unfinished marks.

  The absence of his scent, his heat, filled her with cold. But she kept her shoulders back. Kept her breathing steady as she memorized the lines of Rowan’s face.

  Dorian, eyes shining bright, stepped onto the marks. Aelin said to Rowan, “Seal the last one when we’re done.”

  Her prince, her mate, nodded.

  Dorian drew out a folded bit of cloth from his jacket. Opened it to reveal two slivers of black stone. And the Amulet of Orynth.

  Her stomach roiled, nausea at their otherworldliness threatening to bring her to her knees. But she took the Amulet of Orynth from him.

  “I thought you might be the one who wished to open it,” Dorian said quietly.

  Here in the place where she’d suffered and endured, here in the place where so many things had begun.

  Aelin weighed the ancient amulet in her palms, ran her thumbs along the golden seam of its edges. For a heartbeat, she was again in that cozy room in a riverside estate, her mother beside her, bequeathing the amulet into her care.

  Aelin traced her fingers over the Wyrdmarks on the back. The runes that spelled out her hateful fate: Nameless is my price.

  Written here, all this time, for so many centuries. A warning from Brannon, and a confirmation. Their sacrifice. Her sacrifice.

  Brannon had raged at those gods, had marked the amulet and laid all those clues for her to one day find. So she might understand. As if she could somehow defy this fate. A fool’s hope.

  Aelin turned the amulet back over, brushing her fingers along the immortal stag on its front.

  Borrowed time. It had all been borrowed time.

  The gold sealing the amulet melted away in her hands, hissing as it dropped onto the icy dirt. With a twist, she pulled apart the two sides of the amulet.

  The unearthly reek of the third key hit her, beckoning. Whispered in languages that did not exist in Erilea and never would.

  Aelin only dumped the sliver of Wyrdkey into Dorian’s awaiting hand. It clinked against the other two, and the sound might have echoed into eternity, into all worlds.

  Dorian shuddered, Chaol and Rowan flinching.

  Aelin just pocketed the two halves of the amulet. A piece of Terrasen to take with her. Wherever they were about to go.

  Aelin met Rowan’s stare one last time. Saw the words there. Come back to me.

  She’d take those words, that face with her, too. Even when the Lock demanded everything, that would remain. Would always remain.

  She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. Broke Rowan’s piercing stare. And then sliced open her palm. Then Dorian’s.

  The stars seemed to shift closer, the mountains peering over Aelin’s and Dorian’s shoulders, as she sliced her knife a third time, down her forearm. Deep and wide, skin splitting.

  To open the gate, she must become the gate.

  Erawan had begun the process of turning Kaltain Rompier into that gate—had put the stone within her arm not for safekeeping, but to prepare her body for the other stones. To turn her into a living Wyrdgate that he might control.

  Just one sliver in her body had destroyed Kaltain. To put all three in her own …

  My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, and I will not be afraid.

  I will not be afraid.

  I will not be afraid.

  “Ready?” Aelin breathed.

  Dorian nodded.

  With a final look at the stars
, one final look at the Lord of the North standing guard over Terrasen mere miles away, Aelin took the shards from Dorian’s outstretched palm.

  And as she and Dorian joined bloodied hands, as their magic roared through them and wove together, blinding and eternal, Aelin slammed the three Wyrdkeys into the open wound of her arm.

  Rowan sealed the Wyrdmarks with a swipe of his foot through the icy earth.

  Just as Aelin clapped her palm upon her arm, sealing the three Wyrdkeys into her body while her other hand gripped Dorian’s.

  It had to work. It had to have been why their paths had crossed, why Aelin and Dorian had found each other twice now, in this exact place. He could accept no other alternative. He couldn’t have let her go otherwise.

  Rowan didn’t breathe. Beside him, he wasn’t sure if Chaol did, either.

  But while Aelin and Dorian still stood there, heads high despite the fear he scented coursing through them, their faces had gone vacant. Empty.

  No flash of light.

  No flare of power.

  Aelin and Dorian simply stood, hands united, and stared ahead.

  Blank. Unseeing. Frozen.

  Gone.

  Here, but gone. As if their bodies were shells.

  “What happened?” Chaol breathed.

  Aelin’s hand fell from where it had been clapped onto her arm and dangled limply at her side. Revealing that open wound. The black slivers of rock shoved inside it.

  Something in Rowan’s chest, intricate and essential, began to strain. Began to go taut.

  The mating bond.

  Rowan lurched forward a step, a hand on his chest.

  No. The mating bond writhed, as if in agony, as if in terror. He halted, Aelin’s name on his lips.

  Rowan fell to his knees as the three Wyrdkeys within Aelin’s arm dissolved into her blood.

  Like dew in the sun.

  CHAPTER 94

  As it had been once before, so it was again.

  The beginning and end and eternity, a torrent of light, of life that flowed between them, two halves of a cleaved bloodline.

  Mist swirled, veiling the solid ground beneath. An illusion, perhaps—for their minds to bear where they now stood. A place that was not a place, in a chamber of many doors. More doors than they could ever hope to count. Some made of air, some of glass, some of flame and gold and light.