Kingdom of Ash

by Sarah J. Maas

Hours later, Elide found Lorcan standing vigil by Gavriel’s body.

  When she’d heard, she had wept for the male who had shown her such kindness. And from the way Lorcan knelt before Gavriel, she knew he had just finished doing the same.

  Sensing her in the doorway, Lorcan rose to his feet, an aching, slow movement of the truly exhausted. There was indeed sorrow on his face. Grief and regret.

  She held open her arms, and Lorcan’s breath heaved out of him as he pulled her against him.

  “I hear,” he said onto her hair, “that you’re to thank for Erawan’s destruction.”

  Elide withdrew from his embrace, leading him from that room of sadness and candlelight. “Yrene is,” she said, walking until she found a quiet spot near a bank of windows overlooking the celebrating city. “I just came up with the idea.”

  “Without the idea, we’d be filling the bellies of Erawan’s beasts.”

  Elide rolled her eyes, despite all that had happened, all that lay before them. “It was a group effort, then.” She bit her lip. “Perranth—have you heard anything from Perranth?”

  “A ruk rider arrived a few hours ago. It is the same there as it is here: with Erawan’s demise, the soldiers holding the city either collapsed or fled. Its people have reclaimed control, but those who were possessed will need healers. A group of them will be flown over tomorrow to begin.”

  Relief threatened to buckle her knees. “Thank Anneith for that. Or Silba, I suppose.”

  “They’re both gone. Thank yourself.”

  Elide waved him off, but Lorcan kissed her.

  When he pulled away, Elide breathed, “What was that for?”

  “Ask me to stay,” was all he said.

  Her heart began racing. “Stay,” she whispered.

  Light, such beautiful light filled his dark eyes. “Ask me to come to Perranth with you.”

  Her voice broke, but she managed to say, “Come to Perranth with me.”

  Lorcan nodded, as if in answer, and his smile was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. “Ask me to marry you.”

  Elide began crying, even as she laughed. “Will you marry me, Lorcan Salvaterre?”

  He swept her up into his arms, raining kisses over her face. As if some final, chained part of him had been freed. “I’ll think about it.”

  Elide laughed, smacking his shoulder. And then laughed again, louder.

  Lorcan set her down. “What?”

  Elide’s mouth bobbed as she tried to stop her laughing. “It’s just … I’m Lady of Perranth. If you marry me, you will take my family name.”

  He blinked.

  Elide laughed again. “Lord Lorcan Lochan?”

  It sounded just as ridiculous coming out.

  Lorcan blinked at her, then howled.

  She’d never heard such a joyous sound.

  He swept her up in his arms again, spinning her. “I’ll use it with pride every damned day for the rest of my life,” he said into her hair, and when he set her down, his smile had vanished. Replaced by an infinite tenderness as he brushed back her hair, hooking it over an ear. “I will marry you, Elide Lochan. And proudly call myself Lord Lorcan Lochan, even when the whole kingdom laughs to hear it.” He kissed her, gently and lovingly. “And when we are wed,” he whispered, “I will bind my life to yours. So we will never know a day apart. Never be alone, ever again.”

  Elide covered her face with her hands and sobbed, at the heart he offered, at the immortality he was willing to part with for her. For them.

  But Lorcan clasped her wrists, gently prying her hands from her face. His smile was tentative. “If you would like that,” he said.

  Elide slid her arms around his neck, feeling his thundering heartbeat raging against hers, letting his warmth sink into her bones. “I would like that more than anything,” she whispered back.

  CHAPTER 118

  Yrene slumped onto the three-legged stool amid the chaos of the Great Hall. The story was familiar, though the setting slightly altered: another mighty chamber turned into a temporary sick bay. Dawn was not far off, yet she and the other healers kept working. Those bleeding out wouldn’t be able to survive without them.

  Human and Fae and witch and Wolf—Yrene had never seen such an assortment of people in one place.

  Elide had come in at some point, glowing despite the injured around them.

  Yrene supposed they all wore that same smile. Though her own had faltered in the past hour, as exhaustion settled in. She’d been forced to rest after dealing with Erawan, and had waited until her well of power had refilled only just enough to begin working again.

  She couldn’t sit still. Not when she saw the thing that lay beneath Erawan’s skin every time she closed her eyes. Forever gone, yes, but … she wondered when she’d forget him. The dark, oily feel of him. Hours ago, she hadn’t been able to tell if the retching that ensued was from the memory of him or the babe in her womb.

  “You should find that husband of yours and go to bed,” Hafiza said, hobbling over and frowning. “When was the last time you slept?”

  Yrene lifted her head—heavier than it had been minutes ago. “The last time you did, I’d wager.” Two days ago.

  Hafiza clicked her tongue. “Slaying a dark lord, healing the wounded … It’s a wonder you’re not unconscious right now, Yrene.”

  Yrene was about to be, but the disapproval in Hafiza’s voice steeled her spine. “I can work.”

  “I’m ordering you to find that dashing husband of yours and go to sleep. On behalf of the child in your womb.”

  Och. When the Healer on High put it like that …

  Yrene groaned as she stood. “You’re merciless.”

  Hafiza just patted her shoulder. “Good healers know when to rest. Exhaustion makes for sloppy decisions. And sloppy decisions—”

  “Cost lives,” Yrene finished. She lifted her eyes toward the vaulted ceiling high, high above. “You never stop teaching, do you?”

  Hafiza’s mouth cracked into a grin. “This is life, Yrene. We never stop learning. Even at my age.”

  Yrene had long suspected that love of learning was what had kept the Healer on High young at heart all these years. She just smiled back at her mentor.

  But Hafiza’s eyes softened. Grew contemplative. “We will remain for as long as we are needed—until the khagan’s soldiers can be transported home. We’ll leave some behind to tend for any remaining wounded, but in a few weeks, we will go.”

  Yrene’s throat tightened. “I know.”

  “And you,” Hafiza went on, taking her hand, “will not return with us.”

  Her eyes burned, but Yrene whispered, “No, I won’t.”

  Hafiza squeezed Yrene’s fingers, her hand warm. Strong as steel. “I shall have to find myself a new heir apparent, then.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Whatever for?” Hafiza chuckled. “You have found love, and happiness, Yrene. There is nothing more that I could ever wish for you.”

  Yrene wiped away the tear that slipped out. “I just—I don’t want you to think I wasted your time—”

  Hafiza crowed with laughter. “Wasted my time? Yrene Towers—Yrene Westfall.” The ancient woman cupped Yrene’s face with her strong, ancient hands. “You have saved us all.” Yrene closed her eyes as Hafiza pressed a kiss to her brow. A blessing and a farewell.

  “You will stay in these lands,” Hafiza said, her smile unwavering. “But even with the ocean dividing us, we will remain linked here.” She touched her chest, right over her heart. “And no matter the years, you will forever have a place at the Torre. Always.”

  Yrene put a shaking hand over her own heart and nodded.

  Hafiza squeezed her shoulder and made to walk back to her patients.

  But Yrene said, “What if—”

  Hafiza turned, brows rising. “Yes?”

  Yrene swallowed. “What if, once I have settled in Adarlan, and had this babe … When the time is right, what if I established my own Torre here?”


  Hafiza cocked her head, as if listening to the cadence of the statement while it echoed into her heart. “A Torre Cesme in the North.”

  Yrene went on, “In Adarlan. In Rifthold. A new Torre to replenish what Erawan destroyed. To teach the children who might not realize they have the gift, and those who will be born with it.” Because many of the Fae streaming in from the battlefield were descendants of the healers who had gifted the Torre women with their powers—long ago. Perhaps they would wish to help again.

  Hafiza smiled anew. “I like that idea very much, Yrene Westfall.”

  With that, the Healer on High walked back into the fray of healing and pain.

  But Yrene remained standing there, a hand drifting to the slight swelling in her belly.

  And she smiled—broad and unfalteringly—at the future that opened before her, bright as the oncoming dawn.

  Sunrise was near, yet Manon could not sleep. Had not bothered to find a place to rest, not while the Crochans and Ironteeth remained injured, and she had not yet finished her count of how many had survived the battle. The war.

  There was an empty space inside her where twelve souls had once burned fiercely.

  Perhaps that was why she had not found her bed, not even when she knew Dorian had likely procured sleeping arrangements. Why she still lingered in the aerie, Abraxos dozing beside her, and stared out at the silent battlefield.

  When the bodies were cleared, when the snows melted, when the spring came, would a blasted bit of earth linger on the plain before the city? Would it forever remain as such, a marker of where they fell?

  “We have a final count,” Bronwen said behind her, and Manon found the Crochan and Glennis emerging from the tower stairwell, Petrah at their heels.

  Manon braced herself for it as she waved a hand in silent request.

  Bad. But not as bad as it could have been.

  When Manon opened her eyes, the three of them only stared at her. Ironteeth and Crochan, standing together in peace. As allies.

  “We’ll collect the dead tomorrow,” Manon said, her voice low. “And burn them at moonrise.” As both Crochans and Ironteeth did. A full moon tomorrow—the Mother’s Womb. A good moon to be burned. To be returned to the Three-Faced Goddess, and reborn within that womb.

  “And after that?” Petrah asked. “What then?”

  Manon looked from Petrah to Glennis and Bronwen. “What should you like to do?”

  Glennis said softly, “Go home.”

  Manon swallowed. “You and the Crochans may leave whenever you—”

  “To the Wastes,” Glennis said. “Together.”

  Manon and Petrah swapped a glance. Petrah said, “We cannot.”

  Bronwen’s lips curved upward. “You can.”

  Manon blinked. And blinked again as Bronwen extended a fist toward Manon and opened it.

  Inside lay a pale purple flower, small as Manon’s thumbnail. Beautiful and delicate.

  “A bastion of Crochans just made it here—a bit late, but they heard the call and came. All the way from the Wastes.”

  Manon stared and stared at that purple flower.

  “They brought this with them. From the plain before the Witch-City.”

  The barren, bloodied plain. The land that had yielded no flowers, no life beyond grass and moss and—

  Manon’s sight blurred, and Glennis took her hand, guiding it toward Bronwen’s before the witch tipped the flower into Manon’s palm. “Only together can it be undone,” Glennis whispered. “Be the bridge. Be the light.”

  A bridge between their two peoples, as Manon had become.

  A light—as the Thirteen had exploded with light, not darkness, in their final moments.

  “When iron melts,” Petrah murmured, her blue eyes swimming with tears.

  The Thirteen had melted that tower. Melted the Ironteeth within it. And themselves.

  “When flowers spring from fields of blood,” Bronwen went on.

  Manon’s knees buckled as she stared out at that battlefield. Where countless flowers had been laid atop the blood and ruins where the Thirteen had met their end.

  Glennis finished, “Let the land be witness.”

  The battlefield where the rulers and citizens of so many kingdoms, so many nations, had come to pay tribute. To witness the sacrifice of the Thirteen and honor them.

  Silence fell, and Manon whispered, her voice shaking as she held that small, impossibly precious flower in her palm, “And return home.”

  Glennis bowed her head. “And so the curse is broken. And so we shall go home together—as one people.”

  The curse was broken.

  Manon just stared at them, her breathing turning jagged.

  Then she roused Abraxos, and was in the saddle within heartbeats. She did not offer them any explanation, any farewell, as they leaped into the thinning night.

  As she guided her wyvern to the bit of blasted earth on the battlefield. Right to its heart.

  And smiling through her tears, laughing in joy and sorrow, Manon laid that precious flower from the Wastes upon the ground.

  In thanks and in love.

  So they would know, so Asterin would know, in the realm where she and her hunter and child walked hand in hand, that they had made it.

  That they were going home.

  Aelin wanted to, but could not sleep. Had ignored the offers to find her a room, a bed, in the chaos of the castle.

  Instead, she and Rowan had gone to the Great Hall, to talk to the wounded, to offer what help they could for those who needed it most.

  The lost Fae of Terrasen, their giant wolves and adopted human clan with them, wanted to speak to her as much as the citizens of Orynth. How they had found the Wolf Tribe a decade ago, how they’d fallen in with them in the wilds of the mountains and hinterlands beyond, was a tale she’d soon learn. The world would learn.

  Their healers filled the Great Hall, joining the Torre women. All descended from those in the southern continent—and apparently trained by them, too. Dozens of fresh healers, each bearing badly needed supplies. They fell seamlessly into work alongside those from the Torre. As if they had been doing so for centuries.

  And when the healers both human and Fae had shooed them out, Aelin had wandered.

  Each hallway and floor, peering into the rooms so full of ghosts and memory. Rowan had walked at her side, a quiet, unfaltering presence.

  Level by level they went, rising ever higher.

  They were nearing the top of the north tower when dawn broke.

  The morning was brutally cold, even more so atop the tower standing high over the world, but the day would be clear. Bright.

  “So there it is,” Aelin said, nodding toward the dark stain on the balcony stones. “Where Erawan met his end at the hands of a healer.” She frowned. “I hope it will wash off.”

  Rowan snorted, and when she looked over her shoulder, the wind whipping her hair, she found him leaning against the stairwell door, his arms crossed.

  “I mean it,” she said. “It’ll be odious to have his mess there. And I plan to use this balcony to sun myself. He’ll ruin it.”

  Rowan chuckled, and pushed off the door, going to the balcony rail. “If it doesn’t wash off, we’ll throw a rug over it.”

  Aelin laughed, and joined him, leaning into his warmth as the sun gilded the battlefield, the river, the Staghorns. “Well, now you’ve seen every hall and room and stairwell. What do you make of your new home?”

  “A little small, but we’ll manage.”

  Aelin nudged him with an elbow, and jerked her chin to the nearby western tower. Where the north tower was tall, the western tower was wide. Grand. Near its upper levels, hanging over the perilous drop, a walled stone garden glowed in the sunlight. The king’s garden.

  Queen’s, she supposed.

  There had been nothing left but a tangle of thorns and snow. Yet she still remembered it, when it had belonged to Orlon. The roses and drooping latticework of wisteria, the fountains that h
ad streamed right over the edge of the garden and into the open air below, the apple tree with blossoms like clumps of snow in the spring.

  “I never realized how convenient it would be for Fleetfoot,” she said of the secret, private garden. Reserved only for the royal family. Sometimes just for the king or queen themselves. “To not have to run down the tower stairs every time she needs to pee.”

  “I’m sure your ancestors had canine bathroom habits in mind when they built it.”

  “I would have,” Aelin grumbled.

  “Oh, I believe it,” Rowan said, smirking. “But can you explain to me why we’re not in there right now, sleeping?”

  “In the garden?”

  He flicked her nose. “In the suite beyond the garden. Our bedroom.”

  She’d led him quickly through the space. Still preserved well enough, despite the disrepair of the rest of the castle. One of the Adarlanian cronies had undoubtedly used it. “I want it cleaned of any trace of Adarlan before I stay in there,” she admitted.

  “Ah.”

  She heaved a breath, sucking down the morning air.

  Aelin heard them before she saw them, scented them. And when they turned, they found Lorcan and Elide walking onto the tower balcony, Aedion, Lysandra, and Fenrys trailing. Ren Allsbrook, tentative and wary-eyed, emerged behind them.

  How they’d known where to find them, why they’d come, Aelin had no idea. Fenrys’s wounds had closed at least, though twin, red scars slashed from his brow to his jaw. He didn’t seem to notice—or care.

  She also didn’t fail to note the hand Lorcan kept on Elide’s back. The glow on the lady’s face.

  Aelin could guess well enough what that glow was from. Even Lorcan’s dark eyes were bright.

  It didn’t stop Aelin from catching Lorcan’s stare. And giving him a warning look that conveyed everything she didn’t bother to say: if he broke the Lady of Perranth’s heart, she’d flambé him. And would invite Manon Blackbeak to roast some dinner over his burning corpse.

  Lorcan rolled his eyes, and Aelin deemed that acceptance enough as she asked them all, “Did anyone bother to sleep?”

  Only Fenrys lifted his hand.

  Aedion frowned at the dark stain on the stones.