And as a lone ruk screeched its challenge, the khaganate advanced.
Foot soldiers in perfect lines marched, spears out, shields locked rim to rim. The Darghan cavalry flanked either side, a force of nature ready to herd Morath to where they wanted them. And above, flapping into the skies, the rukhin readied their bows and marked their targets.
“Ready now,” Chaol called out to the men of his keep.
Armor clanked as men shifted, their fear stuffing itself up Rowan’s nose.
This would be it—today. Whether that hope remained or fractured.
Already, the awakening sky revealed two siege towers being hauled toward them. Right to the wall. Far closer than Rowan had last noted when flying overhead last night. Morath, it seemed, had not been sleeping, either.
The ruks would remain back with their own army, driving Morath to the keep. To be picked off here, one by one.
“We have minutes until that first tower makes contact with the wall,” Gavriel observed.
A scan of the battlements, the soldiers atop them, revealed no sign of Aelin.
Lorcan indeed muttered, “Someone better tell her to stop primping and get here.”
Rowan snarled in warning.
The clash of armored feet and shields was as familiar as any song. Morath’s foot soldiers aimed for the keep walls, spears at the ready. At the other end of the host, soldiers faced away, spears and pikes angled to intercept the khaganate’s army.
A horn blasted from deep in the khaganate ranks, and arrows flew.
The mass of Morath soldiers didn’t so much as flinch or look behind to see what became of their rear lines.
“Ladders,” Fenrys murmured, pointing with his chin toward the ripple through the lines. Massive siege ladders of iron parted the crowd.
“They’re making this their all-out assault, then,” Lorcan said with equal quiet. All of them careful not to let the nearby men hear. “They’ll try to break into the keep before the khaganate can break them.”
“Archers!” Chaol’s bellow rang out. Behind them, down the battlements, bows groaned.
Fenrys unslung the bow across his back and nocked an arrow into place.
Rowan kept his own bow strapped across his back, the quiver untouched, Gavriel and Lorcan doing the same. No need to waste them on a few soldiers when their aim might be needed with far worse targets later in the day.
But one of them had to be noted felling soldiers. For whatever it would do to rally their spirits. And Fenrys, as fine an archer as Rowan, he’d admit, would do just fine.
Rowan followed the line of Fenrys’s arrowhead to where he’d marked one of the bearers of a siege ladder. “Make it impressive,” he muttered.
“Mind your own business,” Fenrys muttered back, tracking his target with the tip of his arrow as he awaited Chaol’s order.
If Aelin didn’t arrive within another moment, he’d have to leave the battlements to find her. What in hell had held her up?
Lorcan drew his ancient blade, which Rowan had witnessed felling soldiers in kingdoms far from here, in wars far longer than this one. “They’ll head for the gates when that siege tower docks,” Lorcan said, glancing from the battlements to the gate a level below, the small bastion of men in front of it. Trees had been felled to prop up the metal doors, but should a solid enough group of enemy soldiers swarm it, they might get those supports and the heavy locks down within minutes. And open the gates to the hordes beyond.
“We don’t let them get that far,” Rowan said, eyeing up the massive tower lumbering closer. Soldiers teemed behind it, waiting to scale its interior. “Chaol brought the tower down the other day without our help. It can happen again.”
“Volley!” Chaol’s roar echoed off the stones, and arrows sang.
Like a swarm of locusts, they swept upon the soldiers marching below. Fenrys’s arrow found its mark with lethal precision.
Within a heartbeat, another was on its tail. A second soldier at the siege ladder fell.
Where the hell was Aelin—
Morath didn’t halt. Marched right over the soldiers who fell on their front lines.
The pulse of human fear down the battlements rippled against his skin. The cadre would have to strike fast, and strike well, to shake it away.
The siege tower lumbered closer. One glance from Rowan had him and his friends moving toward the spot it would now undeniably strike upon the battlements. Close enough to the stairs down to the gate. Morath had chosen the location well.
Some of the soldiers they passed were praying, a shuddering push of words into the frigid morning air.
Lorcan said to one of them, “Save your breath for the battle, not the gods.”
Rowan shot him a look, but the man, gaping at Lorcan, quieted.
Chaol ordered another volley, and arrows flew, Fenrys firing as he walked. As if he were barely bothered.
Still, the whispered prayers continued down the line, swords shaking along with them.
Up by Chaol, the soldiers held firm, faces solid.
But here, on this level of the battlements … those faces were pale. Wide-eyed.
“Someone better say something inspiring,” Fenrys said through gritted teeth, firing another arrow. “Or these men are going to piss themselves in a minute.”
For a minute was all they had left, as the first siege tower inched closer.
“You’ve got the pretty face,” Lorcan retorted. “You’d do a better job of it.”
“It’s too late for speeches,” Rowan cut in before Fenrys could reply. “Better to show them what we can do.”
They positioned themselves on the wall. Right in the path of the bridge that would snap down over the battlement.
He drew his sword, then thumbed free the hatchet at his side. Gavriel unsheathed twin blades from across his back, falling into flanking position at Rowan’s right. Lorcan planted himself on his left. Fenrys took the rear, to catch any who got through their net.
The mortal men clustered behind them. The gates shuddered under the impact of Morath at last.
Rowan steadied his breathing, readying his magic to rip through Valg lungs. He’d fell a few with his blades first. To show how easily it could be done, that Morath was desperate and victory would be near. The magic would come later.
The siege tower groaned as it slowed to a stop.
Just as the wall under them shuddered at its impact, Fenrys whispered, “Holy gods.”
Not at the bridge that snapped down, soldiers teeming in the dark depths inside.
But at who emerged from the keep archway behind them. What emerged.
Rowan didn’t know where to look. At the soldiers pouring out of the siege tower, leaping onto the battlements, or at Aelin.
At the Queen of Terrasen.
She’d found armor below the keep. Beautiful, pale gold armor that gleamed like a summer dawn. Holding back her braided hair, a diadem lay flush against her head. Not a diadem, but a piece of armor. Part of some ancient set for a lady long since buried.
A crown for war, a crown to wear into battle. A crown to lead armies.
There was no fear on her face, no doubt, as Aelin hefted her shield, flipping Goldryn in her hand once before the first of Morath’s soldiers was upon her.
A swift, upward strike cleaved the Morath grunt from navel to chin. His black blood sprayed, but she was already moving, flowing like a stream around a rock.
Rowan launched into movement, his blades finding their marks, but still he watched her.
Aelin slammed her shield against an oncoming warrior, Goldryn slicing through another before she plunged the blade into the soldier she’d deflected.
She did it again, and again.
All while heading toward that siege tower. Unhindered. Unleashed.
A call went down the line. The queen has come.
Soldiers waiting their turn whirled toward them.
Aelin took on three Valg soldiers and left them dying on the stones.
She planted her line before the gaping maw of that siege tower, right in the path of those teeming hordes. Every moment of the training she’d done on the ship here, on the road, every new blister and callus—all to rebuild herself for this.
The queen has come.
Goldryn unfaltering, her shield an extension of her arm, Aelin glowed like the sun that now broke over the khagan’s army as she engaged each soldier that hurtled her way.
Five, ten—she moved and moved and moved, ducking and swiping, shoving and flipping, black blood spraying, her face the portrait of grim, unbreaking will.
“The queen!” the men shouted. “To the queen!”
And as Rowan fought his way closer, as that cry went down the battlements and Anielle men ran to aid her, he realized that Aelin did not need an ounce of flame to inspire men to follow. That she had been waiting, yanking at the bit, to show them what she, without magic, without any godly power, might do.
He’d never seen such a glorious sight. In every land, every battle, he had never seen anything as glorious as Aelin before the throat of the siege tower, holding the line.
Dawn breaking around them, Rowan loosed a battle cry and tore into Morath.
This first battle would set the tone.
It would set the tone, and send a message. Not to Morath.
Impress us, Hasar had said.
So she would. So she’d picked the golden armor and her battle-crown. And waited until dawn, until that siege tower slammed into the battlements, before unleashing herself.
To keep the men here from breaking, to wipe away the fear festering in their eyes.
To convince the khaganate royals of what she might do, what she could do. Not a threat, but a reminder.
She was no helpless princess. She had never been.
Goldryn sang with each swipe, her mind as cool and sharp as the blade while she assessed each enemy soldier, their weapons, and took them down accordingly. She dimly knew that Rowan fought at her side, Gavriel and Fenrys battling near her left flank.
But she was keenly aware of the mortal men who leaped into the fray with cries of defiance. They’d made it this far. They would survive today, too. And the khaganate royals would know it.
Galloping hooves drowned out the battle, and then Chaol was there, sword flashing, driving into the unending tide that rushed from the tower’s entrance.
“To Lord Chaol! To the queen!”
How far they both were from Rifthold. From the assassin and the captain.
Arrows rose from the army beyond the wall, but a wave of icy wind snapped them into splinters before they could find any marks.
A dark blur plunged past, and then Lorcan was at the siege tower’s mouth, his sword swinging so fast Aelin could barely follow it. He battled his way across the metal bridge of the tower, into the stairwell beyond. Like he’d fight his way down the ramps and onto the battlefield itself.
Below, a boom began. Morath had brought in their battering ram.
Aelin smiled grimly. She’d bring them all down. Then Erawan. And then she’d unleash herself upon Maeve.
At the opposite end of the field, the khagan’s army pushed, gaining the field step by step.
Not helpless. Not contained. Never again.
Death became a melody in her blood, every movement a dance as the tide of soldiers pouring from the tower slowed. As if Lorcan was indeed forcing his way down the interior. Those who got past him met her blade, or Rowan’s. A flash of gold, and Gavriel had slaughtered his way into the siege tower as well, twin blades a whirlwind.
What Lorcan and the Lion would do upon reaching the bottom, how they’d dislodge the tower, she didn’t know. Didn’t think about it.
Not from this place of killing and movement, of breath and blood. Of freedom.
Death had been her curse and her gift and her friend for these long, long years. She was happy to greet it again under the golden morning sun.
CHAPTER 58
Elide wasn’t even on the battlements, and she already wished to never endure another war again.
The soldiers who were hauled in, their injuries … She didn’t know how the healers were so calm. How Yrene Westfall worked so steadily while a man was screaming, screaming, screaming as his internal organs poked through the gash in his belly.
The keep shook every now and then, and Elide hated herself for being glad she didn’t know what it meant. Even as it ate away at her not knowing how her companions fared. If the khagan’s army was close enough so that this nightmare could end soon.
It would be hours yet, the dark-skinned, sharp-eyed healer named Eretia had claimed when Elide had vomited upon seeing a man whose shinbone stuck clean through his leg. Hours yet until it was over, the terse healer had chided, so she’d better finish heaving and get back to work.
Not that there was much Elide could do. Despite the generous gift of power that ran through the Lochan bloodline, she possessed no magic, no gifts beyond reading people and lying. But she helped the healers pin down thrashing men. Rushed to get bandages, hot water, and whatever salves or herbs the healers calmly requested.
None of them shouted. They only raised their voices, magic glowing bright around them, if a soldier was shrieking too loudly for their words to be heard.
The sun was barely over the horizon, judging by the light at the windows set high in the Great Hall, and so many already lay injured. So many.
Still they kept coming, and Elide kept moving, her limp becoming a dull, then a sharp ache. A minor pain, compared to what the soldiers endured. Compared to what they faced on the battlements.
She didn’t let herself think of her friends. Didn’t let herself think of Lorcan, who had not come to the chamber last night and had not sought them out this morning. As if he didn’t want to be near her. As if he’d taken every hateful word she’d spoken to heart.
So Elide aided the clear-eyed healers, held down screaming, pleading men, and did not stop.
Farasha did not balk from the Morath soldiers who made it onto the battlements. From the ones who emerged from the second siege tower that docked down the wall, or those who made it up the ladders.
No, that magnificent horse trampled them, fearless and wicked, just as Chaol had predicted. A horse whose name meant butterfly—stomping all over Valg foot soldiers.
Had his breath not been a rasp in his chest, Chaol might have smiled. Had men not been cut down around him, he might have laughed a bit, too.
But Morath was launching itself at the walls and gates with a furor they had not yet witnessed. Perhaps they knew who had come to Anielle and now hewed them down. Aelin and Rowan fought back-to-back, and Fenrys had plowed his way down the battlements to join Chaol by the second siege tower.
Chaol’s sword arm didn’t falter, despite the exhaustion that began to creep up as an hour, then two passed. Far across the sea of enemy soldiers, the rukhin and Darghan armies herded and smashed Morath between their forces, driving them toward the keep walls.
Morath, it seemed, did not think to surrender. Only to inflict destruction, to break into the keep and slaughter as many as they could before meeting their end.
His shield bloodied and dented, his horse a raging demon herself beneath him, Chaol kept swinging his sword. His wife lay within the keep behind him. He would not fail her.
Nesryn ran out of arrows too soon.
Morath did not flee, even with the might of the Darghan riders and the foot soldiers upon them. So they slowly advanced, leaving bodies clad in black as well as gold armor in their wake. More Morath soldiers than their own, but it was hard—near-unbearable—to see so many go down. To see the beautiful horses of the Darghan riderless. Or felled themselves.
The rukhin took losses, but not as many. Not now that an army fought beneath them.
Sartaq led the center, and from where Nesryn commanded the left flank, she kept an eye on him and Kadara. An eye on Borte and Yeran, leading the right flank to the far western side of the battle, Falkan Ennar in ruk form with them. Perhaps she imagined it, but Nesryn could have sworn the shifter fought with renewed vigor. As if the years returned to him aided his strength.
Nesryn nudged Salkhi, and they dove again, the riders behind her following suit. Arrows and spears rose to meet them, some Morath soldiers fleeing. Nesryn and Salkhi rose back into the air coated in more black blood.
High overhead, twin rukhin scout patrols monitored the battle. As Nesryn wiped the black blood from her face, one rider dove—right for Sartaq.
Sartaq was soaring away a heartbeat later.
Nesryn knew he’d kick her ass for it, but she shouted to the rukhin captain behind her to hold formation, and steered Salkhi after the prince.
“Get back in line,” Sartaq ordered over the wind, his skin unusually ashen.
“What’s wrong?” she called. Salkhi flapped harder, falling into line with the prince’s ruk.
Sartaq pointed ahead. To the wall of mountains just beyond the lake and city.
To the dam that he’d so casually mentioned breaking to wipe away Morath’s army.
With each flap of Salkhi’s wings, it became clearer. What had sent him into a mad dash.
A group of Morath soldiers had taken the night not to rest, but to sneak through the abandoned city. To scale the foothills, then the mountain wall. To the dam itself.
Where they now, with battering rams and wicked cunning, sought to unleash it.
Salkhi swept closer. Nesryn reached for an arrow. Her fingers curled around air.
Sartaq, however, had two arrows left, and fired both upon the thirty or so Morath soldiers heaving a mammoth battering ram into the center of the dam. Wood, and stone, and iron, ancient and foreboding. A few cracks, and it would come down.
And then the upper lake and river penned up behind it would rage across the plain.
Morath did not care if its own forces were washed away. They would lose today anyway.
They would not allow the khagan’s army to walk off the plain, either.
Both of Sartaq’s arrows found their marks, but the two soldiers who went down did not cause the others to drop the battering ram. Again, they heaved the ram back—and swung it forward.
The boom of wood on wood echoed up to them.
They soared near enough that the iron enforcements at the tip of the battering ram became clear. Thick iron casing, capped with spikes meant to shred and pierce. If Salkhi and Kadara could reach it, they could rip the ram from their hands—
Metal groaned and clanked, and Sartaq’s warning cry shattered across the air.
Salkhi banked on instinct, spying the massive iron bolt before Nesryn did. A bolt fired from a heavy-looking device they must have rolled up here. To keep ruks away.
The bolt went wide, slamming through the mountain rock.
It would have pierced Salkhi’s chest, straight into his heart.
Stomach churning, Nesryn soared up again, assessing the soldiers below.
Sartaq signaled from nearby, Weave in through two different directions. Meet in the center.
The winds screamed in her ears, but Nesryn tugged on the reins, and Salkhi banked in a wide arc. Sartaq turned Kadara, the mirror image to Nesryn’s maneuver.
“Fast as you can, Salkhi!” Nesryn shouted to her ruk.
Gaining on the dam, on the soldiers, Salkhi and Kadara soared toward each other, crossed paths, and arced outward again. Weaving fast as the wind itself. Denying the archers an easy target.
An iron bolt fired for Sartaq and ripped through air above him, nearly grazing his head.
The battering ram slammed into the wood again.
A splintering crack sounded this time. A deep groan, like some terrible beast awakening from a long slumber.
Another iron bolt shot for them and missed. Nesryn and Sartaq wove past each other, flying so fast her eyes streamed. The wind sang, full of the voices of the dying and injured.
And then they were there, Salkhi’s talons outstretched as he slammed into the iron machine that had launched those bolts, ripping it apart. Soldiers screamed as the ruk fell upon them, too.
Those at the battering ram got in another thundering boom against the dam before Sartaq and Kadara slashed into them. Men went flying, some hitting the dam. Some landing in pieces.
Kadara hurled the battering ram onto the nearby mountain face, wood splintering with the impact. It rolled away into the rocks and vanished.
Heart thundering, the battle on the plain below still raging, Nesryn wheeled Salkhi around and took stock of the dam wall, Sartaq doing the same beside her.
What they saw made them soar back to the keep as swiftly as the winds could carry them.
Lorcan had battled his way down the first siege tower’s dim, cramped interior, slaughtering the soldiers in his path. Gavriel followed behind him, soon catching up as Lorcan found himself holding the entrance to the tower against the countless soldiers trying to get in.
The two of them stemmed the tide, even as a few of the Morath grunts got past their swords. Whitethorn and the queen would be waiting to pick them off.
Lorcan lost track of how long he and Gavriel held the entrance to the siege tower—how long it took until their forces were able to dislodge it.
Their magic would be useless. The entire damn thing was built of iron. The ladders, too. As if Morath had anticipated their presence.
Only the groaning of collapsing metal warned them the tower was coming down, and sent them racing onto the battlefield.
Where they’d found themselves outside the gates. Fenrys and Lord Chaol had appeared at the battlement walls with archers, and fired at the soldiers who’d rushed for Lorcan and Gavriel.
But he and the Lion had already marked their next target: the battering ram still slamming into those ever-weakening gates. And with the archers covering from above, they’d begun slaughtering their way to it. And then slaughtering their way along the ram itself, until it thudded to the ground, then was forgotten in the wave of Morath soldiers who came for them.
Lorcan’s breath had been a steady beat, a grounding force as the bodies piled around them.
They need only hold the gate long enough for the khagan’s army to overrun the Morath host.
From above, a swift, brutal wind added to the dance of death, ripping the air from the lungs of soldiers charging at them, even as he knew Whitethorn kept fighting on the battlements.
Lorcan again lost track of time. Only vaguely knew the sun was arcing across the sky.
But the khagan’s army was gaining the field, inch by inch.
Enough so that the ruks wrenched the siege ladders from the keep walls. Enough so that Lord Chaol shouted down to him and Gavriel to scale a siege ladder and get the hell back up here.
Gavriel obeyed, spotting the iron ladder cleared of Morath soldiers, being held in place only long enough for them to climb back up to the battlements.
But the khagan’s forces were near. And a nudge at Lorcan’s shoulder told him not to run, but to fight.
So Lorcan listened. He didn’t bother to shout to Gavriel, now half up the ladder, before he plunged into the fray.
He’d been bred for battle. Regardless of what queen he served, whether she was Fae or Valg or human, this was what he had been trained to do. What some part of him sang to do.
Lorcan plowed his own path toward the advancing khagan lines, some Morath soldiers fleeing in his wake. Some falling before he reached them, his magic snapping their lives away.
Soon now. They’d win the field soon, and the song in his blood would quiet.
Part of him didn’t want it to end, even as his body began to scream to rest.
Yet when the battle was done, what would remain?
Nothing. Elide had made that clear enough. She loved him, but she hated herself for it.
He hadn’t deserved her anyway.
She deserved a life of peace, of happiness. He didn’t know such things. Had thought he’d glimpsed them during the months they’d traveled together, before everything went to hell, but now he knew he was not meant for anything like it.
But this battlefield, this death-song around him … This, he could do. This, he could savor.
The golden helmets of the khagan’s army became clear, their fiery horses unfaltering. Finer than any host he’d fought beside in a mortal kingdom. In many immortal kingdoms, too.
Obeying the death-song in his blood, Lorcan let his shields drop. He did not wish it to be easy. He wanted to feel each blow, see his enemy’s life drain out beneath his sword.
He didn’t care what came of it. No one would care if he made it back to the keep anyway. He didn’t balk as he engaged the ten soldiers who charged for him.
Perhaps he deserved what happened next. Deserved it for his pathetic thoughts, or his arrogance in lowering his shields.
One moment, he was handily sending the Morath grunts back to their dark maker. One moment, he was grinning, even as he tasted their vile blood spraying the air.
A flash of metal at his back. Lorcan whirled, sword rising, but too late.
The Valg soldier’s blade swept upward. Lorcan arched, bellowing as flesh tore along his spine. No armor—there had been no armor to fit them across their torsos.
The Morath soldier moved again, more adept than the others. Perhaps the man he’d infested had some skill on the battlefield, something the demon wielded to its advantage.
Lorcan could barely lift his sword before the soldier plunged his own into Lorcan’s gut.
Lorcan fell, sword clattering. Icy mud sucked at his face, as if it would swallow him whole. Pull him down into the dark depths of Hellas’s realm, where he deserved to be.
The earth shook beneath thundering hooves, and arrows screamed overhead.
Then there was roaring. And then blackness.
CHAPTER 59
The khagan’s army took no prisoners.
A few of Morath’s soldiers tried to escape into the city. Standing beside Aelin on the keep battlements, Rowan watched the ruks pick them off with lethal efficiency.
His ears still rang with the din of battle, his breath a rasping beat echoed by Aelin. Already, the small wounds on him had begun to heal, a tingling itch beneath his stained clothes. The gash he’d taken to his leg, however, would need longer.
Across the plain, stretching toward the horizon, the khagan’s army made sure their kills stayed down. Swords and spears flashed in the afternoon light as they rose and fell, severing heads. Rowan had always remembered the chaos and rush of battle, but this—the dazed, weary aftermath—this, he’d forgotten.
Healers already made their way over the battlefield, their white banners stark against the sea of black and gold. Those who needed more intensive help were carried off by ruks and brought right to the chaos of the Great Hall.
Atop the blood-slick battlements, their allies and companions around them, Rowan wordlessly passed Aelin the waterskin. She drank deeply, then handed it to Fenrys.
An unleashing and release. That’s what the battle had been for his mate.
“Minimal losses,” Princess Hasar was saying, a hand braced on a small section of the battlement wall that was not coated in black or red gore. “The foot soldiers got hit hardest; the Darghan remain mostly intact.”
Rowan nodded. Impressive—more than impressive. The khagan’s army had been a beautifully coordinated force, moving across the plain as if they were farmers reaping wheat. Had he not been swept into the dance of battle, he might have stopped to marvel at them.
The princess turned to Chaol, seated in a wheeled chair, his face grim. “On your end?”
Chaol glanced to his father, who observed the battlefield with crossed arms. His father said without looking at them, “Many. We’ll leave it at that.”
Pain seemed to flicker in the bastard’s eyes, but he said nothing more.
Chaol gave Hasar an apologetic frown, his hands tightening on the chair’s arms. The soldiers of Anielle, however bravely they’d fought, were not a trained unit. Many of those who had survived were seasoned warriors who’d fought the wild men up in the Fangs, Chaol had told Rowan earlier. Most of the dead had not.
Hasar at last looked Aelin over. “I heard you put on a show today.”
Rowan braced himself.
Aelin turned from the battlefield and inclined her head. “You look as if you did, too.”
Indeed, Hasar’s ornate armor was splattered with black blood. She’d been in the thick of it, atop her Muniqi horse, and had ridden right up to the gates. But the princess made no further comment.
Irritation, deep and nearly hidden, flashed in Aelin’s eyes. Yet she didn’t speak again—didn’t push the princess about their next steps. She just watched the battlefield once more, chewing on her lip.
She’d barely stopped during the battle, halting only when there had been no more Valg left to kill. And in the minutes since the walls had been cleared, she’d remained quiet—distant. As if she was still climbing out of that calm, calculating place she’d descended into while fighting. She hadn’t bothered to remove any of her armor. The bronze battle-crown was caked with blood, her hair matted with it.
Chaol’s father had taken one look at her armor, at Rowan’s, and gone white with rage. Yet Chaol had merely wheeled his chair to his father’s side, snarling something too soft for Rowan to hear, and the man backed off.
For now. They had bigger things to consider. Things that drove his mate to gnaw on her lip. When Prince Kashin’s army might arrive, if they would indeed head northward to Terrasen. If today had been enough to win them over.
Two shapes took form in the sky. Kadara and Salkhi, soaring for the keep at an almost unchecked speed.
People scrambled out of the ruks’ way as Sartaq and Nesryn landed on the battlements, sliding off their saddles and stalking right up to them.
“We have a problem,” Nesryn said, her face ashen.
Indeed, Sartaq’s lips were bloodless. Both of their scents were drenched in fear.
The wheels of Chaol’s chair splashed through puddled blood. “What is it?”
Aelin straightened, Gavriel and Fenrys going still.
Nesryn pointed across the city, to the wall of mountains. “We intercepted a group of Morath soldiers toward the end of the battle—trying to bring that dam down.”
Rowan swore, and Chaol echoed it.
“I’m assuming they didn’t succeed thanks to you,” Aelin said, gazing toward that too-near dam, the raging waters of the upper lake and river it held at bay.
“Partially,” Sartaq said, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “But we arrived after much damage had already been done.”
“Out with it,” Hasar hissed.
Sartaq’s dark eyes flashed. “We need to evacuate our army off the plain. Right now.”
“It’s going to break?” Chaol’s father demanded.
Nesryn winced. “It likely will.”
“It could burst at any moment.” Sartaq gestured to the khagan’s army on the plain. “We need to get them out.”
“There’s nowhere for them to go,” Chaol’s father said. “The water will roar for miles, and this keep cannot hold all your forces.”
Indeed, Rowan realized, the keep, despite its high position, couldn’t fit the size of the army on the plain. Not even close. And the keep, towering high above, would be the only thing that could withstand the tidal wave of freezing water that would sweep from the mountains and across the plain. Obliterating everything in its path.
Hasar fixed her burning stare on Chaol. “Where do we tell them to run?”
“Summon the ruks,” Chaol said. “Have them gather up as many as they can, fly them out to this peak behind us.” He motioned to the small mountain into which the keep had been built. “Put them on the rocks, put them anywhere.”
“And those that don’t make it to the ruks?” the princess pressed, something like panic cracking through her fierce face.
Rowan’s own heart thundered. They had won the battle, only for the enemy to get the final say in their victory.
Morath would not allow the khagan’s army to walk off the plain.
It would destroy this army, this shred of hope, in a simple, brutal blow.
“Was it a trap all along?” Chaol rubbed at his jaw. “Erawan knew I was bringing an army. Did he pick Anielle for this? Knowing I’d come, and he’d use the dam to wipe our host away?”
“Think on it later,” Aelin warned, her face as grave as Rowan’s. She scanned the plain. “Tell them to run. If they cannot get a ruk, then run. If they make it to Oakwald’s edge, they might stand a chance if they can climb into a tree.”
His mate didn’t mention that with a wave that size, those trees would be submerged. Or ripped from their roots.
Gavriel asked, “There’s no way to fix the damage done?”
“We checked,” Sartaq said, throat bobbing. “Morath knew where to strike.”
“What of your magic?” Fenrys asked Rowan. “Could you freeze it—the river?”
He’d already thought of it. Rowan shook his head. “It’s too deep and its current too strong.” Perhaps if he had all his cousins, but Enda and Sellene were up north, their siblings and kin with them.
“Open the keep gates,” Chaol said quietly. “Any nearby are to run here. Those farthest out will have to flee for the forest.”
Rowan met Aelin’s stare.
Her hands began shaking.
This cannot end here, she seemed to say. Panic—panic indeed flared in her eyes. Rowan gripped her trembling hand and squeezed.
But there was no truth or lie that might soothe her.
No truth or lie to save the army on the plain.
Elide found her companions and their allies not in a council room, but gathered on the battlements. As if bodies and gore didn’t lie around them.
She cringed at each step through blood both black and red, trying not to meet the sightless eyes of fallen soldiers. She’d been sent by Yrene to see how Chaol fared—a panting, fearful question from a wife who had not heard anything of his fate since the battle began.
After hours helping the healers, Elide had been desperate to escape the room that reeked of blood and refuse. Yet any relief at the fresh air, at the ended battle, had been short-lived when she saw the bloody battlements. When she noted her companions’ pale faces, their tense words. All of them were gazing between the mountains and the battlefield.
Something had gone wrong. Something was wrong.
The battlefield stretched into the distance, healers darting amongst the felled bodies with white banners high to indicate their locations. So many. So many dead and wounded. A sea of them.
Elide reached Chaol’s side just as Nesryn Faliq leaped atop her beautiful ruk, launching into a dive for the army below. No—the other ruks.
Elide laid a hand on Lord Chaol’s shoulder, drawing his attention from where he watched Nesryn fly off. Blood-splattered, but his bronze eyes were clear.
And full of terror.
Any message that Yrene had given Elide faded from her memory. “What’s wrong?”
It was Aelin who answered, her bloodied armor strange and ancient. A vision of old. “The dam is going to break,” the queen said hoarsely. “And wipe away anyone on the plain.”
Oh gods. Oh gods.
Elide glanced between them, and knew the answer to her next question: What can be done?
Nothing.
Ruks took to the skies, flapping toward them, soldiers in their talons and clinging to their backs.
“Has anyone warned the healers?” Elide pointed to the white banners waving so far out into the plain. “The Healer on High?” Hafiza was down there, Yrene had said.
Silence. Then Prince Sartaq swore in his own tongue, and sprinted for his golden ruk. He was spearing for the battlefield within seconds, his shouts ringing out. Kadara dipped every few moments, and when she rose again, another small figure was in her talons. Healers. Grabbing as many of them as he could.
Elide whirled to her companions as soldiers began running for the keep, trampling corpse and injured alike. Orders went out in the language of the southern continent, and more soldiers on the battlefield leaped into action.
“What else—what else can we do?” Elide demanded. Aelin and Rowan only stared toward the battlefield, watching with Fenrys and Gavriel as the ruks raced to save as many as they could. Behind them, Princess Hasar paced, and Chaol and his father murmured about where they might fit everyone in the keep. Those who survived.
Elide looked at them again. Looked at all of them.
And then asked quietly, “Where is Lorcan?”
None of them turned.
Elide asked, louder, “Where is Lorcan?”
Gavriel’s tawny eyes scanned hers, confusion dancing there. “He … he went out onto the battlefield during the fighting. I saw him just before the khagan’s troops reached him.”
“Where is he?” Elide’s voice broke. Fenrys faced her now. Then Rowan and Aelin. Elide begged, voice breaking, “Where is Lorcan?”
From their stunned silence, she knew they hadn’t so much as wondered.
Elide whirled to the battlefield. To that endless stretch of fallen bodies. Soldiers fleeing. Many of the wounded being abandoned where they lay.
So many bodies. So, so many soldiers down there.
“Where.” No one answered. Elide pointed toward the battlefield and snarled at Gavriel, “Where did you see him join with the khagan’s forces?”
“Nearly on the other side of the field,” Gavriel answered, voice strained, and pointed across the plain. “I—I didn’t see him after that.”
“Shit,” Fenrys breathed.
Rowan said to him, “Use your magic. Jump to the field, find him, and bring him back.”
Relief crumpled Elide’s chest.
Until Fenrys said, “I can’t.”
“You didn’t use it once during the battle,” Rowan challenged. “You should be fully primed to do it.”
Fenrys blanched beneath the blood on his face, and cast pleading eyes to Elide. “I can’t.”
Silence fell on the battlements.
Then Rowan growled, “You won’t.” He pointed with a bloody finger to the battlefield. “You’d let him die, and for what? Aelin forgave him.” His tattoo scrunched as he snarled again. “Save him.”
Fenrys swallowed. But Aelin said, “Leave it, Rowan.”
Rowan snarled at her too.
She snarled right back. “Leave it.”
Some unspoken conversation passed between them, and the hope flaring in Elide’s chest went out as Rowan backed down. Gave Fenrys an apologetic nod. Fenrys, looking like he was going to be sick, just faced the battlefield again.
Elide backed away a step. Then another.
Lorcan couldn’t be dead.
She would know if he were dead. She would know it, in her heart, her soul, if he were gone.
He was down there. He was down there, in that army, perhaps injured and bleeding out—
No one stopped her as Elide raced inside the keep. Each step limped, pain cracking through her leg, but she didn’t falter as she hit the interior stairwell and plunged into the chaos.
She had made him a promise.
She had sworn him an oath, all those months ago.
I will always find you.
Soldiers and healers fled up the stairs, shoving past Elide. The shouting was near-deafening, bouncing off the ancient stones. She battled her way down, sobbing through her teeth.
I will always find you.
Pushing, elbowing, bellowing at the frantic people who ran past her, Elide fought for each step downward. Toward the gates.
People screamed, a never-ending flood surging up the stairs. Still Elide pushed her way down, losing a step here, another there. They did not even look at her, even try to clear a way as they flowed upward. It was only when Elide lost another step that she roared into the stairwell, “Clear a path for the queen!”
No one listened, so she did it again. She filled her voice with command, with every ounce of power that she’d seen the Fae males use to intimidate their opponents. “Clear a path for the queen!”
This time, people pressed against the walls. Elide took the small opening, and screamed her order again and again, ankle barking with every step down.
But she made it. Made it to the chaotic lower level, to the open gates teeming with soldiers. Beyond them, bodies stretched into the horizon. Warriors and healers and those bearing the wounded rushed toward any stairwell they could find.
Elide managed all of five limping steps toward the open gate before she knew it would be impossible. To cross the field, to find him on the endless plain, before that dam burst and he was swept away. Before he was gone forever.
He was not dead.
He was not dead.
I will always find you.
Elide scanned the gates, the skies for any sign of a ruk that might carry her. But they soared to the upper levels, crawling with soldiers and healers, some even depositing their charges onto the mountain face itself. And at ground level, none would hear her cries for help.
No soldiers would stop, either.
Elide scanned the other end of the gates’ entryway.
Beheld the horses being led out from their stables by frantic handlers, the beasts bucking at the panic around them as they were hauled toward the teeming ramps.
A black mare reared, her cry a sharp warning before she slashed her hooves at the handler. Lord Chaol’s horse. The handler shrieked and fell back, barely grasping the reins as the horse stomped, her ears flat to her head.
Elide did not think. Did not reconsider. She limped for the horses and the stables.
She said to the frantic handler, still backing away from the half-wild horse, “I’ll get her.”
The man, white-faced, threw her the reins. “Good luck.” Then he, too, ran.
The mare—Farasha—yanked so hard on the reins that Elide was nearly hurled across the stones. But she planted her feet, leg screaming, and said to the horse, “I have need of you, fierce-heart.” She met Farasha’s dark, raging eyes. “I have need of you.” Her voice broke. “Please.”
And gods above, that horse stilled. Blinked.
Horses and handlers streamed past them, but Elide held firm. Waited until Farasha lowered her head, as if in permission.
The stirrups were low enough thanks to Lord Chaol’s long legs that Elide could reach them. She still bit down on her shout as her weight settled on her bad ankle, as she pushed, and heaved herself into Farasha’s fine saddle. A small mercy, that they had not even had time to unsaddle the horses after battle. A set of what seemed to be braces hung from its sides, surely to keep Lord Chaol stabilized, and Elide unhooked them. Any weight, anything to slow her, had to be discarded.
Elide gathered the reins. “To the battlefield, Farasha.”
With a whinnying cry, Farasha plunged into the fray.
Soldiers leaped from their path, and Elide did not stop to apologize, did not stop for anyone, as she and the black mare charged toward the gates. Then through them.
And onto the plain.
CHAPTER 60
Rowan knew his magic would merely delay the inevitable. He’d debated flying to the dam, to see if he might hold the structure in place for just long enough, if he could not halt the river entirely, but the force of the thing on the other side … it could not be stopped.
Soldiers and healers raced for the keep, the ruks darting across the battlefield to bear those first in the water’s path to safety. But not fast enough. Even without knowing when the dam would break, it would not be fast enough.
Was Lorcan currently amongst those running, or had he managed to get onto a ruk?
“The power,” Fenrys said quietly to him, gripping the gore-slick wall. “It was the one thing Connall and I shared.”
“I know,” Rowan said. He shouldn’t have pushed. “I’m sorry.”
Fenrys just nodded. “I haven’t been able to stomach it since then. I—I’m not even certain I can use it again,” he said, and repeated, “I’m sorry.”
Rowan clapped him on the shoulder. Another thing he’d make Maeve pay for. “You might not have even found him, anyway.”
Fenrys’s jaw tightened. “He could be anywhere.”
“He could be dead,” murmured Princess Hasar.
“Or injured,” Chaol cut in, wheeling to the wall’s edge to survey the battlefield below and distant dam beyond it.
Aelin, a few feet away, gazed toward it as well, her blood-soaked hair ripping free of its braid in the harsh wind. Flowing toward those mountains, the destruction that would soon be unleashed.
She said nothing. Had done nothing since Nesryn and Sartaq brought the news. Her exact sort of nightmare, he realized, to be unable to help, to be forced to watch while others suffered. No words could comfort her, no words could fix this. Stop this.
“I could try to track him,” Gavriel offered.
Rowan shook off his creeping dread. “I’ll fly out, try to pinpoint him, and signal back to you—”
“Don’t bother,” said Princess Hasar, and Rowan was about to snarl his retort when she pointed to the battlefield. “She’s already ahead of you.”
Rowan whirled, the others following suit.
“No,” Fenrys breathed.
There, galloping across the plain on a familiar black horse, was Elide.
“Farasha,” Chaol murmured.
“She’ll be killed,” said Gavriel, tensing as if he might jump off the battlements and chase after her. “She’ll be—”
Farasha leaped over fallen bodies, weaving between the injured and dead, Elide twisting this way and that in the saddle. And from the distance, Rowan could make out her mouth moving, shouting one word, one name, over and over. Lorcan.
“If any of you go down there,” Hasar warned, “you’ll be killed, too.”
It went against every instinct, against the centuries of training and fighting he’d done with Lorcan, but the princess was right. To lose one life was better than several. Especially when he would need his cadre so badly during the rest of this war.
Lorcan would agree—had taught Rowan to make those sorts of hard calls.
Still Aelin remained silent, as if she’d descended deep within herself, and gazed at the battlefield.
At the small rider and the mighty horse racing across it.
Farasha was a tempest beneath her, but the mare did not seek to unseat Elide as they thundered across the body-strewn plain.
“Lorcan!”
Her shout was swallowed by the wind, by the screams of fleeing soldiers and people, by the shriek of the ruks above. “Lorcan!”
She searched every corpse she passed for a hint of that shining black hair, that harsh face. So many. The field of the dead stretched on forever, bodies piled several deep.
Farasha leaped over them, cutting sharp turns as Elide pivoted to look and look and look.
Darghan horses and riders ran past. Some to the keep, some to the distant forest along the horizon. Farasha wove between them, biting at those in her path.
“Lorcan!” How small her cry sounded, how feeble.
Still the dam held.
I will always find you.
And her words, her stupid, hateful words to him … Had she done this? Brought this upon him? Asked some god to do this?
Her words had all melted away the moment she’d realized he was not on the battlements. The past few months had melted away entirely.
“Lorcan!”
Unfaltering, Farasha kept moving, her black mane streaming in the wind.
The dam had to hold. It would hold. Until she brought him back to the keep.
So Elide did not stop, did not look toward the doom that lurked, waiting to be unleashed.
She rode, and rode, and rode.
Atop the battlement, Chaol didn’t know what to watch: the dam, the people fleeing its oncoming destruction, or the young Lady of Perranth, racing across the battlefield atop his horse.
A warm hand settled on his shoulder, and he knew it was Yrene without turning. “I just heard about the dam. I’d sent Elide to see if you were …” His wife’s words trailed off as she beheld the lone rider charging away from the masses thundering for the keep.
“Silba save her,” Yrene whispered.
“Lorcan’s down there,” was all Chaol said by way of explanation.
The Fae males were taut as bowstrings while the young woman crossed the battlefield bit by bit. The odds of her finding Lorcan, let alone before the dam burst …
Still Elide kept riding. Racing against death itself.
Princess Hasar said quietly, “The girl is a fool. The bravest I’ve ever seen, but a fool nonetheless.”
Aelin said nothing, her eyes distant. Like she’d retreated into herself at the realization that this sliver of hope was about to be washed away. Her friends with it.
“Hellas guards Lorcan,” Fenrys murmured. “And Anneith, his consort, watches over Elide. Perhaps they will find each other.”
“Hellas’s horse,” Chaol said.
They turned toward him, dragging their eyes from the field.
Chaol shook his head and gestured to the field, to the black mare and her rider. “I call Farasha Hellas’s horse. I’ve done so from the moment I met her.”
As if meeting that horse, bringing her here, was not as much for him as it was for this. For this desperate race across an endless battlefield.
Yrene clasped his hand, like she understood, too.
Silence fell along their section of the battlement. There were no words left to say.
“Lorcan!”
Elide’s voice broke on the cry. She’d lost count of how many times she’d shouted it now.
No sign of him.
She aimed for the lake. Closer to the dam. He would have chosen the lake for its defensive advantages.
Bodies were a blur beneath, around them. So many Valg lying on the field. Some reached pale hands for Farasha. As if they’d grab her, rip her apart, beg her for help.
The mare trampled them into the mud, bone snapping and skulls cracking.
He had to be out here. Had to be somewhere. Alive—hurt, but alive.
She knew it.
The lake was a gray sprawl to her left, a mockery of the hell to be unleashed at any moment.
“Lorcan!”
They’d reached the heart of the battlefield, and Elide slowed Farasha enough to stand in the stirrups, biting down on the agony in her ankle. She had never felt so small, so inconsequential. A speck of nothing in this doomed sea.
Elide dropped back into the saddle, nudged the horse with her heels, and tugged Farasha farther toward the glittering silver expanse. He had to have gone to the lake.
The horse plunged into motion, her chest heaving like a mighty bellows.
On and on, black and golden armor, blood and snow and mud. The dam still held.
But there—
Elide yanked on the reins, slowing the charging horse.
There, not too far from the water’s edge, lay a patch of felled Morath soldiers. A swath of them. Not a single set of golden armor. Even where the khagan’s army had swept through, they had lost soldiers. The distribution across the battlefield had by no means been even, but there had been corpses in golden armor amongst the mass of black.
Yet here, there were none. No arrows or spears, either, to account for the felling of so many.
A veritable road of Valg demons flowed ahead.
Elide followed it. Scanned every corpse, every helmeted face, her mouth going dry. On and on, the wake of his destruction went.
So many. He had killed so many.
Her breath rasped in her throat as they neared the end of that trail of death, where golden bodies again began to appear.
Nothing. Elide halted Farasha. Gavriel had said he’d last seen him right here. Had he plunged behind their ally’s lines and moved on from there?
He might have walked off this field, she realized. Might currently be back at the keep, or in Oakwald, and she would have ridden here for nothing—
