Page 104 of Kingdom of Ash

Then Cairn beheld the frozen rage in Rowan’s eyes. Understood what he intended to do with that sharp, sharp knife. A dark stain spread across the front of Cairn’s pants.

Rowan wrapped an ice-kissed wind around the tent, blocking out all sound, and began.

CHAPTER 30

The clash of conflict echoed across the land, even from miles away. Deep in the rough hills of an ancient forest, Elide had waited for hours. First shivering in the dark, then watching the sky bleed to gray, then at last blue. And with that final transition, the clamor had started.

She’d alternated between pacing through the mossy glen, weaving amongst the gray boulders strewn between the trees, and sitting in the thrumming silence against one of the towering, wide-trunked trees, making herself as small and quiet as possible. Gavriel had sworn none of the strange or fell beasts in these lands would prowl so close to Doranelle, but she didn’t want to risk it. So she remained in the glen, where she’d been told to wait.

Wait for them. Or wait for things to go badly enough that she had to find her own way. Perhaps she’d seek out Essar if it should come to that—

It wouldn’t come to that. She swore it over and over. Itcouldn’tcome to that.

The morning sun was beginning to warm the chilled shade when she saw them.

Saw them, before she heard them, because their feet were silent on the forest floor, thanks to their immortal grace and training. The breath shuddered out of her as Lorcan emerged between two moss-crusted trees, eyes already fixed on her. And a step behind him, staggering along …

Elide didn’t know what to do. With her body, her hands. Didn’t know what to say as Aelin stumbled over root and rock, the mask and the chains clanking, blood soaking her. Not just blood from her own wounds, but those of others.

She was thin, her golden hair so much longer. Too long, even with the time apart. It fell nearly to her navel, most of it dark with caked blood. As if she’d run through a rain of it.

No sign of Rowan or Gavriel. But no grief on Lorcan’s face, nothing beyond urgency, given how he monitored the sky, the trees. Searching for any pursuit.

Aelin halted at the edge of the clearing. Her feet were bare, and the thin, short shift she wore revealed no major injuries.

But there was little recognition in Aelin’s eyes, shadowed with the mask.

Lorcan said to the queen, “We’ll wait here for them.”

Aelin, as if her body didn’t quite belong to her, lifted her shackled, metal-encased hands. The chain linking them had been severed, and hung in pieces off either manacle. The same with those at her ankles.

She tugged at one of the metal gauntlets. It didn’t budge.

She tugged again. The gauntlet didn’t so much as shift.

“Take it off.”

Her voice was low, gravelly.

Elide didn’t know which one of them she’d ordered, but before she could cross the clearing, Lorcan gripped the queen’s wrist to examine the locks.

One corner of his mouth tightened. There was no easy way to free them, then.

Elide approached, her limp deep once more with Gavriel’s magic occupied.

The gauntlets had been locked at her wrist, overlapping slightly with the shackle. Both had small keyholes. Both were made from iron.

Elide shifted slightly, bracing her weight on her uninjured leg, to get a view of where the mask was bound to the back of Aelin’s head.

That lock was more complicated than the others, the chains thick and ancient.

Lorcan had fitted the tip of a slender dagger into the lock of the gauntlet, and was now angling it, trying to pick the mechanism.

“Take it off.” The queen’s guttural words were swallowed by the moss-crusted trees.

“I’m trying,” Lorcan said—not gently, though certainly without his usual coldness.

The dagger scraped in the lock, but to no avail.

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