Page 132 of Kingdom of Ash

“You havenoidea what the blood oath can do.None.”

“Fenrys broke the oath. He found a way.”

“And had Aelin not been there to offer him another, he would havedied.” He let out a low, joyless laugh. “Perhaps that’s what you would have preferred.”

She ignored his last comment. “You didn’t even try.”

“I did,” he snarled. “I fought it with everything I had. And it was not enough. If she’d ordered me to slit your throat, I would have. And if I had found a way to break the oath, I would have died, and she might very well have killed you or taken you afterward. On that beach, my only thought was to get Maeve to forget about you, to letyougo—”

“I don’t care about me! I didn’t care about me on that beach!”

“Well, I do.” His growled words echoed across the water and stone, and he lowered his voice. Worse things than wights might come sniffing down here. “Icared about you on that beach. And your queen did, too.”

Elide shook her head and looked away, looked anywhere, it seemed, but at him.

This was what came of opening that door to a place inside him that no one had ever breached. This mess, this hollowness in his chest that made him keep needing to make things right.

“Resent me all you like,” he said, damning the hoarseness of his words. “I’m sure I’ll survive.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes. “Fine,” she said, her voice brittle.

He hated that brittleness more than anything he’d ever encountered. Hated himself for causing it. But he had limits to how low he’d crawl.

He’d said his piece. If she wanted to wash her hands of him forever, then he would find a way to respect that. Live with it.

Somehow.

The cave ascended for a few feet, then leveled out and wended into the stone. A rough-hewn passage carved not by water or age, Rowan realized, but by mortal hands. Perhaps the long-dead kings and lords had taken the subterranean river to deposit their dead before sealing the tombs to sunlight and air above, the knowledge of the pathways dying off with their kingdoms.

A faint glow pulsed from the lantern Aelin held, bathing the cavewalls in blue. He’d quickly caught up to her, and now strode at her side, Fenrys trotting at her heels and Gavriel taking up the rear.

Rowan hadn’t bothered to free his weapons. Steel was of little use against the wights. Only magic might destroy them.

Why Aelin had needed to stop, what she’d needed to see, he could only guess as the passage opened into a small cavern, and gold gleamed.

Gold all around—and a shadow clothed in tattered black robes lurking by the sarcophagus in the center.

Rowan snarled in warning but Aelin didn’t strike.

Her hand curled at her side, but she remained still. The wight hissed. Aelin just watched it.

As if she wouldn’t, couldn’t, touch her power.

Rowan’s chest strained. Then he sent a whip of ice and wind through the cave.

The wight shrieked once, and was gone.

Aelin stared at where it had been for a heartbeat, and then glanced at him over a shoulder. Gratitude shone in her eyes.

Rowan only gave her a nod.Don’t worry about it.

Yet Aelin turned away, shutting off that silent conversation as she surveyed the space.

Time. It would take time for her to heal. Even if he knew his Fireheart would pretend otherwise.

So Rowan looked, too. Across the tomb, beyond the sarcophagus and treasure, an archway opened into another chamber. Perhaps another tomb, or an exit passage.

“We don’t have time to find a way out,” Rowan murmured as she strode into the tomb. “And the caves remain safer than the surface.”

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