Page 137 of Kingdom of Ash

Nesryn scowled. “Where’s Yeran?”

Borte stuck out her tongue, despite the army inching toward them. “Burning in hell, for all I care.”

Even away from their respective aeries and ancient rivalries, the betrothed pair had not warmed to each other. Or perhaps it was part of the game the two of them played, had been playing for years now. To feign loathing, when it was so clear they’d slaughter anyone who posed a threat to the other.

Nesryn lifted her brows, and Borte crossed her arms, her twin braids blowing in the wind. “He’s bringing the last two healers to the keep.” Indeed, a near-black ruk flapped up from the plain.

“No inclination to finally wed before the battle?”

Borte recoiled. “Why would I?”

Nesryn smirked. “So you might have your wedding night?”

Borte barked a laugh. “Who says I haven’t already?”

Nesryn gaped.

But Borte only inclined her head, clicked her tongue at Arcas, and rider and ruk dove into the brisk sky.

Nesryn stared after Borte until she’d reached the plain, passing byYeran and his ruk in a daring maneuver that some might have interpreted to be a giant, vulgar gesture to the warrior.

Yeran’s dark ruk screeched in outrage, and Nesryn smiled, knowing Yeran was likely doing the same, even with the two healers riding with him.

Yet Nesryn’s smile proved short-lived as she again beheld the marching army nearer and nearer with each minute. An unbroken, untiring mass of steel and death.

Would they camp until dawn, or attack at nightfall? Would the siege be quick and lethal, or long and brutal? She’d seen their supply trains. They were prepared to stay for as long as it took to bring this city to rubble.

And wipe out every soul dwelling within.

The bone drums began at sundown.

Yrene stood on the highest parapet of the keep, counting the torches sprawling into the night, and fought to keep her dinner down.

It was no different from the other meals she’d eaten today, she told herself. The meals she had struggled to consume without gagging.

The parapet was filled with soldiers and onlookers alike, all gazing toward the army at the border of the plain that separated them from the city’s edge, all listening in hushed silence to the relentless drumming.

A steady, horrible beat. Meant to unnerve, to break one’s will.

She knew they’d continue all night. Deprive them of rest, make them dread the dawn.

The keep was as full as it could stand, hallways crammed with bedrolls. She and Chaol had yielded their room to a family of five, the children too young to make the trip to the Wastes, even on a ruk’s back. In the frigid air, an infant might go blue with cold in minutes.

Yrene ran a hand over the waist-high stone wall. Thick, ancient stone. She beseeched it to hold out.

Catapults. There were catapults in the army below. She’d heard Falkan’s latest report at breakfast. The plain itself was still littered with enough boulders from the days it had been a part of the lake that Morath would have no problem finding things to hurl at them.

The warning had kept Yrene busy all day, relocating families who had taken rooms on the lake side of the keep or those who slept too close to windows or outer walls. Last-minute, and foolish not to consider it before now, but she’d been so focused these past five days on getting everyoneinthat she hadn’t thought of things like catapults and shattering blocks of heavy stone.

She’d moved their healing supplies, too. To an inner chamber where it would take the entire keep collapsing to destroy what was inside. The Torre healers had brought what they could from the fleet, but they’d made more when they arrived. Not their best work, not by any means, but Eretia had ordered that the salves and tonics need only to function, not dazzle, and tokeep mixing.

All was set. All was ready. Or as ready as they might ever be.

So Yrene lingered on the battlements, listening to the bone drums for a while longer.

Chaol told himself it was not his last night with his wife. He’d still made the best of it, and they had rested as much as they could stand before they were up, hours before dawn.

The rest of the keep was awake, too, the ruks restless on the tower roofs and battlements, the click and scrape of their talons on the stones echoing in every hall and chamber.

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