Page 166 of Kingdom of Ash

Chaol put a hand on Yrene’s back, guiding her through the tent flaps and into the ornately decorated space. For a woman who had arrived at Anielle not a moment too late, only Hasar would somehow have managed to get her royal tent erected during battle.

Bracing his muddy cane on the raised wooden platform, Chaol gritted his teeth as he took the step upward. Even the thick, plush rugs didn’t ease the pain that lashed down his spine, his legs.

He stilled, leaning heavily on the cane while he breathed, letting his balance readjust.

Yrene’s blood-flecked face tightened. “Let’s get you into a chair,” she murmured, and Chaol nodded. To sit down, even for a few minutes, would be a blessed relief.

Nesryn entered behind them, and apparently heard Yrene’s suggestion, for she went immediately to the desk around which Sartaq and Hasar stood, and pulled out a carved wooden chair. With a nod of thanks, Chaol eased into it.

“No gold couch?” Princess Hasar teased, and Yrene blushed, despite the blood on her golden-brown skin, and waved off her friend.

The couch Chaol had brought with him from the southern continent—the couch from which Yrene had healed him, from which he had won her heart—was still safely aboard their ship. Waiting, should they survive, to be the first piece of furniture in the home he’d build for his wife.

For the child she carried.

Yrene paused beside his chair, and Chaol took her slim hand in his, entwining their fingers. Filthy, both of them, but he didn’t care. Neither did she, judging by the squeeze she gave him.

“We outnumber Morath’s legion,” Sartaq said, sparing them from Hasar’s taunting, “but how we choose to cleave them while we cut a path to the city still must be carefully weighed, so we don’t expend too many forces here.”

When the real fighting still lay ahead. As if these terrible days of siege and bloodshed, as if the men hewn down today, were just the start.

Hasar said, “Wise enough.”

Sartaq winced slightly. “It might not have wound up that way.” Chaol lifted a brow, Hasar doing the same, and Sartaq said, “Had you not arrived, sister, I was hours away from unleashing the dam and flooding the plain.”

Chaol started. “You were?”

The prince rubbed his neck. “A desperate last measure.”

Indeed. A wave of that size would have wiped out part of the city, the plain and hot springs, and leagues behind it. Any army in its path would have drowned—been swept away. It might have even reached the khaganate’s army, marching to save them.

“Then let’s be glad we didn’t do it,” Yrene said, face paling as she, too, considered the destruction. How close they had come to a disaster. That Sartaq had admitted to it told enough: he might be Heir, but he wished his sister to know he, too, was not above making mistakes. That they had to think through any plan of action, however easy it might seem.

Hasar, it seemed, got the point, and nodded.

A cleared throat cut through the tent, and they all turned toward the open flaps to find one of the Darghan captains, hissuldeclenched in his mud-splattered hand. Someone was here to see them, the man stammered. Neither royal asked who as they waved the man to let them in.

A moment later, Chaol was glad he was sitting down.

Nesryn breathed, “Holy gods.”

Chaol was inclined to agree as Aelin Galathynius, Rowan Whitethorn, and several others entered the tent.

They were mud-splattered, the Queen of Terrasen’s braided hair far longer than Chaol had last seen. And her eyes … Not the soft, yet fiery gaze. But something older. Wearier.

Chaol shot to his feet. “I thought you were in Terrasen,” he blurted. All the reports had confirmed it. Yet here she stood, no army in sight.

Three Fae males—towering warriors as broad and muscled as Rowan—had entered, along with a delicate, dark-haired human woman.

But Aelin was only staring at him. Staring and staring at him.

No one spoke as tears began sliding down her face.

Not at his being here, Chaol realized as he took up his cane and limped toward Aelin.

But at him. Standing. Walking.

The young queen let out a broken laugh of joy and flung her arms around his neck. Pain lanced down his spine at the impact, but Chaol held her right back, every question fading from his tongue.

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