Page 304 of Kingdom of Ash

Aelin blinked. And even the blush on Elide’s face faded, her mouth tightening.

Of all of them, only Elide had seen Morath. Lived there. Survived it.

Aelin said, “There was a time when I thought I’d never see it again, too.”

Elide’s face grew contemplative. “When you were an assassin, or when you were a slave?”

“Both.” And maybe Elide had come to her side just to get her to talk, but Aelin explained, “It was a torture of another kind, when I was at Endovier, to know that home was only miles away. And that I would not be able to see it one last time before I died.”

Elide’s dark eyes shone with understanding. “I thought I’d die in that tower, and no one would remember that I had existed.”

They had both been captives, slaves—of a sort. They had both worn shackles. And bore the scars of them.

Or, Elide did. The lack of them on Aelin still ripped at her, an absence that she’d never thought she’d regret.

“We made it out in the end, though,” Aelin said.

Elide reached over to squeeze Aelin’s hand. “Yes, we did.”

Even if she now wished for it to be over. All of it. Her every breath felt weighed down by it, that wish.

They continued on after that, and just as Aelin spied the fork in the road—the crossroads that would take them to the salt mines themselves—a warning cry went up from the rukhin, soaring along the edge between the forest and mountains.

Aelin instantly had Goldryn drawn. Rowan armed himself beside her, and the entire army pausing as they scanned the woods, the skies.

She heard the warning just as a dark shape shot past, so large it blotted out the sun above the forest canopy.

Wyvern.

Bows groaned, and the ruks were racing by, chasing after that wyvern. If an Ironteeth scout spotted them—

Aelin readied her magic. The wyvern banked toward them, barely visible through the latticework of branches.

But light flared then. Blasted back the rukhin—harmlessly.

Not light. But ice, flickering and flashing before it turned to flame.

Rowan recognized it, too. Roared the order to hold their fire.

It was not Abraxos who landed at the crossroads. And there was no sign of Manon Blackbeak.

Light flashed again. And then Dorian Havilliard stood there, his jacket and cape stained and worn.

Aelin galloped down the road toward him, Rowan and Elide beside her, the others at their backs.

Dorian lifted a hand, his face grave as death, even as his eyes widened at the sight of her.

But Aelin sensed it then.

What Dorian carried.

The Wyrdkeys.

All three of them.

CHAPTER 88

Aedion’s arm and ribs were on fire.

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