Page 32 of Kingdom of Ash

And when they found the Crochans, when the Thirteen were distracted, he’d learn what he needed from the spider, too.

Manon turned to the Thirteen, the witches thrumming with impatience. “We fly now. We can reach the Crochans by nightfall.”

“And what then?” Asterin asked. The only one of them who had permission to do so.

Manon stalked for Abraxos, and Dorian followed, tossing Cyrene a spare cloak as his magic tugged her with him. “And then we make our move,” Manon hedged. And for once, she did not meet anyone’s stare. Didn’t do anything but gaze southward.

The witch was keeping secrets, too. But were hers as dire as his?

CHAPTER 8

Blackness greeted Aelin as she rose to consciousness. Tight, contained blackness.

A shift of her elbows had them digging into the sides of the box, chains reverberating through the small space. Her bare feet could graze the end if she wriggled slightly.

She lifted her bound hands to the solid wall of iron mere inches above her face. Traced the whorls and suns embossed onto its surface. Even on the inside, Maeve had ordered them etched. So Aelin might never forget that this box had been made for her, long before she’d been born.

But—those were her own bare fingertips brushing over the cool, rough metal.

He’d taken off the iron gauntlets. Or had forgotten to put them back on after what he’d done. The way he’d held them over the open brazier, until the metal was red-hot around her hands and she was screaming, screaming—

Aelin pressed her palms flat against the metal lid and pushed.

The shattered arm, the splinters of bone jutting from her skin: gone.

Or had never been. But it had felt real.

More so than the other memories that pressed in, demanding she acknowledge them. Accept them.

Aelin shoved her palms against the iron, muscles straining.

It didn’t so much as shift.

She tried again. That she had the strength to do so was thanks to the otherservicesMaeve’s healers provided: keeping her muscles from atrophying while she lay here.

A soft whine echoed into the box. A warning.

Aelin lowered her hands just as the lock grated and the door groaned open.

Cairn’s footsteps were faster this time. Urgent.

“Relieve yourself in the hall and wait by this door,” he snapped at Fenrys.

Aelin braced herself as those steps halted. A grunt and hiss of metal, and firelight poured in. She blinked against it, but kept still.

They’d anchored her irons into the box itself. She’d learned that the hard way.

Cairn didn’t say anything as he unfastened the chains from their anchor.

The most dangerous time for him, right before he moved her to the anchors on the altar. Even with her feet and hands bound, he took no chances.

He didn’t today, either, despite not bothering with the gauntlets.

Perhaps they’d melted away over that brazier, along with her skin.

Cairn yanked her upright as half a dozen guards silently appeared in the doorway. Their faces held no horror at what had been done to her.

She’d seen these males before. On a bloodied bit of beach.

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