Page 347 of Kingdom of Ash

Aelin nodded toward the tent flaps. “It’s snowing.”

“It’s been snowing with little rest for days now.”

Aelin’s swallow was audible. “It’s a northern snow.”

The storm slammed into the camp, so fierce that Nesryn and Sartaq had given the ruks orders to hunker down for the day and night.

As if crossing into Terrasen days earlier had officially put them into brutal winter.

“We keep going north,” Kashin was saying, lounging by the fire in Hasar’s sprawling tent.

“Like there is another option,” Hasar snipped, sipping from her mulled wine. “We’ve come this far. We might as well go all the way to Orynth.”

Nesryn, seated on a low sofa with Sartaq, still wondered what, exactly, she was doing in these meetings. Wondered at the fact that she sat with the royal siblings, the Heir to the khaganate at her side.

Empress.The word seemed to hang over her every breath, every movement.

Sartaq said, “Our people have faced odds like this before. We’ll face them again.”

Indeed, Sartaq had stayed up long into the night these weeks reading the accounts and journals of khaganate warriors and leaders from generations past. They’d brought a trunk of them from the khaganate—for this reason. Most Sartaq had already read, he’d told her. But it never hurt to refresh one’s mind.

If it bought them a shot against a hundred thousand soldiers, she wouldn’t complain.

“We won’t be facing them at all if this storm doesn’t let up,” Hasar said, frowning toward her sealed tent flaps. “When I return to Antica, I am never leaving again.”

“No taste for adventure, sister?” Kashin smiled faintly.

“Not when it’s in a frozen hell,” Hasar grumbled.

Nesryn huffed a soft laugh, and Sartaq slipped his arm around her shoulders. A casual, careless bit of contact.

“We keep going,” Sartaq said. “All the way to the walls of Orynth. We swore as much, and we do not renege on our promises.”

Nesryn would have fallen in love with him for that statement alone. She leaned into him, savoring his warmth, in silent thanks.

“Then let us pray,” Kashin said, “that this storm does not slow us so much that there’s nothing left of Orynth to defend.”

CHAPTER 102

They had cleared a small chamber near the Great Hall for his viewing.

The room lit by whatever candles could be spared, the ancient stones were cast in flickering relief around the table where they’d laid him.

Lysandra lingered in the doorway as she gazed toward the sheet-draped body at the back of the room.

Ren knelt before him, head bowed. As he had done for hours now. Ever since word had come at sundown that Murtaugh had fallen.

Hewn down by Valg foot soldiers as he sought to staunch their flow over the city walls courtesy of one of their siege towers.

They had carried Murtaugh back from the city wall, a throng of soldiers around him.

Even from the skies, flying in with the witches after Morath had given the order to halt once more, Lysandra had heard Ren’s scream. Had seen from high above as Ren ran down the battlements to the body borne through the city streets.

Aedion had been there within seconds. Had kept Ren upright as theyoung lord had sobbed, and had half carried him here, despite the fresh wounds on the prince.

And so Aedion had stayed. Standing vigil beside Ren all this time, a hand on his shoulder.

Lysandra had come with Evangeline. Had held the stunned girl while she cried, and lingered while Evangeline strode to Murtaugh’s body to press a kiss to his brow. As much as the sheet would allow them to see, after what the Valg had done.

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