Page 379 of Kingdom of Ash

The keys were gone. And so was the Fire-Bringer.

They would have no use for her. No need to enslave her, save to torment her.

It could go either way. Death or enslavement.

But there would be no keys, no ability for Erawan to craft more Wyrdstone, or bring in his Valg to possess others.

Aelin lunged with Goldryn, spearing for Erawan as she raised her shield against Maeve. She sent a wave of flame searing for their sides, herding them closer together.

Erawan blasted it back, but Maeve halted. Halted while Aelin leaped away a step, panting.

The coppery tang of blood coated her mouth. A herald of the looming burnout.

Maeve watched Aelin’s flame sizzle through the snow, melting it down to the dried grasses of Theralis. An undulating sea of green in the warmer months. Now a muddy, blood-soaked ruin.

“For a god,” Maeve said, their first words since this dance had begun minutes or hours or an eternity ago, “you do not seem so willing to smite us.”

“Symbols have power,” Aelin panted, smiling as she flipped Goldryn in her hand, the flame hissing through the air. “Strike you down too quickly and it will ruin the impact.” Aelin drew up every shred of swaggering arrogance and winked at Erawan. “She wants me to wear you down, you see. Wants me to tire you, so those healers up in the castle can finish you off with little trouble.”

“Enough.” Maeve slammed out her power, and Aelin lifted her shield, flame deflecting the onslaught.

But barely. The impact rippled into her bones, her blood.

Aelin didn’t let herself so much as wince as she hurled a whip of flame toward Maeve, and the dark queen danced back. “Just wait—she’ll spring the trap shut on you soon enough.”

“She is a liar and a fool,” Maeve spat. “She seeks to drive us apart because she knows we can defeat her together.” Again, that dark power rallied around Maeve.

The dark king only stared at Aelin with those golden, burning eyes, and smiled. “Indeed. You—”

He paused. Those golden eyes lifted above Aelin. Above the gates and wall behind her. To something high above.

Aelin didn’t dare to look. To take her attention away for that long. To hope.

But the gold in Erawan’s eyes glowed. Glowed—with rage and perhaps a kernel of fear.

He twisted his head toward Maeve. “There are healers in that castle.”

“Of course there are,” Maeve snapped.

Yet Erawan stilled. “There areskilledhealers there. Ripe with power.”

“Straight from the Torre Cesme,” Aelin said, nodding solemnly. “As I told you.”

Erawan only looked at Maeve. And that doubt flickered again.

He glanced to Aelin. To her fire, her sword. She bowed her head.

Erawan hissed at Maeve, “If she spoke true, you are carrion.”

And before Aelin could muster an ember to strike, a dark, sinewy form swept from the blackness behind Erawan and snatched him up. An ilken.

Aelin didn’t waste her power trying to down them, not with the ilken’s defenses against magic. Not with Maeve tracking Erawan as he was carried into the skies. Over the city.

Against two Valg rulers, she should have already been dead. Against the female before her, Aelin knew it was still just a matter of time. But if Yrene, if her friends, could take down Erawan …

“Just us, then,” Maeve said, lips curving into that spider’s smile. The smile of the horrendous creatures that launched themselves at Orynth.

Aelin lifted Goldryn again. “That’s precisely how I wanted it,” she said. Truth.

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