Page 389 of Kingdom of Ash

Erawan writhed, contorting on the ground of whatever this place was inside him.

Pathetic, Yrene simply said.

Golden eyes flared, full of rage and hate.

But Yrene only smiled, summoning her mother’s lovely face to her heart. Showing it to him.

Wishing she knew what Elide’s mother had looked like so she might show him Marion Lochan, too.

The two women he had killed, directly or indirectly, and never thought twice about it.

Two mothers, whose love for their daughters and hope for a better world was greater than any power Erawan might wield. Greater than any Wyrdkey.

And it was with the image of her mother still shining before him, showing him that mistake he’d never known he made, that Yrene clenched her fingers into a fist.

Erawan screamed.

Yrene’s fingers clenched tighter, and distantly, she felt her physical hand doing the same. Felt the sting of her nails cutting into her palms.

She did not listen to Erawan’s pleas. His threats.

She only tightened her fist. More and more.

Until he was nothing but a dark flame within it.

Until she squeezed her fist, one final time, and that dark flame snuffed out.

Yrene had the feeling of falling, of tumbling back into herself. And she was indeed falling, rocking back into Lysandra’s furry body, her hand slipping from Dorian’s.

Dorian lunged for her hand to renew contact, but there was no need.

No need for his power, or Yrene’s.

Not as Erawan, golden eyes open and unseeing as they gazed at the night sky above, sagged to the stones of the balcony.

Not as his skin turned gray, then began to wither, to decay.

A life rotting away from within.

“Burn it,” Yrene rasped, a hand going to her belly. A pulse of joy, a spark of light, answered back.

Dorian didn’t hesitate. Flames leaped out, devouring the decaying body before them.

They were unnecessary.

Before they’d even begun to turn his clothing to ash, Erawan dissolved. A sagging bit of flesh and brittle bones.

Dorian burned him anyway.

They watched in silence as the Valg king turned to ashes.

As a winter wind swept over the tower balcony, and carried them far, far away.

CHAPTER 114

She was dead.

Aelin was dead.

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