Page 421 of Kingdom of Ash

“We’re a long way from Innish,” Yrene whispered.

“But lost no longer,” Aelin whispered back, voice breaking as they embraced. The two women who had held the fate of their world between them. Who had saved it.

Behind them, Chaol wiped at his face. Rowan, ducking his head, did the same.

His good-bye to Chaol was quick, their embrace firm. Dorian lingered longer, graceful and steady, even as Rowan found himself struggling to speak past the tightness in his throat.

And then Aelin stood before Dorian and Chaol, and Rowan stepped back, falling into line beside Aedion, Fenrys, Lorcan, Elide, Ren, and Lysandra. Their fledgling court—the court that would change this world. Rebuild it.

Giving their queen space for this last, hardest good-bye.

She felt as if she had been crying without end for minutes now.

Yet this parting, this final farewell …

Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other.

“I love you both,” she whispered. “And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.”

“We will see you again,” Chaol said, but even his voice was thick with tears.

“Together,” Dorian breathed, shaking. “We’ll rebuild this world together.”

She couldn’t stand it, this ache in her chest. But she made herself pull away and smile at their tear-streaked faces, a hand on her heart. “Thank you for all you have done for me.”

Dorian bowed his head. “Those are words I’d never thought I’d hear from you.”

She barked a rasping laugh, and gave him a shove. “You’re a king now. Such insults are beneath you.”

He grinned, wiping at his face.

Aelin smiled at Chaol, at his wife waiting beyond him. “I wish you every happiness,” she said to him. To them both.

Such light shone in Chaol’s bronze eyes—that she had never seen before. “We will see each other again,” he repeated.

Then he and Dorian turned toward their horses, toward the bright day beyond the castle gates. Toward their kingdom to the south. Shattered now, but not forever.

Not forever.

Aelin was quiet for a long time afterward, and Rowan stayed with her, following as she strode up to the castle battlements to watch Chaol, Dorian, and Yrene ride down the road that cut through the savaged Plain of Theralis. Until even they had vanished over the horizon.

Rowan kept his arm around her, breathing in her scent as she rested her head against his shoulder.

Rowan ignored the faint ache that lingered there from the tattoos she’d helped him ink the night before. Gavriel’s name, rendered in the Old Language. Exactly how the Lion had once tattooed the names of his fallen warriors on himself.

Fenrys and Lorcan, a tentative peace between them, also now bore the tattoo—had demanded one as soon as they’d caught wind of what Rowan planned to do.

Aedion, however, had asked Rowan for a different design. To add Gavriel’s name to the Terrasen knot already inked over his heart.

Aedion had been quiet while Rowan had worked—quiet enough that Rowan had begun telling him the stories. Story after story about the Lion. The adventures they’d shared, the lands they’d seen, the wars they’d waged. Aedion hadn’t spoken while Rowan had talked and worked, the scent of his grief conveying enough.

It was a scent that would likely linger for many months to come.

Aelin let out a long sigh. “Will you let me cry in bed for the rest of today like a pathetic worm,” she asked at last, “if I promise to get to work on rebuilding tomorrow?”

Rowan arched a brow, joy flowing through him, free and shining as a stream down a mountain. “Would you like me to bring you cakes and chocolate so your wallowing can be complete?”

“If you can find any.”

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