Page 84 of Kingdom of Ash

Lorcan had never felt the weight of the hours so heavily upon him.

While he scouted the southern border of that army, watching the soldiers on their rotations, noting the main arteries of the camp, he kept one eye upon the city.

His city—or it had been. He’d never imagined, even during the childhood he’d spent surviving in its shadows, that it would become an enemy stronghold. That Maeve, while she’d whipped and punished him for any defiance or for her own amusement, would become as great a foe as Erawan. And to send Elide into Maeve’s clutches—it had taken all of his will to let her walk away.

If Elide was captured, if she was found out, he wouldn’t hear of it, know of it. She had no magic to wield, save for the keen eyes of the goddess at her shoulder and an uncanny ability to remain unnoticed, to play intoexpectations. There would be no flash of power, no signal to alert him that she was in danger.

But he stayed away. Had watched her cross that bridge earlier, his breath tight in his chest, and pass unquestioned and unnoticed by the guards posted at either end. While Maeve did not allow demi-Fae or humans to live within Doranelle’s borders without proving their worth, they could still visit—briefly.

Then he’d gone about scouting. He knew Whitethorn had ordered him to study the southern edge, this edge, because it was precisely where she’d emerge. If she emerged.

Whitethorn and Gavriel had divided up the other camps, the prince claiming the west and north, the Lion taking the eastern camp above the waterfall’s basin.

The afternoon sun was sinking toward the distant sea when they returned to their little base.

“Anything?” Rowan’s question rumbled to them.

Lorcan shook his head. “Not from Elide, not from my scouting. The sentries’ rotations are strict, but not impenetrable. They posted scouts in the trees six miles up.” He knew some of them. Had commanded them. Were they now his enemy?

Gavriel shifted and slumped onto a boulder, equally out of breath. “They’ve got aerial patrols on the eastern camp. And sentries out by the forest’s border.”

Rowan leaned against a towering pine and crossed his arms. “What manner of birds?”

“Raptors, mostly,” Gavriel said. Highly trained soldiers, then. They’d always been the sharpest of the scouts. “I didn’t recognize any from your House.”

They either had all been in that armada, now in Terrasen, or Maeve had put them down.

Rowan ran a hand over his jaw. “The western plain camp is as tightlyguarded. The northern one less so, but the wolves in the passes are likely doing half the work for them.”

They didn’t bother to discuss what that army might have been gathered to do. Where it might be headed. If Maeve’s defeat off the Eyllwe coast might be enough to lead her into an alliance with Morath—and to bring this army to crush Terrasen at last.

Lorcan gazed down the wooded hillside, ears straining for any cracking branches or leaves.

A half hour. He’d wait a half hour before going down that hill.

He forced himself to listen to Whitethorn and Gavriel lay out entry points and exit strategies for each camp, forced himself to join in that debate. Forced himself to also discuss the possible entrances and exits from Doranelle itself, where they might go in the city, how they might get over and back across without bringing down the wrath of that army. An army they’d once overseen and commanded. None of them mentioned it, though Gavriel kept glancing to the tattoos inked on his hands. How many more lives would he need to add before they were through? His soldiers not felled by enemy blows, but by his own blade?

The sun inched closer to the horizon. Lorcan began pacing.

Too long. It had taken too long.

The others had fallen silent, too. Gazing down the hill. Waiting.

A slight tremor rocked Lorcan’s hands, and he balled them into fists, squeezing hard. Five minutes. He’d go in five minutes, Aelin Galathynius and their plan be damned.

Aelin had been trained to endure torture. Elide … He could see those scars on her from the shackles. See her maimed foot and ankle. She had endured too much suffering and terror already. He couldn’t allow her to face another heartbeat of it—

Twigs snapped under light feet, and Lorcan shot upright, a hand going to his sword.

Whitethorn thumbed free the hatchet at his side, a knife appearing in his other hand, and Gavriel drew his sword.

But then a two-note whistle echoed, and Lorcan’s legs wobbled so violently he sat back onto the rock where he’d been perched.

Gavriel whistled back, and Lorcan was grateful for it. He wasn’t sure he had the breath.

Then she was there, panting from the climb, her cheeks rosy in the cool night air.

“What happened?” Whitethorn asked.

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