Page 12 of Kingdom of Ash

For long minutes, they stared at each other.

Aelin did not reflect on the pain that had sent her into unconsciousness. Even as the memory of cracking bones set her foot twitching. The chains jangled.

But nothing flickered where agony should have been rampant. Not a whisper of discomfort in her feet. She shut out the image of how that male—Cairn—had taken them apart. How she’d screamed until her voice had failed.

It might have been a dream. One of the endless horde that hunted her in the blackness. A burning stag, fleeing through the trees. Hours on this altar, her feet shattered beneath ancient tools. A silver-haired prince whose very scent was that of home.

They blurred and bled, until even this moment, staring at the white wolf lying against the wall across from the altar, might be a fragment of an illusion.

Aelin’s finger scratched along the curved edge of the altar again.

The wolf blinked at her—thrice. In the early days, months, years of this, they had crafted a silent code between them. Using the few momentsshe’d been able to dredge up speech, whispering through the near-invisible holes in the iron coffin.

One blink for yes. Two for no. Three forAre you all right?Four forI am here, I am with you.Five forThis is real, you are awake.

Fenrys again blinked three times.Are you all right?

Aelin swallowed against the thickness in her throat, her tongue peeling off the roof of her mouth. She blinked once.Yes.

She counted his blinks.

Six.

He’d made that one up.Liar, or something like it. She refused to acknowledge that particular code.

She blinked once again.Yes.

Dark eyes scanned her. He’d seen everything. Every moment of it. If he were permitted to shift, he could tell her what was fabricated and what was real. If any of it had been real.

No injuries ever remained when she awoke. No pain. Only the memory of it, of Cairn’s smiling face as he carved her up over and over.

He must have left her on the altar because he meant to return soon.

Aelin shifted enough to tug on the chains, the mask’s lock digging into the back of her head. The wind had not brushed her cheeks, or most of her skin, in … she did not know.

What wasn’t covered in iron was clad in a sleeveless white shift that fell to midthigh. Leaving her legs and arms bare for Cairn’s ministrations.

There were days, memories, of even that shift being gone, of knives scraping over her abdomen. But whenever she awoke, the shift remained intact. Untouched. Unstained.

Fenrys’s ears perked, twitching. All the alert Aelin needed.

She hated the trembling that began to coil around her bones as strolling footsteps scuffed beyond the square room and the iron door into it. The only way in. No windows. The stone hall she sometimes glimpsed beyond was equally sealed. Only the sound of water entered this place.

It surged louder as the iron door unlocked and groaned open.

She willed herself not to shake as the brown-haired male approached.

“Awake so soon? I must not have worked you hard enough.”

That voice. She hated that voice above all others. Crooning and cold.

He wore a warrior’s garb, but no warrior’s weapons hung from the belt at his slim waist.

Cairn noted where her eyes fell and patted the heavy hammer dangling from his hip. “So eager for more.”

There was no flame to rally to her. Not an ember.

He stalked to the small pile of logs by one brazier and fed a few to the dying fire. It swirled and crackled, leaping upon the wood with hungry fingers.

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