Page 120 of Kingdom of Ash

Her ears were ringing. Had been ringing since the first clashing of the battle.

She didn’t know how she found his tent, but there it was, flaps open to the night to reveal him standing with Galan, Ansel, and Ren.

The Lord of Allsbrook’s brows rose as she entered, her head nearly hitting the ceiling.

A horse. She was still a horse.

Ren staggered toward her, despite the exhaustion surely weighing down every inch of him.

Lysandra fumbled for the thread inside her, the thread back to her human body, the shimmering light that would shrink her into it.

The four of them only stared as she found it, fought for it. The magic ripped the last of the strength from her. By the time she was again in her own skin, she was already falling to the hay-covered floor.

She didn’t feel the cold slam into her bare skin, didn’t care as she collapsed to her knees.

Ansel was already there, slinging her cloak around her. “Where the hell have you been?”

Even the Queen of the Wastes was pale, her wine-red hair plastered to her head beneath the dirt and blood.

Lysandra had no speech left in her. Could only kneel, clutching the cloak.

“We move an hour before dawn,” Aedion said, the order a clear dismissal.

Ansel and Galan nodded, peeling out of the tent. Ren only murmured, “I’ll find you some food, Lady,” before he exited the tent.

Boots crunched in hay, and then he was knee to knee before her. Aedion.

There was nothing kind on his face. No pity or warmth.

For a long minute, they only stared at each other.

Then the prince growled softly, “Your plan was bullshit.”

She said nothing, and couldn’t stop her shoulders from curving inward.

“Your plan wasbullshit,” he breathed, his eyes sparking. “How could you ever be her, wear her skin, and think to get away with it? How could youeverthink you’d get around the fact that our armies arecounting on youto burn the enemy to ashes, and all you can do is run away and emerge as some beast instead?”

“You don’t get to pin this retreat on me,” she rasped. The first words she’d spoken in days and days.

“You agreed to let Aelin go to herdeath, and leave us here to be slashed to bloody ribbons. You two told no one of thisplan, told none of us who might have explained the realities of this war, and that we would need agods-damned Fire-Bringer and not an untrained,uselessshape-shifter against Morath.”

Blow after blow, the words landed upon her weary heart. “We—”

“If you were so willing to let Aelin die, then you should have let her do itaftershe incinerated Erawan’s hordes!”

“It would not have stopped Maeve from capturing her.”

“If you’d told us, we might have planned differently, acted differently, and we would not behere, damn you!”

She stared at the muddy hay. “Throw me out of your army, then.”

“You ruined everything.” His words were colder than the wind outside. “You, and her.”

Lysandra closed her eyes.

Hay rustled, and she knew he’d risen to his feet, knew it as his words speared from above her bowed head. “Get out of my tent.”

She wasn’t certain she could move enough to obey, though she wished to. Needed to.

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