Page 155 of Kingdom of Ash

Truth. Aelin curled her aching hands into fists and slid them into her pockets. Fenrys said nothing—didn’t ask why she didn’t warm her fingers. Or the air around them.

He just turned to her and blinked three times.Are you all right?

A gull’s cry pierced the gray world, and Aelin blinked back twice.No.

It was as much as she’d admit. She blinked again, thrice now.Areyouall right?

Two blinks from him, too.

No, they were not all right. They might never be. If the others knew, if they saw past the swagger and temper, they didn’t let on.

None of them commented that Fenrys hadn’t once used his magic to leap between places. Not that there was anywhere to go in the middle of the sea. But even when they sparred, he didn’t wield it.

Perhaps it had died with Connall. Perhaps it had been a gift they had both shared, and touching it was unbearable.

She didn’t dare peer inward, to the churning sea inside her. Couldn’t.

Aelin and Fenrys stood by the field as the sun arced higher, burning off the mists.

After a long minute, she asked, “When you took the oath to Maeve, what did her blood taste like?”

His golden brows narrowed. “Like blood. And power. Why?”

Aelin shook her head. Another dream, or hallucination. “If she’s on our heels with this army, I’m just … trying to understand it. Her, I mean.”

“You plan to kill her.”

The gruel in her stomach turned over, but Aelin shrugged. Even as she tasted ash on her tongue. “Would you prefer to do it?”

“I’m not sure I’d survive it,” he said through his teeth. “And you have more of a reason to claim it than I do.”

“I’d say we have an equal claim.”

His dark eyes roved over her face. “Connall was a better male than—than how you saw him that time. Than what he was in the end.”

She gripped his hand and squeezed. “I know.”

The last of the mists vanished. Fenrys asked quietly, “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

He didn’t mean his brother.

She shook her head. “I know enough.” She surveyed her cold, blistered hands. “I know enough,” she repeated.

He stiffened, a hand going to the sword at his side. Not at her words, but—

Rowan dove from the skies, a full-out plunge.

He shifted a few feet from the ground, landing with a predator’s grace as he ran the last steps toward them.

Goldryn sang as she unsheathed it. “What?”

Her mate just pointed to the skies.

To what flew there.

CHAPTER 45

Rock roared against rock, and Yrene braced a hand on the shuddering stones of Westfall Keep as the tower swayed. Down the hallway, people screamed, some wailing, some lunging over family members to cover them with their bodies while debris rained.

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