Page 164 of Kingdom of Ash

She held her ground. Did not yield one inch to the ilken, who advanced another step.

For Terrasen, she would do this. For Aelin.

He took it back. He took it all back.

Aedion was barely a hundred feet away when the ilken struck.

He screamed as the one on the left swept with its claws, the other on the right lunging for her, as if it would tackle her to the snow.

Lysandra deflected the blow to the left with her shield, sending the ilken sprawling, and with a roar, slashed upward with her sword on the right.

Ripping open the lunging ilken from navel to sternum.

Black blood gushed, and the ilken shrieked, loud enough to set Aedion’s ears ringing. But it stumbled, falling into the snow, scrambling back as it clutched its opened belly.

Aedion ran harder, now thirty feet away, the space between them clear.

The ilken who’d gone sprawling on the left was not done. Lysandra’s eye on the one retreating, it lashed for her legs again.

Aedion threw the Sword of Orynth with everything left in him as Lysandra twisted toward the attacking ilken.

She began falling back, shield lifting in her only defense, still too slow to escape those reaching claws.

The poison-slick tips brushed her legs just as his sword went through the beast’s skull.

Lysandra hit the snow, shouting in pain, and Aedion was there, heaving her up, yanking his sword from the ilken’s head and bringing it down upon the sinewy neck. Once. Twice.

The ilken’s head tumbled into the snow and mud, the other beast instantly swallowed by the Morath soldiers who had paused to watch.

Who now looked upon the queen and her general and charged.

Only to be met by a surge of Terrasen soldiers racing past Aedion and Lysandra, battle cries shattering from their throats.

Aedion half-dragged the shifter deeper behind the re-formed lines, through the soldiers who had rallied to their queen.

He had to get the poison out, had to find a healer who could extract it immediately. Only a few minutes remained until it reached her heart—

Lysandra stumbled, a moan on her lips.

Aedion swung his shield on his back and hauled her over a shoulder. A glimpse at her leg revealed shredded skin, but no greenish slime.

Perhaps the gods had listened. Perhaps it was their idea of mercy: that the ilken’s poison had worn off on other victims before it’d gotten to her.

But the blood loss alone … Aedion pressed a hand over the shredded, bloody skin to staunch the flow. Lysandra groaned.

Aedion scanned the regrouping army for any hint of the healers’ white banners over their helmets. None. He whirled toward the front lines. Perhaps there was a Fae warrior skilled enough at healing, with enough magic left—

Aedion halted. Beheld what broke over the horizon.

Ironteeth witches.

Several dozen mounted on wyverns.

But not airborne. The wyverns walked on land.

Heaving a mammoth, mobile stone tower behind them. No ordinary siege tower.

A witch tower.

---