Page 165 of Kingdom of Ash

It rose a hundred feet high, the entire structure built into a platform whose make he could not determine with the angle of the ground andthe lines of chained wyverns dragging it across the plain. A dozen more witches flew in the air around it, guarding it. Dark stone—Wyrdstone—had been used to craft it, and window slits had been interspersed throughout every level.

Not window slits. Portals through which to angle the power of the mirrors lining the inside, as Manon Blackbeak had described. All capable of being adjusted to any direction, any focus.

All they needed was a source of power for the mirrors to amplify and fire out into the world.

Oh gods.

“Fall back!” Aedion screamed, even while his men continued to rally. “FALL BACK.”

With his Fae sight, he could just make out the uppermost level of the tower, more open to the elements than the others.

Witches in dark robes were gathered around what seemed to be a curved mirror angled into the hollow core of the tower.

Aedion whirled and began running, carrying the shifter with him. “FALL BACK!”

The army beheld what approached. Whether they realized it was no siege tower, they understood his order clearly enough. Saw him sprinting, Aelin over his shoulder.

Manon had never known the range of the tower, how far it might fire the dark magic rallied within it.

There was nowhere to hide on the field. No dips in the earth where he might throw himself and Lysandra, praying the blast went over them. Nothing but open snow and frantic soldiers.

“RETREAT!” Aedion’s throat strained.

He glanced over a shoulder as the witches atop the tower parted to let through a small figure in onyx robes, her pale hair unbound.

A black light began glowing around the figure—the witch. She lifted her hands above her head, the power rallying.

The Yielding.

Manon Blackbeak had described it to them. Ironteeth witches had no magic but that. The ability to unleash their dark goddess’s power in an incendiary blast that took out everyone around them. Including the witch herself.

That dark power was still building, growing around the witch in an unholy aura, when she simply walked off the lip of the tower landing.

Right into the hole in the tower’s center.

Aedion kept running. Had no choice but to keep moving, as the witch dropped into the mirror-lined core of the tower and unleashed the dark power within her.

The world shuddered.

Aedion threw Lysandra into the mud and snow and hurled himself over her, as if it would somehow spare her from the roaring force that erupted from the tower, right at their army.

One heartbeat, their left flank was fighting as they retreated once more.

The next, a wave of black-tinted light slammed into four thousand soldiers.

When it receded, there was only ash and dented metal.

CHAPTER 48

The khagan’s forces had dealt enough of a blow to Morath that the bone drums had ceased.

Not a sign of sure defeat, but enough to make Chaol’s heavily limping steps feel lighter as he entered Princess Hasar’s sprawling war tent. Hersuldehad been planted outside, the roan horsehair blowing in the wind off the lake. Sartaq’s own spear had been sunk into the cold mud beside his sister’s. And beside the Heir’s spear …

Leaning on his cane, Chaol paused at the ebony spear that had also been planted, its jet-black horsehair still shining despite its age. Not to signify the royals within, a marker of their Darghan heritage, but to represent the man they served.Ivory horsehair for times of peace; the Ebony for times of war.

He hadn’t realized the khagan had given his Heir the Ebony to bring to these lands.

At Chaol’s side, her dress blood-splattered but eyes clear, Yrene also halted. They’d traveled for weeks with the army, yet seeing the sign oftheir commitment to this war radiating the centuries of conquest it had overseen … It seemed almost holy, thatsulde. Itwasholy.

---