Page 181 of Kingdom of Ash

What his father and Erawan had built. The sort of kingdom he’d inherited.

The Wyrdkeys stirred, whispering. Dorian ignored them and ran a hand over Damaris’s hilt. The gold remained warm despite the bitter cold.

A sword of truth, yes, but also reminder of what Adarlan had once been. What it might become again.

If he did not falter. Did not doubt himself. For whatever time he had left.

He could make it right. All of it. He could make it right.

Damaris heated in silent comfort and confirmation.

Dorian left the small crowd of Crochans and strode to a sliver of land overlooking a deadly plunge to a snow-and-rock-strewn chasm.

Brutal mountains rippled away in every direction, but he cast his gaze to the southeast. To Morath, looming far beyond sight.

He’d been able to shift into a raven that night in the Eyllwe forest. Now he supposed he only needed to learn how to fly.

He reached inward, to that eddy of raw power. Warmth bloomed in him, bones groaning, the world widening.

He opened his beak, and a throaty caw cracked from him.

Stretching out his sooty wings, Dorian began to practice.

CHAPTER 53

Someone had set fire to her thigh.

Not Aelin, because Aelin was gone, sealed in an iron sarcophagus and taken across the sea.

But someone had burned her down to the bone, so thoroughly that the slightest of movements on wherever she lay—a bed? A cot?—sent agony searing through her.

Lysandra cracked open her eyes, a low groan working its way up her parched throat.

“Easy,” a deep voice rumbled.

She knew that voice. Knew the scent—like a clear brook and new grass. Aedion.

She dragged her eyes, heavy and burning, toward the sound.

His shining hair hung limp, matted with blood. And those turquoise eyes were smudged with purple beneath—and utterly bleak. Empty.

A rough tent stood around them, the sole light provided by a lantern swinging in the bitter wind that crept in through the flaps. She’d beenpiled high with blankets, though he sat on an overturned bucket, still in his armor, with nothing to warm him.

Lysandra peeled her tongue off the roof of her mouth and listened to the world beyond the dim tent.

Chaos. Shouting. Some men screaming.

“We yielded Perranth,” Aedion said hoarsely. “We’ve been on the run for two days now. Another three days, and we’ll reach Orynth.”

Her brows narrowed slightly. She’d been unconscious for that long?

“We had to put you in a wagon with the other wounded. Tonight’s the first we’ve dared to stop.” The strong column of his throat bobbed. “A storm struck to the south. It’s slowed Morath down—just enough.”

She tried to swallow against the dryness in her throat. The last she remembered, she’d been facing those ilken, never so aware of the limitations of a mortal body, of how even Aelin, who seemed so tall as she swaggered through the world, was dwarfed by the creatures. Then those claws had ripped into her leg. And she’d managed to make a perfect swing. To take one of them down.

“You rallied our army,” he said. “We lost the battle, but they didn’t run in shame.”

Lysandra managed to pull a hand from beneath the blankets, and strained for the jug of water set beside the bed. Aedion was instantly in motion, filling a cup.

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