Page 183 of Kingdom of Ash

Food for Erawan’s beasts, the soldiers murmured when they’d moved out. They might as well offer the enemy a free meal.

Aedion shut down that talk, along with any sort of hissing about their flight and defeat. By the time they’d camped tonight, a good third of the soldiers, members of the Bane included, had been assigned various tasks to keep them busy. To make them so tired after a day’s fleeing that they didn’t have the energy to grumble.

Aedion aimed for his own tent, set just outside the healers’ ring of tents where Lysandra lay. Giving her a private tent had been another privilege he’d used his rank to acquire.

He’d almost reached the small tent—no use in building his full war tent when they’d be running again in a few hours—when he spotted the figures huddled by the fire outside.

He slowed his steps to a stalking gait.

Ren rose to his feet, his face tight beneath his heavy hood.

Yet it was the man beside Ren who made Aedion’s temper hone itself into a dangerous thing.

“Darrow,” he said. “I would have thought you’d be in Orynth by now.”

The lord bundled in furs did not smile. “I came to deliver the message myself. Since my most trusted courier seems inclined to select another allegiance.”

The old bastard knew, then. About Lysandra’s masquerading as Aelin. And Nox Owen’s role in moving their army out of his grasp.

“Let’s get it over with, then,” Aedion said.

Ren tensed, but said nothing.

Darrow’s thin lips curved in a cruel smile. “For your acts of recklessrebellion, for your failure to heed our command and take your troops where they were ordered, for your utter defeat at the border and the loss of Perranth, you are stripped of your rank.”

Aedion barely heard the words.

“Consider yourself now a soldier in the Bane, if they’ll have you. And as for the imposter you’ve paraded around …” A sneer toward the healers’ tents.

Aedion snarled.

Darrow’s eyes narrowed. “If she is again caught pretending to be Princess Aelin”—Aedion almost ripped out his throat at that word,Princess—“then we will have little choice but to sign her execution order.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“I’d like to see you stop us.”

Aedion smirked. “Oh, it’s not me who you’d be dealing with. Good luck to any man who tries to harm a shifter that powerful.”

Darrow ignored the promise and held out a hand. “The Sword of Orynth, if you will.”

Ren started. “You’re out of your mind, Darrow.”

Aedion just stared. The ancient lord said, “That sword belongs to a true general of Terrasen, to its prince-commander. As you are no longer the bearer of that title, the sword shall return to Orynth. Until a new, appropriate bearer can be determined.”

Ren growled, “That sword is in our possession, Darrow, because of Aedion. Had he not won it back, it would still be rusting in Adarlan’s trove.”

“He will always have our gratitude for it. If only in that regard, at least.”

A dull roar filled Aedion’s head. Darrow’s hand remained extended.

He deserved this, he supposed. For his failure on these battlefields, his failure to defend the land he’d promised Aelin he’d save. For what he’d done to the shifter who had held his heart from the moment she’d shredded into those Valg soldiers in the sewers of Rifthold.

Aedion unbuckled the ancient sword from his belt. Ren let out a sound of protest.

But he ignored the lord and tossed the Sword of Orynth to Darrow.

The lightness where that sword had been threw off his balance.

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