Page 242 of Kingdom of Ash

Yrene gasped, her light flaring bright enough that Aelin squinted.

The man bound to the cot coughed, arching.

Black, noxious vomit sprayed.

Borte grimaced, waving away the smell. Then the black smoke that rippled from his mouth.

Yrene slumped back, Chaol shooting out an arm to brace her. The healer only took a perch on the arm of his chair, a hand on her heaving chest.

Aelin gave her a moment to catch her breath. To manage such a feat was remarkable. To do it while pregnant … Aelin shook her head in wonder.

Yrene said to no one in particular, “That demon didn’t want to go.”

“But it’s gone now?” Aelin asked.

Yrene pointed to the man on the cot, now opening his eyes. Brown, not black, gazed upward.

“Thank you,” was all the man said, his voice raw.

And human. Utterly human.

CHAPTER 67

Rowan followed Aelin as she meandered across the battlefield, to the edge of the Silver Lake. She stopped only now and then to pick up any worthwhile enemy weapons. There were few.

The others had dispersed, Gavriel lingering to learn how Yrene healed the Valg, Fenrys heading off with Chaol to meet with emissaries from the wild men, and the khaganate royals seeing to their troops.

They would leave in two days, if the weather held. Two days, and then they’d begin the push north.

Thank the gods. Even though they were the last beings Rowan wished to thank.

Aelin halted at the rocky shore, peering across the mirror-flat expanse now choked with debris. She rested a hand atop Goldryn’s hilt, flame dancing at her fingers, seemingly into the red stone itself.

“It would take years,” she observed, “to heal everyone infected by the Valg.”

“Each of those soldiers has a family, friends who would want us to try.”

“I know.” The chill wind whipped her hair across her face, blowing northward.

“Then why the walk out here?” She’d gone contemplative during their meeting in the tent, her brow furrowing.

“Could Yrene healthem? Erawan and Maeve? I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

“Is Erawan’s body made by him, or stolen? Is Maeve’s?” Rowan shook his head. “They might be wholly different.”

“I don’t see how I can ask Yrene to do it. Ask it of Chaol.” Aelin swallowed. “To even put YrenenearErawan or Maeve … I can’t do it.”

Rowan wouldn’t be able to, either. Not for a thousand different reasons.

“But is it a mistake to put Yrene’s safety above that of this entire world?” Aelin mused, examining one of the enemy daggers she’d pilfered. An unusually fine blade, likely stolen in the first place. “She’s the greatest weapon we have, if the keys are not in play. Are we fools not to push to use it?”

It wasn’t his choice, his call. But he could offer her a sounding board. “Will you be able to live with yourself if something happens to Yrene, to her unborn child?”

“No. But the rest of the world will live, at least. My guilt would be secondary to that.”

“And if you don’t push Yrene to try to destroy them, and Erawan or Maeve wins—what then?”

“There is still the Lock. There’s still me.”

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