Page 250 of Kingdom of Ash

Aedion debated telling him to ask the people who’d died ifthatwasn’t easy, either, but Prince Galan cleared his throat. “What preparations are under way for a siege?”

The Terrasen lords didn’t seem to appreciate being questioned, but they opened their hateful mouths and spoke.

An hour later, the others seen to their rooms, then to baths and hot meals, Aedion found himself following her scent.

She had gone not to the north tower and the ward who awaited her, but to the throne room.

The towering oak doors were cracked, the two rearing stags carved on them staring him down. Once, gold filigree had covered the immortal flame shining between their proud antlers.

During the past decade, someone had peeled off the gold. Either for spite or quick coin.

Aedion slipped through the doors, the cavernous chamber like the ghost of an old friend.

How many times had he bemoaned being forced to dress in his finery and stand beside the thrones atop the dais at the far back of the pillar-lined room? How many times had he caught Aelin nodding off during an endless day of pageantry?

Then, the banners of all the Terrasen territories had hung from the ceiling. Then, the pale marble floors had been so polished he could see his reflection in them.

Then, an antler throne had sat upon the dais, towering and primal. Built from the shed horns of the immortal stags of Oakwald.

Stags now butchered and burned, as the antler throne had been after the battle of Theralis. The king had ordered it done right on the battlefield.

It was before that empty dais that Lysandra stood. Staring at the white marble as if she could see the throne that had once been there. See the other, smaller thrones that had sat beside it.

“I hadn’t realized that Adarlan wrecked this place so thoroughly,” she said, either scenting him or recognizing the cadence of his footsteps.

“The bones of it are still intact,” Aedion said. “For how much longer that will remain true, I don’t know.”

Lysandra’s green eyes slid toward him, dim with exhaustion and sorrow. “Deep down,” she said quietly, “some part of me thought I’d live to see her sitting here.” She pointed to the dais, to where the antler throne had once been. “Deep down, I thought we might actually make it somehow. Even with Morath, and the Lock, and all of it.”

There was no hope in her face.

It was perhaps because of it that she bothered to speak to him.

“I thought so, too,” Aedion said with equal quiet, though the words echoed in the vast, empty chamber. “I thought so, too.”

CHAPTER 70

The Queen of the Fae had come to Morath.

Dorian forced his heartbeat to calm, his breathing to steady as Maeve sipped from her wine.

“You do not know me, then,” the Fae Queen said, studying the Valg king.

Erawan paused, goblet half-raised to his lips. “Are you not Maeve, Queen of Doranelle?”

Aelin. Had Maeve brought Aelinhere? To be sold to Erawan?

Gods, gods—

Maeve tipped back her head and laughed. “Millennia apart, and you have forgotten even your own sister-in-law.”

Dorian was glad he was small and quiet and unmarked. He might have very well swayed.

Erawan went still. “You.”

Maeve smiled. “Me.”

Those golden eyes roved over the Fae Queen. “In a Fae skin. All this time.”

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