Page 274 of Kingdom of Ash

He knew he would regret it. Knew he should kill her. But to condemn her to what he’d endured …

He would not wish it upon anyone. Even if it cost them this war.

He did not think it made him weak. Not at all.

Beyond the window, Ironteeth shot to the skies, wyverns shrieking as Morath’s stones began to give way. In the valley below, the army halted to peer at the mountain looming high above them. The shaking tower built atop it.

Please, Maeve said again. Levels beneath them, another bellow of rage thundered from Erawan—closer now.

So Dorian soared into the chaotic night.

Maeve’s silent cry of despair followed on his heels. All the way to the peaks overlooking Morath and that rocky outcropping—to the two Wyrdkeys buried under the shale.

He could barely remember his own name as he slid them into his other pocket. As all three of the Wyrdkeys now lay upon him.

Then he reached back into the mind still tethered to his.

It was simple as an incision. To sever the link between their minds—and to sever another part of her.

To tie off the gift that allowed her to jump between places. To open those portals.

World-walker no longer, he said as his raw magic shifted her own. Changed its very essence.I suggest you invest in a good pair of shoes.

Then he let go of Maeve’s mind.

A hateful, unending scream was the only response.

Dorian shifted again, becoming large and vicious, no more than a pack wyvern flying northward to bring supplies to the aerial legion.

A king—he could be a king to Adarlan in these last days that remained for him. Wipe away the stain and rot of what it had become. So it might start anew. Become who it wished to be.

Dorian caught a swift wind, sailing hard and fast.

And when he looked behind him, at the mountain and valley that reeked of death, at the place where so many terrible things had begun, Dorian smiled and brought Morath’s towers crashing down.

CHAPTER 79

Yrene hated the Ferian Gap. Hated the tight air between the two gargantuan peaks, hated the bones and wyvern refuse littering the rocky floor, hated the reek that slithered from whatever openings had been carved into the mountains.

At least it was empty. Though they had not yet decided if that was a blessing.

The two armies now filled the Gap, Hasar’s soldiers already preparing to make the crossing back over the Avery into the tangle of Oakwald.Thattrek would take an age, even with the rukhin carrying the wagons and heavier supplies. And then the push northward through the forest, taking the ancient road that lay along the Avery’s northern branch.

“Pass me that knife there,” Yrene said to Lady Elide, pointing with her chin to her supply kit. Spread on a blanket on the bottom of the covered wagon, a Darghan soldier lay unconscious, cold sweat beading his brow. He hadn’t seen a healer after getting a slice to the thigh at the battlefor Anielle, and when he’d fallen clean off his horse this morning, he’d been hauled in here.

Elide’s hands remained steady as she plucked up the thin knife and passed it to Yrene.

“Will it wake him?” she asked while Yrene bent over the unconscious warrior and examined the infected wound that was gruesome enough to turn most stomachs.

“My magic has him in a deep sleep.” Yrene angled the knife. “He’ll stay out until I wake him.”

Elide, to her credit, didn’t retch as Yrene began to clean out the wound, scraping away the dead, infected bits.

“No sign of blood poisoning, thank the gods,” Yrene announced as the cloth beside the man became covered in the discarded rot. “But we’ll need to put him on a special brew to make sure.”

“Your magic can’t just do a sweep through him?” Elide tossed the soiled cloth into the nearby waste bucket, and laid down another.

“It can, and I will,” Yrene said, fighting her gag as the reek from the wound stuffed itself up her nostrils, “but that might not be enough, if the infection truly wishes to make an appearance.”

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