Page 322 of Kingdom of Ash

“With you as the asking price. To atone for some lingering guilt.”

She slammed a hand atop the stack of ancient books. “Do you think Iwantto die? Do you think any of this is easy, to look at the sky and wonder if it’s the last I’ll see? To look at you, and wonder about those years we won’t have?”

“I don’t know what you want, Aelin,” Rowan snarled. “You haven’t been entirely forthcoming.”

Her heart thundered. “I want it to be over, one way or another.” Her fingers curled into fists. “I want this to bedone.”

He shook his head. “I know. And I know what you went through, that those months in Doranelle were hell, Aelin. But you can’t stop fighting. Not now.”

Her eyes burned. “I held on for this. Forthispurpose. So I can put the keys back in the gate. When Cairn ripped me apart, when Maeve tore away everything I knew, it was only remembering that this task relied upon my survival that kept me from breaking. Knowing that if I failed, all of you would die.” Her breathing turned uneven, sharp. “And since then, I’ve been so damnedstupidin thinking that perhaps I wouldn’t have to pay the debt, that I might see Orynth again. That Dorian might do itinstead.” She spat on the ground. “What sort of person does that make me? To have been filled with dread when he arrived today?”

Rowan again opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off, her voice breaking. “I thought I could escape it—just for a moment. And as soon as I did, the gods brought Dorian sweeping right back into my path. Tell me that’s not intentional. Tell me that those gods, or whicheverforcesmight also rule this world, aren’t roaring that I should still be the one to forge the Lock.”

Rowan just stared at her for a long moment, his chest heaving. Then he said, “What if those forces didn’t lead Dorian into our path so you alone might pay the debt?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What if they brought youtogether. To not pick one or the other, but to share the burden. With each other.”

Even the fire in the braziers seemed to pause.

Rowan’s eyes glowed as he blazed ahead. “That day you destroyed the glass castle—when you joined hands, your power … I’d never seen anything like it. You were able to meld your powers, to becomeone. If the Lock demands all ofyou, then why not give half? Half ofeachof you—when youbothbear Mala’s blood?”

Aelin slid slowly into her chair. “I—we don’t know it will work.”

“It’s better than walking into your own execution with your head bowed.”

She snarled. “How could I ever ask him to do it?”

“Because it is not your burden alone, that’s why. Dorian knows this. Has accepted it. Because the alternative is losing you.” The rage in his eyes fractured, right along with his voice. “I would go in your stead, if I could.”

Her own heart cracked. “I know.”

Rowan fell to his knees before her, putting his head in her lap as his arms wrapped around her waist. “I can’t bear it, Aelin. I can’t.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wanted that thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair.

Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.”

She gazed at him, at the life she saw in his face. All that he offered.

All that she might have, too.

“I need to ask you to do something.”

Aelin’s voice roused Dorian from a fitful sleep. He sat up on his cot. From the silence of the camp, it had to be the dead of night. “What?”

Rowan was standing guard behind her, watching the army camp beneath the trees. Dorian caught his emerald gaze—saw the answer he already needed.

The prince had come through on his silent promise earlier.

Aelin’s throat bobbed. “Together,” she said, her voice cracking. “What if we forged the Lock together?”

Dorian knew her plan, her desperate hope, before she laid it out. And when she finished, Aelin only said, “I am sorry to even ask you.”

“I am sorry I didn’t think of it,” he replied, and pushed to his feet, tugging on his boots.

Rowan turned toward them now. Waiting for an answer that he knew Dorian would give.

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