Page 340 of Kingdom of Ash

But Aedion turned left upon leaving the Great Hall, aiming for the north tower.

It was a lonely, cold walk to the room he sought. As if the entire castle were a tomb.

He knocked lightly on the wooden door near the top of the tower, and it immediately opened and shut, Lysandra slipping into the hall before Evangeline could stir in her bed.

In the flickering light of Aedion’s candle, the shadows etched on Lysandra’s face from a week of fighting from sunup to sundown were starker, deeper. “Ready?” he asked softly, turning back down the stairs.

It had become their tradition—for him to see Lysandra upstairs at night, then come to meet her in the morning. The only bright point in their long, horrible days. Sometimes, Evangeline accompanied them, narrating her time running messages and errands for Darrow. Sometimes, it was only the two of them trudging along.

Lysandra was silent, her graceful gait heavier with each step they descended.

“Breakfast?” Aedion asked as they neared the bottom.

A nod. The eggs and cured meats had given way to gruel and hot broth. Two nights ago, Lysandra had flown off in wyvern form after the fighting had ceased for the day, and returned an hour later with a hart clutched in each taloned foot.

That precious meat had been gone too soon.

They hit the bottom of the tower stairwell, and Aedion made to aimfor the dining hall when she stopped him with a hand on his arm. In the dimness, he turned toward her.

But Lysandra, that beautiful face so tired, only slid her arms around his waist and pressed her head to his chest. She leaned enough of her weight into him that Aedion set down his candle on a nearby ledge and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

Lysandra sagged, leaning on him further. As if the weight of exhaustion was unbearable.

Aedion rested his chin atop her head and closed his eyes, breathing in her ever-changing scent.

Her heartbeat thundered against his own as he ran a hand down her spine. Long, soothing strokes.

They hadn’t shared a bed. There was no place to do so anyway. But this, holding each other—she’d initiated it the night the Thirteen had sacrificed themselves. Had stopped him at this very spot and just held him for long minutes. Until whatever pain and despair eased enough that they could make the trek upstairs.

Lysandra pulled away, but not wholly out of his arms. “Ready?”

“We’re running low on arrows,” Petrah Blueblood said to Manon in the blue-gray light just before dawn. They strode through the makeshift aerie atop one of the castle’s towers. “We might want to consider assigning some of the lesser covens to stay behind today to craft more.”

“Do it,” Manon said, surveying the still-unfamiliar wyverns who shared the space with Abraxos. Her mount was already awake. Staring out, solitary and cold, toward the battlefield beyond the city walls. Toward the blasted stretch of earth that no snow had been able to wipe away entirely.

She’d spent hours staring at it. Could barely pass over it during the endless fighting each day.

Her chest, her body, had been hollowed out.

Only moving, going through every ordinary motion, kept her from curling up in a corner of this aerie and never emerging.

She had to keep moving. Had to.

Or else she would cease to function at all.

She didn’t care if it was obvious to others. Ansel of Briarcliff had sought her out in the Great Hall last night because of it. The red-haired warrior had slid onto the bench beside her, her wine-colored eyes missing none of the food that Manon had barely eaten.

“I’m sorry,” Ansel had said.

Manon had only stared at her mostly untouched plate.

The young queen had surveyed the solemn hall around them. “I lost most of my soldiers,” she said, her freckled face pale. “Before you arrived. Morath butchered them.”

It had been an effort for Manon to draw her face toward Ansel. To meet her heavy stare. She blinked once, the only confirmation she could bother to make.

Ansel reached for Manon’s slice of bread, pulling off a chunk and eating it. “We can share it, you know. The Wastes. If you break that curse.”

Down the long table, some of the witches tensed, but did not look toward them.

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