Page 36 of Kingdom of Ash

She couldn’t stop her scream then.

Not as he shoved her into a burning pit of agony that raced up her legs, her spine.

Oh gods—ohgods—

From far away, Fenrys’s snarl sliced through her screaming, followed by Maeve’s lilting, “Very well, Cairn.”

The pressure on her shoulders lightened.

Aelin bowed over her knees. A full breath—she needed to get a full breath down.

She couldn’t. Her lungs, her chest, only heaved in shallow, rasping pants.

Her vision blurred, swimming, the blood that had spread beyond her knees rippling with it.

Endure; outlast—

“My eyes told me an interesting tidbit of information this morning,” Maeve drawled. “An account thatyouwere currently in Terrasen, readying the little army you gathered for war. You, and Prince Rowan, and my two disgraced warriors. Along with your usual group.”

Aelin hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to it.

That sliver of hope, foolish and pathetic. That sliver of hope that he’d come for her.

She had told him not to, after all. Had told him to protect Terrasen. Had arranged everything for him to make a desperate stand against Morath.

“Useful, to have a shape-shifter to play your part as queen,” Maeve mused. “Though I wonder how long the ruse can last without your special gifts to incinerate Morath’s legions. How long until the allies you collected start asking why the Fire-Bringer does not burn.”

It was no lie. The details, her plan with Lysandra … There was no way for Maeve to know them unless they were truth. Could Maeve have made a lucky guess in lying about it? Yes—yes, and yet …

Rowan had gone with them. They’d all gone to the North. And had reached Terrasen.

A small mercy. A small mercy, and yet …

The glass around her sparkled in the mist and moonlight, her blood a thick stain wending through it.

“I do not wish to wipe away this world, as Erawan does,” said Maeve, as if they were no more than two friends conversing at one of Rifthold’s finest tea courts. If any still existed after the Ironteeth had sacked the city. “I like Erilea precisely the way it is. I always have.”

The glass, the blood, the veranda and moonlight eddied in her vision.

“I have seen many wars. Sent my warriors to fight in them, end them. I have seen how destructive they are. The very glass you lay on comes from one of those wars, you know. From the glass mountains in the South. They once were sand dunes, but dragons burned them to glass during an ancient and bloody conflict.” A hum of amusement. “Some claim it’s thehardest glass in the world. The most unyielding. I thought, given your own fire-breathing heritage, you might appreciate its origins.”

A click of the tongue, and then Cairn was there again, hands on her shoulders.

Pushing.

Harder and harder. Gods, gods,gods—

There were no gods to save her. Not really.

Aelin’s screams echoed off rock and water.

Alone. She was alone in this. It would be of no use to beg the white wolf to help her.

The hands on her shoulders pulled away.

Heaving, bile burning her throat, Aelin once more curled over her knees.

Endure; outlast—

---