Page 365 of Kingdom of Ash

Yet the felled beast halted, squashing soldiers beneath its bulk, right at the archway.

Blocking the way. A barricade before the western gate.

Intentionally so, Aedion realized as a golden-haired warrior leaped from the wyvern’s saddle, the dead Ironteeth witch still dangling there, throat gushing blue blood down the leathery sides.

The warrior ran toward them, a sword in one hand, the other drawing a dagger. Ran toward Aedion, his tawny eyes scanning him from head to toe.

His father.

CHAPTER 108

Morath’s soldiers clawed and crawled over the fallen wyvern blocking their path. They filled the archway, the passage.

A golden shield held them at bay. But not for long.

Yet the reprieve Gavriel bought them allowed the Bane to drain the last dregs of their waterskins, to pluck up fallen weapons.

Aedion panted, an arm braced against the gate passageway. Behind Gavriel’s shield, the enemy teemed and raged.

“Are you hurt?” his father asked. His first words to him.

Aedion managed to lift his head. “You found Aelin,” was all he said.

Gavriel’s face softened. “Yes. And she sealed the Wyrdgate.”

Aedion closed his eyes. At least there was that. “Erawan?”

“No.”

He didn’t need the specifics on why the bastard wasn’t dead. What had gone wrong.

Aedion pushed off the wall, swaying. His father steadied him with a hand to the elbow. “You need rest.”

Aedion yanked his arm out of Gavriel’s grip. “Tell that to the soldiers who have already fallen.”

“You will fall, too,” his father said, sharper than he’d ever heard, “if you don’t sit down for a minute.”

Aedion stared the male down. Gavriel stared right back.

No bullshit, no room for argument. The face of the Lion.

Aedion just shook his head.

Gavriel’s golden shield buckled under the onslaught of the Valg still teeming beyond it.

“We have to get the gate shut again,” Aedion said, pointing to the two cleaved but intact doors pushed against the walls. Access to them blocked by the Morath grunts still trying to break past Gavriel’s shield. “Or they’ll overrun the city before our forces can regroup.” Getting behind the walls would make no difference if the western gate was wide open.

His father followed his line of sight. Looked upon the soldiers trying to get past his defenses, their flow forced to a trickle by the wyvern he’d so carefully downed before them.

“Then we shall shut them,” Gavriel said, and smiled grimly. “Together.”

The word was more of a question, subtle and sorrowful.

Together. As father and son. As the two warriors they were.

Gavriel—his father. He had come.

And looking at those tawny eyes, Aedion knew it was not for Aelin, or for Terrasen, that his father had done it.

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