Page 416 of Kingdom of Ash

Aelin suppressed her smile, and took the two steps to the throne.

She halted again as she turned to sit.

Halted at the small figures who poked their heads around the throne room doors. A small gasp escaped her, enough that everyone turned to look.

“The Little Folk,” people murmured, some backing away as small figures darted through the shadows down the aisle, wings rustling and scales gleaming.

One of them approached the dais, and with spindly greenish hands, laid their offering at her feet.

A second crown. Mab’s crown.

Taken from her saddlebags—wherever they had wound up after the battle. With them, it seemed. As if they would not let it be lost once more. Would not let her forget.

Aelin picked up the crown they had laid at her feet, gaping toward the small gathering who clustered in the shadows beyond the pews, their dark, wide eyes blinking.

“The Faerie Queen of the West,” Elide said softly, though all heard.

Aelin’s fingers trembled, her heart filling to the point of pain, as she surveyed the ancient, glimmering crown. Then looked to the Little Folk. “Yes,” she said to them. “I will serve you, too. Until the end of my days.”

And Aelin bowed to them then. The near-invisible people who had saved her so many times, and asked for nothing. The Lord of the North, who had survived, as she had, against all odds. Who had never forgotten her. She would serve them, as she would serve any citizen of Terrasen.

Everyone on the dais bowed, too. Then everyone in the throne room.

But the Little Folk were already gone.

So she placed Mab’s crown atop the one of gold and crystal and silver, the ancient crown settling perfectly behind it.

And then finally, Aelin sat upon her throne.

It weighed on her, nestled against her bones, that new burden. No longer an assassin. No longer a rogue princess.

And when Aelin lifted her head to survey the cheering crowd, when she smiled, Queen of Terrasen and the Faerie Queen of the West, she burned bright as a star.

The ritual was not over. Not yet.

As the bells rang out over the city, declaring her coronation, the gathered city beyond cheered.

Aelin went to greet them.

Down to the castle gates, her court, her friends, following her, the crowd from the throne room behind. And when she stopped at the sealed gates, the ancient, carved metal looming, the city and world awaiting beyond it, Aelin turned toward them.

Toward all those who had come with her, who had gotten them to this day, this joyous ringing of the bells.

She beckoned her court forward.

Then smiled at Dorian and Chaol, at Yrene and Nesryn and Sartaq and their companions. And beckoned them forward, too.

Brows rising, they approached.

But Aelin, crowned and glowing, only said, “Walk with me.” She gestured to the gates behind her. “All of you.”

This day did not belong to her alone. Not at all.

And when they all balked, Aelin walked forward. Took Yrene Westfall by the hand to guide her to the front. Then Manon Blackbeak. Elide Lochan. Lysandra. Evangeline. Nesryn Faliq. Borte and Hasar and Ansel of Briarcliff.

All the women who had fought by her side, or from afar. Who had bled and sacrificed and never given up hope that this day might come.

“Walk with me,” Aelin said to them, the men and males falling into step behind. “My friends.”

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