Page 58 of Kingdom of Ash

Bronwen and the younger witch stormed away, the gathered Crochan guards parting to let them pass.

Manon found Glennis wincing slightly. “Our family, you will find, has a hotheaded streak.”

Ruthless.

What Manon had done tonight, leading the Ironteeth to this camp … Dorian didn’t have a word for it other thanruthless.

He left Manon and her great-grandmother, the Thirteen looking on, and went in search of the spider.

He found Cyrene where he’d left her, crouched in the shadows of one of the farther tents.

She’d returned to her human form, her dark hair tangled, bundled in a Crochan cloak. As if one of them had taken pity on her. Not realizing the hunger in Cyrene’s eyes wasn’t for the goat stew.

“Where does the shifting come from?” Dorian asked as he paused before her, a hand on Damaris. “Inside you?”

The spider-shifter blinked up at him, then stood. Someone had given her a worn brown tunic, pants, and boots, too. “That was a great feat ofmagic you performed.” She smiled, revealing sharp little teeth. “What a king it might make you. Unchallenged, unrivaled.”

Dorian didn’t feel like saying he wasn’t entirely sure what manner of king he wished to be, should he live long enough to reclaim his throne. Anyone and anything but his father seemed like a good place to start.

Dorian kept his stance relaxed, even as he asked again, “Where does the shifting come from inside you?”

Cyrene angled her head as if listening to something. “It was strange, mortal king, to find that I had a new place within me with the return of magic. To find that something new had taken root.” Her small hand drifted to her middle, just above her navel. “A little seed of power. I will the shift, think of what I wish to be, and the change starts within here first. Always, the heat comes from here.” The spider settled her stare on him. “If you wish to be something, king-with-no-crown, then be it. That is the secret to the shifting. Be what you wish.”

He avoided the urge to roll his eyes, though Damaris warmed in his grip.Be what you wish—a thing far easier said than done. Especially with the weight of a crown.

Dorian put a hand on his stomach, despite the layers of clothes and cloak. Only toned muscle greeted him. “Is that what you do to summon the change: first think of what you want to become?”

“With limits. I need a clear image within my mind, or else it will not work at all.”

“So you cannot change into something you have not seen.”

“I can invent certain traits—eye color, build, hair—but not the creature itself.” A hideous smile bloomed on her mouth. “Use that lovely magic of yours. Change your pretty eyes,” the spider dared. “Change their color.”

Gods damn him, but he tried. He thought of brown eyes. Pictured Chaol’s bronze eyes, fierce after one of their sparring sessions. Not how they had been before his friend had sailed to the southern continent.

Had Chaol managed to be healed? Had he and Nesryn convinced thekhagan to send aid? How would Chaol even learn where he was, what had happened to all of them, when they’d been scattered to the winds?

“You think too much, young king.”

“Better than too little,” he muttered.

Damaris warmed again. He could have sworn it had been in amusement.

Cyrene chuckled. “Do notthinkof the eye color so much asdemandit.”

“How did you learn this without instruction?”

“The power is in me now,” the spider said simply. “I listened to it.”

Dorian let a tendril of his magic snake toward the spider. She tensed. But his magic brushed up against her, gentle and inquisitive as a cat. Raw magic, to be shaped as he desired.

He willed it toward her—willed it to find that seed of power within her. To learn it.

“What are you doing,” the spider breathed, shifting on her feet.

His magic wrapped around her, and he could feel it—each hateful, horrible year of existence.

Each—

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