Page 92 of Kingdom of Ash

It was quieter here, no endless, droning roar of the river.

Nothing but that pressure, building and building and building under her skin, in her head. She could not outrun it, even in oblivion.

But still the irons dug in, chafing against her skin. Wetness pooled beneath her as time wheeled by. As Maeve undoubtedly brought that collar closer with each hour.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

She drifted down again, into a pocket of the dark, where she told herself that story—thestory—over and over.

Who she was, what she was, what she stood to destroy should she yield to the near-airlessness of the box, to the rising strain.

It wouldn’t matter, though. Once that collar went around her neck, how long would it take until the Valg prince within pried from her everything Maeve wished to know? Violated and delved into every inner barrier to mine those vital secrets?

Cairn would begin again soon. It would be wretched. And then the healers would return with their sweet-smelling smoke, as they had come these months, these years, however long it had been.

But she’d seen beyond them, for an instant. Had seen canvas fabric draped overhead, rushes covered with woven rugs beneath their sandaled feet. Braziers smoldered all around.

A tent. She was in a tent. Murmuring sounded outside—not nearby, but close enough for her Fae hearing to pick up. People speaking in both her tongue and the Old Language, someone muttering about the cramped camp conditions.

An army camp, full of Fae.

A more secure location, Cairn had said. Maeve had wanted her here, to guard her from Morath. Until Maeve clamped the cold Wyrdstone collar around her neck.

But then oblivion swept in. When she awoke, cleaned and without an ache, she knew Cairn was soon to begin. His canvas had been wiped bare, ready for him to paint red. His terrible, grand finale, not to pry information from her, not with Maeve’s triumph at hand, but for his own pleasure.

Aelin was ready, too.

They hadn’t chained her to an altar this time. But to a metal table, set within the center of the large tent. He’d had them bring in the comforts of home—or whatever Cairn might consider home.

A tall chest of drawers stood by one canvas wall. She doubted it held clothes.

Fenrys lay beside it, head on his front paws, sleeping. For once, sleeping. Grief laid heavy on him, dulling his coat, dimming his bright eyes.

Another table had been placed near the one on which she lay. A cloth covered three humped objects on it. Beside the one closest, a patch of black velvet also had been left out. For the instruments he’d use on her. The way a merchant might display his finest jewels.

Two chairs sat facing each other on the other side of the second table,before the large brazier full to the brim with crackling logs. The smoke curled upward, up, up—

A small hole had been cut into the tent’s ceiling. And through it …

Aelin couldn’t fight the trembling in her mouth at the night sky, at the pinpricks of light shining in it.

Stars. Just two, but there were stars overhead. The sky itself … it was not the heaviness of full night, but rather a murky, graying black.

Dawn. Likely an hour or so away, if the stars remained out. Perhaps she would last long enough to see sunlight.

Fenrys’s eyes shot open, and he lifted his head, ears twitching.

Aelin took steadying breaths as Cairn shoved through the tent flaps, offering a glimpse of fires and lightening darkness beyond. Nothing else.

“Enjoy your rest?”

Aelin said nothing.

Cairn ran a hand down the metal table’s edge. “I’ve been debating what to do with you, you know. How to really savor this, make it special for us both before our time is through.”

Fenrys’s snarl rumbled through the tent. Cairn just swept the cloth from the smaller table.

Low metal dishes on three legs, piled with unlit logs.

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