thoroughly.

Had likely studied him

thoroughly, too, his technique and skill. He
knew he'd face of them before it was d,
perhaps all of them. It wouldn't end well.
Yet as long as they risked the crossing, he
didn't care. Endymion and Sellene, the only
Fae still left with a whisper of power, were
statid just behind the first of the Bane.
The eyes of his own soldiers were a
phantom touch between his shoulder blades,
on his helmeted head. He had not prepared a
speech to rally them.
A speech would not keep these men from
dying today.
So Aedion drew the Sword of Orynth,
hefted his shield, and joined the Bane's steady
beat.
Conveying all the defiance and rage in his
heart, he clswaned the ancient sword against
the
dented, round metal.
Rhoe' s shield.
Aedion had never told Aelin. Had wanted
to wait until they returned to Orynth to reveal
that the shield he'd carried, had never lost,
had belonged to her father. And so many
others before that.
It had no name. Even Rhoe had not known
its age. And when Aedion had spirited it away
from Rhoe's room, the only thing he grabbed
when the news came that his family had been
butchered, he had let the others for get about
it, too.
Even Darrow had not recognized it. W om
and simple, the shield had g unnoticed at
Aedion' s side, a reminder of what he'd lost.
What he'd defend to his final breath.
The soldiers from their allies' armies
picked up the beat as Morath reached the edge
of the river. A barked command from the
Valg princes on horseback had the first of the
foot soldiers crossing the ice, the ilken
holding back near the center. To strike when
they'd been worn down.
Ren Allsbrook and their remaining archers
kept hidden behind the lines, picking targets
amongst those winged terrors.
On and on, Aedion and their army banged
their swords against their shields.
Closer and closer, Morath's army spilled
onto the frozen river.
Aedion held the beat, their enemy not
realizing the sound served another purpose.
To mask the cracking of the ice deep
below.
Morath advanced until they were nearly
across the river.
Enda and Sellene needed no shouted order.
A wind swept over the ice, then slammed into
it, between the cracks they'd been creating.
the enemy had g into the river at most. N
would emerge.
Barely a dent in the force now advancing.
Aedion didn't have words for his
commanders, who had known him for most of
his life, perhaps better than any. They had no
words for him, either.
When Morath reached their shore at last,
swords bright in the gray day, Aedion let out a
roar and charged.
~

The ilken had learned that a shape-shifter was

amongst them, and wore a wyvem's skin.
Lysandra realized it after she'd swept for
them, leaping from the army's ranks to slam
into a cluster of .
others had been waiting, hiding in the
horde below. An ambush.
She'd barely taken out , snapping off their
heads with her spiked tail, before their
human and Valg screamed.
Aedion' s voice shattered down the lines,
"Hold that right.flank!''
She dared a glance toward it. The ilken had
concentrated their forces there, slamming into
the men in a phalanx of death and poison.
Then another order from the prince, "Hold
fast on the left!''
He'd repositid the Bane amongst the right
and left flanks to account for their wobbling on
the southern plains, yet it was not enough.
Ilken tore into the cavalry, horses shrieking
as poisd talons ripped out their innards, riders
crushed beneath falling bodies.
Aedion galloped toward the left flank,
some of his Bane fallowing.
Lysandra sliced through soldier after
soldier, arrows flying from both armies.
Still Morath advanced. Onward and harder,
driving the Bane back as if they were little
more than a branch blocking their path.
Her breath burned in her lungs, her legs
ached, yet she kept fighting.
There would be nothing left of them by
sundown if they kept at it like this.
The other men seemed to realize it, too.
Looked beyond the demons they fought to the
s of thousands still behind in orderly rows,
waiting to kill and kill and kill.
Some of their soldiers began to turn.
Fleeing the front lines.
Some outright hurled away their shields
and sprinted out of the path of Morath.
Morath seized on it. A wave crswaning to
shore, they slammed into their front line.
Right into the center, which had never broken,
even when the others had wobbled.
They punched a hole right through it.
Chaos reigned.
unworthy of his state.
He'd stand-he'd stay here until they cut
him down.
Thousands of men charged past him, eyes
wide with terror. Morath gave chase, their
Valg princes smiling as they awaited the
feasting sure to come.
D. It was d, here on this unnamed field
before Perranth.
Then a call went across the breaking lines.
The fleeing men began to pause. To tum
toward the direction of the news.
Aedion skewered a Morath soldier on his
sword before he fully understood the words.
The queen has come. The queen is at the
front line.
For a foolish heartbeat, he scanned the sky
for a blast of flame.
N came.
Dread settled into his heart, fear deeper
than any he'd known.
The queen is at the front line-at the right
flank.
Lysandra.
Lysandra had taken on Aelin' s skin.
He whirled toward the nxist right flank.
Just as the golden-haired queen in
borrowed armor faced ilken, a sword and
shield in her hands.
No.
The word was a punch through his body,
greater than any blow he'd felt.
Aedion began running, shoving through his
own men. Toward the too-distant right flank.
Toward the shape-shifter facing those ilken,
no claws or fangs or anything to defend her
beyond that sword and shield.
No.
He pushed men out of the way, the snow
 Aedion sobbed, flinging himself toward her
as Lysandra tried again to rise, using her
shield to balance her w.
Men rallied behind her, waiting to see what
the Fire-Bringer would do. How she'd bum
the ilken.
There was nothing to see, nothing to
witness. Nothing at all, but her death.
Yet Lysandra rose, Aelin's golden hair
falling in her face as she hefted her shield and
pointed the sword between her and the ilken.
The queen has come; the queen fights al.
Men ran back to the front line. Turned on
their heels and raced for her.
Lysandra held her sword steady, kept it
pointed at the ilken in defiance and rage.
Ready for the death soon to come.
She had been willing to give it up from the
start. Had agreed to Aelin's plans, knowing it
 Past Endovier. That path would take them
right past Endovier. Aelin's stomach tighed.
Rowan's hand grazed her own.
''We have to decide soon," Sartaq declared.
''Right now, we sit between the Ferian Gap
and Morath. It would be very easy for Erawan
to send hosts to crush us between them.''
Hasar turned to Chao1. ''Is Yrene anywhere
near d?''
He leaned an elbow against the arm of his
wheeled chair. ''Even with the few survivors,
there are too many of them. We'd be here
weeks.''
''How many injured?'' Rowan asked.
Chaol shook his head. ''Not injured." His
jaw tighed. ''Valg. ''
Aelin frowned. ''Yrene's healing the
Valg?''
Hasar grinned. ''In a manner of speaking.''
Aelin waved her off. ''Can I see?''
poisd claws had forced her to flee. So she'd
drawn the ilken back toward her own lines,
right into the range of Ren's archers.
They'd got the ilken down-barely. Shots
to the wings that allowed Lysandra to rip their
heads from their bodies.
As they'd fallen, she'd dove for the ground,
shifting as she went. She landed as a ghost
leopard, and unleswaned herself upon the foot
soldiers already pushing against Terrasen's
joined shields.
The skilled unity of the Bane was nothing
against the sheer numbers forcing them back.
The Fae warriors, the Silent Assassins-Ansel
and Galan's few remaining soldiers spread
between them-neither of those lethal units
could halt them, either.
So she clawed and tore and sundered, black
bile burning her throat. Snow turned to mud
beneath her paws. Corpses piled, men both
 Aedion roared from somewhere, from the
heart of hell, ''Re-form the lines!''
The order went ignored.
The Bane tried and failed to hold the line.
Ansel of Briarcliff bellowed to her fleeing
men to get back to the front, Galan Swanryver
echoing her commands to his own soldiers.
Ren shouted to his archers to remain, but they
too abandd their posts.
Lysandra slswaned through the shins of
Morath soldier, then ripped the throat from
another. N of Terrasen's warriors remained a
step behind her to decapitate the fallen bodies.
No at all. Over.
It was over.
Useless, Aedion had called her.
Lysandra gazed toward the ilken feasting
on the right flank and knew what she had to
do.
Then they shoved the ice a. Tore it to shreds.
heartbeat, Morath was marching toward
them.
The next, they plunged down, water
splswaning, shouts and screams filling the air.
The ilken shot forward to grab soldiers
drowning under thew of their armor.
But Ren Allsbrook was waiting, and at his
bellowed order, the archers fired upon the
exposed ilken. Blows to the wings sent them
tumbling to the ice, into the water. Going
under, some ilken dragged by their own
thrswaning soldiers.
The Valg princes each lifted a hand, as if
they were of mind. The army halted at the
shore. Watching as their brethren drowned.
Watching as Endymion and Sellene kept
ripping the ice a, forbidding it to freeze over
•
again.
They found Y rene not in the keep, but in a t on
the remnants of the battlefield, leaning over a
hum an man thrswaning upon a cot. The man
had been restrained to anchors in the floor at
his wrists and ankles.
Aeli n took look at those chains and had to
swallow.
Row an laid a hand on her lower back, and
Fenrys stepped closer to her side.
Yren e paused, her hands wreathed in white
light. Bart e, sword out, lingered nearby.
''Is something wrong?'' Y rene asked, the
glow in her hands fading. The man sagged,
going bless as the heale r's assault on the
dem on inside him halted.
Chaol steered his chair closer to her, the
wheels equipped for rougher terrain. ''Aelin
and her companions want a demonstration. If
you' re up for it."
and mud hindering each step as the ilken
pressed closer to the shifter-queen.
Savoring the kill.
But the soldiers slowed their fleeing. Some
even re-formed the lines when the call went
out again. The queen is here. The queen fights
at the front line.
Exactly why she had d it. Why she had
donned the defenseless, human form.
No.
The ilken towered over her, grinning with
their horrible, mangled faces.
Too far. He was still too damn far to do
anything-
of the ilken slswaned with a long, clawed
arm.
Her scream as poisd talons ripped through
her thigh sounded above the din of battle.
She went down, shield rising to cover
 Y rene smoothed back the hair that had
escaped her braid. "It's not really anything
that you can see. What happens is beneath the
skin-mind to mind.''
''You go up against Valg demons directly,"
Fenrys said with no small amount of awe.
''They're hateful, cowardly wretches."
Yrene crossed her arms and scowled at the
man tied to the cot. ''Utterly pathetic," she
spat toward him-the demon inside him.
The man hissed. Y rene only smiled. The
man-the demon-whimpered.
Aelin blinked, unsure whether to laugh or
fall to her knees. ''Show me. Do whatever it is
you do, but show me.''
So the healer did. Hands shining, she laid
them atop the man's chest. He screamed and
screamed and screamed.
Yrene panted, brows scrunching. For long
minutes, the shrieking continued.
 Borte said, "It's not very exciting with
them tied down, is it?''
Sartaq threw her an exasperated glare. As if
this were a conversation they'd already had
many times. ''You can be on mucking duty, if
you'd prefer.''
Borte rolled her eyes, but turned to Aelin,
looking her over with a frankness that Aelin
could only appreciate. "Any other missions
for me?''
Aelin grinned. ''Not yet. Soon, perhaps."
Borte grinned right back. "Please. Please
spare me from the tedium of this."
Aelin glanced toward the healer radiant
with light. ''How many does this make
today?"
"," Borte grumbled.
Aelin asked Chaol, "And how many can
she do every day?''
"Fifteen, at most. Some require more
toward the attacking ilken.
She began falling back, shield lifting in her
only defense, still too slow to escape those
reaching claws.
The poison-slick tips brushed her legs just
as his sword went through the beast's skull.
Lysandra hit the snow, shouting in pain,
and Aedion was there, heaving her up,
yanking his sword from the ilken' s head and
bringing it down upon the sinewy neck. Once.
Twice.
The ilken's head tumbled into the snow and
mud, the other beast instantly swallowed by
the Morath soldiers who had paused to watch.
Who now looked upon the queen and her
general and charged.
Only to be met by a surge of Terrasen
soldiers racing past Aedion and Lysandra,
battle cries shattering from their throats.
Aedion half-dragged the shifter deeper
 He screamed as the on the left swept with
its claws, the other on the right lunging for her,
as if it would tackle her to the snow.
Lysandra deflected the blow to the left with
her shield, sending the ilken sprawling, and
with a roar, slswaned upward with her sword
on the right.
Ripping open the lunging ilken from navel
to sternum.
Black blood gushed, and the ilken shrieked,
loud enough to set Aedion' s ears ringing. But
it stumbled, falling into the snow, scrambling
back as it clutched its opened belly.
Aedion ran harder, now thirty feet away,
the space between them clear.
The ilken who'd g sprawling on the left was
not d. Lysandra's eye on the retreating, it
lswaned for her legs again.
Aedion threw the Sword of Orynth with
everything left in him as Lysandra twisted
energy than others to expel, so those days it's
less.''
Aelin tried to do the math on how many
infested soldiers were left on the field. "And
once they're cured? What do you do with
them then?''
"We interrogate them," Chaol said,
frowning. ''See what their stories are, how
they wound up captured. Where their
allegiances lie."
"And you believe them?" Fenrys asked.
Hasar patted the hilt of her fine sword.
"Our interrogators are skilled at retrieving the
truth."
Aelin ignored the roiling in her stomach.
"So you free them," Gavriel said, silent for
minutes now, ''and then torture them?"
''This is war," Hasar said simply. ''We
leave them able to function. But we will not
risk sparing their lives only to find a new
army at our backs.''
''Some willingly joined Erawan," Chaol
said quietly. "Some willingly took the ring.
Yrene can tell, when she's in there, who
wanted it or not. She doesn't bother to save
those who gladly knelt. So most of those she
does save were either fools or taken forcibly."
''Some want to fight for us," Sartaq said.
"Those who pass our vetting process are
allowed to begin training with the foot
soldiers. Not many of them, but a few."
Fine. Fine, and fine.
Yrene gasped, her light flaring bright
enough that Aelin squinted.
The man bound to the cot coughed,
arching.
Black, noxious vomit sprayed.
Borte grimaced, waving away the smell.
Then the black smoke that rippled from his
mouth.
herself.
He took it back.
He took back everything he had said to her,
every moment of anger in his heart.
Aedion shoved through his own men,
unable to breathe, to think.
He took it back; he hadn't meant a word of
it, not really.
Lysandra tried to rise on her injured leg.
The ilken laughed.
"Please," Aedion bellowed. The word was
devoured by the screams of the dying.
"Please!''
He'd make any bargain, he'd sell his soul
to the dark god, if they spared her.
He hadn't meant it. He took it back, all
those words.
Useless. He'd called her useless. Had
thrown her into the snow naked.
He took it back.
 Yrene slumped back, Chaol shooting out an
arm to brace her. The healer only took a perch
on the arm of his chair, a hand on her heaving
chest.
Aelin gave her a moment to catch her
breath. To manage such a feat was
remarkable. To do it while pregnant ... Aelin
shook her head in wonder.
Yrene said to no in icular, "That demon
didn't want to go."
"But it's g now?'' Aelin asked.
Yrene pointed to the man on the cot, now
opening his eyes. Brown, not black, gazed
upward.
"Thank you," was all the man said, his
•
voice raw.
And human. Utterly human.
the arched ceiling. A lick of greenish flame
danced within. Not a flame of this world.
Its light slid over the heap of black st in the
center of the room. Pieces of a sarcophagus.
And all around it, built into shelves carved
from the mountain itself, gleamed Wyrdst
collars.

Only the instincts of his small,

inconsequential body kept Dorian in the air.
Kept him circling the lightless chamber. The
rubble in the center of the space.
Erawan' s tomb-directly beneath Morath.
The site where Elena and Gavin trapped him,
and then built the keep atop the sarcophagus
that could not be moved.
Where all this mess had begun. Where,
centuries later, his father had claimed he and
Perrington ventured in their youth, using the
Wyrdkey to unlock both door and
sarcophagus, and unwittingly freed Erawan.
The demon king had seized the duke's
body. His father ...
Dorian's heart raced as he passed collar
after collar, around and around the room.
Erawan hadn't needed to contain his father,
not when the man possessed no magic in his
•
veins.
Yet Erawan had said that the man hadn't
bowed-not wholly. Had fought him for
decades.
He hadn't let himself think on it this past
week. On whether his father's final words
atop the glass castle had indeed been true.
How he'd killed him, without the excuse of
the collar to justify it.
His head pounded as he continued to circle
the tomb. The collars leaked their unholy sch
into the world, pulsing in time with his