Kingdom of Ash
Page 49
He’d sat in a stone room for two months, witness to what they’d done to a young queen’s body, her spirit. Had been unable to help her as she’d screamed and screamed. He’d never stop hearing those screams.
But it was the sound that came out of her as Cairn hurled her into the chest of drawers where Fenrys had watched him arranging his tools, the sound she made as she hit the floor, that shattered him entirely.
A small sound. Quiet. Hopeless.
He’d never heard it from her, not once.
Cairn got to his feet and wiped his bloodied, broken nose.
Aelin Galathynius stirred, trying to rise onto her forearms.
Cairn pulled the red-hot poker from the brazier. He pointed it at her like a sword.
Fenrys strained against his invisible bindings as Aelin glanced at him, toward where he’d sat for the past two days, in that same damned spot by the tent wall.
Despair shone in her eyes.
True despair, without light or hope. The sort of despair that wished for death. The sort of despair that began to erode strength, to eat away at any resolve to endure.
She blinked at him. Four times. I am here, I am with you.
Fenrys knew it for what it was. The final message. Not before death, but before the sort of breaking that no one would walk away from. Before Maeve returned with the Wyrdstone collar.
Cairn rotated the poker in his hands, heat rippling off its point.
And Fenrys couldn’t allow it.
He couldn’t allow it. In his shredded soul, in what was left of him after all he’d been forced to see and do, he couldn’t allow it.
The blood oath kept his limbs planted. A dark chain that ran into his soul.
He would not allow it. That final breaking.
He pushed upward against the bond’s dark chain, screaming, though no sound came from his open maw.
He pushed and pushed and pushed against those invisible chains, against that blood-sworn order to obey, to stay down, to watch.
He defied it. All that the blood oath was.
Pain lanced through him, into his very core.
He blocked it out as Cairn pointed the smoldering poker at the young queen with a heart of wildfire.
He would not allow it.
Snarling, the male inside him thrashing, Fenrys bellowed at the dark chain binding him.
He shredded into it, biting and tearing with every scrap of defiance he possessed.
Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey.
He would not obey.
And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.
Pain shuddered Aelin as she lay sprawled, panting, arms straining to hold her head and chest off the ground.
It was not Cairn and the poker she stared at.
But Fenrys, rising upward, his body rippling with tremors of pain, snout wrinkled in rage.
Even Cairn halted. Looked toward the white wolf. “Stand down.”
Fenrys snarled, deep and vicious. And still he struggled to his feet.
Cairn pointed the poker at the rug. “Lie down. That is an order from your queen.”
Fenrys spasmed, his hackles lifting. But he was standing.
Standing.
Despite the order, despite the blood oath’s commands.
Get up.
From far away, the words sounded.
Cairn roared, “Lie down!”
Fenrys’s head thrashed from side to side, his body bucking against invisible chains. Against an invisible oath.
His dark eyes met Cairn’s.
Blood began running from the wolf’s nostril.
It’d kill him—to sever the oath. It would break his soul. His body would go soon after that.
But Fenrys put one paw forward. His claws dug into the ground.
Cairn’s face paled at that step. That impossible step.
Fenrys’s eyes slid toward hers. Neither needed the silent code between them for the word she beheld in his gaze. The order and plea.
Run.
Cairn read the word, too.
And he hissed, “Not with a shattered spine, she can’t,” before he brought the poker slamming down for Aelin’s back.
With a roar, Fenrys leaped.
And with it, he snapped the blood oath completely.
CHAPTER 27
Wolf and Fae went tumbling to the carpet, roaring and tearing.
Fenrys lunged for Cairn’s throat, his enormous body pinning the male, but Cairn got his feet between them and kicked.
Aelin lurched upright, willing strength to her legs as she came into a kneel beside the chest of drawers. Fenrys slammed into the side of the metal table, but was instantly moving, throwing his body against Cairn.
A low hiss sounded nearby, and Aelin dared look away to find the poker lying to her right.
She twisted her feet toward it. Placed the center of the chains binding her ankles atop the red-hot tip.
Slowly, the links in the center heated.
Wolf and Fae clashed in a tangle of claws and fists and teeth, then leaped apart.
Severing the blood oath—it would kill him.
These were his last breaths, his last heartbeats.
“I’ll peel the fur from your bones,” Cairn panted.
Fenrys breathed heavily, blood leaking from between his teeth as he placed one paw over the other, circling. His stare did not break from Cairn’s as they moved, assessing each other for the killing blow.
The links in the center of the chain began glowing.
Overhead, the sky lightened to gray.
Fenrys and Cairn circled again, step after step.
Wearing him out, wearing him down. Cairn knew the cost of severing the blood oath. Knew he had only to wait it out before Fenrys was dead.
Fenrys knew it, too.
He charged, teeth snapping for Cairn’s throat as his paws swiped for the male’s shins.
Aelin grabbed the poker, planted her heels, and drove the rod upward. It strained against the heated links in the chain, and she shoved and shoved her feet downward, her arms buckling.
Cairn and Fenrys rolled, and Aelin gritted her teeth, bellowing.
The chain between her legs snapped.
It was all she needed.
She scrambled to her feet, but halted. Fenrys, pinned by Cairn, met her gaze. Snarled in warning and command.
Run.
Cairn whipped his head toward her. Toward the chain hanging free between her ankles. “You—”
But Fenrys surged up, his jaws clamping around Cairn’s shoulder.
Cairn shouted, arching, grabbing for Fenrys’s back.
Fenrys met her stare again, ripping into Cairn’s shoulder even as the male shoved them into the edge of the table. Hammered Fenrys’s spine into the metal, hard enough that bone cracked.
Run.
Aelin did not hesitate. She sprinted for the tent flaps.
And into the morning beyond.
Half a mile to the center of the camp. To the tent.
The soldiers had responded as Rowan anticipated, and he’d killed them accordingly.
Birds of prey dove for him, attacking with wind and ice from above. He shattered their magic with a surge of his own, sending them scattering.
A cluster of warriors charged from behind a row of tents.
Some beheld him and ran back the way they’d come. All soldiers whom he’d trained. And some he hadn’t. Yet many stayed to fight.
Rowan ripped through their shields, ripped the air from their lungs. Some found his hatchet swinging for their necks.
Close. So close to that tent. He would signal Lorcan and Gavriel in a moment. When he was close enough to need the diversion for the way out.
Another onslaught of soldiers barreled for him, and Rowan angled his long knife. His power blasted away their fired arrows, then blasted away the archers.
Turning them all to bloodied splinters.
CHAPTER 28
Aelin ran.
Her weakened legs stumbled on the grass, her still-bound hands restricting the full range of motion, but she ran. Picked a direction, any direction but the river mists to her left, and ran.
The sun was rising, and the army camp … There was motion behind her. Shouting.
She blocked it out and aimed right. Toward the rising sun, as if it were Mala’s own welcoming embrace.
She couldn’t get down enough air through the mask’s thin slit, but she kept moving, racing past tents, past soldiers who whipped their heads toward her, as if puzzled. She clenched the poker in her ironclad hands, refusing to see what the commotion was, if Cairn raged behind her.
But then she heard them. Bellowed orders.
Rushing steps in the grass behind, closing in. People ahead alerted by their cries.
But it was the sound that came out of her as Cairn hurled her into the chest of drawers where Fenrys had watched him arranging his tools, the sound she made as she hit the floor, that shattered him entirely.
A small sound. Quiet. Hopeless.
He’d never heard it from her, not once.
Cairn got to his feet and wiped his bloodied, broken nose.
Aelin Galathynius stirred, trying to rise onto her forearms.
Cairn pulled the red-hot poker from the brazier. He pointed it at her like a sword.
Fenrys strained against his invisible bindings as Aelin glanced at him, toward where he’d sat for the past two days, in that same damned spot by the tent wall.
Despair shone in her eyes.
True despair, without light or hope. The sort of despair that wished for death. The sort of despair that began to erode strength, to eat away at any resolve to endure.
She blinked at him. Four times. I am here, I am with you.
Fenrys knew it for what it was. The final message. Not before death, but before the sort of breaking that no one would walk away from. Before Maeve returned with the Wyrdstone collar.
Cairn rotated the poker in his hands, heat rippling off its point.
And Fenrys couldn’t allow it.
He couldn’t allow it. In his shredded soul, in what was left of him after all he’d been forced to see and do, he couldn’t allow it.
The blood oath kept his limbs planted. A dark chain that ran into his soul.
He would not allow it. That final breaking.
He pushed upward against the bond’s dark chain, screaming, though no sound came from his open maw.
He pushed and pushed and pushed against those invisible chains, against that blood-sworn order to obey, to stay down, to watch.
He defied it. All that the blood oath was.
Pain lanced through him, into his very core.
He blocked it out as Cairn pointed the smoldering poker at the young queen with a heart of wildfire.
He would not allow it.
Snarling, the male inside him thrashing, Fenrys bellowed at the dark chain binding him.
He shredded into it, biting and tearing with every scrap of defiance he possessed.
Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey.
He would not obey.
And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.
Pain shuddered Aelin as she lay sprawled, panting, arms straining to hold her head and chest off the ground.
It was not Cairn and the poker she stared at.
But Fenrys, rising upward, his body rippling with tremors of pain, snout wrinkled in rage.
Even Cairn halted. Looked toward the white wolf. “Stand down.”
Fenrys snarled, deep and vicious. And still he struggled to his feet.
Cairn pointed the poker at the rug. “Lie down. That is an order from your queen.”
Fenrys spasmed, his hackles lifting. But he was standing.
Standing.
Despite the order, despite the blood oath’s commands.
Get up.
From far away, the words sounded.
Cairn roared, “Lie down!”
Fenrys’s head thrashed from side to side, his body bucking against invisible chains. Against an invisible oath.
His dark eyes met Cairn’s.
Blood began running from the wolf’s nostril.
It’d kill him—to sever the oath. It would break his soul. His body would go soon after that.
But Fenrys put one paw forward. His claws dug into the ground.
Cairn’s face paled at that step. That impossible step.
Fenrys’s eyes slid toward hers. Neither needed the silent code between them for the word she beheld in his gaze. The order and plea.
Run.
Cairn read the word, too.
And he hissed, “Not with a shattered spine, she can’t,” before he brought the poker slamming down for Aelin’s back.
With a roar, Fenrys leaped.
And with it, he snapped the blood oath completely.
CHAPTER 27
Wolf and Fae went tumbling to the carpet, roaring and tearing.
Fenrys lunged for Cairn’s throat, his enormous body pinning the male, but Cairn got his feet between them and kicked.
Aelin lurched upright, willing strength to her legs as she came into a kneel beside the chest of drawers. Fenrys slammed into the side of the metal table, but was instantly moving, throwing his body against Cairn.
A low hiss sounded nearby, and Aelin dared look away to find the poker lying to her right.
She twisted her feet toward it. Placed the center of the chains binding her ankles atop the red-hot tip.
Slowly, the links in the center heated.
Wolf and Fae clashed in a tangle of claws and fists and teeth, then leaped apart.
Severing the blood oath—it would kill him.
These were his last breaths, his last heartbeats.
“I’ll peel the fur from your bones,” Cairn panted.
Fenrys breathed heavily, blood leaking from between his teeth as he placed one paw over the other, circling. His stare did not break from Cairn’s as they moved, assessing each other for the killing blow.
The links in the center of the chain began glowing.
Overhead, the sky lightened to gray.
Fenrys and Cairn circled again, step after step.
Wearing him out, wearing him down. Cairn knew the cost of severing the blood oath. Knew he had only to wait it out before Fenrys was dead.
Fenrys knew it, too.
He charged, teeth snapping for Cairn’s throat as his paws swiped for the male’s shins.
Aelin grabbed the poker, planted her heels, and drove the rod upward. It strained against the heated links in the chain, and she shoved and shoved her feet downward, her arms buckling.
Cairn and Fenrys rolled, and Aelin gritted her teeth, bellowing.
The chain between her legs snapped.
It was all she needed.
She scrambled to her feet, but halted. Fenrys, pinned by Cairn, met her gaze. Snarled in warning and command.
Run.
Cairn whipped his head toward her. Toward the chain hanging free between her ankles. “You—”
But Fenrys surged up, his jaws clamping around Cairn’s shoulder.
Cairn shouted, arching, grabbing for Fenrys’s back.
Fenrys met her stare again, ripping into Cairn’s shoulder even as the male shoved them into the edge of the table. Hammered Fenrys’s spine into the metal, hard enough that bone cracked.
Run.
Aelin did not hesitate. She sprinted for the tent flaps.
And into the morning beyond.
Half a mile to the center of the camp. To the tent.
The soldiers had responded as Rowan anticipated, and he’d killed them accordingly.
Birds of prey dove for him, attacking with wind and ice from above. He shattered their magic with a surge of his own, sending them scattering.
A cluster of warriors charged from behind a row of tents.
Some beheld him and ran back the way they’d come. All soldiers whom he’d trained. And some he hadn’t. Yet many stayed to fight.
Rowan ripped through their shields, ripped the air from their lungs. Some found his hatchet swinging for their necks.
Close. So close to that tent. He would signal Lorcan and Gavriel in a moment. When he was close enough to need the diversion for the way out.
Another onslaught of soldiers barreled for him, and Rowan angled his long knife. His power blasted away their fired arrows, then blasted away the archers.
Turning them all to bloodied splinters.
CHAPTER 28
Aelin ran.
Her weakened legs stumbled on the grass, her still-bound hands restricting the full range of motion, but she ran. Picked a direction, any direction but the river mists to her left, and ran.
The sun was rising, and the army camp … There was motion behind her. Shouting.
She blocked it out and aimed right. Toward the rising sun, as if it were Mala’s own welcoming embrace.
She couldn’t get down enough air through the mask’s thin slit, but she kept moving, racing past tents, past soldiers who whipped their heads toward her, as if puzzled. She clenched the poker in her ironclad hands, refusing to see what the commotion was, if Cairn raged behind her.
But then she heard them. Bellowed orders.
Rushing steps in the grass behind, closing in. People ahead alerted by their cries.
