Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7)

For Terrasen. All of it, for Terrasen.

The Lord of the North landed, the immortal flame within his antlers shining bright as he began the charge. The army around and behind her flowed down the hillside, gaining with each step, barreling toward Morath’s back ranks.

Barreling toward Orynth.

Toward home.



Onward into battle they charged, undaunted and raging.

The queen atop the white stag did not balk with each gained foot toward the awaiting legions. She only flipped her sword in her hand—once, twice, shield arm tucking in tight.

The immortal warriors at her side did not hesitate, either, their eyes fixed upon the enemy ahead.

Faster and faster, the khaganate’s cavalry galloping beside her, the front line forming, holding, as they neared the first of Morath’s back lines.

The enemy turned toward them now. Pointed spears; archers racing into position.

The first impact would hurt. Many would go down before they even reached it.

But the front line had to make it. They could not break.

From the enemy lines, an order arose. “Archers!”

Bowstrings groaned, targets were fixed.

“Volley!”

Great iron arrows blotted out the sun, aiming for the racing cavalry.

But ruks, golden and brown and black as night, dove, dove, dove from the skies, flying wing to wing. And as those arrows arced toward the earth, the ruks intercepted them, taking the brunt as they shielded the charging army beneath them.

Ruks went down.

And even the queen leading the charge wept in rage and grief as the birds and their riders crashed to the earth. Above her, taking arrow after arrow, shield raised to the skies, a young rider roared her battle cry.

The front lines could not break.

Ironteeth witches on wyverns banked toward them, toward the ruks soaring for their exposed back.

In the city, along Orynth’s walls, a white-haired queen bellowed, “Push! Push! Push!”

Exhausted witches took to the skies, on broom and beast, swords lifting. Racing for the front of the aerial legion turning to the ruks. To crush the Ironteeth legion between them.

On the bloody ground, Morath aimed spears, pikes, swords, anything they bore at the thundering cavalry.

It was not enough to stop them.

Not when shields of wind and flame and blackest death locked into place—and sliced into the front lines of Morath.

Felling the soldiers braced for battle. Exposing those behind still waiting to raise weapons.

Leaving Morath wide open for the golden army as it slammed into them with the force of a tidal wave.





CHAPTER 107


Rowan’s breath was a steady rasp in his throat as he charged through the lines of Valg soldiers, screaming ringing out around him. Nearby, cutting a swath through Morath’s masses, Aelin and the Lord of the North fought. Soldiers swarmed, but neither queen nor stag balked.

Not when Aelin’s flame, reduced as it was, kept any in her blind spots from landing a blow.

The Darghan cavalry shoved Morath back, and above them, ruks and wyverns clashed.

Beasts, feathered and scaled, crashed to the earth.

Still Borte fought above the queen, guarding her from the Ironteeth who spotted that white stag, as good as a banner amid the sea of darkness, and aimed for her. At Borte’s side, her betrothed guarded their flank, and Falkan Ennar, in ruk form, guarded her other.

His Darghan horse fearless, Rowan swept out his left arm, hatchet singing. A Valg head tumbled away, but Rowan was already slashing with his sword at his next opponent.

The odds were against them, even with the planning they’d done. Yet if they could liberate the city, regroup and restock, before Erawan and Maeve arrived, they might stand a chance.

For Erawan and Maeve would come. At some point, they would come, and Aelin would want to face them. Rowan had no intention of letting her do so alone.

Rowan glanced toward Aelin. She had plowed farther ahead, the front line spreading out, swarms of Morath soldiers between them. Stay close. He had to stay close.

A Crochan swept by, shooting past Rowan to rise up, up, up—right to the unprotected underbelly of an Ironteeth witch’s wyvern.

Sword raised, the witch raced along its underside, swift and brutal.

Where she passed, blood and gore rained.

The beast groaned, wings splaying, and Rowan threw out a gust of wind. The wyvern crashed onto Morath’s ranks with a boom that sent his own damned horse plowing away.

When the shuddering wings had stilled, when Rowan had steadied his horse and felled the soldiers rushing at him, he again searched for Aelin.

But his mate was no longer near him.

No, charging ahead, a vision of gold and silver, Aelin had gotten so far away that she was nearly beyond sight. There was no sign of Gavriel, either.

Yet Fenrys battled near Rowan’s other side, Lorcan on his left—a dark, deadly wind lashing out in time with his sword.

Once, they had been little more than slaves to a queen who had unleashed them across the world. Together, they had taken on armies and decimated cities.

He had not cared then whether he walked off those distant battlefields. Had not cared whether those kingdoms fell or survived. He had been given his orders, and had executed them.

But here, today … Aelin had given them no order, no command other than the very first they’d sworn to obey: to protect Terrasen.

So they would. And together, they would do so, cadre once more.

They would fight for this kingdom—their new court. Their new home.

He could see it in Fenrys’s eyes as he cut a soldier in two with a deep slice to the middle. Could see that vision of a future on Lorcan’s raging face as the warrior wielded magic and blade to rip through the enemy ranks.

Cadre, yet more than that. Brothers—the warriors fighting at his side were his brothers. Had stayed with him through all of it. And would continue to do so now.

It steeled him as much as the thought of his mate, still fighting ahead. He had to get to her, keep close. They all did. Orynth depended upon it.

No longer slaves. No longer raging and broken.

A home. This would be their home. Their future. Together.

Morath soldiers fell before them. Some outright ran as they beheld who battled closer.

Perhaps why Maeve had gathered them in the first place. Yet she had never been able to fully harness it—their potential, their true might. Had chosen shackles and pain to control them. Unable to comprehend, to even consider, that glory and riches only went so far.

But a true home, and a queen who saw them as males and not weapons … Something worth fighting for. No enemy could withstand it.

Lorcan and Fenrys battling at his side, Rowan gritted his teeth and urged his horse after Aelin, into the chaos and death that raged and raged and did not stop.



Aelin had come.

Had escaped Maeve, and had come.

Aedion couldn’t believe it. Even as he saw the army that fought with her. Even as he saw Chaol and Dorian leading the right flank, charging with the front lines and wild men of the Fangs, the king’s magic blasting in plumes of ice into the enemy.

Chaol Westfall had not failed them. And had somehow convinced the khagan to send what appeared to be the majority of his armies.

But that army was inching toward Orynth, still far across Theralis.

Morath did not halt its assault on Orynth’s two gates. The southern held strong. But the western gate—it was beginning to buckle.

Lysandra had shifted into a wyvern and soared with the desperate, final push of Manon Blackbeak and the Crochans toward the Ironteeth legion, hoping to crush it between them and the ruks. The shifter now fought there, lost amid the fray.

So Aedion charged down to the western gate, a battle cry on his lips as his men let him right up to the iron doors and the enemy army just visible through the sundering plates. The moment the gate opened, it would be over.

Aedion’s drained legs shook, his arms strained, but he held his ground. For whatever few breaths he had left.

Aelin had come. It was enough.