Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7)

The cave ascended for a few feet, then leveled out and wended into the stone. A rough-hewn passage carved not by water or age, Rowan realized, but by mortal hands. Perhaps the long-dead kings and lords had taken the subterranean river to deposit their dead before sealing the tombs to sunlight and air above, the knowledge of the pathways dying off with their kingdoms.

A faint glow pulsed from the lantern Aelin held, bathing the cave walls in blue. He’d quickly caught up to her, and now strode at her side, Fenrys trotting at her heels and Gavriel taking up the rear.

Rowan hadn’t bothered to free his weapons. Steel was of little use against the wights. Only magic might destroy them.

Why Aelin had needed to stop, what she’d needed to see, he could only guess as the passage opened into a small cavern, and gold gleamed.

Gold all around—and a shadow clothed in tattered black robes lurking by the sarcophagus in the center.

Rowan snarled in warning but Aelin didn’t strike.

Her hand curled at her side, but she remained still. The wight hissed. Aelin just watched it.

As if she wouldn’t, couldn’t, touch her power.

Rowan’s chest strained. Then he sent a whip of ice and wind through the cave.

The wight shrieked once, and was gone.

Aelin stared at where it had been for a heartbeat, and then glanced at him over a shoulder. Gratitude shone in her eyes.

Rowan only gave her a nod. Don’t worry about it.

Yet Aelin turned away, shutting off that silent conversation as she surveyed the space.

Time. It would take time for her to heal. Even if he knew his Fireheart would pretend otherwise.

So Rowan looked, too. Across the tomb, beyond the sarcophagus and treasure, an archway opened into another chamber. Perhaps another tomb, or an exit passage.

“We don’t have time to find a way out,” Rowan murmured as she strode into the tomb. “And the caves remain safer than the surface.”

“I’m not looking for a way out,” she said in that calm, unmoved voice. She stooped, swiping up a fistful of gold coins stamped with a forgotten king’s face. “We’re going to need to fund our travels. And the gods know what else.”

Rowan arched a brow.

Aelin shrugged and shoved the gold into the pocket of her cloak. “Unless the pitiful clinking I heard from your coin purse didn’t indicate you were low on funds.”

That spark of wry humor, the taunting … She was trying. For his sake, or the others’, maybe her own, she was trying.

He could offer her nothing less, too. Rowan inclined his head. “We are indeed in dire need of replenishing our coffers.”

Gavriel coughed. “This does belong to the dead, you know.”

Aelin added another fistful of coins to her pocket, beginning a circuit around the treasure-laden tomb. “The dead don’t need to buy passage on a ship. Or horses.”

Rowan gave the Lion a slashing grin. “You heard the lady.”

A flash ruptured from where Fenrys had been sniffing at a trunk of jewels, and then a male was standing there. His gray clothes worn, but intact—in better shape than the hollowed-out look in his eyes.

Aelin paused her looting.

Fenrys’s throat bobbed, as if trying to remember speech. Then he said hoarsely, “We needed more pockets.” He patted his own for emphasis.

Aelin’s lips curved in a hint of a smile. She blinked at Fenrys—three times.

Fenrys blinked once in answer.

A code. They’d made up some silent code to communicate when he’d been ordered to remain in his wolf form.

Aelin’s smile remained, just barely, as she walked to the golden-haired male, his bronze skin ashen. She opened her arms in silent offer.

To let him decide if he wished for contact. If he could endure it.

Just as Rowan would let her decide if she wished to touch him.

A small sigh broke from Fenrys before he folded Aelin into his arms, a shudder rippling through him. Rowan couldn’t see her face, perhaps didn’t need to, as her hands gripped Fenrys’s jacket, so tightly they were white-knuckled.

A good sign—a small miracle, that either of them wished, could be touched. Rowan reminded himself of it, even while some intrinsic, male part of him tensed at the contact. A territorial Fae bastard, she’d once called him. He’d do his best not to live up to that title.

“Thank you,” Aelin said, her voice small in a way that made Rowan’s chest crack further. Fenrys didn’t answer, but from the anguish on his face, Rowan knew no thanks were in order.

They pulled away, and Fenrys cupped her cheek. “When you are ready, we can talk.”

About what they’d endured. To unravel all that had happened.

Aelin nodded, blowing out a breath. “Likewise.”

She resumed shoving gold into her pockets, but glanced back to Fenrys, his face drawn. “I gave you the blood oath to save your life,” she said. “But if you do not want it, Fenrys, I … we can find some way to free you—”

“I want it,” Fenrys said, no trace of his usual swaggering humor. He glanced to Rowan, and bowed his head. “It is my honor to serve this court. And serve you,” he added to Aelin.

She waved a hand in dismissal, though Rowan didn’t fail to note the sheen in her eyes as she stooped to gather more gold. Giving her a moment, he strode to Fenrys and clasped his shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.” He added, stumbling a bit on the word, “Brother.”

For that’s what they would be. Had never been before, but what Fenrys had done for Aelin … Yes, brother was what Rowan would call him. Even if Fenrys’s own—

Fenrys’s dark eyes flickered. “She killed Connall. Made him stab himself in the heart.”

A pearl-and-ruby necklace scattered from Gavriel’s fingers.

The temperature in the tomb spiked, but there was no flash of flame, no swirl of embers.

As if Aelin’s magic had surged, only to be leashed again.

Yet Aelin continued shoving gold and jewels into her pockets.

She’d witnessed it, too. That slaughter.

But it was Gavriel, approaching on silent feet even with the jewels and gold on the floor, who clasped Fenrys’s other shoulder. “We will make sure that debt is paid before the end.”

The Lion had never uttered such words—not toward their former queen. But fury burned in Gavriel’s tawny gaze. Sorrow and fury.

Fenrys took a steadying breath and stepped away, the loss on his face mingling with something Rowan couldn’t place. But now wasn’t the time to ask, to pry.

They filled their pockets with as much gold as they could fit, Fenrys going so far as to remove his gray jacket to form a makeshift pack. When it was nearly drooping to the floor with gold, the threads straining, he silently headed back down the passageway. Gavriel, still wincing at their shameless looting, stalked after him a moment later.

Aelin continued picking her way amongst the treasure, however. She’d been more selective than the rest of them, examining pieces with what Rowan had assumed was a jeweler’s eye. The gods knew she’d owned enough finery to tell what would fetch the highest price at market.

“We should go,” he said. His own pockets were near to bursting, his every step weighed down.

She rose from a rusted metal chest she’d been riffling through.

Rowan remained still as she approached, something clenched in her palm. It was only when she stopped close enough for him to touch her that she unfurled her fingers.

Two golden rings lay there.

“I don’t know the Fae customs,” she said. The thicker ring held an elegantly cut ruby within the band itself, while the smaller one bore a sparkling rectangular emerald mounted atop, the stone as large as her fingernail. “But when humans wed, rings are exchanged.”

Her fingers trembled—just slightly. Too many unspoken words lay between them.

Yet now was not the time for that conversation, for that healing.

Not when they had to be on their way as swiftly as possible, and this offer she’d made him, this proof that she still wanted what lay between them, the vows they’d sworn …

“I assume the sparkly emerald is for me,” Rowan said with a half smile.

She huffed a laugh. The soft, whispered sound was as precious as the rings she’d found for them in this hoard.