Kingdom of Ash
: Part 1 – Chapter 17

Lysandra ducked, but not fast enough to avoid the lash of power that sliced down her arm.

She hit the ground, rolling, as she’d learned under Arobynn’s careful tutelage. But Aedion was already in front of her, sword out. Defending his queen.

A flash of light and cold—from Enda and Sellene—and the Morath messenger was pinned to his knees, his dark power lashing against an invisible barrier of ice-kissed wind.

Around the tent, all had fallen back, weapons glinting. Flanking the downed man, Ilias and Ansel had their swords already angled toward him, their defensive poses mirror images. Trained into their very bones by the same master, under the same blistering sun. Neither looked at the other, though.

Ren, Sol, and Ravi had slipped into position at Lysandra’s—at Aelin’s—side, their own blades primed to spill blood. A fledgling court closing ranks around its queen.

Never mind that the older lords had stumbled behind the safety of the refreshment table, their weathered faces ashen. Only Galan Ashryver had taken up a place near the tent exit, no doubt to intercept their assailant should he try to flee. A bold move—and a fool’s one, considering what knelt in the center of the tent.

“Did no one smell that he was a Valg demon?” Aedion demanded, hauling Lysandra to her feet with her uninjured arm. But there was no collar on the stranger, no ring on his bare, pale hands.

Lysandra’s stomach churned as she clasped a hand to the throbbing gash on her upper arm. She knew what beat within the man’s chest. A heart of iron and Wyrdstone.

The messenger laughed, hissing. “Run to your castle. We’re—”

He sniffed the air. Looked right at Lysandra. At the blood leaking down her left arm, seeping into the ocean blue of Aelin’s worn tunic.

His dark eyes widened with surprise and delight, the word taking form on his lips. Shifter.

“Kill him,” she ordered the silver-haired Fae royals, her heart thundering.

No one dared tell her to burn him herself.

Endymion raised a hand, and the Valg-possessed man began gasping. Yet not before his eyes darkened wholly, until no white shone.

Not from the death sweeping over him. But as he seemed to convey a message down a long, obsidian bond.

The message that might doom them: Aelin Galathynius was not here.

“Enough of this,” Aedion snarled, and fear—real fear blanched his face as he, too, realized what the messenger had just relayed to his master.

The Sword of Orynth flashed, black blood spraying, and the man’s head tumbled to the rug-covered ground.

In the silence, Lysandra panted, lifting her hand from her arm to survey the wound. The cut was not deep, but it would be tender for a few hours.

Ansel of Briarcliff sheathed her wolf-headed sword and gripped Lysandra’s shoulder, her red hair swaying as she assessed the injury, then the corpse. “Nasty little pricks, aren’t they?”

Aelin would have had some swaggering answer to set them all chuckling, but Lysandra couldn’t replace the words. She just nodded as the black stain inched over the tent floor. The Fae royals sniffed at the reek, grimacing.

“Clean up this mess,” Darrow ordered no one in particular. Even as his hands shook slightly.

By the tent flaps, Nox was gaping at the decapitated Valg. His gray eyes met hers, searching, and then lowered. “He didn’t have a ring,” Nox murmured.

Snatching up a dangling edge of tablecloth from the untouched refreshment table, Aedion wiped the Sword of Orynth clean. “He didn’t need one.”

Erawan knew Aelin was not with them. That a shifter had taken her place.

Aedion stalked through the camp, Lysandra-as-Aelin at his heels. “I know,” he said over his shoulder, for once ignoring the warriors who saluted him.

She kept following him anyway. “What should we do?”

He didn’t stop until he reached his own tent, the reek of that Valg messenger clinging in his nose. That whip of blackness spearing for Lysandra still burning behind his eyes. Her cry of pain ringing in his ears.

His temper roiled, howling for an outlet.

She followed him into the tent. “What should we do?” she asked again.

“How about we start with making sure there aren’t any other messengers lurking in the camp,” he snarled, pacing. The Fae royals had already conveyed that order, and were sending out their best scouts.

“He knows,” she breathed. He whirled to face her, replaceing his cousin—replaceing Lysandra shaking. Not Aelin, though she’d been plenty convincing today. Better than usual. “He knows what I am.”

Aedion rubbed his face. “He also seems to know we’re going to Orynth. Wants us to do just that.”

She slumped onto his cot, as if her knees couldn’t hold her upright. For a heartbeat, the urge to sit beside her, to pull her to him, was so strong he nearly yielded to it.

The tang of her blood filled the space, along with the wild, many-faced scent of her. It dragged a sensual finger down his skin, whetting his rage into something so deadly he might have very well killed the next male who entered this tent.

“Erawan might hear the news and worry,” Aedion said when he could think again. “He might wonder why she isn’t here, and if she’s about to do something that will hurt him. It could force him to show his hand.”

“Or to strike us now, with his full might, when he knows we’re weakest.”

“We’ll have to see.”

“Orynth will be a slaughterhouse,” she whispered, her shoulders curving beneath the weight—not just of being a woman thrust into this conflict, but a woman playing another, who might be able to pretend, but only so far. Who did not truly have the power to halt the hordes marching north. She’d been willing to shoulder that burden, though. For Aelin. For this kingdom.

Even if she’d lied to him about it, she’d been willing to accept this weight.

Aedion slumped down beside her and stared blankly at the tent walls. “We’re not going to Orynth.”

Her head lifted. Not just at the words, but at how close he sat. “Where are we going, then?”

Aedion surveyed his suit of armor, oiled and waiting on a dummy across the tent. “Sol and Ravi will take some of their men back to the coast to make sure that we don’t encounter any more attacks from the sea. They’ll rendezvous with what’s left of the Wendlynian fleet while Galan and his soldiers stay with us. We’ll march as one army down to the border.”

“The other lords voted against it.” Indeed they had, the old fools.

He’d danced with treason for the past decade. Had made it an art form. Aedion smiled slightly. “Leave that to me.”

The Bane were loyal to none but Aelin Galathynius.

So were the allies she’d gathered. And the forces of Ren Allsbrook and Ravi and Sol of Suria.

And so, apparently, was Nox Owen.

Yet it was Lysandra, not Aedion, who made their flight possible.

She’d been walking back to her own tent—to Aelin’s tent, not fit for a queen, but an army captain—when Nox fell into step beside her. Silent and graceful. Well-trained. And likely more lethal than he appeared.

“So, Erawan knows you’re not Aelin.”

She whipped her head to him. “What?” A quick, vague question to buy herself time. Had Aedion risked telling him the truth?

Nox gave her a half smile. “I figured as much when I saw the surprise on that demon’s face.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“Am I? Or do you not remember me at all?”

She did her best to look down her nose at him, even as the messenger-thief towered over her. Aelin had never mentioned a Nox Owen. “Why should I remember one of Darrow’s lackeys?”

“A decent attempt, but Celaena Sardothien looked a little more amused when she cut men into ribbons.”

He knew—who Aelin was, what she’d been. Lysandra said nothing, and kept walking toward her tent. If she told Aedion, how quickly could Nox be buried under the frozen earth?

“Your secret is safe,” Nox murmured. “Celaena—Aelin was a friend. Is still one, I’d hope.”

“How.” She’d admit no more than that regarding her role in this.

“We fought in the competition together at the glass castle.” He snorted. “I had no idea until today. Gods, I was there for Minister Joval as a spy for the rebels. It was my first time out of Perranth. My first time, and I wound up unwittingly training alongside my queen.” He laughed, low and amazed. “I’d been working with the rebels for years, even as a thief. They wanted me to be their inside eyes on the castle, the king’s plans. I reported the strange goings-on until it became too dangerous. Until Cel—Aelin warned me to run. I listened, and came back here. Joval is dead. Fell in a skirmish with a band of rebels by the border this spring. Darrow plucked me up to be his own messenger and spy. So here I am.” A sidelong glance at her, awe still on his face. “I am at your disposal, even if you’re not … you.” He angled his head. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Aelin.”

Nox smiled knowingly. “Fair enough.”

Lysandra paused before the queen’s too-small tent, nestled between Aedion’s and Ren’s own. “What’s the cost of your silence? Or does Darrow already know?”

“Why would I tell him? I serve Terrasen, and the Galathynius family. I always have.”

“Some might say Darrow has a strong claim to the throne, given his relationship with Orlon.”

“I realized today that the assassin I came to call a friend is actually the queen I believed dead. I think the gods are pointing me in a certain direction, don’t you?”

She lingered between the tent flaps. Delicious warmth beckoned within. “And if I were to tell you we needed your help tonight, and that the risk was being branded a traitor?”

Nox only sketched a bow. “Then I’d say I owe my friend Celaena a favor for her warning at the castle, plus saving my life before that.”

She didn’t know why she trusted him. But she’d developed an instinct for men that had always proved correct, even if she had been unable to act on it in the past. Had only been able to brace herself for them.

But Nox Owen—the kindness in his face was true. His words were true. Another ally Aelin had wrangled for them, this time unwittingly.

She knew Aedion would agree to the plan, even if he still hated her. So Lysandra leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Then listen carefully.”

It was done quietly and without a trace.

Every intricate element played out without issue, as if the gods themselves aided them.

At dinner, Nox Owen laced the wine he’d personally served—as a groveling apology for letting in the Valg soldier—to Lords Darrow, Sloane, Gunnar, and Ironwood. Not to kill them, but to send them into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Even a roaring bear couldn’t wake this lout, Ansel of Briarcliff had sniffed when she’d stood over Lord Gunnar’s cot, lifted his limp arm, and let it drop.

The lord didn’t stir, and Lysandra, wearing a field mouse’s form and tucked into the shadows behind the queen, deemed it proof enough.

The four lords’ loyal banner men also found themselves sleeping deeply that night, courtesy of the wine that Galan Ashryver, Ilias, Ren, and Ravi had made sure was handed out at their fires.

And when they all awoke the next day, there was only whipping snow beyond their tents.

The camp was gone.

The army with it.