Page 162 of The Ashborn

“I blame you,” Kienna said, looking down at her hands. She picked at her fingers, tearing the skin from her cuticles. “Danek didn’t deserve to die, and I hate you for it.”

“Do we? Deserve to die?” Connak asked.

Kienna’s rage boiled over. If she didn’t do anything about it, she would risk burning the entire forest. She stood quickly. “I’m tired of things being taken from me while I stand defenseless. These bonds. People I love. I can’t let it stop me.”

“So, what now?”

Kienna lost the will to care what Connak thought or felt. Or Ruva. She loved her wolf, but Ruva let her down, too. Love couldn’t blind her. Correcting the world meant one thing: The king had to fall. And if taking him down meant burning every bond she had, if she had to die for it, so be it.

She huffed, leaving her words trailing as she walked. “I’m going to kill the King of River Storm.”

Chapter 65

—Moira—

Sitting in Dove Port with Rhior was wrong, but Moira was going to make it work. He hammered against the wooden planks of the apartment, fixing the floor board by board. Moira stared out of the terrace, watching as the boatswain worked the ship Kienna and Ash built. Ash stood on the beach, arms crossed, nodding profusely. This was a big moment. One Kienna should have been part of.

The sun beamed off the Lysiria, an ache tearing Moira’s heart to shreds. Her baby kicked in her womb. She was sick and tired of Moira grieving, but Moira had too much to grieve. She never thought she’d be mourning a fellow Guardian. When the news traveled to Dove Port of Danek’s death, Moira erupted in a fitful storm. Rhior tried to console her, but he was never good at that.

He only placed his hand on her shoulder when she heard, patting her pathetically. Things were still awkward between them. Too much time had passed since River Storm, too many love stories. Too many deaths. Moira didn’t know what to say to him that would right everything, so she let the silence stand between them for a while until they could ease back into each other.

Things wouldn’t be the same now that Danek had died. Moira heard Baila was back, imprisoned in the Hidden City. Broan went back to the Vikings, and Kienna was as much a shell as Moira when Tislin died. She didn’t think they would all be together again, their paths even more jaded than they were before.

Her belly thumped. Moira relaxed and let the vision overtake her. It was like clockwork. She learned never to fight it.

Images flooded her mind. Nothing substantial to put everything together, but she held onto each one and committed them to memory. A glint of silver-pierced, red-soaked earth. Kienna stood with blood on her hands as a shadow stretched behind her. A mountain loomed, wind howling through its hollow bones. Broan climbed toward its jagged crown, gold glinting briefly at his brow. Then, two women stood side by side. Baila was rooted in stone, the other scaled in violet shimmer.

Tislin sat in darkness, fire before him dancing. Shadows clung to his back like wings. Another whisper formed through the air, singing of the power of a life-giver.

Moira turned away from the window. Her visions never made sense, and there was nothing she could do with any of them. The only one who ever helped her figure them out was gone.

“Let me help you,” she said to Rhior, handing him a nail to finish the floors.

—Broan—

Broan made a point to stop at the Meadhouse at the base of the mountains. Despite Ingrid’s protests, he needed the EitrAle to survive the journey. Ithril remained close by, sitting in a corner and watching for River Storm soldiers. Broan wouldn’t be on duty that night to fight them off if they came for him. There didn’t appear to be any. No sign of Jacob in sight.

Broan wrestled with telling Kienna about his presence. He didn’t think it would do any good. Jacob didn’t want to be found. Broan drank to his heart’s desire and honored Danek in the only way he knew how. Slamming one more drink, he went to the corner of the room and sat. “Hey, Tightstrings.”

Ithril lifted her chin and gave him a half-smile. “Shall we look at the maps again?”

“Aye,” he said.

Ithril pulled out a book of paper filled with drawings of maps in detail from the Whiteridge Mountains all the way to the Elvish Mountains. She pointed to Silverthorne and drew a line beyond. “We call the southern lands Eron Talor. It has other names, but to the Elvish, it means to cast out.” Ithril drew a new map on a blank page. “I don’t know how far it goes, but it’s divided into three sections. Would you like to know them?”

“No,” Broan said, sighing. “One day, but not today. Sorry, Tightstrings.”

Ithril set her notebook down and brushed Broan’s hand. “It’s okay, Broan. We can sit quietly.”

Broan glanced at Ithril, and the stone inside his chest cracked, if only a little.

—Baila—

The prisons in Trinity were nowhere near those in River Storm. They probably would have been for the Elvish, but Baila saw worse. She sat in a small pod underneath the trees, watching dust motes float around her. Little ribbons of light poked through holes in the ground. She stared at them and sighed.

“They’ll forget about you down here,” rasped a man in a pod farther down from her. She couldn’t see him. It sounded like he’d been in the darkness for a lot longer than he should have been. “Thought you should know. You keep staring up through the holes, and it won’t make a difference.”

“That’s okay.” Baila slumped against the wall of her pod. “I deserve to be forgotten.”