“Order the retreat,” Aedion said to the prince. “And get word to Endymion and Sellene that we’ll need their power as soon as we begin to run.”

To throw all their magic into a mighty shield to guard their backs while they tried to put as many miles between them and Morath as possible.

Galan nodded, shoving his bloody helmet over his dark hair, and stalked through the chaotic mass of soldiers.

A retreat. This soon, this fast. For all his training, the brutal years of learning and fighting and leading, this was what it had come to.

Would they even make it to Perranth?

The order with which the army had marched southward utterly collapsed on the flight back north. The Fae troops stayed at their rear, magic shields buckling, yet holding. Keeping Morath’s forces at bay by the foothills while they retreated toward Perranth.

The grumbling amongst the limping, exhausted soldiers trickled past Lysandra as she trudged between them, wearing the form of a horse. She’d allowed a young man onto her back when she’d spied his guts nearly hanging out of his rent armor.

For long miles, his leaking blood had warmed her sides as he lay sprawled over her.

The warm trickle had long stopped. Frozen.

So had he.

She hadn’t the heart to dislodge him, to leave his dead body on the field to be trampled. His blood had frozen him to her anyway.

Each step was an effort of will, her own wounds healing faster than the soldiers’ around her. Many fell during the march toward Perranth. Some were picked up, hauled by their companions or strangers.

Some did not rise again.

The resistance was not supposed to break apart so soon.

The grumbling worsened the closer to Perranth they got, despite a quick few hours of rest that first night. Where is the queen? Where is her fire?

She couldn’t fight as Aelin—not convincingly, and not well enough to stay alive. And when the Fire-Bringer fought with no flame … they might know then.

She has run away. Again.

Two Silent Assassins noticed on the second night that the dead soldier still lay on Lysandra’s back.

They said nothing as they gathered warm water to melt the blood and gore that had bound him to her. Then to wash her.

In her roan mare form, she had no words to offer them, had no way to ask if they knew what she was. They treated her with kindness nonetheless.

No one made to reach for the lone horse roaming through the ramshackle camp. Some soldiers had erected tents. Many just slept beside the fires, under cloaks and jackets.

Her ears were ringing. Had been ringing since the first clashing of the battle.

She didn’t know how she found his tent, but there it was, flaps open to the night to reveal him standing with Galan, Ansel, and Ren.

The Lord of Allsbrook’s brows rose as she entered, her head nearly hitting the ceiling.

A horse. She was still a horse.

Ren staggered toward her, despite the exhaustion surely weighing down every inch of him.

Lysandra fumbled for the thread inside her, the thread back to her human body, the shimmering light that would shrink her into it.

The four of them only stared as she found it, fought for it. The magic ripped the last of the strength from her. By the time she was again in her own skin, she was already falling to the hay-covered floor.

She didn’t feel the cold slam into her bare skin, didn’t care as she collapsed to her knees.

Ansel was already there, slinging her cloak around her. “Where the hell have you been?”

Even the Queen of the Wastes was pale, her wine-red hair plastered to her head beneath the dirt and blood.

Lysandra had no speech left in her. Could only kneel, clutching the cloak.

“We move an hour before dawn,” Aedion said, the order a clear dismissal.

Ansel and Galan nodded, peeling out of the tent. Ren only murmured, “I’ll find you some food, Lady,” before he exited the tent.

Boots crunched in hay, and then he was knee to knee before her. Aedion.

There was nothing kind on his face. No pity or warmth.

For a long minute, they only stared at each other.

Then the prince growled softly, “Your plan was bullshit.”

She said nothing, and couldn’t stop her shoulders from curving inward.

“Your plan was bullshit,” he breathed, his eyes sparking. “How could you ever be her, wear her skin, and think to get away with it? How could you ever think you’d get around the fact that our armies are counting on you to burn the enemy to ashes, and all you can do is run away and emerge as some beast instead?”

“You don’t get to pin this retreat on me,” she rasped. The first words she’d spoken in days and days.

“You agreed to let Aelin go to her death, and leave us here to be slashed to bloody ribbons. You two told no one of this plan, told none of us who might have explained the realities of this war, and that we would need a gods-damned Fire-Bringer and not an untrained, useless shape-shifter against Morath.”

Blow after blow, the words landed upon her weary heart. “We—”

“If you were so willing to let Aelin die, then you should have let her do it after she incinerated Erawan’s hordes!”

“It would not have stopped Maeve from capturing her.”

“If you’d told us, we might have planned differently, acted differently, and we would not be here, damn you!”

She stared at the muddy hay. “Throw me out of your army, then.”

“You ruined everything.” His words were colder than the wind outside. “You, and her.”

Lysandra closed her eyes.

Hay rustled, and she knew he’d risen to his feet, knew it as his words speared from above her bowed head. “Get out of my tent.”

She wasn’t certain she could move enough to obey, though she wished to. Needed to.

Fight back. She should fight back. Rage at him as he lashed at her, needing an outlet for his fear and despair.

Lysandra opened her eyes, peering up at him. At the rage on his face, the hatred.

She managed to stand, her body bleating in pain. Managed to look him in the eye, even as Aedion said again with quiet cold, “Get out.”

Barefoot in the snow, naked beneath her cloak. Aedion glanced at her bare legs, as if realizing it. And not caring.

So Lysandra nodded, clutching Ansel’s cloak tighter, and strode into the frigid night.

“Where is she?” Ren asked, a mug of what smelled like watery soup in one hand, a chunk of bread in the other. The lord scanned the tent as if he would find her under the cot, the hay.

Aedion stared at the precious few logs burning in the brazier, and said nothing.

“What have you done?” Ren breathed.

Everything was about to end. Had been doomed since Maeve had stolen Aelin. Since his queen and the shifter had struck their agreement.

So it didn’t matter, what he’d said. He hadn’t cared if it wasn’t fair, wasn’t true.

Didn’t care if he was so tired he couldn’t muster shame at his pinning on her the blame for the sure defeat they’d face in a matter of days before Perranth’s walls.

He wished she’d smacked him, had screamed at him.

But she had let him rage. And had walked out into the snow, barefoot.

He’d promised to save Terrasen, to hold the lines. Had done so for years.

And yet this test against Morath, when it had counted … he had failed.

He’d muster the strength to fight again. To rally his men. He just … he needed to sleep.

Aedion didn’t notice when Ren left, undoubtedly in search of the shifter with whom he was so damned enamored.

He should summon his Bane commanders. See how they thought to manage this disaster.

But he couldn’t. Could do nothing but stare into that fire as the long night passed.

CHAPTER 35

She had not trusted this world, this dream. The companions who had walked with her, led her here. The warrior-prince with pine-green eyes and who smelled of Terrasen.

Him, she had not dared to believe at all. Not the words he spoke, but the mere fact that he was there. She did not trust that he’d removed the mask, the irons. They had vanished in other dreams, too—dreams that had proved false.

But the Little Folk had told her it was true. All of this. They had said it was safe, and she was to rest, and they would look after her.

And that terrible, relentless pressure writhing in her veins—it had eased. Just enough to think, to breathe and act beyond pure instinct.

She’d siphoned off as much as she dared, but not all. Certainly not all.

So she had slept. She’d done that, too, in those other dreams. Had lived through days and weeks of stories that then washed away like footprints in the sand.

Yet when she opened her eyes, the cave remained, dimmer now. The thrumming power had nestled deeper, slumbering. The ache in her ribs had faded, the slice down her forearm had healed—but the scab remained.

The only mark on her.

Aelin prodded it with a finger. Dull pain echoed in response.

Smooth—not the scab, but her finger. Smooth like glass as she rubbed the pads of her thumb and forefinger together.

No calluses. Not on her fingers, on her palms. Utterly blank, wiped of the imprint from the years of training, or the year in Endovier.

But this new scab, this faint throbbing beneath it—that remained, at least.

Curled on the rock floor, she took in the cave.

The white wolf lay at her back, snoring softly. Their sphere of transparent flame still burned around them, easing the strain ember by ember. But not wholly.

Aelin swallowed, tasting ash.

Her magic opened an eye in response.

Aelin sucked in a breath. Not here—not yet.

She whispered it to the flame. Not yet.

But the flame around her and the wolf flared and thickened, blotting out the cave. She clenched her jaw.

Not yet, she promised it. Not until it could be done safely. Away from them.

Her magic pushed against her bones, but she ignored it. Leashed it.

The bubble of flame shrunk, protesting, and grew transparent once more. Through it she could make out a water-carved basin, the slumbering forms of her other companions.

The warrior-prince slept only a few feet from the edge of her fire, tucked into an alcove in the cave wall. Exhaustion lay heavy upon him, though he had not disarmed himself.