Kingdom of Ash

the words there. Come back to me.
She’d take those words, that face with her,
too. Even when the Lock demanded
everything, that would remain. Would always
remain.
She swallowed past the tightness in her
throat. Broke Rowan’s piercing stare. And
then sliced open her palm. Then Dorian’s.
The stars seemed to shift closer, the
mountains peering over Aelin’s and Dorian’s
shoulders, as she sliced her knife a third time,
down her forearm. Deep and wide, skin
splitting.
To open the gate, she must become the
gate.
Erawan had begun the process of turning
Kaltain Rompier into that gate—had put the
stone within her arm not for safekeeping, but
to prepare her body for the other stones. To
turn her into a living Wyrdgate that he might