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“Perhaps that’s your problem. Perhaps not picking a side is what costs you.
As if he remembered who he was talking to and that it was the least punishment she deserved.
Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest. Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge.
You collect scars because you want proof that you are paying for whatever sins you’ve committed.
“At least if you’re going to hell,” he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, “then we’ll be there together.”
“I have no doubt that you’ll be able to free the slaves from the labor camps some day. No matter what name you use.”
Sometimes, though, her dreams were of a brown-eyed man in an empire across the sea. Sometimes she’d awaken and reach for the warm, male body beside hers, only to realize it was not the captain—that
“Your agony tasted like wine,”
panic made you stupid.
But it did not stop her from wishing she could keep him.
I have to believe it’s better. Somewhere, it’s better than this.”
It was the Song of Eyllwe. Then the Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labor camps. And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had become, they played the Song of Adarlan.
“Fireheart.”
As useless as an heir to a broken throne and a broken name.
Knew that this—this was called sacrifice.
I don’t think I would want to go back to how it was before—who I was before. And this …” He jerked his chin toward the scattered crystals and the bowl of water. “I think this is a good change, too. Don’t fear it.”
“Tell them it’s time to fight back.”
When Celaena got back, when she returned as she’d sworn she would … Then they would set about changing the world together.
She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.
“Together, Fireheart,” he said, pushing back the sleeve of her tunic. “We’ll find a way together.” He looked up from her exposed wrist. “A court that will change the world,” he promised.
“They have made you into monsters. Made, Manon. And we feel sorry for you.”
“Because I can’t stand the thought of her spending another minute in this festering shithole that you call a court.”
“There is a queen in the north, and she has already beaten you once. She will beat you again. And again. Because what she represents, and what your son represents, is what you fear most: hope. You cannot steal it, no matter how many you rip from their homes and enslave. And you cannot break it, no matter how many you murder.”
“I love you.”
Chaol had called him his king.
She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen.
