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“Narrok took the fleet to Wendlyn—to launch a surprise attack.”
“Perhaps that’s your problem. Perhaps not picking a side is what costs you. Perhaps you need to tell your father you’re breaking your promise.”
Captain, that you have not picked a side because you are still a boy, and you are still afraid. Not of losing innocent lives, but of losing whatever dream it is you’re clinging to.
moved on, my queen has moved on. But you have not. And it will cost you in the end.”
was her night, her mother had said—a night when a fire-bearing girl had nothing to fear, no powers to hide. Aelin Fireheart, people had whispered as she bounded past, embers streaming from her like ribbons, Aedion and a few of her more lethal court members trailing as indulgent guards. Aelin of the Wildfire.
The Wyrdmarks were—were a way of harnessing those threads, of weaving and binding the essence of things. Magic could do the same, and from her power, from her imagination and will and core, she could create and shape.
Not a need for her, but a need to protect—a
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.
“So you mean to tell me that whenever someone comes close to burnout, she not only goes through all this misery, but if she’s female, the males around her go this berserk?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Rowan went on. “I’ve only ever seen it used a handful of times on killing fields. When you’re drained, your carranam can yield their power to you, as long as you’re compatible and actively sharing a blood connection.”
“This despair and hatred and rage that lives and breathes inside me. There is no sanity to it, no gentleness. It is a monster dwelling under my skin. For the past ten years, I have worked every day, every hour, to keep that monster locked up. And the moment I talk about those two days, and what happened before and after, that monster is going to break loose, and there will be no accounting for what I do.
I might very well destroy the world for spite. So that is why I must be Celaena, not Aelin—because being Aelin means facing those things, and unleashing that monster. Do you understand?”
His eyes narrowed, and they had yet another of their wordless conversations.
worddless convos are the compainjions
They were not born with hearts, her grandmother said. They had all been told that. Obedience, discipline, brutality. Those were the things they were supposed to cherish.
It was that same feeling she’d gotten when Iskra whipped Abraxos—that thing she couldn’t describe, but it blinded her.
“You are one of the Thirteen,” she said to him. “From now until the Darkness cleaves us apart. You are mine, and I am yours. Let’s show them why.”
he never lightened her training, though she could have sworn she occasionally felt their magic … playing together, her flame taunting his ice, his wind dancing amongst her embers. But each morning brought something new, something harder and different and miserable. Gods, he was brilliant. Cunning and wicked and brilliant.
“It has our attention and it knows it,” she said. “It’s targeting demi-Fae—either to send a message, or because they … taste good. But—”
Another vicious curse. He crouched, using the tip of a dagger to push back a bit of clothing torn at the collar. “This male—” “Fought. He fought back against it. None of the others did, according to the reports.”
No, it wasn’t. It was blacker than night, and reeked just as badly as it had the first time she’d smelled it, in the catacombs beneath the library, an obsidian, oily pool of blood. Slightly different from that other, horrific smell that loitered around this place, but similar. So similar to—
But that smell—I’ll never forget that smell as long as I live. Like it had rotted from the inside out, its very essence ruined.” “But it retained some cognitive abilities. And whatever
“You once told me that when you find your mate, you can’t stomach the idea of hurting them physically. Once you’re mated, you’d sooner harm yourself.”
They weren’t rabid, half-feral monsters like the one in the library, or cold, flawless creatures like what she’d seen in the barrows, but mortal soldiers. All of them aware, disciplined, ruthless.
The army that took over in noll?
“They are under the command of someone called General Narrok. The soldiers all look highly trained, but they keep well away from the three creatures.” Rowan wiped at his nose, and in the flash of lightning, she beheld the blood. “You were right. The three creatures look like men, but aren’t men. Whatever dwells inside their skin is … disgusting isn’t the right word. It was as if my magic, my blood—my very essence was repelled by them.” He examined the blood on his fingers. “All
They’ve fed on the very life of her, trapping her in her mind, making her relive whatever horrors and miseries she’s already encountered.” Even the fire in her blood froze. “It truly fed on me that
“Once he got word of the uprising in Eyllwe, the King of Adarlan sent two other legions north. None were spared in Endovier.”
Noooooooo oh my god
Yet nothing made me feel as filthy as I did today, thanking that man for murdering my people.”
wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And
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.
“I did a sweep of the perimeter.” Rowan stuffed a knife into his boot. “It’s as if someone told them where every trap, every warning bell is located. They’ll be here within the hour.”
Maeve?
on metal. Someone shouted, “The tunnel! They’ve been let in through the tunnel!”
Ughhhb wtf
hissed at the sword, “Goldryn.”
“But you are not Athril, beloved of the dark queen,” one of them said. Another said, “And you are not Brannon of the Wildfire.” “How do you—” But
You were brought back, it said. All the players in the unfinished game.
“You are the Valg,” she breathed. The three things inside those mortal bodies smiled. “We are princes of our realm.”
The King of Adarlan was either more powerful than she could imagine, or the most foolish man to ever live if he thought he could control these demon princes.
The scout leader, Bas, had let them in, Luca had told Rowan. The other demi-Fae who had conspired with Bas wanted the power the creatures offered—wanted a place in the world. From the devastation in the bleeding boy’s eyes, Rowan knew that Bas had already met his end. He hoped Luca hadn’t been the one to do it.
Rowan was screaming as the creature pulled her into its arms. As she stopped fighting. As her flames winked out and darkness swallowed her whole.
She grabbed at her head, her magic screaming, so loud it could shatter the world. And then she was burning, a living column of turquoise flame, sobbing as the dark worm continued its work and the walls of her mind began to give.
The King of Adarlan looked at her for a third time—and smiled.
He knows calena iks aelijn
The King of Adarlan had used his power on her that night.
The Amulet of Orynth. The heirloom honored above all others of their house. Its round disk was the size of her palm, and on its cerulean front, a white stag had been carved of horn—horn gifted from the Lord of the Forest.
Where isbthi now
that matters. Wherever you go, Aelin,” she whispered, “no matter how far, this will lead you home.”
Lady Marion, who had loved her husband and daughter so much, was gone. Knew that this—this was called sacrifice.
Amulet of Orynth lost to the river. Whatever magic it had, whatever protection, had
She had taken Lady Marion’s sacrifice and become a monster, almost as bad as the one
That was why she could not, did not, go home.
“Get up,” said
She was their queen, and she could offer them nothing less.
The creatures fed on despair and pain and terror. But what if—what if the victim let go of those fears? What if the victim walked through them—embraced them?
