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You didn’t need a weapon at all when you were born one.
Manon treated her body as she would any other weapon: she kept it clean and honed and ready at any time to defend and destroy.
He was helping. And he was willing to meet a horrible fate in order to keep her alive. He hadn’t left her alone. She hadn’t been alone.
“I was too late. He didn’t survive.”
Her grandmother hadn’t been in the pit, though. She hadn’t looked into Abraxos’s eyes and seen the warrior’s heart beating in him. She hadn’t noticed that he’d fought with more cunning and ferocity than any of the others.
So Manon held firm and took the slap to the face, and the lecture, and then the second slap that left her cheek throbbing.
she’d make each and every one of the witches who doubted her, her grandmother included, curse themselves for fools. Because she was Manon Blackbeak, and she’d never failed at anything.
He ripped his cold magic from the air and turned it inward, wrapping it around his heart.
“These days, I am very glad to be a mortal, and to only have to endure this life once. These days, I don’t envy you at all.”
“I used to wish I had a chance to see it all—and hated that I never would.”
“Your scent says that you don’t want to be approached. The males smell it more than the females, and have been staying the hell away. They don’t want their faces clawed off.”
Her mother had called her Fireheart. But to her court, to her people, she would one day be Queen.
He’d burn the library, the city, or the whole world to ashes if she asked him. It was their bond, marked by blood and scent and something else she couldn’t place. A tether as strong as the one that bound her to her parents. Stronger, in some ways.
“You left me,” she repeated. Maybe it was only out of blind terror at the abyss opening up again around her, but she whispered, “I have no one left. No one.”
It would have been nice to have one person who knew the absolute truth about her—and didn’t hate her for it.
With each step she took back to her room, that flickering light inside of her guttered. And went out.
“I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”
Fireheart—why do you cry? “Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”
It was what she had never been able to tell Nehemia—that for ten years, she had been unsure how to find the way home, because there was no home left.
“It gives me comfort to know that people like you have a special place in hell waiting for them.”
“You are the keeper of your own fate,”
There were still truths she hadn’t confessed to, stains on her soul she couldn’t yet explore or express. But maybe—maybe he wouldn’t walk away whenever she did find the courage to tell him.
“Maybe we could find the way back together.”
He held out a hand. “Together, then.”
“Together,” she said, and took his outstretched hand. And somewhere far and deep inside her, an ember began to glow.
“Because if I free Eyllwe and destroy the king as Celaena, I can go anywhere after that. The crown … my crown is just another set of shackles.”
“Sorry because lying cost you me—and her? Would you be sorry if you hadn’t been caught?”
“You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love.”
“Just as you cannot pick which parts of me you accept.”
“you do not have the right to wish she were not what she is. The only thing you have a right to do is decide whether you are her enemy or her friend.”
She had not walked away or wished him to be anything but what he was.
She’d burned him again. And yet he had held on to her—had run all the way here and not let go once.
“You have experience—you are needed here. You are the only person who can give the demi-Fae a chance of surviving; you are trusted and respected. So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to whatever end.”
“To whatever end?”
“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”
“I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”
I claim you, Aelin. To whatever end.
“Together, Fireheart,”
No longer would they be locked away in her heart. No longer would she be ashamed.
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. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—and she would not be afraid.
