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And talking meant building some sort of … relationship. She’d had enough of friends. Enough of them dying, too.
And she could bring down the king as Celaena Sardothien, thank you very much.
“Wipe that smarmy, lying smile off your face.” His voice was as dead as his eyes, but it had a razor-sharp bite behind it. She kept her smarmy, lying smile.
“There you are.”
“The people you love are just weapons that will be used against you.”
“Because she is dead, and I am left with my worthless life!”
Wendlyn. Land of nightmares made flesh, where legends roamed the earth.
As she fell, hair whipping her face, Celaena thrust her hands toward the skinwalkers. “Surprise,” she hissed. The world erupted in blue wildfire.
“Why is my shifting so vital?” she asked at last. “Because it terrifies you,”
Hatred felt like a strong word, as she couldn’t quite hate someone who had saved her, but dislike fit pretty damn well.
“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.”
“You are not most people, and I think you like it that way. If it’s a darker set of emotions that will help you shift on command, then that’s what we’ll use. There might come a day when you find that anger doesn’t work, or when it is a crutch, but for now …” A contemplative look. “It was the common denominator those times you shifted—anger of varying kinds. So own it.”
“I think I’d prefer death at your hands to death at Maeve’s.” “That might be the first wise thing you’ve said to me.”
And she had the sense that her friend might have been proud of the way she went from shop to shop that afternoon, head held high, and charmed the ever-loving hell out of those villagers.
This was a nightmare. “You can’t really like flowers.” Again those dark eyes shifted to her. Blinked once. I most certainly do, he seemed to say.
“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.”
“And if I asked for the moon on a string?” “Then I would start praying to Deanna.”
“She was not becoming anything different from what she always was and always had the capacity to be. You just finally saw everything. And once you saw that other part of her …,” Dorian said quietly. It had taken him until now, until Sorscha, to understand what that meant. “You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love.” He pitied Chaol, he realized. His heart hurt for his friend, for all that Chaol had surely been realizing these past few months. “Just as you cannot pick which parts of me you accept.”
“As for Celaena,” he said again, “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.”
Oh, he was definitely fussing, and though it warmed her miserable heart, it was becoming rather irritating.
While she ate, he made sure the room passed inspection: the fire was still high (suffocatingly hot, as it had been since morning, thanks to the chills that had racked her), only one window was cracked (to allow in the slightest of breezes when she had hot flashes), the door was shut (and locked), and yet another pot of tea was waiting (currently steeping on his worktable). When he was done ensuring all was accounted for and no threats lurked in the shadows, he looked her over with the same scrutiny: skin (wan and gleaming from the remnants of those hot flashes), lips (pale and cracked),
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“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 feel bad for the dark god already.”
Afraid to play with fire, Princess? You won’t be happy if I singe your eyebrows off.
“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.”
Rowan slung his shirt over his head to get at the weapons strapped beneath, revealing his broad back, muscled and scarred and glorious. Fine—some very feminine, innate part of her appreciated that. And she didn’t mind his half-nakedness.
If he was about to tell her it wasn’t safe for a queen to be throwing herself into danger, then he could— “If we’re going to explore, then we’re going to do it under cover of darkness. So we’re going back to the stream, and we’re going to find something to eat. And then, Princess,” he said with a wild grin, “we are going to have some fun.”
So she left Rowan in the hall. But it did not stop her from wishing she could keep him.
Oh, Chaol. He understood completely now why he had sent Celaena to Wendlyn—understood that his return to Anielle … Chaol had sold himself to get Celaena to safety.
That was when they noticed that every musician on the stage was wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And when the conductor raised his arms, it was not a symphony that filled the cavernous space. 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. When the final note finished, the conductor turned to the crowd, the musicians standing with him. As one, they looked to the boxes, to all those
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“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”
She had lied to him. She had wanted to save lives, yes. But she had gone out there with no intention of saving her own.
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 was too stunned to object as her mother slipped the chain over her head and arranged the amulet down her front. It hung almost to her navel, a warm, heavy weight. “Never take it off. Never lose it.” Her mother kissed her brow. “Wear it, and know that you are loved, Fireheart—that you are safe, and it is the strength of this”—she placed a hand on her heart—“that matters. Wherever you go, Aelin,” she whispered, “no matter how far, this will lead you home.”
She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness. She was not afraid.
She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath.
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?
“I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”
“Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom … very much.”
The somewhat shorter hair was the least of the changes. She was now flushed with color, her eyes bright and clear, and though she’d regained the weight she’d lost that winter, her face was leaner. A woman—a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart.
It was a message to the world. Aelin was a warrior, able to fight with blade or magic. And she was done with hiding.
When Celaena got back, when she returned as she’d sworn she would … Then they would set about changing the world together.
She was as much a queen as Maeve. She was the sovereign of a strong people and a mighty kingdom. She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.
A calming warmth wrapped around her, as if someone had pulled her into an embrace. Feminine, joyous, infinitely powerful. This doom has not yet come to pass, it seemed to whisper in her ear. There is still time. Do not succumb to fear yet.
And then Celaena set the world on fire.
On the smaller, shorter scars, were the stories of Nehemia and of Sam. Her beloved dead. 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.
