Aedion watched them, his face tight, his lips a thin line. Their eyes met. Ten years later, and they were all sitting together at a table again—no longer children, but rulers of their own territories. Ten years later, and here they were, friends despite the forces that had shattered and destroyed them. Aelin looked at the kernel of hope glowing in that dining room and lifted her glass. “To a new world,” the Queen of Terrasen said. The King of Adarlan lifted his glass, such endless shadows dancing in his eyes, but—there. A glimmer of life. “To freedom.”
