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I was not supposed to love you.
Chaol was Arobynn’s client.
She’d later learned that Farran had been murdered by Arobynn’s own bodyguard, Wesley, as retribution for what had been done to Sam.
“There is so much I want to ask you—to know.” “I’m surprised you’re admitting that you don’t already know everything.”
She wished Rowan were beside her, wished she could smell his pine-and-snow scent and know that no matter what news Arobynn bore, no matter how it shattered her, the Fae warrior would be there to help put the pieces back together.
“Nothing is without a price.”
“Tell me what I must do to atone; tell me to crawl over hot coals, to sleep on a bed of nails, to carve up my flesh. Say the word, and it is done. But let me care for you as I once did, before … before that madness poisoned my heart. Punish me, torture me, wreck me, but let me help you. Do this small thing for me—and let me lay the world at your feet.”
“If you are allowed to change so greatly in two years, may I not be permitted to have changed as well?”
Even from the distance, the captain’s eyes locked onto Aelin’s. He didn’t smile.
“You came back,”
Once magic is free, who is to stop the monsters from coming out again? Who is to stop you?”
You do not get to pick and choose which parts of her to love, Dorian had once said to him. He’d been right. So painfully right.
At first light, Chaol went to the nearest jeweler and pawned the ring for a handful of silver.
But it had only started to feel like a home once she’d paid off Sam’s debts as well, and he’d come to live here with her. A few weeks—that was all she’d been able to share with him. Then he was dead.
For her friends, for her family, she would gladly be a monster. For Rowan, for Dorian, for Nehemia, she would debase and degrade and ruin herself.
But she was her own champion now. And she would not add another name of her beloved dead to her flesh.
She’d kill whoever was needed, whore herself, wreck herself, if it meant getting Aedion to safety.
She could be Celaena Sardothien again—for a little longer, until this game was finished.
“I came to warn you,”
“As far as memory serves me, Lysandra, I warned you that if I ever saw you again, I’d kill you.”
“It’s all in there. Everything Arobynn did, everything he planned. What he asked Farran to do to Sam, and what he ordered done to you. All of it. Wesley wanted you to know, because he wanted you to understand—he needed you to understand, Celaena, that he didn’t know until it was too late. He tried to stop it, and did the best he could to avenge Sam. If Arobynn hadn’t killed him … Wesley was planning to go to Endovier to get you out. He even went to the Shadow Market to find someone who knew the layout of the mines, and got a map of them. I still have it. As proof. I—I can go get it …”
What he asked Farran to do to Sam. She’d always assumed Farran had just tortured Sam in the way he so loved to hurt and break people. But for Arobynn to request specific things be done to Sam …
“Sam was my friend, too. He and Wesley were my only friends. And Arobynn took them both away.”
“That’s why she’s still working for Clarisse, why she’s still not free and won’t be for a while. I thought you should know.”
Nehemia would have done the same.
The prince’s unmoving face told him immediately what he needed to know: this was not a rescue attempt. And the black stone collar around the prince’s throat told him everything else: things had not gone well the day Sorscha had been murdered.
“I saw her face last night, Brullo, and it’s as pretty as before. Don’t you have a wife to ogle, anyway?”
“I don’t think you want to get into a conversation about trust right now.”
“You were always my favorite dance partner.”
“If you want me to whisper sweet nothings into your ear, Majesty, I’ll do just that. But you’ll still get me what I need.”
“I came to help you destroy him.”
“You loved Sam as much as I loved Wesley.”
The wrath Chaol found in Aelin’s eyes was world-ending.
You betray them, you hurt them, and I don’t care how long it takes, or how far you go: I’ll burn you and your gods-damned kingdom to ash. Then you’ll learn just how much of a monster I can be.”
“Because it reminds me what I have to lose if I’m caught—or if we fail.”
And then she went to save her cousin.
“When you shatter the chains of this world and forge the next, remember that art is as vital as food to a kingdom. Without it, a kingdom is nothing, and will be forgotten by time. I have amassed enough money in my miserable life to not need any more—so you will understand me clearly when I say that wherever you set your throne, no matter how long it takes, I will come to you, and I will bring music and dancing.”
“Give our king the performance he deserves.”
Even disguised as an aristo man, there was wicked, vicious triumph in her turquoise-and-gold eyes.
“No, I’m not your queen. But you are going to have to decide soon whom you serve, because the Dorian you knew is gone forever. Adarlan’s future does not depend on him anymore.”
“You toe a dangerous line, Wing Leader.”
But he wished she had killed him. He hated her for not killing him.
“I don’t think I would like you if you were anything but a stubborn ass.”
“You were worth it. All these years, all the waiting. You’re worth it.”
“You survived; I survived. We’re together again. I once begged the gods to let me see you—if only for a moment. To see you and know you’d made it. Just once; that was all I ever hoped for.”
“Whatever you had to do to survive, whatever you did from spite or rage or selfishness … I don’t give a damn. You’re here—and you’re perfect. You always were, and you always will be.”
“Every day, I missed you.”
“Never again,”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious where we buried Sam?”
Fear was useless; fear got you killed.
