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If her people could only see her: Aelin of the Wildfire, assassin and pickpocket. Her parents and uncle were probably thrashing in their graves.
What a shame that the current owner of the Vaults, a former underling of Rourke Farran and a dealer of flesh and opiates, had accidentally run into her knives. Repeatedly.
You remind me of what the world ought to be; what the world can be,
Ever the petulant protégée, ever the smart-ass.
“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.”
She was the heir of fire. She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.
Behind them, across the hall, the dancers shattered their roses on the floor, and Aedion grinned at his queen as the entire world went to hell.
She was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of shadows, and these men were already carrion.
Bastard. Most men, she’d decided, were bastards of varying degrees. Most of them were monsters.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stay the course, but also plot another one. Adapt.”
They’d been forged of the same ore, two sides of the same golden, scarred coin.
“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.”
“Everybody is something. Even the most common witch has her coven. But who has your back, Elide Lochan?”
Rowan was the most powerful full-blooded Fae male alive. And his scent was all over her. Yet she had no gods-damned idea.
“You will make mistakes. You will make decisions, and sometimes you will regret those choices. Sometimes there won’t be a right choice, just the best of several bad options. I don’t need to tell you that you can do this—you know you can. I wouldn’t have sworn the oath to you if I didn’t think you could.”
Jasmine, and lemon verbena, and crackling embers. Elegant, feminine, and utterly wild. Warm, and steadfast—unbreakable, his queen.
Oh, it was too damn early to consider the giant pile of horseshit that had become her life.
“Friends don’t spend time with each other only when they’re feeling sorry for themselves. Or bite each other’s heads off for asking difficult questions.”
“Ah, about that,” she said, and shifted her wrist just enough for him to feel the blade she’d flicked free in the moment before she’d sensed his attack—the steel now resting against his groin. “Immortality seems like a long, long time to go without your favorite body part.”
“I missed you,” he said quietly, his gaze darting between her mouth and eyes. “When I was in Wendlyn. I lied when I said I didn’t. From the moment you left, I missed you so much I went out of my mind. I was glad for the excuse to track Lorcan here, just to see you again. And tonight, when he had that knife at your throat …” The warmth of his callused finger bloomed through her as he traced a path over the cut on her neck. “I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only an ocean between us. But if it was death separating us … I would find you. I don’t care how many
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She had since learned that she’d been born to be a wolf.
She’d forgotten the name she’d been given, but it made no difference. She had only one name now: Death, devourer of worlds.
But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then.
“What if we go on,” he said, “only to more pain and despair? What if we go on, only to find a horrible end waiting for us?” Aelin looked northward, as if she could see all the way to Terrasen. “Then it is not the end.”
He’d never realized how precious the calm moments were.
“Even when we’re apart tomorrow, I’ll be with you every step of the way. And every step after—wherever that may be.”
“You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”
“Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”
Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”
“Dorian, we get to come back from this loss—from this darkness. We get to come back, and I came back for you.”
Regret. It had been regret she’d felt that night she’d killed the Crochan. Regret and guilt and shame, for acting on blind obedience, for being a coward when the Crochan had held her head high and spoken truth. They have made you into monsters. Made, Manon. And we feel sorry for you. It was regret that she’d felt when she heard Asterin’s tale. For not being worthy of trust.
“You make me want to live, too, Aelin Galathynius,” he said. “Not exist—but live.” He cupped her cheek, and took a steadying breath—as if he’d thought about every word these past three days, over and over again. “I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping—not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think … I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you.”
Beyond the window, the day was bright, clear. The world had ended and begun anew, and yet nothing at all had changed, either. The sun would still rise and fall, the seasons would still change, heedless of whether he was free or enslaved, prince or king, heedless of who was alive and who was gone. The world would keep moving on. It didn’t seem right, somehow.
He met her stare. No calculation, no coldness, no pity in those turquoise eyes. Just unflinching honesty, as there had been from the very start with her. “What do I do?” She had to swallow before she said, “You light up the darkness.”
The Afterworld looked an awful lot like a bedroom in the stone castle.
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.
“What was it like?” Manon asked quietly. “To love.” For love was what it had been—what Asterin perhaps alone of all the Ironteeth witches had felt, had learned. “It was like dying a little every day. It was like being alive, too. It was joy so complete it was pain. It destroyed me and unmade me and forged me. I hated it, because I knew I couldn’t escape it, and knew it would forever change me. And that witchling … I loved her, too. I loved her in a way I cannot describe—other than to tell you that it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt, greater than rage, than lust, than magic.” A soft
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“Good,” Asterin said. “We’re immortals. Things should change, and often, or they’ll get boring.”
I didn’t think saying good-bye would be so hard. And with everything that’s to come— We’ll face it together. To whatever end.
