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Actually, I believe the title our esteemed friends in the empire now like to use is ‘fire-breathing bitch-queen.’ ”
“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.
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.”
“Even before I knew who you were, Aelin, I knew that what you were working toward … It was worth it.” “What is?” Her throat tightened. “A world where people like me don’t have to hide.”
“Thank you for the oil,” he added. “My skin was a little dry.”
But if it was death separating us … I would find you.
“But would you bleed red, or black?” “I’ll bleed whatever color you tell me to.”
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.”
“You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”
One sentence just for Aelin Galathynius; one sentence that changed everything: WITCH KILLER— THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM
“Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”
She looked at them, at the three males who meant everything—more than everything. 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.”
They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.
In a voice she had never heard, the king whispered, “My boy.” Dorian didn’t react. The king gazed up at his son, his eyes wide—bright—and said again, “My boy.” Then the king looked to where she was on her knees, gaping at him. “Have you come to save me at last, Aelin Galathynius?”
And the wounds on this castle, on the city—those would heal, too. He’d stood on battlefields after the killing had stopped, the earth still wet with blood, and lived to see the scars slowly heal, decade after decade, on the land, the people. So, too, would Rifthold heal.
“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.”
We are the masters of our own fates—we decide how to go forward.”
my people cannot see the worth of a woman who sold herself into slavery for the sake of a child, who defended my court with no thought for her own life, then they are not my people. And they can burn in hell.”
And at long last, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was home.
