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Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …
training and scouting permitted it, watching
of
Not a single scar.
They had taken her scars. Maeve had taken them all away.
There were no scars where there should have been. The almost-necklace of them from Baba Yellowlegs: gone. The shackle marks from Endovier: gone. The scar where she’d been forced by Arobynn Hamel to break her own arm: gone. And on her palms …
Even the twin bite marks, his mark of claiming, had vanished.
As Kaltain Rompier, clad in an onyx gown and dark hair unbound, smiled sadly at him.
not an untrained, useless shape-shifter against Morath.”
“You ruined everything.” His words were colder than the wind outside. “You, and her.”
“But we’ll face this together. Erawan, the Lock, all of it. We’ll face it together. And when we are done, when you Settle, we will have a thousand years together. Longer.”
“And if the cost of it truly is you, then we’ll pay it together. As one soul in two bodies.”
Terrasen was her home. And Aelin her queen.
For Terrasen, she would do this. For Aelin.
Chaol was inclined to agree as Aelin Galathynius, Rowan Whitethorn, and several others entered the tent.
“Yrene Towers,” the queen breathed as his wife stepped to his side.
“It is yours, as it always was. A piece of your bravery that helped me find my own.”
“The threads of fate weave together in strange ways,”
Like I’m at the bottom of the sea, and who I am, who I was, is far up at the surface, and I will never get back there again.”
“But I have never felt as humiliated as I did when you threw me into the snow. When you called me a lying bitch in front of our friends and allies. Never.” She hated the angry tears that stung her eyes. “I was once forced to crawl before men. And gods above, I nearly crawled for you these months. And yet it takes me nearly dying for you to realize that you’ve been an ass? It takes me nearly dying for you to see me as human again?”
“I wanted it to be you,”
“And you threw me into the snow.”
Death had been her curse and her gift and her friend for these long, long years.
At the small rider and the mighty horse racing across it.
“I love you,” he whispered in Elide’s ear. “I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken.” Her tears flowed past him in the wind. “And I will be with you …” His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. “I will be with you always.”
Maeve’s death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen’s salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.
Dorian had gone to Morath. And had taken the two Wyrdkeys with him.
Rolfe’s fleet. The Mycenians.
“Light the Flame of War, Queen of Witches, and rally your host.”
“You are not a very skilled spy, King of Adarlan.”
And there is only one witch who will be my queen.
Dorian smiled and brought Morath’s towers crashing down.
“Together, Fireheart,”
“It would have been an honor,” Ren said. “To serve in this court. With you.”
for—something you care so greatly for that losing it is the worst thing you can imagine.”
“For those we love …” He dared to look up at Lysandra, whose green eyes were lined with silver. “For those we love, we can rise above that fear. Remember that tomorrow.
“I lost my family ten years ago. Tomorrow I will fight for the new one I’ve made.”
Aelin and Aedion had told her of the legendary flower, which had bloomed across the mountains and fields the day Brannon had set foot on this continent, proof of the peace he brought with him.
Soldiers still fell back from the city walls as Manon Blackbeak and her Thirteen landed along them, right before Aedion and Lysandra.
A crown of stars. For the last Crochan Queen.
“See for yourself.”
Then there was nothing.
She had never had a brother, or a father. She hadn’t yet decided which one she would like Aedion to be.
She was glad to have him leave it at that. At the happiness.
“I’m glad to be here, too, Fireheart.”
For however much longer the gods would allow it.
“But I should like to try. With you.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “For however long we have.”
Dorian lifted a hand, his face grave as death, even as his eyes widened at the sight of her. But Aelin sensed it then. What Dorian carried. The Wyrdkeys. All three of them.
“You have never accepted anything in your life,” Rowan snarled, shooting to his feet and bracing his hands on the table. “And now you are suddenly willing to do so?”
