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Had to get back. Immediately. His mate’s eyes shone with the same understanding and dread. Aelin’s throat bobbed as she whispered, “I’m so tired, Rowan.” His heart strained again. “I know, Fireheart.”
This broke me
“You want to know why?” Gavriel softly asked Lorcan as Aelin strode for the rock. Nothing but solemn reverence on her face. “Because she is not only Brannon’s Heir, but Mab’s, too.”
Gavriel went on, awe in every word, “And that makes her their queen, too.”
So she would not yield to this. What had been done. What remained. For the companions around her, to lift their despair, their fear, she wouldn’t yield. She’d fight for it, claw her way back to it, who she’d been before. Remember to swagger and grin and wink. She’d fight against that lingering stain on her soul, fight to ignore it. Would use this journey into the dark to piece herself back together—just enough to make it convincing. Even if this fractured darkness now dwelled within her, even if speech was difficult, she would show them what they wished to see. An unbroken Fire-Bringer. Aelin
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“I don’t care about me! I didn’t care about me on that beach!” “Well, I do.” His growled words echoed across the water and stone, and he lowered his voice. Worse things than wights might come sniffing down here. “I cared about you on that beach. And your queen did, too.”
“Resent me all you like,” he said, damning the hoarseness of his words. “I’m sure I’ll survive.” Hurt flashed in her eyes. “Fine,” she said, her voice brittle. He hated that brittleness more than anything he’d ever encountered. Hated himself for causing it. But he had limits to how low he’d crawl. He’d said his piece. If she wanted to wash her hands of him forever, then he would find a way to respect that. Live with it. Somehow.
“I gave you the blood oath to save your life,” she said. “But if you do not want it, Fenrys, I … we can find some way to free you—” “I want it,” Fenrys said, no trace of his usual swaggering humor. He glanced to Rowan, and bowed his head. “It is my honor to serve this court. And serve you,” he added to Aelin.
She took his hand, and he tried not to shudder in relief, tried not to fall to his knees as she slid the ruby ring onto his finger. It fit him perfectly, the ring no doubt forged for the king lying in this barrow. Silently, Rowan grasped her own hand and eased on the emerald ring. “To whatever end,” he whispered. Silver lined her eyes. “To whatever end.” A reminder—and a vow, more sacred than the wedding oaths they’d sworn on that ship. To walk this path together, back from the darkness of the iron coffin.
“We will lose this war if I do not go,” he snapped. “How do you not care about that?” “I care,” she hissed. “I care if we lose this war. I care if I fail to rally the Crochans. I care if you go into Morath and do not return, not as something worth living.” He only blinked. Manon spat on the mossy ground. “Now do you wish to tell me that caring is not such a bad thing? Well, this is what comes of it.”
“All this time, I wanted it to be you.” She lowered her gaze, but he hooked a thumb and forefinger around her chin and lifted her face. “I know you are tired, Fireheart. I know that the burden on your shoulders is more than anyone should endure.” He took their joined hands and laid them on his heart. “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.” A small sound came out of her. “Elena said the Lock requires—” “We’ll face it together,” he swore again. “And if the cost of
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“Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too.”
tilted her face up toward his. But he made no move beyond it. She frowned. “Why aren’t you kissing me?” “I thought you might want to be asked first.” “That never stopped you before.”
“You’re my mate,” he said, the words near-guttural. He nudged at her entrance, and she shifted her hips to draw him in, but he remained where he was. Withholding what she ached for until he heard what he needed. Aelin tipped back her head, baring her neck to him. “You’re my mate.” Her words were a breathless rush. “And I am yours.” Rowan thrust into her in a mighty stroke as he plunged his teeth into the side of her neck.
A member of this court. Of Lorcan’s own court. The three of them once again bound—and yet freer than they’d ever been.
So Manon nudged Abraxos, and he leaped into the sky, the Thirteen following suit. Not a child of war. But of peace.
Shall we? Aelin scowled and took his hand, letting him haul her to her feet. So pushy. Rowan slid an arm around her shoulders. That’s the most polite thing you’ve ever said about me.
He just turned to her and blinked three times. Are you all right? A gull’s cry pierced the gray world, and Aelin blinked back twice. No. It was as much as she’d admit. She blinked again, thrice now. Are you all right? Two blinks from him, too. No, they were not all right. They might never be. If the others knew, if they saw past the swagger and temper, they didn’t let on.
He took it back. He took back everything he had said to her, every moment of anger in his heart. Aedion shoved through his own men, unable to breathe, to think. He took it back; he hadn’t meant a word of it, not really. Lysandra tried to rise on her injured leg. The ilken laughed. “Please,” Aedion bellowed. The word was devoured by the screams of the dying. “Please!” He’d make any bargain, he’d sell his soul to the dark god, if they spared her. He hadn’t meant it. He took it back, all those words. Useless. He’d called her useless. Had thrown her into the snow naked. He took it back. Aedion
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But at him. Standing. Walking. The young queen let out a broken laugh of joy and flung her arms around his neck. Pain lanced down his spine at the impact, but Chaol held her right back, every question fading from his tongue. Aelin was shaking as she pulled away. “I knew you would,” she breathed, gazing down his body, to his feet, then up again. “I knew you’d do it.”
“Aelin, allow me to introduce—” “Yrene Towers,” the queen breathed as his wife stepped to his side. The two women stared at each other. Yrene’s mouth quivered as she opened the silver locket and pulled out a piece of paper. Hands trembling, she extended it to the queen. Aelin’s own hands shook as she accepted the scrap. “Thank you,” Yrene whispered.
Her grin softened as Yrene blushed, and Aelin held up the scrap of paper. “May I keep this?”
“He’s Aedion’s father.” “Well, that explains a few things,” Nesryn muttered. The hair, the broad-planed face … yes, it was the same. But where Aedion was fire, Gavriel seemed to be stone. Indeed, his eyes were solemn as he said, “Aedion is my pride.”
Prince Sartaq cut in, “Where we march will be decided after Anielle is secured.” The prince’s face remained grave, calculating—but not cold. Aelin had decided within moments that she liked him. And liked him even more when it came out that he had just been crowned the khagan’s Heir. With Nesryn as his potential bride. Potential, to Aelin’s amusement, because Nesryn herself wasn’t so keen on being empress of the mightiest empire in the world.
“Did you buy the swagger, the arrogance?” she demanded, voice breaking. “Did the others? Because I’ve been trying to. I’ve been trying like hell to convince myself that it’s real, reminding myself I only need to pretend to be how I was just long enough.” Long enough to forge the Lock and die.
Gavriel asked after a moment, “Why didn’t Aelin offer me the blood oath?” The male hadn’t asked these weeks. And Rowan wasn’t sure why Gavriel inquired now, but he gave him the truth. “Because she won’t do it until Aedion has taken the oath first. To offer it to you before him … she wants Aedion to take it first.” “In case he doesn’t wish me to be near his kingdom.” “So that Aedion knows she placed his needs before her own.” Gavriel bowed his head. “I would say yes, if she offered.” “I know.” Rowan clapped his oldest friend on the back. “She knows, too.”
we could indeed be heading north soon. You might be fighting at Aedion’s side by Yulemas.” Gavriel’s hands clenched at his sides, tattoos spreading over his knuckles. “If he will allow me that honor.” Rowan would make Aedion allow it.
“You’ll be my wife then, according to your bargain with my hearth-mother,” he said, crossing his arms. “It would be unseemly for you to kill your own husband in the Gathering.” Borte smiled with poisoned sweetness at her betrothed. “I’ll just have to kill you some other time, then.” Yeran grinned back, the portrait of wicked amusement. “Some other time, then,” he promised. Nesryn didn’t fail to note the light that gleamed in the captain’s eyes. Or the way Borte bit her lip, just barely, her breath hitching. Yeran leaned in to whisper something in Borte’s ear that made the girl’s eyes widen.
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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?”
“There’s nothing I have left to say to you. Or you to me.” Agony again rippled across his face, but she shut out what it did to her. What it did to her to see Aedion rise to his feet, groaning softly at some unspecified ache in his powerful body. For a few breaths, he just stared down at her. Then he said, “I meant every promise I made to you on that beach in Skull’s Bay.” And then he was gone.
“The Little Folk truly knew,” Fenrys mused, rubbing his jaw. “What you were.” They had always known her, the Little Folk. Had saved her life ten years ago, and saved their lives these past few weeks. They had known her, and left gifts for her. Tribute, she’d thought, to Brannon’s Heir. Not to … Gavriel murmured, “The Faerie Queen of the West.”
He’d thought he’d known everything about the female body. How to make a woman purr with pleasure. He was half-tempted to find a tent and learn firsthand what certain things felt like.
She was not a broken-spirited Wing Leader unsure of her place in the world. She was not ashamed of the truth before her. She was not afraid.
Manon’s fingers closed on the hilt, the blade singing as she whipped it around to face the High Witches again. “Rhiannon Crochan held the gates for three days and three nights, and she did not kneel before you, even at the end.” A slash of a smile. “I think I shall do the same.”
“This belongs to you,” she said, her voice low. The Crochans murmured, shifting. Glennis took the crown, and the stars dimmed. A small smile graced the crone’s face. “No,” she said, “it does not.” Manon didn’t move as Glennis lifted the crown and set it again on Manon’s head. Then the ancient witch knelt in the snow. “What was stolen has been restored; what was lost has come home again. I hail thee, Manon Crochan, Queen of Witches.”
“Queen of Witches,” Crochan and Blackbeak declared as one voice. As one people.
She had made him a promise. She had sworn him an oath, all those months ago. I will always find you.
“I promised to always find you. I promised you, and you promised me. I came for you because of it; I am here because of it. I am here for you, do you understand?
“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.”
Aedion looked away first. This would be bad enough without knowing she was here. That Lysandra would undoubtedly stay until she, too, fell. He prayed he went first. So he wouldn’t witness it.
Lucky. They had all been so, so very lucky. Yet Yrene wondered how long that luck would last. If it would see them through the brutal march northward, and to the walls of Orynth itself.
“You are one lucky bastard.” Too soon. Too damn soon after hovering near death to hear Fenrys’s drawl.
“Yes.” Her mouth tightened, but not in displeasure. So Lorcan said softly, “I meant every word.” His heart thundered, so wildly it was a wonder she couldn’t hear it. “And I will until the day I fade into the Afterworld.” Lorcan didn’t breathe as Elide gently reached out her hand. And interlaced their fingers. “I love you,” she whispered.
“Yrene said you might always have this,” she said, her hand mercifully falling away. “Then it will be the scar I treasure most.” Fenrys would laugh until he cried to hear him speak this way, but Lorcan didn’t care. To hell with the rest of them.
Elide seemed to read that on his face, and her cheeks reddened further. “Later, then,” she breathed, limping to the door. Lorcan sent a flicker of his power to wrap around her ankle. The limp vanished. A hand on the knob, she gave him a small, grateful nod. “I missed that.” He heard the unspoken words as she disappeared into the busy hall. I missed you. Lorcan allowed himself a rare smile.
But the wind did not succeed, not against the flame of the queen. So hearth to hearth, it went. To remote villages where people screamed and scattered as a young-faced woman descended from the skies on a broom, waving her torch high. Not to signal them, but the few women who did not run. Who walked toward the flame, the rider, as she called out, “Your queen summons you to war. Will you fly?”
Aelin awoke to the scent of pine and snow, and knew she was home. Not in Terrasen, not yet, but in the sense she would always be home, if Rowan was with her.
“You know why I have come, then.” Erawan smiled as he sat, pouring a goblet of wine for the female, then for himself. And all thoughts of killing vanished from Dorian’s head as the Valg king asked, “Is there any other reason you would deign to visit Morath, Maeve?”
Lysandra’s green eyes slid toward him, dim with exhaustion and sorrow. “Deep down,” she said quietly, “some part of me thought I’d live to see her sitting here.” She pointed to the dais, to where the antler throne had once been. “Deep down, I thought we might actually make it somehow. Even with Morath, and the Lock, and all of it.” There was no hope in her face. It was perhaps because of it that she bothered to speak to him. “I thought so, too,” Aedion said with equal quiet, though the words echoed in the vast, empty chamber. “I thought so, too.”
“Why does Erawan do any of this?” A week after he’d asked the Valg king himself, Dorian still wanted to—needed to know. “Because he can. Because Erawan delights in such things.” “You made it sound as if he was the mildest of all three brothers.” “He is.” She ran a hand over her throat. “Orcus and Mantyx are the ones who taught him all he knows. Should they return here, what Erawan creates in these mountains will seem like lambs.”
“Why did you leave your world?” She blinked at him, as if surprised. “What?” he asked. She angled her head. “It has been a long, long time since I conversed with someone who knows me for what I am. And with someone whose mind remained wholly their own.” “Even Aelin?” A muscle in her slim jaw feathered. “Even Aelin of the Wildfire. I could not infiltrate her mind entirely, but little things … those, I could convince her to see.”
