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“Essar visited Mistward this spring. She met Aelin.” He cut a glare toward Lorcan. “And asked me to tell you that she sends her best.”
I don’t remember this lol
She had to be there. Aelin had to be there. If they had come so close but wound up being the very thing that had caused Maeve to take Aelin away again, to bring her along to the outpost …
No! Be optimistic! You’ll get Aelin back 👊🏼
They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here.
The Crochans ignored her.
GODDMANIT SJM I WANT TO READ SEE THEM RESCUE AELIN! I don’t care about the Crochans rn!!
His magic had touched that stolen shifter’s power—had learned it just enough before he’d killed the spider. It was now a matter of convincing his magic to become like that shifter’s power. Whether it had ever been done with raw magic before, he did not know.
Ohhhh so *tgat’s* how it works…
“He and the blue one are mates.” Asterin started. “They’re what?” The Crochan pointed to the blue mare huddled beside Abraxos. “He is smaller, yet he dotes on her. Nuzzles her when no one is looking.” Manon exchanged a glance with Asterin. Their mounts incessantly flirted, yes, but to mate— “Interesting,” Manon managed to say. “You didn’t know they did such things?” Karsyn’s brows knotted. “We knew they bred.” Asterin stepped in at last. “But we haven’t witnessed it being for … choice.” “For love,” the Crochan said, and Manon nearly rolled her eyes. “These beasts, despite their dark master,
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What a metaphor for Dorian and Manon
Abraxos lifted his head from where it rested atop Narene’s back and looked toward them, as if to say, It took you long enough to figure it out.
I would love to have Abraxos speak to Manon like the dragons in Fourth Wing speak to their riders! I feel like the commentary would be hysterical 😂
But the hours in this tent hadn’t yielded any sort of intimacy. Only blessed distraction. For both of them. He was glad of it, he told himself. None of this could end well. For either of them.
Who are u lying to Dorian? You obviously care for Manon and she cares for u!
“You can descend to those levels when you are angry, when your friends are threatened. But you are not cold, not at heart. I’ve seen men who are, and you are not.”
“Is it so bad, to care?” The gods knew he’d been struggling to do so himself. “I don’t know how to,” she growled.
Yes you do, Manon! U just realize u do
“You do care. You know it, too. It’s what makes you so damn scared of all this.”
Thank you Dorian!!
“Caring doesn’t make you weak,” he offered. “Then why don’t you heed your own advice?” “I care.” His temper rose to meet hers. And he decided to hell with it—decided to let go of that leash he’d put on himself. Let go of that restraint. “I care about more than I should. I even care about you.” Another wrong thing to say. Manon stood—as high as the tent would allow. “Then you’re a fool.” She shoved on her boots and stomped into the frigid night.
Manon you dummy! 🙈
“Your eyes are brown.”
OMG he did it!!
Cairn had let her rot in the box for a while. It was quieter here, no endless, droning roar of the river.
I swear to God if Aelin doesn’t get rescued in this chapter I will revolt
Nothing but that pressure, building and building and building under her skin, in her head. She could not outrun it, even in oblivion.
Is she going to just explode once she’s released from the box? 🫢
copse of trees
I swear I’d never heard of the word “copse” before reading this series and I think it’s SJM’s favorite phrase
Aelin swallowed once. Twice. The portrait of uncertain fear as she lay chained on the metal table, Cairn waiting for her answer. And then she said, her voice cracking, “When you finish breaking me apart for the day, how does it feel to know that you are still nothing?”
Even to the end (even though this isn’t the end and she is not dying on my watch!), Aelin is still a badass
Fenrys strained against his invisible bindings as Aelin glanced at him, toward where he’d sat for the past two days, in that same damned spot by the tent wall. Despair shone in her eyes. True despair, without light or hope. The sort of despair that wished for death. The sort of despair that began to erode strength, to eat away at any resolve to endure. She blinked at him. Four times. I am here, I am with you. Fenrys knew it for what it was. The final message. Not before death, but before the sort of breaking that no one would walk away from. Before Maeve returned with the Wyrdstone collar.
OMG is Fenrys going to try and break the blood oath from Maeve in order to save Aelin???
Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey. He would not obey. And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.
YES FENRYS BREAK FREEEE
But Fenrys put one paw forward. His claws dug into the ground. Cairn’s face paled at that step. That impossible step.
YES BE SCARED YOU PUNK ASS BITCH
He’d reached the first of the hollows that flowed to the camp edge, the dips narrow and steep, when Aelin Galathynius appeared.
OMG SHE MADE IT!!! But I swear to God if Rowan gets captured instead I will throw hands!!
She hears Rowan!!
“Fenrys.” Her breath was a wet rasp. A plea. A broken, bloody plea. Fenrys remained with Cairn. In the camp. Aelin pointed again, sobbing. Rowan turned from his mate. The rage in Rowan’s eyes could devour the world. And that rage was about to extract the sort of vengeance only a mated male could command. Rowan’s canines flashed, but his voice was deadly soft as he said to Lorcan, “Take her to the glen.” A jerk of his chin to Gavriel. “You’re with me.” With a final look toward Aelin, his frozen rage a brewing storm on the wind, the prince and the Lion were gone, charging back toward the
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OMG they’re going back for Fenrys!! 🥹
Rowan didn’t know where to look first. At the wolf and Fae male sprawled on the floor. Or at the iron coffin across the tent. The iron box they’d locked her in. Had to reinforce, it seemed, from the sloppy welding on the thick slabs atop it. The box was so small. So narrow. The smell of her blood, her fear, saturated the tent. Emanated from that box. A metal table lay nearby. And beneath it … Rowan took in the three unlit braziers set beneath it, the chain anchors at the head and foot of the table, and at last looked toward the Fae male left bloodied, but still alive, on the floor across from
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OMG they’re seeing what it was like the last two months 🫢
By the time Cairn awoke, chained to that metal table, Rowan was ready.
Oh boy things are gonna get gory aren’t they… 😳
Then Cairn beheld the frozen rage in Rowan’s eyes. Understood what he intended to do with that sharp, sharp knife. A dark stain spread across the front of Cairn’s pants.
What’s a word that I can call him that’s worse than a coward?? Bc that’s what Cairn is the piece of absolute shit that he is
Rowan wrapped an ice-kissed wind around the tent, blocking out all sound, and began.
Oh good I don’t need to read about anyone else getting tortured (even if Cairn deserves it)
Also I thought other MMC in fantasy books were ruthless, but Rowan might be taking the cake right now…
The queen dropped to her knees, bowing over them, and clawed at the mask. It didn’t so much as move. Elide glanced to Lorcan. He was frozen, eyes wide as Aelin knelt in the moss, as her breathing became edged with sobs.
Aelin is finally breaking down 🫢
He moved behind her, and Elide stared at the horrible mask, the suns and flames carved and embossed along its ancient surface.
WAIT!!! What if this is the same mask from ACOSF that Nesta wears???
Elide flinched as flame, golden and blazing, erupted around the queen. The shift burned away into ashes.
Is this her blowing up from all the pent up magic??
And through the fire, Aelin’s now-long hair half hiding her nakedness, Elide got a good look at what had been done to her. Aside from a bruise along her ribs, there was nothing. Not a mark. Not a callus. Not a single scar. The ones Elide had marked in those days before Aelin had been taken were gone. As if someone had wiped them away.
So are all of her tattoos, scars from Endovier, and everything gone??
Healers could remove scars, yes, but the most likely reason for the lack of them on Aelin, on all the places where he’d once traced them with his hands, his mouth … It was new skin. All of it. Save for her face, since he doubted they would be stupid enough to take off the mask. Nearly every inch of her was covered in new skin, unvarnished as fresh snow. The blood coating her had burned away to reveal it. New skin, because they’d needed to replace what had been destroyed. To heal her so they could begin again and again.
Even the twin bite marks, his mark of claiming, had vanished.
Sad 🥺
“Holy gods,” Lorcan breathed as Aelin extended her bleeding forearm to Fenrys’s mouth. “Holy rutting gods.” For Fenrys’s loyalty, for his sacrifice, there was no greater reward she could offer. To keep him from death, there was no other way to save him. Only this. Only the blood oath.
Here come the tears 😭
She spoke again, that queen’s face unfaltering. Live. She’d use the blood oath to force him to remain on this side of life. Still Fenrys didn’t stir.
OMG so smart and so sad
His gaze met Rowan’s, and Rowan smiled, bowing his head. “Welcome to the court, pup,” he said, his voice thick.
Silent as wraiths, they appeared across the glen. As if they’d simply sparked into existence in the shade of the foliage. Little bodies, some pale, some black as night, some scaled. Mostly concealed, save for spindly fingers and wide, unblinking eyes. Elide gasped. “The Little Folk.”
OMG are the Little Folk here to help?!??!
Aelin continued as well. So Rowan followed her, as he would follow her until his last breath, and beyond it.
Dorian had brown eyes for three days before he figured out how to change them back to blue.
HAHAHAHA Dorian u silly king
Asterin and Vesta teased him about it mercilessly as they’d traveled down through the spine of the Fangs, dramatically bemoaning the absence of his pretty bluebell eyes, and had sighed to the heavens when the sapphire hue had returned.
HAHAHA I love these friendships so much
Who did he wish to be? Anyone but himself. But what he’d become.
Yet it was not Gavin who emerged, shimmering, from the night air. Dorian’s magic flared, rallying to strike, as the figure took form. As Kaltain Rompier, clad in an onyx gown and dark hair unbound, smiled sadly at him.
OMG Kaltain!! 🥹
Kaltain stared down at where he knelt. “I never had friends of my own. Not as you have. I always envied you for it. You, and Aelin.” He lifted his head. “You know who she is?” A hint of a smile. “Death has its advantages.”
Even dead, Kaltain still has a some sarcasm lol
He couldn’t stop his next question. “Is—is it better there? Are you at peace?” “I am not allowed to say,” Kaltain replied softly, her eyes shining with understanding. “And I am not allowed to say who dwells here with me.”
No insight from beyond the grave I guess 🤷🏻♀️
“How did you do it?” he whispered. “How did you break free of its control?” He had to know. If he was walking into hell itself, if it was more than likely he’d wind up with a new collar around his throat, he had to know. Kaltain studied his neck before she met his stare. “Because I raged against it. Because I did not feel that I deserved the collar.” The truth of her words slammed into him as surely as if she’d shoved his chest. Kaltain only asked, “You drew
Wow… that’s a harsh truth
He made to touch his face, but found he had no hands. Only soot-black wings. Only an ebony beak that allowed no words past it. A raven. A— A soft inhale of air had him twisting his neck—far more easily in this form—toward the trees. Toward Manon, standing in the shadows of an oak, her bloody, filthy hand braced against the trunk as she stared at him. At the transformation.
OMG it worked! He fully shifted!
But Manon’s lip curled back from her teeth. Her golden eyes glowed like embers. “When, exactly, were you going to inform me that you were about to retrieve the third Wyrdkey?”
Uh-oh… Manon’s mad…
Terasen’s
Typo lol
She studied the tattoo snaking down the side of his face and neck, vanishing into his dark clothes. I am your mate. She had wanted to believe him, but this dream, this illusion she’d been spun … Not an illusion. He had come for her. Rowan. Rowan Whitethorn. Now Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, her husband and king-consort. Her mate. She mouthed his name. He had come for her. Rowan. Silently, so smoothly that not even the white wolf awoke, she sat up, a hand clutching the cloak that smelled of pine and snow. His cloak, his scent woven through the fibers.
OMG she’s finally registering that it’s really him 🥹
He was here. It was him, and he’d come for her.
