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feral smile, and he grabbed her by the chin—not hard enough to hurt, but to get her to look at him.
He’d been a fool once, swearing he would tear the world apart for Celaena. A boy in love with a wildfire—or believing he was in love with one.
Gods, she had no interest in him like that, and she was certain he had no inclination to take her to his bed, either.
“I’m sorry,” Rowan hissed, swearing again, and the air vanished.
His breath caught, harsh enough that she looked over her shoulder. But his eyes weren’t on her face. Or the water. They were on her bare back. Curled as she was against her knees, he could see the whole expanse of ruined flesh, each scar from the lashings. “Who did that to you?” It would have been easy to lie, but she was so tired, and he had saved her useless hide. So she said, “A lot of people. I spent some time in the Salt Mines of Endovier.”
“You were a slave.” She gave him a slow nod. He opened his mouth, but shut it and swallowed, that lethal rage winking out.
Her back. Rowan soared over the trees, riding and shaping the winds to push him onward, faster, their roar negligible to the bellowing in his head.
In the grand sense of things, her back wasn’t even close to some of those wounds. Yet when he’d seen it, his heart had clean stopped—and for a moment, there had been an overwhelming silence
He’d been such a proud fool that he’d assumed she’d lashed out because she was nothing more than a child.
He gripped the winds with his magic, choking off their current. Aelin … Aelin had not trusted him—had not wanted him to know.
Not a need for her, but a need to protect—a male’s duty and honor.
In the flickering dark, he said roughly, “You’re staying with me from now on.”
He took a long breath that made his broad chest expand. “Tell me how you were sent there—and how you got out.”
She yawned, and Rowan rubbed his eyes, his other hand still in hers.
Oh, he was definitely fussing, and though it warmed her miserable heart, it was becoming rather irritating.
“Tell me which one of your little cadre is the handsomest, and if he would fancy me.” Rowan choked. “The thought of you with any of my companions makes my blood run cold.”
And the only thing that got me through it was reminding myself of my name, over and over and over—I am Celaena Sardothien.”
They don’t just kill you in the mines—they break you.
“But I also think you like to suffer. You collect scars because you want proof that you are paying for whatever sins you’ve committed. And I know this because I’ve been doing the same damn thing for two hundred years.
“At least if you’re going to hell,” he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, “then we’ll be there together.”
After a long while he murmured, “I have no doubt that you’ll be able to free the slaves from the labor camps some day. No matter what name you use.”
And he’d returned to Celaena with chocolates, since he claimed to be insulted that she considered his absence a proper birthday present. She
smacking kiss on his cheek. He’d waved her off and wiped his face with a snarl, but she had the suspicion that he’d let her get past his defenses.
“First chocolates on my birthday, now an actual compliment?”
He was right—he was always right, and she hated that.
“For how many mornings in a row?” “This is the fourth, Prince,” the same sentry replied.
And when it reached her, she shielded—swift, strong, sure. A warrior on a battlefield.
Her master had been a monster, there was no doubt of that. But he had trained her thoroughly.
he never lightened her training, though she could have sworn she occasionally felt their magic … playing together, her flame taunting his ice, his wind dancing amongst her embers.
Gods, he was brilliant. Cunning and wicked and brilliant.
Until shielding was an instinct, until she could hurl arrows and daggers of flame together, until she knocked him on his ass.
Sometimes, though, her dreams were of a brown-eyed man in an empire across the sea. Sometimes she’d awaken and reach for the warm, male body beside hers, only to realize it was not the captain—that she would never again lie next to Chaol, not after what had happened. And when she remembered that, it sometimes hurt to breathe.
Rowan slung his shirt over his head to get at the weapons strapped beneath, revealing his broad back, muscled and scarred and glorious. Fine—some very feminine, innate part of her appreciated that.
“I tried to kill him. I mauled his face, then held a dagger over his heart because I thought he was responsible for Nehemia’s death. I would have done it if someone hadn’t stopped me. If Chaol—if he’d truly been my mate, I wouldn’t have been able to do that, would I?”
So we’re going back to the stream, and we’re going to find something to eat. And then, Princess,” he said with a wild grin, “we are going to have some fun.”
She pressed her face into Rowan’s chest. His arms were solid as walls, his assortment of weapons just as reassuring.
Celaena and Rowan held tight to each other and did not dare close their eyes for the entirety of the night.
she wished that when she left this continent … she wouldn’t go alone.
“Don’t do that.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Don’t look at me like that.” “Like what?” “With that … disgust.”
So she left Rowan in the hall. But it did not stop her from wishing she could keep him.
She had abandoned them—and she had been too late.
Rowan’s face swam as she panted, panted, faster and faster— He murmured her name too softly for the others to hear.
So she burned and burned and burned.
Oh, Chaol. He understood completely now why he had sent Celaena to Wendlyn—understood that his return to Anielle … Chaol had sold himself to get Celaena to safety.
“Together. We’ll face this together.”
Yet nothing made me feel as filthy as I did today, thanking that man for murdering my people.”
The next morning, by royal decree, the theater was shut down. No one saw those musicians or their conductor again.
His eyes flickered. “Aelin.” When she only gazed into the darkening forest, he suddenly said, “You do not have to stay—we can go to Doranelle tonight, and you can retrieve your knowledge from Maeve. You have my blessing.”
“You have experience—you are needed here. You are the only person who can give the demi-Fae a chance of surviving; you are trusted and respected. So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to whatever end.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. But his brows narrowed slightly. “To whatever end?” She nodded.
