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“You must be very important to Her Immortal Majesty if she put you on nurse duty.” “Given your history, she didn’t trust anyone but her best to keep you in line.”
She didn’t want to know how he’d read her thoughts.
omg are they mates
“Once all that is done,” she said, smiling faintly at her wyvern, “you and I are going to learn how to fly. And then we’ll stain this kingdom red.”
Bad. Ass.
“What do you see when you look at her, Prince?” He didn’t know. These days, he didn’t know a damn thing. “That’s none of your concern, either.” Emrys ran a hand over his weathered face. “I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”
When Luca was safely home, she would start finding ways to make Rowan’s life a living hell.
She scowled at Rowan, his tattoo even more detailed now that she was seeing it with Fae eyes. “It gives me comfort to know that people like you have a special place in hell waiting for them.”
You think any of us like to hear you two cursing and screaming every afternoon? The language you use is enough to curdle all the milk in Wendlyn.”
“How—how did you come back from that kind of loss?” “I didn’t. For a long while I couldn’t. I think I’m still … not back. I might never be.” She nodded, lips pressed tight, and glanced toward the window. “But maybe,” he said, quietly enough that she looked at him again. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were inquisitive. “Maybe we could find the way back together.”
He held out a hand. “Together, then.”
“Together,” she said, and took his outstretched hand. And somewhere far and deep inside her, an ember began to glow.
“All I want,” he snarled, “is for my people to be free and my queen restored to her throne.” “They burned the antler throne, Aedion. There is no throne for her.” “Then I’ll build one myself from the bones of our enemies.”
“You touch him again,” Manon said, “and I’ll drink the marrow from your bones.”
She yawned, and Rowan rubbed his eyes, his other hand still in hers. But he didn’t let go. And when she awoke before dawn, warm and safe and rested, Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest.
“At least if you’re going to hell,” he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, “then we’ll be there together.”
Her birthday arrived—nineteen somehow felt rather dull—and her sole present was that Rowan left her alone for a few hours.
So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to whatever end.”
“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”
She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness.
“To whatever end?” He nodded, and she joined hands with him, blood to blood and soul to soul, his other arm coming around to grip her tightly.
When Celaena got back, when she returned as she’d sworn she would … Then they would set about changing the world together.
She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.
And then Celaena set the world on fire.
“Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?” She did not know the right words or the Old Language, but a blood oath wasn’t about pretty phrases. “I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end.”
There were no words to do justice to what passed between them in that moment.
He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known, from the moment they’d met, when he’d understood that the prince was his brother in soul. “I love you.”
Crying
“If I’d known you would be such a pain in the ass, I never would have let you swear that oath.”
“I am going, Rowan. I will gather the rest of my court—our court—and then we will raise the greatest army the world has ever witnessed. I will call in every favor, every debt owed to Celaena Sardothien, to my parents, to my bloodline. And then …” She looked toward the sea, toward home. “And then I am going to rattle the stars.”
She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—and she would not be afraid.
