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“You left me,” she repeated. Maybe it was only out of blind terror at the abyss opening up again around her, but she whispered, “I have no one left. No one.”
Elentiya. Spirit that cannot be broken. Lies, lies, lies.
“I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”
Why are you crying, Fireheart?
Fireheart—why do you cry? “Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”
“You can control your power in human form—keep it dormant. But the moment you switch, the moment you get agitated or angry or afraid, the moment you remember how much your power scares you, your magic rises up to protect you. It doesn’t understand that you are the source of those feelings, not some external threat. When there is an outside threat, when you forget to fear your power long enough, you have control. Or some control.”
I am safe, she told it. Relatively safe.
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.”
There were still truths she hadn’t confessed to, stains on her soul she couldn’t yet explore or express. But maybe—maybe he wouldn’t walk away whenever she did find the courage to tell him.
“Maybe we could find the way back together.”
“You touch him again,” Manon said, “and I’ll drink the marrow from your bones.”
And she couldn’t talk about Chaol, couldn’t explain just how much he had rebuilt and then shattered her heart, not without explaining Endovier. Not without explaining how one day, she didn’t know how distant, she was going back to Endovier and freeing them all. Each and every slave, even if she had to unshackle them all herself.
“Second—whatever we are, whatever this is? I’m still figuring it out, too. So if I’m going to give you the space you deserve to sort yourself out, then you can damn well give it to me.” She studied him for a moment, their breath mingling. “Deal,” she said.
“She was not becoming anything different from what she always was and always had the capacity to be. You just finally saw everything. And once you saw that other part of her …,”
“You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love.”
“you do not have the right to wish she were not what she is. The only thing you have a right to do is decide whether you are her enemy or her friend.”
She had not walked away or wished him to be anything but what he was. I’ll come back for you.
Aedion shoved down a flicker of regret. He’d been raised better than that—he knew better than to act like an arrogant, hotheaded prick.
the fact remains, Captain, that you have not picked a side because you are still a boy, and you are still afraid. Not of losing innocent lives, but of losing whatever dream it is you’re clinging to.
Your prince has moved on, my queen has moved on. But you have not. And it will cost you in the end.”
He should have known better—should have known that when she did react to something like that, it meant the scars went deep.
“The thought of you with any of my companions makes my blood run cold.”
“I don’t think my kitty-cat friend would know what to do with you—nor would any of the others. It would likely end in bloodshed.”
And the only thing that got me through it was reminding myself of my name, over and over and over—I am Celaena Sardothien.”
“First chocolates on my birthday, now an actual compliment?”
Afraid to play with fire, Princess? You won’t be happy if I singe your eyebrows off. Try me.
He was right—he was always right, and she hated that. Almost as much as she hated the power that flooded her and did what it wanted. It was hers to command—not the other way around.
She was no one’s slave anymore.
“You are one of the Thirteen,” she said to him. “From now until the Darkness cleaves us apart. You are mine, and I am yours. Let’s show them why.”
though she could have sworn she occasionally felt their magic … playing together, her flame taunting his ice, his wind dancing amongst her embers.
There was still such a mighty hole in her chest. A hole that grew bigger, not smaller, and that no one could fix, not even if she took Rowan to bed.
but Chaol had been what she needed after losing Sam, after surviving the mines.
“It’s a useless hope to cling to, anyway.” “Do you want the truth?” She tucked her chin into her tunic and closed her eyes. “Not tonight.”
“Believe me, I can and I will.”
Scared, Princess? Yes, and wisely so.
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.
“I have been forced to do many, many things. Depraved, despicable things. Yet nothing made me feel as filthy as I did today, thanking that man for murdering my people.”
“They also had the luxury of knowing that their bloodline did not end with them.” She gritted her teeth. “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.”
And when she grasped the dagger, its weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of her, and said, “Fireheart.”
What changed your mind? Some things are worth the risk.
“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”
It doesn’t matter. Even if we survive, when we go to Doranelle, you will walk out of Maeve’s realm alone.
“What is it, Fireheart?”
Wherever you go, Aelin,” she whispered, “no matter how far, this will lead you home.”
She had taken Lady Marion’s sacrifice and become a monster, almost as bad as the one who had murdered Lady Marion and her own family. That was why she could not, did not, go home.
Her cheek against the moss, the young princess she had been—Aelin Galathynius—reached a hand for her. “Get up,” she said softly.
One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire.
There was solid ground beneath her. Moss and grass. Not hell—earth. The earth on which her kingdom lay, green and mountainous and as unyielding as its people. Her people.
She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. 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. She was not afraid.
