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A shadow darted across his harsh face. “Immortality is not as much of a gift as mortals would believe. It can breed monsters that even you would be sick to learn about. Imagine the sadists you’ve encountered—and then imagine them with millennia to hone their craft and warped desires.”
🦅 lore
“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.” “They’re that awful? Your kitty-cat friend looked decent enough.” Rowan’s brows rose high. “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.” She kept grinning, and he crossed his arms. “They would likely have very little interest in you, as you’ll be old and decrepit soon enough and thus not worth the effort it would take to win you.” She rolled
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“There were cells in the bowels of the mines that they used to punish slaves. Cells so dark you would wake up in them and think you’d been blinded. They locked me in there sometimes—once for three weeks straight. And the only thing that got me through it was reminding myself of my name, over and over and over—I am Celaena Sardothien.” Rowan’s face was drawn, but she went on. “When they would let me out, so much of my mind had shut down in the darkness that the only thing I could remember was that my name was Celaena. Celaena Sardothien, arrogant and brave and skilled, Celaena who did not know
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🧝🏼♀️ lore 🗡️
-important for when Maeve imprisons her in the iron box
But waking up between their corpses wasn’t the moment that had shattered everything Aelin Galathynius was and might have been. In the back of her mind, she heard another woman’s voice, lovely and frantic, another woman who—
Marion Lochan
“There is this … rage,” she said hoarsely. “This despair and hatred and rage that lives and breathes inside me. There is no sanity to it, no gentleness. It is a monster dwelling under my skin. For the past ten years, I have worked every day, every hour, to keep that monster locked up. And the moment I talk about those two days, and what happened before and after, that monster is going to break loose, and there will be no accounting for what I do.
🧝🏼♀️😤🗡️ lore
“That is how I was able to stand before the King of Adarlan, how I was able to befriend his son and his captain, how I was able to live in that palace. Because I did not give that rage, those memories, one inch. And right now I am looking for the tools that might destroy my enemy, and I cannot let out the monster, because it will make me use those tools against the king, not put them back as I should—and I might very well destroy the world for spite. So that is why I must be Celaena, not Aelin—because being Aelin means facing those things, and unleashing that monster. Do you understand?”
🧝🏼♀️😤🗡️ lore
His voice turned hard. “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. Tell me, do you think you will go to some blessed Afterworld, or do you expect a burning hell? You’re hoping for hell—because how could you face them in the Afterworld? Better to suffer, to be damned for eternity and—” “That’s enough,” she whispered.
🧝🏼♀️ and 🦅 shared experience of despair and rage. And it’s all caused by Maeve. They don’t even know it yet
“At least if you’re going to hell,” he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, “then we’ll be there together.”
🦅🫶🏼🧝🏼♀️
“I feel bad for the dark god already.”
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.”
He came back with the news of another demi-Fae corpse found near the coast. She asked him to let her see it, but he flat-out refused (barked at her was more like it)
he claimed to be insulted that she considered his absence a proper birthday present. She tried to embrace him, but he would have none of that, and told her as much. Still, the next time she used the bathing room, she’d snuck behind his chair at the worktable and planted a great, 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.
🧝🏼♀️🫦🦅
Rowan hadn’t told her to, but she’d gotten into a defensive position upon seeing the faint gleam in his eyes. Rowan only looked like this when he was about to make her life a living hell.
His eyes narrowed, and they had yet another of their wordless conversations. The more you talk, the more I’m going to make you pay in a moment. She smiled slightly. Apologies, master. I am yours to instruct. Brat. He jerked his chin at her.
🧝🏼♀️🦅🫦
He smirked. Afraid to play with fire, Princess? You won’t be happy if I singe your eyebrows off. Try me. “When you trained as an assassin, what was the first thing you learned?” “How to defend myself.” She understood why he’d looked so amused for the past few minutes when he said, “Good.”
🧝🏼♀️🦅🫦
Rowan smiled slowly. “We’re done for today. Go eat something.” The circular shield did not burn her, though its flames swirled and sizzled. As she’d commanded. It had … worked. So she raised her eyes to Rowan. “No. Again.”
🧝🏼♀️🗡️
But he refused to move—not from fear or terror. He slowly lifted his head—looking to where her grandmother stood—and let out a low, warning growl. A threat.
🐲🌸😤
“The night is waning,” her grandmother called, heedless of the beast that stared at her with such rage in his eyes. Sorrel and Asterin exchanged glances, and she could have sworn her Second’s hand twitched toward the hilt of her sword. Not to hurt Abraxos, but … Every single one of the Thirteen was casually reaching for their weapons. To fight their way out—in case her grandmother gave the order to have Manon and Abraxos put down. They’d heard the challenge in Abraxos’s growl—understood that the beast had drawn a line in the sand. They were not born with hearts, her grandmother said. They had
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👯♀️🐲🌸😤🫶🏼🔮
Manon gripped Abraxos’s snout, forcing his gaze away from her grandmother. “Just once,” she whispered. “All you have to do is make this jump just once, Abraxos, and then you can shut them up forever.”
🐲🌸🫶🏼🔮🗡️
Then, rising up from the deep, there came a steady two-note beat. The beat of the chained bait beasts, who hauled the massive machines around. Like a thudding heart. Or beating wings. Louder the beat sounded, as if the wyverns down in the pits knew what was happening. It grew and grew, until it reached the cavern—until Asterin reached for her shield and joined in. Until each one of the Thirteen took up the beat. “You hear that? That is for you.”
🐲🌸🫶🏼🔮🗡️👑
Manon thought that it would not be so bad to die—if it was with him, if she was not alone.
🐲🌸🫶🏼🔮🗡️
“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.”
🐲🌸🫶🏼🔮🗡️🥹
He huffed into her palms as if to say he already knew all that and that she was just wasting time. She smiled faintly, even as Abraxos cast another challenging glare in her grandmother’s direction.
🐲🌸💅
Still, the beat did not stop, not from the wyverns or from the Thirteen or from the Blackbeak covens, who picked it up, stomping their feet or clapping their hands. Not from the Blueblood heir, who clapped her sword against her dagger, or the Blueblood witches who followed her lead. The entire mountain shook with the sound.
🐲🌸🔮🗡️👑
each morning brought something new, something harder and different and miserable. Gods, he was brilliant. Cunning and wicked and brilliant. Even when he beat the hell out of her. Every. Damn. Day.
“You’re old as hell,” she said. “You must have considered that we’re dealing with a few of them, given how vast the territory is. What if the one we saw in the barrows wasn’t even the creature responsible for these bodies?” He narrowed his eyes, but conceded a nod.
She held out a hand for Rowan’s dagger, still possessing none of her own. He hesitated as she looked up at him. Only for the afternoon, he seemed to growl as he pressed the hilt into her open palm. She yanked down the dagger. I know, I know. I haven’t earned my weapons back yet. Don’t get your feathers ruffled.
“Tell me,” Rowan growled, the words barely understandable as he seemed to struggle to rein in the killing edge he rode in response to the threat lurking somewhere in these woods.
🦅😤🗡️🫦
Rowan ground his jaw and stalked through the area, examining the ground, the trees, the rocks. “Burn the body, Aelin.” He removed the sheath and belt that had housed the dagger still dangling from her hand and tossed them to her. She caught them with her free hand. “We’re going hunting.”
🧝🏼♀️🦅🗡️
And then, Princess,” he said with a wild grin, “we are going to have some fun.”
🦅👹🗡️🫦
We need to get a closer look.” She raised her brows at Rowan, who gave her a hunter’s smile.
🦅👹🗡️🫦
“I knew you’d be useful someday.” Rowan just snorted and shifted,
🦅👹🗡️🫦
Lifted her chin and smiled into the dark. “I’m glad you received my invitation.” Not a hint of sound or movement. “Your four friends decided to come uninvited to my last campfire—and it didn’t end well for them. But I’m sure you know that already.”
🧝🏼♀️🗡️-Skinwalkers
Glancing at the demi-Fae assembled, their attention wholly on Rowan, she could see that they clung to that steadiness, that cold determination and clever mind—and centuries of experience. She envied him for it. And beneath that, with a growing heaviness she could not control, she wished that when she left this continent … she wouldn’t go alone.
🧝🏼♀️🫶🏼🦅
He gripped her wrist. “Don’t do that.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Don’t look at me like that.” “Like what?” “With that … disgust.” “I’m not—” But he gave her a sharp look. She sighed. “This … all this, Rowan …” She waved a hand to the map, to the doors the demi-Fae had passed through, to the sounds of people readying their supplies and defenses in the courtyard. “For whatever it’s worth, all of this just proves that she doesn’t deserve you. I think you know that, too.” He looked away. “That isn’t your concern.” “I know. But I thought you should still hear it.” He didn’t respond, wouldn’t
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Rowan swallowed once. Twice. “There was … there was an uprising at the Calaculla labor camp,” he said. Her heart stumbled on a beat. “After Princess Nehemia was assassinated, they say a slave girl killed her overseer and sparked an uprising. The slaves seized the camp.” He took a shallow breath. “The King of Adarlan sent two legions to get the slaves under control. And they killed them all.” “The slaves killed his legions?” A push of breath. There were thousands of slaves in Calaculla—all of them together would be a mighty force, even for two of Adarlan’s legions. With horrific gentleness,
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He murmured her name too softly for the others to hear. And the sound of it, that name that had once been a promise to the world, the name she had spat on and defiled, the name she did not deserve …
🧝🏼♀️👑💔
So she burned and burned and burned.
🧝🏼♀️👑💔
“If you stay, I stay,” Sorscha said. “You cannot convince me otherwise.” “Please,” he said, because he didn’t have it in him to yell, not with the deaths of those people hanging over him. “Please …” But she brushed her thumb across his cheek. “Together. We’ll face this together.” And it was selfish and horrible of him, but he put up no further argument.
Sorscha and Dorian 🫶🏼🥺
He didn’t turn as Chaol set down his candle and sat beside him. “What do you suppose,” Aedion breathed, staring into the darkness, “the people on other continents, across all those seas, think of us? Do you think they hate us or pity us for what we do to each other? Perhaps it’s just as bad there. Perhaps it’s worse. But to do what I have to do, to get through it … I have to believe it’s better. Somewhere, it’s better than this.” Chaol had no answer. “I have …” Aedion’s teeth gleamed in the light. “I have been forced to do many, many things. Depraved, despicable things. Yet nothing made me
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💔😔🧔🏼♀️, so so broken
There was not one empty seat in the Royal Theater that night. Every box and tier was crammed with nobility, merchants, whoever could afford the ticket. Jewels and silk gleamed in the light of the glass chandeliers, the riches of a conquering empire. The news about the slave massacres had struck that afternoon, spreading through the city on a wave of murmuring, leaving only silence behind. The upper tiers of the theater were unusually still, as if the audience had come to be soothed, to let the music sweep away the stain of the news. Only the boxes were full of chatter. About what this meant
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The performance of the orchestra, playing the songs of the slaughtered people of 🏰 after the massacres at Calaculla and Endovier
So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to whatever end.”
🧝🏻♀️🫶🏼🦅
Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of her, and said, “Fireheart.”
🥺🫶🏼🧝🏻♀️🦅
“You actually called for aid?” His eyes narrowed. I just said that I did.
What changed your mind? Some things are worth the risk.
as she approached and said with every ember left in her shredded heart, “I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”
🧝🏻♀️🫶🏼🦅🥹
Such icy calculation. Purebred, undiluted warrior. She could almost feel the aggression pouring off him.
🦅😤🫦
“Aelin,” Rowan snapped, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Get inside the gates.” But she slung her bow across her back, and when she raised her hand, it was consumed with fire. “In the woods that night, it balked from the flame.” “To use it, you’ll have to get outside the barrier, or it’ll just rebound against the walls.” “I know,” she said quietly. “The last time, you took one look at that thing and fell under its spell.” The darkness lashed again. “It won’t be like last time,” she said, eyes on Narrok, on his three creatures.
🧝🏻♀️🗡️
She began walking toward the stones, and Rowan growled. “Do not take one more step—”
🦅😤🫦🧝🏻♀️
Rowan said, “Do not engage them. You focus on that darkness and keeping it away from the barrier, and that’s it. Hold the line, Aelin.” But she didn’t want to hold the line—not when her enemy was so close. Not when the weight of those souls at Calaculla and Endovier pressed on her, screaming as loudly as the soldiers inside the fortress. She had failed all of them. She had been too late. And it was enough. But she nodded, like the good soldier Rowan believed she was, and said, “Understood.”
Classic 🧝🏻♀️, lying straight to his face
