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“You cannot pick and choose what parts of her to love.”
“As for Celaena,” he said again, “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.”
“He told me that on the night they sailed back into the islands, they saw something standing on an outcropping of rocks, just on the border of the eastern islands. Looked like a pale man, but … not. Rolfe might be in love with himself, but he’s not a liar. He said whatever—whoever—it was felt wrong
“Rolfe and his men swore that this was nothing from legend. It was made, they said.”
“It bore a black collar—like a pet. It took a step toward them, as if to go into the sea and hunt them down, but it was yanked back by some invisible hand—some hidden leash.”
It was her night, her mother had said—a night when a fire-bearing girl had nothing to fear, no powers to hide. Aelin Fireheart, people had whispered as she bounded past, embers streaming from her like ribbons, Aedion and a few of her more lethal court members trailing as indulgent guards. Aelin of the Wildfire
Though she did catch a few females looking at him with far warmer interest. She wanted to claw their faces off for it.
Maybe it was just from spending so much time in her Fae body that she felt … territorial. Territorial and grumpy and mean. Last night, she had growled at a female in the kitchen who would not stop staring at him and had actually taken a step toward him as if to say hello.
Curled as she was against her knees, he could see the whole expanse of ruined flesh, each scar from the lashings. “Who did that do to you?”
She’d burned him again. And yet he had held on to her—had run all the way here and not let go once.
Primal anger sharpened in his gut, brimming with a territorial, possessive need. Not a need for her, but a need to protect—a male’s duty and honor. He
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. Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge.
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.”
“There are thousands of slaves in Endovier, and a good number are from Terrasen. Regardless of what I do with my birthright, I’m going to find a way to free them someday. I will free them. Them, and all the slaves in Calaculla, too. So my scars serve as a reminder of that.”
She didn’t open her eyes, but she breathed in the smell of him, the pine and snow, and her pain settled a bit.
“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.”
For a moment, as the beat pulsed around them, phantom wings from the mountain itself, 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.”
Maybe she had been a fool to love a man who served the king, but Chaol had been what she needed after losing Sam, after surviving the mines.
She knew no one would ever replace Nehemia, and she never wanted anyone to, but Rowan made her feel … better. As if she could finally breathe after months of suffocating.
They were still talking when the red curtains pulled back to reveal the seated orchestra, and it was a miracle they bothered to applaud for the conductor as he hobbled across the stage. That was when they noticed that every musician on the stage was wearing mourning black. That was when they shut up. And when the conductor raised his arms, it was not a symphony that filled the cavernous space. It was the Song of Eyllwe. Then the Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labor camps. And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had
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“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.”
“To whatever end?” She nodded. He had not needed
“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”
Birds and animals streamed past the fortress as they fled—an exodus of flapping wings, padding feet, claws clicking on stone. Herding the animals to safety were the Little Folk, hardly more than a gleam of night-seeing eyes.
Far up the hill, as if they had come racing down from the mountains and had not stopped for food or water or sleep, were a towering man, a massive bird, and three of the largest predators she had ever seen. Five in all. Answering their friend’s desperate call for aid.
Rowan was screaming as the creature pulled her into its arms. As she stopped fighting. As her flames winked out and darkness swallowed her whole.
She had not walked past the barrier expecting to defeat the Valg princes. She had walked out there for the same reason she had snapped that day in Endovier.
A wriggling, squirming inside her head. A worm of darkness, pushing its way in. Her magic roiled, thrashing, trying to get it out, to burn it up, to save them both, but—“Aelin.” “Get it out,” she rasped, pushing at her temples as she backed away from the table.
“Tell my Elide …” Her voice broke. “Tell my Elide that I love her very much.”
She knew enough about death to understand that once a head was severed like that, it was over. Knew that Lady Marion, who had loved her husband and daughter so much, was gone. Knew that this—this was called sacrifice.
“Get up,” someone said beyond the young princess. Sam. Sam, standing just beyond where she could see, smiling faintly.
One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire.
Yet—yet even those faces, so warped with hatred … she still loved them—even if they loathed her, even if it ached; loved them until their hissing faded, until they vanished like smoke, leaving only Aelin lying beside her, as she had been all along.
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.
He forgot Gavriel and Lorcan as he bolted for her—the gold and red and blue flames utterly hers, this heir of fire. Spying him at last, she smiled faintly. A queen’s smile.
“To whatever end?”
Their hands clasped between them, he whispered into her ear, “I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”
So she was not afraid of that crushing black, not with the warrior holding her, not with the courage that having one true friend offered—a friend who made living not so awful after all, not if she were with him.
“I think,” he said again, smiling faintly, “that this kingdom could use a healer as its queen.”
When Dorian had spoken, it hadn’t been a prince who looked at him. It had been a king.
“Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom … very much.”
and if i sobbed at this? i love this series so much
woman—a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart.
She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.
I claim you, Aelin. To whatever end.
“Together, Fireheart,” he said, pushing back the sleeve of her tunic. “We’ll find a way together.”
Three lines of text scrolled over her three largest scars, the story of her love and loss now written on her: one line for her parents and uncle; one line for Lady Marion; and one line for her court and her people. On the smaller, shorter scars, were the stories of Nehemia and of Sam. Her beloved dead. No longer would they be locked away in her heart. No longer would she be ashamed.
He swung toward Asterin’s blue wyvern, swiping with his wing—a playful, almost flirtatious gesture that made the female mount shriek in delight.
