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So he remained bound in night, witnessing the scream and the blood and the impact of flesh on stone. He knew he should struggle, knew he had struggled in those final seconds before the collar of black stone had clamped around his neck.
Not my Dorian
“When you shatter the chains of this world and forge the next, remember that art is as vital as food to a kingdom. Without it, a kingdom is nothing, and will be forgotten by time. I have amassed enough money in my miserable life to not need any more—so you will understand me clearly when I say that wherever you set your throne, no matter how long it takes, I will come to you, and I will bring music and dancing.”
She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.
Behind them, across the hall, the dancers shattered their roses on the floor, and Aedion grinned at his queen as the entire world went to hell.
She was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of shadows, and these men were already carrion.
She had left him, and with good reason. The demon prince had wanted to feed on her, and then hand her over. But he wished she had killed him. He hated her for not killing him.
She moved like a midnight storm. Whatever training she’d had in Wendlyn, whatever that prince had taught her … Gods help them all.
She mutely handed him her favorite lavender-scented soap, which he sniffed at, sighed in resignation, and then began using.
Stopppp. The memories of Sam is too much.
Even without her magic, Aelin was a living wildfire, more so now with the red hair—a creature of such roaring emotions that he could sometimes only watch her and marvel. And her face. That gods-damned face.
She was off-limits—completely off-limits, for about a dozen different reasons. He’d thought he would be able to deal with it, but— No, he would deal with it. He’d find a way to deal with it, because he wasn’t a fool, and he had some gods-damned self-control.
That gods-damned nightgown. Shit. He was in such deep, unending shit.
never told you—how I felt. But I loved you, and I think a part of me might always love you. Maybe you were my mate, and I never knew it. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering about that. Maybe I’ll see you again in the Afterworld, and then I’ll know for sure. But until then … until then I’ll miss you, and I’ll wish you were here.”
Slowly, his gaze lifted to hers. And she could have sworn that hunger—ravenous hunger—flickered there.
“I want you to sell those. And burn this dress.” “As you wish,” he said, pocketing the combs. “Such a pity, though. Your enemies would have fallen to their knees if they ever saw you in it.” He’d almost fallen to his knees when he’d first seen her earlier tonight.
Lightning gleamed on the blade, a flicker of quicksilver. For Wesley. For Sam. For Aelin. And for herself. For the child she’d been, for the seventeen-year-old on her Bidding night, for the woman she’d become, her heart in shreds, her invisible wound still bleeding. It was so very easy to sit up and slice the knife across Arobynn’s throat.
Aelin peered down at her former master, her face blank save for a slight tightening around her mouth. “I hope the dark god finds a special place for you in his realm,”
That scent had always struck him, had always been a call and a challenge. It had shaken him so thoroughly from centuries encased in ice that he’d hated her at first. And now … now that scent drove him out of his mind.
“I would have. Gods, Aelin—he had me, and he didn’t even know it. He could have waited another minute and I would have told him, ring or no ring. Erawan, witches, the king, Maeve … I would face all of them. But losing you …” He bowed his head, his breath warming her mouth as he closed his eyes. “I failed you tonight,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.”
“I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only an ocean between us. But if it was death separating us … I would find you. I don’t care how many rules it would break. Even if I had to get all three keys myself and open a gate, I would find you again. Always.”
“I want to take my time with you—to learn … every inch of you. And this apartment has very, very thin walls. I don’t want to have an audience,”
FINALLY. THANK GOD FINALLY.
Only thirteen wyverns were grounded in the meadow. The smallest of them was sprawled on his belly, face buried in a mound of wildflowers.
There was no one in earshot as Manon stopped a few feet away from the Crown Prince. “Hello, princeling,” she purred.
“Hello, princeling,” she said, her voice bedroom-soft and full of glorious death. “Hello, witchling,” he said.
SCREAMING
“You’re too good a fighter to kill,” Aelin breathed, hooking an arm under Manon’s shoulders and hauling her up. The rock swayed to the left—but held. Oh, gods. “If I die because of you, I’ll beat the shit out of you in hell.”
The Queen of Terrasen had saved her life. Manon didn’t know what to make of it. For she now owed her enemy a life debt.
Asterin closed her eyes and whispered into the wind. “She was stillborn. I waited to hear that cry of triumph, but there was only silence. Silence, and then your grandmother …” She opened her eyes. “Your grandmother struck me.
“So you’re going to ask Ress and Brullo to just leave a back door open so you can sneak in?” “Don’t be so simpleminded. I’m going to walk in through the front door.”
“Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin … ,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.”
If he moved an inch, he’d be on her, would take her in his arms and begin learning just what made the Heir of Fire really burn.
🤭
“Tell me that even if I lead us all to ruin, we’ll burn in hell together.”
“We’re not going to hell, Aelin,” he said. “But wherever we go, we’ll go together.”
“You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”
“Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”
“Let’s go rattle the stars.”
Chaol spread his arms wide as the darkness hit him, shattered him, obliterated him until there was nothing but light—burning blue light, warm and welcoming. Aelin and Dorian had gotten away. It was enough. When the pain came, he was not afraid.
“It’s been an honor, Prince,” Aedion said to Rowan.
Aedion stepped in front of Rowan, useless as it would be. They’d kill Rowan once he was dead, anyway. But at least he’d go down fighting, defending his brother. At least he would have that.
The commander’s hand came down. And was ripped clean off by a ghost leopard. For Evangeline, for her freedom, for her future. Where Lysandra lunged, slashing with claws and fangs, soldiers died.
The soldiers in the sewer were screaming as she tore into them— a death for every day in hell, a death for the childhood taken from her and from Evangeline. She was fury, she was wrath, she was vengeance.
“To a better future,” she said. “You came back,” he said, as if that were an answer. They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.
They were infinite. They were the beginning and the ending; they were eternity.
And tell her to remember her promise to me—to punish them all. When she asks why, tell her I said that they would not let me bring the cloak she gave me, but I kept a piece of it. To remember that promise she made. To remember to repay her for a warm cloak in a cold dungeon.”
Kaltain Rompier unleashed her shadowfire upon them all.
She took out every wall and every column. As she brought it all crashing and crumbling around them, Kaltain smiled, and at last burned herself into ash on a phantom wind.
“I save the world,” Aelin said, her voice like gravel, “and yet I wake up to you being pissy.”
“You make me want to live, too, Aelin Galathynius,” he said. “Not exist—but live.” He cupped her cheek, and took a steadying breath—as if he’d thought about every word these past three days, over and over again. “I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping—not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think … I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you.”
“There is no one else I’d want guarding my back. If my people cannot see the worth of a woman who sold herself into slavery for the sake of a child, who defended my court with no thought for her own life, then they are not my people. And they can burn in hell.”
“To a new world,” the Queen of Terrasen said. The King of Adarlan lifted his glass, such endless shadows dancing in his eyes, but—there. A glimmer of life. “To freedom.”
Dorian said, “So here we are.” “The end of the road,” Aelin said with a half smile. “No,” Chaol said, his own smile faint, tentative. “The beginning of the next.”
Terrasen. And the smell—of pine and snow … How had she never realized that Rowan’s scent was of Terrasen, of home? Rowan came close enough to graze her shoulder and murmured, “I feel as if I’ve been looking for this place my entire life.”
