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October 30 - December 22, 2024
He’d learned to keep those useless thoughts on a short, short leash. Like that time she’d moaned at the breeze he sent her way on Beltane—the arch of her neck, the parting of that mouth of hers, the sound that came out of her—
I’ve come to value the people in my life more.” “Evangeline is lucky to have you.” “I wasn’t just talking about her,” Lysandra said, and she chewed on her full lip. “You—I’m grateful for you.”
“Do it,” Asterin hissed. “Rip my throat out. Your grandmother will be so proud that you finally did.”
He wondered whether Lorcan realized that if he killed her, Lorcan himself would be next. Then Maeve. And maybe the world, for spite.
All she had been able to think about, in spite of her kingdom, in spite of all she still had to do, was the fear in Rowan’s eyes. And that it would be a shame if he never knew … if she never told him …
He sucked in a breath, his broad chest expanding. “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.
She kept her stare locked on his as she let go of his face and slowly, making sure he understood every step of the way, tilted her head back until her throat was arched and bared before him. “Aelin,” he breathed. Not in reprimand or warning, but … a plea. It sounded like a plea. He lowered his head to her exposed neck and hovered a hair’s breadth away. She arched her neck farther, a silent invitation. Rowan let out a soft groan and grazed his teeth against her skin.
“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,” he added as he leaned down again, brushing his mouth over the cut at the base of her throat, “when I make you moan, Aelin.”
She’d forgotten the name she’d been given, but it made no difference. She had only one name now: Death, devourer of worlds.
Chaol just held Aelin’s gaze, his shoulders squaring as he said, “Never again.” She wanted to believe him.
lifted a hand—hesitated, and then brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. His callused fingers scraped against her cheekbone, then caressed the shell of her ear. It was foolish to even start down this road, when every other man she’d let in had left some wound, in one way or another, accidentally or not. There was nothing soft or tender on his face. Only a predator’s glittering gaze. “When we get back,” he said, “remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?” He gave her a sly smile that made thinking
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She gently scraped her nails across his collarbone, marking him, claiming him, before leaning in to press her mouth to the hollow of his throat.
“Hello, princeling,” she said, her voice bedroom-soft and full of glorious death. “Hello, witchling,” he said.
“I think not, Prince,” she said in her midnight voice. She sniffed again, her nose crinkling slightly. “But would you bleed red, or black?” “I’ll bleed whatever color you tell me to.”
The killing calm spread through her like hoarfrost. She’d kill them all. Slowly.
Manon sheathed Wind-Cleaver along her own back. She flicked her wrists, the iron nails shooting out. She cracked her jaw, and her fangs descended. “Indeed.” The queen looked at the nails, the teeth, and grinned. Honestly—it was a shame that Manon had to kill her.
Aelin had felt it before: a thread in the world, a current running between her and someone else. She’d felt it one night, years ago, and had given a young healer the money to get the hell out of this continent. She’d felt the tug—and had decided to tug back. Here it was again, that tug—toward Manon, whose arms buckled as she collapsed to the stone.
But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then.
“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.”
“They tried to shoot my … Rowan through the heart. And I saved her anyway.”
A monster, he’d called her weeks ago. He had believed it, and allowed it to be a shield against the bitter tang of disappointment and sorrow. He was a fool.
stayed there for five months. I didn’t hunt a single Crochan. I helped him stalk game, found ironwood and began carving a new broom, and … And we both knew what I was, what he was. That I was long-lived and he was human. But we were the same age at that moment, and we didn’t care. So I stayed with him until my orders bade me report back to Blackbeak Keep. And I told him … I said I’d come back when I could.”
“I’d fly overhead every few years, just … just to see.” She wiped at her face. “He never married. And even when he was an old man, I’d sometimes see him sitting on that front porch. As if he were waiting for someone.”
That wildness, that untamed fierceness … They weren’t born of a free heart, but of one that had known despair so complete that living brightly, living violently, was the only way to outrun it.
“Just—tell me tomorrow,” Rowan said,
thought you were dying. It seemed like bad luck to let her die out of spite. And …” she snorted. “Falling into a ravine seemed like a pretty shitty way to die for someone who fights that spectacularly.”
“You deserve to be happy,” he said. And meant it. She deserved the joy he so often glimpsed on her face when Rowan was near—deserved the wicked laughter she shared with Aedion, the comfort and teasing with Lysandra. She deserved happiness, perhaps more than anyone.
“What if we go on,” he said, “only to more pain and despair? What if we go on, only to find a horrible end waiting for us?” Aelin looked northward, as if she could see all the way to Terrasen. “Then it is not the end.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Rowan started, and then forgot everything he was going to say as he bolted
“If I recall correctly,” she drawled, “someone said to remind him to prove me wrong about my hesitations. I think I had two options: words, or tongue and teeth.” A low growl rumbled in his chest. “Did I now.” She took a step, and the full scent of her desire hit him like a brick to the face. He was going to rip that nightgown to shreds. He didn’t care how spectacular it looked; he wanted bare skin.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears. 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.
“You said that things had changed—that we’d deal with it.” Her turn to dare another step. Another. “I’m not going to ask you for anything you’re not ready or willing to give.” He froze as she stopped directly before him, tipping back her head to study his face as her scent twined around him, awakening him. Gods, that scent. From the moment he’d bitten her neck in Wendlyn, the moment he’d tasted her blood and loathed the beckoning wildfire that crackled in it, he’d been unable to get it out of his system. “Aelin, you deserve better than this—than me.” He’d wanted to say it for a while now.
me—” She swallowed hard. “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.”
His body went still—his entire world went still—at that whisper of a kiss, the answer to a question he’d asked for centuries. He realized he was staring only when she withdrew slightly. His fingers tightened at her waist. “Again,” he breathed.
She smiled at last. And damn if it didn’t kill him, the quiet joy in her face. They had walked out of darkness and pain and despair together. They were still walking out of it. So that smile … It struck him stupid every time he saw it and realized it was for him.
She said softly, “You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”
WITCH KILLER— THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM
“Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”
Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”
To save the queen who held his heart in her scarred hands.
“Dorian,” she said. He did not know that name. And he was going to kill her.
“We get to come back,” Aelin said, pushing her hand harder and harder into her wound until the blood stopped, until it was only her tears that flowed. “Dorian, we get to come back from this loss—from this darkness. We get to come back, and I came back for you.”
Over the demon’s screaming, he pushed—pushed, and looked out through its eyes. His eyes. And saw Celaena Sardothien standing before him.
She knew, with that leopard’s senses, that it would hit home. Yet Lysandra did not slow. She did not stop. For Evangeline. For her future. For her freedom. For the friends who had come for her.
Dorian. His name was Dorian. Dorian Havilliard, and he was the Crown Prince of Adarlan. And Celaena Sardothien—Aelin Galathynius, his friend … she had come back for him.
“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.
The darkness paused for breath. They erupted.
The Crown Prince tipped his head back to the sky and roared, and it was the battle cry of a god. Then the glass castle shattered.
“My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius,” she said. “And I am the Queen of Terrasen.” The crowd murmured; some onlookers stepped away from the platform. “Your prince is in mourning. Until he is ready, this city is mine.” Absolute silence. “If you loot, if you riot, if you cause one lick of trouble,” she said, looking a few in the eye, “I will find you, and I will burn you to ash.”
