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Abraxos was a warrior
A long, hot huff of air into her hands. “Once all that is done,” she said, smiling faintly at her wyvern, “you and I are going to learn how to fly. And then we’ll stain this kingdom red.”
Why must every accomplishment come with pain
Arobynn had done everything he could to make her hate her heritage, to fear it.
“This will not end well,” she breathed. He didn’t back down. “See what you want, Aelin, and seize it. Don’t ask for it; don’t wish for it. Take it.”
Maeve has them serve her as she sees fit, as she does with me.” Every word was clipped. “It is an honor to be a warrior serving in her inner circle.” Celaena hadn’t suggested otherwise, but she wondered why he felt the need to add it.
He moved to sniff some white-and-yellow flowers. A nightmare. This was a nightmare. “You can’t really like flowers.” Again those dark eyes shifted to her. Blinked once. I most certainly do, he seemed to say.
Manon’s stomach went from her throat right out her ass, but they were swooping upward, and his wings were pumping, each boom the most beautiful sound she had ever heard in her long, miserable life.
The hilt was engraved with lotus blossoms, a ripple of lapis lazuli edging the bottom like a river wave. Emrys was smiling, eyes bright. But that knife, the gold polished and bright …
“Who did that to you?”
Oh shiet
And when she awoke before dawn, warm and safe and rested, Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest.
“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.”
And he’d returned to Celaena with chocolates, since he claimed to be insulted that she considered his absence a proper birthday present.
Fine—some very feminine, innate part of her appreciated that. And she didn’t mind his half-nakedness.
But these days … she didn’t know what she needed. What she wanted. If she felt like admitting it, she actually didn’t have the faintest clue who the hell she was anymore.
If Chaol—if he’d truly been my mate, I wouldn’t have been able to do that, would I?”
“If we’re going to explore, then we’re going to do it under cover of darkness. So we’re going back to the stream, and we’re going to find something to eat. And then, Princess,” he said with a wild grin, “we are going to have some fun.”
Even the fire in her blood froze. “It truly fed on me that day in the barrows,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t managed to escape, it would have drained me like that.” A low, confirming growl rippled out of Rowan.
This is insane. I faced one of the defective ones, too, and it almost killed me. Scared, Princess? Yes, and wisely so.
She glanced out in time to see him step toward her tree, the movement deadly elegant and promising a long, painful end.
She need only surrender to the dark, just as he asked. Take it, she wanted to say, tried to say. Take everything.
A flash of silver and steel pierced the inky veil, and another creature—a monster made of fangs and rage and wind—was there, ripping her away. She clawed at him, but he was ice—he was … Rowan.
And beneath that, with a growing heaviness she could not control, she wished that when she left this continent … she wouldn’t go alone.
Working with him was so effortless. There was no judgment, no need to explain herself. 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.
But saying that she wished he could return with her to Adarlan, to Terrasen, was pointless. He had no way to break his oath to Maeve, and she had nothing to entice him with even if he could. She was not a queen. She had no plans to be one, and even if she had a kingdom to give him if he were free … Telling him all that was useless.
“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 if the creatures devoured her body and soul, then she would not mind. She had earned that fate.
But no one fled. Even Emrys refused, and Malakai merely said that where his mate went, he went.
Some things are worth the risk.
was all useless. As useless as the vow she’d made to Nehemia’s grave. As useless as an heir to a broken throne and a broken name.
“You eat like a fine lady,”
She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.
And then Celaena set the world on fire.
Aelin of the Wildfire. Aelin Fireheart. Aelin Light-Bringer.
“I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end.”
“I didn’t claw my way to Second by sitting on my ass.”
She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—and she would not be afraid.
Queen of shadows
Actually, I believe the title our esteemed friends in the empire now like to use is ‘fire-breathing bitch-queen.’
Aelin Galathynius was ready for bloodshed.
“I came back because I received a report that three of the city garrisons were called to the Vaults not thirty minutes after we left. Her Majesty,” Nesryn said drily, “killed a great number of the king’s men, the owners and investors of the hall, and took it upon herself to wreck the place. They won’t be open again anytime soon.”
Hell yeah she did. Fuck em
Abraxos sucked in a great breath, tucked his wings in tight, and fell off the side of the post. He liked to do that—just tumble off as though he’d been struck dead. Her wyvern, it seemed, had a wicked sense of humor.
Is this a long lost cousin of Toothless?
Asterin whooped, and Manon turned to watch her Second fling her arms out and lean back in her saddle until she was lying flat on her mount’s spine, her golden hair unbound and streaming. Such wild ecstasy—there was always a fierce, untamed joy when Asterin flew.
though the guards in every hall watched them like hawks. And not the shape-shifting Fae Prince kind.
It was time. One breath—another. She was the heir of fire. 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.
“Hello, and come right in, why don’t you” was the response. Manon leaned against the door and crossed her arms. Only with books, only when reading, was Ghislaine so snappish.
“It was worth it,” he said, his smile fading. “You were worth it. All these years, all the waiting. You’re worth it.” He’d known the moment she had looked up at him as she stood before his execution block, defiant and wicked and wild.
They’d been forged of the same ore, two sides of the same golden, scarred coin.
“Whatever you had to do to survive, whatever you did from spite or rage or selfishness … I don’t give a damn. You’re here—and you’re perfect. You always were, and you always will be.”
“Why are you crying?” he asked, trying to push her back far enough to read her face again. But she held on to him, so fiercely she could feel the weapons beneath his clothes. It would all be fine, even if it went to hell, so long as he was here with her. “I’m crying,” she sniffled, “because you smell so rutting bad my eyes are watering.”
She’d forgotten how beautifully he moved that powerful body of his—a storm given flesh.
“Take off your hood,” he said with a soft growl, his eyes fixed on her mouth. She crossed her arms. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine, Prince.”
