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My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius … And I will not be afraid.
“Rowan.” He stilled. She crossed the small lingering distance between them, every step like the answer to some question she’d asked from the moment her soul had sparked into existence. “You are not human. I do not expect you to be.”
“I love you,” Rowan breathed onto her skin, and flicked his tongue over the spot where his canines had scratched. “I’d walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you.”
A faint grumbling sounded from above—Abraxos. Still alive. Still—sleeping, if she knew that drowsy, wheezing grumble.
Our wittle bestest boy ever just snoozin away 🥹
The usual things, she shot back at Rowan with a simpering smile. Killing, crocheting, how to make you emit those noises again—
Isn’t this what we all think about on the daily?
“What’s your shield made of, then?” Fenrys tried and failed to shrug. But Gavriel muttered from where he worked on the still-whimpering pirate, “Arrogance.”
“We’ve been a pair, you and I. A few days is nothing, my friend.” He nudged her head with his own. Manon swallowed hard. “You saved my life. Many times. I never thanked you for it.” Abraxos let out another low whine. “You and me,” she promised him. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”
52
Tod 36+37
53
Tod 38-40
And worse: the insects. She kept the little demons away with a shield of invisible flame, revealed only by the zinging as they slammed into it. She might have felt bad, had they not tried to eat her alive the first day here. Had she not scratched at the dozens of swollen red bites until her skin bled—
54
Tod 41+42
57
Tod 43
But he’d take his time. Enjoy every moment, as he had told her to do. Because this would be his last hunt. He had no intention of wasting each glorious moment in one go. Of wasting any of the moments that fate had granted him, and all he wanted to show her.
60
Tod 44-48
Ansel murmured, “So touchy, these witches.” Aelin clamped her lips together, but Lysandra let out another breathy cat laugh. Manon’s nails clicked against each other from across the room. Lysandra merely answered with her own.
“I think Erawan was probably born pissed.”
“You could, you know,” Rowan said, his tattoo stark in the lantern light. “Take it for yourself. Take it all. Use Maeve’s bullshit maneuvers against her. Make good on that promise.” There was no judgment. Only frank calculation and contemplation. “And would you join me if I did? If I turned conqueror?” “You would unify, not pillage and burn. And yes—to whatever end.”
“Why did you forgive Ansel? After what she did to you and the others in the desert?” Aelin crouched again. “Because she made a bad choice, trying to heal a wound she couldn’t ever mend. Trying to avenge the people she loved.”
Rowan dragged a hand through his hair. “Sometimes I wish I knew every thought in that head, each scheme and plot. Then I remember how much it delights me when you reveal it—usually when it’s most likely to make my heart stop dead in my chest.” “I knew you were a sadist.”
She took his hand, gripping it hard. “Rowan.” The spark died from his eyes. She squeezed his fingers. “Rowan, I need you to do something for me.”
Ooooooh lord. HERE WE GOOOO
Ice glittered at his fingertips. Manon tracked it. “Will it be you or the queen against Erawan in the end, I wonder.” “Fire against darkness makes for a better story.” “Yes, but so would ripping a demon king to shreds without using your hands.” A half smile. “I can think of better uses for my hands—invisible and flesh.”
That hunger shifted into something icy and vicious: “You once asked me where I stand on the line between killing to protect and killing for pleasure.” His fingers grazed the seam of the scar across her abdomen. “I’ll stand on the other side of the line when I find your grandmother.”
And for all his wanting to taste her, as she opened for him, Manon thought the king tasted like the sea, like a winter morning, something so foreign and yet familiar it at last dragged that moan from deep in her.
Dorian’s hands slid down her thighs, as if savoring the muscle there, then around—cupping her backside, grinding her into every hard inch of him. The small noise in her throat was cut off as he hoisted her from the wall in a smooth movement.
GETTTT ITTTTT DORIANNNN.
he touched her, first with those wicked hands. Then with his wicked mouth. And when Manon had to bite his shoulder to muffle her moaning as he brought her over the edge,
Now if his head is between your thighs… how the hell did you bite his shoulder?
For a moment, the past snared him—for a moment, he saw her as he’d first spied her on the rooftops of Varese, drunk and battered. He’d been in hawk form, assessing his new charge, and she’d noticed him—broken and reeling, she had still spotted him there. And stuck out her tongue at him.
62
Tod 49-51
64
Tod 52+53
66
Tod 54-56
The court that could change the world, she told herself over and over, as exhaustion weighed her down, as she kept disabling rudder after rudder, punching holes in those selected Fae ships. She had made a promise to that court, that future. To Aedion. And to her queen. She would not fail her. And if gods-damned Maeve wanted to go head-to-head with them, if Maeve thought to strike them when they were weakest … Lysandra was going to make the bitch regret it.
as those enemy ships slid into place among their foundering companions, Dorian saw that they each bore the same flag: A silver banner, with a screaming hawk. And where Maeve’s black flag of a perching owl had once flapped beside it … now that black flag lowered. Now the dark queen’s flag vanished entirely, as Fae ships bearing the silver banner of the House of Whitethorn opened fire upon their own armada.
Now what did Rowan promise for this alliance.
Rowan had not possessed an army of his own to give to Aelin. To give to Terrasen. So he had won an army for her. Through the only things Aelin had claimed were all she wanted from him. His heart. His loyalty. His friendship. And Rowan wished his Fireheart were there to see it as the House of Whitethorn slammed into Maeve’s fleet, and ice and wind exploded across the waves.
68
Tod 57
The queen asking the princess to pay that price she’d offered back in the marshes. To arrange for her own death—to set this all in motion. Nehemia had warned Elena that she—that Aelin—would be broken. Worse, that she would go so far into an abyss of rage and despair that she wouldn’t be able to get out. Not as Celaena. Nehemia had been right. Aelin was shaking—shaking in her half-invisible body, shaking so badly she thought her skin would ripple off her bones. Manon stepped closer, perhaps the only comfort the witch knew how to offer: solidarity.
Aedion knew you were the Queen Who Was Promised without knowing what it meant, without knowing anything about you, or me, or what I did to spare my own people.” The words hit her like stones. “The Queen Who Was Promised,” Aelin said. “But not to the world. To the gods—to the keys.”
Brannon’s mark. The mark of the bastard-born … the Nameless. Nameless is my price. To buy them a future, she’d pay it.
Elena stroked her cheek. Then the ancient queen and the mists were gone. Sunlight flooded them, blinding Aelin and Manon so violently that they hissed and slammed into each other.
That roar sounded again as a mighty shape shot down from the heavy clouds. A wyvern. A wyvern with shimmering wings. And behind it, descending upon the Fae fleet with wicked delight, flew twelve others.
YEeeEeEEeEeEeE!!!!!
At Asterin’s approach, the wyverns and riders reeled back, rising high into the air, falling into formation. A hammer about to strike. The Fae knew it. They began throwing up feeble shields, shooting wildly for them, their panic making their aim sloppy. But the wyverns were covered in armor—efficient, beautiful armor. The Thirteen laughed at their enemy as they slammed into its southern flank. Lysandra wished she had strength left to shift—one last time. To join them in that glorious destruction.
The Queen of the Fae was exactly as Aelin remembered. Swirling dark robes, a beautiful pale face beneath onyx hair, red lips set in a faint smile … No crown adorned her head, for all who breathed, even the dead who slumbered, would know her for what she was. Dreams and nightmares given form; the dark face of the moon.
Maeve ignored her. “Well? When did you know?” “At Temis’s temple,” Aelin admitted, glancing to Manon. “The moment the arrow went through his shoulder. Months ago.”
“I had planned for him to be here,” Maeve said, frowning at the horizon. “Since letting you two go that day in Doranelle was so that you could lead me to the keys again. I even let you think you’d gotten away with it, by freeing him. You had no idea that I unleashed you. But if he’s not here … I’ll have to make do.”
“If it’s any consolation, Aelin, you would have had a thousand years with Prince Rowan. Longer.” The world slowed, and Elide could hear her own blood roaring in her ears as Maeve said, “My sister Mab’s line ran true. The full powers, shifting abilities, and the immortality of the Fae. You’re likely about five years away from Settling.”
As Rowan’s face, calm with lethal wrath, appeared in his vision. “Where is Aelin.” There was pure panic, too—pure panic as Whitethorn saw the blood, the scattered blades, and the shirt. “Where is Aelin.” What had he done, what had he done— Pain sliced Lorcan’s neck, warm blood dribbled down his throat, his chest. Rowan hissed, “Where is my wife?” Lorcan swayed where he knelt. Wife. Wife.
As one, the Thirteen lifted their fingers to their brows. As one, they lowered them. Manon looked toward the sea, her throat tight. “Aelin Galathynius willingly handed over her freedom so an Ironteeth witch could walk free,” Manon said. Elide straightened, pulling from Asterin’s arms. But Manon continued, “We owe her a life debt. And more than that … It is time that we became better than our foremothers. We are all children of this land.” “What are you going to do?” Asterin breathed, her eyes so bright. Manon looked behind them. To the north. “I am going to find the Crochans. And I am going to
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Aelin had known, though. That he was her mate. And she had not pushed it, or demanded he face it, because she loved him, and he knew she’d rather carve out her own heart than cause him pain or distress. His Fireheart. His equal, his friend, his lover. His wife. His mate.
Even if it takes me a thousand years. I will find you, I will find you, I will find you.
Aedion fell to his knees in the sand as Wendlyn’s armada spread before them. I promise you that no matter how far I go, no matter the cost, when you call for my aid, I will come, Aelin had told him she’d sworn to Darrow. I’m going to call in old debts and promises. To raise an army of assassins and thieves and exiles and commoners. And she had. She had meant and accomplished every word of it.
“Bring her back, Prince,” Aedion said, voice cracking. “Bring her home.”
Gavriel’s barked curse as he gripped the golden-haired witch’s waist was the only sound of his unease as they flapped into the sky.
