But as soon as darkness enveloped the room, my sobs hit in full – great, gasping pants that shuddered through me, flowing out the open windows, and into the starry, snow-kissed night.
And I didn’t think even eternity would be long enough to fix me.
She didn’t fear the night, though she found little comfort in its dark hours.
I name you Elentiya, ‘Spirit That Could Not Be Broken.
I wasn’t sure I’d been born with the ability to forgive. Not for terrors inflicted on those I loved. For myself, I didn’t care – not nearly as much. But there was some fundamental pillar of steel in me that could not bend or break in this. Could not stomach the idea of letting these people get away with what they’d done.
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.
Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With my knives.
It’s already ended badly. Now it’s just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences.
You dare glamour me?” he growled, his violet eyes burning as they bore into my own. Lucien just pressed me harder into the wall.
The queen hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye. She’d just dashed for the injured Fae warrior, his name like a prayer on her lips. Rowan.
And he wondered if Aelin was somehow watching the archipelago, and the seas, and the skies, as if she might never see them again.
It told a story... the story of Prythian. It began with a cauldron. A mighty black cauldron held by glowing, slender female hands in a starry, endless night. Those hands tipped it over, and, from it, golden sparkling liquid poured out over the lip. No – not sparkling, but... effervescent with small symbols, perhaps some ancient faerie language.
He was a boy in love with a wildfire. Or at least he thought he was.
It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.
Marion was my mother’s name. She died defending Aelin Galathynius from her assassin. My mother bought Aelin time to run – to get away so she could one day return to save us all... I have no lands, no money, no army to offer Aelin Galathynius. But I will find her – and help her in whatever way I can. If only to keep one girl, just one, from ever enduring what I did. – Elide.
I let a little bit of the wolf show.
Even as an immortal, there was not enough time in life to waste it on hatred.
And in the end, though, we’d saved each other. All of us had.
Tamlin didn’t stop apologizing for days. He made love to me, morning and night. He worshipped my body with his hands, his tongue, his teeth. But that had never been the hard part. We just got tripped up with the rest.
Spirit that could not be broken. You do not yield. She would endure it again, if asked. She would do it. Every brutal hour and bit of agony. And it would hurt, and she would scream, but she’d face it. Survive against it. Arobynn had not broken her. Neither had Endovier. She would not allow this waste of existence to do so now. Her shaking eased, her body going still. Waiting. Maeve blinked at her. Just once. Aelin sucked in a breath – sharp and cool. She did not want it to be over. Any of it.