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acourtofquestions · 1 month ago

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"I didn't break," she said quietly. His heart cracked at the words. "I didn't tell them anything."

She didn't say it for praise, to boast. But rather to tell him, her consort, of where they stood in this war. What their enemies might know.

"I knew you wouldn't," he managed to say.

"She ... she tried to convince me that this was the bad dream. When Cairn was done with me, or during it, I don't know, she'd try to worm her way into my mind." She glanced around the cave, as if she could see the world beyond it. "She spun fantasies that felt so real..." She bobbed under the surface. Perhaps she'd needed the cooling water of the lake to be able to hear her own voice again; perhaps she needed the distance between them so she could speak these words. She emerged, slicking back her hair with a hand. "They felt like this."

Half of him didn't want to know, but he asked, "What sort of illusions?"

A long pause. "It doesn't matter now."

Too soon to push—if ever.

Then she asked softly, "How long?"

It took the entirety of his three centuries of training to keep the devastation, the agony for her, from his face. "Two months, three days, and seven hours."

Her mouth tightened, either at the length of time, or the fact that he'd counted every single one of those hours apart.

She ran her fingers through her hair, its strands floating around her in the water. Still too long for two months to have passed. "They healed me after each ... session. So that I stopped knowing what had been done and what was in my mind and where the truth lay." Erase her scars, and Maeve stood a better chance at convincing her none of this was real. "But the healers couldn't remember how long my hair was, or Maeve wanted to confuse me further, so they grew it out." Her eyes darkened at the memory of why, perhaps, they had needed to regrow her hair in the first place.

"Do you want me to cut it back to the length it was when I last saw you?" His words were near-guttural.

"No." Ripples shivered around her. "I want it so I can remember."

What had been done to her, what she'd survived and what she had protected.

Even if the woman treading water before him didn't seem to have vengeance on her mind. Not so much as a hint of the burning rage that fueled her.

He didn't blame her. Knew it would take time, time and distance, to heal the internal wounds. If they could ever really heal at all.

But he'd work with her, help in whatever way he could. And if she never returned to who she had been before this, he would not love her any less.

Aelin dunked her head, and when she emerged, she said, "Maeve was about to put a Valg collar around my neck. She left to retrieve it." The scent of her lingering fear drifted toward him, and Rowan lurched a step closer to the water's edge. "It's why I—why I got away. She had me moved to the army camp for safekeeping, and I ..." Her voice stalled, yet she met his stare. Let him read the words she could not say, in that silent way they'd always been able to communicate. Escape wasn't my intention.

"No, Fireheart," he breathed, shaking his head, horror creeping over him. "There ... there was no collar."

She blinked, head angling. "That was a dream, too?"

His heart cracked as he struggled for the words. Made himself voice them. "No—it was real. Or Maeve thought it was. But the collars, the Valg presence ... It was a lie that we crafted. To draw Maeve out, hopefully away from you and Doranelle."

Only the faint lapping of water sounded. "There was no collar?"

Rowan lowered himself to his knees and shook his head. "I—Aelin, if I'd known what she'd do with the knowledge, what you'd decide to do-"

He might have lost her. Not from Maeve or the gods or the Lock, but from his own damned choices. The lie he'd spun.

Aelin drifted beneath the surface again. So deep that when the flare happened, it was little more than a flutter. The light burst from her, rippling across the lake, illumining the stones, the slick ceiling above. A silent eruption. His breathing turned ragged. But she swam toward the surface again, light streaming off her body like tendrils of clouds. It had nearly vanished when she emerged.

"I'm sorry," he managed to say. Again, that angle of the head. "You have nothing to be sorry for." He did, though. He'd added to her terror, her desperation. He'd— "If you had not planted that lie for Maeve, if she had not told me, I don't think we'd be here right now," she said.

He tried to rein in the twisting in his gut, the urge to reach for her, to beg for her forgiveness. Tried and tried.

She only asked, "What of the others?" She didn't know-couldn't know how and why and where they'd all parted ways. So Rowan told her, as succinctly and calmly as he could.

When he finished, Aelin was quiet for long minutes.

She stared out into the blackness, the rippling of her treading water the only sound. Her body had nearly lost that freshly forged glow.

Then she pivoted back toward him. "Maeve said you and the others were in the North. That you'd been spotted by her spies there. Did you plant that deception for her, too?"

He shook his head. "Lysandra has been thorough, it seems."

Aelin's throat bobbed. "I believed her." It sounded like a confession, somehow.

So Rowan found himself saying, "I told you once that even if death separated us, I would rip apart every world until I found you." He gave her a slash of a smile. "Did you really believe this would stop me?'

She pursed her mouth, and at last, those agonizing emotions began to surface in her eyes. "You were supposed to save Terrasen."

"Considering that the sun shines, I'd say Erawan hasn't won yet. So we'll save it together."

He didn't let himself think of the final cost of destroying Erawan. And Aelin seemed in no hurry to discuss it, either, as she said, "You should have gone to Terrasen. It needs you."

"I need you more." He didn't balk from the stark honesty roughening his voice. "And Terrasen will need you, too. Not Lysandra masquerading as you, but you."

A shallow nod. "Maeve raised her army. I doubt it was only to guard me while she was away."

He'd put the thought aside, to consider later. "It might just be to shore up her defenses, should Erawan win across the sea."

"Do you truly think that's what she plans to do with it?"

"No," he admitted. "I don't."

And if Maeve meant to bring that army to Terrasen, to either unite with Erawan or simply be another force battering their kingdom, to strike when they were weakest, they had to hurry. Had to get back. Immediately. His mate's eyes shone with the same understanding and dread.

Aelin's throat bobbed as she whispered, "I'm so tired, Rowan."

His heart strained again. "I know, Fireheart."

He opened his mouth to say more, to coax her onto land so he might at least hold her if words couldn't ease her burden, but that's when he saw it.

A boat, ancient and every inch of it carved, drifted out of the gloom.

"Get back to shore." The boat wasn't drifting—it was being tugged. He could just barely make out two dark forms slithering beneath the surface.

Aelin didn't hesitate, yet her strokes remained steady as she swam for him. She didn’t balk at the hand he extended, and he wrapped his cloak around her while the boat ambled past.

But Aelin turned toward them, hair dripping onto the stone at her bare feet. Half a thought from her could have had her dry, yet she made no move to do so. "We're being hunted."

"We know that," Lorcan shot back, and were it not for the fact that Aelin was currently allowing him to rest a hand upon her shoulder, Rowan would have thrown the male into the lake.

But Aelin's features didn't shift from that graveness, that unruffled calm. "The only way to the sea is through these caves." It was an outrageous claim.

"And I suppose they told you that?" Lorcan's face was hard as granite.

"Watch it," Rowan snarled. Fenrys indeed bared his teeth at the dark-haired warrior, fur bristling. But Aelin said simply, "Yes." Her chin didn't dip an inch. "The land above is crawling with soldiers and spies. Going beneath them is the only way."

Elide stepped forward. "I will go." She cut a cold glance toward Lorcan. "You can take your chances above, if you're so disbelieving." Lorcan's jaw tightened, and a small part of Rowan relished seeing the delicate Lady of Perranth fillet the centuries-hardened warrior with a few words. "Considering the potential pitfalls of the situation is wise."

"We don't have time to consider," Rowan cut in before Elide could voice the retort on her tongue. "We need to keep moving. Gavriel stalked forward to study the moored boat and what seemed to be bundles of supplies on its sturdy planks. "How will we navigate our way, though?"

"We'll be escorted," Aelin answered.

"And if they abandon us?" Lorcan challenged. Aelin leveled unfazed eyes upon him.

"Then you'll have to find a way out, I suppose." A hint-just a spark-of temper belied those calm words. There was nothing else to debate after that.

And they had little to pack. The others gave Aelin privacy to dress by the fire while they inspected the boat, and when his mate emerged again, clad in boots, pants, and various layers beneath her gray surcoat, the sight of her in clothes from Mistward was enough to make his gut clench.

No longer a naked, escaped captive. Yet none of that wickedness, that joy and unchecked wildness illuminated her face.

The rest of their party waited on the boat, seated on the benches built into its high-lipped sides. Fenrys and Elide both sat as seemingly far from Lorcan as they could get, Gavriel a golden, long-suffering buffer between them.

Rowan lingered at the shore's edge, a hand extended for Aelin while she approached. Each of her steps seemed considered—as if she still marveled at being able to move freely. As if still adjusting to her legs without the burden of chains.

"Why?" Lorcan mused aloud, more to himself. "Why go to these lengths for us?"

He got his answer—they all did—a heartbeat later. Aelin halted a few feet away from the boat and Rowan's outstretched hand. She turned back toward the cave itself. The Little Folk peeked from those birch branches, from the rocks, from behind stalagmites. Slowly, deeply, Aelin bowed to them. Rowan could have sworn all those tiny heads lowered in answer.

A pair of bony grayish hands rose above a nearby rock, something glittering held between them, and set the object on the stone.

Rowan went still. A crown of silver and pearl and diamond gleamed there, fashioned into upswept swan's wings

"The Crown of Mab," Gavriel breathed. But Fenrys looked away, toward the looming dark, his tail curling around him.

Aelin staggered a step closer to the crown. "It—it fell into the river."

Rowan didn't want to know how she'd encountered it, why she'd seen it fall into a river. Maeve had kept her sisters' two crowns under constant guard, only bringing them out to be displayed in her throne room on state occasions. In memory of her siblings, she'd intoned. Rowan had sometimes wondered if it was a reminder that she had outlasted them, had kept the throne for herself in the end.

The grayish hand slipped over the rock's edge again and nudged the crown in silent gesture. Take it.

"You want to know why?" Gavriel softly asked Lorcan as Aelin strode for the rock. Nothing but solemn reverence on her face. "Because she is not only Brannon's Heir, but Mab's, too."

A throwback to her great-great-grandmother, Maeve had taunted her. Who had inherited her strength, her immortal lifespan.

Aelin's fingers closed around the crown, lifting it gently. It sparkled like living moonlight between her hands.

My sister Mab's line ran true, Elide claimed Maeve had said on the beach. In every way, it seemed.

But Aelin made no move to don the crown while she approached him once more, her gait steadier this time. Trying not to dwell on the unbearable smoothness of her hand as it wrapped around his, Rowan helped her aboard, then climbed in himself before freeing the ropes tethering them to the shore.

Gavriel went on, awe in every word, "And that makes her their queen, too."

Aelin met Gavriel's gaze, the crown near-glowing in her hands. "Yes," was all she said as the boat sailed into the darkness.

#Chapter 35 #Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius #Rowan Whitethorn #Rowaelin #Rowaelin chapters #Rowaelin quotes #Rowaelin moments #Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius #Kingdom of Ash #Sarah J. Maas #spoilers in post & tags please no spoilers up to this ch. first read with me cry with me pt. 2 perspective Rowan #That lake water had never seen sunlight had flowed from the dark cold heart of the mountains themselves. — she is the sun and the heart #It would kill even the most hardened of Fae warriors within minutes. Yet there was Aelin swimming as if it were a sun-warmed forest pool.#her faintly glowing body. As if the water had peeled away the skin of the woman and revealed the blazing soul beneath.#But that glow faded with each passing breath she emerged to take dimming further each time she plunged beneath the surface.#internal inferno-or simply because she first wanted to wash away the stain of Cairn? Perhaps both.-She didn’t trust her power on land #The Celaena freedom vibes hurt-Lorcan god on his shoulder-OMG do her&Manon share crowns?#At least she'd begun speaking her eyes clearing a bit. — the glow still barely clinging — the way he just wants her to be ok #You could join me she said at last No heat in her words yet he felt the invitation. — but rather to be WITH her #She did no such thing her arms continuing their sweeping circles in the water. Aelin only stared at him again in that grave cautious way.#real or not real — a god in her own might — as if she could see the world beyond it; worlds; the queen to walk between worlds #Too soon to push—if ever. — he’d hear them when she was ready — if the time never came he’d love her anyways — it’s how they fell #what illusion? night made of dream. or the worst; both.#the way he knows the date with her just like Lyria — him offering to cut her hair — knowing she needs to remember — no fear of lakes anymor #all the Mistward paralells — I didn’t break — I know — I’m tired; ITS ALL THE TROPES #she’s making me think of Annie from HG — THE WAY HE LOVES HER — no rage just trust — everytime he calls her Fireheart #the two of them worrying the other would be upset and feeling guilty while there not — the way Chaol described as a wolf&he just sees as is #he just wants to hold her-how she goes to him-hes just happy to beWher-what if-known-it switched THEIR-she isTHEspark-Lorcan almost-no fued #HeirofMab-shes why-Rowan loves nomatter-on his knees to apologize-had Lys been pretending to be him?blind eels4ladyTHXlilfolk-Gavriel the #longsufferingbuffer-FenrysKNEW-more iron-moon star&Sun2stars-but Aelin never wanted that-she'd give it all-my favoriteCh.RowanSimp4his wif

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