#i love lady marion so muchhh

[ladybookstan]

I didn't know I had the capacity to cry so much. Until I got to those scenes. If anyone looks for me, tell them I'm trying to rehydrate.

Heir of Fire - Chapter 54

Her parents argued the first two nights at the manor, and Lady Marion kept her company, reading to her, brushing her hair, telling her stories of her home in Perranth. Marion had been a laundress in the palace from her childhood. But when Evalin arrived, they had become friends—mostly because the princess had stained her new husband’s favorite shirt with ink and wanted to get it cleaned before he noticed.

Evalin soon made Marion her lady-in-waiting, and then Lord Lochan had returned from a rotation on the southern border. Handsome Cal Lochan, who somehow became the dirtiest man in the castle and constantly needed Marion’s advice on how to remove various stains. Who one day asked a bastard-born servant to be his wife—and not just wife, but Lady of Perranth, the second-largest territory in Terrasen. Two years later, she had borne him Elide, heir of Perranth.

..........

“Aelin,” Marion whispered, and small, strong hands found her face, forcing her to look at the white-as-snow features, the bloodred lips. “Aelin, listen to me.” Though Marion was breathing quickly, her voice was even. “You are going to run for the river. Do you remember the way to the footbridge?” The narrow rope and wood bridge across the ravine and the rushing River Florine below. She nodded.

“Good girl. Make for the bridge, and cross it. Do you remember the empty farm down the road? Find a place to hide there—and do not come out, do not let yourself be seen by anyone except someone you recognize. Not even if they say they’re a friend. Wait for the court—they will find you.” She was shaking again. But Marion gripped her shoulders. “I am going to buy you what time I can, Aelin. No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, don’t look back, and don’t stop until you find a place to hide.” She shook her head, silent tears finding their way out at last. The front door groaned—a quick movement.

Lady Marion reached for the dagger in her boot. It glinted in the dim light.

“When I say run, you run, Aelin. Do you understand?” She didn’t want to, not at all, but she nodded.

Lady Marion brushed a kiss to her brow. “Tell my Elide…” Her voice broke.

“Tell my Elide that I love her very much.”

.........

That.

That moment Lady Marion had chosen a desperate hope for her kingdom over herself, over her husband and the daughter who would wait and wait for a return that would never come.

..........

There was a scrape and crunch of shoes, then a small, smooth hand slid toward her. But it was not Chaol or Sam or Nehemia who lay across from her, watching her with those sad turquoise eyes.

Her cheek against the moss, the young princess she had been—Aelin Galathynius—reached a hand for her. “Get up,” she said softly.

Celaena shook her head.

Aelin strained for her, bridging that rift in the foundation of the world.

“Get up.” A promise—a promise for a better life, a better world.

The Valg princes paused.

She had wasted her life, wasted Marion’s sacrifice. Those slaves had been butchered because she had failed—because she had not been there in time.

“Get up,” someone said beyond the young princess. Sam. Sam, standing just beyond where she could see, smiling faintly.

“Get up,” said another voice—a woman’s. Nehemia.

“Get up.” Two voices together—her mother and father, faces grave but eyes bright. Her uncle was beside them, the crown of Terrasen on his silver hair. “Get up,” he told her gently.

One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire.

And then there was Lady Marion, smiling beside her husband. “Get up,” she whispered, her voice full of that hope for the world, and for the daughter she would never seen again.