Page 237 of Kingdom of Ash

Aelin ran a hand down the powerful muscles of his thigh, fingers snagging in the rip of fabric just above his knee. “I didn’t feel you get this wound through the mating bond,” she said, grazing the thick ridge of the new scar. A trophy from the battle. She made herself meet his piercing stare.Did Maeve somehow break that part of it? That part of us?

“No,” he breathed, and stroked the hair from her brow. “I’ve realized that the bond only conveys the pain of the gravest wounds.”

She touched the spot on his shoulder where Asterin Blackbeak’s arrowhad pierced him all those months ago. The moment she’d known what he was to her.

“It was why I didn’t know what was happening to you on the beach,” Rowan said roughly. Because the whipping, brutal and unbearable as it had been, hadn’t brought her to the brink of death. Only into an iron coffin.

She scowled. “If you’re about to tell me that you feel guilty for it—”

“We both have things to grapple with—about what happened these months.”

A glance at him, and she knew he was well aware of what still clouded her soul.

And because he was the only person who saw everything she was and did not walk away from it, Aelin said, “I wanted that fire to be for Maeve.”

“I know.” Such simple words, and yet it meant everything—that understanding.

“I wanted it to make things … better.” She loosed a long breath. “To wipe it all away.” Every memory and nightmare and lie.

“It will take a while, Aelin. To face it, work through it.”

“I don’t have a while.”

His jaw tensed. “That remains to be seen.”

She didn’t bother arguing. Not as she admitted, “I want it to be over.”

He went wholly still, but granted her the space to think, to speak.

“I want it to be over and done with,” she said hoarsely. “This war, the gods and the Wyrdgate and the Lock. All of it.” She rubbed her temples, pushing past the weight, the lingering stain that no fire might cleanse. “I want to go to Terrasen, to fight, and then I want it to be over.”

She’d wanted it to be over since she’d learned the true cost of forging the Lock anew. Had wanted it to be over with each of Cairn’s lashes on the beach in Eyllwe. And all he’d done to her afterward. Whatever it might bring about, however it might end, she wanted it to be over.

She didn’t know who and what it made her.

Rowan remained silent for a long moment before he said, “Then we will make sure the khagan’s host goes north. Then we will return to Terrasenand crush Erawan’s armies.” He brought her hands to his mouth for a swift kiss. “And then, after all that, we’ll see about this damned Lock.” Uncompromising will filled his every breath, the air around them.

She let it be enough for both of them. Tucked away his words, his vow, all those promises between them and extended her palm in the air between them.

She summoned the magic—the drop of water her mother’s bloodline had given her. Mab’s bloodline.

A tiny ball of water took form in her hand. Over the calluses she’d so carefully rebuilt.

She let the gentle, cooling power trickle over her. Let it smooth the jagged bits inside herself and sing them to sleep. Her mother’s gift.

You do not yield.

When the Lock took everything, would it claim this part as well? This most precious part of her power?

She tucked away those thoughts, too.

Concentrating, gritting her teeth, Aelin commanded the ball of water to rotate in her palm.

A wobble was all she got in answer.

She snorted. “Faerie Queen of the West indeed.”

Rowan huffed a quiet laugh. “Keep practicing. In a thousand years, you might actually be able to do something with it.”

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