Kingdom of Ash
He gaped a bit. “What sort of nefarious plans did you mention?”
“Desire to conquer the world, her complete lack of interest in sparing Fae lives in a war, her interest in Valg things.” She swallowed. “I might have mentioned that she’s possibly Valg.”
Rowan started.
Aelin shrugged. “It was a lucky guess. The best lies are always mixed with truth.”
“Suggesting Maeve is Valg is a fairly outlandish lie, even for you. Even if it turned out to be true.”
She waved a hand. “We’ll see if anything comes of it.”
“If it works, if they somehow revolt and the army turns against her …” He shook his head, laughing softly. “It’d be a boon in this war.”
“I scheme and lie so grandly, and that’s all the credit I get?”
Rowan flicked her nose. “You’ll get credit if her army doesn’t show up. Until then, we prepare as if they are. Which is highly likely.” At her frown, he said, “Essar doesn’t wield much power, and my uncle doesn’t take many risks. Not like Enda and Sellene. For them to overthrow Maeve … it would be monumental. If they even survived it.”
Her stomach churned. “It’s their choice, what they do. I only laid out the facts.” Carefully worded facts and half guesses. An absolute gamble, if she was being honest.
Rowan smirked. “And other than attempting to overthrow Maeve’s throne? Any other surprises I should know about?”
Her smile faded as she lay back down, Rowan doing the same beside her. “There are no more.” At his raised brows, she added, “I swear it on my throne. There are no more left.”
The amusement in his eyes guttered. “I don’t know whether to be relieved.”
“Everything I know, you know. All the cards are on the table now.”
With the various armies that had gathered, with the Lock, with all of it.
“Do you think you could do it again?” he asked. “Draw up that much power?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It required being … contained. With the irons.”
A shadow darkened his face, and he rolled onto his side, propping up his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You never will again.” It was the truth.
“If the cost of that much power is what you endured, then I’ll be glad not to.”
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 arrow had 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 Terrasen and 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.”
She whacked his arm, the droplet of water soaking into the sleeve of his shirt. “It’s a wonder I learned anything from you with that sort of encouragement.” She shook the wetness from her hand. Right into his face.
Rowan nipped at her nose. “I do keep a tally, Princess. Of all the horrible things that come out of your mouth.”
Her toes curled, and she dragged her fingers through his hair, luxuriating in the silken strands. “How shall I pay for this one?”
On the other side of the door, she could have sworn that cat-soft feet quickly padded away.
Rowan smirked, as if sensing Gavriel’s swift exit, too. Then his hand flattened on her abdomen, his mouth grazing the underside of her jaw. “I’ve been thinking of some ways.”
But the hand he’d set on her belly pushed down just enough that Aelin let out an oomph. And realized that she’d been asleep for three days—and had the bladder to go with it. She winced, shooting to her feet. She swayed, and he was instantly there, steadying her. “Before you ravish me wholly,” she declared, “I need to find a bathing room.”