I own almost nothing here. Most words are from Heir of Fire.
Celaena backed away, knowing exactly how many steps it would take to get into the hall, but slammed into a hard, unyielding body just as the door shut behind them. Her hands were shaking so badly she didn't bother going for her weapons— or Rowan's. He'd cut her down the instant Maeve gave the order.
The blood rushed from Celaena's head. She forced herself to take a breath. And another. Then she said in a too- quiet voice, "Aelin Galathynius is dead." Just speaking her name aloud— the damned name she had dreaded and hated and tried to forget . . .
Maeve smiled, revealing sharp little canines. "Let us not bother with lies."
It wasn't a lie. That girl, that princess had died in a river a decade ago. Celaena was no more Aelin Galathynius than she was any other person.
The room was too hot— too small, Rowan a brooding force of nature behind her.
She was not to have time to gather herself, to make up excuses and half truths, as she should have been doing these past few days instead of free- falling into silence and the misty cold. She was to face the Queen of the Fae as Maeve wanted to be faced. And in some fortress that seemed far, far beneath the raven- haired beauty watching her with black, depthless eyes.
Gods. Gods.
Maeve was fearsome in her perfection, utterly still, eternal and calm and radiating ancient grace. The dark sister to the fair- haired Mab.
Celaena had been fooling herself into thinking this would be easy. She was still pressed against Rowan as though he were a wall. An impenetrable wall, as old as the ward- stones surrounding the fortress. Rowan stepped away from her with his powerful, predatory ease and leaned against the door. She wasn't getting out until Maeve allowed her.
The Queen of the Fae remained silent, her long fingers moon- white and folded in the lap of her violet gown, a white barn owl perched on the back of her chair. She didn't bother with a crown, and Celaena supposed she didn't need one. Every creature on earth would know who she was— what she was— even if they were blind and deaf. Maeve, the face of a thousand legends . . . and nightmares. Epics and poems and songs had been written about her, so many that some even believed she was just a myth. But here was the dream— the nightmare— made flesh.
This could work to your advantage. You can get the answers you need right here, right now. Go back to Adarlan in a matter of days. Just— breathe.
Breathing, as it turned out, was rather hard when the queen who had been known to drive men to madness for amusement was observing every flicker of her throat. That owl perched on Maeve's chair—Fae or true beast?— was watching her, too. Its talons were curled around the back of the chair, digging into the wood.
It was somewhat absurd, though— Maeve holding court in this half- rotted office, at a desk stained with the Wyrd knew what. Gods, the fact that Maeve was seated at a desk. She should be in some ethereal glen, surrounded by bobbing will- o'- the- wisps and maidens dancing to lutes and harps, reading the wheeling stars like they were poetry. Not here.
"It's not a lie." Celaena whispered,"She died years ago on the frozen banks of a river."
"Then you are Celaena?" Maeve smirked.
"No," The word came out sharply, painfully. "She was killed two years ago." Covered in blood and chains.
Maeve's lips were still up in a tiny smile,"How about Lady Lillian?"
She heard a snort behind her but ignored it,"Lillian or... Elentiya." She choked out the second name, the one given to her by Nehemia. If either of the fae mocked the name she would-
"I suppose that with a proper bath, you'll look a good deal like your mother."
No exchanging pleasantries, then. Maeve was going right for the throat. She could handle it. She could ignore the pain and terror to get what she wanted. So Celaena smiled just as faintly and said, "Had I known who I would be meeting, I might have begged my escort for time to freshen up."
She didn't feel bad for one heartbeat about throwing Rowan to the lions.
Maeve's obsidian eyes flicked to Rowan, who still leaned against the door. She could have sworn there was approval in the Fae Queen's smile. As if the grueling travel were a part of this plan, too. But why? Why get her off- kilter?
"I'm afraid I must bear the blame for the pressing pace," Maeve said. "Though I suppose he could have bothered to at least find you a pool to bathe in along the way." The Queen of Faedom lifted an elegant hand, gesturing to the warrior. "Prince Rowan—"
Prince. She swallowed the urge to turn to him.
"—is from my sister Mora's bloodline. He is my nephew of sorts, and a member of my house hold. An extremely distant relation of yours; there is some ancient ancestry linking you."
Another move to get her on uneven footing. "You don't say."
Perhaps that wasn't the best reply. She should probably be on the floor, groveling for answers. And she had a feeling she'd likely get to that point very, very soon. But . . .
"You must be wondering why it is I asked Prince Rowan to bring you here," Maeve mused.
For Nehemia, she'd play this game. Celaena bit her tongue hard enough to keep her gods- damned smart- ass mouth shut.
Maeve placed her white hands on the desk. "I have been waiting a long, long while to meet you. And as I do not leave these lands, I could not see you. Not with my eyes, at least." The queen's long nails gleamed in the light.
There were legends whispered over fires about the other skin Maeve wore. No one had lived to tell anything beyond shadows and claws and a darkness to devour your soul.
"They broke my laws, you know. Your parents disobeyed my commands when they eloped. The bloodlines were too volatile to be mixed, but your mother promised to let me see you after you were born." Maeve cocked her head, eerily similar to the owl behind her. "It would seem that in the eight years after your birth, she was always too busy to uphold her vow."
If her mother had broken a promise . . . if her mother had kept her from Maeve, it had been for a damn good reason. A reason that tickled at the edges of Celaena's mind, a blur of memory.
"But now you are here," Maeve said, seeming to come closer without moving. "And a grown woman. My eyes across the sea have brought me such strange, horrible stories of you. From your scars and steel, I wonder whether they are indeed true. Like the tale I heard over a year ago, that an assassin with Ashryver eyes was spotted by the horned Lord of the North in a wagon bound for—"
Celaena glanced at Rowan as Maeve uttered the last word.
" - Endovier."
He was so still that she wondered if he'd stopped breathing... She braced herself for the pity, but his face was so carefully blank— no, not blank. Calm with lethal rage.
This sparked a tiny fire in her. One that hadn't been kindled in weeks. She laughed,"Good. Celaena was dead by then. Lillian hadn't even been born so... I don't care."
"Celaena was dead?" Maeve lifted a perfectly shaped eyebrow, "Simply because of the... inconvenience of S-"
Celaena lunged for her bur Rowan grabbed her arms, pinning them behind her back, and hauled her toward him. She struggled to get free but at last gave in and spat at the queen. "You will not say his name."
The Fae only laughed lightly at her,"Why not?"
She snapped as Maeve said that, an empty feeling stealing through her. "You don't know what its like to lose a mate."Her voice was little more than a dull whisper."When you lose a mate you don't... I went mad. Beyond mad. I was empty. Nothing. I would have left myself die but I needed to find him. To kill Farran as he killed Sam. I had nothing. No one. I still don't. I left him. I left him and he died. My mate died for money." Her laugh was darker than the black side of the moon.
"When I got out and found him he paid for what he had done. At that point, I had no use living, so I signed my soul off to the king hoping that serving him might get me killed. Just as I was settling in another light came into my life this time in the form of a friend. A friend who, when I told her I wouldn't help her group of rebels, orchestrated her own death. Because she thought..." This time her laugh was a horrible, wild sound. "She thought her death would spur me into action. She thought I could somehow do more than her-that she was worth more dead. I hate her for it. She helped me up only to shove me further down-and to involve Chaol."
She shook her head and the numbness snapped. Snapped with such a violent crack that she was surprised they didn't hear it. And in its place was a screaming, high-pitched and keening, loud as a teakettle, loud as a storm wind, loud as a sound the maid had emitted the morning she'd walked into Celaena's parents' bedroom and seen the child lying between the corpses.
It was so loud she could barely herself as she said, "And I do not care." She couldn't hear anything over the silent screaming, so she raised her own voice and looked Maeve directly in the queen's eyes. Her breath was coming fast, too fast, as she repeated the words,"I. Do. Not. Care."
She dragged her eyes toward Rowan who had let her go. His face was blank but her hands were clenched in shaking fists. She pulled herself together long enough to dart past him, throw open the door and sprint down the hall.
Pain spiderwebbed through her as she shifted. Unbidden her ears pointed and she grew canines. Her stride became longer, faster. She bounded outside to fast for anyone to catch her. She slowed in the middle of the forest. A wicked smile curled her lips. She set the forest around her on fire. Everyone here could die for all she cared. She burned brighter. She didn't care about Adarlan. She didn't care about Eyllwe. She didn't care about Maeve. She didn't care about Dorian. She didn't care about Chaol. Or Lady Marion. Or Yrene. She. Didn't. Care.
The trees burned brighter. She could feel another magic battling her's. Ice and wind. She may have once laughed. The flames scorched the green life spreading on and on and on. Elentiya willed the flames to spread. She gave her magic free rein, only asking it to burn everything. It did so, gobbling up her reserves.
Her lower back cramped and she smiled. She coughed up blood and her smile grew. She had not imagined it would end like this. This was way worse, therefore way better. When Celaena collapsed she could have laughed. When she started burning from the inside out she was grateful. When she floated away on the wind as no more than ashes scraped up from the bottom of her magic well she was at last content.
Rowan looked around him as he awoke. The floor was covered with ashes and dirty ice. At least twenty miles of forest in all directions was gone. The castle was... a long scorth marked its side. He was impressed. More than that. No one had ever gotten through the Mistward's borders. The girl's power was strong- the girl! He searched frantically for something he know in his heart was true. She had burned out. She had burned out and he was jealous.
3rd fanfiction ever. Is it ok? I know it tweaked some details-like Sam is not Celaena's mate. I probably got their personalities completely wrong. Do you like it? PLEASE Review! Please, please, please! Follow too! I think this might be stretching it a bit but favorite it as well. THANKS FOR READING!