Disclaimer: I do not own TOG or its characters. Also, Aelin/Celeana does NOT loose her powers, they are just temporarily "frozen".
Celeana POV
—
She didn't let herself think about what she had said to Emrys. She was so empty. There was no ferociousness. There was no love. There was no joy.
She kept walking.
Her footsteps made no sound as they hit the ground, quieter then the silent assassins she had once trained with. Her breathing wasn't audible. No, she was silent, and empty, and dead. She waited for the anger, or the fear. Nothing came.
She kept walking.
She didn't think about what she looked like when she passed a mirror. The dead eyes, the pail face. She tried not to think.
She kept walking.
The world passed around her, the same as always. But where there normally was light, there was shadows. Where there was joy, there was another thing that dragged her deeper into that despair. No, she didn't pity herself. She deserved this, this careful blankness. She had failed. The one thing she needed to do, for her long gone friend, she had gone and screwed up.
She kept walking.
Aelin was fire, a breathtaking, beautiful being. She was happy and loyal and strong, and she banished the shadows with light. She had joy. Celeana was strong and skilled and smart. She was lethal and she was arrogant and she was alive. She had joy. Elentiya was unbreakable. She was loyal and strong and so full of light. She had joy.
She was none of them
She kept walking.
Silent tears escaped down her cheek. The only thing she could think about was what Rowan had said. He meant it. She had let herself become close to someone. You mean nothing to me.
You mean nothing to me.
You mean nothing to me.
The words echoed through her head. She had needed a friend so badly. She was so desperate she mistook their sparring matches and taunting plays for friendship. No, Rowan hated her and wanted to be rid of her as fast as possible.
Coward. Nehimia had called her. Rowan had called her. She was a coward, and a broken, meaningless soul.
She kept walking.
Rowan POV
—
Rowan had waited for the girl to return to Mistward. He wouldn't have apologized, but… His words had haunted him, more then he'd like to admit. You left me. She said. He had.
When she didn't come back within the hour, Rowan decided to come after her. He shifted, his silver hawk making a graceful loop as he flew towards her, the trail growing steadily stronger. She was just walking, then.
His hawk put on an extra burst of speed. They were wasting daytime.
But something cracked inside him when he beheld Aelin. She looked so broken. Miserable. Like a mirror.
He didn't interrupt her, just flew along with her.
Celeana lost track of how far she walked. Her mind was so carefully blank, allowing only the most current things to be thought about. What direction she was going, if she was headed out of the forest.
She knew Rowan was flying above her. She knew he had been watching her. She decided she didn't care what he did the moment she stepped out of the fortress. She strained to hear her footsteps, her breathing, her heartbeat. She was silent.
The fire had gone out long before. It stopped crackling through her veins with each footfall from Rowan's room. She was nothing to him, just a child he needed to train. Who he loathed.
It had been a relief, to think that, even for a second, someone else was just as lonely as she was. So nice to think that someone knew who she really was, and didn't hate her for it. It would have been really, really nice.
She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts that haunted her. Until she realized her whole body was shaking. She had been walking for so long it was sunset, and it was freezing. She had been so dead she didn't even think to bring a cloak.
She turned around, even as the movements made her eyes crinkle with pain. She lifted her hands, her eyes widening in shock as she realized that they were frozen, and she was very, very cold.
Celeana rubbed her hands together, trying to create some sort of friction to heat her up. Her power was there, taunting her, so close yet so far away.
She used the minute she stood there, warming her hands, to take in her surroundings. She was far, far away from Mistward, but still in the forest. Or a different one. The dark green and black leaves on the trees confused her. It seemed she had been walking for hours.
Something snapped. The sound was swallowed up by the defending roar. The dull wavering of nothingness. She tried to move her fingers, her toes. Icy pain lanced up her arms and legs, leaving her weak. The power once again danced just outside her reach.
Celeana tried to walk, to do anything to get her blood pumping. She was so frozen that her feet refused to move. Panic flooded her veins, cold and cruel and unforgiving. She leaned against the tree closest to her, picking up each foot and rubbing heat into them until she could move them again.
She took a couple of steps, testing to make sure her legs didn't falter. She started to walk, not trusting herself to get back before something wicked came after her, and because she needed warmth. Her muscles protested. She breathed in deeply, trying to get her fingers to become more articulated, but her lungs refused, locking up against the fringed air trying to force its way inside them.
She was too exposed out here. She couldn't make it back to Mistward with her limbs and power frozen. She couldn't make camp but she needed heat. She had been too lost in her dark thoughts that she hadn't even stopped to think about the weather.
Rowan loosened a piercing cry, drawing her attention away from her icy limbs. He was circling back. She wanted to tell him to go, to leave her and go back to his friend. She forced her lungs to draw in air.
She tried breathing again, because it was the only thing she could do.
Rowan POV
—
Fear gripped Rowan in a tight fist when he circled back to find Aelin struggling to walk—to breath. He could see her frozen blue face and hands with his hawk eyes, how she was struggling to get the icy wind into her lungs. He had been wrapping himself in heated winds, it hadn't even occurred to him that she would be freezing.
But she wasn't using her powers. He had seen the emptiness in her eyes, and wondered if that flame had dissipated along with her spirit. She wouldn't make it back to the fortress. She had gone out with no precautions, nothing, just because he… He—
He had broken the last part of her that was still whole. He thought it was self-pity that she kept thinking about. No, it was a rage, deep at herself. And an emptiness. He knew because he had felt the same thing two hundred years ago.
He had been so angry when she said those last few words. He had been trying so hard to hate her, because when he looked into her eyes, he saw his reflection. A broken, sad soul. Rowan didn't know her past. He had been given few details from his queen.
She fell.
Celeana POV
—
Celeana could barely hear, and everything she saw was tinted a strange blue. She still struggled to breath, and the ringing in her ears had drowned out everything. She stopped walking.
Rowan's hawk was flying toward her, a flash of silver in a sea of blue. She wanted to tell him to go away, to leave her be. But she couldn't talk if she couldn't breath. Celeana fell.
Rowan POV
—
She is completely frozen. I race toward her, the winds pushing my faster, faster, but there was a bond between us, a steel chain. And it was weakening.
I shifted right before her, and her chest was rising, then falling. Slowly, ever so painstakingly slow. I felt terrible that I had caused this. Is wrap her into my chest, and she was cold as ice. Pushing humid winds to her, warming her, I ran. I ran faster then I have since… Since…
No, thats not possible. No one has ever had two. But it feels the same. I wont loose Aelin. I wrap her closer to my chest, because I had lost this once, and if it happened again, I wouldn't be able to bear it.
Because we are mates.