Rowan Whitethorn gazed affectionately at the note he held in his hands from way back then. Those years had been the best of his long, unending life. After that, he had seen battles come and go. He had seen the demons disappear during the night and he had seen how life cleans the old wounds. He had seen life move on without Aelin. But he never forgot her. And his life would never move on without her.
Never would he forget the way she looked at him, the way she teased Aedion, and the way she gossiped with Lysandra. The way she overcame everything in her path... up until she simply vanished two years after regaining her throne. After that, Rowan was numb.
A simple note had been left for him. Nothing but a simple note that read:
You won't understand. For that, I apologize. Give 'em hell for me.
I will never forget you, even if I perish. I ask you for the same.
Never let your ember go out.
Aelin.
He still kept and worshipped that crumpling note after the years. It was tucked somewhere on his form, kept in the best conditions. It was one of the last pieces of Aelin that he could pull out to prove that someone like her, someone like his Fireheart, had existed once.
Another one of those last pieces stood in front of him, surrounded by the snow-covered evergreen trees of the forests of Terrasen. The headstone he stood in front of didn't include any dates, for Aelin was eternal. He had personally asked the grave marker to avoid the dates, for they didn't really know if she was dead or not. She was just… missing. And Rowan had spent two centuries looking for her. Yet even he could not deny the fact that she was mortal. After all these years… she could not possibly be alive.
But what they had shared… that was immortal. That would never end. That would keep on running until eternity paused, and it would start sprinting after that.
Something on the back of the note caught his attention. He squinted a bit and held the note up into the light. How had he never noticed the scribbles on the back? It was Aelin's handwriting. It was in fae. Well, she'd certainly been reading some translation book when she wrote this. He chuckled a bit before reading the words aloud.
"Excliem, carannam totem par hiyelh rosen dosehr." He frowned, recognizing the words. Come, carannam. If I am worthy, come to me. What did this mean? Were they nonsense? Or could they possibly…? No. Words alone could not bring her back. He stood still as a predator for a few more minutes; hands ready in case anything destructive should show itself. When nothing happened, Rowan's mind reeled back into the same disappointing state it had settled in since Aelin vanished. It was the state of complete and utter numbness.
He threw the note on the ground, knowing his actions to be childish. What had he been expecting? For her to pop up and suddenly become alive again? He growled out of frustration and turned his back on Aelin's grave. He was pissed at the dead. A single tear cascaded down Rowan's cheek and littered the snow-covered ground. Aelin. I need you. Again. Another tear fell and the wind picked up.
Rowan's head jerked up. The phantom winds were not his doing. He tried to direct the winds, but they wouldn't listen to his magic. He yelled at them instead. He screamed at them to stop. How dare they? How dare they mock at this time? How dare the winds mock him in front of Aelin's memorial? The wind continued to whirl around him.
What the rutting hell is going on? As if to answer his question, three voices chimed in the wind. They were so quiet that even his fae ears could only pick up snippets.
He is worthy.
We will give him a choice.
She told us to accept and grant him his wish.
It is our payment to her.
It is only fair.
It is only just we honor the deal.
The wind picked up again, stronger than before. It danced around him, completely wild and untamable. Suddenly, all the wind focused on one specific point directly above Aelin's memorial. Snow mixed in so it looked like a white circle that tore open to reveal a hellish world inside. He gaped at the phenomenon, not at all certain what was happening.
A person, a female was spinning around, slashing and cutting her way through a demon's flesh. The demon was enormous. Two horns, one cut in half, leapt out of its forehead and its body was covered in little cracks that overflowed with what looked like magma. The demon's eyes were as deadly as the dual swords it carried in each hand, complete with a hilt decorated with what looked suspiciously like skeletons.
Rowan stood beyond the portal in his snowy world and simply watched the fiery realm. As if on que, the female noticed the hole and sprinted towards it. With one last look back, she cast flames out of her palm that encircled the demon in a tight cocoon. Rowan heard the demon scream, a sound of pure pain and torture.
The woman was thrown out of the vortex and it closed behind her. She barreled directly into Rowan and hurled at him with such a speed that it knocked the air out of him and forced him on the ground. All he saw was a mess of blood and fire and blonde hair and a black assassin's suit.
Blonde hair.
Assasin's suit.
Fire magic.
"A-aelin?" Rowan choked out, wrapping his arms around his beacon. His beacon was alive. She was breathing. She was… absolutely and utterly alive. Bruises and scars marred her beautiful face, making her seem all the more fierce. She raised her eyes to his, those damn blue and gold eyes that had haunted him for the past centuries. The eyes that had replaced Lyria's screams.
"Rowan." She gripped his face in her hands and repeated his name, over and over again. She crashed her lips into his with such a passion that he momentarily forgot where he was. He rolled over so she was pinned beneath him. She lay there, scarred and grinning with that feral smile of hers, utterly wild and alive. She was with him; she was here with him.
"Took you long enough," Aelin quipped after they had lay in the snow for a few minutes, breathing each other in. She opened her mouth to no doubt make some other remark but was interrupted by a flash of teeth and his mouth on her neck. Her lifeblood thrummed with life, its beat faster than it had been in years. Rowan had waited too long to taste his Fireheart again. After she had disappeared…
He growled and nuzzled her neck.
"How? How dare you leave me!" His words came out softer than he had intended. He wanted to scream and yell at her for leaving him and her court without a warning. But he found he couldn't. Rowan found that he couldn't be angry with someone that he had missed and needed for two centuries. Aelin simply grinned beneath him and gasped when he bit her neck again.
"It's a bit of a… complicated story. I just… I can't talk about it right now. " Rowan eyes softened when he looked into her eyes to see that she was far away from him in that moment. Wishing her worries away, he helping her up. Then, as they looked at each other with starved eyes, they had those secret conversations that he had so missed.
My, my, barely holding out without me I see, Prince. I don't whether to be flattered or disheartened at your lack of independence.
I will never let you out of my sight after this. It will be living hell for you for the rest of your life.
Aelin smiled and reached a hand out. Rowan grabbed it immediately, needing more physical contact to confirm that she was really here with him. He needed to know whether this was another damned dream where she would vanish. He let her pull him towards her and reach up to pull his head down.
"Our lives. I'm not leaving you, and you certainly aren't going to leave me," she whispered into his ear. Rowan's arms tightened around Aelin.
"You already left me once, Fireheart. Don't make promises you can't keep." To this, Aelin gave a weak smile.
"Well, I suppose I'll have to tell you that that was Erawan's realm," Aelin whispered and leaned her head into his chest, her form small and shivering. "And in Erawan's realm, humanity is burned away." Rowan's arms went slack.
"Immortality?" He asked in a weak voice. Immortal. Aelin nodded. She would be by his side, forever. He reached up to trace the tip of the elongated elven ears of her fae form. Her only form.
It's a long story.
I can tell. You're going to have some explaining to do, Fireheart. Later.
Rowan sagged against his beacon, his ember, and lost himself in her smell and her feel. It was like breathing fresh air after weeks in a stuffy room. It was like coming home.
"Come." Rowans stepped away from her; watching her step forward and her gasp at a pain in her leg. At his questioning glare, she shook her head and held a hand up, as if asking for a pause. He moved to pick her up, her body lighter than it had been two centuries ago.
"I had to fight the demon king for a very long time. He got a few good kicks and punches in," Aelin whispered and buried her head in his chest. Her honey hair hung down to her mid back, it had grown far longer than when he'd last seen her. "That was the reason I had to go. Mala came to me during the night and told me that the only way to secure a future for this world was to block off the demon king. I had to be locked with him in eternal battle so he would not think to rise up again. Mala presented me with a deal," she sighed and he could feel her take a deep breath and smell his scent, "You would've said no… You would've stopped me. I had to go. We've been sparring with each other ever since that first day. I'm so tired, Rowan. That thing was inhuman and he was cruel and he would weasel his way into my head and he would find the most horrible things…" Aelin shuddered and Rowan felt rage outline his vision. He would kill Mala for putting her through that hell. Aelin had lifted burdens that were far too heavy for her.
Rowan held onto Aelin as he ran through the woods to the lodge he had claimed as his home for the past years. The only people to ever come visit him had been Aedion and Lysandra, but the last time either of them had stopped by to check on him had been far longer than he cared to admit. Gavriel had come to visit him once, yet then left him alone after comprehending just how shattered Rowan had been.
They passed frozen lakes and snow-covered trees. Everything was white and pure. Everything glimmered, as if the light shone on them. Rowan supposed that was true, considering the radiance he held in his arms. His radiance had now closed her eyes and was currently breathing in his scent. Though he felt Aelin on carranam level, he couldn't find that soul joining blood oath anywhere since the day she had wandered off to fight the demon king himself.
"But I felt the bond break." She nodded and settled back into silence for a few minutes, as if finding the right words.
"When I entered Erawan's realm, all my connections with this world were lost. I put the note somewhere you would find it, and every second of every minute, I hoped that you would read it and would free me from that literal Hell."
He let out a loose, ragged breath into her hair that might as well have been a sob. Aelin let out a snore and Rowan chuckled. She deserved to sleep.
Lyria stood behind Rowan, going unnoticed by him. She smiled faintly as she put a hand to her stomach and blessed the couple, fading into nothing more than a phantom wind.
Six days later
Rowan watched her peaceful form sleep; still not quite believing that she was here, in front of him. It seemed a lifetime ago they had been in this very position, him impatiently waiting for her to wake up after she had performed some crazy stunt.
Rowan sat back in the chair by the fireplace and glared at Aelin. How foolish of her to simply run off. How could she not have asked him if he would take her place? He would gladly fight the demon king for the rest of his immortal days if it kept Aelin safe. He would willingly shoulder the world for her.
And… Immortal. Every part of him growled in pleasure. Erawan's realm had burned all of the humanity out of her, only her fae part had survived the torture. It was likely that she would no longer be able to shift into her human form. She would stay in her fae form until the end of eternity, with Rowan at her side. Forever.
Aelin yawned and sat up in the bed, stretching her arms out and looking at Rowan expectantly with a small smile on her lips. He nearly jumped out of his chair and glided towards her. He pushed her back down on the mattress and she glared at him. He smiled back.
I am fine.
You are spent. And incredibly dirty. And you smell like smoke and ash and a billion other things to do with Erawan's realm.
Fitting, considering I was in Erawan's realm.
Rowan and lifted her up and carried her off to the bathing room. He had undressed her as soon as he had entered the lodge and had surveyed her body for any injuries. He had healed them the best he could, though when the cuts had closed and her leg had mended the scars refused to disappear. Rowan doubted that Aelin would care, though.
He set her down in the bathtub and she warmed the water in a matter of seconds. T seemed her magic was in no dire state. He pulled a stool up to the bathtub and encouraged Aelin to lean back against the bathtub. She smiled and leaned her head back against the tub so Rowan could wash her hair. His gruff hands made quick work of it.
"I'm relieved that you hadn't forgotten me," she murmured as he massaged her scalp. Rowan growled and she tensed ever so slightly.
"I could never forget you, Fireheart. Never in any of my years could I forget someone like you. I would never forget my carranam and the second queen I swore a blood oath to. Speaking of which," Rowan said as he held up his wrist. She looked at him with astonished eyes, her breath coming fast and short.
No.
Aelin-
No, Rowan. You have freedom now. You've had freedom now for years. I can't take that away from you again. I'm not even a queen anymore. You'd be binding yourself to a single person, not a future kingdom that could actually amount to something.
When I took the blood oath, I wasn't aiming to aid a kingdom. I was aiming to help you.
Aelin closed her eyes and sighed. Quietly, Rowan stood up and walked to the kitchen and back, carrying a small hunting knife.
"Do you remember what I said to you all those years ago? What you said to me? I claim you, to whatever end." Aelin half-smiled and reached out a hand for the hunting knife.
"You know, I'm getting quite tired of you using my words to get what you want," she grumbled. Rowan laughed and waited for her to commence in the blood oath. She looked at him again, running her eyes over him. It seemed her assassin's eyes had not faltered in any sense. She sighed loudly and rolled her eyes.
"Well, I suppose. But I'm not doing it naked. That would be too awkward of a story to explain to those who ask." She stood up, scars and all, and accepted Rowan's help with drying. When he had finished, he fished one of his white cotton shirts out of the closet and offered it to her. She laughed and tugged it on. It came down to right below her mid thighs. She seemed skinnier and paler, her hair a bit thinner and her eyes more wasted. She noticed him assessing her state of appearance and she erased her smile and cast her eyes downwards.
Rowan moved over to her and lifted her chin.
"It's been…," she faltered and her eyes met his. He understood. She couldn't find a word for what she had been through because there was no word to summarize whatever shit she'd been forced to endure. He nodded and lowered his brow to hers.
Just the feeling of her, alive, was enough to make him leap with joy. He felt the corners of Aelin's mouth move upwards and she removed her head from his.
He had only dreamed of this moment, a moment where all his loyalties would be reestablished. His honor would be restored and his wishes would be fulfilled. He needed to protect her; he needed to lay down his life for her. He needed to be at her mercy once again.
"Rowan Whitethorn," she smilingly chastised and repeated the same words as last time. She remembered every damn word of it. It was as if she held the moment in her heart, just as he did. "Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?"
"I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end." Aelin sliced her wrist open, much deeper than last time, as if the deeper the cut, the deeper the bond. He lowered his head and sucked on the wound thrice before looking up to meet Aelin's eyes. For a moment, light snapped in his eyes and he smiled at the refreshed bond that had settled into place. They were lined with silver as she gave him a watery smile.
"I love you Rowan." The words came so quickly and so suddenly, even Aelin looked shocked at her sudden outburst. Her breathing shortened again and she gazed at him longingly with her Ashryver eyes. Rowan lifted his hand to her cheek and lowered his mouth to hers.
"I love you, Aelin. Until the end of eternity, and far further than that."
