Aedion POV:

There's a blizzard outside. Poor bastards on duty have it cold. Why we're in the Mountains is beyond me, but that usurping son of a bitch demands it so that is what I must do. To put it briefly, I'm his bitch. Ardalan's Whore. I can live with it. I have to. If I have to yield my dignity, my honour, my life to protect my people then that is what I'll do. I couldn't save Aelin, she was my only responsibility and I failed. When the King finally kills me I will rejoice, I do not care where I am bound after so long as it's to her. The sooner we leave these mountains the better, I can almost hear her name carried on the wind, the echoes of a distant past. When the King kills me, I'll take him with me. I'll punch his teeth right down to his lungs, he doesn't have a heart. the My fingers trace the simple sketch of her running down the halls with flames dancing along her fingertips. She could never sit still for portraits, but Evalyn knew her well. This sketch is the only thing I saved from that long forgotten paradise. I have the Sword of Orynth, but it's not mine, it has always been her's.

Celaena POV:

I've arrived. The storm is howling and and I howl with it in delight. I'm home. My skin is red with cold, but I don't care. For this one moment I am free. The fortress where the Bane are posted is within sight and I do not know what to do. My entire journey was focused on getting here and now I am the butterflies have sprung loose in my stomach, spring thawing at winter's glory. But it's too late to turn back, and a possessive, animal part of me cries out for kith and kin. The grey stone walls tower above me, everything is a shade of grey, from the mud tracked snow to the uniforms of the guards who detain me. They ask my business and I tell them.

"I am here to see Aedion, I believe you know him as General Ashryver?", I purred, smiling darkly at the look they shared. My cousin was a manslut, no mistake. They stutter and hurry me to a room with a fire blazing within.

"Wait here." Then I am alone and I wait, staring into the flames. They're old friends, these flames, and I remember the days when they would trail from the tips of my fingers dancing a jig, a waltz or whatever took my fancy. But these flames are quiet dead things, lacking the spark and life that mine had. Will Aedion be the same? Do I want him to be the same?

The door opens.

Aedion POV:

The guard interrupt my musings. That pisses me off. I'm told there's a woman who wants to see me. Probably some prostitute that's annoyed that I didn't pay her enough. That or a grieving widow who lost her husband in the fighting. I can't stomach either right now, but something in my gut tells me to go. I look at Aelin's picture one last time. So beautiful...

The guard leads me to a room and opens the door, before nodding his head and leaving. I look at the woman gazing into the fire, the expression on her face is almost intimate. She's covered by a dark cloak that conceals all but the side of her face from me. I can see some suspicious bumps beneath the cloak. She's armed. And if her stance is anything to go by she knows how to use them. She lowers the hood and turns slowly, her eyes downcast. There's something familiar about her, though the mud stains from her travel could render her unrecognisable to anyone. Then she looks up and her eyes meets mine.

I - she - her - they... I do know her.

I'm staring into a dream, a fantasy. She is my mirror image. The other side of the same coin. I suck in a breath.

"Aelin"

Aelin POV

Aedion looks at me. As if he's seen a ghost. He probably has, me. His eyes are wide and I see the spirit that we both share in them, ragged and torn, and broken and scarred, but kindred - like fire rippling around and endless blue ocean.

"Aelin"

He whispers it in shock and it breaks me. The sad smile on my face is mirrored in his own. We both approach each other, slowly at first. Then I am in his arms and he is in mine, my kith, my kin, my blood, my cousin...my brother.

"How - what happened" he asks me. So I tell him and for once, I hold nothing back.

Aedion POV:

I don't know what to feel. I don't even know if I can. Feel, that is. But, as she weaves this intricate horror story that not even the devil would believe, I find myself surrendering to the feelings that had fled my body as surely as magic fled the continent. Anger, pain, regret. Hope and despair. She is not my fiery Princess any longer. She is a girl, broken and scarred by the world and left empty. But somewhere, there is an ember that could fan into flame and burn down this Empire of lies.

"What now?"

"I don't know. I know I can't be that girl anymore, the princess. But I can't be Celaena either."

"Then be a Queen"

AN: Should I continue? I have some ideas. What do you think should happen next. Please review. :)