I had meant for it to be somewhat comforting or for her to respond back with some snarky comment. I hardly think Maeve will want me to light a campfire for her, Rowan. She just nodded though, the tension I had been feeling from her since she'd woken up replaced by the faintest trace of her magic drifting in the air.

All rights go to the lovely Sarah J. Mass. I own nothing but my own interpretation of this beautiful couple :)

Thankfully, no new bodies had been discovered in the past week and I found myself wishing I was the kind of person to be content with the idea whoever or whatever had killed those people was long gone. I knew better though, and found myself mulling over the details almost constantly. Then again, it wasn't like I had anything else time to do considering the majority of my days were spent at the ruins of the Sun Goddesses Temple, waiting for Aelin to light a gods damned candle.

Since she had finally managed to master shifting, that was her new task. To light a candle without destroying everything in sight. So far, it wasn't going so well. Not to mention her increasingly foul mood, each attempt left either her, the ruins, or the occasional nearby tree a little worse for wear. And by now I was starting to get the feeling if I made her stare at candles much longer she was going to figuratively- and literally- explode.

Her appetite certainly had, and I found myself keeping a constant supply of food on hand. If there was one thing Aelin Galathynius did not lack, it was an appetite. If only her same fervor for devouring food transferred over to her desire to control her magic then maybe we'd already be rid of each other. That said, despite my instincts I found myself falling into a relatively comfortable schedule. Making the trek up to the ruins each morning, followed by a day of listening to Aelin whine and grumble about how incredibly bored and tired and hungry she was.

The days and nights seemed to blend together in an endless torrent of rain, prompting the return of Emrys stories each night. And each night for some reason I found myself perched by the door in my hawk form, listening to Emrys stories. Aelin was there every night too, standing by the sink scrubbing pots and pans for so long some nights I knew she would be complaining about how badly her back hurt in the morning. Some nights though she sat beside the back door, and I found myself coming a bit closer each time. It was on one of those nights, the rain pounding against the windows as Aelin stood by the sink scrubbing dishes when she asked it, her voice breaking the lulled chatter.

"Do you know any stories about Queen Maeve?" Her question was met with a beat of heavy silence and more then a few glances towards my place by the door. Emrys to his credit let his eyes show his surprise for only a second before his mouth spread into a tentative, if not slightly forced smile.

"Lots," he said, his voice quelling any remaining murmurs. "Which one would you like to hear?"

"The earliest one that you know. All of them," said Aelin. She was either unaware or didn't care about the nervous silence that still hung in the room, and I guessed it was the latter.

As Emrys began his story she slid into her normal place by the back door but despite being mere feet from me she refused to look in my direction, ignoring the chastising click of my beak and instead choosing to dig into a loaf of bread. I didn't say anything though, finding myself content to sit and listen to Emrys weave the tale of Maeve and her sisters to push any more and when Aelin's voice once again broke the rooms silence as she asked if Maeve had ever mated I managed to resist the urge to reach over and peck her. Emrys didn't skip a beat though, telling her of the warrior who had once held Maeve's heart before his untimely death. He went on to mention Maeve's powerful bond with the male warriors she now kept, causing Aelin to shoot a furtive glance in my direction.

Emrys told his tales well into the night, the entire room entranced including Aelin who's eyes had not left his the entire evening besides when she went to grab more food and I wondered if I should ask her why she cared so much about Maeve. But this night was already promising to be more emotionally charged than I liked and I figured no harm could come from some old tales of family drama.

Emrys had just finished telling a story, the soft lull of conversation filling the room when every nerve in my body jumped to attention. I felt him before I saw him, a natural instinct and bond that could only be forged with time and trust signaling he was close. My feathers ruffled out of instinct and I moved impatiently from my place by the door. Moments later he appeared from the trees, his sleek rain-soaked hide gleaming in the moonlight. His eyes even in his animal form shone with barely concealed grief as he slipped through the long grass, muscles rippling with that easy, unrelenting power. Then in a flash of light a tall, broad shouldered male was where the mountain cat had once stood. His shoulders slumped slightly more then usual, the pain I could smell on him even from here jerking me from my perch by the door. I shifted mid flight, landing in the grass without a sound and stepping towards him. I grasped his arm as he clapped me on the back, pulling back to study his rain soaked face. His hand reached up to wipe the water from his brow, a deep breath shuddering through him as he began to speak. "I know you probably don't want to-"

I cut him off mid sentence. After all these years it never ceased to amaze me how Gavriel still underestimated what I would do for him. "Just tell me what you want and it will be done," I said, my voice firm and solid as I led him inside through the rain.

•••

The next few hours passed in a blur of silence and needles and ink, broken only by Gavriel's voice as he spoke of his fallen men. It was why when a knock sounded at the door I simply snapped out a harsh "What?" before returning to the task at hand. It was why I didn't look up until I heard her voice, soft and unsure from where she stood in the doorway with a tray of stew balanced on her hip.

"I thought you might want some stew and-" she broke off mid sentence, seeming to have suddenly realized what she had walked into. I was sitting at my work table, Gavriel stretched across it as I painstakingly worked the tattoo into his immortal flesh. I froze, my eyes snapping to her and from the look she met me with I knew she could see the fury burning in my gaze. I could feel Gavriels pain, had been absorbing it for the past few hours and didn't have to look over at him to know the pain filling his eyes had nothing to do with the tattoo being engraved into his skin. I watched her eyes flicker over the scene, the needles and ink and rag soaked with blood.

"Get out," I snapped, trying only for the sake of Gavriel to keep my voice flat and cold. But her eyes didn't leave the table or the warrior stretched across it, didn't break my gaze as she asked if she should leave the stew.

"Leave it," I spat, and I could tell by the look in her eyes she knew how completely, incontestably furious I was.

I kept me eyes fixed on her as she set the tray down on the bed and headed back towards the door. "Sorry to interrupt," she murmured, casting one last glance back at me and Gavriel before uttering one last apology and slipping back outside, the door snapping shut behind her.

I made it a matter of ten seconds before rising to my feet and flinging open the door, storming out into the hallway and slamming it behind me. She was leaning against the wall but spun around at the sound of me storming up behind her. I barely registered the look in her eyes, but there was enough apprehension in it that I knew she knew just how pissed I was at her. For a fraction of a second I paused, trying to force some of the ire coursing through me to calm at the look in her eyes- one fleeting glance of sorrow and embarrassment and grief. But just as soon as it appeared it was gone, her features rearranging themselves into a scowl so quickly I knew I must have been imagining that fleeting moment of vulnerability.

Any semblance of restraint I still held snapped when the next words slipped out of her mouth. "Do you do it for money?"

I didn't try to stop my teeth from baring in a growl. Rage coursed through me so thick and fast I knew I was already too far gone to rein it back in. And I had every right to be angry- it was none of her gods damn business what I did in my free time. And to assume I did it for money. I wasn't like her. I didn't do things for money or jewels or glory. I wasn't some gods damn assassin from Adarlan. I told her as much, the words coming out feral and cold.

She stared at me for a moment, her gaze hard and piercing as glass. But there was something lurking in her eyes, something besides hatred that almost made my anger hault it's roaring. "You know, it might be better if you just slapped me instead." The words were just like her gaze, cold and hard with something else buried underneath.

"Instead of what?" I snapped, the anger still raging underneath my skin. I could smell the fire coursing through her veins, the same way I had that day I had bitten her in the woods. The desire I had felt for her that day, the desire to get a taste of that pure fire she held in her bones was still there inside of me, overshadowed only by the anger I still hadn't found control over.

"Instead of reminding me again and again how rutting worthless and awful and cowardly I am. Believe me, I can do the job well enough on my own. So just hit me, because I'm damned tired of trading insults. And you know what? You didn't even bother to tell me you'd be unavailable. If you'd said something, I never would have come. I'm sorry I did. But you just left me downstairs," she said, her voice filled with anger and exasperation until she reached the final sentence and it broke.

It was that, the last six words she uttered that pushed me off whatever edge I had been riding since she entered my rooms- maybe since we had met that day in Wendlyn. It didn't matter that what she had said, about how worthless she felt had tugged at something within me that I hadn't felt in a very long time. It didn't matter that for a moment I had felt almost sorry for her. Those words erased it all. Took whatever sliver of forgiveness that had wormed its way into my heart and ripped it out with a blinding flash of memories and pain. Memories of flowers girls in a market and a house on a hilltop and so much grief and guilt I couldn't begin to unravel it.

I barely heard her when she continued to speak, the words floating over me as her previous one cracked my carefully built damn and swept me into that roaring river of pain I had kept at bay for so long. Made my next words came pouring out of my mouth in a flood of vicious, empty syllables before I could even think about stopping them."There is nothing that I can give you. Nothing I want to give you. You are not owed an explanation for what I do outside of training. I don't care what you have been through or what you want to do with your life. The sooner you can sort out your whining and self-pity, the sooner I can be rid of you. You are nothing to me, and I do not care."

There was a single beat of silence. I could hear my breath coming out in pants, the anger that had been so relentlessly rushing through me slightly depleted now that the words had left my mouth. I didn't say anything though, didn't move a muscle as I watched her face fall into a mask of cold numbness. As I watched the fire burning in her eyes flicker- and go out. And without a word she turned and walked away from me.

•••

I didn't go after her, even though some small part of me that had awoken and refused to stop mulling over the words I had said to her told me to. Said to her, knowing that they would hurt her. When I stepped back into the room wrapped in cold silence Gavriel had looked at me like he wanted to say something but one look from me had shut him up. I had spent the entirety of the night tattooing his flesh and the sun had already risen by the time I stood at the borders of Mistward and watched him disappear into the forest. I knew I should go talk to her- make some attempt at an apology. But still I found myself ignoring the pressing urge to go find her.

I eventually forced myself to go to the kitchen, the same part that was telling me to find her almost tugging me towards it. I entered to find it empty save for Emrys who was sitting at an abandoned work table with his hands wrapped around a steaming mug. I almost turned around to go look somewhere else or maybe just abandon whatever it was I was doing here in the first place until I saw his eyes were glistening with grief. For a moment, I found myself hoping she had leftc, that she had abandoned whatever she thought she had to prove to her aunt and gotten the hell away from this fortress- and from me. The door behind Emrys that lead outside had been thrown wide open- she must have gone that way. I was tempted to just turn around and head back to my rooms but what I'd said to her wouldn't stop echoing in my brain and for some reason I didn't want her to leave thinking that was all I thought of her. I gave Emrys a nod as I stepped towards the door but stopped when his voice rang throughout the room. "What are you doing?"

"What?" I said in confusion as I turned around to face him.

Emrys voice was quiet as he said, "To that girl. What are you doing that makes her come in here with such emptiness in her eyes?"

I took me a moment to collect myself enough to say my words with that familiar tone- one of equal indifference and authority. "That's none of your concern."

Emrys didn't do anything but press his lips further together until they were a straight, hard line. "What do you see when you look at her, Prince?"

I didn't know. These days, I didn't know a damn thing. "That's none of your concern, either."

"I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up." His words were filled with enough judgment I couldn't stop myself from snapping back.

"I don't see why I would be of any use to-"

He didn't even give me a chance to finish my sentence. "Did you know that Evalin Ashryver was my friend? She spent almost a year working in this kitchen—living here with us, fighting to convince your queen that demi-Fae have a place in your realm. She fought for our rights until the very day she departed this kingdom—and the many years after, until she was murdered by those monsters across the sea. So I knew. I knew who her daughter was the moment you brought her into this kitchen. All of us who were here twenty-five years ago recognized her for what she is."

I knew then why he had had that look in his eyes the day I introduced Aelin to him. Why I could have sworn I saw a hint of recognition -of respect- in the eyes of some of the demi-fae here when they looked at Aelin. It had been centuries since I had felt any degree of shock, since something had surprised me but this-

"She has no hope, Prince. She has no hope left in her heart. Help her. If not for her sake, then at least for what she represents—what she could offer all of us, you included," Emrys murmured, his gaze burning with sadness as he watched me.

In all the years I had known Emrys I had never seen him like this. So maybe it made me stupid for what I said next. "And what is that?" My voice sounded cold and empty, contrary to whatever was now simmering in my blood.

Emrys met me with an unflinching look as he whispered, his voice filling the room. "A better world."

•••

I found her a few miles from the fortress, perched on the mossy bank of the lake. she had wrapped her arms around herself, her head buried in her arms. And there was such despair radiating from her, full of tears and screams and some long gone fire that I couldn't stop myself from releasing a gust of magic filled with ice and roaring winds as I sat down beside her, my legs stretched out in front of me and my palms braced against the damp, mossy ground. She raised her head from where it had been resting in her hands, tears coating her cheeks but she didn't look away from the glistening lake as I spoke.

"Do you want to talk about it?" My voice was quiet, seeming far too intrusive on the somewhat peaceful silence she still held.

"No." Her words were quieter than mine and for a moment I thought she would tell me to leave. I realized I would leave, if she truly didn't want to be near me. But she just swallowed a few times before pulling out a handkerchief and using it to blow her nose.

We sat in silence, listening to the water lap against the mossy bank and the wind rustling in the leaves. I could feel it calling to me even now, a soft murmur that tingled in my blood. And as I sat there I realized that maybe I had said those words, that I had managed to hurt her because for so long I hadn't seen a way out of the sea of despair I had fallen into after Lyria died. Hadn't, until her. And that-moving on, had scared the hell out of me. And with that thought I spoke, far more hesitant to break the peaceful silence then I should have been. "Good- because we're going."

"Bastard." The words slipped from her lips as she shot me a vicious glare. "Going *where*?"

I met her unflinching stare with a grim smile. "I think I've started to figure you out, Aelin Galathynius."

Guys I actually updated a reasonable time after the last one! Woooo! Actually though I'm so proud of myself. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I tried extra hard to make it super good and long for you guys. We're getting into the juicy bits now too so I'm excited. Also next time I update will likely no be until after ACOFAS comes out so I hope you all enjoy it as much as I'm going to! Love you guys!

Jordan