This was where she would die. With Rowan's snarling face above her, and grit from the cold, hard earth pressing into her face. She knew it was stupid, but she always hoped she would die in Terresan, or at least be buried there. But instead her carcass would be eaten by revenge crazed spider-shapeshifter, leaving her people not even bones to mourn. They had come so, so close to hope, to a better life. She struggled under Rowan's strong grip.
"Rowan," she wheezed, wanting to see him, the real him one last time. She wanted him to live, to escape and protect Terrasen from the monster sitting on her chest. The fear consuming her ebbed and she thanked the Gods for the time she spent with him. Without it she wouldn't have ever became Aelin. Salty tears formed like dewdrops in the corner of her eyes. She searched deep inside herself, for any flicker or spark, but there was nothing but an endless pit filled with ashes and dust. The blood oath was there, she could feel it, but it was locked away and unreachable.
She wondered how it would kill her. If it did it as rowan, it would be reasonably painless and not messy.
But if it shifted, she had no doubt that her guts would be spilled across the ground. Could she enter the otherworld with her body in that state? She remembered two very different rooms with two very similar gore covered beds. If her parents and Nehemia could get in like that, she was sure that she could.
Aelin hoped they would forgive her. She tried so hard to help, to learn to control the monster lurking under her skin. Perhaps it would urge her people on and she could become a martyr.
The scar on her hand burned at the thought of Nehemia, and she remembered the unfulfilled promise that would now be taken with her to the grave. The people of Eyllwe would never be free of the darkness within their lands.
Her tears flowed faster and they burned on her cheeks, but Aelin embraced the pain. If only to distract her from the harrowing guilt raging within her scarred, lean body. No sound escaped her lips, but she was sobbing inside.
How could she face her friend after all she had sacrificed?
The bonds around Rowan's body had melted to dust, the ash remains taken off on a cold midnight breeze. He shifted in an instant, his tall, immortal body disappearing in a flash of light, leaving the majestic hawk in its wake. Air rushed into his lungs, the shifters magic now solely focused on Aelin. Though he never told anyone, he loved his other form, the way the warm air lifted his wings on summer nights in Doranelle. He used to live for nights like that, and it was the only thing that stopped him killing himself after Lyria's death. The pure animal joy of being free to soar to distant lands. Perhaps it made him selfish, but it was irresistible. He had won many a fight by flying ahead of his Cadre at the start of a battle to inform them of the enemy's forces and secret weapons.
He stretched his mighty wings, the feathers on him ruffling in the cold air, taking a deep breath to fill his lungs with blissful oxygen. He did a tentative flap, to make sure he knew what he was doing. About a century ago he shifted and he had completely forgotten how to fly. The magic sometimes messed with your brain if you weren't concentrating properly.
Anger pulsed through him and he watched as the shifter landed atop Aelin's small body as her magic flicked and died.
There was a roaring in his ears as he flung himself into the air.