15
Sam was staring in disbelief. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. This couldn't be real. It just couldn't be. He had to be imagining things. He just had to be. He was definitely hallucinating. He just had to be hallucinating at the moment. After everything he had endured, his mind had finally broken, and he was hallucinating.
Sam had to be hallucinating, because he just couldn't be standing in front of Celaena right now. After the way she had abandoned him to the whims of Arobynn Hamel four years before, there was no way on earth she would dare face him again. And even if she did want to attempt to 'make things right between them' there was no way on earth that Manon and Athril would make him agree to face her. Not when they knew and understood everything that he had endured these last four years.
However, coming face to face with Sam Cortland for the first time in four years was just as hard for Aelin as it was for Sam. The worries that she had only recently expressed to Rowan and the inner members of her court were tightly hidden behind her smoothly calm façade.
Unfortunately for them, the calm façade that she presented was fooling Sam into believing that she didn't care about him. That their former relationship meant absolutely nothing to her. As of right now, Sam was truly starting to believe that Celaena would have willingly helped Hamel fake his death, just so she could move on with her life, and reclaim her throne, conveniently forgetting the year she had spent in the slave mines of Endovier along the way.
Athril, Manon and the Thirteen, along with Rowan and the few members of Aelin's court that were present remained silent – give the two of them a chance to work things out between themselves, and if things started to get a bit heated would they step in. And only then. But deep down, under their momentary vow of restraint, beneath their momentary vow of doing what they could to keep the peace, they were all hoping that a peaceful outcome was a foregone conclusion, despite the odds against it.
And in the moment before Sam spoke, Athril knew that the worry and concern that he'd felt in regards to this first meeting between Sam and Aelin spoke true. Sam wasn't ready for it, not mentally at least. Athril was more than right to be concerned, because Sam was simply itching for a fight. He was just longing for it.
"Looks like you've done pretty well for yourself, Celaena," Sam said bitterly, resentfully. "Maybe this was all part of some grand scheme you had all along – to grow old enough and strong enough to reclaim your throne, regardless of how much it hurt the people you left behind. The people who thought you cared about them."
"Aelin," Aelin snapped back, annoyed. Why did so many people insist on dragging up the past, insisting that she failed them in some way? At least this time she felt as though Sam had some right to be angry. She had certainly failed him. Several times. "My name is Aelin. Not Celaena. My name never was Celaena. Deep down, I have always been Aelin. I always hated being called Celaena, because I'm not her. I'm Aelin."
"So I've heard," Sam said, the bitterness still lacing his tone. "But I want to ask you some personal questions about all of this. What on earth has been your motive these last past twelve years? If you had such a great inheritance as a Queen, why on earth was Arobynn raising you? Knowing you the way I did, I would have thought that you would have preferred to have this entire bloody freezing kingdom fawning all over you and spoiling every moment of every day. We both know how brutal Arobynn's style of parenting was, even if he cared about the person as much as he cared about you?"
"You want to know what my motive was for twelve years?" Aelin snapped back, suddenly angrier than ever. "My motive was to do whatever it took to stay alive. Do you have any idea whatsoever what my life was like for the ten years between the Adarlanian conquest and the day I took back my throne?"
"I would think so," Sam said, the bitterness being replaced by a slight angry arrogance. "We were raised side by side for most of our childhoods, after all. You always enjoyed being Arobynn Hamel's pampered darling, learning how to kill from him, while the rest of us barely got a moment of his attention. I loved you dearly, and thought you loved me back. But you only ever faked caring about me, faked loving me. Then you somehow helped Hamel fake my death, and happily moved on with your life, taking back your throne and a life of luxury, which is what I suppose you wanted all along."
"You have no idea what my life has been like, Sam," Aelin said angrily. "Do you have any idea what it was like for me when I was eight years old and suffering and grieving, with everyone who ever cared about me lost to me forever?"
"I suppose I'm about to find out how wonderful it was for you, aren't I?" Sam hissed back.
At this, Athril, Manon, Rowan, and Aedion all looked at each other in despair. Sam was far too angry to think rationally right now. He didn't care what Aelin had to say to him. His previous show of acceptance for what Aelin had been through in the last four years had been just that, a show. Maybe it had been real in the beginning, but actually standing face to face with Aelin for the first time in four years had reignited that deep, curdling anger in him.
"Do you know what it was like for me, Sam Cortland, when I woke up between my parents' corpses, covered in their blood? Later that day, my parents' assassin came back to kill me as well," Aelin said, her tension and anger obvious to all. "I only escaped because my nursemaid gave her life for me. And how did I repay her sacrifice? By becoming another assassin, raised by Arobynn to be as horrible as the very people who killed my entire family. And then I fell in love with you, and Arobynn led me to believe that you had been killed by Rourke Farran. When I attempted to avenge your death, I wound up being caught, as it was all a trap that Farran and Hamel set up for me. And I was sentenced to be a slave in Endovier. Just because I fell in love with you, Sam. Just because Hamel felt that he owned me, and he didn't like to share his precious belongings."
"And I suppose you feel like that sob story justifies what you put me through?" Sam said, an as yet unseen quiet menace suddenly seeping through his words, his posture. "What about what I went through when I realised that you had abandoned me to my fate, being imprisoned by Hamel and his cronies for four years straight before I was able to fight my way free? Do you have any idea what I went through when I found out that the woman I loved was not who she told me she was, that she was the lost queen of my kingdom's enemy? That my beloved had not only fallen in love with someone else and married him, but had conceived a child with that Fae bastard deserter? A child that should have been mine? Do you not think that I have a right to kill your unborn child after what you have put me through? Do you not think that to be the justice that I more than deserve after everything that I have been through these last few years, while you have been living in the lap of luxury, being waited upon hand and foot? For all I know, that's all you ever wanted."
"You have to be kidding me, Sam," Athril suddenly barked loudly. "You go on about what you have endured in the last four years, but what about what Aelin has been through in the last twelve years? What you have been through is nothing but a drop of water in the vastness of the ocean when compared to her suffering. And now you wish to compound her grief and suffering by talking about killing her unborn baby, to her face?"
"Why shouldn't I kill the child?" Sam declared defiantly. "We all know that child should be mine, better to kill it before it gets a chance to live. In fact, it would be better to kill the brat's father, as well, that way he wouldn't be able to steal Celaena from me again."
"Rowan never stole me from you, Sam," Aelin said brokenly, tears streaming down her face. "Our relationship was ended by your supposed death. I didn't get involved with Rowan for a year and half afterward. Not until well after I had been freed from Endovier. I did love you Sam, but the love I feel for Rowan is far stronger. Far more enduring. And Rowan loves me as much as I love him. And we both already adore this baby we're going to have together."
"Why should I believe you?" Sam demanded to know. "Why should I believe you after the way you abandoned me all those years ago? Why shouldn't I just kill you now for what you subjected me to, the way Lyria wanted to? I didn't want to believe her when she said that you willingly abandoned me, that you willingly subjected me to Hamel's personal brand of torture. But maybe she was right all along. Maybe you should die for what you've done. And maybe I should be the one to kill you for it."
"You dare threaten a reigning queen to her face?" A man that Sam didn't know suddenly interjected, nearly shouting. "You dare threaten the life of a reigning queen to her face, in her own palace – the seat of her power? I am sure that you are aware that just discussing the murder of our Queen is treason and could earn you a cell in the dungeons, if not a traitor's execution?"
Sam merely gaped at the man in disbelief. Was there something about this man that just made people hate him? He hadn't been speaking treasonously, he'd just been speaking the truth. And the truth was that he didn't believe that Aelin deserved to call herself a Queen after everything the pair of them had been through together growing up. She didn't have the right, she had left that part of her life behind her.
"But what if Aelin doesn't deserve to call herself a queen?" Sam demanded. "What if she left that part of her life behind her when she was a child? I personally think that this frozen hellhole of a kingdom would do better with someone else on the throne. Or at the very least, with a different consort married to the queen. Someone else."
"That someone else being you?" Aelin said in a strangled tone of voice, those who knew Aelin knew that she was attempting to hide her anger. Sam's insinuation did not sit well with her, nor did it sit well with the rest of them. If he thought that she would leave Rowan for him than he had another thing coming. Aelin had no idea what on earth he was thinking.
"Of course," Sam replied simply. "Despite everything that you put me through, despite your abandonment of me, I still love you. I still think that I would be a better match for you than one of the Fae would be."
"All right, I've heard enough of this," the strange man who had spoken before said sharply. "Young man, you are under arrest due to treasonous words you have spoken against the Queen of Terrasen and her consort. Take him down to the dungeons."
Two of the guards that Sam hadn't noticed discreetly guarding the throne room came forward and took Sam's arms before leading him forcefully out of the room. Before Sam was fully out of earshot, he heard Aelin speak again. "Darrow, you didn't—" Then the door slammed shut and he heard no more from within.
To Sam's surprise the dungeon cell he was placed in was in better condition than he had expected. But despite the much improved conditions in comparison to what he was used to in regards to imprisonment, he was still pretty pissed off at Aelin for allowing that courtier to place him in the dungeons, especially seeing as she knew that he had already been locked up and imprisoned for years.
What Sam didn't understand was why that courtier had gotten so angry at him. After all, he hadn't done anything treasonous. He had just spoken the truth. Besides, it wasn't as though he could really be convicted of treason, he was an Adarlanian citizen, not a Terrasenite citizen. As an Adarlanian citizen by birth, he legally wasn't allowed to stand trial in another kingdom. At that thought Sam preened, surely these bigots would be realise that and set him free when they realised it, with heartfelt apologies, and an offer to sit on the Terrasenite throne as Aelin's consort, which was where he believed he should rightfully be.
Sam didn't know how long he had been in the dungeons for by the time Athril and Manon came down to see him, but he thought that several hours seemed likely estimate. To Sam's absolute horror it seemed as though they agreed that he should remain locked up, asking why he had said those things, that they had had no idea that he felt that way, and that they thought he had been getting over what had happened to him and moving on with his life. Moving away from his obsessive thoughts about Aelin, as though that were possible! Why on earth had the two of them brought him straight to his beloved, if they did not want them to be together? It made no sense to him. None of this made any sense at all.
He had almost begun to hope that Aelin would still return his sentiment, still return his love when he had been dragged off and placed in the dungeons. If only that cranky old man hadn't interrupted, than his glorious future – his glorious destiny – would have been assured. He would have had Aelin back in his arms where she belonged.
Sam had already won Aelin's heart once, back when she was still his beloved Celaena. And deep down, Sam knew he could do it again. He just needed to work out a plan, and then get out of this godforsaken dungeon somehow. And if Athril and Manon weren't going to help him, if they were on the side of Aelin's supposed 'husband' and the man who had put him in this cell, then may the gods help them all, especially if they stood in his way. He did not understand why Athril and Manon were so doubtful that any plan he came up with could work. It wasn't like Aelin had any magic to speak, she didn't have any! Athril and Manon were just trying to rain on his parade. They didn't truly believe in him the way Aelin did. This was going to be so easy it was almost stupid.
Still in the throne room several hours after Darrow had ordered Sam be placed in the dungeons, under arrest for treason, Aelin and Rowan, and several others were still staring at Darrow in shock. None of them had expected Darrow to do what he had done today. None of them had expected Darrow to defend Aelin so significantly, that he'd stand up to the man who was threatening to kill her and Rowan, and their unborn child.
"Why?" Aelin suddenly whispered, breaking the silence. From the quiver in her voice, Rowan knew that she was either still in shock or attempting not to cry. "Why did you do that? Why did you defend me like that?"
"Because you are my Queen, and it is my duty to defend you," Darrow said proudly, head held high. "With my life if need be. And I am truly sorry of my negligence and temperament has made me speak out of turn in recent months. I realise that these past months have been hard on you, and I did not make it any easier for you. My love for my kingdom causes me to angrily speak out of turn, on occasion."
"Uncle Orlon always said that you were loyal to Terrasen above all else," Aelin said thoughtfully as she watched him carefully. "I remember that he once told me that he thought your love for your country and your pride would one day be your downfall."
"And Orlon was right," Darrow said quietly. "His Majesty always said the same to me. Orlon told me that I had to learn to be more open minded and accepting of different ways of thinking. I have started to come to the conclusion that it was his way of telling me that he considered me old fashioned and hidebound."
There was silence as Aelin thought Darrow's words over, and watching her watch him, no one else dared to speak. It was true that Darrow had been rather harsh with her in the past, and he had been harsh with Sam today. But without that harsh treatment today, who knew what could have happened? Sam had clearly grown delusional over the course of imprisonment that Arobynn Hamel had bestowed upon him, and Lyria's treatment of him afterwards would not have helped his frame of mind. In their earlier letters and messages, Athril and Manon had thought that Sam was starting to recover from the abuse he had undoubtedly suffered, but it was now obvious that he had merely shown them what they wanted to see.
"I have always found it difficult to trust new people," Aelin said quietly, watching Darrow's reaction carefully. "So I naturally didn't trust you, Darrow. But I would like to start afresh."
"Nothing would please me more," Darrow said, his relief and happiness blooming on his face for all to see.
The world was changing once again. And now they had to change with it or be forever left behind, you could not cling to the old ways forever, Darrow saw that now. And if being with Rowan made his queen happy, then he was not going to say or do anything that would jeopardise her happiness. After the tragedies of her childhood and the horrors that she had endured in the years since, then she deserved that happiness. He had been a damn right fool to fight her in the last two and a half years. Darrow hoped that Orlon would be proud of him, wherever he was now, for making peace with his niece. It had been the right thing to do, he was sure of it.