~27~
Lyria didn't think that she had ever been so enraged before in all the three centuries of her existence. Her mate, her beloved mate was standing just feet away from her, and yet, instead of looking at her with the affection and relief, was looking at her as though she was something disgusting that he had trodden on. Like a squashed slug on the bottom of his shoe. He had amassed an army to fight hers. An army that was far larger than hers had been, even in the beginning.
And yet, Rowan still loved her, she was certain of it. The fire breathing bitch queen had just placed him under her thrall, and once Lyria had cut him free, he would be ever so grateful to her, she just knew he would be. But how on earth would she free him from her clutches, Lyria suddenly found herself wondering in that moment. No, it would not help if she showed herself to be as angry and violent as she had been in the last few months. The anger that had been brought to the surface by the knowledge that the bitch queen had enspelled her beloved mate.
No, it would all go much better for her if she showed herself to be the same loving, caring, generous and compassionate female that he knew her to be. It was time for her to be the benevolent female that had first attracted Rowan's attentions. Rowan would know her to be acting genuine and fall in love with her all over again.
"Rowan," Lyria simpered up at him. "It has been a very long time since I saw you last, my beloved mate. I have missed you so much. It seems that you and I have rather a lot of catching up to do."
Rowan merely stepped backwards, away from Lyria, taking Aelin with him. His expression was cold as ice, as hard as stone. This cold, uncaring, murderous female was not the woman he had ever though her to be, and he found himself wondering why he had ever been attracted to her in the first place, found himself wondering how he could have ever believed it when he had been manipulated into believing she was his mate. He may once have loved Lyria, but he now hated her guts.
Meanwhile the survivors of Lyria's small army, those who hadn't fallen prey to either Lyria's whims or the rivers, were shifting on their feet uncomfortably, almost unable to believe their eyes and ears. How could she bring herself to flirt when they had just lost the majority of their forces? How could she bring herself to flirt, when they had just watched their friends and comrades drown? Did she truly not understand that Rowan had no interest in her whatsoever? How could she do any of this? For the first time, they truly understood just how much Lyria had used and abused them. That they had been nothing but a means to an end for her. She had used them all. And now hundreds of their comrades had died for her insane quest.
They had suspected much of it, they had known it, and yet the reality of their situation and the extent to which they had been betrayed was still quite distressing for them all. What on earth were they going to do now? Would they be taken prisoner? Or would they be allowed to leave, to find their own way back to Adarlan, their homes, and their families?
"Why on earth would I want to do anything with you, Lyria?" Rowan said, his tone icy cold, colder than the frozen rivers had been by far. "In case you hadn't realised it before, I want nothing to do with you. Any affection I might have had for you died when I realised just how far you were willing to go. The atrocities you have committed in order to win me back leave me cold. You have miscalculated quite badly. I want nothing to do with you whatsoever. Take your remaining men and leave now, before action is taken against you."
"But you don't mean that!" Lyria trilled loudly. "I know you still love me, we are mates after all, you silly goose. I just need to find out what spell that that fire breathing bitch of a queen has used on you, and I'll be able to free you, and when I do, you'll be ever so grateful to me."
"In case you haven't realised, I have a name, and I'm standing right here, you damned idiot," Aelin snapped angrily, beginning to lose her temper. Not only was she unable to believe the audacity of the woman before her, but the way she seemed to single-mindedly focus in on Rowan while ignoring her entirely grated on her nerves.
"Why should I address you when you are nothing but a little whore? Stealing another woman's mate and husband like that… tut, tut, tut," Lyria grinned evilly at her. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, little slut."
"How dare you," Aedion snapped from where he stood by Endymion's side, looking as though he wanted to slap her, to kill her himself. "How dare you insult a reigning monarch to her face? How dare you insult her, when you are the real villain in this sordid tale?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about, you stupid little human child," Lyria said haughtily, causing many people to glare at her angrily. It had been more than obvious over the months that her mission to capture Rowan and kill Aelin was born merely out of jealousy alone. They all knew the truth of what was going on, even if Lyria faked ignorance of it.
"You do know what we're talking about, Lyria," Rowan said, sounding completely and utterly exhausted. "You have led many hundreds of men to their deaths, just so you can kill my wife and true mate and win me back. But like I said earlier – you miscalculated. You haven't managed to win me back. I hate you for what you've done these last few months. You thought that Aelin used magic to make me fall in love with her, to make me marry her. But you wrong. Aelin has her ancestor Brannon's fire magic. She does not have the magical ability you think she does, to make someone fall in love. Aelin can't force people to do whatever she wants them to do, the way you can."
Lyria stared at Rowan in express shock. How could he know that about her? She had never told him of her magical gift of compellability. She had never told anyone about it, no one at all. So how had he figured it out? When she had used it on Sam, and then Dorian in turn, it had been the first time she had used her compellability in nearly three hundred years. She hadn't even used it when Rowan was still with her, simply because she hadn't felt the need. She hadn't even used it on Endymion Whitethorn when she attempted to gain information about Rowan from him.
But what was that her Rowan had just said…? Had he just called that bitch not just his mate, but his true mate…? What on earth was he talking about? She was Rowan's true and only mate. Whatever the bitch had told him, it had to have been a lie. And the bitch queen had broken her beloved Rowan so much that he had believed her without question. What on earth had she put Rowan through to make him believe her so easily?
Perhaps she would have her work cut out for her when she attempted to heal Rowan's broken mind. But no matter how hard it was, it would be worth it in the end. She would have her beloved Rowan back in her arms, after all, back where he belonged. And even if the healing was harder than expected, at least her mate would be home with her again. Home again, together in their Doranelle mountain home where they belonged.
"Oh, you have been so thoroughly taken in and hoodwinked that you cannot even see the truth," Lyria shook her head sadly. "You cannot remember that I am your only mate, your real true mate. You cannot see the bitch you hold for the liar, master manipulator and sorceress that she really is. She is not your true mate, Rowan, for I am. Surely you remember all of those happy years that we spent together?"
Rowan, like many of those surrounded them, seemed shocked by what Lyria was saying. Did she truly not know the truth of their faked mating bond? Or did she honestly believe the bullshit that she was spouting? She had one truly sick, twisted mind, and Rowan currently hated her more and more than he ever thought possible.
"You must be even madder than I ever thought you were," Endymion suddenly burst out, unable to hold it in for any longer. "You're completely balmy. Nutty. All those times you cornered me in Doranelle, questioned me for information about Rowan, did you honestly think that I did not figure out who you really were? Did you not think that I would put the pieces together? Did you not think that I would find out about your compellability magic? Because I did. Because I figured out all of your dirty little secrets."
Lyria simply ignored Endymion's words, dismissing his words as trivial, irrelevant, of no great concern. She merely stared intently at Rowan, as though attempting to silently, wordlessly, convince him of her supposed rightness. "Deep down, Rowan, you know that I'm telling the truth," Lyria whispered silkily. "You know that I am your one true mate. You have to believe me. You love me and I love you. We belong together."
"You have to know by now," Rowan said, distaste dripping from his every word, "that I have no wish to be with you anymore. I believed you dead for two hundred years, and eventually I got over my grief and self loathing, and moved on with my life. I met Aelin and fell deeply in love. And it appears you finally moved on and away from me as well."
"I don't know what you mean," Lyria said and for the first time that day she looked genuinely confused. However, many of the men standing around the battlefield were now smirking quite openly. "What do you think you're laughing at?" Lyria yelled suddenly, frustrated at not knowing why she was so abruptly the butt of the joke.
"We're talking about your recent marriage to Dorian Haviliard," Aelin said, more gently than she'd expected to. There was something more than a bit frightening about Lyria's detachment from reality. "I can't speak for how things stand in Doranelle, but in many kingdoms on this continent, bigamy and polygamous marriages are against the law, so I truly hope that you find the happiness you so clearly need with him."
Lyria was so enraged that she could have screamed with frustration. Why were they so intent on keeping Rowan from her? Why couldn't they just admit that Rowan still loved her and for that matter, why couldn't Rowan admit it himself? It made no sense at all to her. They had to be in denial, all of them, unable to accept the truth of the situation.
Lyria didn't realise that she speaking aloud, almost screaming in fact, until Rowan looked at her dispassionately and began to speak. "If you truly don't understand why I no longer love you, Lyria, then I suggest you take a good long look at yourself and your actions over the course of this year first."
And on that note, Rowan took Aelin, and strode off back towards the tent, unable to deal with the stress and drama of it anymore.
Completely ignoring Lyria screaming for him to come back, screaming for him not to treat her like this, that she had spent centuries loving him from afar and why oh why didn't he understand that Dorian meant nothing to her, and that he was the true love of her life.
They camped where they were that night, by the banks of the Florine River, Lyria and her surviving men being held prisoner, heavily guarded. It wasn't an easy night for any of them by any means. Rowan was still rather distressed by the whole situation, having to face Lyria had been harder for him than he had expected, and was still going over everything that had happened, trying to see what he could have done differently.
However, there was nothing different that could have been different that day, and no matter how much Aelin attempted to comfort him, Rowan still agonised over it.
"Perhaps I could have explained myself differently," Rowan whispered in the quiet confines of their tent. "Perhaps I could have explained better, mentioned how we only ever thought that we were mates because of Maeve's manipulations. Maybe if I had… If only I had known that she still lived… Things might have been different…"
"Yes, things might have gone differently if you had known the truth," Aelin said softly. "But that still doesn't change what she did, Rowan. And sooner or later, Lyria will have to face the fact that she's not your mate, and move on with her life."
"I just can't help but to wonder what would have happened if only Maeve hadn't manipulated us so thoroughly," Rowan said quickly, as though he were unburdening himself.
"But then we would most likely have never met," Aelin said sharply. "Are you saying that you are regretting marrying me, that you regret getting me pregnant?"
"No, of course I'm not saying that!" Rowan exclaimed. "Just that I can't help wondering about the what might have beens."
"And you think I haven't been wondering?" Aelin asked loudly, growing angrier by the minute. "Don't you think I haven't been wondering about what might have happened if I'd known that Sam had lived? What would have happened if Arobynn Hamel hadn't manipulated me so thoroughly? Don't you think I don't wonder what would have happened if I hadn't been send to Endovier? Don't you think that I don't wonder would have happened if my family hadn't been assassinated? Every choice I've made, every decision I've made, good or bad, over the last twelve years has been floating around my head for the last year. And you know what? I don't regret any of it. Because those choices led me here, back to my throne, and more importantly, to you, Rowan."
"I've been fairly stupid, haven't I?" Rowan asked quietly, after a momentary silence. "Because, at the end of the day, I have to face up to the decisions I've made. And so will Lyria, though it seems that she will be loath to admit it."
Aelin gave a soft, sad smile as Rowan took her in his arms, and they held each other all night, wishing that the past could have been different, and hoping for a better future.