He felt it, barely a twinge in his heart but he felt it. Through the mating bond, they were getting closer. He could feel everything that had been done to her body, it came slowly, as nothing more than a whisper at first. But slowly growing the closer they came. Rowan raged, he couldn't let it out, not yet. He needed this rage to fuel his magic, slowly building it up as he tunneled deeper. When he found her, when he found her, he didn't know what he was going to do. But he knew that whenever he found her, a hurricane of destruction would follow.
Rowan, Lorcan, Gavriel, and Elide were riding through the forest, discussing their plans to recuse Aelin from Maeve and Cairn. Elide could see into Rowan's eyes, there was pain and rage there. She wanted to help with Aelin's rescue but she knew she would just get in the way, also, she didn't want to get in between Rowan and Aelin. She wouldn't survive that. she doubted anyone would. They went over the plan, Rowan was going to sneak in, take out the guards and then signal Gavriel and Lorcan. They rode into a glen that they had discoverers nearby, they were so close, and the Rowan cried out in pain and fell forward off his horse. "Rowan!" Gavriel shouted, practically jumping off of his horse to get to him. Gasping, Rowan slowly rose, "I... I felt..." still struggling for breath Rowan got to his feet. "Felt what?" It was Lorcan who spoke this time. "Ev— everything… the mating bond... every lash, every cut, every broken bone..." Gavriel had to hold Rowan up, he could tell he went weak from the burst of pain. "I could feel every bit of what she went through. Oh, gods, she's barely holding on." Lorcan scowled. Rowan knew it wasn't at him. How Maeve has treated Aelin, what she had done to her. But Gavriel, Gavriel had a fire in his eyes. "I swear to you Rowan, we will make that bitch and her lapdog Cairn pay." Rowan, now recovered had pure, unaltered icy rage in his eyes as he growled, "And I will make sure Cairn pays tenfold."
They traveled towards that camp, Elide staying behind at the glen. Rowan had slipped into a killing calm. No, he was past that. He was in a killing peace. He had reached the bottom of his magical well, and with the rage, he was feeling he was going to make sure everyone in that camp knew who they had kept from him, and how he planned to deal with them. Lorcan and Gavriel had taken up their positions in the tree line just a ways away from the camp, and Rowan moved silently towards it. That terrifying rage still burning inside him. And he walked, not run, not sprint, but walked up to the camp. He approached as the guard changed, he didn't even bother to draw his sword or hatchet yet. He just choked the air from the guards before they even knew what hit them. He continued walking into the camp.
Rowan walks towards Cairns tent, he can see it. Then someone shouts "Hey! Who are you what are you doi—" Rowan turns to face the person that called out, his eyes showing no mercy and pure rage and the person who called out swore, a mask of terror on their face as Rowan drew his sword and leaped forward. Killing the man before he could even think about drawing a weapon. And then he sent out the signal, a burst of his power, to Lorcan and Gavriel. He knew they would come, and so he turned back towards Cairn's tent to see Aelin half sprint half hobble out of the tent. Rowan lost all sense of his surroundings, there was only Aelin, and she turned her head and saw him, Rowan could have sworn there was fear there but that didn't matter, he sprinted Towards her, his mate, his wife, His Queen. Rowan reaches Aelin, grabbing her arm and hauling her towards the direction of the glen. She turned to him, fear and disbelief In her eyes. "Rowan?" "Yes fireheart, it's me." She choked on a sob and Rowan said "Come on fireheart, we need to go, Lorcan will get you out of here" she looked up at him, "you all came?" "Yes fireheart, Lorcan and Gavriel and Elide, we are getting you out of here" Lorcan spotted them and ran over, "you found her" "She found me, get her out of here, now." Lorcan didn't bother to argue, he still wanted to fight, but not with Rowan and certainly it right now. "Ok, come on your majesty, you are coming home," he said as he lifted Aelin and ran. "Wait...fenrys, is still..." she couldn't finish, didn't need to. Rowan has heard all that he needed to. Rowan looked for just one second longer at the chains, the gauntlets and mask on her. He turned around toward the camp, and he unleashed a hurricane of destruction upon it as he marched towards Cairn's tent. Gavriel caught up with him and they entered together. One look at the table, the unlit braziers under it, the horrible tools that had been laid out on the fine material, and then his gaze rested upon that iron coffin. Rowan looked from Cairn to Gavriel who was now healing Fenrys, and back to the coffin. Then the bloodstains on the table, and he knew exactly what had happened. He touched the blood on the table. He said to Gavriel, "heal him" Gavriel looked up in confusion. "Cairn, heal him. I want him awake for everything that I'm going to repay him for." Gavriel nodded, and once Rowan deemed him healed enough he strapped Cairn down to the table, finishing just as his consciousness returned.
Cairn woke to see a golden-haired man carrying a white, bloodied wolf out of the tent. He tried to move only to find himself restrained. "Enjoying those chains?" Cairns looked around frantically trying to find the source of the voice. "I'm sure that you enjoyed it immensely when you used them to hold her down while you tortured her," a tall, tattooed silver-haired man came into view, "And I am going to personally make sure that you feel every bit of pain she did before I kill you...slowly." Rowan looked down at Cairn, relishing in the terrified face that he wore, and even more so as he looked down at the dark stain that now coated his pants, and he grinned. "You know Cairn, I once heard a story from Aelin, about a time when she burned a man to ash from the inside out, I want to try something like that. You're not going to like it, but I will enjoy this. I am going to enjoy this even more than you and Maeve did when you tortured her." Cairn looked at him with pure terror on his face. "Wait wait wait," he said quickly, "You don't understand, I was ordered. I... I had no choice." Rowan looked at him. "Too bad, that just means I'll only enjoy it slightly less. Tell me, do you enjoy your bones?" Cairn looked up in confusion. "Don't answer that." And with that comment, Rowan used his ice to freeze Cairns's leg bones from the inside. Cairn screamed, but no one heard it, Rowan had his wind shielding the tent. And then, using all of his immortal strength, Rowan punched Cairn's frozen bones, and they shattered. Cairn screamed at him to stop, but Rowan couldn't hear him, the only sound he could hear was the scream from Aelin, the one he heard through his mating bond. The scream and that pain knocked him off his horse, and Rowan froze Cairns arms next. He punched them, and they shattered. One by one, he shattered every single bone in his arms and legs. He looked at Cairn, he was still awake and in pain. Good. He froze the lower part of Cairns spine, he couldn't risk killing Cairn yet, and shattered it. Cairn screamed until he was hoarse and yet, Rowan could not hear him. Then he said to Cairn in a quiet, fear-inspiring voice, "this is for locking her in that coffin, for torturing her." Then he shattered Cairn's body, and Cairn screamed. He was still alive, and Rowan made good on his promise to kill him...slowly. When Cairn was finally dead, Rowan cut off his head and threw the body onto the braziers under the table and lit them, completely destroying Cairn. And because he couldn't help himself, he smiled.
Lorcan carried Aelin to the glen. Elide gasped as they arrived, seeing the chains and mask that covered her. Lorcan set her down as Gavriel appeared with a white wolf over his shoulder. Aelin looked up, fear in her eyes as she started to back away crying. Lorcan looked over. "You're safe now" Aelin looked up, through that hideous mask, somehow even more fearful and sobbing. "No, no, nononononono." Lorcan looked to Gavriel confused. "You're safe now." It was Elide who spoke. But Aelin just began shaming her head, still sobbing, "Nononono. Not again, please not again. Not again no please." Gavriel spoke up, you're safe now your majesty, no one is going to hurt you." But Aelin just backed away more, reaching a tree she sunk into the grass. "No, it's fake, it's fake. I know it. You're not real." Lorcan slowly approaches her, kneeling he said, "We are real, this is real. You are safe and no one is going to hurt you." Aelin just curled into a ball on the grass, her chains clinking with the movement. "You not real, none of this is. It's all just another trick. It's just a trick and it's not real." Lorcan looked to Gavriel and Elide, lost for words. He didn't know what to say, none of them did. Then Rowan came barreling through the trees, he looked across the group. Then he looked to Aelin, curled up and sobbing. He walked over to her and kneeled. "Fireheart, it's me. Their gone, you are safe. This is real. I am here." But Aelin just cried more. "No, t-this isn-n't r-real. Yo-you're not real. You're I-in T-Terrasen. T-this isn't real." Rowan looked up, pain I'm his eyes. He was just now grasping the full extent of what they had done to her, they hadn't just broken her body, no, they had broken her mind. Aelin was still crying. "This isn't r-real. I-I I know it's not. He's going to come back, you c-can't trick me again." "Aelin." "STOP IT" She was shouting now, "please, please just end it. I-i'm sorry. I'll go back, just please end it before I have to watch them die, please." Rowan looked at her, tears of his own falling from his eyes as he watched his mate, broken-spirited lying in the grass crying. He was about to speak again but a quiet, canine whine stopped him. Fenrys got up, still in wolf form, slowly and shakily, and limp-walked over to Aelin and laid down in front of her. He blinked 3 times. In response, Aelin blinked once. The wolf blinked four times, in response Aelin blinked once. Some secret language they had made, in the two months that she had been tortured. Aelin looked up at Rowan, still shaking and crying, "Y-you're r-real?" "Yes fireheart, I'm real. Let's get these chains off of you." But Lorcan spoke up, that can wait, we need to move. Now. Rowan shot him a death glare that would have most people, Fae, Human and Witch alike, cowering away. But Lorcan just returned the glare and said, "Unless you managed to kill everyone in that camp, they are going to start looking for us." Rowan hated it, but Lorcan was right. He didn't want to go, not yet, his mate was here and that was all he cared about. But Lorcan was still right, if they didn't get out of the area, they were all going to be captured. As they made to move, Fenrys stood up, then collapsed. Aelin looked back, "He broke the blood oath to save me, that's how I got out of the tent." She looked Rowan in the eyes. I can save him, give me your knife. Whatever you need Aelin, I am here now. He handed her his knife as she moved over to Fenrys, whispering to him. Then she sliced her arm and held it over to Fenrys. And she said one word, "live." She continued to look him dead in the eyes, "live." She said it again, and Fenrys rose. Gavriel immediately grabbed him and put him over his shoulder. Elide, who had remained quite almost this entire time, spoke. "Where do we go?" Lochan was about to say something then was cut off by Aelin's broken voice. "We follow them." She pointed towards a group of eyes in the grass. The little folk.
No one argued, and they rode until they reached a cave, and there was a lake. As the others moved to make camp, Rowan took Aelin aside. "Let's get these off of you." Aelin just looked at him. "I can't, the iron blocks the magic in my blood, I can't do a wyrdmark I can't open it." She began crying softly. Rowan just said, "show me." Aelin looked up at him, and Rowan sliced open his palm and repeated, "show me." And one by one, the chains and the gauntlets and that infernal mask came off. Rowan gathered them up and looked at Aelin. What should I do with these?. Throw them in the lake, I never want to see them again. I want to forget they existed. So Rowan threw them. Hard. They landed in the center of the lake and began to sink. He walked over to her and sat down. He began to put his arm around her and she shied away. Then, realizing it was Rowan, leaned back into him. "I killed him." Aelin looked up at Rowan, who stared at the center of the lake where he threw away her chains. "I remembered the story you and Aedion told me about your time in Ilium." He looked back down at her. "Where you burned the man to ash from the inside out." At that comment Aelin started to grow warm, and she pulled away from Rowan, facing him. He continued, "so that's what I did to Cairn, on your behalf. I didn't have time to do everything he did to you, and I couldn't bring him here so you could do it." He looked back out at the lake. "I froze his bones and shattered them like glass." "Each and every one of them. His legs, his arms, his spine. I destroyed him." He looked back at Aelin, "and I enjoyed every second of it. What does that make me?" Aelin looked out at the lake. "That makes you my savior, you came back for me. They told me that you and the others had gone to Terrasen. I didn't blame you. But I felt so alone." Noticing his look she quickly added, "don't you dare start blaming yourself." He threw on a half-grin and quickly faded. "I don't. But...I felt it." She looked at him quizzically. "Through the mating bond." He said in explanation. "It started as just a twinge, barley anything. But I could feel it. Every lash. Every cut. Every burn. I felt it." Aelin looked into his eyes. "Then it just stopped. I went crazy trying to figure out what happened. The bond was still there so I knew you weren't dead. But it just stopped. Then, when we came close. Everything came crashing in." Rowan gave a small sigh, "I fell off my horse it hurt so bad." Aelin looked over to Fenrys, still in wolf form. "She killed Connall." Rowan looked over at him, then back to Aelin. "She ordered Connall to kill himself. Right in front of him." Rowan looked at Aelin. "She is going to pay for that, maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But I promise you fireheart. Maeve will pay for this."