Maeve was standing now, stalking off the dais. Wide- eyed, Rowan hung from his friends' arms, his blood fizzing on the stones.
"You wanted a demonstration," Aelin said quietly. Sweat trickled down her back, and Rowan tried to send a cold wind towards her. To soothe her. But to no avail. He was too weak right now. He didn't know whom he hated more: Maeve or himself. "One thought from me, and your city will burn."
"It is stone," Maeve snapped.
Aelin smiled, not the smiles that Rowan had fallen in love with, but a wicked, evil smile. "Your people aren't."
Maeve's nostrils flared delicately. "Would you murder innocents, Aelin? Perhaps. You did it for years, didn't you?"
Aelin's smile didn't falter. "Try me. Just try to push me, Aunt, and see what comes of it. This was what you wanted, wasn't it? Not for me to master my magic, but for you to learn just how powerful I am. Not how much of your sister's blood flows in my veins— no, you've known from the start that I have very little of Mab's power. You wanted to know how much I got from Brannon."
The flames rose higher, and the shouts— of fright, not pain— rose with them. The flames would not hurt anyone unless she willed it. She could sense other magics fighting against her own, tearing holes into her power, but the conflagration surrounding the veranda burned strong.
She was the Heir of Fire and ash. She was the Aelin Ashryver Galathynius. She was his Fireheart.
She had saved him. Was willing to tell Maeve the location of a Wyrdkey for him. Was willing to burn the earth to ashes for him. Was willing to burn and kill and maim for him.
Aelin and Maeve started arguing. Well, Aelin clearly had the upper hand. When the fire had extinguished and the lights went out, Aelin came to him and Rowan sagged against her. Breathing her in. Murmuring her name.
Lights kindled. Maeve remained where she stood, dress soot- stained, face shining with sweat. "Rowan, come here." Rowan stiffened, grunting with pain, but staggered to the dais, blood trickling from the hideous wounds on his back. "Give me that sword and get out." She extended a hand toward Goldryn.
Aelin shook her head. "I don't think so. Brannon left it in that cave for anyone but you to find. And so it is mine, through blood and fire and darkness." She sheathed Goldryn at her side. "Not very pleasant when someone doesn't give you what you want, is it?"
Rowan was just standing there, his face a mask of calm despite his wounds, but his eyes were filled with sorrow.
Maeve's lips thinned. "You will pay for this."
But Aelin stalked to Maeve again, took her hand, and said, "Oh, I don't think I will." She threw her mind open to the queen.
Aelin hadn't told him anything about it. He didn't know what to interpret. He didn't know what the Queen of Terrasen was showing the Queen of Fae.
Aelin pulled back from Maeve. The Maeve's face was pale.
"I suggest," Aelin said to the Fae Queen, "that you think very, very carefully before threatening me or my own, or hurting Rowan again."
"Rowan belongs to me," Maeve hissed. "I can do what I wish with him."
Rowan felt Aelin's eyes on him, but he wouldn't meet them. He wouldn't let her eyes meet his eyes which were dull with pain. Not from the wounds on his back, but from the parting that had been creeping up on them with each step that took them closer to Doranelle.
Slowly, carefully, Aelin pulled the ring from her pocket. It was the simple golden ring that had been left in Goldryn's scabbard. Rowan had picked up it, knowing exactly what sword he was picking up that day in the mountain cave, had thrown it to her across the ice as a future bargaining chip— the only protection he could offer her against Maeve, if she was smart enough to figure it out.
"I think you've been looking for this for a long time," Aelin said.
"That does not belong to you."
"Doesn't it? I found it, after all. In Goldryn's scabbard, where Brannon left it after grabbing it off Athril's corpse— the family ring Athril would have given you someday. And in the thousands of years since then, you never found it, so . . . I suppose it's mine by chance." Aelin closed her fist around the ring. "But who would have thought you were so sentimental?"
Stop taunting her.
Maeve's lips thinned. "Give it to me."
Aelin barked out a laugh. "I don't have to give you a damn thing."
So Aelin said, "I'll make a trade with you, though." Good. Exactly how he had planned. Let her trade the ring for alliance or defense.
Good.
And then, "Your beloved's ring— for Rowan's freedom from his blood oath."
Rowan stiffened. The world stopped. His heart stopped beating. It was absolute silence.
His friends whipped their heads to her.
"A blood oath is eternal," Maeve said tightly.
What was Aelin thinking? Why was she doing this? She should demand armies. Not someone like Rowan, a prince who had nothing to offer.
"I don't care. Free him." Aelin held out the ring again. "Your choice. Free him, or I melt this right here."
Rowan did not turn.
He wouldn't go down the road. He wouldn't let his hopes rise. Not when they weren't possible.
The next words Rowan heard, "Very well. I've grown rather bored of his company these past few decades, anyway." Blew his mind away.
Rowan faced her— slowly, as if he didn't quite believe what he was hearing. It was Aelin's gaze, not Maeve's, that he met, his eyes shining.
"By my blood that flows in you," Maeve said. "Through no dishonor, through no act of treachery, I hereby free you, Rowan Whitethorn, of your blood oath to me."
Rowan just stared and stared at her, hardly heard the rest, the words Maeve spoke in the Old Language. Rowan took out a dagger and spilled his own blood on the stones.
He had never heard of a blood oath being broken before, but Aelin had risked it regardless. Perhaps not in all the history of the world had one ever been broken honorably. His friends were wide- eyed and silent.
Maeve said, "You are free of me, Prince Rowan Whitethorn."
Rowan rushed to her, his hands on her cheeks, his brow against her own.
"Aelin," he murmured, and it wasn't a reprimand, or a thank- you, but . . . a prayer. "Aelin," he whispered again, grinning, and kissed her brow before he dropped to both knees before her.
And when he reached for her wrist, she jerked back. "You're free. You're free now."
Yes, he was free. Free from Maeve. But he wanted to blood sworn to his Fireheart. Rowan's face was calm, though— steady, assured. Trust me.
I don't want you enslaved to me. I won't be that kind of queen, she said through their silent conversations.
You have no court— you are defenseless, landless, and without allies. She might let you walk out of here today, but she could come after you tomorrow. She knows how powerful I am— how powerful we are together. It will make her hesitate.
Please don't do this— I will give you anything else you ask, but not this.
I claim you, Aelin. To what ever end.
When Rowan reached for her wrist again, she did not fight him.
"Together, Fireheart," he said, pushing back the sleeve of her tunic. "We'll find a way together." He looked up from her exposed wrist. "A court that will change the world," he promised.
And then she was nodding— nodding and smiling, too, as he drew the dagger from his boot and offered it to her. "Say it, Aelin."
She took his dagger and held it over her exposed wrist. Rowan wasn't sure he was breathing. This was happening. "Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?"
"I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To what ever end." Every word, he meant them.
She would have paused then, asked him again if he really wanted to do this, but Maeve was still there, a shadow lurking behind them. That was why he had done it now, here— so Aelin could not object, could not try to talk him out of it.
She grinned as she drew the dagger across her wrist, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. She offered her arm to him.
He took her wrist in his hands and lowered his mouth to her skin.
For a heartbeat, something lightning- bright snapped through him and then settled— a thread binding them, tighter and tighter with each pull Rowan took of her blood. Three mouthfuls— his canines pricking against her skin— and then he lifted his head, his lips shining with her blood, his eyes glittering and alive and full of steel.
There were no words to do justice to what passed between them in that moment.
Maeve saved them from trying to remember how to speak as she hissed, "Now that you have insulted me further, get out. All of you." His friends were gone in an instant, padding off for the shadows, taking those wretched whips with them.
Aelin helped Rowan to his feet, letting him heal the wound on her wrist as his back knitted together. Shoulder to shoulder, they looked at the Fae Queen one last time.
But there was only a white barn owl flapping off into the moonlit night.
And Rowan didn't care.