Okay, formatting in the app seems insane so I am so sorry if the spacing is horrible. I'm going to try and fix it on a computer as soon as I can get to one.

This is mostly more background with two very minor OC's that won't appear very often at all after this. Also, if the background portions seem a little sped through and confusing, please know that I'm going to be fleshing some very much unanswered and unexplained stuff as the story goes on.

I hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER TWO

The Year 1620

Cillian Havilliard got out of the carriage that had carried him to his newest scouting site. Although the war waging on the continent of Erilea was not a new concept over the past decade or so, it did occasionally unearth some treasures once the black smoke had settled and the booming of cannons stilled. The Havilliard's were a family of opportunity, if nothing else. They moved earth and then moved the things found inside of the earth for profit.

A battle had been fought here, a month or so ago. The solider's all moved on as the location was simply a crossing as opposed to a valuable fort, Adarlan the winner of this particular battle, ensuring his right and safety to be here. The armies were several miles east of him now with no sign of turning back to the crossing any time soon, so Cillian observed.

He had been told from a friend who had an acquaintance in the Adarlan army that had fought here and noticed something that piqued his interest. Always the opportunist, when the mining heir heard of the dark ore deposit that the solider had seen glittering within the rubble of the nearby cliffs, he wanted to see what kind of mineral was producing this alluring shimmer and if he might find something that he could use, sell.

Cillian saw the small opening through the rubble his friend had described, looking as though it entered a cave. Caves were often perfect natural starting points to a larger system that would be carved out of the mountain in search of gems, minerals, and the like. He climbed the short way up the crumbled cliffs to where the narrow mouth was, peering down he could see that the cavern was wider and open below him. Setting up his equipment with the men he had brought with him, he made his way into the tight entrance.

Once he was encased inside, the sunlight pouring in through the hole he had climbed down from and a rope hanging down for when he was ready to haul himself back out, the heir looked around. The small cave was much smaller than he had expected, though that may be due to the amount of rubble that was deposited along the edges, blocking off potential branches and continuations of the hollow. Squinting in the dim sunlight, he looked for the glittering dark stone that the solider had described. Cillian hadn't seen any outside the cave, and he wasn't seeing anything of note in here either – just plain compacted dirt, granite, and other boring metamorphic rubble. The sun touched nearly every part of the snug cave's floor and walls with the high noon's light. So, if there was something that glittered, the mogul was sure he would see it.

Moving the few feet that he had surrounding him, he brushed his hands gently along the edge of the cave walls, lifting his hand when he caused some unstable rocks and dust to settle once more. His brows furrowed, eyes on the ground at the sharp clink he had heard among the settling earth. On the dirt floor below him, almost seeming to peer back at him, was a thin band of stone as black as death. A ring, he realized, crouching down to get a better look.

What would a ring be doing here?

He reached down, and when his skin met that cold, dark stone, he almost pulled back. Almost, but the strangeness of the substance below him felt familiar in a way, as though he had seen a glimpse of something like this before. Curiosity piqued, Cillian picked the ring up and studied it.

It was beautiful, a perfect formation of a circle, no visible indents or scratches. A jewelers' pride, he was sure. Vaguely, a memory of the vaults of wealth and heirlooms his family had amassed over the centuries flashed in his mind and he remembered a glass box with two glittering black stones. They were unremarkable in every way, likely some remnant of ancient hunting tools whose use was lost to time. Yet they were placed in one of the inner most rooms of the vault, where the most prized pieces of art and jewels were kept, so he had known it was of value. The Havalliard's didn't really have a use for any of this stuff, but in a world that rewarded wealth, they hoarded it like the best of them. Collecting dust in all its' waiting glory.

The young heir certainly had no information or knowledge of half the items down here, their uses and value lost to time as well, but apparent if they were kept. He'd taken his wife down a couple of times, Morrigan, and he remembered how she had admired the dark stones in the strange way that they appeared to demand attention despite their seemingly useless nature.

Standing, Cillian pocketed the ring, and looked around the cave once more. Well, not all trips could be successful, he supposed. Still, it was strange, the army man had made this area out to be a deposit of some sort, as though there was something remarkable to be found. Yet, all he'd found was this forgotten ring, somehow in pristine condition despite the wreckage around it. Shaking himself out of his thoughts and shrugging, it wasn't his job to make sense of these things. That was for a historian, or an archeologist. He would let his friend know, finding no use for himself here beyond the small band he intended to gift to his beloved as a small token for his time away on a wasted trip.

--

Morrigan Havalliard wasn't sure what to make of the gift her husband had brought her. A ring, displayed in a quaint box, unlike her normal shining accents of gold, silver, and jewels – this ring seemed to be made of a solid shimming black stone. Almost, but not quite like the obsidian she had seen in some museums depicting rudimentary instruments used by human's long since passed.

She wants to wear it, really, not wanting to seem ungrateful to her husband who works long hours, traveling longer still to bring new opportunities of wealth to this family she had married into. However, she stills herself each time she reaches for it, as if some far away quiet warning is whispering to her. Shaking her head once more as she peers into the box, clearing those strange thoughts of caution. It's a ring, she reminds herself, it cannot do anything to her. It is simply a piece of jewelry, and she intends to make use of the gift her husband has brought her, less he begin to believe she is not grateful for the position their marriage brought her to.

Delicate hands grasped it then, a shiver working its way up her spine as a strange thrumming in her veins seemed to push and pull her away from it simultaneously. Morrigan chose to push those thoughts away once more, surveying which of her fingers the piece would best sit on and slid on the dark stone ring.

Before she could gasp at the jolt that takes her, Morrigan is in the dark, nothingness replacing consciousness.

--

Erawan blinks, for the first time in centuries. He smells, he tastes, he feels, he breathes.

The Valg king peered down at himself then, taking stock of what he can feel is clearly a new skin. The strength of his old body, absent, dark magic shackled and restrained deep within him. He raises a delicately arched brow.

A female's body. This was…less than ideal.

Valg, by their nature, can wear many skins. The skin they wear can determine their strength, even abilities at times. This skin is apparently entirely useless, weak, and – Erawan paused, taking note again of the new body. She was with child.

Very unideal.

The dark king would need to find a new skin to wear then, and soon. His own essence crawling under the skin of the female he wore, a repulsion flowing through him at the slightness of her form. He couldn't do anything in this form, couldn't begin to enact the steps needed to start taking back everything stollen from him by that damned demi-Fae princess. Erawan needed to think, to plan.

--

That night, the dark king realized with a start, that this body may have its' uses after all. While Valg kings held gifts of unending darkness, strength, raw power…the females of his kind had different gifts. While his new skin succumbed to sleep, Erawan pushed her consciousness further and further into his own abyss and feasted on her memories and pain as they filtered up to him through dreams.

At least, that's what he thought they were, and at first that is what he was seeing. Morrigan's memories flickering past him as he attempted to find something useful, a starting point. That's when a web began to be weaved for him, the twisting and pulsing binding of memories and visions showing themselves to him just out of reach. Visions, Erawan realized, because the female nature of this skin was allowing him to access some innate gift that had long been suppressed by his own male physiology. He could not flip through them the way his sister-in-law, Maeve, had been able to. Nor could her manipulate the threads in front of him to alter or choose.

He was just being shown, whatever vision would come up he would be immersed in, experiencing it as if he were there. Then he would be thrown back out of it and sucked into a new one. Past, present, memories, and futures jumbling up in a nonsensical mess of knowledge Erawan knew he must do something with.

When he awoke, a light gasp tearing through his parted full lips as his consciousness was thrusted back into that female body. Looking around and taking stock of the empty bed and room he found himself in, he slowly laid himself back down onto the pillow he had so quickly risen from upon waking.

Perhaps, Erawan thought to himself as images flashed in his mind's eye of what he had just experienced, perhaps this skin wasn't wholly useless.

--

Over the next few weeks, Erawan would wake and live as Morrigan and then sleep and listen and watch. The human, demi-Fae, he wasn't sure – she felt odd to him – female that he inhabited was luckily for him a reclusive creature by nature it seemed. No one thought it odd when she holed herself up in her rooms or when she coldly addressed the staff of the manor she resided in. Her apparent husband, Cillian he was called, was often away on business. This left ample opportunity to explore the grounds and manor, which she did during her waking hours. The female's visions had shown him two Wyrdkeys last night, deep inside vaults owned by the Havalliard family. Where they were located, he wasn't sure, he couldn't peer into the memories or visions more than what was simply shown to him. He wasn't sure how or why they were there, that didn't really matter to him. No, what mattered was that he get his hands on them so that he could begin to take back what was his. Bring his brothers back and vanquish any light that threatened his reign once more.

When the female's husband returned that weekend, Erawan asked him in what he hoped to be the coyness this body had exuded in her past, if she could be taken to the vaults once more. Cillian had looked at her strangely, looking down to her finger and the Valg king froze, sure he had made some mistake that had revealed who, what he was, somehow.

"I've told you, Morrigan, those vaults are for my – our heirs, but there is nothing I can give to you in there. Are my gifts not enough?" the man asked, "You have been given the rarest of jewels, the most expensive of treasures, why is it that you feel the need to attempt to dip into my family's vaults?"

This isn't a battle he wanted to have, needed to have. He could wait, be patient, especially with the babe this body bore. It would only be a matter of time before an heir to those treasures would be born, and then when the time was right, he would be Erawan's for the taking.

--

The weeks passed and the dreams kept coming. Not every night, and not always useful, though occasionally, a vital vision would be shown to him.

He had dreams of a boy, Dorian Havalliard, with raw magic in his veins. A powerful, useful tool. He wanted him, his body, his gifts. There was no telling when he would come into existence, however as the images were vague and fast and ever changing – as if not set in stone. He would ensure that this future came to fruition, would seek out the proper bloodlines to breed into the Havalliard line.

The dark king also has dreams of a girl, Aelin Galathynius, in the distant future…he knows it will take a few centuries until she is born as the world appears much different in this dream. Shapes and sounds and things he doesn't recognize or know in any world he had walked before. She has Brannon's fire in her, deeply suppressed and unaware. Brannon's heir then, and he just knows she will lead him to the third key. He can see it happening at the edge of the spindling dream.

He also sees her mate, a Fae called Rowan Whitethorn, and Erawan's consciousness nearly stutters the vision out of reach.

This makes no sense; he had been gifted many memories from both Morrigan's mind and those ancestors that came before her. He hadn't been sure at first, the woman felt almost demi-Fae when he had first taken her skin, but he quickly learned through the vines of thoughts and experiences of those that had been aware while he had been trapped inside that tomb that no one in this world has seen a Fae in almost 1,000 years. In fact, it seemed this world didn't even realize Fae had even existed, thinking them to be a faraway myth – simply stories and legends told passed down from mouth to mouth. It almost amused Erawan that 1,000 years is all it took in this world for the truth to be twisted and buried. These apparently mortal fools didn't realize the power lurking inside some of them.

The Valg thought on that as well, remembering his consciousness swirling deep inside of his old body encased inside the tomb, forced to slumber. He wasn't entirely sure of the circumstances surrounding it, but he had felt it when his body changed. The king didn't know how long his body had been trapped before it happened, but at some point, he felt the dark power in him get deeply suppressed, unreachable. That was the first change. Later, a more significant change took place.

Erawan had felt his body itself start to change, not due to a lack of sustenance or anything so trivial – the Valg could survive for unimaginable lengths of time without needing to feed much, especially when there was no need to do anything other than sleep. No, what he had felt was a complete changing of his physiology, his very skin, blood, and bones being altered and weakened. He felt the immortality slip from him, even, allowing his body to start decomposing in a way that shouldn't have been possible for the slithering vile creature that was his true form. That is why he had been reduced only to the last thing in him that was still unbreakable, the Wyrdstone ring that all Valg would be contained within when a host skin was unavailable.

That is why it was so curious that this Whitethorn male was present, looking almost like a vision of Old. The Fae male had pine green eyes and silver hair, and he realized with a start there was a prominent general in the country currently attacking them with similar features, Ellis Whitethorn. If he remembered correctly, the general had a large family, and though they didn't look like Fae – no one did any longer – with the Wyrd Keys, who knows what the future had in store. The vision vanished quickly before he could even attempt to glean an explanation.

Erawan filed the information away, a plan starting to form. After all, the king was not limited to time in the way mortals were, not really. He was an entity, a dark slithering thing, able and waiting to invade any host that was useful to him; and he knew that if he could find and enmesh himself with the right line…he could get to Brannon's heir's mate, then to Brannon's heir, and ultimately to the last missing key.

—

Being that the Havalliard house was a wealthy line that had maintained an interest in mining precious stones and minerals through the generations, it didn't take long for Morrigan to spin a story to her husband, Cillian, of a new vein of valuable stone a wife of a competitor gossiped to her about after seeing her ever present jewelry. Relying on the memories of the body he inhabited, he successfully persuaded the man to at least look into it, as a smart investment. Playing the vapid, money hungry woman successfully much to his chagrin and disgust, he successfully pushed the man into the direction of what he had known as Morath. Where his brothers and he had first begun to bolster their Valg armies.

Cillian did have his men looking into it, within the week; and while there was no evidence of interest like his wife has indicated, there was indeed a vein of dark ore. They started mining within the month.

However, the small sample that his men had retrieved, wanting to test what the stone could possibly be used for, resulted in little indication of value. It was clearly the same material his wife wore on her finger, but how it was crafted into such a delicate band was a mystery. The stone seemed to be harder than anything he had managed to get his hands on, and Cillian quickly grew bored. Leaving the sampled stone to sit in one of the many rooms of their basement, waiting, pulsing to Erawan.

—

A few months later, and Morrigan gives birth. It was an experience Erawan ventured deep into Morrigan's consciousness for, letting the actual woman out and instead sipping on her delicious pain as she experienced the wonderful horror that was childbirth. In too much pain and bewilderment to properly communicate her terror, the midwives' assuming the fear in her yells and panic and bile rising in her throat to be associated with her first experience giving birth. A terrifying experience for any woman. Once it was done, baby screaming with new lungs, Morrigan was taken under again into that cold unforgiving place that pressed in on all sides of what little was left of her. No one noticed the exhausted woman's last silent plea as she slipped into darkness again, only catching a glimpse of her newborn babe before the world vanished again.

—

At age 10, Liam Havalliard was a quiet, cruel boy. Blue eyes darkened until they were closer to the shade of the night sky instead of the glittering sapphire's he had been born with, nearly as dark as the stone he wore on his finger. It fit loosely and may have fallen off frequently if it weren't for the spacer his mother had made for it when she gifted it to him at age 8. His mother had died shortly after, taken her own life with a slit throat after a sudden bout of insanity.

And at age 15 his father passed away, a strange accident during a hunting trip. No one was quite sure what happened, but Liam was even more quiet and tense with anticipation over the next couple of weeks.

Within the year, his father's estate was settled and he had access to everything in his great family's name. The company, the vault, and within it, the two keys the Valg inside him had patiently waited for.

It was time to start.

—

By age 20 Liam, Erawan, had cemented his success in a new business venture, weapons manufacturing. Utilizing the iron and other resources his family had been mining for generations to easily slip into the field with a few of the correct advisors. His family, as rich as they were, had connections in almost every field, making it easy to navigate breaking out into a new avenue. Though he and his company resided in Adarlan, he expanded his reach to ally and enemy alike, fueling conflict where it suited him.

Through careful planning and manipulation, Erawan quickly got into the ears of important military officials in Dorranelle. He needed to start his relations with the Whitethorne clan.

Once he received an official invite to meet with the generals of Dorranelle, he knew he had to make the most of it. He travelled across the sea as quick as he could by ship, heavy boxes of weapons to display to the military leaders beneath board. A few boxes, heavier than the rest, were also brought aboard.

—

Ellis Whitethorn was not easy to impress, Erawan quickly learned. Especially in the young body of Liam Havilliard. The older general frequently frowned at him when he spoke up, and when he attempted to approach the man after their initial meeting, Ellis had simply looked down on him. Quite literally, much to Erawan's ire.

With a waive of his hand, he was dismissed. Though not before Erawan could gnash his teeth together in anger, stepping forward with a dark power bubbling up in him before a much larger body quickly and efficiently moved the older general out of the way and stepped between the general and the young man. Now Erawan really had to look up and quickly schooled his features into an expression of careful bemusement as he looked upon someone he hadn't expected to see for a few centuries still. Rowan Whitethorn.

Interesting. He could work with this.

With the two keys in possession, and the box of stone collars he had discretely made and shipped with him, Erawan had to suppress the grin threatening to break at the sight of the bulky solider, clearly a personal security detail for General Ellis.

This was not at all what he expected, and he would have to make quick work of the Whitethorn pair to gain their trust enough for his newly budding plan to succeed. He could do it though, had been waiting centuries for this opportunity. In fact, with the two keys he had, it would almost be boring. After all, without magic in this world, two Wyrd Keys against what may as well be human minds and bodies was like taking flint to the driest of tinder. A few well-placed sparks, and their whole beings would be caught in his burning will; and with that he would be in possession of a flame that even Brannon's heir couldn't resist.

If anything, he should consider the future girl lucky. After all, without his interference her mate would have been shriveled under a grave long before she was even a thought.

With the final pieces of his plot sinking into place, Erawan stuck his hand out to Rowan, bowing his head in apology at his previous aggression and putting on a mask of easy civility.

"Ah, my apologies, Mr….?" he looked expectantly up at the younger of the two silver haired soldiers. After being looked over with suspicion in those pine green eyes, Rowan took his hand in return.

"You can call me Rowan, that's all you need to know."

Erawan smiled.

"Rowan, then. Apologies for my eagerness…I-," he paused, looking as though he was remembering himself, "I wanted to be sure I didn't miss the opportunity to pass along an Adarlanian custom…I've brought gifts for you all for our first meeting. It would honor me if I could present them to you, both."

Present Day

Aelin Galathynius was watching her television with narrowed turquoise eyes, unbridled rage simmering beneath the surface of the deceptively cool colored irises. She wanted to shut it off, the monitor displaying the ad she'd seen one too many times this week, but with a sick fascination she couldn't look away from the screen as deeply dark, forest green eyes looked back out at her.

A strong jaw, cocky smile, and neatly combed silver hair made for a handsome picture of the newly announced running mate of Dorian Havalliard Sr. A black suit hugging his muscled frame exquisitely. White pressed collared shirt beneath it as he smiled with perfectly straight pearly teeth in what was meant to look like a welcoming, friendly smile. Instead, all she could see was the sliminess and insincerity lurking in those eyes while the newest thing to politics wrapped up his message on his unwavering excitement to support president elect, Dorian Havalliard Sr. A small, black colored chain of what looked like pearls of the darkest color hung around his neck, dipping beneath the crisp button up - a clear indication of his involvement in the inner circle of the political party currently trying to sink its' claws further into Adarlan's government.

He had come out of nowhere, a surprise upset out of left field as the shadowy agenda that was the Havalliard campaign struggled to maintain any kind of support from the younger generations. Somehow, this running mate seemed to have tipped the scales in an unexpected way in the war hungry party's favor. Young, politically disinterested women fawned over the handsome face of the Havalliard running mate online. While young men inexplicably started expressing support and curiosity in this ideal specimen of masculine surety. Tips popping up on distasteful forums advised on how to emulate him, how to become like him so they too could taste some of that power that Rowan Whitethorn had been catapulted into over the last few weeks.

Before a month and a half ago, Aelin had never heard the name. Some vague remembrance of a long ago general in some big war from centuries ago was about as close as she got to even hearing of a Whitethorn family. Aside from famed and forgotten wars, she couldn't even find anything online about him or where his family name could have come from.

It was strange, especially when you considered how nepotistic and almost incestuous the party the Havalliard's reigned in liked to move. Apparently, she wasn't the only one who found it strange. As many positive reactions as the newcomer brought, he inspired an equal number of suspicious internet inquiries. Some people thinking he was a deep state plant, others thinking he had potentially been bought by dark money for an opportunity to breathe young blood into a dying worldview. Either way, at 28 years old, Aelin couldn't deny that it had been a smart move by the campaign. He was good looking, calculatingly relatable, and worst of all, wickedly quick witted. Too many of her peers ate it up, forgetting too quickly the distrust they previously held for the Presidential candidate.

The Havalliard's were a political legacy, their ancestors having circled in politics in some respect for the last two centuries. Before that they were a ridiculously wealthy family, first gaining monetary success in mining and then later weaponry. Today, they still had their fingers in many war mongering industries, having long thought to be one of the initiators of Adarlan's imperialist conquest upon the world over the last 150 years. The country had influenced budding and ancient nations, brought some down entirely, and set up loyal regimes throughout most of the large continent of Erilea by this point. Adarlan was destroying the free world piece by piece for some overarching purpose regular citizens couldn't begin to comprehend, with the Havalliard's always seeming front and center of those choices and plans.

Aelin wasn't a regular citizen though, and she saw right through them.

While most of the older generations may be willing to still buy the falsehood that Adarlan was protecting the world from itself, that these nations needed their help to maintain success, Aelin and a small but growing faction of people saw the greed for what it was. The people of this dark party doing what they do best, snatching up resources as they were discovered in covert operations and if rumors were to be believed, the country was even participating in and contributing to slave trade of some of the most disadvantaged nations.

Aelin believed those rumors.

She wasn't a conspiracy theorist by any means, but she'd seen the signs. Masses of missing people, girls and boys, women and children alike. Genocides being wrought across war torn countries with body counts too high to keep track of who was and wasn't accounted for, who had successfully fled, who had died, who had been taken. Supposed stories of labor camps popping up on some of the massive military bases Ardarlan had control of. The closest one being Endovier.

Of course, they were just stories, and Aelin had no way of proving anything despite the burning desire to do something to help the helpless. She was just a political science student, after all - a graduate student, sure, but just a student. No matter her passion and drive and willingness to fight against the pit of blackness she knew Dorian Havalliard Sr. would plunge the world into should he be elected, she knew she wouldn't, couldn't make a difference.

Making a frustrated noise, Aelin grabbed the remote and clicked the TV off, the screen winking out the image of the Vice candidate standing next to his picture-perfect wife as they gazed adoringly at each other, Havalliard's name flashing in the top left of the monitor.

Pulling her hair into a high pony with a scrunchie and slipping on her running shoes, she turned to head outside to the quiet trails of Rifthold park to clear her head of the turmoil she felt bubbling in her stomach. The dark sky outside not a deterrent as she clipped a leash onto her 120lb mutt, Fleetfoot, and set out to start her run.

——————

Rowan startled with a gasp as the breath was knocked out of him upon his back being thumped onto what smelled like wet grass, eyes clenched from the impact despite the fact that there seemed to be no indent from his body on the hard ground.

Steading himself and attempting to right himself into a sitting position, a sudden heavy wave of nausea rolled through him as he attempted to regain his breath and bearings. His head pounded; the world felt like it was still spinning rapidly in the way reality itself had contorted around him after he had stepped through that portal. Not the gate, but instead a window that Mala herself had called him into.

He tried to fill his lungs with new air, tried to inflate the collapsed feeling in chest, when another violent waive of nausea hit him and he turned his body quickly before retching. Bile coating the damp grass next to him, splattering onto his leather arm guard a bit when he couldn't move his body fast enough to completely avoid his clothing.

His magic was gone.

The familiar cold emptiness of his lost magic enveloped him, and another wave of sickness hit him, Rowan managing to hold it together with a deep breath through his nose and a clenched jaw. Slowly, very slowly, he managed to sit upright all the way, panting as he attempted to regain awareness of his senses. With his eyes still screwed shut and a loud ringing in his ears, his sense of smell is what came back first as he continued to take deep breaths to calm his haywire nervous system. The scent made him recoil and he almost vomited again, eyes snapping open as his mind attempted to process the information his olfactory system was supplying him with.

The air was rancid and oily, in a way much different from the slums of Rifthold that he remembered upon reaching the continent of Erilea when he had been in search of Aelin back in his own timeline.

Aelin.

That's why he was here. That thought, the remembrance and unsurity of what he left behind before crossing through that ever shifting threshold that was the Wyrd Window, had him stiffening and bracing himself to stand upright in order to take in the new and intensely unfamiliar environment he now found himself in.

What in Hellas's name?

His eyes scanned wildly around him, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, taking in the information with calculating and rapt attention. He seemed to be in a strange forest, it looked manicured almost like a royal garden trying to mimic Oakwald. Great, ancient trees twisted with familiarly gnarled branches and evergreen leaves, so similar to the trees he was had run through so many times. However, that is where the familiarity stopped.

Tight winding paths of pale slab that seemed to be made from a stone of some sort, unnaturally smooth, ran this way and that between the trees. Lanterns placed equidistant from each other, much taller than he's used to, and emitting a pale cold blue light almost akin to the color of the moon fire that had come from Aelin when Deanna had taken over her body were set along the paths. Illuminating them in a never-ending line. Occasionally, a bench of some sort was placed next to the winding paths, not looking at all inviting to sit in and apparently serving no real purpose he could see. There were small jets of water on some of the manicured lawns, flitting about in controlled bursts as the water spit out and arched from what seemed to be the grass itself. Above him was a near starless sky, despite the lack of moisture or cloud cover in the air. That same pale blue glow seeming to light the night sky from below, making the canopy of the trees almost seem gilded from behind. Rowan turned around, and nearly lost his breath again as he saw from the vantage point of the hill he was on, several tall pillars of glass. Almost like individual columns of the glass castle that had been destroyed, poking up into the sky and above what the canopy was able to cover from his line of sight. The columns seemed impossibly high, lit randomly from within in a wide variety of colors, some shifting subtly and frequently as if each of these columns held Wyrd Windows themselves.

He listened, ears picking up almost too much information as he attempted to filter through the unfamiliar sounds. The steady and strange click click click of the jets of water on the grass. The strange buzzing of the lanterns that Rowan couldn't help but think were wildly impractically shaped for lighting and relighting. There were brassy horn sounds going off in irregular intervals in the distance, and deep almost growling noises from what must be animas he had never come across. Voices, he also heard numerous - too many - voices and people and clicks and chirps and bells and ticks and this was too much, too different.

What in Hellas's name? Rowan thought again, the only sentence he could process as dread fell upon him at the realization that this wasn't, couldn't be, correct. Where had Mala sent him? This was supposed to be the same world? A different but still wholly relevant version of Aelin was supposed to be here? Nothing looked right, smelled right, sounded right, felt right as he tried again not to let nausea overtake his senses and collapse back onto the ground. His hand immediately and instinctively grabbing for his hatchet handle as the alien world made his senses and instincts scream at the unease of too much new.

This can't be correct, I've failed…

Then it hit him, and the grip on the handle faltered and loosened as his nostrils delicately flared at a familiar scent. An essential scent. His wife, his mate. Aelin.

He whipped his head in the direction it was coming from and froze. Having come around the bend of a path from behind a tree, he spotted the unmistakable form of his mate. Her scent enveloping him in desperate familiarity as he struggled to steady his breathing and previous panic. She was the same, but also so very different. Strange clothing, strange headgear, he took note of Fleetfoot with an again strangely colored rope. It was almost a glowing shade of yellow, unnatural and nothing he had ever seen before like so many things around him. The dog had halted and was visibly agitated, hackles raised and a deep rumbling growl emitting from her chest. Aelin was clearly in her human form, and Rowan watched, still frozen as she stopped once noticed him standing and watching her from the damp grass, in the dark, off the lit paths.

His heart sang, and his lungs filled with deep relief at her familiar face as he felt his body come back to itself and warm again. Mala didn't steer him wrong, he was right where he needed to be in this strange alternate timeline, and he was going to save his wife.

And then Aelin screamed.