Queen of Shadows

Aelin and Chaol helped Rowan and Aedion carry the two urns of hellfire into the sewers, all of them barely breathing, none of them talking.

Now they stood in the cool, reeking dark, not daring a flame with the two vats sitting next to them on the stone walkway. Aedion and Rowan, with their Fae eyesight, wouldn’t need a torch, anyway.

Rowan shook Chaol’s hand, wishing him luck. When the Fae Prince turned to Aelin, she focused instead on a torn corner of his cloak—as if it had snagged on some long-ago obstacle and been ripped off. She kept staring at that ripped-off bit of cloak as she embraced him—quickly, tightly, breathing in his scent perhaps for the last time. His hands lingered on her as if he’d hold her a moment longer, but she turned to Aedion.

Ashryver eyes met her own, and she touched the face that was the other side of her fair coin.

“For Terrasen,” she said to him.

“For our family.”

“For Marion.”

“For us.”

Slowly, Aedion drew his blade and knelt, his head bowed as he lifted the Sword of Orynth. “Ten years of shadows, but no longer. Light up the darkness, Majesty.”

She did not have room in her heart for tears, would not allow or yield to them.

Aelin took her father’s sword from him, its weight a steady, solid reassurance.

Aedion rose, returning to his place beside Rowan.

She looked at them, at the three males who meant everything—more than everything.

Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”