Celaena exhaled a breath and extinguished each and every flame in the city.
The power wasn’t in might or skill. It was in the control—the power lay in controlling herself. She’d known all along how vast and deadly her fire was, and a few months ago, she would have killed and sacrificed and slaughtered anyone and anything to fulfill her vow. But that hadn’t been strength—it had been the rage and grief of a broken, crumbling person. She understood now what her mother had meant when she had patted her heart that night she’d given her the amulet.
As every light went out in Doranelle, plunging the world into darkness, Celaena stalked over to Rowan. One look and a flash of her teeth had the twins releasing him. Their bloodied whips still in hand, Gavriel and Lorcan made no move toward her as Rowan sagged against her, 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. Bile stung Celaena’s throat, but she kept her eyes on the queen. Maeve barely gave Celaena a glance as she seethed, “Give me that sword and get out.” She extended a hand toward Goldryn.
Celaena 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—was it sorrow there? His friends were silently watching, ready to attack should Maeve give the word. Let them try.
Maeve’s lips thinned. “You will pay for this.”
But Celaena stalked to Maeve again, took her hand, and said, “Oh, I don’t think I will.” She threw her mind open to the queen.
Well, part of her mind—the vision Narrok had given her as she burned him. He had known. Somehow he had seen the potential, as if he’d figured it out while the Valg princes sorted through her memories. It was not a future etched in stone, but she did not let her aunt know that. She yielded the memory as if it were truth, as if it were a plan.
•
The deafening crowd echoed through the pale stone corridors of the royal castle of Orynth. They were chanting her name, almost wailing it. Aelin. A two-beat pulse that sounded through each step she made up the darkened stairwell. Goldryn was heavy at her back, its ruby smoldering in the light of the sun trickling from the landing above. Her tunic was beautiful yet simple, though her steel gauntlets—armed with hidden blades—were as ornate as they were deadly.
She reached the landing and stalked down it, past the towering, muscled warriors who lurked in the shadows just beyond the open archway. Not just warriors—her warriors. Her court. Aedion was there, and a few others whose faces were obscured by shadow, but their teeth gleamed faintly as they gave her feral grins. A court to change the world.
The chanting increased, and the amulet bounced between her br**sts with each step. She kept her eyes ahead, a half smile on her face as she emerged at last onto the balcony and the cries grew frantic, as overpowering as the frenzied crowd outside the palace, in the streets, thousands gathered and chanting her name. In the courtyard, young priestesses of Mala danced to each pulse of her name, worshipping, fanatic.
With this power—with the keys she’d attained—what she had created for them, the armies she had made to drive out their enemies, the crops she had grown, the shadows she had chased away . . . these things were nothing short of a miracle. She was more than human, more than queen.
Aelin.
Beloved. Immortal. Blessed.
Aelin.
Aelin of the Wildfire. Aelin Fireheart. Aelin Light-Bringer.
Aelin.
She raised her arms, tipping back her head to the sunlight, and their cries made the entirety of the White Palace tremble. On her brow, a mark—the sacred mark of Brannon’s line—glowed blue. She smiled at the crowd, at her people, at her world, so ripe for the taking.
•
Celaena pulled back from Maeve. The queen’s face was pale.
Maeve had bought the lie. She did not see that the vision had been given to Celaena not to taunt her but as a warning—of what she might become if she did indeed find the keys and keep them. A gift from the man Narrok had once been.
“I suggest,” Celaena 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.”
Celaena looked at the prince, who was standing so stalwart, his eyes 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, Celaena pulled the ring from her pocket.
•
It was not Chaol’s ring that she had been clutching these past few days.
It was the simple golden ring that had been left in Goldryn’s scabbard. She had kept it safe all these weeks, asking Emrys to tell story after story about Maeve as she carefully pieced together the truth about her aunt, just for this very moment, for this very task.
Maeve went as still as death while Celaena lifted the ring between two fingers.
“I think you’ve been looking for this for a long time,” Celaena 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.” Celaena closed her fist around the ring. “But who would have thought you were so sentimental?”
Maeve’s lips thinned. “Give it to me.”
Celaena barked out a laugh. “I don’t have to give you a damn thing.” Her smile faded. Beside Maeve’s throne, Rowan’s face was unreadable as he turned toward the waterfall.
All of it—all of it for him. For Rowan, who had known exactly what sword he was picking up that day in the mountain cave, who 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.
She had only realized what he’d done—that he’d known all along—when she’d mentioned the ring to him weeks ago and he’d told her he hoped she found some use for it. He didn’t yet understand that she had no interest in bargaining for power or safety or alliance.
So Celaena said, “I’ll make a trade with you, though.” Maeve’s brows narrowed. Celaena jerked her chin. “Your beloved’s ring—for Rowan’s freedom from his blood oath.”
Rowan stiffened. His friends whipped their heads to her.
“A blood oath is eternal,” Maeve said tightly. Celaena didn’t think his friends were breathing.
“I don’t care. Free him.” Celaena held out the ring again. “Your choice. Free him, or I melt this right here.”
Such a gamble; so many weeks of scheming and planning and secretly hoping. Even now, Rowan did not turn.
Maeve’s eyes remained on the ring. And Celaena understood why—it was why she’d dared try it. After a long silence, Maeve’s dress rustled as she straightened, her face pale and tight. “Very well. I’ve grown rather bored of his company these past few decades, anyway.”
Rowan faced her—slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. It was Celaena’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, and Celaena hardly heard the rest, the words Maeve spoke in the Old Language. But Rowan took out a dagger and spilled his own blood on the stones—whatever that meant. She had never heard of a blood oath being broken before, but 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.