Heir of Fire

She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-­glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen.

She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—­and she would not be afraid.

She was not afraid.

She would remake the world—­remake it for them, those she had loved with this glorious, burning heart; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the Afterworld, she would not be ashamed. She would build it for her people, who had survived this long, and whom she would not abandon. She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath.

She was their queen, and she could offer them nothing less.

Aelin Galathynius smiled at her, hand still outreached. “Get up,” the princess said.

Celaena reached across the earth between them and brushed her fingers against Aelin’s.

And arose.

“Do not insult me by asking me to leave. I am fighting. Nehemia would have stayed. My parents would have stayed.”

“They also had the luxury of knowing that their bloodline did not end with them.”

She gritted her teeth. “You have experience—you are needed ­here. You are the only person who can give the demi-­Fae a chance of surviving; you are trusted and respected. So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to what­ever end.” And if the creatures devoured her body and soul, then she would not mind. She had earned that fate.

For a long moment, he said nothing. But his brows narrowed slightly. “To what­ever end?”

She nodded. He had not needed to mention the massacres, had not needed to try to console her. He knew—­he understood without her having to say a word—­what it was like.

Her magic thrummed in her blood, wanting out, wanting more. But it would wait—­it had to wait until it was time. Until she had Narrok and his creatures in her sight.

She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, its long blade gleaming as if he’d been secretly polishing and caring for it these months.

And when she grasped the dagger, its weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of her, and said, “Fireheart.”

Why are you crying, Fireheart?

It had been ten years—­ten long years since she had heard her mother’s voice. But she heard it then over the force of her weeping, as clear as if she knelt beside her. Fireheart—­why do you cry?

“Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”

Maeve said, “You are free of me, Prince Rowan Whitethorn.”

That was all Celaena needed to hear before she tossed the ring to Maeve, before 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.”

The gods knew he’d seen plenty of harrowing injuries. He’d bestowed plenty of them on his enemies and friends alike. In the grand sense of things, her back wasn’t even close to some of those wounds. Yet when he’d seen it, his heart had clean stopped—and for a moment, there had been an overwhelming silence in his mind.

“Does your lover know what you are?” A cold question.

She lifted her head, not caring how he’d found out. “He knows everything.” Not entirely true.

Rowan grinned. “There you are.” Blood—her blood—was on his teeth, on his mouth and chin. And those dead eyes glowed as he spat her blood onto the earth. She probably tasted like a sewer to him.

There was a shrieking in her ears, and Celaena lunged at him. Lunged, and then stopped as she took in the world with stunning clarity, smelled it and tasted it and breathed it like the finest wine. Gods, this place, this kingdom smelled divine, smelled like—

She had shifted.

As Aedion reached for the water, Chaol glimpsed the hilt of his sword. Dull metal flecked with dings and scratches, its pommel nothing more than a bit of cracked, rounded horn. Such a simple, plain sword for one of the greatest warriors in Erilea.

“The Sword of Orynth,” Aedion drawled. “A gift from His Majesty upon my first victory.”

Everyone knew that sword. It had been an heirloom of Terrasen’s royal family, passed from ruler to ruler. By right, it was Celaena’s. It had belonged to her father. For Aedion to possess it, considering what that sword now did, the lives it took, was a slap in the face to Celaena and to her family.

You’re nothing but a coward, Nehemia had said to her.

Every slice of the whetting stone had echoed it. Coward, coward, coward. The word had trailed her each league across the ocean.

She had made a vow—a vow to free Eyllwe. So in between moments of despair and rage and grief, in between thoughts of Chaol and the Wyrdkeys and all she’d left behind and lost, Celaena had decided on one plan to follow when she reached these shores.