Throne of Glass and ACOTAR Stories

The Heir of Fire and Lady of Night 3.0

I did not think I had ever seen Cassian so...clumsy.

But here he was, stumbling into the main level of the town house, knocking over a chair with a bold grin on his face. Rhys and I stared at him in shock and horror as we wondered what the hell he had done.

"I have an idea!" He announced to us, though our only answer were looks of pure terror.

Cassian only sighed at both of our reactions. "I promise, this time it won't include blowing anything up."

I still wasn't so sure, and one glance at my mate told me he felt the same. It had been three days since we had brought Rowan Whitethorn back to that ancient vault, trying to find the time to research what we could about ancient spirits, along with trying to find a way to stop Hybern. So far, we had found nothing, and Rowan had admitted the same the last time we'd met up to compare. Due to this slight anomaly, we had expected Cassian's so called "idea" to have something to do with stopping Hybern, which usually meant chaos and destruction.

When we still did not respond, Cassian's shoulders relaxed slightly as he assured us, "It's about that ancient spirit-queen...Eileen something—"

"Aelin Galathynius," I corrected.

"Yes, her. I'm starting to think that instead of questioning her sanity, we should be maybe taking a moment to reconsider what she said." He rushed to explain, "To us, it all sounded like a bunch of gibberish, but with the way she was flickering...it was almost like she was having trouble keeping her conscience or whatever it is in that one place. Maybe because of that blockage, what sounded like garbage to us could have made complete sense to her."

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about, thinking over his words. But Rhys seemed to have caught on, light flickering in those lovely violet eyes. "Actually, you might be onto something, Cass," He murmured. "Maybe she really was trying to tell us something and we couldn't understand."

"But there's another problem," I cut in. "Whatever blocked off that communication wasn't there before, or, at least it wasn't as strong, which means there must be something going wrong."

The three of us were silent a moment, considering the odds. There were so many things that Aelin could have been trying to say; a plea for help, a hint as to where she was...and it couldn't be a coincidence that there was a blockage in her way of communicating to us.

Which only left one other option: the barrier was not natural.

"What if..." I trailed off. "What if someone is trying to keep her wherever she is, and they blocked off her communication as a result?"

The three of us were silent at the realization, knowing that this was something that couldn't just affect the ancient queen and her mate, but all of Prythian.

"We need to inform Rowan," Rhys said. "Right now."

————

"So, let me get this straight," Rowan Whitethorn said from where he had been skimming an ancient title written in another language. "You three think that Aelin—my Aelin, not some other female—is being...kept in this prison she speaks of? By someone?"

Rhys blew out a breath and nodded. "It makes sense. It even explains the sudden decrease in sanity and freedom of speech."

Though his back was turned to us and his eyes were still gazing at the ancient words on the page, I could tell Rowan wasn't really  reading them. I wondered if he was still trying to process the issue, especially after millennia of waiting and grieving.

"What do you think, Rowan? Is it a possibility?" I asked.

The warrior still did not move from where he stood, but still answered quietly, "As much as I want it to be impossible, it's not. It's never that simple with...with them."