Kingdom of Stars and Fire

Chapter 46

"Again, with all of the shit Aelin has pulled, I can warrant her death right here, right now," Dorian stated. "Same goes for literally any other member of Aelin's court."

"What did I do?" Aedion asked, putting his hands up in surrender.

Chaol snorted. "Just casually forgets that you kidnapped me."

"In my defense, you're a fucking awful spy," Aedion responded, taking a slow sip from his wine.

"You really are, considering that you got kidnapped twice," Aelin chimed. Chaol just scowled.

"And this is why Azriel is our spy master and not Mor," Rhys commented.

Mor's head immediately turned to Rhys and she snapped, "What's that supposed to mean."

"Your version of spying, would involve getting drunk with the enemy and then spilling all of our secrets," Cassian smirked. 

Mor frowned. "You know about that?"

"That happened!" Rhys exclaimed. Even Cassian and Azriel looked shocked.

"Nope," Mor said quickly. Rhys just shook his head and murmured, "Why am I even surprised?" Aelin just cracked a smile, she really did like Mor.

Nesta cleared her throat, breaking the death glares being exchanged by them. "I missed the explanation about everyone. But I heard it was very long. Can I have the very simplified version of how you all met."

"Gladly," Aelin said with a smile. "Here we go again," Fenrys murmured.

"Aedion is my cousin, and Elide was the daughter of a lady in my court, so I grew up with both of them in the palace. Fast forwarding to when I was 18ish, I was a slave, but then Dorian got me out due to.....complicated reasons. Chaol was also there and---" Aelin started, and then stopped in realization. 

"What is it?" Rowan asked, worry on his face as he narrowed his eyes on Aelin. Aelin just turned her head, mouth open, and locked eyes with Dorian.

"Oh. My. God. That was you that night," Aelin said to Dorian in shock. "You wanted to dance with me."

Dorian cleared his throat and asked, "Care to explain." Aelin's jaw was still open when she murmured, "My name is Wind. And Rain. And Bone and Dust. My name is a snippet of a half-remembered song." Dorian jaw hit the ground.

"That was you?" Dorian said in shock. Aelin was just as surprised as she realized who's blue eyes she was looking at, and who his friend with the sword had been.

"Wait, so who was that man?" Dorian commented.

"That was Sam," Aelin responded carefully. Dorian just looked even more shocked.

"That was Sam?" 

Aelin nodded, her mind flashing back to the memory. Aelin was stupidly drunk that night, how she was able to remember it, she didn't know.

"Was I there for this?" Chaol asked.

"Remember when we went to the Harvest Moon party. And you weren't happy to be there, but I wanted to go, so you had to," Dorain told his friend.

"There were a lot of parties like that," Chaol responded carefully, his face looking like he was searching for the memory.

"This was the one where we showed up at 3 am in the morning, and it was a masked ball. It was before the whole king's champion mess, " Dorian commented. Chaol eyes widened in realization.

"That was you?" He asked in shock.

"YES!" Aelin responded back in disbelief.

"I'm so confused," Aedion murmured to himself, everyone else nodding in agreement.