This chapter is kinda short but I don't really have ideas. So I might just have a major time skip straight to battle day or something. I'm not sure.
Chapter 37 Aelin:
With all of our information, the next step was a ton of work. Aedion, Rhys, Cassian, Rowan, and Chaol were organizing and training the armies. The rest of us were planning strategies. The problem was we didn't want to risk going back to Erawail. If we were caught that would mean the end. And we still had no clue what we had seen last time.
Those bodies... and we still didn't know what they had been doing with the blood. We were so clueless, it was infuriating.
But we could make it work. We could do it.
I knew everyone wanted to rest, and damn it all to hell I did too. But whenever I closed my eyes I thought about my children chained up and scared and I had to keep working. They'd been away for too long. Who knew if they'd even be the same when we got them out,
But I didn't care. As long as we saved them nothing else mattered. So I couldn't just rest. I'd done enough of that.
Despite my focus on planning, I was trying to keep an eye in everyone else as well. For some reason Azriel and Fenrys kept disappearing, but never when we needed them so it was okay. Still kind of weird but I just shrugged it off.
I spent a lot of my time working with my fire. I was still adjusting to having my complete power back. Sure by now I'd gotten used to the feeling of it, but using it was a different matter.
It was harder than I remembered.
When I wasn't working on that I was trying to figure out what the hell we saw that day in Erawail. I honestly couldn't remember everything, just the very big sense of unease and creepiness.
I was interrupted from my thoughts by Feyre, who sat next to me.
"So, how's it going? Thought of anything new?"
I sighed. "Not really. I can't focus that well."
"I hear ya."
We sat silently. We had a kind of rocky relationship. But despite that, I liked Feyre. She was nice, and I could see how hard she was trying.
Both of our courts still kept mainly to themselves. We were just more comfortable with the people we knew and trusted in battle. We didn't have anything against the others, they were all nice people, but we still separated. Well I couldn't say that for sure about Fenrys and Azriel, but I didn't know if they disappeared together or not. Oh, and Elain and Elide. They became fast friends.
But besides those guys, we usually only talked strategy with the separate courts.
Feyre started talking again. "That whole thing was like some weird fever dream. If you guys hadn't been there I probably wouldn't believe myself. All that blood.... what were they doing with it? Drawing, writing..."
She kept going but something clicked in my brain. "Feyre, I think we just figured something out!"
"Hmm, what?"
"You said they could be using the blood for writing. We saw them doing some weird ritual crap but what do we know for sure that blood writing can be used for?"
"...." she took a moment then gasped. "Wyrdmarks!"
I snapped my fingers. "Exactly! They could have been using the blood for Wyrdmarks."
Feyre looked very excited. "This is great! We have a new lead, something that we can use! Good job Aelin! But we still don't know what they used the wyrdmarks for, or why the bodies were needed alive. Dang I think I got happy too fast."
I waved her off. "No, this is still a really good breakthrough. Because to use Wyrdmarks you have to have magic. So now we know there are magic users on the enemy side, besides the ones we already knew about. "
I paused to gather all the information in my head. "We don't know if the magic users are just the ones dying, or the ones killing those people as well. Or maybe everyone. And we don't know if they have actual powers, or just magic in their blood. But no matter, we have new information."
Feyre nodded. "Right. We can prepare for this. We need to tell the others."