Hey Everyone! This chapter is a bit all over the place and jumps from character to character a little bit! Please bear with me. Thank you so much for reading! Please comment or vote if you like this chapter!
Aelin held her head in her hand as she rifled through the papers Azriel had given her at breakfast that day. Tamlin was refusing to be in the same room as her, so the files contained both Tamlin's and Azriel's memories of the night they had come to Doranelle.
"So, what do you think? Are they Wyrdmarks?" Aidan asked from beside her.
Along with magic lessons, Aidan had taken to following Aelin around during the day, claiming to be learning about political policy and ruling a country and such, but Aelin thought it was because she was the only tether she had to both Doranelle and the realm beyond.
Aelin pushed the papers in front of the young girl, allowing her to look them over herself. She noticed that the girl traced her fingers over Azriel's cramped handwriting.
"They're Wyrdmarks, yes, but Tamlin must have mis-remembered a few of them or forgotten some because these wouldn't have created a portal and definitely not a portal to Doranelle. And some of these words aren't from any portal spell I've ever used or seen," Aelin huffed, frustrated and confused.
"What does that mean?" Aidan asked.
"It means that they're stuck here until I figure out how to send them home," Aelin sighed, closing the file and standing up.
Also standing, Aidan asked, "Where are we going?"
"You are staying here and practicing freezing the water in this basin. You haven't gotten it to change temperatures yet, and you've been working on it for days. I have a meeting that I need to get to."
The girl looked disappointed but nodded and turned her attention to the water as her aunt left the room.
Half an hour later, Aelin was alone and dismounting Merchwynt outside an ominous-looking brick building. The building was a single story in the middle of the forest with not even a trail leading up to it.
Silently, Aelin entered the abandoned structure and bent to open up a hatch in the floor partially covered by debris. The lack of footprints in the dust on the floor let her know that she was the only one who had visited in the last few weeks.
She took a moment to compose herself, placing the most sadistic grin she could muster on her lips and finally descended down into the damp hole.
With just a thought, a flame jumped up in her hand and lit her way down the ladder and across the damp floor of the hole. A rat scurried past her shoe, and she felt nothing as she approached the cell with the shack's singular occupant.
A dirty, crumpled ball began to shift as her flame approached, and she bent down to look into its face.
"Hello, Cairn."
Aidan tried to freeze the bowl of water about three times before giving up and roaming the palace. She figured she would end up in the library, but her feet brought her the training room where many of the palace's residents seemed to spend most of their time, but it was empty for the first time since she'd come to Doranelle.
Out of the corner of her eye, Aidan noticed a servant disappearing down the opposite hallway and called out for her.
"Excuse me! Hey! Excuse me!" Aidan called out to what seemed to be a kitchen maid.
The woman finally stopped and turned to look at her, "Yes, miss?"
"Where is everyone today?"
The maid looked visibly uncomfortable and frowned at Aidan, wiping her hands on her apron and looking anywhere but at her.
"Where is everyone?" Aidan asked a second time.
"Well, I don't really know. They are in different places, miss. Today will be the anniversary, it will. They all spend it differently, mourn differently, so I don't really know," the woman answered, her voice fading towards the end.
Aidan nodded, and the maid hurried off. Aidan felt stupid, not remembering that that day was the anniversary of Erawan's defeat. Realizing that no one would be around to entertain her, she returned to her room.
She picked up one of the books in her growing stack and laid on the massive bed, reading aloud:
It was on the flatlands south of the Avery in late summer that the armies of Aelin Ashryver Galathynius' and her allies met the army of Erawan, the Demon King. The Heir of Fire's army was surrounded on all sides, but it was the Wyrdstone in the demon's pocket that occupied her mind. Without it in her possession, there was no chance of her winning that battle, no chance of anyone surviving, but the King of Adarlan came to her aid. With his ice magic, he was able to freeze the demon just long enough to take the Stone. He gave up his life to forge the Lock for the Gate.
It was at this point in the battle that the daughter of Mala Firebringer exhausted all of her flames. She pushed Erawan back into the portal that Dorian Havilliard had created. She pushed Maeve, who had come to collect her prize, into portal that had been opened, and in the end, it was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius' own flames that destroyed her.
Aidan stopped, imagining what it would have been like to be on that battlefield and witness what Aelin had witnessed, to stand where she had stood.
The young princess was lost in her own thoughts when a voice spoke up beside her.
"Hello?"
Panic swept through her body as she whipped the dagger she had grown accustomed to wearing off of her tunic belt.
"Who are you?" Aidan screeched into the empty room. She backed towards the doors that opened into the hallway.
"Please don't run. We need your help. Please," the female voice begged. Aidan stopped her retreat but stood completely still.
"My name is Feyre Archeron, and I need your help."
It was growing dark when Aelin returned to the palace, a stable hand taking Merchwynt, giving her a carrot as they went off into the night.
There was no one around when she entered the palace, which she had expected. Over a hundred years later, and the four of them still spent the day mourning alone. A small movement off a balcony caught her eye as she passed.
Azriel stood out in the late summer air, his head up tilted towards the stars that were just then starting to twinkle into existence. The male's hands were clenched firmly to the railing as if he were trying not to fall off. Aelin had never noticed the scars that engulfed his hands, eerily similar to her own.
He didn't say anything or turn to look at her, but she knew he knew she was there.
"A scar for a scar?" Aelin asked, leaning out over the railing herself.
He didn't speak, so she continued, pointing to the scars on her right hand.
"When I was thirteen, my Master, Arobynn, thought that my skills in my left hand were lacking in comparison those in my right. He gave me a choice to either break my right hand or have him break it for me. That night, I slammed my hand in my bedroom door," Aelin said, looking up lovingly at the North Star.
The dark-haired Illyrian cleared his throat and looked down at his own scarred hands before speaking, "When I was a child, my step-mother and brothers locked me in a cell. I was not allowed to fly or even come out for more than one hour every day. When I was eight, my half-brothers poured oil on my hands and set them on fire. I was finally saved by some other warriors in the camp when they heard my agonizing screams."
Aelin peered at the strange male beside her, rolling his words over in her mind and decided that childhood was a painful thing to endure.
"Please do not hurt her. She is still a child, and she will already have to make many, very challenging decisions in the months and years to come."
The male's throat bobbed when he finally said, "You already know that I can't hurt her."