Aelin liked the Night Court. It felt so familiar, the dynamics between all of them as they interacted, the squabbling and light teasing. It made her ache for home, for her terrible cousin and her friends and her dog. Even Lorcan would have been a welcome sight at this point.
Lord Lorcan Lochan. She smiled to herself, remembering his stupid married name. It really was quite hilarious.
"What are you smirking at?" Feyre asked, sitting down next to her.
"Oh, just thinking of home," Aelin said breezily, sitting up and meeting the High Lady's eyes. Feyre tilted her head, a knowing smile on her face.
"I know the risks you must have taken to be here." She said. "I can tell how much your home means to you. I can't imagine what I would do if anything happened to Velaris. So I wanted to thank you, for coming here when you didn't have to."
Aelin waved off the thank-you. "Any decent human being would have done the same."
A wry smile formed on Feyre's lips. "Yes, but we aren't human, as you might recall."
Aelin mirrored Feyre's smile. "True, I suppose."
"Do you ever miss being human?" Feyre asked. Aelin felt her eyebrows go up, and Feyre laughed. "I can tell by the way you talk, the way you hold yourself differently than Rowan. You were human once, too, weren't you?"
"Too?" Aelin echoed. Feyre shrugged.
"I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours." She offered. Aelin pondered that for a moment or two. She hadn't really expected Feyre to be so... easygoing. The few times they'd met, it had been to trade what they'd learned or outrun danger. She realized she actually knew next to nothing about the High Lady.
"Your name isn't actually Cursebreaker, is it?" Aelin asked. Feyre rolled her eyes, smiling slightly.
"No. That's part of my story, too, if you'd care to hear it." Aelin understood what Feyre was offering. Feyre didn't know what to make of Aelin either. To trade stories, to swap the tales of what they'd gone through to get where they were now... it was a peace offering, of sorts.
It had been a very long time since Aelin had told the whole story to anyone. She supposed the last time she'd talked for this long, uninterrupted, was when she'd told her story to Rowan. But Feyre was a good listener. So Aelin told her about the fall of Terrasen, how she'd come to the Assassin's Keep, and then to the Glass Palace. She told Feyre about losing Nehemia and meeting Rowan, and their quest to defeat the Valg King Erawan.
When Aelin explained why Nehemia had died, Feyre seemed to understand. She didn't apologize or give her a pitying look. She didn't even try to say it was alright. She just took Aelin's hand and squeezed it lightly when Aelin's voice broke.
"She made her decision for your sake, and the sake of her world," Feyre told her. "She died a hero."
Aelin didn't know how to thank her, so she just continued her story. She told Feyre about being kidnapped by Maeve, then sealing the Lock and losing her mortal body in the process. Finally, she told Feyre about defeating Maeve and earning her throne back.
Feyre didn't interrupt her very often, but the questions she did ask weren't rude. She wanted to know more about Lysandra's shape-shifting, and told Aelin she herself was a shape-shifter. She proved it by promptly taking on Aelin's golden hair, which made Aelin laugh. She also seemed very interested in Fleetfoot, and was laughing when Aelin explained how she'd set up an entire room just for the spoiled creature.
When Aelin was done, Feyre began. Whatever Aelin had been expecting, it hadn't been this. Feyre told her about being taken away from her home because she killed a Fae wolf, and then falling in love with Tamlin, the High Lord of Spring. She told her how she'd broken Amarantha's curse, earning her Cursebreaker title and her High Fae body.
When Feyre began telling her how she'd become High Lady of Night, Aelin had to look at Rhysand. She found him already staring at them, not paying attention to what the rest of the group was saying. He was smiling sadly at Feyre, probably recalling how she'd come to live in his court. Feyre spoke of a different kind of battle than most people fought. A battle with yourself. And Rhys had helped her win.
"I can't help but think." Aelin interrupted Feyre, turning back to look at her. "How utterly miserable it must be to live in Spring for eternity. Perhaps misery enough that if I ever meet this Tamlin, I'll be able to control my fire from setting his balls ablaze."
Feyre tried very hard to fight her smile, but failed. The two women grinned at each other for a moment.
It had been a very long time since Aelin had made a new friend. Sure, she had Lysandra and Elide most of the time if she ever needed them. But there were some things she just couldn't say to them. Things they might never understand. Aelin hadn't even known Feyre for more than a few days, but she felt as if she'd simply been waiting to meet her for a very long time. Without her even realizing it, the High Lady had become her friend.
At that moment, Aelin felt she finally had a friend who understood her. The first since Nehemia. She promised herself then that whatever else happened, she would not lose another friend. Especially one who was about to start a family with the man she loved.
Aelin let Feyre finish her story. When they reached the end, and Feyre explained how she'd returned the Cauldron to its normal state, something clicked in Aelin's mind.
"Before, you mentioned fixing it. You were about to say you paid a price. Did Rhysand...?"
Feyre nodded. "He was brought back the same way I was. The High Lords weren't very happy about it, but it worked. Obviously." She smiled weakly, and Aelin could see it was a painful memory for her.
"And now you're here." Aelin finished for her. "With this bunch of bastards." She gestured to where Rowan, Rhys, and the rest of the Night Court were sitting at a table, talking. Cassian seemed to be trying not to move, barely raising his arm to grab the food in front of him and bring it to his mouth.
"He'll be sore for days." Feyre sighed, following Aelin's line of sight and noting her devilish grin. "But it's his own fault."
"At least I got cake out of it," Aelin said, eyeing the one cake still sitting at the table. But she didn't get up to get it. She rather liked talking to Feyre, despite not having known her long.
Aelin was about to ask Feyre more about the Night Court when the door opened, and a small female with short black hair walked in. Her silver eyes instantly zeroed in on Aelin, and Aelin waved merrily to her.
"Don't tell me." The female said, eyeing Aelin's assassin suit. "Aelin Galathynius?" She didn't seem all that surprised to see her.
Aelin took a mock bow from her chair. "At your service. And you are?"
"Amren. Did you learn anything from Adriata?" Rhysand interrupted, standing up. The female, Amren, nodded.
"Varian told me about a story he heard when he was young. It mentioned a goddess named Deanna. It's here." She tossed a book onto the table. "I ended up reading all day anyway, by the way. I'll be taking it out of my paycheck. Basically, the story goes that the goddess Deanna and her sister, Mala, along with a bunch of other gods, were trapped in a world they'd traveled to because the gateway home had closed. To return home, they made a bargain with the mortals of the land. If the mortals stole the key to the gate from the Dark King, who was terrorizing their cities, the gods would take him with them. It ends happy, yada-yada, the King and the gods leave and everyone lives happily ever after."
"That's not quite what happened," Rowan said. Aelin managed a laugh.
"But did you find anything else?" Cassian asked her, wincing when he sat forward. Amren looked him over.
"Who kicked your ass?" She asked bluntly. Aelin raised her hand proudly. "Ah. I see you're just as skilled as Feyre claimed, then."
"More so," Aelin said haughtily, tossing her braid over her shoulder. Everyone laughed except Cassian, who just scowled.
"And yes, Cassian, I did." Amren finally replied to him. "Varian told me that Deanna is in quite a few stories. Most of them were useless, except-" She grabbed the book and flipped to the back, landing on an illustration. "This one."
Aelin stood up to go look. She thought her heart might stop completely when she saw what it depicted.
A woman with long, blonde hair stood on a ship, hands raised. White fire surrounded her on all sides, and a green sea dragon was poised in front of her, rising out of the water.
"This story claims Deanna possessed a human girl in order to fight off a sea dragon who was attacking a seaside city. The only reason I picked it up is that I thought this-" She tapped the woman. "Might be our Queen Aelin. She fit the description, except for the eyes. You said Deanna's eyes were colored like this."
"That's- it depicts her as the hero?" Aelin yelled in disgust. "Who the hell wrote this story?"
"Why? What really happened?" Feyre asked, coming up to look.
"She possessed me to burn down Skull's Bay. The only reason she did not succeed was because Rowan jumped in front of me." Aelin growled.
"So she can possess people?" Rhysand asked. "You failed to mention this."
"I had other problems," Aelin said, still fuming.
"Alright, she can possess people. Doesn't that mean she could be somewhere in Velaris right now? How would we be able to tell if she was?" Mor asked. Aelin sighed.
"You probably wouldn't be able to. But I wouldn't worry too much. She said that she and the other gods haven't gotten around to leaving yet."
"But they will be soon," Cassian argued. "We need to make some kind of plan. You said you had an idea, but so far, you've been refusing to tell us. Why?"
Everyone looked at Aelin, who sighed melodramatically.
"Well, that's mostly because I was still fine-tuning the idea. I suppose I can tell all of you now. But first..."
Aelin walked over to the last cake and cut herself a slice, then held out the knife to Feyre. "Cake, anyone?"
Nehemia and Celaena art by Kynerie!!
I miss Nehemia. When I first read Crown of Midnight, I genuinely thought she wasn't actually dead. Sarah J Maas was the first author I read who really just wrenched characters away from us and had no intentions of giving them back. Nehemia, Sorscha, Sam... Sam and Celaena were so perfect for each other! I really wish he hadn't died. I mean, I love Rowan, but I gotta say I liked Sam more. And Sorscha was so cool!! I don't get why people hate her.
Also, this book just hit 1.8k views!??!! THAT IS INCREDIBLE!!! I AM LITERALLY SPEECHLESS!!!!