Heir of Fire

She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-­glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen.

She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—­and she would not be afraid.

She was not afraid.

She would remake the world—­remake it for them, those she had loved with this glorious, burning heart; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the Afterworld, she would not be ashamed. She would build it for her people, who had survived this long, and whom she would not abandon. She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath.

She was their queen, and she could offer them nothing less.

Aelin Galathynius smiled at her, hand still outreached. “Get up,” the princess said.

Celaena reached across the earth between them and brushed her fingers against Aelin’s.

And arose.

“Do not insult me by asking me to leave. I am fighting. Nehemia would have stayed. My parents would have stayed.”

“They also had the luxury of knowing that their bloodline did not end with them.”

She gritted her teeth. “You have experience—you are needed ­here. You are the only person who can give the demi-­Fae a chance of surviving; you are trusted and respected. So I am staying. Because you are needed, and because I will follow you to what­ever end.” And if the creatures devoured her body and soul, then she would not mind. She had earned that fate.

For a long moment, he said nothing. But his brows narrowed slightly. “To what­ever end?”

She nodded. He had not needed to mention the massacres, had not needed to try to console her. He knew—­he understood without her having to say a word—­what it was like.

Her magic thrummed in her blood, wanting out, wanting more. But it would wait—­it had to wait until it was time. Until she had Narrok and his creatures in her sight.

She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, its long blade gleaming as if he’d been secretly polishing and caring for it these months.

And when she grasped the dagger, its weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of her, and said, “Fireheart.”

Why are you crying, Fireheart?

It had been ten years—­ten long years since she had heard her mother’s voice. But she heard it then over the force of her weeping, as clear as if she knelt beside her. Fireheart—­why do you cry?

“Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”

She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—and she would not be afraid.

“It was a selfish wish, and a fool’s hope.” She read the rest of it in his eyes. But it came true.

“And then I am going to rattle the stars.”

For a heartbeat, something lightning-bright snapped through her and then settled—a thread binding them, tighter and tighter with each pull Rowan took of her blood.

“I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end.”

“Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?”