Tower of Dawn

“We don’t look back,” he said, meeting her stare. “It helps no one and
nothing to look back.” The way he said it … It seemed as if it meant something more. To him, at least.

But Chaol’s smile grew, his eyes lighting as he added, “We can only go on.”

Kashin supplied from a few seats down, “You could hear her screeching from the harbor.”

When he finished with the other one, he asked, “Pants, too?”

Chaol knew he should be kind, should beseech her to help him, and yet—

“After a drink or two, I think,” Yrene only said. Then looked over her shoulder to a bemused Nesryn. “Sorry,” she added—and sounded only slightly less sharp-tongued.

“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.

“I’m writing a giant no.”

Which she then underlined.

Chaol held her gaze, cool and steady. He’d taken on plenty of young bucks during the years of being captain—had gotten them all to heel.

“You do not know his story, Yrene. I suggest listening to it before contemplating such things.”

No word—there had been no word about Aelin. Where she was now, what she’d been doing. Aelin, who might very well be the thing that cost him this alliance.

A man used to being obeyed, yes, but a man also inclined to care for others. Look after them.

None of the Towers women had ever married, preferring either lovers who left them with a present that arrived nine months later or who perhaps stayed a year or two before moving on

It had curdled any brimming lust. Even while grateful that certain parts of him still undoubtedly worked.