Only You

Obliterated

The date of her mating ceremony with Rowan came and went in a blur. She had spent the day like she had spent most of the weeks since he had left; busying herself with meetings with other some of the Whitethorns and various lords that were still left in the palace.

Sellene and the more senior Whitethorn family members had left a two days ago. The farewell had been short, but they had thanked her family for their hospitality and been on their way. None of them mentioning the glaring absence of Rowan. Sellene had given Aelin a knowing look and had said nothing more.

The palace was quieter than it had been in a long time. The palace staff had taken advantage of the quietness to tidy and reorganise things in preparation for Yulemas which was only seven weeks away. They had started to hang garlands of reds, greens and golds, tall Yulemas trees were brought inside, each of them twinkling with small hanging lanterns and ribbons of gold and silver. Aelin found that she liked to help with the decorating and maintaining of the lanterns, making sure she lighted and extinguished the flames everyday— saving them the tedious task of having to do it manually. She had also taken it upon herself to deliver Christmas decorations to Sam and Lysandra.

And throughout all this she had still not heard from Rowan.

She found that the worst times would be at night. When the palace was silent and she was left with only her thoughts to accompany her. Sometimes she would send a pulse of love through the bond in the hopes he would reply— but he never did.

She didn't want to dwell on it. But it had been four weeks since his departure and she had not anticipated silence for this long. What confused her even further was that none of the other Whitethorns had heard from him, or had even a mention about him from others in letters. It seemed Rowan had gone off the grid completely.

Her parents quickly learnt not to ask about him or how he was getting on in Doranelle. She had run out of fake updates to give them and she also had a suspicion Aedion had told them to stop.

Breakfast was like walking on eggshells. Everyone too afraid to say the wrong thing to Aelin. The silences would drag on and Aelin had recently turned to eating in her rooms.

Which is where she found herself now; her plate of eggs were left untouched on her desk, a half eaten pastry hanging from her mouth as she looked over plans for a new school in a nearby village. Papers were strewn everywhere as she annotated and added notes to the proposal.

She was midway through chewing the pastry when Aedion barged into her room.

"Aelin, there's someone downstairs who wants to see you." Aedion barely managed to get the sentence out, his words breathless.

Aelin dropped the pastry onto the plate and stood, brushing crumbs from her torso.

"Who is it?"

"Someone named Fenrys, he's come from Doranelle and says it's urgent."

Aelin felt her heart stop. Fenrys was the one who had written to Rowan all those weeks ago. What was he doing here?

She hastily threw on her shoes and rushed past Aedion who jogged to keep up with her.

Aedion was right behind her, their footsteps echoing through the halls. "Who is he? Do you know him?"

Aelin didn't respond, her mind running away with her. If Fenrys was here without Rowan, something was wrong. There was no way Rowan could still be this mad at her. Unless... Fenrys was here to break things off for him?

No. Rowan wasn't that kind of male.

Aelin jogged through the halls of the palace, staff jumping out of her way as she did. Aedion apologising as they went.