Court of Shadows (Indefinite Hiatus)

PART 1: AELIN

She was floating in a dark, endless void. Her eyes could not find purchase and she struggled to breath against the suffocating pressure of a heavy iron mask. Her body was wrapped in chains and she had remained still for so long that the only way she knew she was still alive was from the pain.

Every breath was interrupted by a surge of excruciating fire from her back; shooting up her spine and down her limbs, consuming every muscle and burning every nerve—the nausea that follows was equally debilitating. Though she spent all of her energy focusing on the physical pain, underneath, there was also a sharp tension in her chest—a constricting throb that labored each breath even further; threatening to overwhelm her conscious mind at any moment.

She didn't know how long she had been in the gods-damned box, and she didn't allow the gravity of her decision to sink in yet. Instead, she forced all of her energy into spiraling down inside herself; scrounging up any last drops of power that she could find.

The shard of obsidian stone and Orynth's amulet sat in her pocket, pressed against her side—a sharp reminder of her friends that she betrayed and her destiny that she failed so miserably.

She knew that she wouldn't have an opportunity to destroy them, not with most of her magic depleted and her entire body chained like a savage animal.

Darkness began to seep into her body, a cold isolation that belonged to a girl from the past.

The same darkness that plagued a young, naïve assassin chained in the back of a wagon, slowly regaining the ability to move, but not having the strength do so. A girl from a time when the words, "I will not be afraid" had yet to gain meaning.

But this was not the past, and she was not done. As long as she was still breathing, she still had something left to offer—something to give her court at least a fighting chance in this impossible war that she had forced upon them.

If she couldn't destroy the wyrdkeys before Maeve got her hands on them, then she'd have to make them disappear—maybe send them back to her court and hope that they found another way to get rid of them.

This was her last job.

Her one last duty to her friends, to her family, and to her kingdom.

And with that one thought in mind; despite being trapped in an iron casket, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius started developing a plan.