Court of Shadows (Indefinite Hiatus)

PART 3: AELIN

Slowly at first, but quickly gaining a rhythm, Aelin carefully drew out the wyrdmarks. Straining against her memory, the marks came to her one after another, as if being sent by some unknown force. And the arch—much smaller than the one she created in Adarlan—began to form. The iron in the walls would limit her power, but she didn't need an opening into the Otherworld. She just needed a small portal to a place a few thousand miles away for two very small rocks.

Once the small arch was completed—the marks drawn to the best of her ability, Aelin slipped her hand into her pocket, pulling out one of the wyrdkeys--the amulet of Orynth, and took a quick glance towards the door.

She turned to the wall and closed her eyes, digging through her memory for the correct words. She quickly found the right incantation, memories of dark earthy pages filing her inner vision, and began reciting the strange language barely above a whisper.

A few lines in, she began to feel the drain on her body but clenched her fists around the stone and pushed herself to keep going. Just as the wyrdmarks began to glow, she heard the footsteps of a guard coming to investigate her strange ranting. She pushed herself harder, forcing the words to come faster than they wanted; the cool circle of the amulet clenched in her hand. The ritual started to drain her even faster, and she could feel the last drops of her power being sucked into the air with her words.

The portal was completely formed, and she was on her last line of the incantation when her cell door swung open. She finished the last line and was preparing to lunge towards the wall when she heard a shout and a guard rushed in. She dodged his initial attack and ducked under his arm, but he turned and grabbed the back of her arm, using her momentum to swing her into the wall, her head slamming against the surface just feet away from the portal.

The guard now had her arms pinned, and she could vaguely see a few more guards running in. She sagged a little in his grasp, her face pressed against the wall, the disappointment beginning to seep in.

She looked towards the portal and saw a forest of trees—the smell of pine and snow pulsing out through the wyrdmarks. Her heart twinged at the sight of her home country, Terrasen; also the smell of her mate. The sight gave her another burst of strength she didn't know she had.

Twisting her head from the wall, Aelin brought her knee up hard into the guard's groin and used his moment of surprise to pull her arm from the wall and reach toward the portal. She was a moment away from dropping the amulet into the portal when she sensed dark magic and immediately threw up a shield. A moment later, Aelin's wall of flame was hit with a force that shoved her back into the wall, a cry escaping her lips. Through her flames, she could see Maeve's fierce determinedness behind her dark powers.

Her arms already shaking from holding off the queen's blow in such a weak state, Aelin turned her head across the stone and saw that the portal had changed. Rather than green, the wyrdmarks were now shining an intense hue of dark blue, and the trees had changed to an endless black scattered with white lights. Aelin's first thought was of a night sky.

She looked at her blood-covered hand and then back to the wall. When she hit the wall, her hand left a new line across one of the wyrdmarks, changing the arch and thus the entire ritual. Before she could think better of it, she threw the amulet through the portal.

Maeve yelled and Aelin was reaching for the second wyrdkey--the stone-- when her shield was hit again, throwing her back against the wall with a much greater force. Her shoulder exploded when she hits the stone, overcoming even the pain in her back, and Aelin cried out with an animal ferocity.

"Will you never learn?" She heard over the roaring in her head.

The force of the attack increased, and her shield began to flicker, the wall of flames diminishing more and more by the second. Aelin continued to push back while pulling out the last stone. But before she could even raise her hand towards the portal, her shield collapsed, and the flames were overwhelmed by the blackness of Maeve's power.

Aelin slid down the wall, screaming as excruciating pain impaled her head and shot throughout her body. She was just lucid enough to see her hand drag through the wyrdmarks as she fell to the floor, changing the portal once again.

The next thing she knew, two rough sets of hands were yanking her off the ground, and she was once again being hauled off by two guards, one of whom was the guard who had pinned her against the wall. They stopped across the cell, leaving Aelin in full view of Maeve and her portal, now shining red with a view into what appeared to be an empty bedroom.

"I guess Cairn will just have to start his work a little early," the queen said through an enraged scowl. She motioned to a guard standing along the wall, and he moved to take the second wyrdkey from her hand. Before he could touch her, Aelin turned to the guard on her left and spat in his eye. He flinched back, and she yanked her arm from his grip, using its momentum to swing around and punch the guard on her right in the face. She used the brief moment of distraction to pull the bow from the back of the guard who she had punched. She took aim, with the wyrdkey pulled taut against the string like an arrow, and released the string, shooting the stone across the cell and into the portal with the perfect precision that had been beaten into her.

The whole encounter took a mere three seconds, and by the fourth second, she was on the ground, with her hands bent behind her back, and Maeve's screams resonating against the stone walls as the portal closed and the light blinked out. The whole scene felt as final as the initial close of her cell door.

Aelin knew that her body was in pain, and that what she'd experienced so far was nothing compared to what was to come. She knew that she would probably be in pain for the rest of her life and that there would be no light at the end of this tunnel; however, she couldn't help but smile.

The wyrdkeys may not have gone to Terrasen or her court, and she didn't think she was fortunate enough for them to have landed in Wendlyn, Eyllwe, or even Adarlan. But they were finally out of Maeve's reach, and neither she nor Erawan had any idea where to find them.

And any place or scenario was better than that alternative...right?