Aelin rose to consciousness, breathing in the familiar scent of her mate. She was tucked into warm sheets, so utterly comfortable that she couldn't help but stretch out like a feline, a small smirk sliding naturally across her face. She was safe, she was home. Rowan was beside her, the world had finally been righted. Her hand stretched to feel the comfort of her mate, her eyes still closed, and as her hand met nothing but cold air and undisturbed sheets, she panicked. He wasn't there. The bed was empty, so unmistakably empty.
Her eyes flew open. There was nobody in the room, no sounds outside. The sun was burning her eyes, as if the whole place was caught in a preternatural stillness, the kind that left chills deep in Aelin’s bones. The room was large and unfamiliar. Rowan's scent clung to the stale linens entrapping her and the air that threatened to suffocate her, but she hadn't realised how faint it had become. She hadn't realised because she hadn't let herself. Where was she? Where was Rowan?
Her heart crumbled in her chest as the memories came crashing back with painstaking clarity. Connall with a knife to her throat, everyone so focused on her that they hadn't detected the bitch queen herself, striding up to them and stabbing Rowan in the back. Aelin had cried out in pain - pain emanating from the bond that connected them - so loud the birds had fled from their perches in the tree's above. Lorcan had tried to reach Rowan, viciously shoving the sentries trying to hold him down but it wasn't enough. The guards forced him back to his knees, injecting him with some kind of toxic serum and he had fallen to the ground within seconds. Elide cried out, desperately reaching for Lorcan, but was silenced when the guard holding her had slammed his foot into her already crippled ankle and she collapsed in a heap of dirty clothes and mud stained body parts. Maeve had sauntered over to Aelin, chaining her up once more, and growled "You are not getting away from me that easily, bitch." Her heart audibly cracked as, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of her mate rising, the knife still buried in him, and reach for her before crumpling in pain and falling completely unconscious.
Tears streamed down her face as she took in the room, shoving the memories into a cage in her mind, and calculated all the exits. The window to her left was slightly ajar, a sweet summer breeze caressing her face, so different from the icy spot where Rowan should lay. There was only one door but it was made of wood, not iron, and could easily be burnt; Once she retrieved her flame again. Inside, the room was impeccably organized, everything in a logical order. There were no personal items littering the space, bar a strange pot of ink and what at first glance looked like a misshapen quill sprawled atop a small desk in the far corner. She stepped closer to the desk, her heart skipping a beat. It wasn't a quill, no, it was a tattoo pen. Rowans tattoo pen, . She recognised it by memory, the perfect curve along the stem, the sharp point that had etched meaning into her own skin. Her stomach twisted, if that was Rowans pen then that must mean he was here. But where was he now?
She slid to the window, hope building in her chest as she pulled back the silken emerald curtains and peered outside. Instead of rolling fields and open grassland, she saw a mound of tightly compacted buildings, built from stone; A well of people rushing past on their daily business, and stalls selling everything from chocolate to silverware which were lined up on the opposite side of the street. A small, almost inaudible sob choked her, the hope in her chest crumbling a little more as she caught sight of one of the denizens. Pointed, fae ears adorned the woman's head. A single tear escaped down the brim of her lashes, trailing her cheek as she sank to the floor, all lingering expectations evaporating. She recognised where she was, knew the streets which she had seen only once but were now burned into her memory. She was in the land her mate had once called home, in the city that she had so readily threatened to burn down for a chance at freeing Rowan from his blood oath. From Maeve.
She was in Doranelle.
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Realm Of Ashes (Throne of Glass #7)
FanfictionA cold stone settled on her already dying heart. She was going to die here and no one would save her, no one would come offering freedom, just as Chaol and Dorian had, no one would tell her to shut up when she made one of her witty comments, just li...
