After the Fact

Prologue--Part 2

Dorian

His castle was silent as ever. The only company he had, other than Chaol (who was off with Nesryn in all of his free time anyway), were the ghosts of his memories. They drifted through the halls, popping up practically everywhere. He would see Celaena—Celaena, not Aelin—whenever he walked into a library. He saw his father when he beheld the throne, now his. And he saw Sorscha whenever a healer passed by.

He avoided ever visiting the healer's wing.

And that strange, sometimes-beautiful and sometimes-deadly thing between him and Manon...he could ignore it. He did ignore it, perhaps too well. He rarely saw her anyway.

Dorian found solace in very few things nowadays. Books, mostly. Books about strange people in strange lands, about Fae impervious to iron but mortal in the face of certain powders and certain trees.

He read books about places where there were no Fae at all, only humans, where there was no magic or wonder at all.

He read about people who were happy, yet dissatisfied with their mundane lives, and about people for whom adventure was their bread and butter.

He read about people who died. Those were his favorites.

The best book he read was about a boy who had suddenly discovered he had magic and was dumped into a strange and fantastical world hidden within his own.

Most of the time, even with his books, Dorian felt lonely. He had nobody and no one anymore, it seemed. He refused to bother Chaol, for one. Chaol had been through too much for Dorian to encroach upon his happiness now.

He was just so damn broken inside, by everyone and everything. The Dorian that had hopped from woman to woman like a butterfly from flowers was gone. He rarely laughed, rarely joked. He became his ice, in that stone castle. He laughed at a guard who had suggested he maybe go out, socialize. Here, there was nobody around who could stop him. Sorscha might've—but she was dead, killed by his psychopath of his father. Aelin definitely would've—but she was dead, too, making the sacrifice that he had been too chicken to offer to make instead. And Chaol?

Chaol was busy.

His mother was too obsessed with her court and repairing the kingdom to notice the hollowness in Dorian's eyes, his brother far too young and spoiled.

And so, Dorian drowned himself in his loneliness and his books and the duties that came with the crown.

Y'know, since there was no one to stop him.

Manon

Being the last Crochan queen was hard.

About half of the Crochans didn't support her claim to the throne, but that didn't surprise Manon. What did surprise her was how many of the Crochans did support her and how many of them forgave her for their dead kindred.

Manon and the rest of the Thirteen spent their days going from one end of Erilea to the other, convincing the red-cloaked witches she found on the way. They even found a hidden cache of Ironteeth who had defected from the clans—three Yellowlegs and five Bluebloods, none of them past a century. No Blackbeaks, unfortunately. Manon supposed that her grandmother's iron fist (no pun intended) kept her clan loyal.

Ansel of Briarcliff had kept her promise to offer a place in the Wastes for the witches. She didn't give away much of her territory, but Manon had a feeling that she could be...persuaded... to carve out more space. Manon just needed the numbers—not to fight, but for a show of force that hopefully would get Ansel to back down a little. As it was, Ansel jumped down Manon's throat at every slight transgression committed against the humans of the Wastes. She cared about her people, and deeply so. After learning about how she had clawed her way to power, Manon respected her even more.

The hardest bit of everything was handling everyone else. Dorian...by the Mother, she didn't want to deal with that. Aelin, really, was what made her pause sometimes. The most random memories of the golden-haired queen surfaced at the most inconvenient times. Aelin's sacrifice had changed them all, even Manon. It had made her quieter, more thoughtful, and less likely to whip her teeth and nails out at the littlest provocation.

It might have made her a better person, or whatever bullshit the sanctimonious fools in Rifthold and Orynth were spouting.

Whatever piece had shifted around inside of her when Aelin died to reforge the Lock, it had made her much more appealing to the Crochans. And Mother knew she would need their support when the Ironteeth had recovered from their losses and started killing them all again. She needed to unite the witches, as a Blackbeak and a Crochan.

Petra Blueblood was her first contact in the Ironteeth. She had established a tenuous bond of trust between the two. Petra was different from the rest of the witches around her. Different the way Manon had been different.

But Manon still had a lot of work to do, and if Abraxos would just stop sniffing flowers goddammit you stupid useless beast, she just might get something done.

A/N Rowan's next.