Heart of Flame

《17》

Aelin

Aelin woke as she felt the burning iron of her chains fall away. And the tension that kept her upright vanished and she fell forwards on to the should of a guard. She was barely conscious as she was carried to a cell, and dumped onto a cot. Aelin barely felt the soft mattress beneath her as she drifted back into oblivion.

Aelin slept for hours, and awoke the next morning -she only knew it was the morning for the plate of stale bread and a lump of moldy cheese that had appeared on the floor. Where was she? What had happened? The last thing she remembered was telling that fae- Feyre- about the keys, and then. . . nothing.

'Finally,' a voice crooned, 'you're awake.' Aelin shot to her feet, and immediately regretted it as a pounding started in the back of her head, and she gasped, clutching her head in her scarred hands. 'Now, now, we don't want you hurting yourself do we?' Maeve said, her voice dripped with condescension. Aelin said nothing, raising her head from her hands to look Maeve in the eye. 'I allowed you to sleep as a reward for your cooperation,' She smiled, a sharks smile. 'What,' Aelin ground out, 'are you talking about?' fear pooling in her gut. 'Why, your help in locating those keys, the ones you tried to hide, of course.' the smile was still on her face, now sickly sweet, like poison masked by honey.

Aelins breaths came hard and fast, what? WHAT?! the word was screaming in her mind. How could she have given that up? Unless...unless Feyre had gotten into her head, holy rutting shit. She couldn't let those keys get back to Maeve. If she got hold of all three of them, there would be no way of stopping her or Erawan.

Maeve let out a dark chuckle as she watched Aelins rising panic, she knew that Maeve could practically see the thoughts, the plans that went through her mind. 'Dont bother trying to steal them away from me, Aelin.' Maeve smiled again, 'for it won't just be you on the whipping peg, no I'll have you destroy innocents with those beautiful flames.' Horror played through Aelin, 'You wouldn't dare,' she said, anger rippling from her, fists clenched she tried to summon an ember of power but there was nothing.

'Oh but I would.' and then she was gone and in her wake Cairn appeared, a sneer already plastered on his face, 'Let's begin our training.' was all he said.

The weeks passed in an agonizing blur. Aelin trained almost non-stop with Cairn, when she failed a task or when she miss-stepped or her stance wasn't to his sadistic satisfaction, she was beaten and thrown in a cell, until the next grueling lesson. If she did something right she was rewarded with the small room from her first night, in this gods forsaken place. 

Woow new update :) 

Hope you like it, I'm not too sure about it, but more is coming dont worry.