DISCONTINUED A Court Of Blood And Night (Tog & ACOTAR crossover)

30 - Rowan

Oh my god we reached 30 chapters. This is officially the longest story I have ever written. Wow. Also: It may be a bit oddly written towards the end. My fault. I was writing this at 1:00 AM and don't want to rewrite half of the chapter.

Traveling with Essar, Remelle, and Benson hadn't been as horrible as Rowan expected. Sure, Remelle in particular complained about the cold climate, especially once they reached the mountains, but they were all useful in their gifts. Essar and Lucien together created a good amount of fire to sustain the group, and Remelle was able to translate things passersby warned them about along the way. The Valg were targeting Fae specifically, one warned. Rowan had already known that, so he'd only nodded. And then explained what the Valg were to the entire group. Essar informed him that they'd run into a few in their travels. Rowan wasn't surprised.

By the time they'd been traveling for about six weeks, the climate had gotten steadily colder. They had gotten through the Anascaul Mountains after weeks of travel, and Rowan was relieved that they'd gotten through the harsh conditions as quickly as they had.

But their venture was not over yet. Not for a while.

Lorcan was the one who called it a day as dusk began to settle around them. It was still trecherously cold, even if they were out of the mountains, and walking in the dark wasn't a wise idea.

Essar set up the fires, and Rowan took first watch. The closer they got to Valg territory, the warier Rowan was. If there hadn't been so many Valg laying around, he might have scouted. But scouting alone was dangerous for everyone, including him, so he did the next best thing.

Rowan wasn't surprised when the High Lord approached him an hour into his watch. "I've found you don't talk all that much, so I want you to do waht you usually do: keep quiet and listen." Rowan waited and Rhysand settled on the ground beside him. "I've made a lot of friends, and I've made a lot of enemies, as I'm sure you have done as well," he began quietly. "In the six centuries I've been alive, I've never made better friends than the ones you've met in my Court. Being a High Lord means I'm responsible for whatever happens to them, and I am not about to let my friends or my wife-- by the Cauldron, not even Tamlin-- die because you never tell us anything." Rowan almost opened his mouth to speak, but remembered he was supposed to keep silent, and did.

"We've been stuck together for over a month, now, and you've given us nothing. We don't know where we're going, who we're looking for, why we're looking for them, or anything in between. You expect us to fight for you, but give us no information on what we're even fighting." He took a quick breath, then said, "So the Cauldron help me, Prince, if you don't start flapping that mouth of yours and tell us what's going on, I will kill you and every single one of your friends if that's what it takes to be free and return home to my war and my politics and my problems." Rowan finally looked at him then. Those violet eyes were like daggers.

Rowan was silent for a long time. "I can't give you a lot of details--" It would hurt too much.

"Do you know how Feyre and I met?" Rhysand interrupted abruptly. Rowan paused, feeling like there was a trap somewhere in those words. He finally shook his head. "Then you're about to learn."

He moved around a bit until he was in a more comfortable position, then said, "Fifty years before I met Feyre, there was a female named Amarantha." He spoke the words quietly, as if whatever this female had done was still a fresh wound. "She tricked all seven High Lords of Prythian and took away our powers. I figured it out fast enough to warn Mor, and then I no longer had the power I once did. I had scraps, as the others did, but not enough to really do anything. She took a special hatred to me and kept me in her bed for those decades."