World of Dreamers (TOG/ACOTAR crossover)

Chapter 6

       Aelin woke up to the sound of screaming. She opened her eyes and started up at the ceiling. It took her a second to figure out that the screaming was her. It was surprising to find herself not in the coffin. For the past couple of weeks—months?—she had been locked inside that coffin. It was both relieving and terrifying to not be in there anymore. Her not being in there was a good thing because she could breathe a little bit, the suffocating feeling gone for a time. It could also be a bad thing. It could mean that Maeve was fed up having to wait for her keys. She would ask Aelin for them and once she figured out that Aelin didn't have them, well, she would be dead for sure. Aelin tried to remember why she had been screaming. It might have been from a nightmare or from the fact that she couldn't feel her legs. It wasn't that she couldn't feel them, they were just numb, numb to the point of being painful. Aelin pulled herself up, chains rattling. She seemed to be in a room underneath the deck. It seemed like it was late at night but with no windows or anyway of telling what time it was she was left to guess. She was sitting on the floor, chained to the wall, unable to get up. Gods, she hated feeling helpless. She used the chains as leverage to help her stand up but immediately regretted it. When she tried to put weight on her legs, they gave out and she went crashing to the floor. Her back brushed against the wall and left a trail of blood. That would explain the pain and the numbness that she felt throughout her whole body. It took her a minute to calm her breathing and to focus on what happened. The last thing she remembered was....

Fenrys. He had healed her and then Carin had come and taken her away...taken her away because they had finally, after weeks of sailing through open ocean, come close to a city. Carin had drugged her and then taken her to this place, beating her while he was at it. She wasn't surprised. It did seem like something that Carin would do. Now she just had to figure out how to get out of here.

Most of the iron that Maeve had kept her in was gone, including the coffin. It was a relief to be able to breath normally again. Almost. There were still iron chains around her wrists and her ankles. The iron chains brushed against her old scars and she had a flashback to her days in Endovier. She closed her eyes and said the words that had helped her get through that year in the mine.

"My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynuis and I will not be afraid." She muttered to the empty room.

Only the room wasn't empty.

"That's a cute little saying." Carin said from the doorway. A small light was coming through from the lamps in the hallway. "Did you come up with that yourself."

Aelin didn't have much energy to fight with him and she didn't particularly want to let Carin in on her history. Sam's saying was a story that she had only shared with one person and that person was hopefully sailing toward Terresan to save the world not worrying about her. He didn't have time to worry about her when the fate of the world was at stake. She took a shuddering breath and faced Carin. He stared back with eyes so black they could have belonged to a Valg Prince.

"What do you want?" Aelin asked.

"I just came to visit my favorite prisoner. I figured she would want to know what happened to her friends while she was drugged and hidden."

"What happened?" Aelin said, sitting up. "Tell me."

"You are not in the position to be making demands Miss Galathynuis. Or should I say Mrs. Whitethorn."

Aelin froze.

"That's right," Carin continued. "I heard about your little wedding. How sweet, Rowan finally found someone who could love his twisted soul. He refused to train me, you know. Said that I wasn't right in the mind. Said that I couldn't be controlled. You see the way Rowan works, he likes to be able to control everything. He doesn't like things that he can't control. Looks to me like he found a way to control you."