Acotar and Tog [Discontinued, Will be deleted]

The Prince of Annihilation

Seeing Gavriel reminded him that he was not free. He would never be free. Whatever wave he had been on crashed against the reality that he called life. He knew the reason Gavriel was here, hell he had expected him weeks ago. He walked his friend to his room and began tattooing the names of Gavriel’s fallen while the tawny eyed male mourned another loss.

- - - - - - -

He knew who it was before she knocked on the door.

“What?”

“I thought you might want some stew and—”

The last person he wanted to see was the girl, he snarled at her, “Get out.”

“Do you want the stew?”

He knew Gavriel would need food and it would save them a trip to the kitchen later, “Leave it.”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

Gavriel’s attention was now on Aelin, something flashed in his tawny eyes that unnerved him. The sorrow was different than it had been before. The girl was the cause of that new sorrow in his companion’s gaze.

“Sorry.”

Anger roiled off of him, he did not want anyone to take care of him, he did not want a friend, he did not want for anyone to use the girl against him. He belonged solely to Maeve until the day he faded. It was a fate he deserved for failing his mate. For losing his honor as a fae male.

He put down the needle and mallet on the workbench, he did not look at Gavriel before he stormed out of the room, but before he could say a word to the girl, “Do you do it for the money?”

He flashed his teeth, “One, it’s none of your business. And two, I would never stoop so low.”

“You know, it might be better if you just slapped me instead.”

“Instead of what?” His patience with the girl, with this day was waning.

“Instead of reminding me again and again how rutting worthless and awful and cowardly I am. Believe me, I can do the job well enough on my own. So just hit me, because I’m damned tired of trading insults. And you know what? You didn’t even bother to tell me you’d be unavailable. If you’d said something, I never would have come. I’m sorry I did. But you just leftme down stairs.”

“You left me,” A chasm in his heart opened, not opened, erupted. She had ripped a wound open so large he wasn’t sure he could stop it. A wound that he had carefully stitched together over ten years, and an oath to Maeve.

He does not hear what the girl is saying, he does not see what she looks like. He is swallowed by memories of their last fight right before he left, right before he left her. It wasn’t even a fight, he hears her beg him to stay, to stay with her.

Please, my love, do not leave me. Do not leave me here alone.

He left her.  He left her.  He left her.

He left his beautiful, kind, loving mate. He left his child. He left her.

And with an icy anger he had not felt in years, not since he tore those fae males apart slowly, he looked at the girl, “There is nothing that I can give you. Nothing I want to give you. You are not owed an explanation for what I do outside of training. I don’t care what you have been through or what you want to do with your life. The sooner you can sort out your whining and self-pity, the sooner I can be rid of you. You are nothing to me, and I do not care .”

He watched her walk away. He watched as her shoulders sagged, he watched every single step she took down that gods forsaken hallway. He did not have it in him to run after her. He did not want to acknowledge what he had said to the girl. He did not want to yield to the knowledge that all the warmth he had been feeling over the past weeks had been extinguished.

He did not say a word to Gavriel, instead he walked towards his work table, picked up his tools and continued tattooing.

With every tap of the needle, his words to the girl echoed in his mind.

There is nothing that I can give you.

Nothing I want to give you.

You are nothing to me.

I do not care.

Lies. Such lies, because deep down he knew she was something to him and the feeling of regret was proof enough for his mind that his heart did care.

- - - - - - -

Gavriel broke the reigning silence during a small break over the stew, “Rowan, I have known you a long time and I have never known you to be purposefully cruel towards an innocent. That girl did not deserve to hear what you said to her. She is alone and scared.  I’m not certain who that girl is or what Maeve’s plans are with her, but I know that she is an Ashryver.”

Surprise lined his face, how had Gavriel known?

“I never told a soul, but when Maeve had me in Wendlyn, I fell in love with a girl. An Ashryver.  You tattooed her here, so trust me when I say that I would recognize those eyes anywhere.”

He remembered that tattoo. Over the centuries Gavriel had learned to keep his lover's secret, every single time he had gotten close to one, gotten a taste of normalcy, Meave would order him to end the relationship. But over his heart he had tattooed not a name but a promise, a remembrance to love. It had been over twenty years ago, he remembered not because of what he tattooed, no it was how Gavriel had mourned that particular loss. It was how the lion had softened over the past two decades that told him more than Gavriel's words ever could.

“It was ironic that a seventeen year old girl taught me how to love. She changed me, healed me and then let me go. She knew who I was and who I served. I initially thought that she had left me for another, but years later I learned that was not the case, she never married. I’ll never know why she suddenly pushed me away. And then she died. When she died all hope died with me, but her love remained.”

Rowan understood that loss, he had been surround by the frozen darkness of that loss for centuries. He wished he had comforting words for his friend, but after two centuries he had learned absolutely nothing.

He continued to silently tattoo the names of the fallen.

He listened as Gavriel mourned the loss of his soldiers.  He had been right, the girl did not deserve the way he treated her. Even if it was the truth, even if he had no male honor because he failed to protect his mate and child, she did not deserve those words. It was his fault that he chose glory over their lives. It was not her fault that she could not see that he did not deserve to be anything to anyone.

He finished the tattoo in the wake of the morning light. He wished this would be the last, but he knew it would not be. He walked with Gavriel to the border of the fortress.

His companion gave him a look he had rarely seen, a look normally reserved for Fenrys and he knew that the male before him was going to give his lost soul guidance like a father would to his son. A son that none of them would ever have.

“Rowan, let go. What is between you and the girl, don't try to control it. Don't try to define it, just let it be. She's the first person to reach you, let her.

Gavriel paused, “If I could go back, I would have just lived with the time the gods had given me. I would not have worried about the future. I would not have regretted the past. I would have had no expectations, no titles, no assumptions. I would have just live in every moment I had been blessed with her. Learn from my mistake, learn from your past mistakes.”

“How did you not let it ruin you?”

The tawny eyed male knew what he meant, he may not have lost a mate, but loss is loss.

“I can't go back, I can't change it, it was a gift to have known her, to have been loved by her, if I sit in the darkness of my loss, I discredit her memory, I reject the love she gave me. Even when I feel that I did not deserve that love.”

Gavriel paused. He saw the flicker of regret before he said, “Just live, let her teach you how how to live with what time the gods grant you.”

And with that Gavriel left him to his thoughts of a girl who sparked an ember of light into his darkness.