Sword of Ice (A Throne of Glass Fanfiction)

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Rowan Whitethorn remained at the fae queen's palace for the night.

He had his designated room located at the far end of the palace, where the hallway was narrow, almost abandoned and unvisited if not for the gossamer curtains occasionally swaying to the hum of the wind, the mosaics adding some life to the dullness and darkness that stretched across the corridor. Both were the only things that kept him company in his space of loneliness and confinement.

Perhaps that's why Her Majesty adorned the whole palace with such things. To keep herself from feeling alone, even with the bloodoaths of the cadre all tied to her and free for her to toy and manipulate with as she wished. But in three millennia of existing, those did little company to her. The cadre was merely her ministry of dirty work, a bunch of fae warriors who perhaps felt the same loneliness and in despair, found that the fae queen was their only hope for something much bigger than what they were.

Glory.

In his three centuries as a warrior, Rowan thought it was the only reason for his continued existence. In all other pursuits he failed and lost and mourned far too greater than he should. He lost Lyria and his son. He lost paramount pursuits he valued more than glory. And in the end, there was nothing left. Only the simmering rage building up inside him, spiralling whirlpools and freezing shards of ice that took over his whole system.

Use that rage, my dear.

Maeve, for all her twisted schemes, would always be his lifeline. She twisted her way through the prince's heart in a conniving way Rowan embraced wholeheartedly. He let himself fall into the trap of her brutal love. If it was love at all she had for him.

Rowan scoffed at the thought, plopping on the enormous bed as he stared blankly at the ceiling for a long time.

Love. He felt it once, and it killed him when it departed. It left him scrambling in the mud for a miracle that would make it return to him, even for a fleeting moment. It was a blessing from the gods damned fate, a pursuit that enabled Rowan to endure in hopes of having it to himself forever. But a blessing doesn't come without a curse. No one can have it to himself forever. It was always transient, fading with the tides of time and the counted beats of the heart.

While it lasts, it burns. And when it stops burning, ash is all left of it.

Only fools would ever trust in it again, and Rowan Whitethorn was no fool.

The prince stared on and on with stillness. Darkness might as well drowned him along with his thoughts. Only faint rays of moonlight from the glass window scattered through the floor, illuminating little of the space the prince had all to himself. The rest expanse of his room was austere, nearly as empty as his heart. Banal from his short stays here.

But he chose this room for some reason. Through the centuries he had been binded to the bloodoath, Rowan found the space comforting, an odd detachment from the fae queen without leaving the palace completely. While he resided at the topmost part of the palace where the wind sang most vividly, the rest of the cadre had rooms of their own, scattered through the leveled floors and wide halls stretching like tributaries from the rivers around the city.

Rowan stalked towards the window, pulling it up as the gust of wind hit his face. There was an unusual squall to the air, tinged with fear and anger that he couldn't fathom. It wasn't him weaving the ends of the gust to the other. It was something else.