Glass of Revenge

~2~

Aelin sat through the meeting quietly, trying to fight her annoyance. It was not that she did not care about her kingdom, because she did. Aelin loved her kingdom dearly, and when she had finally taken up her throne, she had vowed to do everything in her power to protect Terrasen from further harm. Even if it meant giving her life for her kingdom, for Terrasen, then she would do it.

But these endless meetings with Darrow wore on her nerves. Darrow wore on her nerves. Truth be told, Darrow constantly grated on her nerves. Sometimes, she thought she was only able to put up with him for the good of her kingdom.

It wasn't that Aelin hated Darrow. No, she just didn't ... like him, that's all. Aelin often tried not to let her negativity toward Darrow show in public. But he was constantly telling her what a failure she was, and what a disappointment she was to her ancestors, his always letting slip how he thought he would do a better job ruling Terrasen than she ever would.

However, while Aelin did her best to hide her dislike for Darrow, he did not share her sentiment; frequently letting his snide comments out in public. She hated it, but what could she do about it? After the last decade of war and conquest that had ravaged Terrasen, he was the most powerful and influential of her surviving Lords.

She knew, deep down, what Rowan would say to her if he heard her complain about Darrow once again. Why should she put up with his verbal abuse and pettiness? If it continued to bother her, why didn't she just dismiss him?

But deep down, Aelin knew that she couldn't just dismiss Darrow without reason. Not easily at least. For if she dismissed him, out of mere shared dislike and contempt than her remaining lords would surely rise up against her. And she couldn't risk it. Couldn't risk plunging Terrasen into civil war. Not now, and not ever. And Rowan knew that too. She had explained it to him more than once. She knew Rowan didn't like it, but he had reluctantly agreed with her.

The world had already seen far too much despair, hatred and fear over the last decade, she couldn't let anymore sorrow fall upon her kingdom. She had to protect her people, who had already suffered too much, endured far too much.

Aelin thought, however, that she hated Darrow the most for not letting her forget her past, for not letting her forget her cowardice in running away from her responsibilities to her kingdom during the conquest. It was the snide comments about her cowardice that hurt the most, although she did her best not to show it.

But what Darrow had never attempted to understand, was that she'd only been eight years old at the time, her family had just been murdered. She had been young and scared. And when Arobynn Hamel had found her washed up on the banks of that frozen river, not long afterwards, the only choice that had been open to her was join his band of assassins or die.

Yes, she knew that she had been spineless and cowardly, and she knew it. And during the decade that she had spent with Arobynn, the thought of what had happened to her family, the thought of what she had left behind her, had haunted her every waking moment. But what Aelin couldn't cope with now was having her every failure slapped in her face on an almost daily basis. What Darrow didn't know, what none of them knew, was how guilt-ridden she felt about those ten years.

But then again, a lot of the older Lords and Ladies who had served her great-uncle, King Orlon, had never bothered to get to truly get to know her as the woman she now was, deliberately choosing to forever remember and condemn the eight-year-old child that she had been at the time. Not choosing to acknowledge the fact that if she hadn't made the choices she had, she would have died along with the rest of her family.

Aelin knew that she had made cowardly decisions in the past, but she was also a pragmatist, willing to do whatever it took in order to survive. And survive she did, she had taken the chance to live, she had grown up strong, and had returned to save her kingdom. And yet Darrow would never stop holding a grudge. Would never stop holding the past against her. In a way, Aelin could accept it, even if she didn't like it. The old man was just trying to protect their kingdom the best he could. It was just that they would forever clash over their different methods.