Glass of Revenge

~7~

The news that Aelin and Rowan had been waiting for had finally arrived at last. Aedion's and Ren's spies had finally managed to knock down the identities of those threatening them.

Much to their utmost confusion and to Aelin's distress, Aedion and Ren's spy network confirmed that those threatening them were indeed Sam Cortland and Lyria. But how they had returned from the dead, they did not know. As they had already believed, it was almost impossible to raise the dead, begging the question of how? How was this possible? How was it possible for them to come back from the dead? Had they merely faked their deaths in order to torment them?

And what the hell was going on here? That was all they wanted to know. How this was possible, and what was going on.

Needless to say, Aelin had been quite distressed by the revelation. Sam had been her first love, and it had been her need for revenge after his death that had seen her sent to Endovier. Finding out that he was in fact, still alive, brought out complicated emotions in her.

For days after finding out that Sam was, in fact, still alive, and was most likely out for revenge, broke her heart. She tortured herself, wondering how things might be different if she had known that he was still alive. Aelin briefly wondered if Arobynn had merely faked Sam's death in order to break her spirit, and bind her more firmly to his will. And if that were true, the thought made her glad that Arobynn had been dead for the last two years.

Despite having no regrets of her life, it made Aelin wonder what her life would have turned out like if Sam had not supposedly died. It made her wonder if she would have ever met her friends, met Rowan. If Sam had not died, altering the course of her life, would she have ever found her courage and taken up her rightful throne?

Ever since Aelin had found out the truth, she had been questioning herself so much. Questioning all of the decisions that she had made in the last four years – wondering how differently things could have been if Sam had never 'died'. All the questions kept floating around her head, refusing to let her go.

Deep down, Aelin knew that she was not to blame for the events of the past few years. She knew that she was not to blame for whatever Sam had been through. But at the same time, Aelin wondered what she had done wrong, what had made Sam turn on her so spitefully that he wanted her to die. What had made him hate her so much. And it broke her heart, knowing that the boy she had loved so much now hated her so much.

Aelin didn't know who she could talk to about this. She didn't want to burden Rowan, as she knew that he was struggling with the knowledge of Lyria's strange return from death as much as she was with Sam's. She knew just how much Rowan adored her, knew that he would listen to her fears and doubts – for he would always listen to whatever she had to say.

But despite knowing how much Rowan loved her, she wondered if Lyria's confirmed return had changed him as much as Sam's return had changed her. Wondered if it had brought out the same confusions and doubts in him as it had in her. If he had suddenly found himself wondering about what might have been. What might have happened, if Sam and Lyria had not 'died' and left them alone – broken, wandering alone, and unnecessarily grieving.

For the supposed deaths of Sam and Lyria had destroyed them both. It had broken them, leaving them wandering a suddenly strange and confusing world. It had left Rowan open and vulnerable to Maeve's wiles. And it had left her, Aelin, open to Arobynn Hamel's manipulations and got her carted off to the Endovier slave mines.

If Aelin were being completely honest with herself, she knew that nearly everything that had happened in their lives since the supposed deaths of Sam and Lyria had been orchestrated by Maeve and Arobynn. A vicious Valg Queen and a scheming, cunning King of the Assassins.