A Court in Flames

Chapter 39

Aelin's POV

The memories kept coming.

The love.

The hate.

The joy.

The pain.

I felt it all as they kept coming. Then I saw Chaol. "Get up." I blinked in surprise.

Then there was me as a child. I was back to that day when I defeated the Valg princes. When Rowan and I had become carranam. "Get up," she told me.

I watched as my mother appeared and I was back in the iron coffin. She said, "you do not yield."

Friend. Blood-sworn. Carranam. Husband.

Mate.

The words just swirled in my mind as I lay on that bed. As the world passed me by. 

Fireheart. Buzzard. Brute. Brat. Aelin. Rowan.

Rowan.

Rowan. My mate. The love of my life. My husband. 

'I love you, Fireheart,' he told me time and time again.

The theatre he'd built for me with his own money.

The chocolates he'd bought for me. The things he had done for me. So why? Why?

'Get up,' that voice. 'Get up.'

I saw the face of my mother. The face of my father. Of me when I was a child. And there stood Rowan. His arms open wide for me and I wanted to run into them. To hold him tight. To fix what I had broken. To hear his explanation. To feel him hold me tight. To hear his voice whisper in my ear.

I was distantly aware of the pain in my hand. Distantly aware of drawing the wyrdmarks I knew would bring me to the castle, my castle, in Orynth. The wyrdmarks that would bring me to the exact spot I needed to be.

I stepped through the portal, I had created, and the fog that had clouded my mind for the past days, weeks, cleared, leaving me with sharp clarity. I blinked and it was only then that I realized that I was face to face with the fae I sought.

Rowan's POV

I didn't dare to move as Aelin stepped through a portal.

Not as she blinked and stared at me. Not even when she said, "Rowan." My name was hardly a whisper. Her voice was hoarse as if she hadn't spoken in forever. 

Tears ran down my face as I stared into her blue-gold eyes.

"Why?" she choked on the word as her emotions swelled, as the tears poured down her face.

It took me a moment to understand. To realize what she was asking.

"I didn't." She tilted her head as if trying to understand so I explained, "She kissed me. I- She shocked me. And when I pushed her away you were gone." I bowed my head.

I only looked back up at her when I felt her thumb brush against my tattoo. "Why did you hurt her?" Hurt who?

I thought back to what happened weeks ago, back to when Aelin had rejected the bond. Who?

"Wh-" My mind flashed to the young girl. The one with the golden hair and magic. "I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know that she was so important to you." She blinked. It wasn't often I apologized for my actions.

She wrapped her arms around me. "Just promise me it'll never happen again. Any of it. Promise me it was real."

"Look at me, Fireheart." She did. "I love you. And I won't ever let any of this happen again. I promise because I love you, to whatever end. Do you understand?" She nodded before kissing me.