The Ends of the Earth

Chapter 34

They weren't bound by chains.

Worse, they were bound by words.

"What?" Aelin demanded, for the fifth time. Feyre had looked like she had seen the ghost of her dead father. "I cannot help you if you don't tell me what is going on."

Feyre looked up at the cell ceiling. It was getting increasingly harder to breathe.

"They're going to die." Feyre said. Point blank. Aelin's eyes widened and her brows scrunched.

"DOWN!" They heard from outside the cell.

"You will tell me what is going on Feyre or so help me," Aelin stood up, slowly, leaning against the cell wall for support. 

Feyre looked up at Aelin and met her eye. "Your mate...and my mate are here."

Aelin relaxed her eyebrows but the widened eyes stayed.

She clenched the cloth guarding her heart.

"And they're going to die." Feyre gritted out.

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"Get them here now," Amarantha ordered the Attor and Cairn.

"It's our time to go," Maeve looked over at Amarantha and curled her lips.

For they had bargained. They had bargained with Hell to let them back to exact revenge. In return their souls would be lost to the void for the rest of eternity, however long that may be, and afterwards.

Her Dark Majesty and the Never Fading Flower joined hands and began to ascend to the top of the mountain.

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Rhysand looked around in the fray amidst the bloody carnage.

It felt off.

He had fought before. Countless times. But this...this felt calculated. They had to have known they were coming but every sneak attack of theirs felt extremely calculated.

"CASSIAN!" He yelled. "AZ!" 

Seconds later he was joined by his brothers. 

"You feel it too?" Cassian asked. Azriel just looked off into the distance, his hands drenched with blood and his once immaculate hair pressing up against his temples. Rhysand reached down the once empty bond and-

"I feel her," He whispered wide eyed to his brothers looking down at his tattoo from swearing Feyre in as High Lady.

The General looked at his High Lord, "We have to find Rowan."

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Rowan had been slicing through soldier after soldier, an endless wave of lethal warriors. 

On his left was Lorcan and on his right was Aedion, the spitting image of his father. Lord, they even fight the same.

A crow passed the trio overhead when Rowan's heart stopped dead in his chest for a moment.

Aelin? He shot down the carranam and mating bond. His sword slackened to his side as he felt her again.

Lorcan quickly took to Rowan's immediate side. "What?"

Rhysand suddenly winnowed in next to him and misted the soldiers in the immediate vicinity to get a single look in that told Rowan everything he needed to know.

"Let's go," Rowan said to Lorcan and Aedion.

As a team, fighting for family, they all ran into the entrance of the mountain, slaughtering anyone who came into their paths.

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"Come on," Cairn said unlocking the cell door.

Feyre and Aelin complied through a tug in both their bonds.

Before Aelin was fully out the door Cairn grabbed her neck. "It'll be in your best interest to comply young queen," he whispered in her ear. She snarled at him as Feyre came out of the cell behind her. Both of them being escorted by their second worst nightmare.

They walked in silence for the duration of the walk up the dreadfully long stairs until they felt cold air biting at their face. "Leave," Maeve ordered. Amarantha nodded for the Attor to go too.

"Come here, both of you," Maeve said. Aelin clenched her jaw before the tug in her heart dragged her to the evil queen until she was standing two feet away from Maeve's face, Feyre next to her.

Four queens staring each other down for what seemed like an hour but was actually a few seconds.

"You must think I am a terrible person, Aelin, you as well Feyre." Maeve drawled. "But as far as I recall Aelin you fought for your kingdom, slaughtered anyone on your way to your throne. Wasn't I doing the same?" A touch of anger flared in Maeve's voice as she grabbed Aelin's throat. "You took everything from me, everything. Now I will make you watch as I take everything from you."

Aelin spat on her. Through the compliance order, she spat on her.

Maeve scoffed and didn't even wipe off the spit on her shoulder, but she took two steps back and sat on the throne that her lackeys brought up for her.

"I have not much to say to you Feyre darling," Amarantha smiled. "Hell sent me down to exact revenge on you, and I shall enjoy taking it."

Amarantha looked behind her and smiled. "Both of you. Turn."

"Face your mates."

"Feyre!" Rhysand began to run towards Feyre.

"Stop right there, come closer and Feyre here is under orders to take her own life." Amarantha spat.

Rowan came to Rhysand's side, never breaking eye contact with Aelin, he knew she would be under the same orders, if not worse.

You came, Aelin said down the bond.

Rowan had almost shuddered with relief at the feel of her voice. Always Fireheart, always.

"She's going to kill you," Feyre said quickly before she was gagged with a silence order from Amarantha.

Rhysand saw tears spill down Feyre's face before he looked up and met the eyes of his captor for 49 years. He clenched his jaw.

"Kneel, both of you." Maeve said with venom from her spot on her throne.

And at the soft sound of impact from his mate's knees hitting the grass, Rowan thought he would vomit. And from the sharp exhale coming from Rhysand, he knew he felt the same.

"Let's talk," Amarantha said, sitting down on her throne next to Maeve's.