There were days when Aelin Ashryver Galathynius woke in the dark of night and wished that she had not burned so bright and survived the dark. When she wished that she had died inside that iron coffin. Sometimes dying seemed so much easier than living. Dying was forgetting. Death was oblivion.
Living was remembering. Living was lying awake in the dark, afraid that she was trapped again. In her body, but not. A living shell. Living was realizing over and over again that even though she had made it out, some part of her would never be free. Then being angry, just angry at the entire world, because she deserved her freedom.
Those days, Rowan always somehow woke, no matter how softly she shifted. Without a word, he would light all the lamps in their room, hold her to his chest and whisper in her ear. “It’s going to be ok. You are fine. You are stronger than the darkness. You survived this far.”
Half the time she didn’t believe him. Those days, the Queen of Fire did not feel strong. How could she be strong, when she was so afraid?
But Rowan held on to her. Rowan was there, his warmth seeping into her cold, tired body. And sometimes, it was enough. That when those days came, she was not alone.
There were days, when Aelin Ashryver Galathynius did not speak a single word to anyone. Not to Lyssandra or Aedion. Not to Rowan. The days when the sorrow and pain inside her chest grew so intense, that it felt like if she opened her mouth, she would shatter.
Those days she simply sat at her bedroom window wrapped in a quilt, while Rowan read to her. The old books she loved – fairy tales and poems that all ended in happily ever after.
And her mate read until his voice was hoarse. Until she was finally able to cry. Until she was finally able to unleash that soul splitting ache in her chest, in a torrent of tears.
Those days, Rowan was always caught her as she fell.
There were days, when Aelin Ashryver Galathynius looked Rowan - her carranam, her mate, her King - and was glad from the bottom of her heart, that she was alive.
Because if she had died, if she had given in to the darkness, she would not have been able to see the grins that burst like sunlight across Rowan’s face when she smiled up at him. She would never have been able to see the joy on Aedion’s face as he gazed over the vast stretch of their homeland, or how happy Lyssandra was with Evangeline.
Those days, Rowan was there as he always was.
He was there. Every single day.
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