Dorian had never felt so useless in his life. He’d been stuck on a ship with cranky immortals and his every move watched— as if he were going to explode only to leave said immortals and be followed by Aedion. As if he needed a damn babysitter. Aelin had chosen Aedion above all of them and gods he was yearning for freedom or at least a chance to breathe without Aedion breathing down his neck or glaring at him. Dorian understood the generals caution when it came to himself, but at the same time he wondered why it bothered Aedion so since they had bigger problems to worry about.
His magic hummed in his veins begging to be let free. He’d just started learning to control it more thanks to Rowan’s lessons and everyday he learned something new about his magic. It was has if it had no limits, but as much as he would love to test that theory out, Rowan had ingrained it into his skull that there were limits and it wasn’t wise to burn himself out. Dorian obliged but knew the reason why. They needed him to win this war. Rowan himself had said his magic could be the tipping point on whether they win or lose. Yet everyday he grew to want to wipe the world clean, start over and he could if he really wanted to.
His magic... another thing that puzzled him was that Rowan had never encountered anything like it. He’d never forget those moments when it was just him and the demon that lived inside him, taunting him about his true heritage. ‘You’re not from this world, are you princeling?’ Now he realized the demon was curious and not taunting him. Now he wondered if he wasn’t the King of Ardalan’s son and his parents his true parents were out there somewhere. Deep down inside he wished for it to be true. He wondered what it would have been like to have people who loved him. He wondered if they too did magic.
But it did no good for Dorian to dwell on the past and things that could have happened. He had a war to fight against not one but two armies, two powerful creatures in their own right. He had to worry about not dying before he could rebuild his fractured kingdom.
His head snaps up as he hears the snap of twigs nearby. His pulse quickened as frost coated the tree and the ground behind him. It didn’t sound like one of those beasts that Erawan had sent after them, no these were footsteps, and he could feel the magic radiating from their bones. Never go off alone, Aelin had demanded and yet here he was in the woods with a magical being unlike any he had encountered, and it frightened Dorian. It frightened him that their magic called out to his own, intertwining with his as if he knew him.