Summary: Aelin's life is turned upside down when she meets a man that pushes her boundaries and makes her question everything she thought she wanted. Forced to make decisions and confront painful things from her past, she can no longer hide in the world she's created for herself.
hi friends. i haven’t posted in awhile and im sorry. i swear im not intentionally abandoning any of my stories, life has just really hit the fan. it’s been a hard year and a few weeks ago i found out my mom has stage 4 metastatic breast cancer that is in almost every bone of her body. they’ve given us 1-1.5 yrs with treatment which she started last week.
she’s my best friend and i’m really not ready to have to say goodbye. it’s even harder living so far away and i can’t be there as much as i want to be.
i’m sharing the gofundme here. i hope that’s okay. thank you for reading. i love u all.
https://gofund.me/d3bdbcd72
Hi friends. This month our sweet mama got diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast ca… Emilee Bizzle needs your support for Support Rhonda’s
Warnings: Oof, this one's a doozy. Swearing, prison, police presence, shitloads of scheming, graphic violence, minor character d3@th, and angst
enjoy ;)
Masterlist
Read on AO3
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Endovier Prison, as it turned out, really wasn’t all that awful of a place to live.
To be fair, the food quality was subpar and the communal bathrooms reminded Aelin of being in the college dorms again, but all told, it wasn’t a terrible place, except for the silence. She had been placed in solitary confinement based on her “history of conspiring with others to evade containment,” but she was allowed to take her meals in the common dining room and have her recreation time along with the other inmates. She was always monitored by at least one guard, and for the most part, her guards were stolid, silent presences in her periphery.
And then there was Remelle.
Technically an officer of the Orynth Police Department, Remelle was assigned to Aelin’s prison guard rotation three days per week as an additional security measure. Orynth PD had requested to assign a police officer to her guard rotation to ensure that she wasn’t trying anything suspicious, and the guards at Endovier had agreed after some deliberation. Apparently, Remelle had volunteered to be the PD guard so fast the job wasn’t even available to anyone else.
She had first shown up in the guard rotation about five days into Aelin’s sentence, and jealousy practically oozed from her pores. It had taken Aelin only half an hour to figure out that Remelle had a completely unrequited crush on Rowan, and it took her only a little bit longer to casually mention his name within Remelle’s hearing. The sneer on the cop’s face and the steam that could have poured out of her ears confirmed what Aelin already hypothesized—Remelle was viciously jealous of Aelin and Rowan’s relationship, no matter that it was over.
Which made her the perfect linchpin to Aelin’s escape plan.
Two weeks into November, her first month at Endovier, Aelin had demonstrated nothing but good behavior, and she was allowed to have supervised computer time each day. Part of that was necessary, since she was still working with Elide to finalize the transition of power in her company, and Aelin had shown no resistance to having one of her guards watching her while she worked for her allotted hour of computer time. She was so cooperative, in fact, that her guards had become complacent after a week of supervising her and begun to just sit outside the door to the computer room, glancing in every few minutes to make sure she was still there.
As soon as the guards were out of the room, Aelin began adding an extra task to the handful of things she was wrapping up as her company transitioned into Elide’s capable hands. During her computer time, she casually started to peruse the computer’s data logs and trace its network paths, and she eventually discovered that all the prison’s computers ran on a central network, even the secured ones that only the guards and other staff used.
Including the security staff.
A few clever digs into the system’s backbrain got her into the logs for the security system itself, cameras and all, and she had slowly begun to map out where the relevant cameras were located and what mechanisms she could possibly trigger to get them on a temporary loop.
She couldn’t risk working too quickly, though, so she only did a little bit more each day, slowly working her way into familiarity with the prison’s computer network. Interestingly, she had also found the log that tracked all the visits to the prison, and she noticed that she had two visitors waiting to see her. The yellow flag by her name was a warning—she was not yet cleared for visitors—but given her good behavior, she was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be long before she could have visitors.
Endovier Prison wasn’t going to know what hit it when they allowed Aelin Galathynius to have visitors.
~
In the weeks she had been there, Aelin had managed to make some acquaintances with other inmates during communal mealtimes or rec time. The most interesting one was a woman about ten years older than she was who had been in Endovier for six years, a timeline that she tracked by marking the days on her cell wall with charcoal. Her name was Petrah, and she had been a licensed cosmetologist with no intent or interest in the criminal life until she discovered that her ex-husband was involved with a major drug smuggling operation. When she confronted him, he denied it and threatened to forcibly silence her if she told anyone else about it.
So she murdered him.
Petrah had been found guilty of manslaughter but had successfully managed to prove that it was in self-defense, and her sentence was only ten years. She was up for parole the next year, and she was constantly asking Aelin questions about Orynth to prepare herself for a potential return to the city. Aelin was happy to answer her questions; she had even said she would provide a reference if Petrah ever wanted to look for work at Galathynius, Inc. Elide would be renaming the company, but the leadership team had yet to decide on a new name. Grateful, Petrah had thanked Aelin but said she didn’t think she would pursue that kind of employment.
The two of them had a casual friendship, little more than the shared bond of fellow inmates in a high-security prison, but Aelin trusted Petrah enough to ask her a favor. In the middle of November, Aelin was moved from solitary confinement to a cell block in a different sector, and while she was still alone in her cell, she had neighbors along the hallway. One of them was Petrah.
“Morning, Sardothien. How does the slop look today?” Petrah’s raspy voice greeted Aelin as she set down her tray on the long metal cafeteria table.
With a scoff, Aelin pushed her spoon around the grayish mass that was supposedly oatmeal. “No better than yesterday,” she drawled. “Seems like the supplies are getting a little thin.”
Petrah chuckled. “It happens every few weeks. What it usually means is that the delivery comes at the end of the week, and they’ve got to get rid of as much stuff as possible.”
“Fair enough.” Aelin managed to force down about half her portion, chasing it with multiple cups of bitter drip coffee. “Hey, do you still have any of your stuff from the salon?”
“Yeah, I brought a box when they sent me here.” Petrah raised a brow. “Why?”
Aelin shrugged, aware that the guards were probably watching and listening to her. “I feel like a little bit of a change. Got any bleach?”
“Hmm.” Petrah tipped her head sideways, thinking. “I might.”
When rec time rolled around that day, Aelin went over to the small, sparsely stocked library, and she was slowly browsing through the handful of books that looked interesting when Petrah tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ve got bleach.”
“Perfect.” Aelin left the books alone and went down to the bathrooms with the stylist. “I was thinking I wanted to go platinum, or as close to that as you could get.”
The older woman nodded, a sly grin tugging at her lips. “Ever bleached your hair before?”
“I’ve had highlights, but not for years.”
“Okay.” Petrah lined up a few bottles on the shelf under the small mirror in front of one of the sinks. “Damn, this brings back college.”
“Tell me about it,” Aelin chuckled. “Looks just like the dorm bathrooms.”
“Yeah.” Petrah tugged Aelin’s hair out of the braid she usually kept it in and glanced quickly towards the door. The bathrooms were about the only part of Endovier that didn’t have security cameras, and Aelin was half convinced there were hidden microphones somewhere. “We’re safe here,” Petrah said softly, keeping her tone low. “So tell me, Shadow Assassin. Is there any other reason you had this desire for a change?”
Aelin met the stylist’s eyes in the mirror.
And smirked.
~
It had been twenty-five minutes since her visit began, and Elide was still sneaking astonished glances at Aelin’s hair. Aelin smothered her laughter and kept her face neutral as she chatted aimlessly with her dear friend. She’d finally been cleared for visitors two days ago, and Elide was the first one to arrive, bringing a stack of paperwork with her. Despite the no-touching and no-exchanges rule, she’d strolled right into the visitors’ room and plopped the stack of paper right down in front of Aelin.
“No passing, ma’am,” the guard on duty interrupted, his eyes darting awkwardly between the current CEO of Galathynius, Inc. and the Shadow Assassin.
Elide’s polite smile could have cut glass. “Would you like to sort through this paperwork yourself, Officer…” She glanced at his name tag. “Officer Owen?”
The man gulped nervously, stepped forward, and picked up the stack of papers. He flipped through it and set it back down. “A-all clear.”
“Good.” Elide sat across from Aelin and handed a pen to the guard, who managed to give it to Aelin without dropping it. “These need your signatures, Aelin. It’s backlog from before the transfer.”
“Couldn’t be bothered to use digital paperwork, I guess.” Aelin picked up the pen and started working through the paperwork, scratching her signature onto the blank lines. Elide updated her on the company business as she worked, and it was only a few minutes before the guard’s eyes began to glaze over and he retreated to the opposite corner of the room. Aelin stifled a chuckle.
Nox Owen put on the second-best performance she’d seen in an undercover agent. Only Ren Allsbrook had been better.
As Elide stole another glance at Aelin’s new, icy-toned hair, she caught the blonde’s gaze and sighed, shaking her head. “Didn’t take long for the boredom to kick in, did it?”
Aelin shrugged. “When I got moved out of solitary, I found out that one of the nearby inmates is a cosmetologist. She’s nice. I felt like having a little fun.”
Elide laughed softly. “I suppose you have to find those moments when you can, given that you’re never seeing the outside of this place.”
“I see a few yards of the walls once a day,” Aelin joked. “Don’t worry about me, Ells. I’m okay.”
“Really?”
A shrug. “It’s not my apartment by any means, but it’s not awful.”
“Hmm.” Elide pulled the finished stack of paperwork back over to her side of the table. “Officer?”
At the sound of his title, Nox jerked and came to stand a few feet away from Elide. “Yes?”
Elide turned a warm, charming smile onto the man. “Officer, is it possible for inmates here to receive care packages from outside?”
“Well, I, um…” Nox cleared his throat, perfectly acting as a nervous wreck of a new prison guard. “All incoming mail must be thoroughly inspected by prison security.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“Yes, ma’am. You can put the inmate’s name and the prison’s address, and as long as the package passes inspection, the inmate will receive it.”
“Wonderful!” Elide beamed. “I’d just like to make sure Aelin gets some real food, since she’s said that the food quality here isn’t all that great.”
“If you could include extra for my cell-block neighbors, that would be great,” Aelin added.
Elide nodded crisply. “Of course.” She made eye contact with Aelin, and the pair exchanged the slightest nod. “Is there anything specific you’d want besides food?”
“Hmm…probably toothpaste and maybe some tampons. The ones in the communal bathrooms fall apart too fast. Oh!” Aelin grinned. “And if you happen to throw a few pieces of hazelnut dark chocolate in there, I’d be a happy woman.”
“You and your chocolate,” Elide laughed. “Okay.”
“Um, visit time is up, ma’am,” Nox interrupted, voice quavering.
“I know.” Elide tucked the paperwork into her folder. “Would you be so kind as to show me the way out, Officer Owen?” She gave Aelin one last glance before she walked out the door, following Nox Owen in his prison guard’s disguise back out of Endovier.
Another guard came into the visitors’ room. “Computer time, Galathynius,” he said curtly. Aelin followed him out and down the hallways to the computer room, mentally memorizing her steps. Although she could probably just follow another guard when she eventually made her break, it would go better if she didn’t. Besides, the cover she planned to use knew her way around Endovier.
Or at least she should, after several weeks of being Aelin’s personal police guard.
“You have thirty minutes.” The guard opened the door, checked the room, and sat down in the chair right outside the computer room. Not very talkative, this one.
Aelin sat down at the computer and went to her email, where she answered some of the queries that still came to her and redirected others back to Elide. The camera in this room faced the chair, not the screen, and she kept her face and posture casual and neutral as she opened up another window and navigated herself easily into the prison’s computer system. Since everything was centralized, it had been laughably easy to clear her file’s hold, making it appear that the superintendent had cleared Prisoner Galathynius for visitors. The central system also made it much easier to track and locate the camera system, and in just over four weeks, Aelin had managed to map out the locations of every security camera in Endovier.
The next step was figuring out how to run a certain sector of the cameras on a loop. She’d started with the one directly opposite her cell a week ago. A few typed commands, and that camera had blinked and gone dark for a few seconds, then rebooted. Aelin tried a few different methods, and eventually, she discovered how to make that camera replay a previously recorded segment of footage. She then moved on and started trying to sync up more cameras, a task that had proved more challenging.
But after two weeks of work, she finally had it down.
A handful of commands and a couple of passwords swiped from a database—really, this whole centralized system was just such a peach—and all twenty cameras in the sector Aelin had targeted were running a section of footage from a week ago.
Beautiful.
Aelin set the cameras back on their normal track, cleared all evidence of her meddling, and was closing out of her email when the guard opened the door again.
“Time’s up.” He walked over and watched as she calmly exited the computer.
She followed him back to her cell, and once his footsteps had receded, she sat down on her bed and picked up a journal from the shelf built into the wall. She knew the guards probably searched her books every once in a while, so she was careful to keep every piece of her plans in a code that only she knew. The words were ostensibly normal, set up as an ordinary journal entry, and the cute little drawings in the margins and on some of the pages were also apparently mindless scribbles.
In Aelin’s eyes, the words and the sketches turned into her plan to get out of Endovier and finish Maeve Bitchface once and for all.
And if she died in the process, then so fucking be it.
~
Nox Owens was having the time of his fucking life.
When Elide had contacted him in the middle of Aelin’s trial, he’d been expecting another ordinary request for a tech job, which was his usual role. But she had surprised him—of course she had. If he knew anything about the Boss, it was that she always had another plan up that infinite sleeve of hers. Instead of a tech job, she wanted him to get into Endovier. As a guard.
That was always Ren’s job.
Nox had plenty of spy training and experience, but his primary strength was his tech savvy, and once Ren had joined the Boss’s team, he’d been content to take the tech jobs and leave the infiltrations to the most wanted spy in the world. But Ren was dead, and the Boss wanted Nox to work as her inside man. And it had been a hell of a long time since he’d had the chance to practice this skill set.
It had been almost laughably easy to slip into Endovier’s database and add himself to the prison guard register, which rotated frequently enough that another new name didn’t catch any second glances. He barely even bothered to change his name, and his prison guard nameplate read “Nick Owen,” a bland, forgettable name to go with his bland, forgettable face. Just for fun, he swiped Ren’s fingerprints from the Boss’s archive and imprinted them onto the SecondSkin he applied to his hands—if he was ever printed, the staff would have such a fun time scratching their heads at the fact that this guard’s prints apparently matched those of a former inmate, one who was supposed to be dead.
About a week after she visited, Elide Lochan sent a plain cardboard box by courier to Endovier Prison. As he passed by the shipping room on his rotation, Nox heard the gruff bark of the mail supervisor.
“Owen! C’mere!”
He strolled over, stopped a few paces away, and fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeves. “Yes?”
“Quit twitching,” grumbled the crotchety old man who’d been the mail supervisor at Endovier for twenty years and counting. “Damn newbies.”
“S-sorry, sir,” Nox mumbled, masking his snicker with a wobbly voice.
“Just stop shaking, newbie.” The man pulled a box across the table and tugged the small, flat white envelope off the top of the box. He tore it open, and Nox swore he saw an avaricious smile flicker across the supervisor’s face at the sight of the cash inside the envelope. “Here. This one’s for Sardothien.”
Nox cleared his throat. “Aren’t we supposed to inspect every package that comes for an inmate?”
The supervisor chuckled dryly. “I see someone memorized the handbook.” Carelessly, he took a box knife out of his pocket, slit through the tape, and gave a cursory sweep of his hand through the contents of the box, then slapped a stamp on top of the cardboard. “How’s that for inspection, Owen?”
“I…uh…” Nox pretended to be lost for words.
“Good lad.” The supervisor tucked a stack of cash into the inside pocket of his vest and passed Nox fifty dollars. “This is called an inspection fee.”
“Really?”
“Of course not!” A rattling cackle scraped out of the mail supervisor’s throat. “It’s called good business for me and some goddamn tampons for Prisoner Sardothien. Now quit shaking and take that box to Sardothien’s cell.”
“Yes, sir!” Nox picked up the box, slapped a bit of tape on top to hold it together, and left the mailroom as fast as possible. He wove through the corridors, flashing his badge when necessary, and came to Aelin’s cell. The snide blonde policewoman was leaning on the wall beside the cell door, a sneer on her face like usual. She glanced sideways at Nox as he approached.
“What do you want?”
“Delivery for the inmate,” he said coolly, showing the cop the box. The red stamp indicating that it had passed inspection glared against the beige cardboard.
The cop sniffed haughtily. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t contain any contraband.”
“Whatever.” Nox set the box on the floor and folded his arms. He’d learned very quickly that the easiest way to deal with the snippy blonde cop was to go along with whatever her snide, bitchy voice said.
“You could at least hold it,” she huffed.
He shrugged. “It’s stable, and you can make sure anything you flag doesn’t get passed to the inmate.”
She curled her lip, but knelt down, tore the tape off, and started sifting through the contents of the box. A plastic bag full of tampons was pushed aside, and she sorted a whole pile of electrolyte drink packets into stacks and shook the empty plastic water bottle. She went through the handful of food items too, exhaling in disgust when she didn’t find anything suspicious enough to confiscate. “Fine. The inmate can have the box.”
“About time,” Aelin drawled from inside her cell, where she was sitting on her bed, watching the cop tear through the box. “Thank you for your excellent supervision, Remy.”
“Don’t call me that,” the cop snapped, her icy-blue eyes narrowed into little slits. Once again, Nox was struck by how similar she looked to Aelin—with the exception of the eyes and the sneer. She unlocked the cell door, and Nox slid the box into the room.
“So kind of you, Remy darling.” Aelin’s snicker floated over the sound of the cop slamming the cell door shut in frustration. She flicked through the box aimlessly, then took out an energy bar and tossed it through the bars of her cell. “Here, Rems, have a little something sweet to counteract all that bitterness.”
Nox turned and strode away down the corridor before he could erupt into laughter at the shade of enraged purple that Remy the Cop’s face turned.
He knew goddamn well what was in that box, and it wasn’t just the food and period products that seemed to be in there. While there was ordinary food and ordinary tampons, there was also some quantity of Aelin’s SecondSkin, the very same substance that was currently covering Nox’s hands. He didn’t know exactly how much Elide and Nehemia had folded up and tucked into the decoy drink packets, but if Aelin was going to use it to get herself out of Endovier, he could only imagine that it was a lot.
And he could only imagine the look on her face when she strolled out in plain sight.
~
Four weeks, two days, and seven hours after she became an inmate of Endovier Prison, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius received the package that would get her out.
Elide and Nehemia had done everything exactly as they had all planned. Carefully measured and prepped sections of SecondSkin were tucked into a number of the electrolyte drink packets, and a set of ice-blue contact lenses hid in another packet. Elide had even tucked a tiny scrap of a note into one of the packets, and Aelin chuckled at her familiar, comfortingly blunt writing. She confirmed that everything was in place for whenever Aelin decided to make her move.
Which meant that Maeve Bitchface had taken the bait.
Aelin smothered a smirk. She’d never really doubted that Maeve would fall for her trap, not when that woman’s ego was so laughably easy to predict. Aelin knew Maeve was gloating over her arrest and imprisonment, and that meant she’d grown too comfortable in her power. A short note from Connall had been tucked into an earlier letter from Elide, and in code, he confirmed that he’d run the course of poisoning the Bitch Queen of the Night, and she was visibly weakened and frantically throwing money at anyone she thought could help her condition.
The second she got through Endovier’s gates, Aelin would be heading straight for Maeve Bitchface’s cute little compound. Well, not straight—she knew the most convoluted path to get there, and she’d take it to keep any potential pursuit off her trail. She and that bitch had a score to settle.
Shaking those thoughts away, Aelin carefully sorted the normal drink packets from the SecondSkin ones. All the orange-flavored ones were SecondSkin, both because it was the most common flavor and because Aelin loathed artificial orange flavoring almost as much as she loathed Maeve. She tucked the orange ones into the plastic basket where she kept her shower things, hiding them beneath her bar of soap and her washcloths.
A couple of days later, in the shower, Aelin turned the water on extra hot, creating a cloud of steam in the shower room. Behind the plastic curtains, she tore into the packets, unfolded the SecondSkin, and began the tedious process of laying the film atop her skin. Somewhere around half an hour in, a guard rapped on the door and grunted something about not taking too much time.
Aelin ignored him, of course.
It took a good forty-five minutes to get every piece of SecondSkin laid onto her skin, and she wrapped a towel around her hair and put on a clean set of inmate scrubs. Only a few more days in this rancid orange, she promised herself. Only a few more days.
“About damn time,” the guard grumbled when she emerged from the shower room.
She shrugged. “I’m a woman. We take long showers every once in a while.”
“Whatever.” He led her back to her cell, and she lounged on her bed, content for a while. She picked up her journal and wrote aimlessly on one of the last pages, her pencil moving almost without any conscious effort. Her shower had been a night one, and it wasn’t long before the corridor lights dimmed and she tucked her journal back onto its shelf. She fell asleep dreaming of the smell of fresh pine air in her lungs and the sweet taste of freedom.
And she dreamed snippets of strong, tattooed muscles flexing and shifting above her skin, fragments of tortured moans breaking the thick, hot air. Shattered emerald eyes stole a glance at her, and in an instant, the dream crumbled, giving way to cold concrete and steel.
Fuck.
~
Aelin pushed the scraps of her dreams away as she went about her day, letting nothing show. When the usual guard came to escort her to the computer room, she walked in calmly, sat herself down, and let her fingers fly over the keyboard. She was into the system and navigating to the cameras almost before her brain caught up with her actions, and she forced herself to stop and breathe deeply before she went on, lest she make a wrong move and trigger some kind of alert.
Now or never, Galathynius. She entered the sequence of keystrokes that gave her command over her sector’s cameras, and in a matter of minutes, that entire section was playing a loop from two days ago.
That loop was the last time Remelle was on Aelin’s guard rotation.
Like clockwork, the platinum-blonde cop joined the guard as Aelin was returning from computer time, a sneer on her face. “No snide comments today, inmate?”
“It’s too early for that,” Aelin returned sweetly. As they rounded the corner into her corridor, she nodded a fraction at the guard. Obediently, Nox started to walk faster, and as if on cue, Remelle stopped and scowled.
“There’s no need to rush, guard.”
Nox shrugged. “I’m not rushing.”
“You are.”
“Didn’t seem like I was.”
She huffed in irritation. “Just go back to your rotation. I can handle the inmate from here.”
“Fine.” Nox peeled away and headed back down the corridor, off to his usual path.
Remelle curled her acrylic-tipped fingers around Aelin’s arm. “Just you and me now, inmate.”
Aelin fixed a dry, blank stare on the cop. “Is that supposed to be threatening, Remy? Because you should know that you sound childish at best.”
“Shut it,” she snapped. “Get moving.”
“Hard to do that with such a…significant weight clinging onto me.” Aelin knew it was a low blow to comment on another woman’s size, but Remelle fucking had it coming.
The cop gasped, then her face burned scarlet. “You little bitch,” she hissed. She threw Aelin’s cell door open with a rattling clang, following her into the small room.
Perfect.
As Remelle wound up to slap her across the face, Aelin slipped a tiny syringe out of her pocket, ducked the cop’s wild swing, and grabbed her ponytail, holding her head still as she stuck the needle into the nape of her neck. Her hairline would conceal any puncture marks. Remelle’s eyes went wide, and she flailed without success—the sedative worked rapidly, and Aelin had asked Nehemia for enough to knock the woman out for a good twenty-four hours.
When Remelle sank to the floor, unconscious, Aelin swiftly stripped her of her clothes, then removed her own prison scrubs and did a quick clothing swap. Before she put the undershirt onto Remelle, she very carefully applied the SecondSkin patches to her fingertips. The synthetic nearly disappeared into her skin, and Aelin chuckled as she put the pinch-faced cop into her prison clothes.
“Enjoy your stay,” she crooned, tidily switching the cuff from her wrist to Remelle’s. She stepped in front of the mirror, applied the pale blue contacts to her eyes, and then slipped the turquoise ones into Remelle’s eyes. “And thank you,” she added as she settled Remelle into the bed, tucked the blankets up around her, grabbed her journal, and left the cell.
She’d memorized Remelle’s schedule, so it was natural for her to adopt the cop’s sneer and customarily pinched expression as she sauntered down the corridors. A brief stop at the staff computer room allowed her to transition the cameras from their loop back to their normal settings, and she went back to her corridor and stood the rest of her Celaena Duty before the next guard came to relieve her.
“Any changes?” the guard asked.
Aelin curled her lip. “Why would there be?” she snipped in a flawless imitation of Remelle’s nasal whine. She’d had weeks to perfect that inflection.
He held up his hands. “Standard question, as usual.”
“Well, if it’s so standard, just stop asking.” Aelin turned on her heel and walked snootily down the corridors. She passed rows of cells, ascended a couple of floors, and went down more hallways, carefully following Remelle’s usual path, which Nox (and her studies of the security camera footage) had graciously provided.
In the guards’ break room, she picked up Remelle’s uniform jacket and backpack, into which Nox had tucked a plastic bag containing a change of clothes. She swiped her badge at the door and went out to the checkpoint, where all she had to do was sneer at the fidgety young man on duty as he double-checked her badge before he let her through. Jingling the keys on her belt, she walked over to the parked police sedan, unlocked it, dumped her bag on the passenger seat, and got in.
And she drove out of Endovier’s gates in an Orynth PD vehicle.
Fuck, she liked irony.
Aelin drove to a gas station on the western outskirts of Orynth, parked just out of range of the single camera by the gas pumps, and got out of the car. She quickly stripped for the second time in a few hours, changed into the formfitting dark clothes that Nox had left for her, tidily folded Remelle’s uniform and left it and everything else in a neat stack on the passenger seat of the sedan, clicked the manual lock switch, and tossed the keys into the car before she closed the door.
Let Orynth PD figure that one out.
She knew the gas station was rarely open—hell, she often had a couple of her guys use this place for distributions—so she ducked around the side of the building, swiftly crossed the street, and disappeared into the tightly clustered tangle of buildings that lined this side of Orynth. As the afternoon faded into evening, Aelin let her muscle memory take over, winding a circuitous, rambling path through half of Orynth, doubling and tripling back to tangle up her trail. She worked her way around the outer districts, a grin curling the corners of her lips as the familiar steel and brick walls of the industrial district rose up around her.
About half a mile away from her favorite riverside warehouse, an old apartment building had been taped off and designated for destruction. Aelin had the Boss’s men plant those signs months ago, planning to use the building as a contingency. She slipped in through a ground-floor window, shook the dust off of her shoes, and latched the window shut before she went down the hallway into the darkened building.
To her pleasant surprise, the reinforced walls around the kitchen were even sturdier than before, and she flipped on the soft light as she walked in. With a long, muffled groan, she sat down at one of the high stools, relieved to get off her feet after so much walking.
“Good to see you again, Boss.” The voice nearly made Aelin jump out of her skin.
“Fuck!” She pressed a hand against her thundering heart as she turned around to meet Elide’s sly grin. “Scared the hell out of me, Ells.”
Elide snickered. “The bold Officer Remelle would never be so terrified.”
Aelin rolled her eyes. “The bold Officer Remelle wasted most of her boldness trying to get into my—into some man’s pants.”
“I’m almost surprised,” Elide continued, tactfully ignoring Aelin’s slip of speech. “If you were still in the uniform, I’d probably think you were actually Remy.”
“Don’t call me that!” Aelin sniped in her Remelle voice. Elide bent over, howling, and Aelin’s laughter joined in. “Hey, when you give a girl enough time with nothing else to do…”
“Nice work.” Elide discreetly wiped the corners of her eyes. “Right. Here’s your phone.” She passed Aelin a nondescript burner phone. “Con’s number is already there.”
“Perfect.” Aelin tucked the phone into a side pocket of her pants. “Where’s the best place for me at the moment?”
“Right now?” Elide bubbled her lips. “Probably here, honestly. Stay the night—the place is secure and should have everything you need. I’ll update you tomorrow—actually, it’ll probably be Con. He’s better at going around unnoticed than I am.”
“Side effects of being a high-profile CEO,” Aelin joked. “Speaking of—have you and the team figured out a new name yet?” One of the clauses in the transfer of ownership was renaming the company, since there was a high chance that people wouldn’t want to be associated with a company named after an infamous criminal.
“We have some options, but nothing is set.” Elide tapped her phone, pulling up a page on her notes app. “Staghorn Development is currently the top choice, though.”
“I like that.” Aelin mulled over the name. “If my opinion has any weight—which it probably doesn’t—I’m a fan of Staghorn.”
Elide’s lips quirked upwards. “Good to know.” She slipped her phone back into her jacket. “I have to get home, but Ae?”
“Yeah?”
The petite woman grinned. “It’s so good to see you safe.”
Impulsively, Aelin hugged Elide. “Thank you,” she murmured. “For everything.”
“Least I could do.” Elide squeezed Aelin’s hands. “I’ll see you soon.” She left, and Aelin waited for the muffled click of the doors locking before she headed further down the hallway, towards the bedroom and bathroom.
After a long, hot shower that made her feel both clean and more human, Aelin changed into fresh undergarments and the same clothes she’d been wearing. The nondescript, cheap cotton-blend clothes could have come from anywhere, which made them perfect for sneaking around in. She’d taken out the pale blue contacts and tossed them in the trash before her shower, but she kept the protective film of SecondSkin on her hands.
Better to mask her fingerprints than to get caught too early.
She flipped on the bedside lamp in the plainly furnished bedroom and gratefully crawled into bed, near tears at the feeling of a proper mattress beneath her body for the first time in over a month. Unable to fall asleep without some kind of light—she’d grown accustomed to the hallway lights in Endovier—she left the lamp on and drifted off, letting her body shut down as the adrenaline high finally wore off.
When she woke up, watery grey sunlight had broken through the clouds of the late-November sky, and she rolled over and just stared out of the window, soaking in the morning light for the first time in weeks. Eventually, she rolled out of bed, brushed her teeth, redid her braid, and made herself a coffee in the kitchen. She sipped it carelessly as she fiddled with her phone, waiting for Con to text.
And when he did, she couldn’t control the smirk that spread across her face.
~
For about the trillionth time in the last year, Rowan was royally fucking pissed, and Aelin was the reason for it.
“What the fuck do you mean?” he snarled, hands clenched into fists atop his desk. The cold wood was still unfamiliar under his fingers, so different from the steel tables of the police building.
“Watch it, Lieutenant,” Gavriel warned from the doorway.
Rowan pulled in a deep breath and shoved it out in a harsh exhale. “Where is she?”
“Downstairs, in a temporary holding cell until we can verify that it’s actually her.”
“I’m going to talk to her.” He was halfway out the door when Gav’s iron hand clamped around his upper arm. “What?”
“I don’t think that’s the best idea, Whitethorn,” Gav said, coolly.
Scarlet anger crept up the edges of Rowan’s vision. “Why not, sir?”
“You have a personal history with this woman—technically, with both of these women, since you worked with PD for almost a year. I’d hate for that to compromise anything.”
“I understand, sir, but—”
“But nothing,” Gav interrupted, cutting him off. “No.”
Rather than tearing free from his commander’s grasp, Rowan deflated, his posture going slack. “I only want a few minutes, sir. I…” He cleared his throat, not expecting this tangle of emotion. “I need to know.”
After a long, tense moment, Gav sighed. “Fine. I’ll give you five minutes. When the timer goes off, you get the hell out of there or I swear to all that’s holy I’ll slap you right back into basic training.”
“Yes, sir.” Rowan snapped off a salute at his commander and strode down the hallways, his pace increasing with every step he took. He took an elevator down several floors, flashed his badge at the pair of TSF guards stationed outside the double doors that blocked off the temporary holding quarters that took up half the floor of the TSF building’s basement, and pulled the doors open. Inside, he took a deep breath, dredging up every scrap of resolve he could summon, and walked down another few yards.
He stopped in front of the first holding cell, clasped his hands behind his back, and turned an impassive gaze onto the platinum-blonde woman seated on the bench inside the cell. The instant she saw him, she shot up to her feet, folded her arms across her chest, reared her head back, and sneered at him, her pale lips curling back, rage filling her icy blue eyes.
“Hello, Remelle,” Rowan said quietly.
“Fuck you,” Remelle snapped.
Rowan raised a brow. “If this is some kind of plot to escape Endovier, I’m afraid you’ve failed.”
She practically growled at him. “I’ve told every stupid asshole in this place and I’ll tell you too: I am not Aelin!”
“That’s not what your fingerprints say,” he replied.
She laughed caustically and, to his surprise, pinched her skin between the tips of her acrylic nails and yanked, and the skin at the tip of her finger peeled away. “Because that bitch put her fingerprints on me, asshole.”
“Prove it.” Rowan leaned against the wall opposite the holding cell and waited for Remelle to yank the synthetic off of her fingertips. She shoved the synthetic through the slot in the door, and he tucked it into a plastic bag to give to the forensics team.
“Get me out of here,” she snapped again.
Rowan had only vaguely wondered whether Remelle was actually Aelin in disguise, and he was unsurprised to find that it wasn’t. “That’s not for me to do,” he tossed over his shoulder as his timer rang. The guard from outside the holding area poked his head in and gestured, and Rowan turned on his heel and left, letting Remelle’s enraged whining fade away.
“I’m taking this to forensics,” he told Gav, who was waiting outside the holding area.
Gav nodded. “Did you get your answers?”
“I’ve seen enough,” was all that Rowan said. “Should be fine to let her go, if only to get rid of the goddamn whining.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. Sir,” he added, tacking on Gav’s title at the last second.
Gav raised a brow but otherwise didn’t react to Rowan’s near instance of insubordination. “I’ll let her get back to PD, then. Wait for me in my office, Whitethorn.”
Not trusting himself to reply verbally, Rowan dipped his head tersely, saluted, and headed upstairs, where he dropped off the bag at the forensics lab and walked back to Gav’s office. He only waited for around ten minutes before the commander came into the office, sighed heavily, and sat back down at his desk.
“That woman is a piece of fucking work,” Gav grumbled, mostly to himself.
Rowan didn’t suppress his snort. “Couldn’t agree more, sir.”
“If she’s always like that…” He scoffed quietly. “I can’t say I blame my niece for choosing that woman as a decoy.”
“I don’t think that was the whole reason, sir,” Rowan said. He’d been thinking over the situation as he waited, and while his thoughts were still clouded with rage—and a hefty dose of lust, if he was being honest, because clever, scheming Aelin had a way of working him up—he’d formed a somewhat solid hypothesis. “Besides her, uh, cattier tendencies, Remelle also looks remarkably physically similar to Sardothien, a fact that I’m sure she knew.”
“You know that’s not Aelin’s real name, Whitethorn.” Gav made a statement, not a question.
It was real enough to convict her. “I…it’s easier this way, sir.” Rowan swallowed the lump in his throat and kept talking. “I suspect she began planning this as soon as she found out that Remelle was the police officer on duty. However, I’m perplexed at the footage, since it shows no apparent signs of tampering and everything looks perfectly normal.” A crease dug between his furrowed brows. “I’m having Luca at PD look at the footage, since he was the one to figure out Sardothien’s loop when she broke into PD headquarters in the summer.”
Gav chuckled. “Back up, Whitethorn. She broke into Orynth PD?”
“Yes, sir.” Rowan stifled his irritation. “Somehow, she managed to put the entire security camera system on a closed loop—except for my personal camera. We still have no knowledge what exactly she did while there, but since nothing was visibly disturbed, it was probably just recon.”
“Interesting.” Gav tapped his chin, thinking. “Do you have any idea where she is now?”
“I…no, sir.” Rowan reluctantly answered. “She could be anywhere.” His phone buzzed, and he glanced down at the screen. And a fresh wave of scarlet washed across his vision. “Goddammit!” Composing himself, he showed Gav the messages from Luca. “Apologies for the outburst, sir. Luca just confirmed that there was in fact a rather sophisticated loop run on Endovier’s security cameras for several hours.”
“All of the cameras?”
“No, sir. Only the sector of cameras by Sardothien’s cell.”
“What does the footage show when the loop ends?”
Rowan sent Luca a text, and it was only a few minutes before the younger cop replied. “That’s the confusing part, sir. When the loop ends, the cameras show Sardothien asleep in her cell—which is to be expected for around ten p.m.—and Remelle changing duty as normal. We checked the rest of the cameras as well, tracking Remelle’s path, and it’s completely ordinary. And then, the next day, Sardothien wakes up and starts screaming at the guards to get her out.”
“And she turns out to be Remelle,” Gav finished.
“Correct, sir.”
Gav pressed his lips into a flat line. “Is there anywhere else that we could look for intel?”
Rowan sighed heavily. “I don’t know yet, sir. We might be able to ask PD to search the area around Endovier for any signs, but—” Before he could finish his thought, both his and Gav’s phones pinged at once. His eyes rapidly scanned the alert.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Gav stood up and pocketed his phone. “Looks like I’ll be heading down to PD headquarters after all.”
“Sir, I—”
“No.”
Rowan blinked. “Sir?”
“No,” Gav repeated, the command clear as day.
“Sir, with all due respect, I have the most information on Celaena Sardothien, and as the TSF agent from the case, I believe I should know about this new development.”
“You already have your answer, Lieutenant Whitethorn.” Gav drilled a steely stare into Rowan’s forehead. “It’s in the best interest of both you and this case that you leave the case behind. Any further attempts to participate will be considered violation of a direct order, and you will be punished accordingly, Whitethorn. Clear?”
Rowan locked his jaw. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” As Gav left his office, he tucked a folded piece of scrap paper into Rowan’s clenched fist, sparing him a hint of a nod as he strode down the hallway. Reining in his fury, Rowan stormed back down to his much smaller office, threw the door shut, and unfolded the note.
Unless I tell you otherwise—Stay. Fucking. Put.
He’d be fucking damned if he did.
~
There’s a cop in my backseat.
Nox navigated the meandering turns of the industrial district with ease, focusing more of his attention on the serpentine tangle of streets rather than on the trussed-up, unconscious cop occupying the back seat of his nondescript car. Officer Remelle had been almost laughably easy to kidnap, since she was so overcome with rage at her recent run-in first with Aelin and then with the Terrasen Special Forces. Nox had lingered outside a chain coffee shop a couple of miles away from TSF headquarters, waiting, and the moment Remelle had stopped for her usual beverage, he struck. He knew the TSF and the police were probably scurrying around the coffee shop like a bunch of idiots by now, and he couldn’t help but snicker at the thought.
Mostly hidden by the cold, foggy darkness and the smoggy smear that hung over the industrial district, Nox parked his car about half a mile away from the overgrown path that led down to the Boss’s riverside warehouse, climbed out, and hoisted the still-unconscious Remelle over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He backtracked down the side alleys, doubling and tripling back on his steps to confuse anyone that might try to track him, and eventually pushed through the curtain of brittle branches and headed down to the warehouse.
“Nice work, Owens.” The soft, crackly voice sounded abruptly in his ear, and he almost dropped Remelle onto the half-frozen ground.
“Fuck’s sake, Boss!”
The Boss snickered. From her perch somewhere outside the warehouse, she was watching her set of concealed cameras as the final pieces of her grand plan fell into place. “Upper mezzanine. And be quick—Her Royal Bitchiness should be here in an hour or so.”
“Sure thing.” Nox crossed the final stretch of pavement and entered the warehouse’s dim gloom.
“Oh, and Owens?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a chance that PD might be on scene by the end of the night.”
“Good to know, Boss.” He glanced over his shoulder, a little unsettled by the fact that she could see him but he couldn’t see her. “You know where the car is.”
“Indeed.” A sinister note crept into her voice.
Nox went up to the mezzanine, where he set Remelle down, untied her, and set her up so she was faced out over the warehouse, head turned away from the south door. To stabilize her, he cuffed her hands to the metal railings and hooked a short grappling cable from the wall to the crossed straps of her weapons harness. As he slipped down the stairs, he heard the distinct rattle of another door being opened, and his hand flew to the knife tucked into his waistband.
The west door creaked open, and a man dressed in nondescript gray fatigues and some kind of military vest ducked inside, his dark hair and clothing blending him into the shadows almost seamlessly. But Nox was friends with the shadows too, and he slipped up behind the man and had a knife to his throat in seconds.
“Who the fuck are you?” he hissed.
Faster than he thought possible, the man slipped his hold, whirling and grabbing his knife hand and immobilizing it above his head. “Who the fuck are you?” he retorted.
Nox jabbed the man in the ribs and slithered free. “Call me Nox.”
“The other man paused. “You’re the Boss’s spy.”
Caught off guard, Nox lowered his knife halfway. “And…?”
“I’m Con,” the dark-haired man said.
“Con,” Nox repeated. A smirk crawled across his face. “Is that short for Convict?”
Con snorted. “Why would I tell you?”
“Because of my pretty face and winning personality?”
“I’ve seen better.” Con’s onyx gaze traveled slowly down Nox’s face, half-obscured in the warehouse’s gloom.
“Oh, I hardly believe that.” Nox winked, slowly, watching a faint blush creep over Con’s cheekbones. Hell. He was a pretty one.
“Boys,” Celaena’s drawl crackled through each of their earpieces. “I hate to interrupt your little meet-cute, but I’m tracking a royal bitch onto the property.”
“Heard.” Nox and Con spoke at the same time.
Con was the first to break their stare. “I’m in place,” he answered Celaena.
“Leaving,” Nox said hurriedly, and he ducked out the west door with a last glance at the pretty man in the warehouse. “Boss, who the hell is he?”
She chuckled. “A former Navy SEAL and my inside operative at Maeve’s compound.”
“Damn.” Nox whistled. “Man of many talents.” The line went silent, and he swiftly scaled the ladder rungs built into the steel wall of the warehouse and crouched on the rooftop. Some of the roof’s panels were pushed open, allowing room for a crane to reach inside and hoist pallets in or out for distribution. It also gave him a clear sight line into the warehouse.
Which was perfect, because he’d eventually need to throw the little glass vial in his pocket into the pallet sitting in the middle of the warehouse floor.
Shifting himself into as comfortable a crouch as possible, Nox fixed his eyes onto the warehouse floor. And waited.
~
Clad in an old, faded set of black fatigues, with knives tucked into his sleeves and boots, a pair of handguns on his hips, and Kevlar strapped to his chest, back, and upper thighs, Rowan trailed Maeve Ond through the industrial district of Orynth. He kept about half a block between himself and the woman known as the Queen of the Night, but she was so singularly focused that he doubted she would even notice she was being tracked. He’d picked up her trail thanks to an anonymous, untraceable number that had somehow contacted him with nothing more than a location pin.
Whoever had sent it had placed a tracking device on Maeve.
He’d barely taken a few seconds to marvel at the skill and sheer audacity of that feat before he was on the move, a lethal shadow prowling through the cold late-November night. She stalked down the maze of streets and alleys with deadly precision, despite the occasional tremors that rattled through her body. He observed those shakes with analytical curiosity, noting that the supposed Queen of the Night wasn’t invincible after all. Those were the tremors of someone whose body had been exposed to long-term poison.
Maeve shoved through a brittle curtain of overgrown vegetation, and Rowan followed at a short distance. Past that patch of cover stood a solitary, steel-sided warehouse on the edge of the river. The skeleton of a crane loomed beside it, barely visible through the foggy night. She stormed up to the building, rounded the corner, and fired a single bullet through the keypad beside the south door. The latch released, and she yanked the door open with a snarl.
“You can’t hide forever,” she called in a hoarse voice. It probably would have been more sinister if her throat hadn’t been ravaged by coughing.
Who the fuck is she talking to? Rowan wondered as he crept up to the edge of the building.
As if she could read his damn mind, she answered in the form of another snarled question.
“Show your worthless self, Moonbeam!”
Rowan froze in his tracks, ice shooting through his veins. Moonbeam? At the distinct sound of more than one gun cocking, he whipped his attention back to Maeve. Although her body visibly shook with tremors, she gripped her gun fiercely.
“Still disobeying me, Connall? I’m disappointed.” Connall. The name clanged through Rowan with the force of a train. Connall Moonbeam was alive.
This…could change everything.
As if she were on the set of a crime drama, Maeve continued monologuing. “I should have known you’d turn and sell your secrets to the highest bidder, Connall. I’m only irritated that after everything I gave you, you’d let Celaena Sardothien’s dirty money control your loyalty.”
Once again, Rowan felt like he’d been hit by a train. Connall Moonbeam was not only alive, but he was working undercover for Sardothien. Which meant he’d probably been feeding Fenrys information for gods only knew how long.
Which meant Fenrys had known his brother was alive.
That explained the contact labeled Con in Fen’s phone.
“I’m tired of your tricks, Connall.” Maeve’s frigid voice coiled through the warehouse as she tugged on a nearby cord, pouring a pool of yellow light over the area where she stood. Rowan immediately flattened himself against the wall behind a heap of boxes, melting himself into the cover of the shadows but keeping a clear view of Maeve as she paced across the floor.
A blur of movement peeled away from the west wall, and Maeve whipped around to find a distinctly male figure ducking behind another stack of crates. She curled her lip and glanced that way.
And did a visible double take.
Her sneer melted into a twisted expression of blinding fury as she fixed her hollow violet gaze onto the black-clad female figure who stood poised on the mezzanine. “I suppose you made yourself useful one last time, Connall,” she crooned, raising her gun and cocking it. “Say goodbye, Celaena Sardothien.”
Sardothien?
The ice in Rowan’s veins solidified into iron, weighing his body down as he lifted his gaze up to the mezzanine and traced the undeniably familiar figure who stood there, her head turned away, scanning the wrong side of the warehouse as the Queen of the Night curled her finger around the trigger.
And fired.
No!
White-hot horror blazed through Rowan’s body, and he forgot who and where and what he was as he pulled his gun and aimed and emptied an entire chamber into the back of Maeve’s skull and watched as her body arched backwards, blood bursting out of her throat and forehead and chest, and collapsed to the cold hard cement in a blur of gore and gunfire. The roar of gunshots abruptly cut off into thundering silence, and Rowan forced his eyes to move from the crumpled corpse of the Queen of the Night upwards, climbing the steel wall to the mezzanine.
The woman lay slumped over the railing, crimson soaking steadily into her platinum hair.
Rowan’s gun clattered to the floor, its dull thud echoing in his ears with the force of an anvil crashing into stone. Numbness swept over him, and he barely recognized that he was moving as his TSF survival instincts took over, directing his limbs to lift Maeve’s prone form and haul her outside to get her back to the investigative team for analysis and confirmation of death. He turned to go back, but a strong set of hands clamped down on his shoulders.
“Don’t.” Lower and rougher than Fenrys’s voice, Connall Moonbeam’s baritone jolted an old, familiar strand of Rowan’s memory.
He made a weak push against Con’s hardened grip. “She…Celaena…”
“You can’t go back in there,” Con repeated. “It’s not safe.”
“Fuck that!” In a burst of adrenaline, Rowan managed to break halfway free. Before he could sprint back into the warehouse, Connall spun him around and slapped the knife out of his hand.
“You can’t, Whitethorn!” For the first time in a decade, Rowan came face to face with the second of the Moonbeam twins, whom he hadn’t seen in the flesh since he went off to Navy SEAL training.
“Why the fuck not?” Rowan growled, feeling his burst of energy give way to hollowness again.
Too many emotions to count rippled across Con’s eyes. “All I can tell you is not to trust what you think you saw.” Before Rowan could formulate a response, Con pinched the nerve at the joint of Rowan’s neck and shoulder, and he felt himself go weak. In a rapid blur, Con slung him over his shoulder, sprinted to the cover of dense but winter-bare vegetation surrounding the far side of the lot, and hurled him into the frigid dirt, covering Rowan’s immobile body with his own.
And both of them watched as the warehouse exploded in a searingly white burst of flame.
“N…no,” Rowan croaked, feeling sensation begin to return to his fingers. “No!” From deep in his chest, a single name tore brokenly out of his throat. “FIREHEART!”
Gaze flicking between Rowan’s tears and the blazing ruin of a warehouse, Con put the pieces together as he stood up. “She wasn’t actually there, Whitethorn,” he said softly.
Rowan’s shattered gaze locked onto him. “What?”
“That wasn’t Aelin,” he repeated.
But before Rowan could say anything else—before Con could reveal anything else—a birdcall sounded in Con's earpiece, and he turned sharply on his heel and jogged into the dense overgrowth, leaving Rowan prostrate on the ground behind him. He broke through the brush and jogged up the alley, sparing a single glance over his shoulder at the blaze he left behind. At the top of the alley, an electrical van idled, with Nox Owens at the wheel.
“Hop in, pretty boy,” Nox said with a sly little grin. Con shook his head with a dry huff and swung himself up into the van, and Nox drove off.
A panel behind the seats swung open, and Aelin Ashryver Galathynius stuck her very much alive head into the cab. “Where is he?”
“North end of the lot, halfway into the tree cover.”
“Good. Nox, slow down.” Aelin withdrew, and a moment later, Con heard the back door unlatch and thud closed shortly after. He glanced into the rearview mirror as the van sped back up, watching Aelin tuck and roll and jog back in the direction of the warehouse, her figure rapidly disappearing into the night.
~
Through a fog of devastation and confusion and a thousand other roiling emotions, Rowan finished loading Maeve’s body into the back of an Orynth PD van. He’d pinged Luca as soon as he arrived at the warehouse, alerting the cops of his location, and the police squad—with Gavriel in tow—had arrived on scene as the oddly controlled blaze faded into smoking embers.
Gav’s face was stone, but his eyes flicked from Rowan to the ruins of the warehouse and back and rapidly made the right connections. His posture softened. “Get in the vehicle, Whitethorn.”
“I…” Rowan couldn’t form words. “He said it wasn’t her.”
“Who said what now?”
Rowan gulped. “It…Connall. I saw Con.”
Shock flared Gav’s eyes wide, but he shut that expression down. “And he said…”
“He said it wasn’t Aelin,” Rowan croaked.
Gav loosed a long, tight exhale. “I think we should go for tonight, Rowan.”
“Please,” Rowan breathed. “I only want a moment.”
“Alright.” To Rowan’s surprise, Gav ran a hand through his hair and walked away. “Get yourself home safe, Rowan.” He climbed into the leading PD vehicle and waved them forwards.
As the taillights of the PD van faded away, Rowan turned his stare back onto the smoking heap of rubble where Aelin’s river warehouse had stood. His heart fought his eyes at the sight, torn between wanting to cling to Con’s words and wanting to believe what he saw. An icy breeze curled up from the river and bit through his clothes, and he finally took a step towards his waiting truck. Dry leaves crackled behind him, and he drew in a sharp breath and started to turn around.
Only to be met with the kiss of steel at his throat and his groin.
“This feels somewhat familiar, Lieutenant. Have we met?”
Shell-shocked and hardly trusting his own state of consciousness, Rowan tried to maneuver, but a simple twitch of the blades stopped him cold.
“Oh no you don’t, Lieutenant. It’s best for both of us if you don’t get a visual.” With that, the blade at his throat dropped and was rapidly replaced with the sharp pinprick of a needle. Heaviness spread through his limbs, and the last thing Rowan saw as his vision went black was a half-dazed glimpse of the turquoise eyes that haunted his dreams.
I’ve been so busy with life, that I’ve abandoned writing and reading all together. I miss it.
I’m going to do a massive reread of Songs About You, so I can figure out how to finish it up in the best way. I love the story but finding the time to dedicate to that creative space has proved tough.
To the people who write and update regularly, I respect you so much!
The night hung heavy over Bon Temps, a sultry Southern breeze carrying the scent of magnolias and secrets. Sookie Stackhouse stepped out of Merlotte's, the echoes of the day's chaos still ringing in her ears. As she made her way down the quiet street, her thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of footsteps.
From the shadows emerged Eric Northman, his tall, imposing figure cutting through the darkness. Moonlight played on his golden hair, and his eyes, a piercing blue, met Sookie's with an intensity that sent a shiver down her spine.
"Sookie," he greeted, his voice a low, velvet rumble that seemed to dance with the night.
"Eric," she replied, her tone a mix of caution and curiosity. There had always been an unspoken tension between them, a magnetic pull that defied the boundaries of their supernatural worlds.
The night seemed to stretch before them, an open canvas waiting for the strokes of an untold story. Sookie's telepathic abilities had always kept her guarded, but in the moonlit solitude, she felt an inexplicable connection with the ancient vampire.
As they walked side by side, Bon Temps embraced them in its quiet charm. The crickets serenaded their steps, and the moon cast long shadows on the pavement. Sookie stole glances at Eric, wondering what secrets lay behind his ageless eyes.
"You're different, Sookie," Eric said, breaking the silence. "There's a strength in you that intrigues me."
She met his gaze, a mixture of vulnerability and resilience in her eyes. "And you, Eric, there's more to you than the formidable vampire everyone sees."
They found themselves in an old graveyard, the headstones standing as silent witnesses to the passage of time. The moonlight bathed the surroundings in an ethereal glow, casting a spell of intimacy.
Without a word, Eric reached for Sookie's hand, his touch sending a warmth through her that belied his cold, immortal nature. In that moment, the air thick with anticipation, they shared a dance beneath the moon—a dance that defied the rules of their worlds.
As the night wore on, their steps led them back to the edge of town. Eric paused, his gaze fixed on Sookie's lips. The tension hung in the air, a delicate balance between restraint and desire.
"Sookie," he whispered, his voice a caress against her skin.
The moon hung suspended in the night sky, casting a silver glow on the pair as they stood on the outskirts of Bon Temps, caught in a moment that seemed to defy the boundaries of their respective worlds.
Sookie's heart beat in tandem with the rhythmic pulsing of the night. Her eyes met Eric's, and for a fleeting instant, the world around them faded into obscurity. The graveyard, the town, the complications that accompanied their intertwined lives—all dissolved in the magnetic pull of the Southern night.
In the quiet of that moonlit space, Eric leaned in, his lips meeting Sookie's with a hunger that spoke of centuries-long yearning. Sookie, in turn, responded with a passion that transcended the complexities of their supernatural existence. Their kiss held the promise of secrets, of unspoken truths that had lingered in the air for far too long.
As they pulled away, a breathless understanding passed between them. Eric's fingers traced a delicate line along Sookie's jaw, a gesture that conveyed a depth of emotion neither dared to articulate in words.
"Sookie," he murmured, his eyes holding a vulnerability that only she seemed to evoke. "There's an undeniable connection between us. A thread that binds us in ways we can't comprehend."
She nodded, her fingers entwining with his. "I've felt it too, Eric. It's like we're dancing on the edge of something powerful, something that goes beyond our world's rules."
The night unfolded around them, a witness to the unfolding of a story written in the language of shared glances and silent confessions. The moon, their silent accomplice, bathed them in its ethereal light, casting a glow on the enigmatic duo standing at the crossroads of destiny.
With a lingering gaze, Eric intertwined his fingers with Sookie's, as if making an unspoken pact. "Perhaps," he said, his voice a whisper that carried both mystery and promise, "we should explore this connection, discover where it leads."
As they continued to walk through Bon Temps, hand in hand, a quiet understanding settled between them. Each step became a declaration—an acknowledgment that the journey they were embarking on would be marked by challenges, but also by the potential for a connection that defied the boundaries of their supernatural existence.
Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen
One day, stolen from time. Three lives hanging in the balance. And a choice—a choice with the power to change the course of destiny.
They succeeded. The SS Bandırma sailed out of Istanbul on 16 May 1919. George’s plan failed. Everything is, once again, as it should be.
However, when journalist Esra arrives back in her own time, after fixing the mess she’d made of the past, she quickly realises that her wild and reckless heart has set in motion a course of events neither she nor her best friend, Pera Palace Hotel Manager, Ahmet, could ever have foreseen.
Because, somehow, Halit, the man she never meant to fall in love with—the one man she can never, ever have—has found a way to follow her. And his presence in 2022 has the potential to destroy everything.
Now, with sixteen hours to go before midnight strikes and steals away one of the only two people she’s ever loved, Esra has an impossible choice to make...
A choice with consequences that will echo throughout time.
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Author's Note: Hello all! I'm sorry if this chapter sucks. I'm not sure who is even around to read this story anymore since it has been so drug out. I did my best to give birth to the idea of this chapter that I had in my head. As always, feedback, comments, and likes are food for the soul.
It seemed anxiety, bordering on near panic, was going to become a constant state of being for Aelin. Gone was the self-assured, cool, confident, and collected woman of the past. Everything she had been, known, hoped, wanted… it all seemed painfully stuck in the past, as unmovable of the mountain peaks surrounding the city.
Perhaps if therapy had been attended, as suggested by a multitude of her friends on more than one occasion, the necessary tools to address how she was feeling would be handily available. In her toolkit. Having to endure needles in her eyes sounded more preferable than attending therapy, so naturally, she had not gone, preferring to shoulder her emotional baggage.
The emotional turmoil of today was stemming from her reluctantly agreed upon dinner at Rowan’s cabin. It had been the price to pay for his visit to her the book shop yesterday. The smart part of her brain screamed no, but a too quick “yes” produced by her messy heart had passed over her lips instead. And it was an answer she’d give and give again just to see the smile that had graced his handsome face, setting his green eyes alight with joy. When this ended, because she knew it would, there was no doubt in her mind, that she would be the proverbial cannon fodder of this situation.
Wincing as she hit a particularly rough pothole, Aelin made a large mental note to chastise Rowan for it. The winter season had only worsened the already shit road and SUV be damned, it didn’t seem to make it any more bearable. Fleetfoot shifted her footing in the passenger seat, glancing over, giving a judgmental look.
“Don’t look at me like that, it’s not my fault this road isn’t maintained,” she muttered in contempt.
Lucky for both the golden-haired girls, the A-frame cabin was soon in few, lit by beautiful glass bulbs strung from tree to trees. While his house wasn’t her style, much preferring luxury and the things accustomed with the that lifestyle, there was something perfect about the view she had now. It was quieter than even where she lived. And if possible, it seemed more stars could be seen winking in the sky. The light blues and purple of dusk were fading away into dark blues and black as the sun continued its decent below the horizon.
Cutting the engine, Aelin sat a moment, taking in two large breaths and talked herself down from the anxiety that was clawing violently up her throat. There was no reason to be nervous, not really, if you got past the fact she was spending another evening in his presence, in the home that would one day house his family…
Fine. Everything was perfectly fine. That was the mantra that would headline the forefront of her mind tonight—it had to be. The alternative distressingly cruel.
“Let’s go, girl.” Fleetfoot didn’t need to be told twice, bounding over her lap and out the car door, rounding the corner of the house before her feet had even touched the pine needle ground.
“Well, someone was eager,” she grumbled under her breath as she followed the same path the dog had taken. The backdoor was open, spilling added light across the porch and grass. Chairs circled a firepit that had already had a crackling fire within it. Blankets hung on the back of two chairs. Her mouth watered as a small breeze kissed her skin, bringing with it the smell of garlic and a little spice. The silver haired man had refused to tell her what they were doing, other than he was making her dinner, which he also decided to withhold what it was they would be eating.
Gently, she knocked against the door trim before walking in. Rowan gave her a smile as he lowered a wooden spoon down from his lips and set it down on the counter. “Couldn’t wait for a taste?”
“A cook always has to sample the dish before serving it to others. I wouldn’t want feed you something terrible.”
“My refined palate appreciates that.”
Rowan rolled his eyes, but the small laugh let her know he knew she was just being difficult. She took a seat at the bar top that overlooked the stove. The meal looked simple but it smelled divine, especially with her sitting almost directly over it. “Are you going to tell me what’s on the menu now that I’m here?”
“You’re insufferable sometimes. I hope you realize that,” he answered, flicking her nose.
“I’m wonderful, thank you very much. The only intolerable one here is you.”
“Keep it up and I’ll give the dogs your plate and your part of the dessert.” His face was straight, no slight tick in his jaw or arch of a brow to tell if he was kidding. The discarded spoon was picked back up and used to stir whatever sauce was simmering on the stove top.
Worrying her lip, Aelin said nothing but continued to watch him mill about the kitchen. He flicked off the burners and bent down, giving her a better view of the kitchen. It was like a beacon in the dark, the small image pinned to the fridge with a magnet, that immediately ensnared her wandering gaze. A heavy unease settled in the pit of her stomach the longer she stared at the photo. His tall frame appeared back in her view, but he might as well have been invisible because she just kept staring—a very tangible feeling of nauseousness working up her throat.
Rowan was going to be a father to a baby that would be here before they both knew it. And he would be filling his spare time with raising him or her. Cooking meals in this very kitchen and coming home to someone who Aelin couldn’t stand. Until now, a small part of her had been delusional, quietly whispering that he would still have time for her when it came down to it. But he wouldn’t. This man would be all in for that life that hung proudly against the silver fridge face.
In the haze of her tunnel vision, she had missed him moving until he was turning the stool and pulling her against warm, muscled chest. His heart was thrumming erratically against her ear. This man was far from dumb and likely knew just the reason for her terror-struck silence. “Aelin,” his voiced pleaded against the crown of her head.
“What are we doing Ro?” she cried into him.
“We’re having dinner.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Aelin declared, shoving her palms against his stomach in a paltry attempt to put distance between them. He gripped her harder, snuffing out the hope for any separation.
“Rowan, let me go,” she begged, the words vibrating against them both.
“I can’t, Fireheart.”
“Rowan, there’s a baby on your fridge. Your baby. It’s growing and some months from now, it’s going to be more than just a black and white decoration to look at.” He was lying to himself if he thought he could keeping living his life like this and it broke her heart because he didn’t seem to have an iota about it.
“Aelin, you don’t think I know that?” he barked angrily, stepping back and bumping into another stool. It’s high-pitched squeal making her look up at him. Loosing a frustrated breath, his green eyes weighed heavily on her.
“I can’t change that. I know I’m going to be a dad and it wasn’t how I thought my journey to fatherhood would go, but I know more than anyone, that July is going to bring so many changes. So don’t sit there and preach at me about that stupid black and white photo. I didn’t even put it up there. Lyria did. It’s from when she first found out and it’s a blob. It doesn’t even look like a baby.”
From her vantagepoint, it looked like a potato. Gods, likening a baby to a potato was surely going to get her some gods-given karma down the line. Unsure of what to say to the passionate, yet angry monologue, Aelin elected silence.
“I’m scared out of my mind, but I’m excited, too. Some little human out there is going to call me dad. And I’m going to read poetry to them every night before they go to bed and take them hiking on Saturdays with my friends. I’m going to stroll the streets of downtown Orynth, telling them about a time when there used to be a queen and kind of this country, and how the opalescent buildings were an unheard-of masterpiece when they designed and built. I’m going to take them to Emrys’ and introduce cake when they’re old enough. And we’ll see you when we come to buy books because I want them to know 1,000 different lives. I have to make the most of what I’ve been dealt.”
Tears burned, falling for herself, and falling for the man at her front. Rowan loved that baby, and it was beautiful to see it. But the life he painted; it made her envious. What would a life like that, with him, be like? Would they fight about what book to read? What would be the first poem they would read to their child? Would he get the history just right having not grown up here? Would she have to correct him with a teasing smile?
“What if” was the most painful start to any self-harm idea her brain and heart could muster. What if she had met him a few months sooner? What if it had been her and not Lyria? What if Lyria hadn’t been pregnant at all?
What if. What if. What if.
Calloused thumbs swooped across the swell of her cheeks, wiping away the moisture sliding down. He tilted her head, catching her gaze with his. “There’s a limit to what I can give you, Aelin. I know that, but I’m trying to be here, for you. And if that’s enough for now, then let it be enough. And when it’s not, ask me again to let you go.”
It was appropriate to say while he cradled her in his hands—the declaration literal and figurative and a bittersweet understanding. She knew that whatever unspoken thing tying them together didn’t adhere to the constructs of reason or reality—it unapologetically existed. And for now, the small kernels of time and of himself that Rowan offered to her were enough.
However, they’d both be nothing but fools if they believed with any real hope that this would last beyond July. The gods didn’t cater to mortal whims, not even love or desire, despite what countless words penned in books tried to argue. Aelin knew this better than anyone having suffered unbelievably so in the face of the cards she had been dealt.
Before her parents had died, Arobynn betrayed everyone, and her uncle and cousins’ unwitting complicity in his schemes, her life had been one of unwavering love, joy, and happiness. Every day was not sunshine and roses, but there hadn’t been one thing she’d willingly change.
It occurred to her that she had not offered any sort of response to Rowan’s quiet plea apart from silence. With a rueful twitch of her pink lips, she said hardly audible, “Okay.” The two syllables tasted acerb against her tongue, but she’d utter them again and again if it meant he’d look at her the way he was now. With one last smooth stroke against the apples of her cheeks, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
Aelin gave an enthusiastic nod, which had him freeing her and returning to the other side of the counter, dishing out food onto two plates in a manner that could only be described as routine. A quick jerk of his head silently commanded her to follow him as he took their dinner outside. Once she was seated comfortably in one of the chairs surrounding the fire, did he pass her a plate and take his own seat.
The first few bites had her letting out a low moan that had no right appearing anywhere except within the confines of her bedroom—but damn the gods, she couldn’t help herself. Rowan sounded like he was semi-choking across from her and it made a small, feline smirk of delight grace her lips. There was power in the knowledge that she could and did fluster the man.
Deciding to spare him anymore discomfort, she mercifully kept her indecent sounds and thoughts to herself for the remainder of their dinner which fell into a pleasant, companionable silence. Gently, she discarded the plate on the ground beside her and leaned back into the chair, taking a sip from her beer, and looking up at the stars. Millions of tiny light balls gleamed back at her, some stark white, others hardly more than a dull glow.
“When I was a kid, my parents used to tell me that the stars were all the people that we’d lost looking down on us. It used to make me so upset because I thought it was ridiculous and at that point, I had already learned that they were balls of exploding gas. But as I got older and lost them, I came to the decision that their explanation was the only one I wanted to possess any conviction for. At the very least, it’s a far more beautiful sentiment than any scientific truth.”
Aelin refused to look anywhere but up, not wanting to see pity, understanding, comfort—anything in response to her confession. Vulnerability made her feel weak and broken and she’d shown Rowan more of herself in the months of their friendship than she’d shown must people in years. He was constantly disarming her; strategically knocking a stone loose from the wall she’d armed herself with and with the right move, it would irreparably crumble.
It was inevitable. It was coming. And she wasn’t ready yet… but she wanted to be. Living as a ghost of herself was exhausting and depressing and life was passing her by. Aelin had been a victim of life, of shitty circumstances, and had endured things some people could never imagine even on their worst day. There was more to go through, so much to face and work through, but in the perfect silence of this starlit night, it felt like her parents were by her side, reminding her they’d never left, not really.
“I wish someone would have told me stories like that,” his voice said a little gruff. Hesitantly, she flicked her blue and gold gaze his way, admiring how the firelight played off the sharp angles of his jaw. His green gaze was trained on the sky above as he continued. “I’m not sure if you’ve been to Doranelle but it’s so different from Orynth. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s the largest city east of Wendlyn or because it’s a main trade port for many routes, but it’s never quiet. Something is always going on.”
She’d been once, as a young teenager on holiday with her family, and if she thought hard enough about it, she could almost taste the spice-laden air and hear the vendors selling their wares along the winding, elegant streets. Beautiful pale stone buildings with blue tops and mosaic tiles decorating their walls stood out in her brain. And their palace with its jasmine-wrapped columns and stained glasses ceilings were such a stark contrast from Orynth’s own palace of shimmering opal walls.
“It wasn’t until I was older that I knew the sky held so many stars. The bright lights of the city in culmination with the pale stone buildings, rivers, and mist make it eerily bright all the time. The sun and moon obey the same laws there, but night never seems as dark as it ought to be. Not like here, where on a moonless night, you can’t see five feet in front you. It’s beautiful at home and I was privileged growing up there, but when I was able to see more of the world, I realized there were somethings more beautiful than others.”
His piercing green gaze dropped to hers and held as he said the last part. For someone who wasn’t entirely forthcoming and made it seem like sharing personal information was akin to pulling teeth sans anesthetic, Rowan was a born storyteller. Perhaps, it was because she was sweet on him, but she was more inclined to believe it was in the way he spoke about things. His accent grew thicker, voice lower, his body more relaxed, and green eyes a little brighter.
“I went one summer after I had turned fourteen or fifteen, I can’t quite remember. We traveled every summer for my belated birthday gift. My parents wanted me to be well-rounded and to know the world. That year, Gavriel and Aedion were able to come with us. We’d traveled before as a family but never that far, for that long. It felt nice to just be ourselves without constantly wondering if photographers and journalists were going to be writing about what we were wearing, or what restaurant we frequented, or what new bill my father or mother were trying to pass.”
She loosed a bitter chuckle and picked a little too angrily at her cuticles, causing one to bleed. Rowan’s large hand rested over hers, snuffing out the anxious tendency before she could cause more damage.
“Fireheart, what happened with your uncle and your cousin? I know Elide said they betrayed you, but I saw how your face lit up when you talked about them. It’s clear you miss them. Your parents aren’t here but from what I’ve gathered, they are. You don’t have to tell me. I can feel you stiffening under my hands and you’re holding your breath. Gods, I know it’s painful for you, but you don’t have to carry around those feelings by yourself. There are so many people in your corner who would be more than happy to shoulder some of that weight… You just have to stop holding on to it so tight.”
That wall of hers? Well, there went another stone or two as he laced their fingers together, his gentle but not subtle offer to bare her grief ringing loudly in her ears, as though he had shouted it for the heavens to hear. It wasn’t that her friends hadn’t offered their ears or shoulders before, because they all had, numerous times, but she’d been too devastated to let any ounce of control go. Then, came Rowan, no better than an avalanche bulldozing a mountain full of trees, decimating everything in its wake.
He pushed when she didn’t want to be pushed. Held her when she didn’t know that’s what she wanted. Listened to her fall apart and stayed anyways. He wasn’t perfect. He had hurt her and likely would hurt here more in the future, but in their skewed dynamic, he had given her room to breathe. In shouldering of all the messy, the bad, the dramatic—it had lessened that crippling burden she’d been carrying around for years to just enough to remind her that there was more to life than what she’d been accepting.
And for his gift, she would give him another ugly truth despite the possibility of it opening up an emotional chasm deeper than any fissure on this continent. “I didn’t know how corrupt Arobynn was. To me, in most everything before and for two years after the death of my parents, I just saw him as ‘Uncle A’, my godfather and dad’s best friend. Every holiday, family birthday, fancy gala—he was there. He was my rock after it all. Him and Aedion and Gavriel.”
Aelin shifted forward in her seat and adjusted their still laced fingers on her knee, not wanting to lose the grounding contact, but unable to bare his dark emerald gaze a second longer. It seemed childish to hide, but sometimes if felt like he could see into the very darkest parts of her soul, the ones she didn’t offer up or acknowledge, and that level of discomfort was threatening to flicker out the small tendril of courage she was gripping onto.
“I didn’t know the extent of their involvement in his seedy underground dealings until the middle of the trial. Gavriel was the chair of the historical and restoration department for the city, appointed by my mother. Nepotism at its finest, I know. He had his own construction company as well and Aedion grew up learning from him. After college, he took over more responsibility in the company, leaving Gavriel to devote more time to the public and political aspects of restoring the city. Little did I know then that their company built and restored many underground areas of the city. I think at first, they didn’t realize that they were paving the network that would feed into success of The Vaults, but it became very clear, later on, that they knew. They knew and they continued anyways.”
She gave a harsh chuckle, the notion of their part in the crime syndicate somehow still bitterly amusing years later. Only amusing because they’d let themselves be deceived in the face of overwhelming evidence. Hardly any of the evidence of their involvement had been presented at trial when the betrayal had cut through her like a hot blade. Aedion’s eyes, so like her own, had found her in the sea of people within that room, brimming with guilt and unshed tears. He had looked devastated.
But she had been devastated. And blind-sided. And betrayed. And hurt. And angry.
Again, she had been made a fool at the hands of those who supposedly cared for her. A public spectacle for all the court-goes to gawk at while she crumpled in the front row.
Absent-mindedly, she rubbed at her chest, a poor attempt to soothe the ghost of twinging pain. “I don’t know what Arobynn had over my uncle, but I know it had to have been something because why else would you help a criminal? Half the city’s tunnels existed when we still had a monarch. They deserved the chance to be restored and appreciated. The finished result though surpassed what was initially documented and planned but that didn’t come to light until the underground syndicate was dismantled. No one could figure out how criminals were thwarting law enforcement left and right and all along, the answer was right under their feet.”
“I hadn’t been here long when crime started to uptick. I got mugged outside my truck one night and it was like the guy disappeared into thin air. I tried to chase him but when I turned the corner, there was nothing but empty streets. Makes sense now,” he remarked in an acrimonious tone.
“Manholes, specific businesses, canals… everyone who belonged to the Vaults learned where and how they could use these tunnels to their advantages. Arobynn had his finger in everything from prostitution and drugs to street fighting and ordered hits. When you sit at the right hand of the country’s governor, you make a lot of connections, and he used every one of them to his advantage. My uncle and Aedion redid all the tunnels as my mother asked, but they built new ones seamlessly connected too, creating an intricate and unmarked web unless you knew where to look. Had it not helped Arobynn’s rise to power and criminal empire, I might be impressed.”
Feeling restless and angry, she abruptly stood from her chair and took a few steps back. The air around the fire too warm. Rowan’s hand too heavy. The feelings still too raw.
“I didn’t stay the rest of the day Aedion and Gavriel testified, and I ignored every attempt they made to explain themselves since. There was nothing they were going to say to me that could make their involvement any less painful. I know all the charges were dropped after they disclosed the tunnel maps and trade routes for product moving in and out of the city. I think I could have forgiven just the tunnels, in time, but Aedion was helping run the street fights and Gavriel knew what businesses were operating under the table. I just can’t help but think had they spoken up about Arobynn’s illegal dealings, he might not have had the network, power, or capital to have had my parents murdered.”
And there it was. The repulsive, dark truth that had been festering deep within the walls of her heart for years. Resentment and hate bitterly clamored up her throat as she bent over, hands braced on her thighs, gasping for air. Was she a monster for having no understanding, no compassion for her family? Was she wrong to blame them? Was she as cruel as Arobynn?
The world started to tip, black spots filling her vision as her knees buckled and the ground growing increasingly closer. Familiar muscle flushed against the side of her body, guiding her delicately down. “I don’t know much Fireheart, but there is no world in which you could ever compare to a man like that.”
One hand held firm against the crown of her head, keeping her upright, while the other ran long, soothing strokes down her back. Nothing else was said between them as they sat there. It could have been five minutes or two hours—Aelin wasn’t sure, but she thanked the gods for the still silence and for the friend she’d found in Rowan. Tonight, had been one of courage and candor, and she had faced it head on.
She had not yielded when her heart and head had been screaming otherwise. The world, her world was shifting. It was a dull throb somewhere in the depths of her bones, demanding to be felt, noticed.
Change was coming and she would no longer be afraid.
@throneofglassmicrofics April prompts: "Crescendo"
word count: 821
warnings: i'm sorry in advance 🫡
enjoy.....
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At the far end of the long, darkened hallway, a slightly-cracked door released a narrow spill of pale light across the floor. This late at night, all the overhead lights were off, the faintly musty-smelling hallway of the lower level of the music building lit only by a few dimmed panels so that anyone passing through didn't get lost in the dark. Through that cracked door, if one listened closely enough, there came the gentle sounds of a piano, bars of music escaping the room's soundproofing through the slight tilt of the door.
Aelin always came to the piano when she'd had a particularly rough day.
That night was no exception.
An endlessly long day of classes, two meetings that she was late to, critical comments on her latest research paper, spilling her coffee all over the sidewalk because some egotistical freshman hadn't been watching where he and his broccoli hair were going, and as the sour cherry atop her shit milkshake, she'd caught her boyfriend of eight months with his tongue down some other blonde chick's throat.
He hadn't even looked guilty when she caught him. Then again, she hadn't stopped to look, just slapped the shit out of him and left.
It was nearly midnight before she closed her laptop, left the library, and dragged herself over to the music building, descending the stairs and heading to her favorite practice room on muscle memory. Backpack abandoned on the floor, she switched her phone off and tipped her head forwards and rested her hands above the familiar worn ivory and ebony keys, letting the soft rush of the room's fan system push all of her cacophonous thoughts out of her head.
The concerto came easily to her fingertips, its opening chords slow, majestic, dipping from deep and solemn to higher, lighter. Like her mind--except it was still stuck in the low tones. Stuck in the deep, discordant ruts of exhaustion, doubt, and fear.
Her thoughts struck an endless incomplete minor chord, hollow and strained, missing a crucial piece.
At the far end of the hallway, a male figure paused, captivated by the gentle faraway spill of light and sound. Hesitantly, he placed one foot in front of the other, one cautious step at a time until he was nearly at the door, nearly in the light. The piano seemed to mimic his movements, the notes of the concerto building and building and building as he approached--breaking into a crescendo as he stopped, one hand almost at the door, some unseen force stopping him.
A brief beat of silence, and then the beginnings of a gentler melody, a second movement, a mournful, hauntingly beautiful, achingly soft music that ascended slowly, a lover shyly approaching the beloved. The man in the hallway felt tears prickle at his eyes, a rise of emotion drawn both from the heart-tugging tenderness of the piano and from the thick oily weight upon his heart.
The gentle melody intensified, weaving the melodic line into a cascade of rising arpeggios, a wave that built and built and built until it released in a drawn-out trill that trickled into silence before it returned to the initial theme--lingering, longing, a gasping reach across time and space. Another brief silence, and then the explosion of a final movement, sharp and light and dancing, as if the lover from before had turned headlong into another pursuit in attempt to distract from the heartbreak of the earlier movement.
He pushed open the door, let the soft light and grand music spill over him, but found himself rooted in place just inside the doorway as the woman at the piano, her eyes closed and her head tipped back and salt tears tracked down her cheeks, poured the ruins of her soul into the concerto. Her fingers flew over the keys with the lithe grace of a bird in flight, a glorious tidal wave of a crescendo building and building and building and cascading into a bursting crest, one last majestic return to the theme that ended in a single chord, struck five times in close succession, its finality echoing through the space.
Aelin's hands fell limp to the bench, fingers curling around the worn, threadbare cushion and weathered wood as her head tipped back, such unspeakable pain writ large across her features.
Rowan's heart cracked in the key of C minor, a darkly ironic echo of the final notes of the concerto his love had poured out. A plea, a cry, a voice from across an infinite rift, her music flooded his soul with an incommunicable sense of loss.
Knowing that the concerto was a farewell--the barely-open door was a sure sign she wanted him to hear it--he slowly crept backwards, his sneakers silent on the carpet, until he was no more than another blur in the shadowed darkness of the empty hallway.
Until he was completely beyond the reach of his Fireheart's love.
~~~
TAGS: please lmk if you want to be added/removed :)
Twenty-five year-old Elsie Morley is no stranger to handling problems on her own. So when she makes a heartfelt plea in the silence of her bookstore, she never expects an answer. She certainly doesn’t expect that answer to be sending her and her longtime rival, Jacob Lee, into a series of romance books, forcing them to work together to figure out how to get home.
Dancing at a ball in Victorian London, riding horses in the Scottish Highlands, even fake dating to get rid of a nagging ex, they’re thrust into these worlds and given the task of finishing the stories. But already at a turbulent time in her life, she hardly knows what she’s doing in her real life, let alone in a make-believe one. And now with her place of employment playing matchmaker, Elsie’s forced to confront a lot of things, past and present, and reckon with the fact that she and Jacob will never get along. Right?
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I can’t wait for this to be out in the world and I’m so grateful for everyone who’s supported me throughout my entire fanfiction journey on this app and in this fandom ❤️ without you guys I would not be here!
Season of the Sticks. @wordsafterhours - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
