Aelin took a step forward. One step, as if in a daze.She loosed a shuddering breath, and a small, whimpering noise came out of her - a sob. And then she was sprinting down the alley, flying as though the winds themselves pushed at her heels.She flung herself on the male, crashing into him hard enough that anyone else might have gone rocking back into the stone wall. But the male grabbed her to him, his massive arms wrapping around her tightly and lifting her up. Nesryn made to approach, but Aedion stopped her with a hand on her arm.Aelin was laughing as she cried, and the male was just holding her, his hooded head buried in her neck. As if he were breathing her in."Who is that?" Nesryn asked.Aedion smiled. "Rowan.

I didn’t think saying good-bye would be so hard. And with everything that’s to come—We’ll face it together. To whatever end.

Aelin sighed. 'This place has been shut down for months, and yet I swear I can still hear the music floating in the air.'Rowan angled his head, studying the dark with those immortal senses. 'Perhaps the music does live on, in some form.'The thought made her eyes sting.

Are you ashamed of what I've done?" she dared to ask. His brow creased. "Why would you ever think that?"She couldn't quite look him in the eye as she ran a finger down the blanket. "Are you?"Aedion was silent long enough that she lifted her head - but found him gazing toward the door, as though he could see through it, across the city, to the captain. When he turned to her, his handsome face was open - soft in a way she doubted many ever saw. "Never," he said. "I could never be ashamed of you.

But they held tighter to each other, past and present and future; flickering between an ancient hall in a mountain castle perched above Orynth, a bridge suspended between glass towers, and another place, perfect and strange, where they had been crafted from stardust and light. A wall of night knocked them back. But they could not be contained. The darkness paused for breath. They erupted.

This witch had been crafted from the darkness between the stars.

Aelin hissed, "Need I remind you Captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves and the mass graves? Need I remind you that I was starved and chained and you let Duke Perrington force me to the ground at Dorian's feet while you did nothing? And now you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring, when many of the people in this city have profited off the blood and misery of the very people you ignored?

Where will we go?""I hear hell is particularly nice at this time of year.

But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then.