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The coed to sneer at Rowan, blood coating his teeth "She’ll kill all of you" A black eye already bloomed, the lid swollen shut Air pulsed at Elide’s ears as Rowan locked a shield of wind around the in all sound "Maeve will kill every last one of you traitors"

"She can try," was Rowan’s ain

When the co this time, Elide did not look away

And as Rowan and Lorcan did what they’d been trained to do, she couldn’t decide if Anneith’s order had been to help--or a reht do should they disobey

CHAPTER 3

The Staghorns were burning, and Oakith thehty, ancient trees were littledown

Embers drifted on the wind, a mockery of how they had once bobbed in her wake like fireflies while she’d run through the Beltane bonfires

Soher lungs

You did this you did this you did this

The crack of dying trees groaned the words, cried them

The world was bathed in fire Fire, not darkness

Motion between the trees snared her attention

The Lord of the North was frantic, alloped toward her As shty antlers--not the iil, the is of Terrasen, and of Mala Fire-Bringer before that But true, vicious fla, burning

She reached a hand toward hied on, screa from his mouth

Such horrible, relentless screa shredded

She could do nothing when the stag threw himself into a wall of fla oaks

He did not eain

Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius ran an ironclad finger over the rim of the stone altar on which she lay

As e

Cairn had left her here this tiainst the adjacent wall

A rare reprieve To wake not in darkness, but in flickering firelight

The braziers were dying, beckoning in the damp cold that pressed to her skin To whatever wasn’t covered by the iron

She’d already tugged on the chains as quietly as she could But they held firauntlets

She did not remember when that was Where that had been There had only been the box then