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She didn’t kno long she lay on the altar after the healers swept in with their sweet-sauntlets back on her

With each hour, the pressure beneath her skin grew Even in that heavy, drugged sleep As if once she’d acknowledged it, it wouldn’t be ignored Or contained

It would be the least of her problems, if Maeve put a collar around her neck

Fenrys sat by the wall, concern bright in his eyes as he blinked Are you all right?

She blinked twice No

No, she was not anywhere near to all right Maeve had been waiting for this, waiting for this pressure to begin, worse than anything Cairn ht do And with the collar Maeve noent to personally retrieve …

She couldn’t let herself conteht never escape, never be able to fight Not a breaking of the Fire-Bringer, but an erasure

To take all she was, power and knowledge, and rip it from her To have her trapped inside while she witnessed her own voice yield the location of the Wyrdkeys Swear the blood oath to Maeve Wholly submit to her

Fenrys blinked four times I am here, I am with you

She answered in kind I a a way out, filling the gaps between her breath and bones She couldn’t find roo to soothe it

You do not yield

She focused on the words On her ic would devour her from the inside before Maeve returned

But she did not kno she’d endure it Endure another few days of this, let alone the next hour To ease the strain, just a fraction …

She shut down the thoughts that snaked into her ain, the sae over and over I a for oblivion

"Get up"

A mockery of words she’d once heard

Cairn stood above her, a sht in his eyes …

Aelin went still as he began unfastening her chains

Guards stoainst her skin, pounding in her head like a brutal ha at Cairn’s side

"Maeve wants youas he hoisted her up and carried her to the box Let her drop into it so hard the chains clanked against her bones, her skull Her eyes watered, and she lunged up, but the lid slaht, pressed in The twin to what grew under her skin

"With Morath creeping onto these shores again, she wants you moved soh the lid Guards grunted, and the box lifted, Aelin shifting, biting her lip against the ive a shit what she does to you once she puts that deet you all to myself, won’t I? A last little bout of fun for you and me, until you find yourself with a new friend inside you"

Dread coiled in her sto her to another location--she had once warned a young healer about that Had told her if an attacker tried to move her, they would most definitely kill her, and she was to make a final stand before they could

And that ithout the threat of a Wyrdstone collar traveling closer with each passing day

But Cairn wouldn’t kill her, not when Maeve needed her alive

Aelin focused on her breathing In and out, out and in