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Lorcan swore

Rowan offered his hand, his blood, again The shackle around her other ankle yielded to the Wyrdmark

Then the auntlets thudded to thefor the lock behind the mask, but halted

"I’ll do it," Rowan said, his voice still soft, still full of that love He moved behind her, and Elide stared at the horribleits ancient surface

A flare of light, a click of metal, and then it slid free

Her face was pale--so pale, all traces of the sun-kissed coloring gone

And empty Aware, and yet not

Wary

Elide kept still, letting the queen survey her The males moved to face her, and Aelin looked upon theht back at her, his dark gaze unreadable

And Rowan Rohose breathing becaed, his s audible "Aelin?"

The na, too

Not of the queen she’d so briefly known, but the power inside her

Elide flinched as fla, erupted around the queen The shift burned away into ashes

Lorcan dragged Elide back, and she allowed it, even as the heat vanished Even as the flare of power contracted into an aura around the queen, a shi, and did not speak

The flah the moss, the roots, did not burn Didn’t sohair half hiding her nakedness, Elide got a good look at what had been done to her

Aside fro

Not a le scar The ones Elide had one

As if someone had wiped them away

CHAPTER 31

They had taken her scars

Maeve had taken theh about what had been done When he’d seen her back, the smooth skin where the scars of Endovier and the scars fro should have been, he’d suspected

But kneeling, burning in nothing but her skin … There were no scars where there should have been The alone The shackle one The scar where she’d been forced by Arobynn Haone And on her palazed As if realizing as

The scars across her palms, one from the moment they had become carranam, the other from her oath to Nehemia, had disappeared entirely

Like they had never been

Her flahter

Healers could remove scars, yes, but the most likely reason for the lack of them on Aelin, on all the places where he’d once traced them with his hands, his mouth …

It was new skin All of it Save for her face, since he doubted they would be stupid enough to take off the mask

Nearly every inch of her was covered in new skin, unvarnished as fresh snow The blood coating her had burned away to reveal it

New skin, because they’d needed to replace what had been destroyed To heal her so they could begin again and again

Gavriel and Elide hadthe forh to keep death at bay

Gavriel said to no one in particular, "He doesn’t have h sheer will, Fenrys had broken it And would soon pay the price when his life force bled out entirely