Page 64 (1/2)

"Are you growing bored with it?"

He snarled

She only glared at hi"

"I came here, didn’t I?"

"For whom, exactly? Rowan? Aelin?"

"For both of them And for you"

There Let it be laid before thelow of the lantern, he could make out the pink that spread across her cheeks Yet herto do with you"

"So one mistake and I am your eternal enemy?"

"She is my queen, and you summoned Maeve, then told her where the keys were, and you stood there while they did that to her"

"You have no idea what the blood oath can do None"

"Fenrys broke the oath He found a way"

"And had Aelin not been there to offer hih "Perhaps that’s what you would have preferred"

She ignored his last coht it with everything I had And it was not enough If she’d ordered me to slit your throat, I would have And if I had found a way to break the oath, I would have died, and she ht very well have killed you or taken you afterward On that beach, et about you, to let you go--"

"I don’t care about me! I didn’t care about roords echoed across the water and stone, and he lowered his voice Worse things than wightsdown here "I cared about you on that beach And your queen did, too"

Elide shook her head and looked away, looked anywhere, it see that door to a place inside him that no one had ever breached Thisto ht

"Resentthe hoarseness of his words "I’m sure I’ll survive"

Hurt flashed in her eyes "Fine," she said, her voice brittle

He hated that brittlenesshe’d ever encountered Hated hi it But he had limits to ho he’d crawl

He’d said his piece If she wanted to wash her hands of him forever, then he would find a way to respect that Live with it

Somehow

The cave ascended for a few feet, then leveled out and wended into the stone A rough-hewn passage carved not by water or age, Rowan realized, but by s and lords had taken the subterranean river to deposit their dead before sealing the toe of the pathways dying off with their kingdo the cave walls in blue He’d quickly caught up to her, and now strode at her side, Fenrys trotting at her heels and Gavriel taking up the rear

Rowan hadn’t bothered to free his weapons Steel was of little use against the wights Only ht destroy them

Why Aelin had needed to stop, what she’d needed to see, he could only guess as the passage opened into a sleamed

Gold all around--and a shadow clothed in tattered black robes lurking by the sarcophagus in the center

Rowan snarled in warning but Aelin didn’t strike

Her hand curled at her side, but she reht hissed Aelin just watched it

As if she wouldn’t, couldn’t, touch her power

Rowan’s chest strained Then he sent a whip of ice and wind through the cave

The wight shrieked once, and was gone

Aelin stared at where it had been for a heartbeat, and then glanced at hiave her a nod Don’t worry about it