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The two healers vanished around a tent Aelin flexed her fingers, shaking the lightness fro it"

"They didn’t have a choice"

She htened "No one would have left you in those states No one"

Broken and bloody and burned--

She gripped Goldryn’s hilt Helpless

"They defied her in their oay," Fenrys went on "So you back to consciousness Often, they claimed they couldn’t, that you’d fallen too deeply into oblivion But I knew--I think Maeve did, too--that they put you there For as long as possible To buy you time"

She sed "Did she punish them?"

"I don’t know It was never the same healers"

Maeve likely had Had likely ripped their htened on the sword at her side

Helpless She had been helpless As so many in this city, in Terrasen, in this continent, were helpless

Goldryn’s hilt warain For whatever time she had left

Gavriel padded up beside Rowan, took one look at the queen and Fenrys, and murmured, "Not the nee needed to hear"

Rowan closed his eyes for a heartbeat "No, it was not"

Gavriel settled a hand on Rowan’s shoulder "It changes nothing, in some ways"

"How"

"We served her She was … not what Aelin is What a queen should be We knew that long before we knew the truth If Maeve wants to use what she is against us, to ally with Morath, then it changes things But the past is over Done with, Rowan Knowing Maeve is Valg or just a wretched person doesn’t change what happened"

"Knowing a Valg queen wants to enslave reat deal"

"But we knohat Maeve fears, why she fears it," Gavriel countered, his tawny eyes bright "Fire, and the healers If Maeve comes with that army of hers, we are not defenseless"

It was true Rowan could have cursed hi of it already Another question forh "Her army," Rowan said "It’s made up of Fae"

"So was her arh his hair "Will you be able to live with it--fighting our own people?" Killing them

"Will you?" Gavriel countered

Rowan didn’t answer

Gavriel asked after a moment, "Why didn’t Aelin offer me the blood oath?"

The male hadn’t asked these weeks And Roasn’t sure why Gavriel inquired now, but he gave him the truth "Because she won’t do it until Aedion has taken the oath first To offer it to you before him … she wants Aedion to take it first"

"In case he doesn’t wish dom"

"So that Aedion knows she placed his needs before her own"

Gavriel bowed his head "I would say yes, if she offered"

"I know" Rowan clapped his oldest friend on the back "She knows, too"

The Lion gazed northward "Do you think … we haven’t heard any news from Terrasen"

"If it had fallen, if Aedion had fallen, ould know People here would know"

Gavriel rubbed at his chest "We’ve been to war He’s been to war Fought on battlefields as a child, gods be dae flickered over Gavriel’s face Not at what Aedion had done, but what he’d been made to do by fate and misfortune What Gavriel had not been there to prevent "But I still dread every day that passes and we hear nothing Dread every er we see"