AELIN WEEK, DAY 7: Rowan admiring Aelin
The girl stood outside the ward-stones, fighting with herself. A dagger of flame flew from her hand toward the invisible barrier between two stones, then another, as if racing for the head of an opponent.
It hit the magic wall with a flash of light and bounced back, reflected off the protective spell encircling the fortress. And when it reached her, she shielded—swift, strong, sure. A warrior on a battlefield.
The girl moved from throwing weapons to hand-to-hand combat: a punch of power, a sweeping kick of flame. Her flames had become gloriously varied—golds and reds and oranges. And her technique—not the magic, but the way she moved … Her master had been a monster, there was no doubt of that. But he had trained her thoroughly. She ducked and flipped and twisted, relentless, raging, and—
Rowan ran all of one step before she flung out her arms, grabbing the creatures by their flawless faces—her palms over their open mouths as she exhaled sharply.
As if she’d breathed fire into their cores, flames shot out of their eyes, their ears, their fingers. The two creatures didn’t have a chance to scream as she burned them into cinders.
She lowered her arms. Her magic was raging so fiercely that the rain turned to steam before it hit her. A weapon bright from the forging.
He forgot Gavriel and Lorcan as he bolted for her—the gold and red and
blue flames utterly hers, this heir of fire. Spying him at last, she smiled faintly. A queen’s smile.
But there was exhaustion in that smile, and her bright magic flickered.
Queen of Shadows, chapter 29
Perched on the edge of the plush mattress, he watched her move.
Even without her magic, Aelin was a living wildfire, more so now with the red hair—a creature of such roaring emotions that he could sometimes only watch her and marvel.
While they’d been in Wendlyn, it had taken him a while to realize she was beautiful. Months, actually, to really notice it. And for these past few weeks, against his better judgment, he’d thought often about that face—especially that smart-ass mouth.
But he hadn’t remembered just how stunning she was until she’d taken off her hood earlier, and it had struck him stupid.
Queen of Shadows, chapter 29
At last she met his stare, with eyes that were too old, too sad and tired to be nineteen. It had been a mistake to ever call her a girl—and there were indeed moments when Rowan forgot how young she truly was. The woman before him shouldered burdens that would break the spine of someone three times her age.
Queen of Shadows, Chapter 41
He went completely and utterly still as he took in the dress.
The black velvet hugged every curve and hollow before pooling at her feet, revealing each too-shallow breath as Rowan’s eyes grazed over her body. Down, then up—to the hair she’d swept back with golden bat-wing-shaped combs that rose above either side of her head like a primal headdress; to the face she’d kept mostly clean, save for a sweep of kohl along her upper eyelid and the deep red lips she’d painstakingly colored.
With the burning weight of Rowan’s attention upon her, she turned to show them the back—the roaring golden dragon clawing up her body. She looked over
her shoulder in time to see Rowan’s eyes again slide south, and linger.
Slowly, his gaze lifted to hers. And she could have sworn that hunger— ravenous hunger—flickered there.
Queen of Shadows, chapter 65
Aelin leaned against the closet doorway, clad in a nightgown of gold.
Metallic gold—as he’d requested.
It could have been painted on her for how closely it hugged every curve and dip, for all that it concealed.
A living flame, that’s what she looked like. He didn’t know where to look, where he wanted to touch first.
Her mouth was soft and warm, and he bit back a groan. His body went still— his entire world went still—at that whisper of a kiss, the answer to a question he’d asked for centuries. He realized he was staring only when she withdrew slightly. His fingers tightened at her waist.
She smiled at last. And damn if it didn’t kill him, the quiet joy in her face.
They had walked out of darkness and pain and despair together. They were still walking out of it. So that smile … It struck him stupid every time he saw it
and realized it was for him.
Empire of Storms, chapter 38
His sculpted chest heaved slightly as he ran an eye over her bare body. “You … are so beautiful.”
She knew he didn’t just mean the skin and curves and bones.
Empire of Storms, chapter 60
Rowan dragged a hand through his hair. “Sometimes I wish I knew every thought in that head, each scheme and plot. Then I remember how much it delights me when you reveal it—usually when it’s most likely to make my heart stop dead in my chest.”
Empire of Storms, chapter 61
Aelin was sleeping soundly as Rowan stared at the ceiling above their bed, then slid his gaze over her. He took in the lines of her face, the golden waves of her hair, every moon-white scar and dark swirl of ink. Leaning in, silent as snow in a wood, he kissed her brow.
For a moment, the past snared him—for a moment, he saw her as he’d first spied her on the rooftops of Varese, drunk and battered. He’d been in hawk form, assessing his new charge, and she’d noticed him—broken and reeling, she had still spotted him there. And stuck out her tongue at him.
If someone had told him that the drunken, brawling, bitter woman would become the one thing he could not live without... Rowan shut the door.
Kingdom of Ash, chapter 57
Rowan didn’t know where to look. At the soldiers pouring out of the siege tower, leaping onto the battlements, or at Aelin.
At the Queen of Terrasen.
She’d found armor below the keep. Beautiful, pale gold armor that gleamed like a summer dawn. Holding back her braided hair, a diadem lay flush against
her head. Not a diadem, but a piece of armor. Part of some ancient set for a lady long since buried.
A crown for war, a crown to wear into battle. A crown to lead armies.
There was no fear on her face, no doubt, as Aelin hefted her shield, flipping Goldryn in her hand once before the first of Morath’s soldiers was upon her.
A swift, upward strike cleaved the Morath grunt from navel to chin. His black blood sprayed, but she was already moving, flowing like a stream around a rock.
Rowan launched into movement, his blades finding their marks, but still he watched her.
Aelin slammed her shield against an oncoming warrior, Goldryn slicing through another before she plunged the blade into the soldier she’d deflected.
She did it again, and again. All while heading toward that siege tower. Unhindered. Unleashed.
A call went down the line. The queen has come. Soldiers waiting their turn whirled toward them. Aelin took on three Valg soldiers and left them dying on the stones.
She planted her line before the gaping maw of that siege tower, right in the path of those teeming hordes.
Every moment of the training she’d done on the ship here, on the road, every new blister and callus—all to rebuild herself for
Goldryn unfaltering, her shield an extension of her arm, Aelin glowed like the
sun that now broke over the khagan’s army as she engaged each soldier that
Five, ten—she moved and moved and moved, ducking and swiping, shoving
and flipping, black blood spraying, her face the portrait of grim, unbreaking will.
“The queen!” the men shouted. “To the queen!”
And as Rowan fought his way closer, as that cry went down the battlements and Anielle men ran to aid her, he realized that Aelin did not need an ounce of flame to inspire men to follow. That she had been waiting, yanking at the bit, to show them what she, without magic, without any godly power, might do.
He’d never seen such a glorious sight. In every land, every battle, he had never seen anything as glorious as Aelin before the throat of the siege tower, holding the line.
Kingdom of Ash, chapter 61
The endless wall of water surging for her.
The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.
A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.
The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.
The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.
It was not from that wall of water at all.
As Aelin opened her hand toward it.
Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.
Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.
The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.
Kingdom of Ash, chapter 119
Rowan’s heart began thundering as everyone gazed down the now-empty aisle.
As the music rose and rose, the Song of Terrasen ringing out. And when the music hit its peak, when the world exploded with sound, regal
and unbending, she appeared.
Rowan’s knees buckled as everyone rose to their feet.
Clad in flowing, gauzy green and silver, her golden hair unbound, Aelin paused on the threshold of the throne room.
He had never seen anyone so beautiful.
Aelin gazed down the long aisle. As if weighing every step she would take to the dais.
The entire world seemed to pause with her, lingering on that threshold.
Shining brighter than the snow outside, Aelin lifted her chin and began her final walk home.
