#ashryver

rowaelin headers

like if u save/use or credit @pmellarkrs on tt

She didn't dream, but when she awoke, she couldn't believe her eyes. Small white flowers lay at the foot of her cot, and many infant-sized footprints led in and out of the tent. Before someone could enter and notice, Celaena swept a foot over the tracks, destroying any trace, and stuffed the flowers into a nearby satchel.

Tiny eyes in the dark, small fingers at the roots, heaving them up, up. Her foot slipped free and she was up again, unable to thank the Little Folk who had already vanished, unable to do anything but run, limping now. The man was so close, the bracken cracking behind, but she knew the way. She had come through here so many times that the darkness was no obstacle. She only had to make it to the bridge. His horse could not pass, and she was fast enough to outrun him. The Little Folk might help her again. She only had to make it to the bridge.

Aelin flexed her fingers over the stream. Across the brook, atop a mossy boulder tucked into the arms of a gnarled oak, a pair of tiny bone-white fingers flexed and cracked, a mirror to her own movements. Aelin smiled and said so quietly it was barely audible over the stream and rain, "If you have any pointers, friend, I'd love to hear them." The spindly fingers darted back over the crest of the rock--which, like so many in these woods, had been carved with symbols and whorls. The Little Folk had been tracking them since they crossed the border into Terrasen. Escorting, Aedion had insisted whenever they spotted large, depthless eyes blinking from a tangle of brambles or peering through a cluster of leaves atop one of Oakwald's famed trees. They hadn't come close enough for Aelin to even get a solid look at them. But they'd left small gifts just outside the border of Rowan's nightly shields, somehow deposited without alerting whichever of them was on watch. One morning, it had been a crown of forest violets. Aelin had given it to Evangeline, who had worn the crown on her red-gold head until it fell apart. The next morning, two crowns waited: one for Aelin, and a smaller one for the scarred girl. Another day, the Little Folk left a replica of Rowan's hawk form, crafted from gathered sparrow feathers, acorns, and beetle husks. Her Fae Prince had smiled a bit when he'd found it--and carried it in his saddlebag since. Aelin herself smiled at the memory. Though knowing the Little Folk were following their every step, listening and watching, had made things... difficult. Not in any real way that mattered, but slipping off into the trees with Rowan was certainly less romantic knowing they had an audience. Especially whenever Aedion and Lysandra got so sick of their silent, heated glances that the two made up flimsy excuses to get Aelin and Rowan out of sight and I scent for a while: the lady had dropped her nonexistent handkerchief on the nonexistent path far behind; they needed more logs for a fire that did not require wood to burn. And as for her current audience... Aelin splayed her fingers over the stream, letting her heart become as still as a sun-warmed forest pool, letting her mind shake free of its normal boundaries. A ribbon of water fluttered up from the stream, gray and clear, and she wended it through her spread fingers as if she were threading a loom. She tilted her wrist, admiring the way she could see her skin through the water, letting it slip down her hand and curl about her wrist: She said to the faerie watching from the other side of the boulder, "Not much to report to your companions, is it?" Soggy leaves crunched behind her, and Aelin knew it was only because Rowan wanted her to hear his approach. "Careful, or they'll leave something wet and cold in your bedroll next time." Aelin made herself release the water into the Aelin made herself release the water into the stream before she looked over a shoulder. "Do you think they take requests? Because I'd hand over my kingdom for a hot bath right about now." Rowan's eyes danced as she eased to her feet. She lowered the shield she'd put around herself to keep dry--the steam off the invisible flame blending with the mist around them. The Fae Prince lifted a brow. "Should I be concerned that you're so chatty this early in the morning?" She rolled her eyes and turned toward the rock where the faerie had been monitoring her shoddy attempts to master water. But only rain-slick leaves and snaking mist remained.

A glimmer of movement near the tree line caught her eye, and Aelin schooled her face into neutrality as she studied what had been left by little, spindly hands at the base of a gnarled oak. None of the others so much as blinked in its direction. — She didn't dare glance at what the Little Folk had left in the shadow of that rain-lashed tree mere feet away. — The Little Folk had known about the wyvern attack this morning. So she'd supposed that this little effigy, already falling apart under the torrent of rain, was another message of sorts. One just for her. Brannon's temple on the coast had been rendered carefully--a clever little contraption of twigs and rocks to form the pillars and altar... And on the sacred rock in its center, they'd created a white stag from raw sheep's wool, his mighty antlers no more than curling thorns. An order--where to go, what she needed to obtain. She was willing to listen, play along. Even if it had meant telling the others only half the truth. Aelin broke apart the temple reconstruction but left the stag in her palm, the wool deflating in the rain. Horses nickered as Aedion and Lysandra hauled them closer, but Aelin felt him a heartbeat before he emerged between the distant, night-veiled trees. Too far in the wood to be anything but a ghost, a figment of an ancient god's dream. Barely breathing, she watched him for as long as she dared, and when Aelin mounted her horse, she wondered if her companions could tell that it was not rain gleaming on her face as she tugged on her black hood. Wondered if they, too, had spied the Lord of the North standing watch deep in the forest, the white stag's immortal glow muted in the rain, come to bid Aelin Galathynius farewell.

"Which way?" But Rowan didn't get to answer. Silent as wraiths, they appeared across the glen. As if they'd simply sparked into existence in the shade of the foliage. Little bodies, some pale, some black as night, some scaled. Mostly concealed, save for spindly fingers and wide, unblinking eyes. Elide gasped. "The Little Folk." *** Elide hadn't seen a whisper of the Little Folk since the days before Terrasen fell. Then, it had been flashes and rustling within Oakwald's ancient shade. Never so many, never so openly. Or as open as they would ever allow themselves to be. The half dozen or so who had gathered across the clearing kept mostly hidden behind root and rock and cluster of leaves. None of the males moved, though Fenrys's ears cocked toward them. A miracle--that's what had happened with the queen and the wolf. Though Fenrys seemed drained, his eyes were clear as the Little Folk gathered. Aelin barely looked toward them. A pale, spindly hand rose over a moss-speckled boulder and curled. Come. Rowan asked, voice like granite, "You wish us to follow you?" Again, the hand made the motion. Come. Gavriel murmured, "They know this forest better than even we do." "And you trust them?" Lorcan demanded. Rowan's eyes settled on Aelin. "They saved her life once." That night Erawan's assassin had returned for Aelin. "They will do so again now."

Silent and unseen, they passed through the trees and rocks and streams of the ancient forest. Rowan kept a step behind Aelin and Fenrys, Gavriel and Elide at the head of their party, Lorcan at the rear, as they followed the Little Folk. — She clutched it at her chest as they walked, mile after mile, her feet bare. If the stones and roots of the forest hurt her, she didn't so much as flinch. She only walked on, Fenrys at her side within that sphere of fire, as if they were two ghosts of memory. A vision of old, striding through the trees, the queen and the wolf. The others spoke rarely as the hours and miles passed. As the forested hills gave way to steeper inclines, the boulders larger, the rocks and trees broken in spots. "From the ancient wars between the forest-spirits," Gavriel whispered to Elide when he noticed her frowning at a hillside full of felled trunks and splintered stone. "Some are still waged by them, wholly unaware and unconcerned with the affairs of any realm but this."Rowan had never seen the race of ethereal beings far more ancient and secretive than even the Little Folk. But at his mountain home, set high in the range that they strode toward, he'd sometimes heard the shattering of rocks and trees on dark, moonless nights. When there was not a whisper of wind on the air, nor any storm to cause them. So close--only twenty or so miles to the mountain house he'd built. He'd planned to take Aelin there one day, though it was nothing but long-vanished ashes. Just to show her where the house had been, where he'd buried Lyria. She was still up there, his mate-who-had-never-been. And his true mate... She strode unwavering through the trees. No more than a wraith. Still they followed the Little Folk, who beckoned from a tree. a rock, and shrub ahead, and then vanished. Behind Lorcan, a few others hid their trail with clever hands and small magics. He prayed they had a place to stay for the night. A place where Aelin might sleep, and might remain protected from Maeve's eyes once she realized she'd been tricked. They were headed eastward--far from the coast. Rowan didn't dare risk telling them they needed to find a port. He'd see where they led them tonight, and then craft their plan for returning to their own continent. But when the Little Folk appeared before a gargantuan boulder, when they then vanished and reappeared in a sliver cut into the rock itself, bony hands beckoning from within, Rowan found himself balking. The creature dwelling in the lake beneath Bald Mountain was a mild threat compared to the other things that still hunted in dark and forgotten places. But the Little Folk beckoned again. Lorcan appeared at his side. "It could be a trap." But Elide and Gavriel walked toward it, unfazed. And behind them, Aelin continued as well. So Rowan followed her, as he would follow her until his last breath, and beyond it.

The cave mouth was tight, but soon opened into a larger passage. Aelin illuminated the space, bathing the black stone walls in a golden glow bright enough to see by. But her flame was dwarfed when they entered a massive chamber. The ceiling stretched into gloom, but it was not the height of the chamber that made him halt. Nooks and alcoves had been built into the side of the rock, some equipped with bedrolls, some with what seemed to be piles of clothes, and some with food. A small fire burned near one, and past it, tucked against the wall, a natural stone trough gleamed with water, courtesy of a small stream. But farther into the cave, on the other side of the chamber, flowing right up to the black rock itself, a great lake stretched into the darkness. There were countless subterranean lakes and rivers beneath these mountains--places so deep in the earth that even the Fae had not bothered or dared to explore. This one, it seemed, the Little Folk had claimed for themselves, going so far as to outfit the space with sprawling birch branches against the walls. They'd hung small garlands and wreaths from the white limbs, and amongst the leaves, little bluish lights twinkled. Magic--old, strange magic, those lights. Like they'd been plucked from the night sky. Elide was surveying the space, awe written over her features. Gavriel and Lorcan, however, assessed it with a sharper, warier eye. Rowan did the same. The only exit seemed to be the one they'd entered through, and the lake stretched too far to discern if a shore lay beyond it. Aelin did not pause as she strode for one of the glittering walls. There was none of her usual caution, no dart of her eyes as she weighed the exits and pitfalls, potential weapons to wield. A trance--it was almost as if she had slipped into a trance, plunged into some depthless ocean inside herself and drifted so far down that they might as well have been birds soaring over its distant surface. But she walked toward that wall, the birch branches artfully displayed across it. More of the Little Folk within, Rowan realized. Perched on the branches, clinging to them. halted nearby, as if to give her privacy. Rowan had the vague sense of Lorcan, Elide, and Gavriel heading for the alcove across the cave to inspect the goods that had been laid out. But he lingered in the center of the space as his mate paused before the shining, living wall. There was no expression on her face, no tension in her body. Yet she inclined her head to the Little Folk half-hidden in the branches and boughs before her. Her jaw moved--speaking. Brief, short words. He'd never so much as heard of the Little Folk talking. But there was his queen, his wife, his mate, murmuring with them. At last, she turned away, her face still blank, her wildfire eyes as flat and cold as the lake. Fenrys fell into step beside her, and Rowan remained in place as Aelin aimed for the small fire. Safe. The Little Folk must have told her this cave was safe, if she now moved for the fire, her own sphere of it still burning bright. The others halted their assessment of the supplies. But Aelin paid them no heed, paid the world no heed, as she took up a spot between the fire and the cave wall, lay upon the bare stone, and closed her eyes.

She had not trusted this world, this dream. The companions who had walked with her, led her here. The warrior-prince with pine-green eyes and who smelled of Terrasen. Him, she had not dared to believe at all. Not the words he spoke, but the mere fact that he was there. She did not trust that he'd removed the mask, the irons. They had vanished in other dreams, too--dreams that had proved false. But the Little Folk had told her it was true. All of this. They had said it was safe, and she was to rest, and they would look after her.

"And I suppose they told you that?" Lorcan's face was hard as granite. "Watch it," Rowan snarled. Fenrys indeed bared his teeth at the dark-haired warrior, fur bristling. But Aelin said simply, "Yes." Her chin didn't dip an inch. "The land above is crawling with soldiers and spies. Going beneath them is the only way." Elide stepped forward. "I will go." She cut a cold glance toward Lorcan. "You can take your chances above, if you're so disbelieving." Lorcan's jaw tightened, and a small part of Rowan relished seeing the delicate Lady of Perranth fillet the centuries-hardened warrior with a few words. "Considering the potential pitfalls of the situation is wise." "We don't have time to consider," Rowan cut in before Elide could voice the retort on her tongue. "We need to keep moving." Gavriel stalked forward to study the moored boat and what seemed to be bundles of supplies on its sturdy planks. "How will we navigate our way, though?" "We'll be escorted," Aelin answered. "And if they abandon us?" Lorcan challenged. Aelin leveled unfazed eyes upon him. "Then you'll have to find a way out, I suppose." A hint--just a spark--of temper belied those calm words. There was nothing else to debate after that.

Queen Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius

I think this is going to be my hardest one yet to tell you about, she has had and continues to have such a big piece of my heart. When I first was convinced to read the Throne of Glass series I never knew what impact it would have on me, yet now that I’ve read it, I can’t remember how I lived without these lessons.

Aelin went through a crazy amount of things that shaped her into the amazing person and queen she becomes by the end of the series.

The things Aelin went thorough were so so real, something you can vividly see happening. Something you or a friend could have gone through. Aelin got me through a really really hard time, by waiting so long to read the series I ended up timing it where it made the most impact.

Can't stop won't stop. Yes I have more playlists coming don't worry. This is one of my favorites. So enjoy!

Listen on Spotify

It’s the most common type of heterochromia, and looks like this. 

or sometimes this