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This was it, this was the moment in which Aelin would die. She’d always expected to die at a fairly young age, and since she had an immortal lifespan, she had. Or, at least she’d died at what would be considered a young age for an immortal.
The other thing she had predicted about her death was that it would be at the hand of an opponent in battle. That, at least, she’d gotten slightly wrong. She was going to die in a battle, but it wasn’t by the hand of an opponent. She’d done this to herself.
It had been a complete accident, but when practicing sparring with Manon, she had pressed a dragger towards her heart, in an attempt to practice a new knife flick she’d been trying to perfect. It had gone badly, as one might expect. She’d decided to try with only one knife to start off with, keeping the other resting where it was. When she’d attempted the flick one of the palace servants had come in with drinks for them. Taken off guard, Aelin had failed the flick and tripped over, accidently plunging the spare knife into her own heart.
Her first instinct was to laugh, of course her death would be at her own hand. Who else had the ability it took to best her in a fight? Only Rowan perhaps, and he'd died earlier that year.
One of their servants had been a spy who had been working for years to gain enough trust in the palace to kill the King. It had infuriated Aelin like nothing else ever had; she'd killed the girl as soon as she'd found out who her mates killer was, and she'd found who the girl worked for within a week. Those she'd had publicly executed for the general public to watch.
Perhaps she had gone a bit far with the public execution, now that she'd had time to think it over, but nothing could be changed now. Of course, the family and friends of the girl and her bosses had started a riot, but that, too, had ended quickly. Although, that had been achieved without bloodshed.
It was rather strange to think that she was almost gleeful when it came to her death, but she definitely didn't have any regrets in her life and she was ecstatic to be seeing Rowan again. Oh, how she'd missed him.
Manon rushed over to her calling for medical assistance, but Aelin merely shook her head to the best of her abilities. "No," she said, her voice hoarse, "I'll see Rowan again."
"Don't do this Aelin," Manon begged her fellow queen, and friend. "You can make it through this, you don't have to die."
"Part of me already has died," she mussed, "part of me died months ago. Around the time he did."
"Aelin…" Manon gave a weak smile to her friend, she hadn't known just how hard Rowan's murder had been on Aelin, no one had. She had constantly told everyone that she would be fine whenever they asked if she was okay, and she'd constantly had fake smiles plastered onto her face whenever somebody was around. "Go, rest in peace. See him again."
Aelin smiled gently, her body was starting to fade just like all Fae's did when they died, "I'll tell Dorian hi for you."
Manon, pressed her eyes closed, of only to hide the tears no one could ever know she'd she'd. It couldn't have been for more than thirty seconds, but by the time she'd looked at Aelin again her body was gone. Faded away into the afterlife. Faded away to be with Rowan. Dorian. Aedion. Lysandra. Chaol. Yrene. Elide. Manon let out a quiet wail, she was the only one left.
Aelin blinked, at first she saw nothing, only her eyes getting used to the darkness. The darkness. She started to panic, thinking that she'd been sent to hell, instead of heaven, for all the horrible deeds she'd done while masquerading as Celaena Sardothien - it was definitely plausible.
"No!" she yelled into the abyss, she couldn't be in hell. Could she? "Not here, anywhere but here!"
Hearing a quick, familiar chuckle, Aelin's head whipped to the side. "Easy there Fireheart, you don't want to scare everyone." Rowan.
"Now that," she muttered trying to keep the joy from her voice, "is quite debatable."
"That isn't very nice is it now?" Lysandra drawled, from somewhere further away from whenever Rowan was standing.
"Well, it depends on how quickly I get my sight back." Aelin informed them, rather fed up with the darkness.
Laughing, Rowan said, "Don't worry when you get near enough someone you knew in your life your sight will return."
"It will?"
"It will."
"Well then," She started, her brain coming up with many, many dirty ideas, "you best come over here and kiss me then."
Steps. "How could I not?" Rowan leaned down to kiss his mate for the first time since he'd died. It wasn't anything fierce, or too passionate, just a normal, romantic kiss. The perfect reunion kiss.
Despite their audience, it was clear that they both wanted to take it further, after all, they hadn't seen each other in months. But they didn't, they were very aware of their audience behind them, and would much rather do that in closed doors.
"I missed you," Rowan said as they pulled away.
Aelin rolled her eyes, "I missed you more."
"How can that be right?" He joked, putting his arm around her.
"It's a very simple concept really," she said, her smirk clearly displayed on her face for all of their friends to see.
"And how is that Fireheart?"
"Well," she mussed, ruffling his hair, "I was away from you."