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The fight before him is more a dance than anything, two bodies moving through the packed dirt of the training yard with sinuous grace. Aedion appears to be keeping a leash on his Fae strength, raining down blows with no more force than a mortal man could stop… though his opponent seems more keen on avoiding hits altogether. Bright midday sun flashes a timely warning as Aedion’s dulled shortsword cuts through the air and Kyllian leaps away from the steel with a speed that seems almost inhuman itself. He’s laughing.
“Snakey bastard,” Aedion says, the teasing insult colored with laughter of his own. “Just. Hit. Back!”
Each word is punctuated by another attempt to reach Kyllian. By now, the dark-skinned boy is barely bothering to raise his knives. He evades yet another arc of steel, braids flying behind him as he whirls his way to Aedion’s unarmed left side. Weylan can barely track what happens next — by the time the figures stop moving long enough for his senses to catch up, they’re inches apart. Aedion has a hand wrapped around Kyllian’s wrist and a dagger at his throat and he’s smiling like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be even with cold steel kissing his jugular. They hover there for a long moment, either unaware or uncaring of their audience, savoring the breathless proximity until Aedion finally gives in and ducks to meet Kyllian’s mouth.
Only then does Weylan turn away from them, the boys in the bloodstained arena melting and molding behind his eyelids into a vision of another time and place. Hard dirt smooths into polished stone, simple shirts and trousers replaced by embroidered waistcoats and fine silk. Ornate walls and columns materialize amid the onslaught of memory, faded by time yet no less painful to recall.
Revelers twirl around him in a hall that no longer exists, women’s skirts long since out of fashion brushing his ankles as they fly past with their partners. The scuff of shoes on flagstones is constant under the quick, waltzing fiddle tune, the air smells of cloying perfume and roasting meat, and Weylan’s tongue still tastes of the rich red wine he’d drunk earlier.
Insignificant, all of it. Every bit of Weylan’s attention is trained…no, honed on the figure in front of him. Mischief curls the corners of a perfect pair of lips and glitters in eyes as gray as a storm-tossed sea. “Spare a dance for an old friend?”
Weylan looks down at the slender hand extended towards him. “I think the crown prince ought to dance with proper suitors,” he replies, smiling in spite of himself.
Orlon waves to the silver stag mask obscuring the upper half of his face, the gesture almost dismissive. “I’m anonymous, Weylan. Is that not the point of these masquerades?”
“Now you know perfectly well…” Weylan trails off but Orlon still laughs. His green tunic, silver-trimmed, is an ostentatious display of Terrassen symbolism only matched by the egregiously unsubtle choice of a stag . A tall man to begin with, the ornate antlers curling above Orlon’s head are noticeable even among the dense sea of party-goers.
“Alas, this was not my decision. If I had my way, I would be as anonymous as every other person here…yourself included.” His hand still floats in the space between them, a silent offer not yet rescinded.
“ Proper suitors,” Weylan reiterates. “Those who could give you heirs.”
“Heirs?” Orlon laughs. “I have a perfectly acceptable heir in that brother of mine.” Behind the mask, his expression turns beseeching. “Just this once, let us dance with an audience. They may not know who you are tonight, but I do.”
Against his better judgement, Weylan takes his hand. Propriety can wait, he decides, custom can wait, if only for the duration of a dance. Orlon’s left hand rests at his waist, the touch respectfully appropriate if not for the way his fingers curl a hair too tight against the soft blue silk of Weylan’s tunic. The inches between them remain scant enough, though hardly a scandalous distance given the slow song playing.
Whispers follow in the coming days, wagging tongues relaying how the crown prince lent his longest dance to a man dressed in the subtle finery of a lesser house, but none of that matters as Weylan holds him close; his oldest friend, his king-to-be, his first and last love.
It is not their last dance. Years later as they dance before their court unmasked, Orlon’s brother and heir beside them with a wife of his own, Weylan counts himself among the luckiest men alive. That fortune holds, carrying him far away on diplomatic matters the night his husband is murdered in his bed, but as the years tick by he begins to consider luck to be both his closest ally and greatest foe. Death does not take their love, but sours it into grief so potent it steals the air from his lungs.
By luck and cunning, Weylan survives. By the grace of the gods, he is alive and Orlon is dead and there is little else to do but fight for a future he has no desire to see alone.
“Aedion, wait.”
At the sound of his name, their whole retinue pauses. Aelin stays relaxed while her Fae watchdog tenses in the shoulders, hackles raised, but Aedion is the only one to turn fully. There’s irreverence in the arch of his brows and displeasure in the sharp cut of his mouth, and Weylan suspects the only reason he obeys is a lingering sense of loyalty. Unlike Aelin, Aedion had been raised in war camps since he was young, a mere boy surrounded by blood-drenched dirt and battle-hollowed men in a landscape that didn’t permit mistakes or disobedience.
Twenty-four. Gods . So old compared to the fierce-eyed, rawboned child who’d disappeared during Orynth’s capture, yet still so young. Too young, perhaps, to see how his love for his cousin blinds him.
“Stay a moment, I would have a word with you.”
Aelin’s mouth curls impetuously, her head turned just far enough that Weylan can see the expression clearly. “You have made your dismissal clear, Darrow. I thought we were done.”
“ We are done,” he replies, making no attempt to hide his disdain. “And if Aedion wishes to leave as well, I will not force his hand.”
Behind Aedion, Whitehorn lets out a low, animal rumble that sets Darrow’s hair on end. Aelin, too, is tensed for a fight, and Darrow is treated to a sight so rare he doubts many living men can boast of it — Aedion Ashryver not starting a fight but diffusing it, holding a placating hand out to his allies. The dark-haired shifter is the first to back down, her green eyes more watchful than antagonistic, though she still shoots a warning glance over her shoulder as she files out the door.
Silence falls over the room, a heavy pall that feels as though Weylan’s shoulders might bow under it. Aedion remains in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind his back and chin jutted as though braced for a fight. Weylan all but collapses into the chair behind his oaken desk, dropping any pretense of formality as he waves for Aedion to claim a seat across from him. “Sit,” he says tiredly, a hint of impatience creeping into his tone, and Aedion obeys. They watch each other for a long moment, neither man speaking, the three feet of dark wood between them feeling like an impassable rift.
They have never been friends — Weylan suspects that his own cautious tendencies and his penchant for moderation irk Aedion, who is fierce and bold and brash even to the point of detriment — but neither are they enemies. For all they’ve butted heads over the years, for all the biting words exchanged over maps and in command tents and under the great, cold expanse of northern sky, there has always been an undercurrent of respect.
As Steward of Terrassen (an empty title bestowed by Havilliard to appease the seething masses) Weylan had maintained peace between his country’s surviving children and that monster on the glass throne, all the while building an army that would one day restore Terrassen’s throne and land and people. Already an old man by the time Adarlan’s forces marched on Orynth, he’d recognized that he could serve his country better as a strategist than a warrior. Aedion, with that sharp tongue and hot temper and shoulders twice the breadth of his, would fight from the front lines or not at all. They have each been able to recognize the importance of the others’ role, but that does not mean they always see eye-to-eye. Certainly not now.
“We have known one another a long, long time, Aedion.”
Accusing eyes meet his across the desk, burning bright with a lupine gleam. Weylan is not cowed. “Aye. And all that time, I thought we were fighting the same war.”
“Are we not?” he questions, arching one brow high. “Has so much changed with your cousin’s arrival?”
Aedion settles back in his chair, old wood creaking under the formidable mass of him. “You denounced the rightful queen of Terrassen to her very face, in front of gods and men alike. You made a traitor of yourself for the sake of your pride.”
Gods be good. “Is that what you think this is? Pride?”
“You have been the foremost leader of Terrassen in the decade since her conquest, and were consort to the king before that. Can you honestly say you have no reservations about relinquishing your power now?”
Exhaustion has been an ever-present companion, but Weylan feels its familiar weight fall about his shoulders in excess as his eyes drop to the kingsflame on his desk. “I have reservations about many things,” he says, “but that is not one.” There is nothing he would like better, as a matter of fact, than to leave this accursed business behind him once and for all. He’d never had a taste for ruling, never had the stomach, and only accepted it as a necessary condition of his love for Orlon. “I never wanted a king. I wanted him , though the burden of his crown was something I willingly helped him bear.”
“Yet you deny his niece, his closest living blood, that very same crown.” Aedion cocks his head, the movement throwing his features into sharper relief in the low, dancing firelight. “You have the opportunity to do right by him once and for all. Restore his family to the throne that was stolen from them, allow his spirit that little bit of rest.”
Weylan shakes his head slowly, dragging his gaze up to meet Aedion’s. “If blood was all it took to be a ruler, the kingsflame would have bloomed for Orlon’s mother, and her father before her, and every Galathynius who ever lived. Blood means nothing to a great king or queen.”
Indignance flares in Aedion, tightening his shoulders, twisting his mouth, sending a great gust of air through flaring nostrils. “Aelin’s claim rests on more than a family name, Darrow. She wants nothing more than to see Terrassen and her people restored.”
“What has she done this past decade to persuade me of that? All I see is a girl who spent ten years killing innocents and revelling in her blood money, who turned away from country and crown and name because it was easier than the alternative.”
“She was a child when her life was taken from her!”
“And what were you?” He delivers the words quietly, though with no lack of feeling.
“She has sacrificed so much. She has lost so much under the fist and swords of Adarlan. How can you deny her this one thing?”
This one thing being millions of lives. Weylan leans forward onto the desk, mindless of the parchments that crinkle and smear ink under his forearms. He stresses each and every syllable as they fall from his lips. “What has Aelin given that you have not?”
That, at long last, takes the wind from Aedion’s sails. His eyes fall shut yet brief as it is, Weylan can read that expression like a book. Pain is easy to bury, but once acknowledged it demands to be felt.
“You bore the hatred of your enemies and your own people alike. A darlan’s Whore .”
Aedion’s lips thin. “Stop.”
“You were learning the arts of war before you could even rightfully be called a man. You killed for the first time at just fourteen years old.”
“ Stop .”
“You willingly placed yourself within reach of the king, bowed and scraped and let everybody believe you were nothing more than his bloodthirsty lapdog.”
“ Stop !”
The kingsflame’s glass mount rattles as Aedion’s palms slam down. He’s standing now, towering over Weylan with his lips pulled back from his teeth like a cornered animal, eyes wide and wild. “If you think to pit me against Aelin by comparing how much we’ve suffered , you’ll find it a futile task. I’m not easily moved to self-pity.”
At that, Weylan can’t help an amused huff. “I don’t wish to put you at odds with your cousin, Aedion, I only want you to convince me.” Aedion blinks owlishly. His bristling anger — more a discomfited reaction than true fury, Weylan guesses — simmers off slowly into the stuffy office air. “Stop looming, sit down, and convince me that I should put the wellbeing of my country in the hands of an eighteen year-old assassin.”
Those arresting turquoise eyes narrow to slits. “I think you’re stubborn, old man. I’d have an easier time convincing a ghost leopard to give up on meat.”
Real laughter spills out of Weylan then, a sharp sound rough from disuse. “Try.”
He waits patiently as Aedion reclaims his seat and turns his gaze to the peeling wallpaper, expression turning intent as he picks through and discards unwanted words one by one, piece by piece — despite his reputation as a silver-tongued charmer, eloquence does not come naturally to him. Finally, “Who would you put on the throne, if not Aelin?”
The eternal question. Stewards and generals and civilian commanders are all well and good as leaders during wartime, but maintaining peace requires a convoluted combination of strength, benevolence, and popular approval. Connections to the old ruling family are an important consideration (pluck a commoner off the streets and make him king, and you’ll have a revolt on your hands), yet a royal pedigree cannot make an occupied people forget who aided them in their time of strife and who did not . “The foremost candidate is a distant relative of Aelin’s, Lyra Kasnah. She is a Galathynius through her mother’s blood and she has not forgotten her roots.” Indeed, when news of the sacking of Orynth finally reached the wave-battered cliffs of tiny Ja’than, Lyra had somehow smuggled medical supplies, food, and weapons to Terrassen via Skull’s Bay pirates, along with an offer to join rebellion efforts personally. All these years later, Weylan remembers their exchange well.
Stay where you are, stay safe, and maintain discretion when sending aid, he’d written back. Brave allies like you, those who rebel quietly when they cannot raise their voice in opposition, are more important than you know.
Unearthing a key from his pockets, Weylan unlocks a desk drawer and rifles through until he finds what he is looking for. He slides the old, faded ship’s ledger across the desk, waiting in patient silence as Aedion reads.
“Leather, herbs, unsmelted iron…what is this?”
“One of many shipfuls of supplies Lady Kasnah has sent over the years. Her kingdom is far from wealthy, lacking the military necessary to resist even a fraction of Adarlan’s troops, yet she has done what she can. I do not expect any one person to be Terrassen’s sole champion. Aelin was a child when her country fell and in that, I allow her some grace, but it has been nearly ten years. If a girl wishes to be treated with consideration for her age, I will do so, but a queen cannot expect the same luxury.”
“Aelin is your queen, though I cannot convince you of that any more than you can sway my thoughts on the matter.”
Loyalty bordering on obstinacy…it is what made Aedion so good at his job, but it has likely given Darrow more than a few gray hairs in the meantime. “I was afraid of that,” he replies, rubbing a tired hand across his brow. “However, I must impress this upon you…if you remain by her side on whatever fool’s mission she has undertaken, you will be branded a traitor. By law, I will have no choice but to strip you of your rank and titles.”
Aedion’s answering smile is all teeth, the expression nothing short of wolfish, but underneath the assured ferocity is something more vulnerable that Weylan cannot quite read. “For too long, all I had to call my own was my face and my name. Aelin is an Ashryver, she is my blood, and she matters to me far more than any title.”
Weylan has one card left in his hand, and he throws it on the table without subtlety or guile. “What of your men?” Tension leaps onto Aedion’s face, digging a deep furrow between his brows, but before he has a chance to speak, Weylan cuts deeper. “I personally delivered news of your rescue to Kyllian. The first thing he asked was when — if — you would return.”
He’s telling the truth, though before words could come Kyllian had rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands and not said anything for a very, very long time. His shoulders did not shake, but Weylan suspects that is the closest he will ever come to seeing the general cry.
Aedion turns aside fully, half his face hidden, the other half in perfect profile against the firelight leaking from the wall sconce behind him. A muscle twitches in his jaw, the only movement on an otherwise impassive face. Weylan shifts forward slightly, sensing his hesitation. “Finish this war where you belong, where you can either die fighting among your men or celebrate victory at their sides. Go north now, go to him , or do not return at all.”
The one eye visible to Weylan falls shut as Aedion inhales deeply, his powerful chest rising and falling in measured breaths. He does not know (nor does he particularly care to) what transpired between them, why or even exactly when they broke off the romantic aspect of their relationship; Weylan has long suspected that Kyllian still carries a torch, though whatever Aedion feels is less clear. It is only when he turns to Weylan with a raw, gaping pain writ clear across his face that Weylan suddenly, certainly, knows two things: Aedion loves his men and his fellow general with all the boundless ardor his heart can muster, but that love will not be enough to keep him.
Hellas damn this war and the things it forces upon them.
“I am sorry,” he says in response to Aedion’s silence. “Truly.” It is not enough and never will be, but it is all he can find the words for in this moment.