Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas

Rowan sat up, the blanket sliding from him. Is this the sort of surprise that will end with my heart stopping dead in my chest?

She snorted, propping her head with a fist as she traced idle marks over the scratchy blanket. “I sent a letter—when we were at that port in Wendlyn.”

Rowan nodded. “To Aedion.”

“To Aedion,” she said, quietly enough that Gavriel couldn’t hear from his spot outside the door. “And to your uncle. And to Essar.”

Rowan’s brows rose. “Saying what?”

She hummed to herself. “Saying that I was indeed imprisoned by Maeve, and that while I was her captive, she laid out some rather nefarious plans.”

Her mate went still. “With what goal in mind?”

Aelin sat up, and picked at her nails. “Convincing them to disband her army. Start a revolt in Doranelle. Kick Maeve off the throne. You know, small things.”

Rowan just looked at her. Then scrubbed at his face. “You think a letter could do that?”

“It was strongly worded.”

He gaped a bit. “What sort of nefarious plans did you mention?”

“Desire to conquer the world, her complete lack of interest in sparing Fae lives in a war, her interest in Valg things.” She swallowed. “I might have mentioned that she’s possibly Valg.”

Rowan started.

Aelin shrugged. “It was a lucky guess. The best lies are always mixed with truth.”

“Suggesting Maeve is Valg is a fairly outlandish lie, even for you. Even if it turned out to be true.”

She waved a hand. “We’ll see if anything comes of it.”

“If it works, if they somehow revolt and the army turns against her …” He shook his head, laughing softly. “It’d be a boon in this war.”

“I scheme and lie so grandly, and that’s all the credit I get?”

Rowan flicked her nose. “You’ll get credit if her army doesn’t show up. Until then, we prepare as if they are. Which is highly likely.” At her frown, he said, “Essar doesn’t wield much power, and my uncle doesn’t take many risks. Not like Enda and Sellene. For them to overthrow Maeve … it would be monumental. If they even survived it.”

Her stomach churned. “It’s their choice, what they do. I only laid out the facts.” Carefully worded facts and half guesses. An absolute gamble, if she was being honest.

Rowan smirked. “And other than attempting to overthrow Maeve’s throne? Any other surprises I should know about?”

Her smile faded as she lay back down, Rowan doing the same beside her. “There are no more.” At his raised brows, she added, “I swear it on my throne. There are no more left.”

The amusement in his eyes guttered. “I don’t know whether to be relieved.”

“Everything I know, you know. All the cards are on the table now.”

With the various armies that had gathered, with the Lock, with all of it.

“Do you think you could do it again?” he asked. “Draw up that much power?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It required being … contained. With the irons.”

A shadow darkened his face, and he rolled onto his side, propping up his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You never will again.” It was the truth.

“If the cost of that much power is what you endured, then I’ll be glad not to.”

Aelin ran a hand down the powerful muscles of his thigh, fingers snagging in the rip of fabric just above his knee. “I didn’t feel you get this wound through the mating bond,” she said, grazing the thick ridge of the new scar. A trophy from the battle. She made herself meet his piercing stare. Did Maeve somehow break that part of it? That part of us?

“No,” he breathed, and stroked the hair from her brow. “I’ve realized that the bond only conveys the pain of the gravest wounds.”

She touched the spot on his shoulder where Asterin Blackbeak’s arrow had pierced him all those months ago. The moment she’d known what he was to her.

“It was why I didn’t know what was happening to you on the beach,” Rowan said roughly. Because the whipping, brutal and unbearable as it had been, hadn’t brought her to the brink of death. Only into an iron coffin.

She scowled. “If you’re about to tell me that you feel guilty for it—”

“We both have things to grapple with—about what happened these months.”

A glance at him, and she knew he was well aware of what still clouded her soul.

And because he was the only person who saw everything she was and did not walk away from it, Aelin said, “I wanted that fire to be for Maeve.”

“I know.” Such simple words, and yet it meant everything—that understanding.

“I wanted it to make things … better.” She loosed a long breath. “To wipe it all away.” Every memory and nightmare and lie.

“It will take a while, Aelin. To face it, work through it.”

“I don’t have a while.”

His jaw tensed. “That remains to be seen.”

She didn’t bother arguing. Not as she admitted, “I want it to be over.”

He went wholly still, but granted her the space to think, to speak.