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. Behind her, Narrok and the remaining creature—the one they had faced in the woods—were spooling the darkness into themselves, as if readying for attack. She turned toward them, swaying slightly, her skin deathly pale. They had fed on her, and she was drained after shredding apart their brethren. A very real, very final burnout was steadily approaching.
The wall of black swelled, one final hammer blow to squash her, but she stood fast, a golden light in the darkness. That was all Rowan needed to see before he knew what he had to do. Wind and ice were of no use here, but there were other ways.
Rowan drew his dagger and sliced his palm open as he sprinted through the gate-stones.
•
The darkness built and built, and she knew it would hurt, knew it would likely kill her and Rowan when it came crashing down. But she would not run from it.
Rowan reached her, panting and bloody. She did not dishonor him by asking him to flee as he extended his bleeding palm, offering his raw power to harness now that she was well and truly emptied. She knew it would work. She had suspected it for some time now. They were carranam.
He had come for her. She held his gaze as she grabbed her own dagger and cut her palm, right over the scar she’d given herself at Nehemia’s grave. And though she knew he could read the words on her face, she said, “To whatever end?”
He nodded, and she joined hands with him, blood to blood and soul to soul, his other arm coming around to grip her tightly. Their hands clasped between them, he whispered into her ear, “I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”
The wave of impenetrable black descended, roaring as it made to devour them.
Yet this was not the end—this was not her end. She had survived loss and pain and torture; she had survived slavery and hatred and despair; she would survive this, too. Because hers was not a story of darkness. So she was not afraid of that crushing black, not with the warrior holding her, not with the courage that having one true friend offered—a friend who made living not so awful after all, not if she were with him.
Rowan’s magic punched into her, old and strange and so vast her knees buckled. He held her with that unrelenting strength, and she harnessed his wild power as he opened his innermost barriers, letting it flow through her.
The black wave was not halfway fallen when they shattered it apart with golden light, leaving Narrok and his remaining prince gaping.
She did not give them a moment to spool the darkness back. Drawing power from the endless well within Rowan, she pulled up fire and light, embers and warmth, the glow of a thousand dawns and sunsets. If the Valg craved the sunshine of Erilea, then she would give it to them.
Narrok and the prince were shrieking. The Valg did not want to go back; they did not want to be ended, not after so long spent waiting to return to her world. But she crammed the light down their throats, burning up their black blood.
She clung to Rowan, gritting her teeth against the sounds. There was a sudden silence, and she looked to Narrok, standing so still, watching, waiting. A spear of black punched into her head—offering one more vision in a mere heartbeat. Not a memory, but a glimpse of the future. The sounds and smell and look of it were so real that only her grip on Rowan kept her anchored in the world. Then it was gone, and the light was still building, enveloping them all.