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cheese and grapes, smiling at her the entire
time.
Aelin couldn’t stop the shaking that
overtook her, the brutal numbness.
Deep, deep, she drifted.
It did not matter if Rowan wasn’t coming.
If the others had obeyed her wishes to fight
for Terrasen.
She would save it in her own way, too. For
as long as she could. She owed Terrasen that
much. Would never fully repay that debt.
From far away, the words echoed, and
memory shimmered. She let it pull her back,
pull her out of her body.
She sat beside her father on the few steps
descending into the open-air fighting ring of
the castle.
It was more temple than brawling pit,
flanked by weathered, pale columns that for
centuries had witnessed the rise of Terrasen’s