The words meant nothing. He was nothing.
Would always be nothing.
Over and over, she pounded against the lid.
Over and over, that song of fire and darkness
flared through her, out of her, into the world.
You do not yield.
Something hissed and crackled nearby, and
smoke poured through the lid.
But Aelin kept striking. Kept striking until
the smoke choked her, until its sweet scent
dragged her under and away.
And when she awoke chained on the altar,
she beheld what she had done to the iron
coffin.
The top of the lid had been warped. A great
hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin.
As if it had come so very close to breaking
entirely.
On a dark hilltop overlooking a sleeping