Divided (Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses Crossover)

Chapter 21

Aidan laid in her bed tossing and turning. So very many things weighed her mind that she could not find the peacefulness of sleep. Flipping the blankets off of her legs, she stepped into the cool darkness of her room. With a flick of her wrist, she lit a candle. She grabbed it and a robe and left her room.

The hallways were dark, the fires in the torches being extinguished hours earlier. The only sounds were her own footsteps as she padded across the marble floor. She didn't know where she was going, but she ended up in front of the large carved doors of the library. She pushed on one door, and it opened easily. 

She waded through the tables of scrolls and bookshelves to the array of couches and chairs in the back. 

"Hello, Aidan," a voice spoke from the darkness.

"Hello, Manon," she said as she took a seat across from her grandmother.

"You couldn't sleep," Manon said. It was not a question. 

"No. I have a lot of things on my mind."

"As do we all," she replied softly as she caressed the book in her lap. "I was a mother once, I suppose I still am, even though I was never a very good one. Dorian, however, was a great father. When Dreyton could not fall asleep, Dorian would read him stories. I don't know who was more enchanted, Dreyton or Dorian. Would you like me to read you a story, Aidan?"

The girl nodded and pulled her knees up to her chest. 

"Which story would you like to hear?"

"I think you know which story I need to hear, Manon," Aidan replied softly. Her grandmother nodded and closed her eyes.

"I must remind you that I was not present for the entirety of this story for it began long before I was born, and I was not a player until much, much later than others, and for some of my part, I was not a hero but a villain. I also do not know anything but what others have told me for those parts I was not there for."

Aidan encouraged Manon to continue anyway.

And so Manon began, "This is the story of how Aelin Ashryver Galathynius saved the world."

Manon told Aidan first of Brannon and Mala Fire-Bringer and then of Elena and Gavin. Of how they imprisoned Erawan, wasting the Lock Mala had forged in the process. She told her granddaughter of what the magic of the Wyrdkeys could do and how the King of Adarlan had used them. She told her of how Aelin's family and court were slayed and how she escaped. She told her of her years as an assassin and of how losing Sam had changed her forever. Of how she was sent to a slave camp. She spoke of how Aelin killed Baba Yellowlegs. Of how she loved Dorian and Chaol and Nehemia and became the King's Champion.

Manon then told her of how Aelin saved Dorian and killed the Valg Prince that occupied him and his father. She detailed how Aelin was sent to Wendlyn and learned how to wield her gifts. Of how she first befriended and then came to love Rowan, freeing him from his blood oath to Maeve. 

Manon told Aidan of how she saved Aedion and loved Lysandra, and of how she brought Rolfe into her small army and sent Chaol to the Southern Continent. She told her of how she stood up to her grandmother and was almost killed, Abraxos bringing her to meet Aelin and how she started to fall in love with Dorian. She told her of how Rowan convinced his cousins to turn on Maeve and her fleet. 

"She slipped the Wyrdstones into my pocket. Maeve had incapacitated Gavriel and Lorcan. There was nothing we could do but watch as Cairn whipped her already mangled back. It was in that moment that I truly knew love. Love for one's family. Love for one's friends. Love for one's country. She did it for all of us. They whipped her and put an iron mask over her beautiful face and threw her into an iron box, and we couldn't do anything to stop it," a tear escaped Manon's eye. 

"I do not know what happened to her while she was with Maeve. She never told anyone, not even Rowan. There is a part of each person, I think, that we keep locked up even from the people we love the most. She has locked that part of her life up and thrown away the key. I do know what happened when Rowan found her.

"Looking at his mate's beaten and broken body, her very soul mangled, he offered Maeve anything in the world to free her, but Maeve was manipulative and cruel. There was nothing Rowan could offer her that would make her give up her chance of controlling the most powerful woman in the world.

"He had given the Wyrdstones back to me, feeling like they would be safer with me than with him. He would have given Maeve all of them if he had to to get Aelin back, but he made the deal anyway. She did not know that the stones would be destroyed with the Gate and with Erawan. 

"He told her that she could have all three stones if she would send money and men to help then defeat Erawan and let Aelin go. She weighed his offer and added that he would spend one year as human and ten years in his hawk-form for as long as he lived. He agreed, knowing that one year with Aelin was better than losing her forever.

"He sent out messages to the rest of us to rendezvous in Melisande where Ansel of Briarcliff had established our foothold. It took months for Aelin to heal completely, all the while Erawan built his forces. Lysandra continued to play Aelin as she healed, but no amount of water magic could heal the brokenness inside her. Even Rowan could not reach into those places. She spent long periods alone working through her brokenness, and one day she emerged from her rooms with all the swagger that Aelin possesses.

"Myself, Elide, Dorian, and the Thirteen finally found the last of the Cochrans in a small village farther North than anyone had ever explored. They agreed to help us, and we all moved down the continent into Adarlan, meeting with Chaol's army from the Southern Continent and Maeve's Fae army

"As we moved south through Adarlan, Aelin's army went through Oakwald collecting those forces in Ellwye and Fenharrow that were still with us as well as Rolfe's cousins from the sea. With both halves of the army together, Aelin led the way towards Morath, but we were met by Erawan's forces in the plains of Adarlan, south of the Avery. 

"Erawan still had the last stone, but Aelin would not give up. On one side of the battlefield, she and Rowan were an unstoppable pair. On the other side, Lysandra, wearing Aelin's skin, with Aedion by her side were also a whirlwind. My Thirteen and I shredded through Erawan's army but they continued in droves. Fighting other witches was the worst part. Many of them tried to win valor by undergoing the Yielding and exploding on the battlefield. 

"Erawan and Aelin finally met face to face, and Dorian was able to use his magic to freeze the demon in place for just a few seconds while he battled Aelin and Rowan. It was him, not Aelin, that died to create the lock. I watched him as he made the decision, I saw it in his eyes as the life went out of him as he forged it. In the end, Elena was wrong, Dorian was ready.

"Aelin also sacrificed herself that day as she used every bit of her magic to place the lock on the Gate and push Erawan into the portal that it created. As she let herself be destroyed by her own flames, she also killed Maeve, who had finally come to retrieve her Wyrdstones. 

"When Erawan was banished to be destroyed by the gods, all of his monsters were destroyed as well. The battlefield was silent, save for the cries of our wounded. There was so much death. I held Dorian's head in my lap as Rowan did with Aelin. Across the field, I could see Aedion, who shook Lysandra, who had jumped in front of him and took a sword in the side. Four of my Thirteen were dead around us, as was Fenrys and many of Rowan's cousins, but I held Dorian.

"I will never know what happened wherever Aelin and Dorian went, but they returned to us. They said that the gods had sent them back because of all they had sacrificed to right the wrongs of their ancestors and save the world."

A voice in the dark spoke up when Manon finished, "I was not with Dorian wherever we were. I was alone. They sent me back because I had not completed my destiny yet. They sent me back, forged my body anew, and allowed me to return to my mate so that I could teach and guide you to your own destiny, Aidan." 

As the sun began to rise over the Witch Kingdom, Aidan finally began to understand what she would have to be willing to sacrifice for her destiny.