Their Fireheart

Chapter Twenty Eight

Aelin

The downpour had softened to a steady drizzle by the time the clock struck one, but I made no move to vacate the roof.

As soon as Aedion and I had returned, I'd come up here under the guise of taking over watch for the night. Chaol and his men had followed my cousin up into the apartment from the warehouse below, their shadowy figures providing the cover needed for my still-missing mates - at least, as far as the men Arobynn had stationed on the opposite rooftop were concerned.

I tried not to think about what my mates were actually doing at this very moment. In part because I didn't give a rat's ass what they did to Arobynn - the bastard deserved whatever he got. But in part -

In part because I didn't want to confront what they were thinking as they faced down the man who had molded my existence for ten long years. Who had helped create the villain that I was.

Whether it was from the venom that poured like honey from Arobynn's lips or from experiencing the dreadful Keep I'd spent my formative years in, I'd known going into tonight that I wouldn't be able to keep the details of my past shrouded as I had thus far.

And after tomorrow, there would be no hiding from the truth. Not for me, and not for my mates.

No, they'd have to face the harsh reality that their mate was a murderer, a monster. That I'd slaughtered innocents, brought men to their knees with nothing more than my knives and reveled in the bloodshed.

I wasn't blind, I knew my mates had killed, that they had captured and interrogated their fair share of enemies over the centuries. That they'd taken revenge against those who had hurt the ones they loved. Hell - Rowan had reduced a city to rubble.

But there was a vast difference in cutting down foes on a battlefield, with the ultimate goal of protecting and defending your people, than ending the lives of others for profit - while abandoning your own people to languish in ceaseless misery.

The memories that resurfaced because of tonight finally forced me to admit that Rowan had been right, all those months ago - I was a coward.

My people would have been better off if I'd perished all those years ago. But miraculously, I hadn't. And what had I done with that gift of fate? Drowned myself in luxury, fawned about in finery paid for by the harm I'd inflicted upon others.

Nothing more than a narcissistic, deplorable monster.

And that was the hard truth my mates would have to swallow as well.

Alone on the roof, soaked to the bone, I allowed memory after memory to wash over me. Of my initial training, the days locked in that dark, dank dungeon with nothing but stale bread and cloudy water to sustain me. The first man I had ever tortured, how his pale blue eyes had already been broken and empty when Arobynn had led me into his cell.

My first kill. How the nine year old child I had been had tried so, so hard to keep on a brave face - only to break down into hysterics the moment I was safely barricaded in my room.

How the second was immeasurably easier, done with hands that were already stained red.

Nameless faces flashed before my eyes, the vision of their last breath fluttering across my mind like a kaleidoscope of butterflies. Nameless. Lifeless. Because of me.

Worse still was the countless innocents, sold into slavery and condemned to death. The ones who - even when I was one of them - I couldn't help, couldn't save. Could do nothing but watch as they were dragged into darkened corners of the mines, their screams and begging bouncing off the stone walls as we worked. Embedding themselves in the very bedrock of the tunnels.