Acotar and Tog [Discontinued, Will be deleted]

The Prince of Hope

He could hear her approaching. For all his internal conversations today, the conversations with the old man, the fight with Aelin, the hope, her approach agitated him.  

And he understood why. He was angry with her for losing hope, for leaving her people, and forsaking her duty to protect.

“What?”

She opened the door and just stared at him like this was the first time she actually looked at him, saw him.

“What do you want?”

“I thought you might want this.”

She tossed the tin of healing salve he had given her that first day. He almost laughed at the reversal of their situation.

“I deserved it.” And he did, he almost failed to protect her.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t feel bad.”

Turned the tin in his hand. For her hard exterior under it was a heart.

“Is this a bribe?”

“Give it back, if you’re going to be a pain in my ass.”

“You could heal yourself, you know. Heal me, too. Nothing major, but you have that gift.”

“It’s—it’s the drop of water affinity I inherited from Mab’s line.”

“My mother told me that the drop of water in my magic was my salvation—and sense of self-preservation.”

“I wanted to learn to use it like the other healers—long ago, I mean. But never was allowed to. They said … well, it wouldn’t be all that useful, since I didn’t have much of it, and Queens don’t become healers.”  

He was reminded that she was once a little girl that dreamed, and not to become a queen, but to be a healer. Like himself she was raised for a position, what they wanted did not matter, they had a larger responsibility than their dreams. He looked at her hands, the promise she had made to free a kingdom.

Until now he had no idea how to give a person hope, to free a kingdom to keep her word she would need to train. He could help her become a warrior of legends. Greater than an assassin.

“Go to bed. Since you’re banned from the kitchen tomorrow, we’re training at dawn.”

That look of helplessness slammed into him, that longing.

She has no hope left in her heart.

“Wait. Shut the door.”

There was something else he could give her, understanding. He could not look at her, he could not handle the pity she would give him, but he could tell her.

“When my mate died, it took me a very, very long time to come back.”

“How long ago?”

Her voice said it all, she understood what it meant to lose a mate.

“Two hundred three years, twenty-seven days ago.”

He turned towards her, waving his hand towards his tattoo.

“This tells the story of how it happened. Of the shame I’ll carry until my last breath.”

She was not alone in the shame she felt, this is how he could give her hope.

“Others come to you to have their own grief and shame tattooed on them.”

“Gavriel lost three of his soldiers in an ambush in the southern mountains. They were slaughtered. He survived. For as long as he’s been a warrior, he’s tattooed himself with the names of those under his command who have fallen. But where the blame lies has little to do with the point of the markings.”