"Where are you going?He looked over his shoulder at me. "If I stay, you won't get any sleep."Stay, I said. "I promise to keep my hands to myself. Lie-such an outright lie.He gave me a half smile that told me he knew it, too, but nestled down, tugging me into his arms. I wrapped an arm around his waist and rested my head in the hollow of his shoulder.He idly stroked my hair. I didn't want to sleep-didn't want to lose a minute with him-but an immense exhaustion was pulling me away from consciousness, until all I knew was the touch of his fingers in my hair and the sounds of his breathing."

"And I wondered if love was too weak a word for what he felt, what he'd done for me. For what I felt for him."

"Aelin hissed, "Need I remind you Captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves and the mass graves? Need I remind you that I was starved and chained and you let Duke Perrington force me to the ground at Dorian's feet while you did nothing? And now you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring, when many of the people in this city have profited off the blood and misery of the very people you ignored?"

"Love can be a poison."

"They'd been forged of the same ore, two sides of the same golden, scarred coin. She'd know it when she spied him atop the execution plataform. She couldn't explain it. No one could understand that instant bond, that soul-deep assurance and rightness, unless they, too, had experienced it. But she owned no explanations to anyone - not about Aedion."

"Vain until the bitter end."