Chapter Text
Aelin’s first flower is already marked on her skin when she’s born.
That in and of itself isn’t unusual; everyone has their soulflower marked on their skin at birth, their destiny conveyed in some abstract way only the gods understand.
What gives the midwife pause is the flower itself, inked onto the skin above the infant’s tiny chest. She quickly shifts the squalling baby in her arms and wipes the blood from her face as the healers work desperately to save Princess Evalin’s life.
The bedroom is a chaotic bustle of bodies and barked orders as the princess labours for breath, her husband at her side, hands clasped tightly as though he could keep her from death by sheer force of will.
Carefully, the midwife cleans the baby with a damp cloth and wraps her in a white knit blanket, delicately embroidered with stags and leaves, the golden threads seeming like sunlight dancing through a forest canopy.
She avoids the dark splotch of ink on the new princess’ skin.
When Princess Evalin has been stabilized and most of the healers and midwives ushered out of the room, she eases the whimpering infant into her father’s arms and watches with amazement as she calms immediately, nuzzling her cheek into the soft fabric of his tunic.
“Congratulations, Your Highnesses,” the midwife whispers before she bows and quickly leaves the room.
She’s not quick enough, however, to avoid hearing the quiet sob that escapes the room when the Prince and Princess unwrap their daughter’s blanket and lay eyes on her soulflower for the first time.
A tear traces its way down her own cheek as she closes the door behind her and tries not to think of that tiny chest stained black and white with blackthorn blossoms.
Whatever fate the gods had in store for the baby, she would not be escaping it.
oO0Oo
As she grows, a garden begins to blossom across her skin.
Angrec for royalty, received when an official announcement of her birth was made, appears on the small of her back. Ferns ink themselves onto her ribs when she first starts throwing sparks a few months later.
Ivy blooms over her and Aedion’s fingers, affectionfriendshipfidelity in their every touch. Carnations full of her mother’s love appear on her ankles, a delicate sunflower on the inside of her left elbow for her father’s unwavering adoration.
Not all the flowers she gets are so lovely.
Volatile abecedary flares to life on her sides, twisting in between the ferns, when she sends the library in Orynth up in flames. Tiny sprigs of lavender appear when she overhears the whispers of the servants, wondering how a child with such a temper could ever be trusted with the throne.
Sorrowful willow curls around her neck like a noose when she learns what the flowers mean.
oO0Oo
At eight, Aelin has a startling number of flowers inked on her skin for someone so young.
The whispers, which had never been particularly quiet, begin to grow in number until she can’t help but hear them everywhere she goes.
She wakes the day the King of Adarlan and his delegation are set to come to a feeling like ice burning beneath the skin of her left thumb. She frowns and slips out of her bed to open the window so she can see her hand better. When the light hits the new flower, she bits down on her lip to muffle her yelp.
Inked there, with damning clarity, is a tiny pink and yellow yarrow flower.
War is coming.
oO0Oo
She runs as fast as she can, lungs burning with the frigid air as the thundering hoofbeats grow closer.
Her heels flash through the mud, drenching her nightgown. She gasps as she blunders through the underbrush, hoping, praying, to stay ahead of the dark rider.
She can still hear the sound Lady Marion’s head made when it hit the ground.
With terror gripping her heart, she doesn’t stop to think before she’s rushing through the bridge posts and falling downdowndown, asphodel blooming on the soles of her feet.
oO0Oo
Arobynn wraps her in a dry towel and sets her in front of the roaring fireplace in his estate’s kitchen. He leaves her staring unseeingly into the flames, muttering something about finding her clothes.
Aelin hardly hears him. The logs pop and crack in the hearth, spraying showers of sparks into the air, and all she can think of is the lack of magic bubbling beneath her skin. The hollowness in her chest, the way the world seems duller now.
She doesn’t know if it’s from the loss of her magic or the fact that… that…
It hits her then, the realization of what she is. Great-Uncle Orlon is dead. Orynth has fallen. Her parents are also dead, throats slit as they slept, and she doesn’t even know what will happen to their bodies. There will be no one to sing them to ancient dirges of the Fae, to make sure their souls are at peace in the otherworld.
She hasn’t yet heard of Aedion's fate. She’s not sure she wants to know.
She’s the last Galathynius, now the Queen of Terrasen by birthright and blood because there’s no one left.
No one except her.
She pulls her legs to her chest and cries, her tears turning to forget-me-nots as they hit her knees.
oO0Oo
The issue of the angrec on her back is one that cannot be erased with a mere change in identity.
Arobynn solves the problem.
He’s grim-faced as he approaches her, red-hot poker in hand.
“Let this be your first lesson,” he says.
The iron touches her skin and the last shreds of Aelin burn away with her screams.
oO0Oo
Purple hyacinths bloom where the blood of her first kill splatters on her skin.
Please forgive me, the flowers whisper.
oO0Oo
She asks to see Arobynn’s flowers one day.
“Why do you want to know?” he asks, a smile tugging at his lips.
She shrugs. “You’ve seen all of mine, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have. But don’t think that distracting me will get you out of doing your studies.”
It’s not until later that she realizes he’d changed the subject, deflecting the question as though he doesn’t want her to know the infallible truths he hides beneath paint and extravagant clothing.
(That should have been her first clue.)
oO0Oo
She lives in excess in Rifthold for years while her country suffers and pretends the wormwood that grows between her shoulder blades doesn’t matter.
Time passes. She grows up, burying the little girl so deep down inside herself that some days, she forgets she had ever existed in the first place.
That’s a lie. She can never completely forget, her shame inked on her skin for all to see.
oO0Oo
By sixteen, she has dozens of flowers and a shiny mass of scar tissue where royalty had once been.
Then Skull’s Bay happens, and everything changes.
oO0Oo
For days after their first kiss in the sewers, Celaena rides a high of bliss and pleasure. She and Sam lie curled in their bed in her apartment, fingers trailing lazily across each other’s scarred skin.
They haven’t made the final step yet, haven’t explored every part of their bodies, but that’s okay. Only a few more days and they’ll have all the time in the world.
“What’s this one?” Sam asks, kissing the tiny yellow flower on her right shoulder.
“Coltsfoot,” she says. “It means ‘justice shall be done.’ Stupid for an assassin to have, I suppose.”
“I don’t think so.” Sam looks up at her, his brown eyes sparkling in the early morning light. “There’s justice in death, isn’t there?”
She shrugs. That’s not the reason she has it, but she’s not ready to tell him that story. She might never be.
“What about this?” He moves down her body, kissing the barberry where her tunic rides up, just over her hip.
“Bad temper.”
“That one definitely makes sense.”
“Shut up!” She wacks him with a pillow and he falls back, laughing.
A moment passes. He traces the flowers that curl up over her shoulders. Most of the plants are hidden beneath her tunic, but she knows without looking what has caught his attention. She’s spent far too much time staring at them in a mirror, after all.
“Monkshood, rhododendron, and wormwood,” she says, staring up at the ceiling. He shifts to look at her, but she keeps her eyes focused up. She doesn’t think she could bear to look at him now. “‘Beware, a deadly foe is near,’ ‘I am dangerous,’ and ‘regret.’ They’re… not exactly things I’m proud of.”
The sheets rustle beside her, the only sound in the silent room. Sam rolls over, his tunic suddenly gone, and braces himself above her. He takes her hand and brings it to his ribs, right where a pure white gardenia flower blooms.
“I know you have your secrets, Celaena,” he says, “things you won’t tell me, and that’s okay. I love you, always and forever.”
“I know,” she says, a lump forming in her throat.
A tear slips down her cheek and he kisses it away, then drifts down to her neck, where a tiny pink flower pulses over her carotid artery in time with her heartbeat. He places a featherlight kiss over the zephyr flower that appeared when he’d first confessed his love for her. “This one’s my favourite.”
She thinks of the sincerity of his love, how it’s marked plainly on her skin for all to see, and smiles. “Mine too.”
oO0Oo
She curls in on herself in the dungeons, trying to keep warm. She’s not sure if the numbness she’s feeling is because of the cold or not.
Sam is dead. Sam is dead and she will never get him back. His body still lies in the Assassin’s Keep, waiting for her to bury him.
It’s surprising, but she doesn’t cry. Not anymore. She supposes she has no tears left to shed.
Death is her constant companion, after all. She should have figured that everyone she loves dies in the end.
She traces the marigold on right forearm, her grief burrowing into her skin like it’s a part of her. It’s not the only marigold she has on her body, but this one stings like a fresh wound. Sometimes, she wonders what it would be like to press her blade over it and draw blood, giving her too-short, tragic life a fitting ending.
But she doesn’t. She could never face Sam in the otherworld if she took her life like that.
Besides, she wouldn’t given Farran the fucking satisfaction. And then there’s the other issue: the identity of whoever had sold her out.
Betrayal twists in her chest and a single black dahlia blooms in the hollow of her throat.