admitted that the rumors had been spread by a former member of their rebel group. They had never had or heard of any contact with their dead queen. But seeing Ren and Murtagh, he’d since wondered who else might have survived. He had never allowed himself to hope that Aelin ... Aedion set his sword on the wooden rail and ran his scarred fingers down it, taking in the nicks and lines, each mark a tale of legendary battles fought, of great kings long dead. The sword was the last shred of proof that a mighty kingdom had once existed in the North. It wasn’t his sword, not really. In those initial days of blood and conquest, the Kendrick had snatched the blade from Rhoe Galathynius’s cooling body and brought it to Rifthold. And there it had stayed, the sword that should have been Aelin’s. So

