Hashing Files
Project Taylor
Provencher Liberty
University CJUS
363-D01
Queen of Shadows
By Sarah Maas
“He sniffed the air, but the stranger was downwind. So he listened.
Just one person, judging from the near-silent footfalls that pierced through the wall of fog.
Moving with a predator’s ease that made Aedion’s instincts rise to the forefront.
Aedion palmed his fighting knives as the male’s scent hit him – unwashed, but with a hint of
pine and snow. And then he smelled Aelin on the stranger, the scent complex and layered, woven into the
male himself.
The male emerged from the fog; tall – maybe taller than Aedion himself, if only by an inch –
powerfully built, and heavily armed both above and beneath his pale gray surcoat and hood.
Aelin took a step forward.
One step, as if in a daze.
She loosed a shuddering breath, and a small, whimpering noise came out of her – a sob.
And then she was sprinting down the alley, flying as though the winds themselves pushed as her
heels.
She flung herself on the male, crashing into him hard enough that anyone else might have gone
rocking back into the stone wall.
But the male grabbed her to hijm, his massive arms wrapping around her tightly and lifting her
up. Nesryn made to approach, but Aedion stopped her with a hand on her arm.
Aelin was laughing as she cried, and the male was just holding her, his hooded head buried in her
neck. AS if he were breathing her in.
“Who is that?” Nesryn asked.
Aedion smiled. “Rowan.” (Maas, 2015).
