Aelin Galathynius,

I’ve finished your story. I fought the last battle with you, watched as the crown was placed on your head at last. I turned the last page and read the last word. Yours is one of those stories that I know will become part of my soul. A story of bending but never breaking under your limits, bravery and endurance, love and a loyalty so deep it ends in sacrifice. Even now, days after completing it, I am awed; the kind of wonder that you feel when you are a child discovering a new favorite thing.

Your story was one I will remember for a very long time. Elements of it will stay with me; the fiery fierceness, the crushing loyalty of it, but the thing that will stay with me the most is the enduring bravery endowed within it.

I understand now why people love you — it is because you always make it through. You bear the scars, emotional and physical, of what the world has thrown at you. You fight to claw yourself back into the light. It’s never unscathed, but you always make it through. And that, I think, is even more beautiful than being untouchable, unshakable. There is more power and brilliance in being shattered, and piecing yourself back together again into a stronger, more resilient force.

You faced hardship deeper and harsher than many would imagine, and yet you never broke, never gave up. And while your pain is not mine, and mine is not yours, I draw strength from your resolute will to never be broken. You gave me words to use when I can’t come up with my own motivation to fight back: “you do not yield,” which I now say to myself when I need encouragement. I admire you to no end for that. 

I finished your story, this journey I have followed and felt deeply. But I will come back, whenever I need to.

So, thank you Aelin, for your strength, your courage, your fear that you conquer. 

Thank you.

Love,

A reader