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“You marry the person you love—and none other,”
“What’s the point in having a mind if you don’t use it to make judgments?” “What’s the point in having a heart if you don’t use it to spare others from the harsh judgments of your mind?”
You’re just being cruel.” “I’m being practical. There’s a difference.
She felt restless—but at the same time remarkably still. Something was brought to life and laid to sleep in his gaze.
“I would sooner cut out my own heart than love a Havilliard,”
The walls of the room appeared, and then the floor and the ceiling, and she had the distinct feeling that she was trapped in a box, a lovely cage filled with tapestries and cushions.
“I’m in a state of absolute agony and I can’t be bothered.”
“Say my name. Say, ‘Very well, Dorian.’
“Life shouldn’t be like this,” he said, their eyes meeting as he gestured at the room. “And … and the world shouldn’t be like this.”
With each day, he felt the barriers melting. He let them melt. Because of her genuine laugh, because he caught her one afternoon sleeping with her face in the middle of a book, because he knew that she would win.
what terrified him even more was that he trusted her. And he didn’t know what that meant about himself.
She saw the Dark Lord for what
“They called her necklace the Eye of Elena; it’s been lost for centuries.”
Her heart was big and as red as her teeth. There was good in people—deep down, there was always a shred of good. There had to be.
He was kind—unnaturally kind, for someone of his upbringing. He had a heart, she realized, and a conscience.
Because somehow, the thought of him getting hurt—or worse—made her willing to risk just about anything.
“May Deanna, the Huntress and Protector of the Young, bless and keep you this year. I bestow upon you this golden arrow as a symbol of her power and good graces.”
He didn’t know why, but seeing her made him feel like a man.
She was something out of a dream—a dream in which he was not a spoiled young prince, but a king. She reached the bottom of the stairs, and Dorian took a step forward.
Dorian’s expression was full of—something. Joy? Wonder? His shoulders were straight, his back erect. He looked like a man. Like a king.
Dorian approached her slowly, halting only a hand’s breath away. “You left the ball without saying good-bye,” he said, and braced an arm against the wall beside her head.
He shook the hair out of his face. “I’m not interested in court ladies,” he said thickly, and kissed her.
Celaena strode to the balcony and flung open the doors, embracing the chill air. Her hand rose to her lips and she stared up at the stars, feeling her heart grow, and grow, and grow.
Consequences be damned. He’d find a way to make it work; he’d find a way to be with her. He had to. He had leapt from the cliff. He could only wait for the net.
She seemed young—no, new.
“We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happen to be more visible than most.
“My name is Celaena Sardothien.”
She never hesitated when they sparred, but she seemed to sink far within herself, into a place that was calm and cool, but also angry and burning.
Little did I know that the blond-haired girl was Queen of the Underworld.”
“No. I’ll play like a man and accept my losses!”
Tomorrow—and then her freedom would be decided.
It might have looked beautiful, had she not known what corruption and filth dwelt within it.
What would she have said to the prince’s bargain, had she known she would come to stand poised to lose so much?
Celaena swallowed the lump in her throat. Perhaps there were other reasons to fight tomorrow. Perhaps a few months in the castle hadn’t been enough. Perhaps … perhaps she wanted to stay here for reasons other than her eventual freedom. That was one thing that hopeless assassin from Endovier would have never believed. But it was true. She wanted to stay. And that would make tomorrow so much harder.
One fellow warrior acknowledging the other.
Freedom or death lay at this table. Her past and future were seated on a glass throne.
For a heartbeat, she saw the king with stark clarity. He was just a man—a man with too much power. And in that one heartbeat, she didn’t fear him. I will not be afraid, she vowed, wrapping the familiar words around her heart.
She blinked at the blade, and slowly raised her face to look at him. She found the rolling earthen hills of the north in his eyes. It was a sense of loyalty to his country that went beyond the man seated at the table. Far inside of her, she found a golden chain that bound them together.
“No matter what happens,” she said quietly, “I want to thank you.” Chaol tilted his head to the side. “For what?” Her eyes stung, but she blamed it on the fierce wind and blinked away the dampness. “For making my freedom mean something.”
There was strength in his face that she found to be achingly beautiful.
This wasn’t a duel—it was an execution.
All around her were whispering, laughing, otherworldly voices. They called to her—but called a different name, a dangerous name …
Deep down, she knew it wasn’t just a hallucination—what she saw, who she saw, truly existed just beyond the veil of her world, and the poisonous drug had somehow opened her mind to see them.
And so, struggling and shaking, Celaena stood.
He was done with politics and intrigue. He loved her, and no empire, no king, and no earthly fear would keep him from her. No, if they tried to take her from him, he’d rip the world apart with his bare hands. And for some reason, that didn’t terrify him.
Magic calls to magic.”
“I knew you’d win the moment I met you,”
As long as I live, I’ll always be thankful for that.”
“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if you only dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.”
“Because there are people who need you to save them as much as you yourself need to be saved,”
