Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

With each sting of Rowan’s needle, she beseeched the faceless immortals to take the souls of her loved ones into their paradise and keep them safe. She told them of their worth—told them of the good deeds and loving words and brave acts they’d performed.

she chanted the prayers she owed them as daughter and friend and heir.

For the hours Rowan worked, his movements falling into the rhythm of her word...

In Terrasen she would sing from sunrise to sunset, on her knees in gravel without food or drink or rest. Here she would sing until the markings were done, the agony in her back her offering to the gods.

Rowan followed her into the nearby night-dark field, kneeling with her in the grass as she tilted her face up to the moon and sang the final song, the sacred song of her household, the Fae lament she’d owed them for ten years.

Rowan did not utter a word while she sang, her voice broken and raw. He remained in the field with her until dawn, as permanent as the markings on her back.

Three lines of text scrolled over her three largest scars, the story of her love and loss now written on her: one line for her parents and uncle; one line for Lady Marion; and one line for her court and her people. On the smaller, shorter ...

No longer would they be locked away in her heart. No longer w...

Weeks ago, after Abraxos had made the Crossing, Manon had returned to the Omega to grins and applause. Her grandmother was nowhere to be seen, but that was expected. Manon had not accomplished anything; she had merely done what was expected of her.

They flew in formation: Manon at the head, Asterin and Vesta flanking behind, then three rows of three: Imogen framed by the green-eyed demons, Ghislaine flanked by Kaya and Thea, the two Shadows and Lin, then Sorrel solo in the back. A battering ram, balanced and flawless, capable of punching through enemy lines.

led by Petrah herself on her mount, Keelie.

Abraxos dove, a shooting star with his glistening wings.

He couldn’t stop Keelie—she was too heavy and he too small. Yet they could save Petrah. He’d seen Asterin make that jump, too.

Abraxos roared at Keelie, and Manon could have sworn that he was speaking some alien language, bellowing some command, as Keelie made one final stand for her rider and leveled out flat. A landing platform.

My Keelie, Petrah had said. Had smiled a...

all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern’s eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

Abraxos, diving for her, plummeting, small and sleek. He was the only wyvern she’d seen bank at that speed in this canyon.

The Blackbeaks won the War Games, and Manon was crowned Wing Leader in front of all those frilly, sweating men from Adarlan. They called her a hero, and a true warrior, and more nonsense like that. But Manon had seen her grandmother’s face when she had set Petrah down on the viewing platform. Seen the disgust.

Petrah would not rise from bed. They said she had been broken in her soul when Keelie died.

Manon did not apologize. She could not stop hearing the sound made as Keelie hit the earth. And some part of her, perhaps a weak and undisciplined part, did not regret ensuring the animal’s sacrifice had not been in vain.

Wing Leader. She said it to herself, silently,

The Blueblood Matron smiled as Manon pressed two fingers to her brow. The Yellowlegs Matron, on the other end, did nothing. But her grandmother, seated in the center, smiled faintly. A snake’s smile.

“Welcome, Wing Leader,” her grandmother said, and a cry went up from the witches, save for the Thirteen—who stayed cool and quiet. They did not need to cheer, for they were immortal and infinite and gloriously, wonderfully deadly.

The Crochan witch, her eyes the solid color of freshly tilled earth, looked up at Manon. How those eyes were so bright despite the horrors written on her body,

The Crochans had cursed them, made them eternal exiles. They deserved to die, each and every one of them. But it was not her voice that said those things in her head. No, for some reason, it was her grandmother’s.

“We call you the White Demon. You’re on our list—the list of all you monsters to kill on sight if we ever run into you. And you …” She opened her eyes and grinned, defiant, furious. “You are at the top of that list. For all that you have done.”

“This,” the Crochan said for all to hear, “is a reminder. My death—my murder at your hands, is a reminder. Not to them,” she breathed, pinning Manon with that soil-brown stare. “But to you. A reminder of what they made you to be. They made you this way.

“Our great truth that we keep from you, that we guard with our lives? It is not where we hide, or how to break your curse. You have known all this time how to break it—you have known for five hundred years that your salvation lies in your hands alone. No, our great secret is that we pity you.”

“We pity you, each and every one of you. For what you do to your children. They are not born evil. But you force them to kill and hurt and hate until there is nothing left inside of them—of you. That is why you are here tonight, Manon. Because of the threat you pose to that monster you call grandmother. The threat you posed when you chose mercy and saved your rival’s life.” She gasped for breath, tears flowing unabashedly as she bared her teeth. “They have made you into monsters. Made, Manon. And we feel sorry for you.”

Manon sat on a plateau atop a peak in the Ruhnns, Abraxos sprawled at her side, smelling the night-blooming flowers on the spring meadow.

Night blooming flowers on the Ruhnn mountains?!

They have made you into monsters.

Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, was a home that she had never known.

She would have dismissed her, wouldn’t have thought twice about it, if it hadn’t been for that look in Keelie’s eyes as she fell, fighting with every last scrap of strength to save her Petrah. Or for Abraxos’s wing, sheltering Manon against icy rain.

The wyverns were meant to kill and maim and strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. And yet …

Manon looked toward the star-flecked horizon, leaning her face into a warm spring breeze, grateful for the steady, solid companion lounging behind her. A strang...

She had never known regret—not true regret, anyway. But she regretted not knowing the Crochan’s name. She regretted not knowing who the new cloak on her shoulders had belonged to—where she had come from, how she had lived.

Somehow, that regret made her feel incredibly, heavily mortal.

He’d known, since the moment he figured out who she was, that while Celaena would always pick him, Aelin would not.

“Tell her,” Chaol said quietly, “that I had nothing to do with you. Tell her you barely spoke to me. Or Dorian. Tell her I am fine in Anielle, and that we are all safe.”

“What would you have given—just to see her again?” Chaol couldn’t turn around as he said, “It doesn’t matter now.”

There was a carved, round bit of familiar black stone resting on the small table beside the king. From the distance, Chaol couldn’t see what it was, but it made his stomach turn over regardless.

“Do you know that there has been a spy in my castle for several months now, Prince? Someone feeding information to my enemies and plotting against me with a known rebel leader?”

Aedion, who had survived for so long without hope, holding together his kingdom as best he could … who would never see the queen he so fiercely loved. He deserved to meet her, and she deserved to have him serve in her court.

“You want a spy? You want a traitor?” the general drawled, and flung his replicated black ring on the floor.

Aedion grinned at them all, the Northern Wolf incarnate. If the king was shocked about the ring, he didn’t show it.

“All you monsters can burn in hell. Because my queen is coming—and she will spike you to the walls of your gods-damned castle. And I can’t wait to help her gut you like the pigs you are.” He spat at the king’s feet, right on top of the fake ring that had stopped bouncing.

Because for a flicker, as those turquoise eyes met with his, there was none of that rage or triumph. Only a message to the queen that Aedion would never see. And there were no words to convey it—the love and the hope and the pride. The sorrow at not knowing her as the woman she had become. The gift Aedion thought he was giving her in sparing Chaol’s life.

“I’ve always wondered about that ring,” the king said. “Was it the distance, or some true strength of spirit that made you so unresponsive to its suggestions? But regardless, I am so glad that you confessed to treason, Aedion.”

Perhaps the king had never had anything on them—perhaps this had only been a ruse to get Aedion to confess to something, because the king knew that the general would offer up his own life instead of an innocent’s.

“Why should I release the true traitor in this castle?”