Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

All her years of remaining invisible, all her training, first from those rebels in Fenharrow, then the contacts they’d sent her family to in Rifthold … all of it ruined.

“Such interesting letters you send to your friend. Why, I might not ever have read them,” the king said, “if you hadn’t left one in the rubbish for your superior to find. See—you rebels have your spies, and I have mine.

“You destroyed everything that I had, and you deserve everything that’s to come,” she said.

“I was not supposed to love you. But I did. I do. And there is so much I wish … I wish we could have done together, seen together.”

“Name your price,” he said to his father. “Ask it of me, but let her go. Exile her. Banish her. Anything—say it, and it will be done.”

The king, yes. She had reported his movements for years, in each carefully written letter to her “friend.” But never Dorian.

The king looked at his son for a long moment. He looked at the captain and Aedion, so quiet and so tall—beacons of hope for their future.

One blow from that mighty sword. That was all it took to sever Sorscha’s head.

Aedion began roaring—roaring and cursing at the king, thrashing against his chains, but the guards hauled him away,

And then Dorian, still screaming, was scrambling through the blood toward it—toward her head, as if he could put it back. As if he could piece her together.

“I will not go to Anielle,” he growled. “And I will not serve you a moment longer. There is one true king in this room—there always has been. And he is not sitting on that throne.” Dorian stiffened.

“There is a queen in the north, and she has already beaten you once. She will beat you again. And again. Because what she represents, and what your son represents, is what you fear most: hope. You cannot steal it, no matter how many you rip from their homes and enslave. And you cannot break it, no matter how many you murder.”

Chaol stared at Dorian in mute horror as his friend’s eyes glowed a deep, raging blue, and the prince snarled at the king, “Don’t you touch him.”

“When you come back,” the prince said, “burn this place to the ground.”

But he knew that this had been the other trap. One for Aedion and Aelin, one for Sorscha. And this one—this one to draw out Dorian’s power.

He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known, from the moment they’d met, when he’d understood that the prince was his brother in soul. “I love you.”

It had been such an easy choice to make. When the captain had been about to take the fall for both of them, he’d thought only of Aelin, what it would do to her if her friend died. Even if he never got to see her, it was still better than having to face her when he explained that the captain was dead.

He did not bother with prayers, for himself or for the captain. The gods had not helped him these past ten years, and they would not save him now. He did not mind dying. Though he still wished he’d gotten a chance to see her—just once.

Even as his father sent a wave of blinding, burning black power crashing onto him, filling his mouth and his veins; even as he screamed, all he could see was that moment—when the sword cut through flesh and tendon and bone. He could still see her wide eyes, her hair glimmering in the light as it, too, was severed.

But when the arrow had fired at Chaol … that was the death he could not endure. Chaol had drawn his line—and Dorian was on his side of it. Chaol had called him his king.

So revealing his power to his father did not frighten him. No, to save his friend, dying did not scare him one bit.

“It won’t be death for you, my gifted son.” There was something dark and gleaming in his father’s hands.

Dorian fought like hell against the guards now pinning his arms, trying to drag up any ounce of power as his father brought the collar of Wyrdstone toward his neck. A collar, like the ones worn by those things Chaol had said were in the Dead Islands. No—no.

He had seen what a mere ring could do. This was an entire collar, with no visible keyhole …

there was a faint click and hiss, and the darkness swept in to tear him apart.

Fleetfoot was waiting, as she had been all night, and he scooped her over a shoulder and hauled her to Celaena’s room and into the secret passage. Down and down they went, the dog unusually obedient.

gripped over his shoulder. With a silent prayer to the gods for their forgiveness, Chaol hurtled into the tomb to grab Damaris, shoving the sacred blade through his belt and stuffing a few handfuls of gold into his cloak pockets. And though the skull-shaped knocker didn’t move, he told Mort precisely where he would be. “Just in case she comes back. In case … in case she doesn’t know.”

Mort remained stationary, but Chaol had the sense he’d been listening all the same as he grabbed the satchel containing Dorian and Celaena’s magic books and fled to the passage that would take him to the sewer tunnel.

silence lurked beneath them. He did not want to know if Dorian was alive or dead. He couldn’t decide which was worse.

“You said Dorian’s woman was—was a healer?” When Chaol nodded, Ren looked like he was about to be sick, but he asked, “Was she named Sorscha?” “You were the friend she sent those letters to,” Chaol breathed. “I kept pressing her for information, kept …” Ren covered his face and took a shuddering breath.

“You and me, we’ll find a way to free them. Both Aedion and your prince.”

“Morath,” Manon said, wondering if she’d heard right. “For battle?”

“To serve the duke, just as the king ordered. He wants the Wing Leader in Morath with half the host ready to fly at a moment’s notice. The others are to stay here under Iskra’s command to monitor the north.”

Asterin was smiling faintly. It was not a wild grin, or one that promised death, but a calm smile. To be aloft and skimming the clouds. Where every Blackbeak belonged. Where Manon belonged.

Asterin caught her stare and smiled wider, as if there wasn’t a host of witches flying behind them and Morath lying ahead. Her cousin turned her face into the wind, breathing it in, exultant.

Despite what the Crochan had said, Manon had not been born with a heart, or a soul. She did not need them.

The man pulled out a lovely blade, its eagle pommel glinting in the first light of dawn. For a long moment, he stared at the sword, thinking of all that it had once embodied. But there was a new sword at his side—an ancient king’s blade, from a time when good men had served noble rulers and the world had prospered for it.

this dock, about to get onto this ship. She had awoken this morning and slipped the amethyst ring off her finger. It had felt like a blessed release, a final shadow lifted from her heart. But there were still words left unsaid between them, and she needed to make sure he was safe—and would remain that way.

“So you’re going to get the key from your old master, find the captain, and then what?” Complete submission to her indeed. “Then I go north.”

“We’re stronger together than apart.”

“I am going, Rowan. I will gather the rest of my court—our court—and then we will raise the greatest army the world has ever witnessed. I will call in every favor, every debt owed to Celaena Sardothien, to my parents, to my bloodline. And then …” She looked toward the sea, toward home.

“And then I am going to rattle the stars.”

But then he quietly said, “I prayed for two things. I asked her to ensure you survived the encounter with Maeve—to guide you and give you the strength you needed.” That strange, comforting warmth, that presence that had reassured her … the setting sun kissed her cheeks as if in confirmation, and a shiver went down her spine.

eyes. But it came true. “Dangerous, for a prince of ice and wind to pray to the Fire-Bringer,” she managed to say. Rowan shrugged, a secret smile on his face as he wiped away the tear that escaped down her cheek. “For some reason, Mala likes me, and agreed that you and I make a formidable pair.”

she flung herself on Rowan, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him. The first member of her court—the court that would change the world. The court that would rebuild it. Together.

A white-tailed hawk still flew overhead, and it swooped low to brush its star-silvered wing against her cheek in farewell before it turned back with a sharp cry.

In the moonless light, she traced the scar on her palm, the oath to Nehemia.

She would retrieve the first Wyrdkey from Arobynn and track down the others, and then find a way to put the Wyrdkeys back in their Gate. She would free magic and destroy the king and save her people. No matter the odds, n...

She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen. She was Aelin A...