Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

And if he could comprehend those things … he could possibly teach the other mounts of the Thirteen.

“You want out of this shithole? Then you’ll let me put this saddle on you to check the fit. And when we’re done, you’re going to let me look at your tail. Those human bastards cut off your spikes, so I’m going to build some for you. Iron ones. Like mine,”

“And fangs, too,” she added, baring her iron teeth.

“Once all that is done,” she said, smiling faintly at her wyvern, “you and I are going to learn how to fly. And then we’ll stain this kingdom red.”

She had not understood what it had been like for him to live his entire life underground, chained and beaten and crippled—until then. Until she heard that noise of undiluted, unyielding joy.

Until she echoed it, tipping her head back to the clouds around them.

“Did you know that Evalin Ashryver was my friend? She spent almost a year working in this kitchen—living here with us, fighting to convince your queen that demi-Fae have a place in your realm. She fought for our rights until the very day she departed this kingdom—and the many years after, until she was murdered by those monsters across the sea. So I knew. I knew who her daughter was the moment you brought her into this kitchen. All of us who were here twenty-five years ago recognized her for what she is.”

“She has no hope, Prince. She has no hope left in her heart. Help her. If not for her sake, then at least for what she represents—what she could offer all of us, you included.” “And what is that?” he dared ask. Emrys met his gaze unflinchingly as he whispered, “A better world.”

And heard, so soft it was as if she dreamed it, a woman’s voice whispering, Why are you crying, Fireheart?

Fireheart—why do you cry? “Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”

Celaena scooped up the golden-hilted sword as she followed him. A ruby the size of a chicken egg was embedded in the hilt, and despite the age of the scabbard, the blade shone when she whipped it free, as if it had been freshly polished. Something clattered from the scabbard onto the ice—a plain golden ring. She grabbed it, shoving it into her pocket, and ran faster, as—

told her I would not help, so she orchestrated her own death. Because she thought …” She laughed—a horrible, wild sound. “She thought that her death would spur me into action. She thought I could somehow do more than her—that she was worth more dead. And she lied—about everything. She lied to me because I was a coward, and I hate her for it. I hate her for leaving me.”

Oh, Nehemia. She had done it all out of a fool’s hope, not realizing what a waste it was. She could have allied with flawless Galan Ashryver and saved the world—found a truly useful heir to the throne.

am … so sorry,” she started, but he held up a hand. “You do not apologize,” he said, “for defending the people you care about.”

“I’m keeping the sword,” she said, yanking it free of the earth. She’d be hard-pressed to find a better one anywhere in the world.

“The stones around the fortress have a spell woven between them to keep out enemies. Even magic bounces off it.”

“You know,” she said slyly, “that’s twice now you’ve made a mess of my training with your tasks. I’m fairly sure that makes you the worst instructor I’ve ever had.” He gave her a sidelong look. “I’m surprised it took you this long to call attention to it.”

“You could heal yourself, you know. Heal me, too. Nothing major, but you have that gift.”

She knew—sort of. Her magic had sometimes healed her injuries without conscious thought. “It’s—it’s the drop of water affinity I inherited from Mab’s line.” The fire had been the gift of her father’s bloodline.

the drop of water in my magic was my salvation—and sense of self-preservation.” A nod from him, and she admitted, “I wanted to learn to use it like the other healers—long ago, I mean. But never was allowed to. They said … well, it wouldn’t be all that usefu...

“When my mate died, it took me a very, very long time to come back.”

He gestured to the tattoo on his face, neck, arm. “This tells the story of how it happened. Of the shame I’ll carry until my last breath.”

Others come to you to have their own grief and shame tattooed on them.”

Wherever Maeve sent me on campaigns, I went. Along the way, I mated a female of our race. Lyria,”

Maeve disapproved, but … when you meet your mate, there is nothing you can do to alter it.

and no one could tell me otherwise. Mating her cost me Maeve’s favor, and I still yearned...

I left her alone,” he said, and again looked at Celaena. You left me, she had said to him. That was when he’d snapped—the

“When you lose a mate, you don’t …” A shake of the head. “I lost all sense of self, of time and place. I hunted them down, all the males who hurt her. I took a long while killing them. She was pregnant—had been pregnant since I’d left her. But I’d been so enamored with my own foolish agenda that I hadn’t scented it on her. I left my pregnant mate alone.”

“For ten years, I did nothing. I vanished. I went mad. Beyond mad. I felt nothing at all.

“I might have stayed that way forever, but Maeve tracked me down. She said it was enough time spent in mourning, and that I was to serve her as prince and commander—to work with a handful of other warriors to protect the realm.

“I had nothing. No one. At that point, I hoped serving her might get me killed, and then I could see Lyria again. So when I returned to Doranelle, I wrote the story of my shame on my flesh. And then I bound myself to Maeve with the blood oath, and have served her since.”

“Maybe we could find the way back together.”

He would not apologize for today, or yesterday, or for any of it. And she would not ask him to, not now that she understood that in the weeks she had been looking at him it had been like gazing at a reflection. No wonder she had loathed him.

“I would like that very much.” He held out a hand. ...

She studied the scarred, callused palm, then the tattooed face, full of a grim sort of hope. Someone who might—who did understand what it was like to be crippled at your very core, someone wh...

“Together,” she said, and took his outstretched hand. And somewhere far and deep inside her, an ember began to glow.

“I will deny her nothing.”

“They burned the antler throne, Aedion. There is no throne for her.” “Then I’ll build one myself from the bones of our enemies.”

“My only wish,” Aedion said, growling in Ren’s face, “is to see her again. Just once, if that’s all the gods will allow me. If they grant me more time than that, then I’ll thank them every damn day of my life.

Chaol beheld what truly made Aedion a threat—what made him a god to these men, and why the king tolerated his insolence, ring or no ring.

Whether it was real or not, they believed he cared about them, listened to them.

Aedion made sure that they believed he would fight and die for them. Thus they would fight and die for him.

He was afraid of what would come when Aedion and Aelin were reunited. For he’d seen in her that same glittering ember that made people look and listen.

The two of them together, both of them lethal, working to build an army, to ignite their people … He was afraid of what they would do to his kingdom.

He was working for Dorian, not Aelin—not Aedion. And he didn’t know where all of this put him.

“Quiet, all of you!” An older, gray-haired soldier stood. “I got you all beat.” He lifted his glass to the general, and pulled a scroll from his vest. Release papers. “I just spent five years at Noll.” Bull’s-eye.

Noll. It was a speck on the map at the farthest end of the Deserted Peninsula.

“The volcanoes are active, so it’s always dark, you see, because the ash covers everything. And because of the fumes, we always had headaches—sometimes men went mad from them. Sometimes we got nosebleeds from them, too.

“Noll isn’t much—just the tower and town we built around it.

rumor says the king took a legion into those volcanoes and sacked the temple.”