Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

“You are Abraxos,” Manon said to him, a chill slithering down her neck. “I gave you that name because he is the Great Beast, the serpent who wrapped the world in his coils, and who will devour it at the very end when the Three-Faced Goddess bids him to. You are Abraxos,” she repeated, “and you are mine.”

“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 could have sworn he was smiling.

Her mother had called her Fireheart. But to her court, to her people, she would one day be Queen. To them, she was the heir to two mighty bloodlines, and to a tremendous power that would keep them safe and raise their kingdom to even greater heights. A power that was a gift—or a weapon. That had been the near-constant debate for the first eight years of her life. As she grew older and it became apparent that while she’d inherited most of her mother’s looks, she’d received her father’s volatile temper and wildness, the wary questions became more frequent, asked by rulers in kingdoms far from their own. And on days like this, she knew that everyone would hear of the event, for better or worse. She was supposed to be asleep, and was wearing her favorite silk nightgown, her parents having tucked her in minutes ago. Though they had told her they weren’t, she knew they were exhausted, and frustrated. She’d seen the way the court was acting, and how her uncle had put a gentle hand on her father’s shoulder and told him to take her up to bed. But she couldn’t sleep, not when her door was cracked open, and she could hear her parents from their bedroom in the suite they shared in the upper levels of the white castle. They thought they were speaking quietly, but it was with an immortal’s ears that she listened in the near-dark. “I don’t know what you expect me to do, Evalin,” her father said. She could almost hear him prowling before the giant bed on which she had been born. “What’s d...

“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.”

“Hurry,” Rowan barked, and Celaena lifted her head long enough to see him slide the blade he’d found across the ice, a brisk wind spinning it toward her. Luca abandoned the blanket, shuffle-running, and 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—

Aedion said, “When your men have died around you, when you have seen your women unforgivably hurt, when you have watched droves of orphaned children starve to death in the streets of your city, then you can talk to me about sparing innocent lives. Until then, the fact remains, Captain, that you have not picked a side because you are still a boy, and you are still afraid. Not of losing innocent lives, but of losing whatever dream it is you’re clinging to. Your prince has moved on, my queen has moved on. But you have not. And it will cost you in the end.”

Aelin Fireheart, people had whispered as she bounded past, embers streaming from her like ribbons, Aedion and a few of her more lethal court members trailing as indulgent guards. Aelin of the Wildfire.

The Wyrdmarks were—were a way of harnessing those threads, of weaving and binding the essence of things. Magic could do the same, and from her power, from her imagination and will and core, she could create and shape.

Death would be a mercy, a cold, black haven.

Hell—this was what the dark god’s underworld felt like. This was what awaited her when she took her last breath.

Ice and fire. Frost and embers. Locked in a battle, pushing and pulling. Beneath it, she could almost taste Rowan’s steel will slamming against her magic—a will that refused to let the fire burn her into nothing.

In the flickering dark, he said roughly, “You’re staying with me from now on.” She found him lying as far away from her as he could get without falling off the mattress. “The bed is for tonight. Tomorrow, you’ll get a cot. You’ll clean up after yourself or you’ll be back in that room.”

“Immortality is not as much of a gift as mortals would believe. It can breed monsters that even you would be sick to learn about. Imagine the sadists you’ve encountered—and then imagine them with millennia to hone their craft and warped desires.”

“There are thousands of slaves in Endovier, and a good number are from Terrasen. Regardless of what I do with my birthright, I’m going to find a way to free them someday. I will free them. Them, and all the slaves in Calaculla, too. So my scars serve as a reminder of that.”

“You are one of the Thirteen,” she said to him. “From now until the Darkness cleaves us apart. You are mine, and I am yours. Let’s show them why.”

Wards—like the stones around the fortress, but different. They wear iron everywhere they can, in their weapons, in their armor. They know their enemy well. We might be good, but we can’t take them on alone and walk out of those caves alive.”

The face was young and male—unearthly perfection. Around his neck, a torque of dark stone—Wyrdstone, she vaguely recalled—gleamed in the rain. This was the god of death incarnate. It was not with any mortal man’s expression or voice that he smiled and said, “You.” She couldn’t look away. There were screams in the darkness—screams she had drowned out for so many years. But now they beckoned. His smile widened, revealing too-white teeth, and he reached a hand for her throat. So gentle, those icy fingers, as his thumb brushed her neck, as he tilted her face up to better stare into her eyes. “Your agony tasted like wine,” he murmured, peering into the core of her. Wind was tearing at her face, her arms, her stomach, roaring her name. But there was eternity and calm in his eyes, a promise of such sweet darkness, and she could not look away. It would be a blessed relief to let go. She need only surrender to the dark, just as he asked. Take it, she wanted to say, tried to say. Take everything. A flash of silver and steel pierced the inky veil, and another creature—a monster made of fangs and rage and wind—was there, ripping her away. She clawed at him, but he was ice—he was … Rowan. Rowan was hauling her away, shouting her name, but she couldn’t reach him, couldn’t stop that pull toward the other creature.

“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”

Oh gods. “You are the Valg,” she breathed. The three things inside those mortal bodies smiled. “We are princes of our realm.” “And what realm is that?” She poured her magic into the shield behind her. The Valg prince in the center seemed to reach toward her without moving an inch. She sent a punch of flame at him, and he curled back. “A realm of eternal dark and ice and wind,” he said. “And we have been waiting a very, very long time to taste your sunshine again.”

“Yes,” the leader said, taking a step toward her and sniffing. “You should fear us. And embrace us.” “Embrace this,” she snarled, and flung a hidden dagger from her vambrace at his head. He was so swift that it scraped his cheek rather than wedging itself between its eyes. Black blood welled and flowed; he raised a moon-white hand to examine it. “I shall enjoy devouring you from the inside out,” he said, and the darkness lunged for her again.

The Amulet of Orynth. The heirloom honored above all others of their house. Its round disk was the size of her palm, and on its cerulean front, a white stag had been carved of horn—horn gifted from the Lord of the Forest. Between his curling antlers was a burning crown of gold, the immortal star that watched over them and pointed the way home to Terrasen. She knew every inch of the amulet, had run her fingers over it countless times and memorized the shape of the symbols etched into the back—words in a strange language that no one could remember. “Father gave this to you when you were in Wendlyn. To protect you.” The smile remained. “And before that, his uncle gave it to him when he came of age. It is a gift meant to be given to people in our family—to those who need its guidance.” She was too stunned to object as her mother slipped the chain over her head and arranged the amulet down her front. It hung almost to her navel, a warm, heavy weight. “Never take it off. Never lose it.” Her mother kissed her brow. “Wear it, and know that you are loved, Fireheart—that you are safe, and it is the strength of this”—she placed a hand on her heart—“that matters. Wherever you go, Aelin,” she whispered, “no matter how far, this will lead you home.”

A sacrifice—it had been a sacrifice, and now it would be in vain. More than death, that was what she hated most—the wasted sacrifice of Lady Marion. She clawed at the ground and yanked at the roots, and then—

One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire. And then there was Lady Marion, smiling beside her husband. “Get up,” she whispered, her voice full of that hope for the world, and for the daughter she would never see again. A tremor in the darkness. Aelin still lay before her, hand still reaching. The Valg princes turned. As the demon princes moved, her mother stepped toward her, face and hair and build so like her own. “You are a disappointment,” she hissed. Her father crossed his muscular arms. “You are everything I hated about the world.” Her uncle, still wearing the antler crown long since burned to ash: “Better that you had died with us than shame us, degrade our memory, betray our people.” Their voices swirled together. “Traitor. Murderer. Liar. Thief. Coward.” Again and again, worming in just as the King of Adarlan’s power had wriggled in her mind like a maggot. The king hadn’t done it merely to cause a disruption and hurt her. He had also done it to separate her family, to get them out of the castle—to take the blame away from Adarlan and make it look like an outside attack. She had blamed herself for dragging them to the manor house to be butchered. But the king had planned it all, every minute detail. Except for the mistake of leaving her alive—perhaps because the power of the amulet did indeed save her. “Come with us,” her family whispered. “Come with us into the ageless dark.” The...

She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness. She was not afraid. She would remake the world—remake it for them, those she had loved with this glorious, burning heart; a world so brilliant and prosperous that when she saw them again in the Afterworld, she would not be ashamed. She would build it for her people, who had survived this long, and whom she would not abandon. She would make for them a kingdom such as there had never been, even if it took until her last breath. She was their queen, and she could offer them nothing less.

And there, beyond the stones, standing between two of those creatures, was Aelin, a strange mark glowing on her brow. Her hair flowed around her, shorter now and bright like her fire. And her eyes—though they were red-rimmed, the gold in her eyes was a living flame.

The wall of black swelled, one final hammer blow to squash her, but she stood fast, a golden light in the darkness. That was all Rowan needed to see before he knew what he had to do. Wind and ice were of no use here, but there were other ways. Rowan drew his dagger and sliced his palm open as he sprinted through the gate-stones.

“I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”

Because hers was not a story of darkness. So she was not afraid of that crushing black, not with the warrior holding her, not with the courage that having one true friend offered—a friend who made living not so awful after all, not if she were with him.

The light became unbearable as she willed it into the two Valg who had now dropped to their knees, pouring it into every shadowy corner of them. And she could have sworn that the blackness in Narrok’s eyes faded. Could have sworn that his eyes became a mortal brown, and that gratitude flickered just for a moment. Just for a moment; then she burned both demon and Narrok to ash. The remaining Valg prince crawled only two steps before he followed suit, a silent scream on his perfect face as he was incinerated. When the light and flames receded, all that remained of Narrok and the Valg were four Wyrdstone collars steaming in the wet grass.

Dorian’s skin was pasty and gleamed with sweat. “This is how he did it, isn’t it?” Chaol nodded. “Ten years ago, with those three towers. They were all built years before so that this could happen precisely when his invading forces were ready, so no one could strike back. Your father’s spell must be far more complex, to have frozen magic entirely, but on a basic level, this is probably similar to what occurred.”

She knew where it was—the third and final Wyrdkey. It had been around her neck the night she fell into the river.

Arobynn Hamel had taken it from her and kept it all these years, a prize whose power he had never guessed the depth of. She had to get it back. She had to get it away from him and make sure that no one knew what lay inside. And if she had it … She didn’t let herself think that far.

“Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom … very much.”

A woman—a woman was smiling back at her, beautiful for every scar and imperfection and mark of survival, beautiful for the fact that the smile was real, and she felt it kindle the long-slumbering joy in her heart.

“Your mother would be proud,” Emrys said. Celaena put a hand on her heart and bowed in thanks.

It was a message to the world. Aelin was a warrior, able to fight with blade or magic. And she was done with hiding.

She was as much a queen as Maeve. She was the sovereign of a strong people and a mighty kingdom. She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one.

She knew the gold in her eyes had shifted to flame, because when she looked to Maeve, the queen’s face had gone bone-white. And then Celaena set the world on fire.

“Try me. Just try to push me, Aunt, and see what comes of it. This was what you wanted, wasn’t it? Not for me to master my magic, but for you to learn just how powerful I am. Not how much of your sister’s blood flows in my veins—no, you’ve known from the start that I have very little of Mab’s power. You wanted to know how much I got from Brannon.”

“Behold my power, Maeve. Behold what I grapple with in the deep dark, what prowls under my skin.”

Celaena shook her head. “I don’t think so. Brannon left it in that cave for anyone but you to find. And so it is mine, through blood and fire and darkness.” She sheathed Goldryn at her side. “Not very pleasant when someone doesn’t give you what you want, is it?”

I claim you, Aelin. To whatever end.

“Together, Fireheart,” he said, pushing back the sleeve of her tunic. “We’ll find a way together.” He looked up from her exposed wrist. “A court that will change the world,” he promised. And then she was nodding—nodding and smiling, too, as he drew the dagger from his boot and offered it to her. “Say it, Aelin.” Not daring to let her hands shake in front of Maeve or Rowan’s stunned friends, she took his dagger and held it over her exposed wrist. “Do you promise to serve in my court, Rowan Whitethorn, from now until the day you die?” She did not know the right words or the Old Language, but a blood oath wasn’t about pretty phrases. “I do. Until my last breath, and the world beyond. To whatever end.”

No longer would they be locked away in her heart. No longer would she be ashamed.

The Blackbeaks won the War Games, and Manon was crowned Wing Leader in front of all those frilly, sweating men from Adarlan.

But Chaol went on. “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.”

No, to save his friend, dying did not scare him one bit.

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, no matter how long it took, no matter how far she had to go.

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 Ashryver Galathynius—and she would not be afraid.