Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

So she had breathed in the brine and the wood, and reminded herself that she’d been trained to kill with her bare hands long before she’d ever learned to melt bones with her fire.

What a shame that the current owner of the Vaults, a former underling of Rourke Farran and a dealer of flesh and opiates, had accidentally run into her knives. Repeatedly.

She was the heir of fire. She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.

Behind them, across the hall, the dancers shattered their roses on the floor, and Aedion grinned at his queen as the entire world went to hell.

She was a whirling cloud of death, a queen of shadows, and these men were already carrion.

Rowan was the most powerful full-blooded Fae male alive. And his scent was all over her. Yet she had no gods-damned idea.

“You said you wanted to see me in this dress,” she said a bit hoarsely. “I hadn’t realized the effect would be so …” He shook his head. He took in her face, her hair, the combs. “You look like—” “A queen?” “The fire-breathing bitch-queen those bastards claim you are.”

“What if we go on,” he said, “only to more pain and despair? What if we go on, only to find a horrible end waiting for us?” Aelin looked northward, as if she could see all the way to Terrasen. “Then it is not the end.”

“You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”

Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”