Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

“It is my will,” the Master read, “that the sole beneficiary of all my fortune, assets, and holdings should be my heir, Celaena Sardothien.”

“Mala blessed Brannon, and she blessed Goldryn.” She peered into the gloom. “What if there was a god of truth—a Sin-Eater? What if he blessed Gavin, and this sword?”

It says that to look upon a king—to look upon a Valg king was to gaze into …” She shook her head. “Madness? Despair? I don’t know that symbol. He could take any form, but he appeared to them now as a handsome man with golden eyes. The eyes of the Valg kings.” She scanned the next panel. “They did not know his true name, so they called him Erawan, the Dark King.”

“You’re saying that they never killed Erawan,” Chaol said.

Aelin’s mouth went dry. “Rowan,” she said quietly. “How do you say ‘Black Mountains’ in the Old Language?”

A pause, and then a loosened breath. “Morath,” Rowan said.

A young man with golden hair now stood in the room, his black stone collar gleaming in the torchlight.

His eyes shifted—turning green, turning clear. It was with a young man’s voice that he said, “Kill me. Please—please kill me. Roland—my name was Roland. Tell my—”

Nesryn’s eyes flickered as she said, “Long live the queen.”

He gripped her elbow, forcing her to stop. “We’ll face this together,” he breathed, his eyes shining bright and canines gleaming. “As we have in the past. To whatever end.”

“The ring doesn’t kill them. It grants immunity from their power. A ring forged by Mala herself. The Valg could not harm Athril when he wore it.”

“I missed you,” he said quietly, his gaze darting between her mouth

and eyes. “When I was in Wendlyn. I lied when I said I didn’t. From the moment you left, I missed you so much I went out of my mind. I was glad for the excuse to track Lorcan here, just to see you again. And tonight, when he had that knife at your throat …” The warmth of his callused finger bloomed through her as he traced a path over the cut on her neck. “I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only an ocean between us. But if it was death separating us … I would find you. I don’t care how many rules it would break. Even if I had to get all three keys myself and open a gate, I would find you again. Always.”

The prince inside her did not notice when she began to nibble at him. Bit by bit, she stole morsels of the otherworldly creature that had taken her body for its skin, who did such despicable things with it.

Chaol just held Aelin’s gaze, his shoulders squaring as he said, “Never again.” She wanted to believe him.

Only thirteen wyverns were grounded in the meadow. The smallest of them was sprawled on his belly, face buried in a mound of wildflowers.

The man closest to the king didn’t bother glancing around. His sapphire eyes went right to Manon, and stayed there.

There was no one in earshot as Manon stopped a few feet away from the Crown Prince. “Hello, princeling,” she purred.

“Hello, witchling,” he said. And the words were his own.

“I think not, Prince,” she said in her midnight voice. She sniffed again, her nose crinkling slightly. “But would you bleed red, or black?” “I’ll bleed whatever color you tell me to.”

I’ll come back for you, she’d promised him. She had not thought it would be in this way.

The words soon faded, swallowed up by screaming and blood and the demon’s cold fingers running over his mind. But the eyes lingered—and that name. Manon. Manon.

Aelin had felt it before: a thread in the world, a current running between her and someone else. She’d felt it one night, years ago, and had given a young healer the money to get the hell out of this continent. She’d felt the tug—and had decided to tug back. Here it was again, that tug—toward Manon, whose arms buckled as she collapsed to the stone.

But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then.

“If I die because of you, I’ll beat the shit out of you in hell.”

The Queen of Terrasen had saved her life. Manon didn’t know what to make of it. For she now owed her enemy a life debt. And she had just learned how thoroughly her grandmother and the King of Adarlan intended to destroy them.

She stepped closer to the prince’s horse. “Dorian,” she said. A command and a challenge. Sapphire eyes snapped to hers. No trace of otherworldly darkness. Just a man trapped inside.

If Chaol and Aedion were both now with Aelin Galathynius, all working together … They hadn’t been in the forest to spy. But to save the prince. And whoever that female prisoner had been. They’d rescued one friend, at least.

UNCLEAN “She branded me. Had them heat up the iron in the same flame where my witchling burned and stamped each letter herself. She said I had no business ever trying to conceive a Blackbeak again. That most men would take one look at the word and run.”

“I never went back to the hunter. I didn’t know how to explain the brand. How to explain your grandmother, or apologize. I was afraid he’d treat me as your grandmother had. So I never went back.” Her mouth wobbled. “I’d fly overhead every few years, just … just to see.” She wiped at her face. “He never married. And even when he was an old man, I’d sometimes see him sitting on that front porch. As if he were waiting for someone.”

Because I knew your grandmother had hidden me from you for a reason. I think she knew you would have fought for me. And whatever your grandmother saw in you that made her afraid … It was worth waiting for. Worth serving. So I have.”

“Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin …,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.”

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

One sentence just for Aelin Galathynius; one sentence that changed everything: WITCH KILLER— THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM

Celaena Sardothien halted a healthy distance away and lifted her chin. “Tell His Majesty that his Champion has returned—and she’s brought him one hell of a prize.”

And then there was Lorcan, swords out and swinging, a battle cry on his lips as he tore into the remaining creatures.

A phantom pain lanced through his ribs, brutally violent and nauseating. His knees buckled. Not pain from a wound of his—but another’s.

“Dorian, we get to come back from this loss—from this darkness. We get to come back, and I came back for you.”

And on his finger, Athril’s golden ring glowed.

The commander’s hand came down. And was ripped clean off by a ghost leopard.

The soldiers in the sewer were screaming as she tore into them— a death for every day in hell, a death for the childhood taken from her and from Evangeline. She was fury, she was wrath, she was vengeance.

When Lysandra dared look, it was in time to see Nesryn Faliq draw another arrow atop the neighboring rooftop, flanked by her rebels, and fire it clean through the eye of the final guard between Lysandra and the castle.

But Dorian’s eyes were on his father, and they were burning like stars. “What did you say. About Chaol.”

“You,” the king snapped—and Aelin realized he meant her just as a spear of darkness shot for her so fast, too fast— The darkness shattered against a wall of ice.

Dorian. His name was Dorian. Dorian Havilliard, and he was the Crown Prince of Adarlan. And Celaena Sardothien—Aelin Galathynius, his friend … she had come back for him.

There were tears running down Aelin’s face as Dorian gripped the black stone encircling his throat. And, bellowing his grief, his rage, his pain, he snapped the collar from his neck.

He turned his head, an eye still on the wall of flickering flames. Such pain, and grief, and rage in those eyes. Yet, somehow, beneath it all—a spark of spirit. Of hope. Aelin extended her hand—a question and an offer and a promise. “To a better future,” she said. “You came back,” he said, as if that were an answer. They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.

The King of Adarlan bellowed as Aelin and Dorian fractured his power. Together they broke down every spell, every ounce of evil that he’d bent and shackled to his command. Infinite—Dorian’s power was infinite.

In a voice she had never heard, the king whispered, “My boy.” Dorian didn’t react. The king gazed up at his son, his eyes wide—bright—and said again, “My boy.” Then the king looked to where she was on her knees, gaping at him. “Have you come to save me at last, Aelin Galathynius?”

The king turned to Dorian, exposing his broad palms. “Everything I did—it was all to keep you safe. From him.”