Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

Something … something was cracking and aching in Manon’s chest, ...

“I stopped caring,” Asterin said at last. “About anything and everything. After that, it was all a joke, and a thrill, and nothing scared me.”

That wildness, that untamed fierceness … They weren’t born of a free heart, but of one that had known despair so complete that living brightly, living violently, was the only way to outrun it.

I would dedicate my life wholly to being your Second. To serving you. Not your grandmother. 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.”

That day Abraxos had made the Crossing, when her Thirteen had looked ready to fight their way out should her grandmother give the order to kill her …

The day you saved Petrah instead of letting her fall … You weren’t the only one who understood why your grandmother made you slaughter that Crochan.”

“If we defy them, they will come after us, and they will kill us.” “I know. We all know. That’s what we wanted to tell you the other night.”

“I am not foolish enough to pretend that I don’t have a weak spot where witchlings are concerned.”

“I don’t think it’s a weak spot,”

Asterin bowed her head. “I am sorry, Manon.” “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Most let themselves die when your grandmother cast them out.” And Manon had never been told. She had been lied to.

Hope, Elide had said—hope for a better future. For a home. Not obedience, brutality, discipline. But hope.

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

“How can I take away somebody who means the world to someone else? Even if she’s my enemy.” A little shrug. “I thought you were dying. It seemed like bad luck to let her die out of spite. And …” she snorted. “Falling into a ravine seemed like a pretty shitty way to die for someone who fights that spectacularly.”

“You make me proud to serve you.”

“I’ve never had friends who cared what happened to me, other than Sam and Wesley. Most people would have let me be taken—dismissed me as just another whore.”

“I, Clarisse DuVency, hereby declare that any debts owed to me by—” The paper began shaking. “Any debts owed to me by Lysandra and Evangeline are now paid in full. At their earliest convenience, they may receive the Mark of their freedom.”

When Manon eventually dozed off, curled against Abraxos with a blanket of stars overhead, her head felt clearer than it had in months. And yet something nagged at her, even in sleep. She knew what it was when she awoke. A loose thread in the loom of the Three-Faced Goddess.

Manon had never seen that smile. She wondered how many people had. Wondered if she herself had ever smiled that way.

Mile after mile they flew. Manon couldn’t tell why that thread kept yanking, why it felt so urgent, but she pushed them hard, all the way to Rifthold.

As a discarded bastard child growing up on the back streets of Doranelle, Lorcan had lost that ability centuries before Rowan had even been born.

He’d never pitied him for it, though. Not when Lorcan had been blessed in every other regard by Hellas himself.

Lorcan read the hesitation, the doubt. Gold gleamed in his hand. “You know me, Prince. You know I’m the only one qualified to hunt down and destroy those keys. Let your queen take on the army gathering in the south—leave this task to me.” The ring seemed to glow in the moonlight as Lorcan extended it.

A blade flashed, and then the scent of Lorcan’s blood filled the air. He clenched his fist, lifting it. “I swear on my blood and honor that I have not deceived you in any of this. The ring’s power is genuine.”

Lorcan might have been a prick, but Rowan had never seen him break an oath before. His word was his bond; it had always been the one currency he valued.

“What happened to you, Lorcan? What happened in your miserable existence to make you this way?” He’d never asked for the full story, had never cared to. It hadn’t bothered him until now. Before, he would have stood beside Lorcan and taunted the poor fool who dared defy their queen. “You’re a better male than this.”

“How mad is Lorcan going to be,” Aelin murmured as they lay down face-to-face, “when he eventually opens up that amulet, finds the Valg commander’s ring inside, and realizes we gave him a fake?”

And yet— Manon. A name. Do not think of that one—do not think of her. The demon hated that name. Manon. Enough. We do not speak of them, the descendants of our kings.

“You know that I won’t unnecessarily endanger any lives.” “I know. I trust you.” She blinked, and shame washed through him at the shock on her face.

“Regardless of what happened between us, I was a fool to serve the king. I like to think I would have left someday.”

“You would have left with me—when I was just Celaena.” “But you were never just Celaena, and I think you knew that, deep down, even before everything happened. I understand now.”

“You’re still the same person, Chaol, that you were before you broke the oath to your father.” He wasn’t sure whether or not that was an insult. He supposed he deserved it, after all he’d said and done.

“Maybe I don’t want to be that person anymore,” he said. That person—that stupidly loyal, useless person—had lost everything. His friend, the woman he loved, his position, his ho...

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About Nehemia—about everything.” It wasn’t enou...

“It’s still hard for me, to think about what happened this winter. But in the end I’m grateful you sent me to Wendlyn, and made that bargain with your father.”

When she opened her eyes, the setting sun filled them with liquid gold.

“It meant something to me. What you and I had. More than that, your friendship meant something to me. I never told you the truth about who I was because I couldn’t face that truth. I’m sorry if what I said to you on the docks that day—that I’d pick you—made you thin...

“You deserve to be happy,” he said. And meant it. She deserved the joy he so often glimpsed on her face when Rowan was near—deserved the wicked laughter she shared with Aedion, the comfort and teasing with Lysandra. She deserved happiness, perhaps more than anyone.

“I promise I’ll make it quick and painless. For Dorian.” His breathing locked up. “Thank you. But—if I ask …” He couldn’t say it. “Then the blow is yours. Just say the word.”

“We do not look back, Chaol. It helps no one and nothing to look back. We can only go on.”

There she was, that queen looking out at him, a hint of the ruler she was becoming. And it knocked the breath out of him, because it made him feel so s...

“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...

He should have enjoyed it. He should have savored every second with his friend. He’d never realized how precious the calm moments were.

Her night-dark eyes shifted toward him. “I’ve never felt as though I had a home. Either here, or in the Milas Agia.”

It was more frequently called by its other name—Antica—and was the largest city on the Southern Continent, home to a mighty empire in its own right, which claimed it had been built by the hands of gods. Also home to the Torre Cesme, the best mortal healers in the world.

You deserve to be happy, Aelin had said earlier that night. An apology and a shove out the door, he supposed. He didn’t want to waste the calm moments.

“Maybe once all this … once everything is over,” Chaol said hoarsely, “we could figure that out. Together.”

Indeed, that was silver lining her eyes, which she closed long enough to master herself. Nesryn Faliq, moved to tears. “Promise me,” she repeated, looking at their hands again, “that you will walk out of that castle tomorrow.”

He’d wondered why she’d brought him in here. The Sea God—an...

“I’ve been thinking,” Rowan started, and then forgot everything he was going to say as he bolted upright in bed. Aelin leaned against the closet doorway, clad in a nightgown of gold. Metallic gold—as he’d requested.