Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

“Everybody is something. Even the most common witch has her coven. But who has your back, Elide Lochan?” “No one.” Only Anneith, and Elide sometimes thought even that could be her imagination.

“There is no such thing as a witch being alone.”

They had gotten their noses broken by suggesting to a Blackbeak coven that it was their divine duty not just to go through with the implantation but also to go so far as to physically mate with the Valg.

“And yet you tolerate a wyvern who sniffs flowers and makes puppy eyes at this girl.”

“Only slaughtering men like pigs, correct?” “Their deaths equate to their behavior in life,” Manon replied with a kind of calm that made Elide wonder whether she should start running.

“This date is always difficult for the Lochan family,” Vernon said. “Cal Lochan, my brother, was a traitor, you know. A rebel leader for the few months after Terrasen was inherited by the king. But he was caught like the rest of them and put down. Difficult for us to curse his name and still miss him, isn’t it, Elide?”

How had she forgotten? She hadn’t said the prayers, hadn’t beseeched the gods to look after him. Her father’s death-day, and she had forgotten him, as surely as the world had forgotten her.

“Does your blood run blue or red? You decide. If it runs blue, it turns out I have jurisdiction over you. Little shits like Vernon can’t do as they will to my kind—not without my permission. If your blood runs red …

“Blue,” she whispered. “My blood runs blue.”

“Good choice, witchling,” Manon said, and the word was a challenge and an order. She turned away, but glanced over her shoulder. “Welcome to the Blackbeaks.”

it was strange. Strange, that feeling of belonging.

“Prince Rowan,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You keep needling me for details about Prince Rowan—” “You befriended one of the greatest warriors in history—perhaps the greatest warrior alive. Your father, and his men, all told me stories about Prince Rowan.”

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

“The six of them …” Aedion loosed a breath. “We used to tell stories about them around fires. Their battles and exploits and adventures.” She sighed through her nose. “Please, please don’t ever tell him that. I’ll never hear the end of it, and he’ll use it in every argument we have.”

Aedion didn’t know what he would say to the male—because there were many, many things to say. Expressing his admiration would be the easy part. But when it came to thanking him for what he’d done for Aelin this spring, or what, exactly, Rowan expected as a member of their court—if the Fae Prince expected to be offered the blood oath, then … It was an effort to keep from tightening his grip on Aelin.

since Brannon had founded Terrasen, its kings and queens had picked only one of their court to swear the blood oath, usually at their coronation or soon after. Just one, for their entire lives.

“And then,” he said, clearing his throat, “there’s the blood oath.” He’d had endless hours in bed to compile this list. She stiffened enough that Aedion quickly added, “You don’t have to—not yet. But when you’re ready, I’m ready.” “You still want to swear it to me?” Her voice was flat.

“It was my right then—and now. It can wait until we get to Terrasen, but it’s going to be me who takes it. No one else.”

“Need I remind you, Captain, that you went to Endovier and did not blink at the slaves, at the mass graves? Need I remind you that I was starved and chained, and you let Duke Perrington force me to the ground at Dorian’s feet while you did nothing? And now you have the nerve to accuse me of not caring, when many of the people in this city have profited off the blood and misery of the very people you ignored?”

“Or maybe this city should burn,” she murmured. A chill went down Aedion’s spine, even though he knew she’d said it to piss off the captain. “Maybe the world should burn,” she added, and stalked off the roof.

Lying to Aedion about the blood oath was … awful. She would tell him—she would find a way to tell him. When things were less new. When he stopped looking at her as though she were a gods-damned miracle and not a lying, cowardly piece of shit.

But it wasn’t the man kneeling before the pool, its waters fed by rivers snaking in from either direction, that made her breath catch and panic flood her veins. It was the creature that emerged from the water.

he held the sword in his hands as he knelt. “This belongs to you,” he said hoarsely. Her swallow was loud in her ears. She folded Aedion’s hands around the scabbard, even as her heart fractured at the sight of her father’s blade, at what he had done to attain it, to save it. “It belongs to you, Aedion.”

“It belongs to you,” she said again. “There is no one else who deserves it.” Not even her, she realized.

Aedion palmed his fighting knives as the male’s scent hit him—unwashed, but with a hint of pine and snow. And then he smelled Aelin on the stranger, the scent complex and layered, woven into the male himself.

The male emerged from the fog; tall—maybe taller than Aedion himself, if only by an inch—powerfully built, and heavily armed both above and beneath his pale gray surcoat and hood.

And then she was sprinting down the alley, flying as though the winds themselves pushed at her heels.

“Who is that?” Nesryn asked. Aedion smiled. “Rowan.”

She was shaking from head to toe, and couldn’t stop crying, not as the full weight of missing Rowan crashed into her, the weight of these weeks alone.

Everything—she wanted to tell him everything.

She gripped him harder, savoring the corded muscle of his forearms, the eternal strength of him. He brushed back a loose strand of her hair, his callused fingers scraping against her cheek in the lightest caress. The gentleness of it made her choke on another sob. “But you’re not hurt,” he said softly. “You’re safe?”

It would all be fine, even if it went to hell, so long as he was here with her. “I’m crying,” she sniffled, “because you smell so rutting bad my eyes are watering.”

Part of Aelin debated calling her back—the same part that had made her invite Nesryn along. The woman had seemed lonely, a bit adrift.

“Take off your hood,” he said with a soft growl, his eyes fixed on her mouth. She crossed her arms. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine, Prince.”

“Your hair! You cut it all off!” She pulled off her own hood as she crossed the distance between them. Indeed, the long silver-white hair was now cropped short. It made him look younger, made his tattoo stand out more, and … fine, it made him more handsome, too. Or maybe that was just her missing him.

“Hush. Your hair was so pretty. I was hoping you’d let me braid it one day. I suppose I’ll have to buy a pony instead.” She cocked her head. “When you shift, will your hawk form be plucked, then?”

“You weren’t lying about your taste for luxury.” “Not all of us enjoy living in warrior-squalor,” she said, grabbing his hand again. She remembered these calluses, the strength and size of his hands. His fingers closed around hers.

Though it was a face she’d memorized, a face that had haunted her dreams these past few weeks … it was new, somehow. And he just looked at her, as if he were thinking the same thing.

She mutely handed him her favorite lavender-scented soap, which he sniffed at, sighed in resignation, and then began using.

“Rose, lemon verbena, or …” She sniffed the glass bottle. “Jasmine.”

He was staring up at her, his green eyes full of the words he knew he didn’t have to say. Do I look like I care what you pick? She clicked her tongue. “Jasmine it is, you buzzard.”

The sweet, night-filled scent of jasmine floated up, caressing and kissing her. Even Rowan breathed it in as she scrubbed the tonic into his scalp.

“I could still probably braid this,” she mused. “Very teensy-tiny braids, so—” He growled, but leaned back against the tub, his eyes closed. “You’re no better than a house cat,” she said, massaging his head. He let out a low noise in his throat that might very well have been a purr.

Washing his hair was intimate—a privilege she doubted he’d ever allowed many people; something she’d never done for anyone else. But lines had always been blurred for them, and neither of them had particularly cared. He’d seen every bare inch of her several times, and she’d seen most of him. They’d shared a bed for months. On top of that, they were carranam. He’d let her inside his power, past his inner barriers, to where half a thought from h...

She poked him in the shoulder. It was like touching velvet-wrapped steel.

She rolled her eyes and released the towel, turning as he stood in a mighty movement, water sloshing everywhere. It was an effort not to peek over her shoulder. Don’t you even dare, a voice hissed in her head.

For a moment, she stared at Sam’s old clothes, breathing in the faint smell of him clinging to the fabric. She hadn’t mustered the strength to go to his grave yet, but—

Aelin tried not to look too jolted by the sight of him with the towel wrapped around his hips, at the tan and muscled body that gleamed with the oils of the bath, at the scars crisscrossing it like the stripes of a great cat. Even Common Sense was at a loss for words.

“I’ll get you proper clothes tomorrow. I’m pretty sure you’ll start a riot if the women of Rifthold see you walking down the streets in nothing but a towel.”

“Clothes are weapons, too,” he said, pausing on a black velvet gown. Its tight sleeves and front were unadorned, the neckline skimming just beneath the collarbones, unremarkable save for the tendrils of embroidered, shimmering gold creeping over the shoulders. Rowan angled the dress to look at the back—the true masterpiece. The gold embroidery continued from the shoulders, sweeping to form a serpentine dragon, its maw roaring toward the neck, the body curving down until the narrow tail formed the border of the lengthened train. Rowan loosed a breath. “I like this one best.”