Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

“I saw it in a shop when I was sixteen and bought it immediately. But when the dress was delivered a few weeks later, it seemed too … old. It overpowered the girl I was. So I never wore it, and it’s hung here for three years.”

“You’re not that girl anymore,” he said softly. “Someday, I want to see you wear this.”

She dared to look up at him, her elbow brushing his forea...

“I once told you that the people you care about are weapons to be used against you. Missing me was a foolish distraction.”

She hadn’t expected tears or emotion, but it would have been nice to know he’d missed her at least a fraction as badly as she had.

“You never bothered to tell me how handsome your faerie prince is, Aelin.” Aelin scowled. Aedion just jerked his chin at Rowan. “Tomorrow morning, you and I are going to train on the roof. I want to know everything you know.”

With a flicker of amusement in his green eyes, the Fae Prince said, “Whatever my queen wants.”

The two princes stared at each other, one gold and one silver, one her twin and one her soul-bonded. There was nothing friendly in the stares, nothing human—two Fae males locked in some unspoken dominance battle.

Rowan didn’t smile, though, as he tilted his head to the side and sniffed.

Rowan’s head was still angled as he asked, “Your mothers were cousins, Prince, but who sired you?” Aedion lounged in his chair. “Does it matter?” “Do you know?” Rowan pressed. Aedion shrugged. “She never told me—or anyone.” “I’m guessing you have some idea?” Aelin asked. Rowan said, “He doesn’t look familiar to you?” “He looks like me.” “Yes, but—” He sighed. “You met his father. A few weeks ago. Gavriel.”

Aedion had seen plenty of warriors in his day, but this male was a Warrior—law unto himself. Just like Gavriel. Or so the legends claimed. Gavriel, Rowan’s friend, one of his cadre, whose other form was a mountain lion.

Nineteen was too young, apparently, to be Gavriel’s daughter, though she looked so similar to the woman he’d once bedded. Aedion didn’t remember his mother well; his last memories were of a gaunt, gray face as she sighed her final breath. As she refused the Fae healers who could have cured the wasting sickness in her. But he had heard she’d once looked almost identical to Aelin and her mother, Evalin. Aedion’s voice was hoarse as he asked, “The Lion is my father?”

His mother had never told anyone—anyone but Evalin—who his father was. Even when she was dying, she’d kept it to herself. She’d refused those Fae healers because of it. Because they might identify him—and if Gavriel knew he had a son … If Maeve knew …

An old ache ripped through him. She’d kept him safe—had died to keep him out of Maeve’s hands.

Aelin’s eyes—their eyes, the eyes of their mothers—were soft. Open. “This changes nothing,” she said. “About who you are, what you mean to me. Nothing.” But it did. It changed everything. Explained everything: the strength, the speed, the senses; the lethal, predatory instincts he’d always struggled to keep in check. Why Rhoe had been so hard on him during his training. Because if Evalin knew who his father was, then Rhoe certainly did, too. And Fae males, even half-Fae males, were deadly. Without the control Rhoe and his lords had drilled into him from an early age, without the focus … They’d known. And kept it from him.

Along with the fact that after he swore the blood oath to Aelin one day … he might very well remain young while she grew old and died.

“What does this mean where Maeve is concerned? Gavriel is bound through the blood oath, so would she have a claim on his offspring?”

If Maeve tried to claim him, he’d rip out her throat. His mother had died for fear of the Fae Queen.

I don’t need to start a war with Maeve.” But she would. She would go to war for him. He saw it in her eyes.

if the Dark Queen and the heir of Mala Fire-Bringer collided.

Slowly, Aedion lifted his gaze to meet the prince’s. The sheer dominance in that stare was like being hit in the face with a stone. Aedion held it. Like hell he’d back down; like hell he’d yield. And there would be a yielding—somewhere, at some point. Probably when Aedion took that blood oath.

“Stop doing that alpha-male nonsense. Once was enough.” Rowan didn’t so much as blink. “I’m not doing anything.” But the prince’s mouth quirked into a smile, as if saying to Aedion, You think you can take me, cub? Aedion grinned. Any place, any time, Prince.

Rowan said, “I’m blood-sworn to you—which means several things, one of which being that I don’t particularly care for the questioning of others, even your cousin.” The words echoed in his head, his heart. Blood-sworn. Aelin went pale.

Rowan had taken the blood oath to Aelin. His blood oath. Aelin squared her shoulders, and said clearly, steadily, “Rowan took the blood oath to me before I left Wendlyn.”

“You let him take the blood oath to you?” Aedion bellowed. She had lied to his face that day on the roof.

“How dare you? How dare you let him take it?” “I dare because it is my blood to give away; I dare because you did not exist for me then. Even if neither of you had taken it yet, I would still give it to him because he is my carranam, and he has earned my unquestioning loyalty!”

That easily, she leashed the mighty, immortal warrior.

All his plans, everything he’d worked for … Without the blood oath he was just a general; just a landless prince of the Ashryver line.

Even without her magic, Aelin was a living wildfire, more so now with the red hair—a creature of such roaring emotions that he could sometimes only watch her and marvel. And her face. That gods-damned face.

While they’d been in Wendlyn, it had taken him a while to realize she was beautiful. Months, actually, to really notice it. And for these past few weeks, against his better judgment, he’d thought often about that face—especially that smart-ass mouth. But he hadn’t remembered just how stunning she was until she’d taken off her hood earlier, and it had struck him stupid.

The nightmares had started the very night she’d left—such relentless dreams that he’d nearly vomited when he flung himself out of them, Lyria’s screaming ringing in his ears. The memory of it sent cold licking down his spine. But even that was burned away by the queen before him.

Rowan waited, knowing she was gathering the words, hating the pain and sorrow and guilt on every line of her body. He’d sell his soul to the dark god to never have her look like that again.

“You will make mistakes. You will make decisions, and sometimes you will regret those choices. Sometimes there won’t be a right choice, just the best of several bad options. I don’t need to tell you that you can do this—you know you can. I wouldn’t have sworn the oath to you if I didn’t think you could.”

her scent caressing him. Jasmine, and lemon verbena, and crackling embers. Elegant, feminine, and utterly wild. Warm, and steadfast—unbreakable, his queen.

“Lorcan’s here.”

Lorcan was wicked and cunning enough to use their bond against them. “I caught his scent sneaking around near Mistward and tracked it to the coast, then onto a ship. I picked up his trail when I docked this evening.”

Over five centuries old, Lorcan was the strongest male in the Fae realm, equal only to Rowan himself.

“Maeve probably thinks we’ll also lead him right to the third Wyrdkey.

“He’s that good.”

“Could you take him?” “It’d be so destructive, I wouldn’t risk it. You remember what I told you about Sollemere.” Her face tightened at the mention of the city he and Lorcan had obliterated at Maeve’s request nearly two centuries ago.

Lorcan, with his unending cold rage and a talent for killing gifted to him by Hellas himself, never allowed himself to lose. Battles, riches, females—Lorcan always won, at any cost.

“Gavriel …” He’d seen the warrior with lovers over the centuries, and seen him leave them at Maeve’s order. He’d also seen him ink the names of his fallen men onto his flesh. And of all his cadre, only Gavriel had stopped that night to help Aelin against the Valg.

There were so many lines that needed to be held. She was off-limits—completely off-limits, for about a dozen different reasons. He’d thought he would be able to deal with it, but— No, he would deal with it. He’d find a way to deal with it, because he wasn’t a fool, and he had some gods-damned self-control.

“He said what occurred here—to my friends, to him and Dorian, while I was away in Wendlyn—that it was my fault. And that I was a monster.”

“Do you think—” “Never,” he said. “Never, Aelin.” At last she met his stare, with eyes that were too old, too sad and tired to be nineteen. It had been a mistake to ever call her a girl—and there were indeed moments when Rowan forgot how young she truly was. The woman before him shouldered burdens that would break the spine of someone three times her age. “If you’re a monster, I’m a monster,” he said with a grin broad enough to show off his elongated canines.

She lifted her brows in a way that usually meant fire was going to start flickering—but none came. Both of them were trapped in their bodies, stranded without magic. He’d adapt; he’d endure.

“And what message does it send? That I’m a whore? As if what I do in the privacy of my own room, with my body, is anyone’s concern.”

She’d thank the gods every damn day for the small mercy of giving her a friend who was her match, her equal, and who would never look at her with horror in his eyes. No matter what happened, she’d always be grateful for that.

Improper. Improper indeed. He didn’t know how improper she could be. She opened the top drawer of the oak dresser. And slowly smiled.

She kept going toward the bathroom, refusing to apologize or look down at the pink, delicate, very short lace nightgown. When she emerged, face washed and clean, Rowan was sitting up, arms crossed over his bare chest. “You forgot the bottom part.”