Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

“And,” Rowan added, “if you ever speak to her again the way you did last night, I’ll rip out your tongue and shove it down your throat. Understand?”

“He’s been tracking which people disappear and which get sent south in the prison wagons. He’s looking into all his clients’ lineages now, no matter how the families tried to conceal their histories after magic was banned, to see if he can use anything to his advantage. It’s something to consider when dealing with him … given your talents.”

Lysandra’s smile was a thing of savage, dark beauty.

“I’ve never seen an orchestra—or a theater like this, crafted around sound and luxury. Even in Doranelle, the theaters and amphitheaters are ancient, with benches or just steps.” “There’s no place like this anywhere, perhaps. Even in Terrasen.” “Then you’ll have to build one.”

“Perhaps not right away, but if you believe one would benefit the city, the country, then do it. Artists are essential.”

“Perhaps the music does live on, in some form.”

“I wish you could have heard it—I wish you had been there to hear Pytor conduct the Stygian Suite. Sometimes, I feel like I’m still sitting down in that box, thirteen years old and weeping from the sheer glory of it.”

“The final movement—every damn time. I would go back to the Keep and have the music in my mind for days, even as I trained or killed or slept. It was a kind of madness, loving that music. It was why I started playing the pianoforte—so I could come home at night and make my poor attempt at replicating it.”

now, amid the gloom of the dead theater, lit with the single candle Rowan had found, it felt like standing in a tomb.

“I haven’t played since before Nehemia died,” she admitted, the words too heavy. “We can come back another day, if you want.” A gentle, steady offer. His silver hair glimmered in the dim candlelight. “There might not be another day. And—and I would consider my life very sad indeed if I never played again.”

It was not the sorrowful, lovely piece she had once played for Dorian, and it was not the light, dancing melodies she’d played for sport; it was not the complex and clever pieces she had played for Nehemia and Chaol. This piece was a celebration—a reaffirmation of life, of glory, of the pain and beauty in breathing.

Perhaps that was why she’d gone to hear it performed every year, after so much killing and torture and punishment: as a reminder of what she was, of what she struggled to keep.

Up and up it built, the sound breaking from the pianoforte like the heart-song of a god, until Rowan drifted over to stand beside the instrument, until she whispered to him, “Now,” and the crescendo...

The music crashed around them, roaring through the emptiness of the theater. The hollow silence that had been inside her for so m...

She brought the piece home to its final explosive, triumphant chord. When she looked up, panting slightly, Rowan’s eyes were lined with silver, his throat bobbing. Somehow, after all this tim...

“Show me—show me how you did that.” So sh...

She stopped at the Royal Bank, warning Rowan to wait in the shadows across the street as she again sat in the Master’s office while one of his underlings rushed in and out on her business.

like your fangs,” she said sweetly. Aelin choked on her grape. Of course Lysandra did. Rowan gave a little grin that usually sent Aelin running. “Are you studying them so you can replicate them when you take my form, shape-shifter?”

Shape-shifter. Holy gods. What was fire magic, or wind and ice, compared to shape-shifting? Shifters: spies and thieves and assassins able to demand any price for their services; the bane of courts across the world, so feared that they’d been hunted nearly to extinction even before Adarlan had banned magic.

“Perhaps I’m just studying you to know where to sink my fangs if I ever get my gifts back.” Rowan laughed.

You and I are nothing but beasts wearing human skins.

“No one knows this. Not even Arobynn.” Her face was hard. A challenge and a question lay in those eyes. Secrets—Nehemia had kept secrets from her, too. Aelin didn’t say anything.

“I met a few shifters, centuries ago. Your scents are the same.” Lysandra sniffed at herself, but Aedion murmured, “So that’s what it is.”

A moment to sort out one friend from another—the friend she had loved and who had lied to her at every chance, and the friend she had hated and who she had kept secrets from herself … hated, until love and hate had met in the middle, fused by loss.

“Young—five or six. I knew even then to hide it from everyone. It wasn’t my mother, so my father must have had the gift. She never mentioned him. Or seemed to miss him.” Gift—interesting choice of words.

I was seven when she beat me, then threw me out of the house. Because we lived here—in this city—and that morning, for the first time, I’d made the mistake of shifting in her presence. I don’t remember why, but I remember being startled enough that I changed into a hissing tabby right in front of her.”

“So you’re a full-powered shifter,” Rowan said. “I’d known what I was for a long time. From even before that moment, I knew that I could change into any creature. But magic was outlawed here. And everyone, in every kingdom, was distrustful of shape-shifters. How could they not be?” A low laugh. “After she kicked me out, I was left on the streets. We were poor enough that it was hardly different, but—I spent the first two days crying on the doorstep. She threatened to turn me in to the authorities, so I ran, and I never saw her again. I even went back to the house months later, but she was gone—moved away.”

Lysandra hadn’t lied to her. Nehemia had lied outright, kept things that were vital. What Lysandra was … They were even: after all, she hadn’t told Lysandra she was queen.

“I used my abilities. Sometimes I was human; sometimes I wore the skins of other street children with high standing in their packs; sometimes I became an alley cat or a rat or a gull. And then I learned that if I made myself prettier—if I made myself beautiful—when I begged for money, it came far faster. I was wearing one of those beautiful faces the day magic fell. And I’ve been stuck in it ever since.”

“So this face,” Aelin said, “isn’t your real face? Your real body?” “No. And what kills me is that I can’t remember what my real face was. That was the danger of shifting—that you would forget your real form, because it’s the memory of it that guides the shifting. I remember being plain as a dormouse, but … I don’t remember if my eyes were blue or gray or green; I can’t remember the shape of my nose or my chin. And it was a child’s body, too. I don’t know what I would look like now, as a woman.”

“If magic is free again—would you be wary of a shape-shifter?” So carefully phrased, so casually asked, as if it weren’t the most important question of all.

“I’d be jealous of a shape-shifter. Shifting into any form I please would come in rather handy.” She considered it. “A shape-shifter would make a powerful ally. And an even more entertaining friend.”

Aedion mused, “It would make a difference on a battlefield, o...

“Did you have a favorite form?” Lysandra’s grin was nothing short of wicked. “I liked anything wi...

“The stone skin seems like armor, but inside it’s just flesh.” He sniffed at it, and snarled in disgust.

“So, Lorcan can bring down a Wyrdhound.” Rowan snorted at the name she’d coined. “And once it’s down, it seems like it stays down. Good to know.” Rowan eyed her warily. “This trap wasn’t just to send Lorcan a message, was it?”

“These things are the king’s puppets,” she said, “so his Grand Imperial Majesty now has a read on Lorcan’s face and smell, and I suspect he will not be very pleased to have a Fae warrior in his city. Why, I’d bet that Lorcan is currently being pursued by the seven other Wyrdhounds, who no doubt have a score to settle on behalf of their king and their fallen brother.”

I’m going to use their beloved sewer entrance to get into the castle—and blow up the clock tower right from under them.”

“That’s how you’re going to free magic. Once Lorcan kills the last of the Wyrdhounds, you’re going in.” “He really should have killed me, considering the world of trouble that’s now hunting him through this city.” Rowan bared his teeth in a feral smile. “He had it coming.”

“You smell like ash.”

Dust and metal and smoke and sweat tickled his nose, and there were streaks of dirt and ash on the black cloth. Only a few daggers lay scattered nearby—no sign of Goldryn or Damaris having been moved from where he’d dumped them on the closet floor last night. No whiff of Lorcan, or the Valg. No scent of blood.

Aelin figured Sam would have preferred to see her in something bright and lovely anyway. So she wore a tunic the color of spring grass, its sleeves capped with dusty golden velvet cuffs. Life, she thought as she strode through the small, pretty graveyard overlooking the Avery. The clothes Sam would have wanted her to wear reminded her of life.

She had planned to come alone. But this morning she’d awoken and just … needed him with her.

She picked up pebbles along the way, discarding the misshapen and rough ones, keeping those that gleamed with bits of quartz or color.

It was a lovely grave—simple, clean—and on the stone was written: SAM CORTLAND BELOVED

Wesley had explained in his letter how he’d asked the tombstone carver to come. She approached the grave, reading it over and over.

Beloved—not just by her, but by many....

She opened her fist of pebbles and picked out the three loveliest—two for the years since he’d been taken from her, one for what they’d been together.

“Hello, Sam,” she breathed onto the river breeze.

She began talking, quietly and succinctly, telling Sam about what had happened to her ten years ago, telling him about these past nine months. When she was done, she stared up at the oak leaves rustling overhead and dragged her fingers through the soft grass.