Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

She was the heir of fire. She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.

“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.”

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

“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 the way to Terrasen. “Then it is not the end.”

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

Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”

“You make me want to live, too, Aelin Galathynius,” he said. “Not exist—but live.” He cupped her cheek, and took a steadying breath—as if he’d thought about every word these past three days, over and over again. “I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping—not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think … I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you.”

“Says who? We are the masters of our own fates—we decide how to go forward.”

And at long last, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was home.