Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

“I can, and I will. Queen of the Assassins sounds so nice, doesn’t it?”

“You can’t just toss us out. What will we do? Where will we go?” “I hear hell is particularly nice at this time of year.”

“I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only an ocean between us. But if it was death separating us … I would find you. I don’t care how many rules it would break. Even if I had to get all three keys myself and open a gate, I would find you again. Always.”

She’d forgotten the name she’d been given, but it made no difference. She had only one name now: Death, devourer of worlds.

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

There, branded on Asterin’s abdomen in vicious, crude letters was one word: UNCLEAN “She branded me. Had them heat up the iron in the same flame where my witchling burned and stamped each letter herself. She said I had no business ever trying to conceive a Blackbeak again.

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

“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.”

“Tell me that we’ll get through tomorrow. Tell me that we’ll survive the war. Tell me—” She swallowed hard. “Tell me that even if I lead us all to ruin, we’ll burn in hell together.”

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

WITCH KILLER— THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM

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 came back,” he said, as if that were an answer. They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.

“That is what I am going to find one day.” “A gorgeous Fae warrior?”

“She did it for herself. To free herself. And she was entitled to. After what they did, she was entitled to rip the entire damn world to shreds.”

And as they passed by the domed Royal Theater, there was music—beautiful, exquisite music—playing within.

And the smell—of pine and snow … How had she never realized that Rowan’s scent was of Terrasen, of home? Rowan came close enough to graze her shoulder and murmured, “I feel as if I’ve been looking for this place my entire life.”