Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

For Ress. For Brullo. For Sorscha. For Dorian. For Aelin, and Aedion, and their family, for the thousands massacred in those labor camps. And for Nesryn—who he’d lied to, who would wait for a return that wouldn’t come, for time they wouldn’t have together.

Chaol spread his arms wide as the darkness hit him, shattered him, obliterated him until there was nothing but light—burning blue light, warm and welcoming. Aelin and Dorian had gotten away. It was enough. When the pain came, he was not afraid.

Um? What!

That mortal, human weight vanished. Strength coursed through her, coating her bones like armor. Invincible, immortal, unstoppable. Manon tipped her head back to the sky, spread her arms wide, and roared.

Over the demon’s screaming, he pushed—pushed, and looked out through its eyes. His eyes. And saw Celaena Sardothien standing before him.

“It’s been an honor, Prince,” Aedion said to Rowan.

They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.

The Crown Prince tipped his head back to the sky and roared, and it was the battle cry of a god. Then the glass castle shattered.

“Your king is dead,” she said. The crowd stirred. “Your prince lives.” “All hail Dorian Havilliard,” someone shouted down the street. No one else echoed it. “My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius,” she said. “And I am the Queen of Terrasen.”

She was barely inside the oak doors before she collapsed to her knees and wept.

save the world,” Aelin said, her voice like gravel, “and yet I wake up to you being pissy.”

“You make me want to live, too, Aelin Galathynius,” he said. “Not exist—but live.”

“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.”

The world had ended and begun anew, and yet nothing at all had changed, either.

“What do I do?” She had to swallow before she said, “You light up the darkness.”

“I’m not leaving you. Not again.” Dorian’s mouth tightened. “You never left me, Chaol.” He shook his head once, sending tears slipping down his face. “You never left me.”

Ten years later, and they were all sitting together at a table again—no longer children, but rulers of their own territories. Ten years later, and here they were, friends despite the forces that had shattered and destroyed them.

So wholesome

“Things are changing,” Manon said. “Good,” Asterin said. “We’re immortals. Things should change, and often, or they’ll get boring.”

Ribbons and plumes and flowers of red and gold fire danced through his room, bright and glorious and elegant. Chaol’s eyes had been lined with silver when the flames winked out. “It’s lovely,” he said at last.

But as they rode out of Rifthold, that city that had been her home and her hell and her salvation, as she memorized each street and building and face and shop, each smell and the coolness of the river breeze, she didn’t see one slave. Didn’t hear one whip. 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?

Aelin ran a hand over the rough rock, and the sun-warmed stone tingled as if in greeting. Then she stepped beyond the stone. And at long last, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was home.