Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

“But the more I think about it, the more … the more it seems like this was all planned, laid out long ago. Erawan had decades before Aelin was born to strike—decades during which no one with her powers, or Dorian’s powers, existed to challenge him. Yet, as fate or fortune would have it, he moves now. At a time when a Fire-Bringer walks the earth.”

“Morath is unleashing its horrors,” Lysandra said. “Maeve stirs across the sea. Two goddesses walk hand in hand with Aelin. More than that, Mala and Deanna have watched over her the entirety of her life. But perhaps it wasn’t watching. Perhaps it was … shaping. So they might one day unleash her, too. And I wonder if the gods have weighed the costs of that storm. And deemed the casualties worth it.”

Then Manon Blackbeak whirled and brought Wind-Cleaver down upon her grandmother.

“You will find, Rolfe, that one does not deal with Celaena Sardothien. One survives her.”

“The world,” Aelin said, “will be saved and remade by the dreamers, Rolfe.”

Love had broken a perfect killing tool.

They could burn the entire world to ashes with it. He was hers and she was his, and they had found each other across centuries of bloodshed and loss, across oceans and kingdoms and war.

She was not a rebel princess, shattering enemy castles and killing kings. She was a force of nature. She was a calamity and a commander of immortal warriors of legend.

They had not come ten years ago. She wanted them to know she had not forgotten it.

“I love you. There is no limit to what I can give to you, no time I need. Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will love you.”

“She was a bright star in centuries of darkness. I would have followed that star to the ends of the earth, if she had let me. But she didn’t, and I respected her wishes to stay away. To never seek her out again. I went to another continent and didn’t let myself look back.”

“I want Erawan to know that the next time he sends you after me like a pack of dogs, I’ll return the favor. I want Erawan to know that the next time I see him, I will carve Manon’s name on his gods-damned heart.” Tears rolled down her face, silent and unending as the wrath that now sculpted her features into a thing of mighty and terrible beauty. “But it seems like tonight isn’t really your night,” Elide said to the ilken, lifting the hatchet again over a shoulder. The ilken might have been whimpering as she smiled grimly. “Because it takes only one to deliver a message. And your companions are already on their way.”

“I wanted to go to Perranth with you.”

Unleashing a cry that set the world trembling, Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, Consort of the Queen of Terrasen, began the hunt to find his wife.