Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

“Everything has a price.” And it was those words, the fact that the witch had turned her face away and seemed to be waiting for death to claim her, that made him croon, “I once told you to find me again—it seems like you couldn’t wait to see my handsome face.” Her shoulders stiffened slightly. “I’m hungry.” He smiled slowly. As if she’d heard that smile, Manon glared. “Food.”

It’d be a shame to lose the most beautiful woman in the world so soon into her immortal, wicked life.”

She went back to eating. “They are all I have left.” “Then I suppose you and I are both heirs without crowns.” A humorless snort. Her white hair shifted in the sea breeze.

But those eyes dipped to her mouth, clamped tight in her rage. And a part of her that had nothing to do with fear went still at the attention, even as other parts went a bit molten. Lorcan’s eyes at last found her own, and his voice was a midnight growl as he said, “As far as anyone’s concerned, you’re still my wife.”

Here’s hoping you discover more creative terms than “bitch” to call me when you find this. With all my love, A.A.G.

icon

see you. I see every part of you. And I am not afraid.” I will not be afraid. A line in the burning brightness. My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius … And I will not be afraid.

“If you plan to sneak in here in the darkest hours of the night, you should at least have the decency to ensure I get something out of it.” His lips twitched, though the smile was cold and sensuous in a way that made her wonder what playing with a king blessed with raw magic might be like. If he’d make her beg for the first time in her long life. He looked capable of it—perhaps willing to let a little cruelty into the bedroom. Her blood thrummed. “As tempting as seeing you naked and chained might be …” A soft lover’s laugh. “I don’t think you’d enjoy the loss of control.” “And you’ve been with so many women to be able to judge a witch’s wants so easily?” That smile turned lazy. “A gentleman never tells.”

“How many men have you been with?” he countered. She smirked. “Enough to know how to handle the needs of mortal princelings. To know what will make you beg.” Never mind that she was contemplating the opposite. He drifted across the room, past the range of her chains, right into her own breathing space. He leaned over her, nearly nose-to-nose, nothing at all amused in his face, in the cut of his cruel, beautiful mouth, as he said, “I don’t think you can handle the sort of things I need, witchling. And I am never begging for anything again in my life.”

“Trust me, Manon Blackbeak is anything but harmless.”

Aelin’s voice dropped to that lethal purr. “After you finished flirting with her that day in Oakwald, she and her coven tried to kill me.” “You provoked her,” Dorian countered. “And I sit here today because of what she risked when she came to Rifthold twice.” Aelin wiped the sweat from her brow. “She has her own reasons, and I highly doubt it was because she, in her one hundred years of killing, decided your pretty face would turn her good.” “Yours turned Rowan from three centuries of a blood oath.”

CLOCK ITTTTT

Dorian knew he was toeing a dangerous line. The other night, he’d been ready to slowly strip her naked, to put those chains to good use. And when he’d found her gold eyes devouring him as intently as he wanted to devour other parts of her … As if sensing his stare, Manon peered over at him. Even from across the deck, every inch between them went taut.

THE TENSIONNNN

Manon stepped close enough to brush a finger over the pale band around his throat, and he forgot that there was a ship full of people watching.

She met his gaze, as if willing him to see a century of all that she’d done. “I am not mortal. I do not play by your rules. I have killed and hunted men for sport. Do not mistake me for a human woman, princeling.” “I have no interest in human women,” he purred. “Too breakable.”

For the first time in five centuries, Lorcan knew true fear as Elide turned that knife on herself, the blade angled to plunge up and into her heart.

He brushed away a stray tear with his thumb. “I made a promise to protect you. I will not break it, Elide.” She made to pull away, but he gripped her a little harder, keeping her eyes on him. “I will always find you,” he swore to her. Her throat bobbed. Lorcan whispered, “I promise.”

Manon swallowed hard. “You saved my life. Many times. I never thanked you for it.” Abraxos let out another low whine. “You and me,” she promised him. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”

“I think love should make you happy,” Elide said, remembering her mother and father. How often they had smiled and laughed, how they had gazed at each other. “It should make you into the best possible version of yourself.” “Are you implying I am neither of those things?” “I don’t think you even know what happiness is.”

Aelin lifted her brows as she glanced between their two blades. “What’s your sword called?” “Wind-Cleaver.” Aelin clicked her tongue. “Good name.” “Yours?” “Goldryn.” A slash of iron teeth as they were bared in a half smile. “Not as good a name.” “Blame my ancestor.” She certainly did.

“Shield yourself, attack when you can. Keep the wall to your back at all times.” “I won’t be his prisoner again.” Aelin tried to shut out what he’d meant by it. But Manon said from the wall above them, an arrow now nocked loosely in her bow, “If it comes to that, princeling, I’ll kill you before they can.” Aelin hissed, “You will do no such thing.” Both of them ignored her as Dorian said, “Thank you.”

The Queen of Flame and Shadow, the Heir of Fire, Aelin of the Wildfire, Fireheart …

A court that wouldn’t just change the world. It would start the world over. A court that could conquer this world—and any other it wished. If it wished. If that woman on the plain desired to. And that was the question, wasn’t it?

Lorcan’s onyx eyes were unreadable as he scanned her face. And then he said quietly, “I wanted to go to Perranth with you.”

i feel sick

And Elide sobbed as Manon Blackbeak emerged, smiling faintly. As Manon Blackbeak saw her and Aelin, knee-to-knee in the grass, and mouthed one word. Hope.

They both turned, giving Rowan Whitethorn horrifyingly innocent smiles. The Fae Prince, to his credit, only winced after they looked away again.

“Aelin can decide what to tell you.” “Such a good dog.” Rowan gave him a lazy smile but refrained from commenting on the delicate, dark-haired young woman who now held Lorcan’s own leash.

“Who gave you permission to use my name in pit fights, Aelin?” “I gave myself permission to use your name however I please, Ansel, the day I spared your life instead of ending you like the coward you are.” That cocky smile widened. “Hello, bitch,” Ansel purred. “Hello, traitor,” Aelin purred right back, surveying the armada spread before them. “Looks like you made it on time after all.”

“The fear of loss … it can destroy you as much as the loss itself.”

“Will it be you or the queen against Erawan in the end, I wonder.” “Fire against darkness makes for a better story.” “Yes, but so would ripping a demon king to shreds without using your hands.” A half smile. “I can think of better uses for my hands—invisible and flesh.” An invitation and a question. She held his gaze. “Then finish what you started,” Manon breathed.

That hunger shifted into something icy and vicious: “You once asked me where I stand on the line between killing to protect and killing for pleasure.” His fingers grazed the seam of the scar across her abdomen. “I’ll stand on the other side of the line when I find your grandmother.”

“I want to taste every inch of you.”

im s(creaming)

“I wanted you from the first moment I saw you in Oakwald,” he said, his voice low and rough.

She did not care who she was, who she had been, and what she had once promised to be as he moved. She dragged her hands through his thick hair, over the muscles of his back as it flexed and rippled with each thrust that drove her toward that shimmering edge again. Here, she was nothing but flesh and fire and iron; here, there was only this selfish need of her body, his body. More. She wanted more—wanted everything.

Those sapphire eyes flicked to her mouth, still panting slightly. “This was supposed to take the edge off.” She kept her words low as his clothes slid over, hauled by phantom hands. “And did it?” He traced her lower lip with his thumb and shuddered as she sucked it into her mouth, flicked it with her tongue. “No. Not even close.”

Golden eyes met Dorian’s for a moment, and he opened his mouth to say something to her, the words surging from some barren field in his chest.

Dorian’s face had revealed the same thoughts as he clasped hands with him and said quietly, “It is not such a hard thing, is it—to die for your friends.” Rowan didn’t bother insisting they were going to live through this. The king had been tutored in warfare, even if he hadn’t yet practiced it. So Rowan had given him a grim smile and replied, “No, it is not.”

she might very well end the world for rage. Maybe she should. Maybe this world deserved it. Maybe Manon Blackbeak would help her do it. Maybe they’d rule over the ruins together. He wished he’d had more time to talk to the witch. To get to know her beyond what his body had already learned.

That roar sounded again as a mighty shape shot down from the heavy clouds. A wyvern. A wyvern with shimmering wings. And behind it, descending upon the Fae fleet with wicked delight, flew twelve others.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMH

Rowan hissed, “Where is my wife?”

As one, the Thirteen lifted their fingers to their brows. As one, they lowered them.

Manon said again to her Thirteen, “Will you follow me?” And when they all touched their fingers to their brows again, Manon returned the gesture.

Fight her. I am coming for you. Even if it takes me a thousand years. I will find you, I will find you, I will find you.

For Terrasen. For them. For a better world. Aelin Galathynius had raised an army not just to challenge Morath … but to rattle the stars.

Dorian again looked to Manon, who now smiled faintly at him. It was a smile that softened her face, made it come alive. “He won’t die if I can help it,” the witch said,

The wyverns stirred, flapping their wings. Dorian climbed into the saddle behind Manon and wrapped his arms around her waist. The witch said something that made him smile. Truly smile.

smiling through tears rn

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.