Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass, #5)

by Sarah J. Maas

“Deanna and my father spoke true. I’d thought … I’d thought it was broken, but if they told you to find the Lock … ” She bit her lip. Aelin said, “Brannon said to go to the Stone Marshes of Eyllwe to find the Lock. Where, precisely, in the marshes?” “There was once a great city in the heart of the marshes,” Elena breathed. “It is now half drowned on the plain. In a temple at its center, we laid the remnants of the Lock. I didn’t … My father attained the Lock at terrible cost. The cost … of my mother’s body, her mortal life. A Lock for the Wyrdkeys—to seal shut the gate, and bind the keys inside them forever. I did not understand what it had been intended for; my father never told me about any of it until it was too late. All I knew was that the Lock was only able to be used once—its power capable of sealing anything we wished. So I stole it. I used it for myself, for my people. I have been paying for that crime since.” “You used it to seal Erawan in his tomb,” Aelin said quietly. The pleading faded from Elena’s face. “My friends died in the valley of the Black Mountains that day so I might have the chance to stop him. I heard their screaming, even in the heart of Erawan’s camp. I will not apologize for trying to end the slaughter so that the survivors could have a future. So you could have a future.” “So you used the Lock, then chucked it into a ruin?” “We placed it inside the holy city on the plain—to be a commemoration of the lives lost. But a great cataclysm rocked the ...