Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

by Sarah J. Maas

she was already tracing the swirling letters he’d asked the jeweler in Antica to engrave on the front. She turned it over to the back— Yrene put a hand to her throat, right over that scar. “Mountains. And seas,” she whispered. “So you never forget that you climbed them and crossed them. That you—only you—got yourself here.” She let out a small, soft laugh—a sound of pure joy. He couldn’t let himself identify the other sound within it. “I bought it,” Chaol clarified instead, “so you could keep whatever it is you always carry in your pocket inside. So you don’t have to keep moving it from dress to dress. Whatever it is.”

“I will cherish it always,” Yrene said, and he knew she wasn’t talking about the locket. Not as she lowered a hand from his face to his chest. Atop his raging heart. “No matter what may befall the world.” Another featherlight kiss. “No matter the oceans, or mountains, or forests in the way.”

Yrene’s breath was sharp and ragged against his ear, her hands tugging desperately at his shirt, trying to slide to his back beneath. “I’d think you were sick of touching my back.” She shut him up with a plundering kiss that made him forget language for a while. Forget about his name and his title and everything but her. Yrene. Yrene. Yrene.

“I will cherish it always,” Chaol whispered as he slid into her, slow and deep. Pleasure rippled down his spine. “No matter what may befall the world.” Yrene kissed his neck, his shoulder, his jaw. “No matter the oceans, or mountains, or forests in the way.”

“I know it’s silly, but it gave me courage. When things were hard, it gave me courage. It still does.” Chaol swept the hair from her brow and kissed it. “There is nothing silly about it. And whoever she is … I will be forever grateful.” “Me too,” Yrene whispered as he slid his mouth over her jaw and her toes curled. “Me too.”

“I loved you before I ever set eyes on you,” he said. “Please,” Nesryn wept. Sartaq’s hand tightened on hers. “I wish we’d had time.”

THIS IS NOT FAIR 😭😭😭

“Our queen,” the spider said. “We wait for Her Dark Majesty to return at last.” “Not—not Erawan?” Servants to a dark crown, Houlun had said … The spider spat, the venom landing near Sartaq’s covered feet. “Not him. Never him.” “Then who—” “We wait for the Queen of the Valg,” the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. “Who in this world calls herself Maeve.”

“And one day, when Orcus was gone to see his brothers, she took a path between realms. Stepped beyond her world, and into the next.” Nesryn’s blood went cold. “H-how?” “She had watched. Had learned of such rips between worlds. A door that could open and close at random, or if one knew the right words.” The spider’s dark eyes gleamed. “We came with her—her beloved handmaidens. We stepped with her into this … place. To this very spot.”

That Orcus had learned of his wife’s leaving and discovered how she’d done it. Went beyond what she’d done, and found a way to control the gate between worlds. Made keys to do so, shared with his brothers. Three keys, for the three kings. “They went from world to world, opening gates as they willed it, sweeping in their armies and laying waste to those realms as they hunted for her. Until they reached this world.”

She came across a lovely, long-lived people—near-immortals themselves—ruled over by two sister-queens.” Mab and Mora. Holy gods— “And using her powers, she ripped into their minds. Made them believe they had a sister, an eldest sister to rule with them. Three queens—for the three kings that might one day come.

lived far beyond the lifespan of any known Fae. Lived so long that the only comparable lifespan … Erawan. A Valg life span. For a Valg queen.

“When I was seven, my older brother sired a bastard daughter off a poor woman in Rifthold. Abandoned them both. It has been twenty years since then, and from when I was old enough to go to the city, to begin my trade, I looked for her. Found the mother after some years—on her deathbed. She could barely talk long enough to say she’d kicked the girl out. She did not know where my niece was. Didn’t care. She died before she could give me a name.”

Chaol winked at her. “Then you’d better heal me, Yrene Towers, because I plan to do a great deal of anything with you tonight.”

“Yes.” And though her voice was soft, she meant it with every inch of her soul. The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “Then it is a good thing, Yrene Towers, that I love you as well.” Her chest tightened; she became too full for her body, for what coursed through her. “From the moment you walked into the sitting room that first day,” Chaol said. “I think I knew, even then.”

Yet as she left, Nesryn could have sworn Borte gave Yeran a secret, small smile. Yeran stared after her for a long moment, then turned to them. Gave them a crooked grin. “She promised to set a date. That’s how she got my hearth-mother to approve.” He winked at Sartaq. “Too bad I didn’t tell her that I don’t approve of the date at all.” And with that, he strode after Borte, jogging a few steps to catch up. She whirled on him, sharp words already snapping from her lips, but allowed him to follow her into the hall.

Only the description did not. The mother had described a plain, brown-haired girl. Not a black-haired, green-eyed beauty. But yes—yes, he would come. To war, and to find her. His niece. His last shred of family in the world, for whom he had never stopped looking.

“I wanted to heal you,” she breathed. “You did,” he said, smiling. “Yrene, in every way that truly matters … You did.”

Nesryn left her body. Could only manage to breathe. And when she tried to bow, Sartaq gripped her shoulders tightly. Stopped her before her head could even lower. “Never from you,” he said quietly.

He peered over Yrene’s shoulder, down to their interlaced fingers. To the twin rings now gracing both of their hands. “Watching the horizon won’t get us there any faster,” he murmured onto her neck. “Neither will teasing your wife about it.” Chaol smiled against her skin. “How else am I to amuse myself during the long hours than by teasing you, Lady Westfall?”

He’d almost told the princess that she could keep Hellas’s Horse, but there was something to be said about the prospect of charging down Morath foot soldiers atop a horse named Butterfly.

A gift. A gift from a queen who had seen another woman in hell and thought to reach back a hand. With no thought of it ever being returned. A moment of kindness, a tug on a thread … And even Aelin could not have known that in saving a barmaid from those mercenaries, in teaching her to defend herself, in giving her that gold and this note … Even Aelin could not have known or dreamed or guessed how that moment of kindness would be answered. Not just by a healer blessed by Silba herself, capable of wiping the Valg away. But by the three hundred healers who had come with her.

Chaol folded the note along its well-worn lines and carefully set it back within Yrene’s locket. “Keep it a while longer,” he said softly. “I think there’s someone who will want to see that.”

A moment of kindness. From a young woman who ended lives to a young woman who saved them.