Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

by Sarah J. Maas

In a city of gods, this was the holiest of temples. And deadliest of labyrinths.

Atop his snowy head sat no crown. For gods among mortals did not need markers of their divine rule.

The Torre—the Tower.

If it meant saving a life … Silba had granted her a gift—and a young stranger had given her another gift, that final night in Innish two years ago. Yrene had no plans to waste either.

“Are you capable of using your manhood?”

“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks. She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”

“What are you writing?”

“I’m writing a giant no.”

“Get on that. Shirt off and facedown.” “Why not the bed?” “Captain Faliq was here yesterday. I would not enter your bedroom without her present.” “She is not my …” He trailed off. “It would not be an issue.”

“We met someone. Who set us all down a path I fought against until it cost me and others much. Too much. So you may look at me with resentment, Yrene Towers, and I will not blame you for it. But believe me when I say that there is no one in Erilea who loathes me more than I do myself.”

heels. And then another click sounded—faint and hollow—from the dim stacks to her right. Closer now than that earlier one had been. Yrene glanced again toward the gloom, the hair on her arms rising.

but Yrene found herself going still as she stared into that gloom to her right. Then slowly looked over her shoulder.

You wouldn’t owe me anything if you’d used some common sense. The young stranger had snapped that at her that fateful night—after she’d saved Yrene’s life.

“Because someone killed a healer in the library last night—and then hunted me, too.” Chaol went still. “What?”

Yrene watched as through a distant window while Chaol took her cup and lifted it to her lips.

not in the way she’d seen men be; but letting him this close, letting him tend to her like this … “You can either drink it,” he said, his voice a low growl, “or we can sit like this for the next few hours.”

Insufferable man. Yrene must have said as much, because a half smile kicked up on one side of his face. “You’re not the first to call me that,” he said, his voice smoother. Less hoarse. “I won’t be the last, I’m sure,” she muttered.

“As handsome as Yrene said.” “I said no such thing,” Yrene hissed.

Some of the girls laughed quietly at the accompanying pop the girl made with her mouth. Aelin would have been beside herself with glee.

“Take whatever you want,” Chaol told her, his voice low—rough.

And in one of those shafts of sunlight, the faint strands of gold in his brown hair gleaming … “She wakes,” Lord Chaol said.

“You rode here?” “All by myself.”

She only arched a brow at the white mare beside his. “And you brought the other horse?” “A gentleman through and through.”

Slowly, his eyes swept over her. Every inch. Her heart thundered at the long look. The relentless focus. “Good color,” he said. “Good posture. Certainly good sass.”

Yrene. If she wasn’t inclined to leap onto his horse and strangle him, she might have contemplated how the way he said her name made her toes curl.

Yrene laughed, and the sound … Beautiful as the sound was, it was nothing like the smile on her face. The delight. He’d never seen a face so lovely.

“After last night’s party, I had thought you would be … preoccupied.” With Chaol. Her brows rose. “All day?” The prince gave her a roguish smile, finishing off his long braid and picking up his spear once more. “I certainly would take all day.”

Sartaq whispered in Nesryn’s ear, “I was praying to the Eternal Sky and all thirty-six gods that you’d say yes.” She smiled, even if he couldn’t see it. “So was I,”

“That’s what my spies called you, what I called you until you arrived. Neith’s Arrow.” The Goddess of Archery—

The sorrow in her eyes was enough to knock the breath from him. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For being willing to take that death upon yourself.”

there were plans so long in the making that for someone who let the world deem her unchecked and brash, Aelin showed a great deal of restraint in keeping it all hidden.

“Because I sent word a day before that you were likely to join me.”

“I told you that I was praying you’d join me, Nesryn Faliq. If I’d shown up empty-handed, Borte would have never let me hear the end of it.”

But Sartaq turned to her, examining her from head to toe and back again. There was little that he missed. “They didn’t mention that you’re beautiful.”

“One of my friends is a shifter,” Nesryn admitted—just as Falkan fainted in her arms.

“This will be the great war of our time,” Kashin said quietly.

“When we are dead, when even our grandchildren’s grandchildren are dead, they will still be talking about this war. They will whisper of it around fires, sing of it in the great halls. Who lived and died, who fought and who cowered.”

A wound still healing—for both of them. And perhaps Sartaq, too—for grief limned his face. Grief, and awe, and perhaps something infinitely more tender as he said, “Another tale to spread of Neith’s Arrow.”

“That young captain, Yeran,” Falkan said carefully to Borte. “You seem to know him well.” Borte scowled. “He’s my betrothed.”

“I think you were glad for her to remain away, so you can pretend that you are honor-bound to her and let that be a wall.

He blinked, pausing. Reading the light in her eyes. The tone. The witch was tricking him into walking. Coaxing him to move. To follow.

It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.

She knew he hadn’t meant what he said, knew it had been himself he’d been raging at. She’d goaded him into that fight, and even if it had hurt … She’d known the moment he stood, when her heart had stopped dead, that he hadn’t meant it. That he would have crawled.

“A kiss. When and where of my choosing.” “What do you mean where.”

But then the princess snorted. “I was wondering when you’d grow a backbone.”

Aelin frightens everyone.” He snorted. “But not him. I think that’s why she fell in love with him, against her best intentions. Rowan beheld all Aelin was and is, and he was not afraid.”

“I am glad,” she whispered, “that you do not love that queen. Or Nesryn.”

“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.”

“We wait for the Queen of the Valg,” the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. “Who in this world calls herself Maeve.”

Three queens—for the three kings that might one day come.