Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

by Sarah J. Maas

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

“Quick wits save lives more often than magic,”

Though she could have cut down dark stacks to reach the main hallway faster, she kept to the lights, her shoulders back and head high. Just as the girl had told her. Look like you’d put up a fight—be more trouble than you’re worth.

Not rape, not theft—not something that cowards would rather hide from. Yell fire, the stranger had instructed her. A threat to all. If you are attacked, yell about a fire.

“A horse. Ever heard of one?” He clenched the arms of his chair. “You need legs to ride.” “So it’s a good thing you still have both of them.”

“She and Dorian both possess considerable magic. But I would say it is their intelligence that is the stronger weapon. Brute power is useless without it.” “It’s dangerous without it.” “Yes,” Nesryn agreed,

The queen would show up when and where she wished—at precisely the moment she intended. Nesryn supposed that was why she liked the queen: 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.

Our father ensures that the territories within our empire are well aware that loyalty is rewarded. And resistance is answered with death.”

“I’m going to beg you not to call me Prince or Your Highness around the other riders.” “You’re going to beg me, or you are?”

And by the time he’d crossed the Kyzultum and sacked that first city, word of what awaited resistance, word that he was indeed carrying the Ebony sulde, spread so quick and so far that when he arrived at the next kingdom, they didn’t even bother to raise an army. They just surrendered. The khagan rewarded them handsomely for it—and made sure other territories heard of that, too.”

“Perhaps things like motives and reason are foreign to demons. Perhaps he only has the drive to destroy.”

Aelin had indeed changed—grown into a queen. Was still growing into one. But he knew that there were no restraints, no inner ones, on how far Aelin would go to protect those she loved. Protect her kingdom. And if someone stood in her way, barred her from protecting them … No lines existed to cross within Aelin in regard to that. No lines at all.

So Chaol again fixed his stare on the khagan. “Your city is the greatest I have ever laid eyes upon, your empire the standard by which all others should be measured. When Morath comes to lay waste to it, who will stand with you if we are all carrion?”

“We don’t look back,” he said, meeting her stare. “It helps no one and nothing to look back.” The way he said it … It seemed as if it meant something more.

He should have waited, should have respected them both enough to end one and begin with another, but he supposed he had failed in that, too.