Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

by Sarah J. Maas

Lord Chaol Westfall, Hand of the King. He hated it. More than the sound of wheels. More than the body he now could not feel beneath his hips, the body whose stillness still surprised him, even all these weeks later. He was Lord of Nothing. Lord of Oath-Breakers. Lord of Liars.

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

“For you are not only Adarlan’s Hand,” the khagan went on, “but also the Ambassador of Terrasen, are you not?” “Indeed I am,” Chaol said simply.

Something oily slid into her gut as she noted the white banners streaming from the windows, all over the city. As she looked to the six heirs and counted again. Not six. Five. Only five were here. Death-banners at the royal household. All over the city.

Had no sulde of her own yet.” At Chaol’s narrowed brows, the prince clarified, “It is a spear all Darghan warriors carry. We bind strands of our favored horse’s hair to the shaft, beneath the blade. Our ancestors believed that where those hairs waved in the wind, there our destinies waited. Some of us still believe in such things, but even those who think it mere tradition … we bring them everywhere. There is a courtyard in this palace where my sulde and those of my siblings are planted to feel the wind while we remain at our father’s palace, right beside his own. But in death …” Again, that shadow of grief. “In death, they are the only object that we keep. They bear the soul of a Darghan warrior for eternity, and are left planted atop a steppe in our sacred realm.” The prince closed his eyes. “Now her soul will roam with the wind.”

Help them … and perhaps receive help in return. Chaol said baldly, “If you trust me enough to have me do that, to tell me all this, then why not agree to join with us in this war?” “It is not my place to say or guess.” A trained soldier. Kashin examined the suite as if assessing any potential enemies lying in wait. “I march only when my father gives the order.”

The magic helped. Glorious, lovely magic that could make her breathless or so tired she couldn’t get out of bed for days. Magic demanded a cost—to both healer and patient. But Yrene was willing to pay it. She had never minded the aftermath of a brutal healing.

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.

Yet magic could not cure all things. Could not halt death, or bring someone back from it.

She’d told herself never again—until she’d arrived here. Until she’d dumped that gold on Hafiza’s desk and had been ready to do it all over, indebt and sell herself, just for a chance to learn. Hafiza did not even consider such things. Her work was in direct opposition to the people who did, the people like Nolan. Yrene still remembered the first time she’d heard Hafiza say in that thick, lovely accent of hers, nearly the same words that Yrene’s mother had told her, over and over: they did not charge, students or patients, for what Silba, Goddess of Healing, gifted them for free.

Yrene rubbed at her chest as if she could still feel that viselike grip. “War is coming to my home again—the northern continent.” So they called it here. Yrene swallowed. “I want to be there to help those fighting against the empire’s control.”

And that day she’d walked off the boat and felt her magic stir, felt it reach for a man limping down the street … She had fallen into a state of shock that had not ended until she wound up weeping in this very chair three hours later.

Yrene was quiet for a few breaths, enough that her hands steadied. “So I am to heal this man—so he may find justice elsewhere?” “You do not know his story, Yrene. I suggest listening to it before contemplating such things.” Yrene shook her head. “There will be no justice for him—not if he served the old and new king. Not if he’s cunning enough to remain in power. I know how Adarlan works.”

Hafiza watched her for a long moment. “The day you walked into this room, so terribly thin and covered with the dust of a hundred roads … I had never sensed such a gift. I looked into those beautiful eyes of yours, and I nearly gasped at the uncut power in you.”

“Even your family name: Towers. A hint at your foremothers’ long-ago association with the Torre, perhaps. I wondered in that moment if I had at last found my heir—my replacement.”

Yrene knew the Healer on High did not mean the man’s healing, either. She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. “It is a soul-wound, Yrene. And letting it fester these years … I cannot blame you. But I will hold you accountable if you let it turn into something worse. And I will mourn you for it.”

Yrene slid a hand into the pocket of her pale blue dress, her fingers wrapping around the familiar smoothness of the folded piece of parchment. She clutched it, as she had often done on the sailing over here, during those initial few weeks of uncertainty even after Hafiza had admitted her, during the long hours and hard days and moments that had nearly broken her while she trained. A note, written by a stranger who had saved her life and granted her freedom in a matter of hours. Yrene had never learned her name, that young woman who had worn her scars like some ladies wore their finest jewelry. The young woman who was a trained killer, but had purchased a healer’s education. So many things, so many good things, had come from that night. Yrene sometimes wondered if it had actually happened—might have believed she’d dreamed it if not for the note in her pocket, and the second object Yrene had never sold, even when the gold had thinned. The ornate gold-and-ruby brooch, worth more than entire blocks of Antica. Adarlan’s colors. Yrene had never learned where the young woman had come from, who had bestowed the beating that had left lingering bruises on her pretty face, but she had spoken of Adarlan as Yrene did. As all the children who had lost everything to Adarlan did—those children with their kingdoms left in ash and blood and ruin. Yrene ran a thumb over the note, the words inked there: For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.

It was her eyes that Chaol noticed first. She likely stopped people dead in the street with those eyes, a vibrant golden brown that seemed lit from within. Her hair was a heavy fall of rich browns amid flashes of dark gold, curling slightly at the ends that brushed her narrow waist. She moved with a nimble grace, her feet—clad in practical black slippers—swift and unfaltering as she crossed the room, either not noticing or caring about the ornate furnishings. Young, perhaps a year or two older than twenty. But those eyes … they were far older than that.

She slid a hand into the pocket of her gown, and he waited for her to withdraw something, but it remained there. As if she was grasping an object within.

Aelin's brooch and note

Not a doe ready to bolt, but a stag, weighing the options of fighting or fleeing, of standing its ground, lowering its head, and charging.

Terassen

This close, her eyes were a golden flame. Not like the cold metal of Manon Blackbeak’s, not laced with a century of violence and predator’s instincts, but … like a long-burning flame on a winter’s night.

Was it something external, something tangible? Or something only his bones and blood might witness? He’d once balked at those sorts of questions—might once have even balked at the idea of letting magic touch him. But the man who had done those things, feared those things … He was glad to leave him in the shattered ruin of the glass castle.

Chaol studied the paper again. The fervent underlining of that final name. As if Yrene had needed to remind herself while here. In his presence. As if she needed whoever they were to know that she remembered them.

No, Chaol realized as he held that piece of paper, Yrene Towers would not be returning.

He hadn’t been the brute she’d expected.

Yrene could not make sense of it. There was some romantic bond, she knew from both the tension and comfort between them. But to what degree … It didn’t matter. Save for the emotional healing the lord would need as well. A man not used to voicing his feelings, his fears and hopes and hurts—that much was obvious.

“The injury to his spine,” Yrene said. “He claims some foul magic did it.” Her magic had recoiled against the splattered mark. Curved away. “Oh?” She shivered. “I’ve never … I’ve never felt anything like that. As if it was rotted, yet empty. Cold as the longest winter night.”

“Thankfully, I did not die of stupidity, and instead came to love the riding, their lifestyle. They gave me hell because I was a prince, but I proved my mettle soon enough. Kadara hatched when I was fifteen, and I raised her myself. I have had no other mount since.” Pride and affection brightened those onyx eyes.

She’d hated herself for it, thought about it at least once a day. Especially when she spied the white banners flapping throughout the city, the palace. At dinner last night, she’d done her best not to crumple up with shame as she ignored him, suffered through his praise, the pride still in his words when he spoke of her.

Yrene waited until she heard the door shut. “She was wise to not speak aloud of her plans.” “Why.” His first words to Yrene so far. She jerked her chin toward the open doors to the foyer. “The walls have ears and mouths. And all the servants are paid by the khagan’s children. Or viziers.” “I thought the khagan paid them all.” “Oh, he does,” Yrene said, going to the small satchel she’d left by the door. “But his children and viziers buy the servants’ loyalty through other means. Favors and comforts and status in exchange for information. I’d be careful with whoever was assigned to you.”

This man was stone—rock. The injury had cracked him a bit, but not sundered him. She wondered if he knew

Yrene’s brows furrowed. “If you are so inclined, any donation may be made to help the upkeep of the Torre and its staff, but there is no price, no expectation.” “Why?” Her hand slid into her pocket as she rose. “I was given this gift by Silba. It is not right to charge for what was granted for free.”

knew,” he said quietly. “That he had done and was doing unspeakable things. I knew that forces had tried to fight against him when I was a boy, and he had smashed them to bits. I—to become captain, I had to yield certain … privileges. Assets. I did so willingly, because my focus was on protecting the future. On Dorian. Even as boys, I knew he was not his father’s son. I knew a better future lay with him, if I could make sure Dorian lived long enough. If he not only lived, but also survived—emotionally. If he had an ally, a true friend, in that court of vipers. Neither of us was old enough, strong enough to challenge his father. We saw what happened to those who whispered of rebellion. I knew that if I, if he set one foot out of line, his father would kill him, heir or no. So I craved the stability, the safety of the status quo.”

He reached for his shirt at last. Fitting, he thought, that he’d laid some part of himself bare while sitting here mostly naked. “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.” “For the path you found yourself forced down?” He slung his shirt over his head and reached for his pants. “For fighting that path to begin with—for the mistakes I made in doing so.”

Water—Silba’s element. To bathe in the sacred waters here, untouched by the world above, was to enter Silba’s very lifeblood. Yrene knew she was not the only healer who had taken the waters and felt as if she were indeed nestled in the warmth of Silba’s womb. As if this space had been made for them alone. And the darkness above her … it was different from what she had spied in Lord Westfall’s body. The opposite of that blackness. The darkness above her was that of creation, of rest, of unformed thought. Yrene stared into it, into the womb of Silba herself. And could have sworn she felt something staring back. Listening, while she thought through all Lord Westfall had told her.

Not wounds from creatures that destroyed soul as well as body. That used talons and teeth and poison. The maleficent power coiled around the injury to his spine … It was not some fractured bone or tangled-up nerves. Well, it technically was, but that fell magic was tied to it. Bound to it.

As if to say, You must enter where you fear to tread. Yrene swallowed. To delve into that festering pit of power that had latched itself onto the lord’s back …

“Ghastly beast,” Hasar muttered halfheartedly into her okra, earning a half smile from Sartaq. “Hasar is still sore that Kadara tried to eat her when they first met,” Sartaq confided. Hasar rolled her eyes, though a glimmer of amusement shone there. Kashin supplied from a few seats down, “You could hear her screeching from the harbor.” To Chaol’s surprise, Nesryn asked, “The princess or the ruk?” Sartaq laughed, a startled, bright sound, his cool eyes lighting. Hasar only gave Nesryn a warning look before turning to the vizier beside her. Kashin grinned at Nesryn and whispered, “Both.”

When Sartaq turned to respond to a question from Duva, Chaol exchanged a glance with Nesryn—all he needed to convey his order. Be in the aerie at dawn. Find out where he stands in this war.

None of the Towers women had ever married, preferring either lovers who left them with a present that arrived nine months later or who perhaps stayed a year or two before moving on. Yrene had never known her father, never learned anything about who he was other than a traveler who had stopped at her mother’s cottage for the night, seeking shelter from a wild storm that swept over the grassy plain.

The Song of Beginning.

Her eye snagged on a page, and she paused, backtracking until the illustration reappeared. It had been done in sparing colors: blacks, whites, reds, and the occasional yellow. All painted by a master’s hand, no doubt an illustration of whatever was written beneath it. The illustration revealed a barren crag, an army of soldiers in dark armor kneeling before it. Kneeling before what was atop the crag. A towering gate. No wall flanking it, no keep behind it. As if someone had built the gateway of black stone out of thin air. There were no doors within the archway. Only swirling black nothing. Beams of it shot from the void, some foul corruption of the sun, falling upon the soldiers kneeling before it. She squinted at the figures in the foreground. Their bodies were human, but the hands clutching their swords … Clawed. Twisted. “Valg,” Yrene whispered.

Orcus. Mantyx. Erawan. Three Valg Kings. Wielders of the Keys.

And when I found her on the floor, she looked like a long-desiccated corpse. No blood, no sign of injury. Just … drained.”

think they realized they’d attacked the wrong person—and moved away quickly.” “Why?” She turned her head, opening her eyes. Exhaustion lay there. And utter fear. “She looks—looked like me,” Yrene rasped. “Our builds, our coloring. Whoever it was … I think they were looking for me.”

She asked me what else I knew beyond healing, and I told her …” She bit her lip. “Someone once taught me self-defense. What to do against attackers. Usually the male kind.” It was an effort not to look at the scar across her throat. Not to wonder if she had learned it after—or if even that had not been enough. Yrene sighed through her nose. “I told Hafiza that I knew a little about it, and that … I had made a promise to someone, to the person who taught me, to show and teach it to as many women as possible. So I have. Once a week, I teach the acolytes, along with any older students, healers, servants, or librarians who would like to know.”

“The scar adds a touch of mystery,” she said, cutting him off before he could remember the slice down his cheek.

“My name—it’s Chaol. Not Lord Westfall.” He grunted as he hoisted himself from the chair onto the sofa. “Lord Westfall is my father.” “Well, you’re a lord, too.” “Just Chaol.”

“No,” she repeated, tugging off his pants with that cool, swift efficiency. “But after last night … I do not want to delay.” “I will—I can …” He ground his teeth. “We’ll find a way to protect you while you research.” He hated the words, felt them curl like rancid milk on his tongue, along his throat.

wonder,” she said at last, “if it was not just what I was researching, but also that I’m healing you.”