Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

Aelin couldn’t stop the shaking that overtook her, the brutal numbness. Deep, deep, she drifted. It did not matter if Rowan wasn’t coming. If the others had obeyed her wishes to fight for Terrasen. She would save it in her own way, too. For as long as she could. She owed Terrasen that much. Would never fully repay that debt. From far away, the words echoed, and memory shimmered. She let it pull her back, pull her out of her body. She sat beside her father on the few steps descending into the open-air fighting ring of the castle. It was more temple than brawling pit, flanked by weathered, pale columns that for centuries had witnessed the rise of Terrasen’s mightiest warriors. This late in the summer afternoon, it was empty, the light golden as it streamed in. Rhoe Galathynius ran a hand down his round shield, the dark metal scarred and dinged from horrors long since vanquished. “Someday,” he said as she traced one of the long scratches over the ancient surface, “this shield will pass to you. As it was given to me, and to your great-uncle before me.” Her breath was still jagged from the training they’d done. Only the two of them—as he’d promised. The hour once a week that he set aside for her. Her father placed the shield on the stone step below them, its thunk reverberating through her sandaled feet. It weighed nearly as much as she did, yet he carried it as if it were merely an extension of his arm. “And you,” her father went on, “like the many great women and men of this ...