Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

Still he searched. Still he hunted for her on every dusty and forgotten road. And sometimes, he spoke along the bond between them, sending his soul on the wind to wherever she was held captive, entombed. I will find you.

Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom … Words she had spoken to a prince. Once—long ago. A prince of ice and wind. A prince who had been hers, and she his. Long before the bond between their souls became known to them.

Aedion only returned to the fire, blocking out her emerald eyes, her exquisite face. Ren could have her. Even if the thought made him want to shatter something. Lysandra and Evangeline vanished from the hall, the girl still chirping away. The weight of Lysandra’s disappointment lingered like a phantom touch.

A towering, dark figure blended into the scant shadows at the half-crumbling archway, monitoring the bustling street beyond. Elide didn’t look too long toward that figure. She’d been unable to stomach it these endless weeks. Unable to stomach him, or the unbearable ache in her chest.

She would never forget the sight of him crawling after Maeve once the queen had severed the blood oath. Crawling after Maeve like a shunned lover, like a broken dog desperate for its master. Aelin had been brutalized, their very location betrayed by Lorcan to Maeve, and still he tried to follow. Right through the sand still wet with Aelin’s blood.

Find someone else. Find a way to use your own powers to forge the Lock. Find a way to accept your fates to be trapped in this world, so we needn’t pay a debt that wasn’t ours to begin with.

Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius

Aelin braced herself. Took plunging breaths that would bring her far away from here. From her body. She’d never let them break her. Never swear that blood oath. For Terrasen, for her people, whom she had left to endure their own torment for ten long years. She owed them this much. Deep, deep, deep she went, as if she could outrun what was to come, as if she could hide from it. The hammer glinted in the firelight as it rose over her knee, Cairn’s breath sucking in, anticipation and delight mingling on his face. Fenrys blinked, over and over and over. I am here, I am with you. It didn’t stop the hammer from falling. Or the scream that shattered from her throat.

Time was not on their side. It had been nearly two months since that day on the beach in Eyllwe. Since she’d learned the terrible cost the Queen of Terrasen must pay to put an end to this madness. The cost that another with Mala’s bloodline might also pay, if need be. Manon resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder to where the King of Adarlan stood amongst the rest of her Thirteen, entertaining Vesta by summoning flame, water, and ice to his cupped palm.

Manon had given her no such orders, though. Hadn’t said anything to the Thirteen about what, exactly, the human king was to her. Nothing, she wanted to say. Someone as unmoored as she. As quietly angry. And as pressed for time.

“We will follow you, Manon,” Asterin said softly. Manon turned to her cousin. “Do I deserve that honor?” Asterin’s mouth pressed into a tight line. The slight bump on her nose—Manon had given her that. She’d broken it in the Omega’s mess hall for brawling with mouthy Yellowlegs. Asterin had never once complained about it. Had seemed to wear the reminder of the beating Manon bestowed like a badge of pride. “Only you can decide if you deserve it, Manon.”

Not that a camp full of witches offered any sort of opportunity to tangle with her. No, for that, they’d resorted to winter-bare forests and snow-blasted passes, their hands roving for any bit of bare skin they dared expose to the chill air. Their couplings were brief, savage. Teeth and nails and snarling. And not just from Manon.

the queen was still Maeve’s captive. She had been willing to yield everything to save Terrasen, to save all of them. He could do nothing less. Aelin certainly had more to lose. A mate and husband who loved her. A court who’d follow her into hell. A kingdom long awaiting her return. All he had was an unmarked grave for a healer no one would remember, a broken empire, and a shattered castle.

Gavin’s teeth flashed. “Erawan could be defeated without sealing the gate.” “Tell me how, and I will find a way to do it.” Yet Gavin fell silent again, his hands clenching at his sides. Dorian snorted softly. “If you knew, it would have been done long ago.” Gavin shook his head, but Dorian plunged ahead. “Your friends died battling Erawan’s hordes. Help me avoid the same fate for my own.

Gavin’s edges warped further, his face turning murky. Dorian dared a step forward. “Am I human?” Gavin’s sapphire eyes softened—just barely. “I’m not the person who can answer that.” And then the king was gone.

I hope you spend the rest of your miserable, immortal life suffering. I hope you spend it alone. I hope you live with regret and guilt in your heart and never find a way to endure it. Her vow, her curse, whatever it had been, had held true. Every word of it. He’d broken something. Something precious beyond measure. He’d never cared until now. Even the severed blood oath, still gaping wide within his soul, didn’t come close to the hole in his chest when he looked at her. She’d offered him a home in Perranth knowing he’d be a dishonored male. Offered him a home with her. But it hadn’t been Maeve’s sundering of the oath that had rescinded that offer. It had been a betrayal so great he didn’t know how to fix it.

It was the hand on her rounded belly. She stared toward him, hair still flowing. Behind her, four small figures emerged. Rowan fell to his knees. The tallest: a girl with golden hair and pine-green eyes, solemn-faced and as proud as her mother. The boy beside her, nearly her height, smiled at him, warm and bright, his Ashryver eyes near-glowing beneath his cap of silver hair. The boy next to him, silver-haired and green-eyed, might as well have been Rowan’s twin. And the smallest girl, clinging to her mother’s legs … A fine-boned, silver-haired child, little more than a babe, her blue eyes harking back to a lineage he did not know. Children. His children. Their children. With another mere weeks from being born. His family. The family he might have, the future he might have. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Even as the rage consumed him at the thought, at what had been stolen from him. From Lyria, too. Aelin had been his, and he had been hers, from the start. Longer than that. And Maeve had thought to break them, break her to get what she wanted. He wouldn’t let that go unpunished. Just as he could not forget that Lyria, regardless of what truly existed between them, had been carrying their child when Maeve had sent those enemy forces to his mountain home. He would never forgive that.

Tell Rowan that I’m sorry I lied. But tell him it was all borrowed time anyway. Even before today, I knew it was all just borrowed time, but I still wish we’d had more of it.

And tell him thank you—for walking that dark path with me back to the light. It had been his honor. From the very beginning, it had been his honor, the greatest of his immortal life. An immortal life they would share together—somehow. He’d allow no other alternative. Rowan silently swore it to the stars. He could have sworn the Lord of the North flickered in response.

Chaol slid his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. “Am I not keeping you warm enough these days, wife?” Yrene blushed, and elbowed him in the ribs. “Cad.” Over a month later, and he was still marveling at the word: wife. At the woman by his side, who had healed his fractured and weary soul.

Nesryn blushed despite the cold, but signaled back, her numbed fingers clumsy over the symbols. All clear. A blushing schoolgirl. That’s what she became around the prince, no matter the fact that they’d been sharing a bed these weeks, or what he’d promised for their future. To rule beside him. As the future empress of the khaganate. It was absurd, of course. The idea of her dressed like his mother, in those sweeping, beautiful robes and grand headdresses … No, she was better suited to the rukhin leathers, to the weight of steel, not jewels. She’d said as much to Sartaq. Many times. He’d laughed her off. Had said she might walk around the palace naked if she wished. What she wore or didn’t wear wouldn’t bother him in the least.

Perhaps the knowledge would bring about nothing in this war. But it might shift it in some way. To know that another enemy lurked at their backs. And that Maeve had fled to Erilea to escape the Valg king she’d wed, brother to two others—who in turn had sundered the Wyrdkeys from the gate, and ripped through worlds to find her.

She didn’t tell the Healer on High that she wasn’t entirely sure how much longer she’d be a help—not yet. Hadn’t whispered a word of that doubt to anyone, even Chaol. Yrene’s hand drifted across her abdomen and lingered.

Curiosity indeed brightened on his face. She supposed the white line through his golden skin on his throat was proof that he’d dealt with far worse. And supposed that whatever bond lay between them was also proof he had little fear of pain or death.

The spider hissed, “I do not need a boy’s mercy—” “It is a king’s mercy you receive,” Dorian said coldly, “and I’d suggest being quiet long enough to receive it.” Rarely, so rarely did Manon hear that voice from him, the tone that sent a thrill through her blood and bones. A king’s voice.

“And then we make our move,” Manon hedged. And for once, she did not meet anyone’s stare. Didn’t do anything but gaze southward. The witch was keeping secrets, too. But were hers as dire as his?

She shrewdly looked him over. As if weighing the man within. “It was real, Aedion,” she said. “All of it. I don’t care if you believe me or not. But it was real for me.” He couldn’t bear to hear it. “I have a meeting,” he lied, and stepped around her. “Go slither off somewhere else.” Hurt flashed in her eyes, quickly hidden. He was the worst sort of bastard for it.

It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.

You are my daughter. You were born of two mighty bloodlines. That strength flows through you. Lives in you. Evalin’s face blazed with the fierceness of the women who had come before them, all the way back to the Faerie Queen whose eyes they both bore. You do not yield. Then she was gone, like dew under the morning sun. But the words lingered. Blossomed within Aelin, bright as a kindled ember. You do not yield.

Her only answer was to slide over him, strands of her hair falling around them in a curtain. “I said I don’t want to talk,” she breathed, and lowered her mouth to his neck. Dragged her teeth over it, right through that white line where the collar had been. Dorian groaned softly, and shifted his hips, grinding himself into her. Her breath became jagged in answer, and he ran a hand down her side. “Shut me up, then,” he said, a hand drifting southward to cup her backside as she nipped at his neck, his jaw.

Only with her did he not need to explain. Only with her did he not need to be a king, or anything but what he was. Only with her would there be no judgment for what he’d done, who he’d failed, what he might still have to do. Just this—pleasure and utter oblivion.

“Why should I remember one of Darrow’s lackeys?” “A decent attempt, but Celaena Sardothien looked a little more amused when she cut men into ribbons.” He knew—who Aelin was, what she’d been. Lysandra said nothing, and kept walking toward her tent. If she told Aedion, how quickly could Nox be buried under the frozen earth? “Your secret is safe,” Nox murmured. “Celaena—Aelin was a friend. Is still one, I’d hope.” “How.” She’d admit no more than that regarding her role in this. “We fought in the competition together at the glass castle.”

He nodded, pride filling his chest to the point of pain. A lady. If not by blood, then by nobility of character. His wife was more of a lady than any other he’d met, in any court.

“Do you know the story of the queen who walked through worlds?”

“Surely a young, mortal woman is allowed to inquire about a Fae male who jilted her.” Lorcan went pale as the moon above them. “Elide.” When she didn’t reply, Lorcan whirled on Rowan. “We’ll scout, there’s another way to—” Elide only said to Rowan, “Find Cairn, and we find Aelin. And learn if Maeve remains.” Fear no longer bloomed in Elide’s eyes. Not a trace remained in her scent. So Rowan nodded, even as Lorcan tensed. “Good hunting, Lady.”

he had begged Mala to protect Aelin from Maeve when they entered Doranelle, to give her strength and guidance, and to let her walk out alive. Then, he had begged Mala to let him remain with Aelin, the woman he loved. The goddess had been little more than a sunbeam in the rising dawn, and yet he had felt her smile at him.

They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here.

Asterin remained staring at Abraxos and Narene, scratching her hair. “You really think they’re mated?” Abraxos lifted his head from where it rested atop Narene’s back and looked toward them, as if to say, It took you long enough to figure it out.

He’d never had anything like her. He sometimes wondered if she’d never had anything like him, either. He’d seen how often she found her pleasure when he took the reins, when her body writhed beneath his and she lost control entirely. But the hours in this tent hadn’t yielded any sort of intimacy. Only blessed distraction. For both of them.

“I care.” His temper rose to meet hers. And he decided to hell with it—decided to let go of that leash he’d put on himself. Let go of that restraint. “I care about more than I should. I even care about you.” Another wrong thing to say. Manon stood—as high as the tent would allow. “Then you’re a fool.”

He would not allow it. Snarling, the male inside him thrashing, Fenrys bellowed at the dark chain binding him. He shredded into it, biting and tearing with every scrap of defiance he possessed. Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey. He would not obey. And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.

And with it, he snapped the blood oath completely.

Then Cairn beheld the frozen rage in Rowan’s eyes. Understood what he intended to do with that sharp, sharp knife. A dark stain spread across the front of Cairn’s pants. Rowan wrapped an ice-kissed wind around the tent, blocking out all sound, and began.

“Take it off.” The queen’s guttural words were swallowed by the moss-crusted trees. “I’m trying,” Lorcan said—not gently, though certainly without his usual coldness. The dagger scraped in the lock, but to no avail. “Take it off.” The queen began trembling. “I’m—” Aelin snatched the dagger from him, metal clicking on metal as she fitted the blade’s tip into the lock. The dagger shook in her ironclad hand. “Take it off,” she breathed, lips curling back from her teeth. “Take it off.

😭😭😭😭

Aelin sobbed, her body shuddering with the force of it. “Take it off. ” Rowan’s eyes flickered, panic and heartbreak and longing shining there. “I will. But you have to be still, Fireheart. Just for a few moments.” “Take it off. ” The sobs ebbed, tricking into something broken and raw. Rowan ran his thumbs over her wrists, over those iron shackles. As if it were nothing but her skin. Slowly, her shaking eased.

It was new skin. All of it. Save for her face, since he doubted they would be stupid enough to take off the mask. Nearly every inch of her was covered in new skin, unvarnished as fresh snow. The blood coating her had burned away to reveal it. New skin, because they’d needed to replace what had been destroyed. To heal her so they could begin again and again.

Night was full overhead by the time Dorian managed to slip away. By the time he found an empty clearing, drew the marks, and plunged Damaris into earth shining with his own blood. His summons was answered quickly this time. Yet it was not Gavin who emerged, shimmering, from the night air. Dorian’s magic flared, rallying to strike, as the figure took form. As Kaltain Rompier, clad in an onyx gown and dark hair unbound, smiled sadly at him.

Aelin. That’s who she was.

So Rowan found himself saying, “I told you once that even if death separated us, I would rip apart every world until I found you.” He gave her a slash of a smile. “Did you really believe this would stop me?”