Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

He made to touch his face, but found he had no hands. Only soot-black wings. Only an ebony beak that allowed no words past it. A raven.

“When, exactly, were you going to inform me that you were about to retrieve the third Wyrdkey?”

“You once told me at Mistward that if I ever took a whip to you, then you’d skin me alive.” His eyes didn’t stray from hers as he said with lethal quiet, “I took it upon myself to bestow that fate on Cairn on your behalf. And when I was done, I took the liberty of removing his head from his body, then burning what remained.” A pause, a ripple of doubt. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you the chance to do it yourself.”

“Two months, three days, and seven hours.”

“You should have gone to Terrasen. It needs you.” “I need you more.”

“The Crown of Mab,”

“I don’t care about me! I didn’t care about me on that beach!” “Well, I do.” His growled words echoed across the water and stone, and he lowered his voice. Worse things than wights might come sniffing down here. “I cared about you on that beach. And your queen did, too.”

Aelin’s lips curved in a hint of a smile. She blinked at Fenrys—three times. Fenrys blinked once in answer.

“I want it,” Fenrys said, no trace of his usual swaggering humor. He glanced to Rowan, and bowed his head. “It is my honor to serve this court. And serve you,” he added to Aelin.

“To whatever end,” he whispered. Silver lined her eyes. “To whatever end.”

“Your mother left,” the man said at last. Chaol didn’t hide his shock.

“Your wife is pregnant.”

“Because it will help me understand how I did the same.”

“The only thing that I am jealous of, Lorcan, is that she is rid of you.”

“And I don’t care if you walk off that battlefield tomorrow.”

And her parting line to him … it was a lie. A disgusting, hateful lie.

“But I have never felt as humiliated as I did when you threw me into the snow. When you called me a lying bitch in front of our friends and allies. Never.”

“I was once forced to crawl before men. And gods above, I nearly crawled for you these months. And yet it takes me nearly dying for you to realize that you’ve been an ass? It takes me nearly dying for you to see me as human again?”

“For your acts of reckless rebellion, for your failure to heed our command and take your troops where they were ordered, for your utter defeat at the border and the loss of Perranth, you are stripped of your rank.”

“If she is again caught pretending to be Princess Aelin”—Aedion almost ripped out his throat at that word, Princess—“then we will have little choice but to sign her execution order.”

“There’s no ice on the Florine. And Morath scouts snuck ahead and razed the southern bridge.” “They’re herding us northward,” Elgan murmured. Ren nodded. “They’ll be upon us by tomorrow morning.”

“I am happier than I can ever express, Yrene, to share this with you. Anything you need, I am yours to command.” Her lips twitched upward. “Dangerous words.”

“The Faerie Queen of the West.”

“If you want a softhearted woman who will weep over hard choices and ultimately balk from them, then you’re in the wrong bed.” “I’m not in anyone’s bed right now.”

“Tell me to stay,” he said, and the words had no warmth, no kindness. “Tell me to stay with you, if that’s what you want.” His invisible fingers grew talons and scraped over her skin. Manon’s throat bobbed. “But you won’t say that, will you, Manon?”

“Because while you might be older, might be deadly in a thousand different ways, deep down, you’re afraid. You don’t know how to ask me to stay, because you’re afraid of admitting to yourself that you want it. You’re afraid. Of yourself more than anyone else in the world. You’re afraid.”

Just as those curved claws tore through leather and skin, Manon twisted to the side and brought down Wind-Cleaver upon the Yellowlegs Matron’s outstretched neck.

“What was stolen has been restored; what was lost has come home again. I hail thee, Manon Crochan, Queen of Witches.”

The Valg soldier’s blade swept upward. Lorcan arched, bellowing as flesh tore along his spine. No armor—there had been no armor to fit them across their torsos.

“We need to evacuate our army off the plain. Right now.” “It’s going to break?” Chaol’s father demanded. Nesryn winced. “It likely will.”

“Erawan knew I was bringing an army. Did he pick Anielle for this? Knowing I’d come,

“Could you freeze it—the river?” He’d already thought of it. Rowan shook his head. “It’s too deep and its current too strong.”

“I promised to always find you. I promised you, and you promised me. I came for you because of it; I am here because of it. I am here for you, do you understand? And if we don’t get onto that horse now, we won’t stand a chance against that dam. We will die.”

“I love you,” he whispered in Elide’s ear. “I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken.” Her tears flowed past him in the wind. “And I will be with you …” His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. “I will be with you always.”

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

“Three months,” he said again, his knees wobbling. “She’s been making the descent into her power for three months.”

Maeve’s death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen’s salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

“And if I asked you to stay?” The question also took him by surprise. He carefully thought through his answer. “I’d need a very convincing reason, I suppose.” Her fingers went to the buckles and buttons of her leathers, and began to loosen them. “Because I don’t want you to go,” was all she said.

To marry. To unite their peoples in the strongest, most unbreakable of terms.

Manon took one look at the empty place where the king had been, at the lack of supplies and that ancient sword, and knew. Dorian had gone to Morath. And had taken the two Wyrdkeys with him.

Rolfe, to his credit, only looked mildly surprised as she flung her arms around his neck. And to his credit once more, the Pirate Lord wrapped his cloak around her before he gripped her back.

“I love you,” she whispered. He was glad he was lying down. The words would have knocked him to his knees. Even now, he was half inclined to bow before her, the true owner of his ancient, wicked heart. “I have loved you,” she went on, “from the moment you came to fight for me against Vernon and the ilken.”

Yet it had been a farewell. One last coupling before he ventured into the jaws of death. He would not cage her, would not accept what she’d given. As if he knew her better than she knew herself.

“I hope Anielle burns to the ground. And you with it.”

Years. Years of letters, from a mother he had not heard from, had believed hadn’t wanted to speak to him, had yielded to his father’s wishes. “You let her believe I didn’t write back,” Chaol said, surprised to find his voice still calm. “You never sent them, and let her believe I didn’t write back.”

“I don’t make bargains with bastards,” Chaol said, smiling again as he entered the hall beyond. “I’m certainly not going to start with you.”

“Is there any other reason you would deign to visit Morath, Maeve?”

“Immortal, powerful hosts,” Maeve purred to the Valg king. “With their innate gifts, imagine how the princesses might thrive within them. Both spider and princess becoming more.”

“Do you plan to hide in that pathetic form all day?”