Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …

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

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.

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

The hand she’d been dealt. It was the hand she had been dealt, and she would endure it.

“I wanted it to be you,” he breathed, closing his eyes. “For months and months, even in Wendlyn, I wondered why you weren’t my mate instead. It tore me up, wondering it, but I still did.” He opened his eyes, and they burned like green fire. “All this time, I wanted it to be you.”

“Even if I had my choice of any dream-realities, any perfect illusions, I would still choose you, too.”

Not helpless. Not contained. Never again.

“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.”

And there is only one witch who will be my queen.

EATTTTTTT DORIANNNNNN

But just remember that this fear of yours? It means you have something worth fighting for—something you care so greatly for that losing it is the worst thing you can imagine.” He pointed to the frost-covered windows. “Those bastards out there on the plain? They have none of that.” He laid his hand on hers and squeezed gently. “They have nothing to fight for. And while we might not have their numbers, we do have something worth defending. And because of that, we can overcome our fear. We can fight against them, to the very end. For our friends, for our family …” He squeezed her hand again at that. “For those we love …” He dared to look up at Lysandra, whose green eyes were lined with silver. “For those we love, we can rise above that fear. Remember that tomorrow. Even if you throw up, even if you spend the whole night in the privy. Remember that we have something to fight for, and it will always triumph.”

The one time this man isn’t bitching about something

“Let’s make this a fight worthy of a song,” Aedion said.

Home. This, with him. This was home, as she had never had. For however long they might share it.

Her Second, her cousin, her friend, smiled, eyes bright as stars. “Live, Manon.” Manon blinked. Asterin smiled wider, kissed Manon’s brow, and whispered again, “Live.” Manon didn’t see the blow coming. The punch to her gut, so hard and precise that it knocked the wind from her. Sent her to her knees. She was struggling to get a breath down, to get up, when Asterin reached Narene and mounted the blue mare, gathering the reins. “Bring our people home, Manon.” Manon knew then. What they were going to do. Her legs failed her, her body failed her, as she tried to get to her feet. As she rasped, “No.” But Asterin and the Thirteen were already in the skies.

And it was not darkness, but light—light, bright and pure as the sun on snow, that erupted from Asterin. Light, as Asterin made the Yielding. As the Thirteen, their broken bodies scattered around the tower in a near-circle, made the Yielding as well. Light. They all burned with it. Radiated it. Light that flowed from their souls, their fierce hearts as they gave themselves over to that power. Became incandescent with it. Asterin tackled the Blackbeak Matron to the ground, Manon’s grandmother little more than a shadow against the brightness. Then little more than a scrap of hate and memory as Asterin exploded.

As she and the Thirteen Yielded completely, and blew themselves and the witch tower to smithereens.

All come to honor the Thirteen.

Crying in the clurb

“Be the bridge, be the light. When iron melts, when flowers spring from fields of blood—let the land be witness, and return home.”

Before them all, riding on the Lord of the North, was Aelin.

straight shivers.

“I hope you found peace, my brother. And in the Afterworld, I hope you find her again.”

gavriel :(

Yet the songs would mention this—that the Lion fell before the western gate of Orynth, defending the city and his son. If they survived today, if they somehow lived, the bards would sing of it.

Her name was Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius. And she would not be afraid.

Aelin smiled, and Goldryn burned brighter. “I am a god.”

Then Lorcan ran for the gate—to the dark queen who threatened all he’d come to want, to hope for. He’d come to hope. Had found there was something better out there. Someone better. And he’d go down swinging to defend all of it.

Dorian still tightened his hand around the golden hilt and said, “I am human.” It warmed in his hand.

UGHHHHHHH

“Live, Elide,” was all the witch said to her before striding out of the hall once more. “Live.”

“Only together can it be undone,” Glennis whispered. “Be the bridge. Be the light.” A bridge between their two peoples, as Manon had become. A light—as the Thirteen had exploded with light, not darkness, in their final moments. “When iron melts,” Petrah murmured, her blue eyes swimming with tears. The Thirteen had melted that tower. Melted the Ironteeth within it. And themselves. “When flowers spring from fields of blood,” Bronwen went on. Manon’s knees buckled as she stared out at that battlefield. Where countless flowers had been laid atop the blood and ruins where the Thirteen had met their end. Glennis finished, “Let the land be witness.” The battlefield where the rulers and citizens of so many kingdoms, so many nations, had come to pay tribute. To witness the sacrifice of the Thirteen and honor them. Silence fell, and Manon whispered, her voice shaking as she held that small, impossibly precious flower in her palm, “And return home.” Glennis bowed her head. “And so the curse is broken. And so we shall go home together—as one people.” The curse was broken.

So they would know, so Asterin would know, in the realm where she and her hunter and child walked hand in hand, that they had made it. That they were going home.

Dorian smiled. And found himself, for the first time in a while, looking forward to tomorrow.