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 …

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.

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.

Her mother placed a phantom hand over Aelin’s heart. 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.

Tonight, with only the cold fire of the stars for company, he begged her once more. A curl of wind sent his prayer drifting to those stars, to the waxing moon silvering the camp, the river, the mountains. He had killed his way across the world; he had gone to war and back more times than he cared to remember. And despite it all, despite the rage and despair and ice he’d wrapped around his heart, he’d still found Aelin. Every horizon he’d gazed toward, unable and unwilling to rest during those centuries, every mountain and ocean he’d seen and wondered what lay beyond … It had been her. It had been Aelin, the silent call of the mating bond driving him, even when he could not feel it. They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here.

Aelin. She was Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, and she was Queen of Terrasen.

For the companions around her, to lift their despair, their fear, she wouldn’t yield. She’d fight for it, claw her way back to it, who she’d been before. Remember to swagger and grin and wink. She’d fight against that lingering stain on her soul, fight to ignore it. Would use this journey into the dark to piece herself back together—just enough to make it convincing. Even if this fractured darkness now dwelled within her, even if speech was difficult, she would show them what they wished to see. An unbroken Fire-Bringer. Aelin of the Wildfire.

Beauty. There was still beauty in this world. Stars could still glow, still burn bright, even buried under the earth.

“I have seen witch and human and Fae dwell together in peace. And it is not a weakness to do so, but a strength. I have met kings and queens whose love for their kingdoms, their peoples, is so great that the self is secondary. Whose love for their people is so strong that even in the face of unthinkable odds, they do the impossible.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “You fight,” he said simply. “We fight. Until we can’t anymore. We fight.” She sat up, but remained on his lap, staring into his face with a rawness that destroyed him. Rowan laid a hand on her chest, right over that burning heart. “Fireheart.” A challenge and a summons. She placed her hand atop his, warm despite the frigid night. As if that fire had not yet gone out entirely. But she only gazed up at the stars. To the Lord of the North, standing watch. “We fight,” she breathed.

She was not a broken-spirited Wing Leader unsure of her place in the world. She was not ashamed of the truth before her. She was not afraid.

Gone was the witch who had slept and wished for death. Gone was the witch who had raged at the truth that had torn her to shreds. And in her place, fighting as if she were the very wind, unfaltering against the Matrons, stood someone Dorian had not yet met. Stood a queen of two peoples.

Manon was glowing, as if the stars atop her head pulsed through her body. A wondrous and mighty beauty, like no other in the world. Like no one had ever been, or would be again.

And as Rowan fought his way closer, as that cry went down the battlements and Anielle men ran to aid her, he realized that Aelin did not need an ounce of flame to inspire men to follow. That she had been waiting, yanking at the bit, to show them what she, without magic, without any godly power, might do. He’d never seen such a glorious sight. In every land, every battle, he had never seen anything as glorious as Aelin before the throat of the siege tower, holding the line. Dawn breaking around them, Rowan loosed a battle cry and tore into Morath.

Death had been her curse and her gift and her friend for these long, long years. She was happy to greet it again under the golden morning sun.

“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.”

He could have sworn fear entered her eyes. Yet she didn’t rage at him, roar at him—didn’t so much as snarl. She only asked, “You’re not afraid to go alone?” “Of course I’m afraid. Anyone in their right mind would be. But my task is more important than fear, I think.”

She awoke at dawn to a cold bed. 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.

Anything she asked, he’d give her. Anything at all.

He would not cage her, would not accept what she’d given. As if he knew her better than she knew herself.

Dorian said into the dark chasm of her mind, I was a slave once. You didn’t really think I’d allow myself to be so once again, did you?

“For those we love, we can rise above that fear.

“We have no master,” Manon Blackbeak said, and it was indeed a queen’s voice that she spoke with, her golden eyes bright. “We come to honor a friend.”

Manon only looked to Aedion, that smile lingering. “Long ago, the Crochans fought beside Terrasen, to honor the great debt we owed the Fae King Brannon for granting us a homeland. For centuries, we were your closest allies and friends.” That crown of stars blazed bright upon her head. “We heard your call for aid.” Lysandra began weeping. “And we have come to answer it.”

Her coven grinned, wicked and defiant, and touched two fingers to their brows in deference. Manon returned the gesture, bowing her head as she did. “We are the Thirteen,” she said. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”

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

“Do you, now.” His voice was near-guttural.

The Thirteen stalked toward their own mounts. Sorrel clasped Manon’s shoulder as she passed, then climbed onto her wyvern’s back. Leaving Asterin before Manon. 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.”

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.”

As all of them watched that witch tower approach, their doom gathering within it. As the Thirteen raced for it, raced against the wind and death itself.

But Asterin was already there. 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.

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

For hours, Manon knelt on the battlefield, Abraxos at her side. As if she might stay with them, her Thirteen, for a little while longer. And far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom.

The rage in his eyes fractured, right along with his voice. “I would go in your stead, if I could.” Her own heart cracked. “I know.” Rowan fell to his knees before her, putting his head in her lap as his arms wrapped around her waist. “I can’t bear it, Aelin. I can’t.” She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wanted that thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair. Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.” She gazed at him, at the life she saw in his face. All that he offered. All that she might have, too.

But Rowan halted her, the second symbol half-finished. Tipped back her chin. “Even when you’re … there,” he said, his pine-green eyes so bright under the moon. “I am with you.” He laid a hand on her heart. “Here. I am with you here.” She laid her own hand on his chest, and breathed his scent deep into her lungs, her heart. “As I am with you. Always.” Rowan kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered onto her mouth. “Come back to me.”

Aelin met Rowan’s stare one last time. Saw the words there. Come back to me.

Just one sliver in her body had destroyed Kaltain. To put all three in her own … My name is Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, and I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid.

She barely felt the tears on her face as she fell to her knees. As she gave and gave her magic, her very self. My name is Aelin Ashryver Galath— A choking scream tore out of her as the last of the Lock sealed. As the Lock became forged once more, as real as her own flesh. As Aelin’s magic completely vanished.

Another voice whispered past then, a fragment of memory, spoken on a rooftop in Rifthold. What if we go on, only to more pain and despair? Then it is not the end.

Aelin’s hand drifted to her heart and rested there. It is the strength of this that matters, her mother had said, long ago. Wherever you go, Aelin, no matter how far, this will lead you home. No matter where she was. No matter how far. Even if it took her beyond all known worlds.

She passed through a world where a great city had been built along the curve of a river, the buildings impossibly tall and glimmering with lights.

She passed through a world of snowcapped mountains under shining stars. Passed over one of those mountains, where a winged male stood beside a heavily pregnant female, gazing at those very stars. Fae.

“I would have liked to have seen it,” Manon whispered again.

And before them all, sword raised to the sky as that horn blew one last time, the ruby in the blade’s pommel smoldering like a small sun … Before them all, riding on the Lord of the North, was Aelin.

Manon Blackbeak had not broken her vow. And neither would she.

For Terrasen. All of it, for Terrasen.

Cadre, yet more than that. Brothers—the warriors fighting at his side were his brothers. Had stayed with him through all of it. And would continue to do so now.

“Then we shall shut them,” Gavriel said, and smiled grimly. “Together.” The word was more of a question, subtle and sorrowful. Together. As father and son. As the two warriors they were. Gavriel—his father. He had come. And looking at those tawny eyes, Aedion knew it was not for Aelin, or for Terrasen, that his father had done it. “Together,” Aedion rasped. Not just this obstacle. Not just this battle. But whatever would come afterward, should they survive. Together. Aedion could have sworn something like joy and pride filled Gavriel’s eyes. Joy and pride and sorrow, heavy and old.

He stopped hearing the battle. Stopped seeing the fighting around him, above him. Stopped seeing everything but the fallen warrior, who gazed toward the darkening sky with sightless eyes. His tattooed throat ripped out. His sword still gripped in his hand. Gavriel. His father.