Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

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.

He knew that light. A shifter.

No, the thing that came out of the bear was made of nightmares. A spider. A great, stygian spider, big as a horse and black as night. Its many eyes narrowed on Manon, pincers clicking, as it hissed, “Blackbeak.”

“Coward,” the spider spat. “Release me, and we’ll end this the old way.” Manon debated it. Then shrugged. “I shall keep this painless. Consider that my debt owed to you.” Sucking in a breath, Manon readied for the blow— “Wait.” The spider breathed the word. “Wait.” “From insults to pleading,” Asterin murmured. “Who is spineless now?”

“How do you think I found you?” the spider asked. Manon stilled. “So many possessions left at Morath. Your scents all over them.” If the spider had found them here that easily, they had to move out. Now.

Dorian jerked his chin to the shuddering spider. “Don’t kill her. Not yet. There’s more she might know beyond the Crochans’ whereabouts.” 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.

“You are both at the mercy of my coven,” Manon snarled. “Step aside.” Dorian gave her a slight smile. “Am I?” A wind colder than the mountain air filled the pass. He could kill them all. Whether by choking the air from them or snapping their necks. He could kill them all, and the wyverns included. The knowledge carved out another hollow within him. Another empty spot.

The most dangerous time for him, right before he moved her to the anchors on the altar. Even with her feet and hands bound, he took no chances. He didn’t today, either, despite not bothering with the gauntlets.

Didn’t fight as they walked down that hall, though she counted the steps and turns.

She couldn’t see it, but it grazed damp fingers over her skin, whispering of the gaping openness of the world. Run. Now.

Yet if she heeded that voice, if she ran, was the cost of his life worth her own? “You’re debating it, aren’t you,” Cairn hissed in her ear. She could feel his smile even through the sack blinding her. “If the wolf’s life is a fair cost to get away.” A lover’s laugh. “Try it. See how far you get. We’ve a few minutes of walking left.”

Another burning wave washed through her knees, across her thighs. Aelin closed her eyes against it. She would endure this, would bear down on this. Her people had suffered for ten years. Were likely suffering now. For their sake, she would do this. Embrace it. Outlast it.

Aelin hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to it. That sliver of hope, foolish and pathetic. That sliver of hope that he’d come for her. She had told him not to, after all.

No. The word was a cold clang through her. Her lips even formed it as she jerked against the chains, lines of liquid fire shooting along her legs.

Not as a trickle of blood snaked down Maeve’s cheek. Black blood. As dark as night. As dark as the eyes that the queen fixed on her, a hand rising to her cheek. Aelin’s legs slackened, and she didn’t fight the guards heaving her away.

He wasn’t coming. He wasn’t coming to get her. She should be glad. Should be relieved. She was relieved. And yet … and yet …

Salt overpowered the tang of her blood, and she knew he was crying. The scent of their tears filled the tiny room as he worked. Neither of them said a word.

“Not employed,” the messenger said. “Just … collaborating.” Aedion opened the letter, and it indeed conveyed Darrow’s order. “For you to have gotten here so fast, you’d have needed to fly,” he said to the messenger. “This must have been written before the battle even started this morning.” The messenger smirked. “I was handed two letters. One was for victory, the other defeat.” Bold—this messenger was bold, and arrogant, for someone at Darrow’s beck and call.

“Then tell me where, and when, and I’ll do it.” “Just as you blindly obeyed our queen, you’ll now obey me?” “I obey no man,” she snarled.

Hurt flashed in her eyes, quickly hidden. He was the worst sort of bastard for

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.

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.

Mate. The word was still a surprise. As it had been to arrive here at spring’s end and see him beside her aunt’s throne and simply know. And in the months since, their courting … Aelin indeed blushed at the thought of it. What they’d done in that forest pool had been the culmination of those months. And an unleashing. The mating marks on her neck—and on Rowan’s—proved it. She would not be returning to Terrasen alone when autumn arrived.

You do not wish to attract their interest.” Essar made to turn away, but Elide blurted, “Where did Maeve go?”

Essar looked over her shoulder. Studied her. The female’s eyes widened. “She has Aelin of the Wildfire,” Essar breathed.

Elide said nothing, but Essar murmured, “That was … that was the power we...

She’d protested, but even Gavriel had told her that she was mortal. Untrained. And what she’d done today … Rowan didn’t have the words to convey his gratitude for what Elide had done. The unexpected ally she’d found.

Then, 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.

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.

But Dorian kept peering inward. Into every hollow, empty corner. He need only do it long enough. To master the shifting. To sneak into Morath and find the third key. To then offer up all he was and had been to the Lock and the gate. And then it would be over. For Erawan, yes, and for him.

Hurry northward, the wind sang, day and night. Hurry, Blackbeak.

“Neither are you,” he said a bit quietly. The wrong thing to say. Manon stiffened, her chin lifting. “I am one hundred seventeen years old,” she said flatly. “I have spent the majority of that time killing. Don’t convince yourself that the events of the past few months have erased that.” “Keep telling yourself that.” He doubted anyone had ever spoken to her that baldly—relished that he now did, and kept his throat intact.

care about more than I should. I even care about you.” Another wrong thing to say.

I even care about you.

Dorian said into the darkness, “Three to a tent isn’t too comfortable, is it?” “I didn’t come back because I agree with you.” Manon yanked the blankets over herself. Dorian smiled slightly, and fell asleep once more, letting his magic warm them both.

When they awoke, something sharp in his chest had dulled—just a fraction. But Manon was frowning down at him. Dorian sat up, groaning as he stretched his arms as far as the tent would allow.

“What is it?” he asked when her brow remained furrowed. Manon pulled on her boots, then her c...

Not like this— Cairn reached into his pocket and withdrew some flint. This wasn’t just a breaking of her body. But a breaking of her—of the fire she’d come to love. To destroy the part of her that sang.

her tongue. Please. She tried to swallow it. Tried to keep it locked in as Cairn crouched beside the table, flint raised. You do not yield. You do not yield. You do not yield. “Wait.”

The queen dropped to her knees, bowing over them, and clawed at the mask. It didn’t so much as move. Elide glanced to Lorcan. He was frozen, eyes wide as Aelin knelt in the moss, as her breathing became edged with sobs. He had done this.

“Take it off!” The plea turned into a scream. “Take it off!” Over and over, the queen screamed it. “Take it off, take it off, take it off!” She was sobbing amid her screaming, the sounds shattering through the ancient forest.

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.

Yet something like shock, then horror and sorrow, flashed over his face, as he surveyed her back. It was gone as soon as it appeared. A glance, and Gavriel and Lorcan drifted to his side, their steps slow. Unthreatening.

Aelin’s eyes opened. They were empty. Wholly drained. A warrior accepting defeat. Elide blurted, scrambling for anything to banish that emptiness, “Was there ever a key? Did you see them using a key?” Two blinks. As if that meant something.

They had taken her scars. Maeve had taken them all away. It told Rowan enough about what had been done.

was upon her exposed palms that Aelin now gazed. As if realizing what was missing. The scars across her palms, one from the moment they had become carranam, the other from her oath to Nehemia, had disappeared entirely.

Like they had never been. Her flames burned brighter.

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.

Rowan was instantly there—or as close as the flames would allow. He could push through, shielding himself in ice or simply by cutting off the air that fed her flames. But to cross that line, to shove into her flames when so much, too much, had been stolen from her … He didn’t let himself think about the distant, wary recognition on her face when she’d seen him—seen all of them. As if she wasn’t entirely certain to trust them. Trust this.