Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

Then she dropped the dagger into the moss. Began clawing at the shackles on her arms, the gauntlets on her hands, the mask on her face. “Take it off,” she begged as she scratched and tugged and yanked. “Take it off!”

The queen’s gauntlets drew blood where they scraped into her neck, her jaw, as she heaved against the mask. “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. She said no other words. Pleaded to no gods, no ancestors. Only those words, again and again and again. Take it off, take it off, take it off.

“Aelin.” Take it off, take it off, take it off. Her screams were unbearable. Worse than those that day on the beach in Eyllwe.

Aside from a bruise along her ribs, there was nothing. Not a mark. Not a callus. Not a single scar. The ones Elide had marked in those days before Aelin had been taken were gone. As if someone had wiped them away.

They had taken her scars.

Aelin spoke a third time, teeth flashing as she gave Fenrys her first order. Live.

A vision of old, striding through the trees, the queen and the wolf.

Asterin and Vesta teased him about it mercilessly as they’d traveled down through the spine of the Fangs, dramatically bemoaning the absence of his pretty bluebell eyes, and had sighed to the heavens when the sapphire hue had returned.

Who had she been, the warrior before her? Who had she fought for? Not kingdoms or rulers, but who in her life had been worth defending?

Who do you wish to be? “Someone worthy of my friends,” he said into the quiet night. “A king worthy of his kingdom.” For a heartbeat, snow-white hair and golden eyes flashed into his mind. “Happy,” he whispered, and wrapped a hand around Damaris’s hilt. Let go of that lingering scrap of terror.

But Manon’s lip curled back from her teeth. Her golden eyes glowed like embers. “When, exactly, were you going to inform me that you were about to retrieve the third Wyrdkey?”

oh ur so fucked

Retreat and live. Fight and die.

“You agreed to let Aelin go to her death, and leave us here to be slashed to bloody ribbons. You two told no one of this plan, told none of us who might have explained the realities of this war, and that we would need a gods-damned Fire-Bringer and not an untrained, useless shape-shifter against Morath.”

i actually hate this man

“You ruined everything.” His words were colder than the wind outside. “You, and her.” Lysandra closed her eyes. Hay rustled, and she knew he’d risen to his feet, knew it as his words speared from above her bowed head. “Get out of my tent.” She wasn’t certain she could move enough to obey, though she wished to. Needed to. Fight back. She should fight back. Rage at him as he lashed at her, needing an outlet for his fear and despair. Lysandra opened her eyes, peering up at him. At the rage on his face, the hatred. She managed to stand, her body bleating in pain. Managed to look him in the eye, even as Aedion said again with quiet cold, “Get out.”

He had come for her. Rowan. Rowan Whitethorn. Now Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, her husband and king-consort. Her mate.

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

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

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?”

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

Yet if Dorian chose to end it himself, to forge the Lock … her stomach churned. He had the power. As much as she did, if not more so.

It was meant to be her sacrifice. Her blood shed to save them all. To let him claim it … She could. She must. With Erawan no doubt unleashing himself on Terrasen, with Maeve’s army likely to cause them untold grief, she could let Dorian do this. She trusted him. Even if she might never forgive herself for it.

An unbroken Fire-Bringer. Aelin of the Wildfire. She would show the world that lie as well. Make them believe it. Maybe she’d one day believe it, too.

No, she’d once told him that while magic flowed in the Lochan bloodline, she had none to speak of. He’d never told her that he’d always considered her cleverness to be a mighty magic on its own, regardless of Anneith’s whisperings.

“We got her back. She’s with us now. What more do you want?” From me, he didn’t need to add. Elide straightened. “I don’t want anything.” From you.

THEY ARE SPEAKING THROUGH MATE BOND WAIT

On that beach, my only thought was to get Maeve to forget about you, to let you go—” “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.

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

Aelin’s smile remained, just barely, as she walked to the golden-haired male, his bronze skin ashen. She opened her arms in silent offer. To let him decide if he wished for contact. If he could endure it. Just as Rowan would let her decide if she wished to touch him. A small sigh broke from Fenrys before he folded Aelin into his arms, a shudder rippling through him. Rowan couldn’t see her face, perhaps didn’t need to, as her hands gripped Fenrys’s jacket, so tightly they were white-knuckled.

“It’s good to have you back.” He added, stumbling a bit on the word, “Brother.” For that’s what they would be. Had never been before, but what Fenrys had done for Aelin … Yes, brother was what Rowan would call him.

Two golden rings lay there. “I don’t know the Fae customs,” she said. The thicker ring held an elegantly cut ruby within the band itself, while the smaller one bore a sparkling rectangular emerald mounted atop, the stone as large as her fingernail. “But when humans wed, rings are exchanged.” Her fingers trembled—just slightly. Too many unspoken words lay between them.

Silently, Rowan grasped her own hand and eased on the emerald ring. “To whatever end,” he whispered. Silver lined her eyes. “To whatever end.” A reminder—and a vow, more sacred than the wedding oaths they’d sworn on that ship. To walk this path together, back from the darkness of the iron coffin. To face what waited in Terrasen, ancient promises to the gods be damned.

Rattle the stars. She’d promised to do that.

His father looked at him at last, his face grave. “Your wife is pregnant.”

hes such a cunt for that

“I am a Crochan,” she said. “And I am an Ironteeth witch.” She flexed her fingers, willing the stiffness from them. “The Ironteeth are my people, too. Regardless of what my grandmother may decree. They are my people, Blueblood and Yellowlegs and Blackbeak alike.” And she would bear the weight of what she’d created, what she’d trained, forever.

“Erawan will catch you. You cannot go.” “We will lose this war if I do not go,” he snapped. “How do you not care about that?” “I care,” she hissed. “I care if we lose this war. I care if I fail to rally the Crochans. I care if you go into Morath and do not return, not as something worth living.” He only blinked. Manon spat on the mossy ground. “Now do you wish to tell me that caring is not such a bad thing? Well, this is what comes of it.”

He’d deceived her, had lied to her. This man who she’d believed held no secrets between them. She didn’t know why it made her want to shred everything within sight.

“Let’s see how well you can shape-shift then, princeling.” Manon forced herself to hold his stare. To let her words hang between them. Then he turned on his heel, aiming for the camp. “Fine. But find yourself another tent to sleep in tonight.”

She’d rebuild it—what she had been. Perhaps one last time, perhaps only for a little while, but she’d do it. If only for Terrasen.

that was when I came the closest.” His swallow was audible. “What stopped you?” She wiped at her face again. “The male I fell in love with was you. It was you, who knew pain as I did, and who walked with me through it, back to the light. Maeve didn’t understand that. That even if she could create that perfect world, it wouldn’t be you with me. And I’d never trade that, trade this. Not for anything.”

“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.”

“Do you plan to sail with us to Terrasen?” An unnecessary question for dawn, and in the middle of the sea. “Yes.” “And you plan to join us in this war?” “I’m certainly not going there to enjoy the weather.”

She meant it, too. Swear the blood oath, swear never to harm her kingdom, and she’d give him freedom. And if he refused … He would never see Elide again.

“But I would not take something as precious away from you.” “What you don’t realize is that is no longer a possibility.” Again, that hint of a smile and glance over her shoulder toward Elide. “It is.” Her turquoise eyes were bright as she looked back at him, and there was wisdom on Aelin’s face that he had perhaps never noticed before. A queen’s face. “Believe me, Lorcan, it is.”

Fenrys just turned to the queen. “If I tell you he’s a prick and a miserable bastard to be around, will it change your mind?” Lorcan snarled, but Aelin snorted. “Isn’t that why we love Lorcan, though?”

so true girly

“If I don’t come back,” he said while she tied the ancient blade to her belt, “the keys must go to Terrasen.” It was the only place he could think of—even if Aelin wasn’t there to take them. “You’ll come back,” Manon said. It sounded like more of a threat than anything. Dorian smirked. “Would you miss me if I didn’t?”

GOD I LOVE HIM SM

The hours that passed were some of the longest of Manon’s existence.

“Well?” Manon demanded. His eyes—dark as a Valg’s—flashed. She didn’t try to explain that her knees had been shaking. Still buckled while she handed him his sword, then the two keys, her nails grazing his gloved hand.

Manon went on, “A lie, about who we are, what we are. That we are monsters, and proud to be.” She ran a finger over the scrap of red fabric binding her braid. “But we were made into them. Made,” she repeated. “When we might be so much more.”

“The choice of how our people’s future shall be shaped is yours,” Manon told each of the witches assembled, all the Blackbeaks who might fly to war and never return. “But I will tell you this.” Her hands shook, and she fisted them on her thighs. “There is a better world out there. And I have seen it.”

“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.”