Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

He had been hunting for her since the moment she was taken from him. His mate. He barely remembered his own name. And only recalled it because his three companions spoke it while they searched for her across violent and dark seas, through ancient and slumbering forests, over storm-swept mountains already buried in snow.

OMG Rowan?!?

He had been hunting for her since the moment she was taken from him. His mate. He barely remembered his own name. And only recalled it because his three companions spoke it while they searched for her across violent and dark seas, through ancient and slumbering forests, over storm-swept mountains already buried in snow.

OMG Rowan my heart 🥺

So he stayed with his companions, even as the days passed. Then the weeks. Then months. Still he searched. Still he hunted for her on every dusty and forgotten road. And sometimes, he spoke along the bond between them, sending his soul on the wind to wherever she was held captive, entombed. I will find you.

Not me being two pages into Kingdom of Ash and already having my heart broken 🥺

The iron smothered her. It had snuffed out the fire in her veins, as surely as if the flames had been doused.

OMG SJM WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME LIKE THIS ALREADY?!?!? 😭

The iron smothered her. It had snuffed out the fire in her veins, as surely as if the flames had been doused.

OMG SJM WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME LIKE THIS ALREADY?!?!? 😭

It was during those infinite hours that she would fix her stare on her companion. Not the queen’s hunter, who could draw out pain like a musician coaxing a melody from an instrument. But the massive white wolf, chained by invisible bonds. Forced to witness this. There were some days when she could not stand to look at the wolf. When she had come so close, too close, to breaking. And only the story had kept her from doing so.

OMG why is the Queen torturing Fenrys too?!! What a bitch!

No one had noticed, in the nearly two months they’d been maintaining this ruse, that the Queen of Fire had not an ember to show for it. Or that she and the shape-shifter never appeared in the same place.

Ok it’s been two months since Empire of Storms… wow!

He rose a heartbeat before a joyous “Aedion!” sang over the stones. Evangeline was beaming,

Aww Evangeline!!

Fleetfoot’s with him, by the way. Murtaugh, I mean. She likes him better than me, because he sneaks her treats all day. She’s fatter than a lazy house cat now.”

I’m So happy Fleetfoot and Evangeline are still alive and happy

Ren ducked his head. “It belonged to Rose.” His oldest sister. Who had been butchered along with Rallen, the middle Allsbrook sibling, at the magic academy they’d attended. Near the border with Adarlan, the school had been directly in the path of invading troops. Even before magic fell, they would have had few defenses against ten thousand soldiers. Aedion didn’t let himself often remember the slaughter of Devellin—that fabled school. How many children had been there. How none had escaped. Ren had been close to both his elder sisters, but to high-spirited Rose most of all. “She would have liked her,” Ren clarified, jerking his chin toward Evangeline.

Aww that’s so sad

She had tried to speak with him these past two months. Many times. Dozens of times. He’d ignored her. And when they’d at last reached Terrasen’s shores, she’d given up.

Oh Aedion stop being a baby and just forgive Lysandra already!

Elide didn’t look too long toward that figure. She’d been unable to stomach it these endless weeks. Unable to stomach him, or the unbearable ache in her chest. Elide frowned at Gavriel.

Oh yes I forgot Elide, Manon, and Dorian were with Gavriel and Lorcan

She’d worried, after Asterin and Vesta had left them aboard the ship they’d sailed here, that she might have made a mistake in choosing to travel with three immortal males. That she’d be trampled underfoot.

Oh wait Manon and Dorian are alone! So she’s with Gavriel, Lorcan,… and Rowan?

Her cycle, at least, had come last month, despite the hard travel that burned up any reserves of food in her stomach. That had been particularly mortifying. To explain to three warriors who could already smell the blood that she needed supplies. More frequent stops.

I love when normal human biology is put into fantasy books 😂👏🏻

Rowan had found him, then. They couldn’t hope to track Maeve, Rowan had realized on Samhuinn. Yet finding the commanders who served Maeve, spread across various kingdoms on loan to mortal rulers—that, they could do.

Smart idea Rowan

Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius ran an ironclad finger over the rim of the stone altar on which she lay. As much movement as she could manage.

Her name has in it Whitethorn now 🥹

The wolf blinked at her—thrice. In the early days, months, years of this, they had crafted a silent code between them. Using the few moments she’d been able to dredge up speech, whispering through the near-invisible holes in the iron coffin. One blink for yes. Two for no. Three for Are you all right? Four for I am here, I am with you. Five for This is real, you are awake.

OMG Fenrys trying to support her as best as he can even when he’s powerless against Maeve 🥺

Maeve had considered even that, granting Cairn power to order when Fenrys ate and drank, when he pissed.

What a bitch

She’d hunted enough Crochans during the past hundred years to spot their style of making fires, their neat little camps. All the Thirteen had.

Oh yeah I forgot they were liking for the Crochan witches to unite all the witches and fight in the war

Though nothing had been declared between them, their bedrolls still wound up beside each other every night. Not that a camp full of witches offered any sort of opportunity to tangle with her. No, for that, they’d resorted to winter-bare forests and snow-blasted passes, their hands roving for any bit of bare skin they dared expose to the chill air.

Damn even in the snowy mountains and with 12 other witches around, Dorian still wants to get frisky with Manon!

But it made no difference if he cared. About them. About himself, he supposed. Caring hadn’t done him any favors. Hadn’t done Sorscha any favors. And it wouldn’t matter, once he gave up everything to seal the Wyrdgate.

Dorian’s planning to a sacrifice himself in Aelin’s place???

He had not forgotten a single movement of Aelin’s hands in Skull’s Bay when she’d smeared her blood on the floor of her room at the Ocean Rose. But it was not Elena whom he planned to summon with his blood.

Oh shit he’s trying to summon a spirit??

None of the witches possessed power, not beyond the Yielding, which they’d told him could only be summoned once—to terrible and devastating effect.

I think I predicted this in a previous book but I bet Manon or Asterin use the Yielding to sacrifice themselves to save someone else and win the war

She had been willing to yield everything to save Terrasen, to save all of them. He could do nothing less. Aelin certainly had more to lose. A mate and husband who loved her. A court who’d follow her into hell. A kingdom long awaiting her return. All he had was an unmarked grave for a healer no one would remember, a broken empire, and a shattered castle.

Aww Dorian 🥺

“My mate,” Gavin snarled, “is the cost of this. My mate, should the keys be retrieved, will vanish forever. Do you know what that is like, young king? To have eternity—and then have it ripped away?” Dorian didn’t bother to reply. “You don’t wish me to find the third key because it will mean the end of Elena.” Gavin said nothing.

When even the afterlife has a stake in the war going on 😬

Pain clouded the king’s face. Pain, and regret, as Gavin finally said, “The key is at Morath.”

Of course it is 🙈

“That sword is not ornamental. Let it guide you, if you cannot trust yourself.” “It really tells the truth?” “It was blessed by the All-Seeing One himself, after I swore myself to him.”

Ooo it’s like the sword from TMI!

Dorian dared a step forward. “Am I human?” Gavin’s sapphire eyes softened—just barely. “I’m not the person who can answer that.”

What kind of answer is that???

Hellas damn him, he’d had to resort to giving his cut-up shirt to Whitethorn and Gavriel to hand to her for her cycle. He’d threatened to skin them alive if they’d said it was his, and Elide, with her human sense of smell, hadn’t scented him on the fabric.

He still wants to care for her even though she hates him… GIVE LORCAN HIS REDEMPTION AND ELIDE HER HAPPY ENDING 😭

Not until Lorcan said, “I didn’t crawl after Maeve.” She halted, hair swaying. Slowly, she glanced over her shoulder. Imperious and cold as the stars overhead. “I crawled …” His throat bobbed. “I crawled after Aelin.”

Whatttttt?!??

Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, consort, husband, and mate of the Queen of Terrasen, knew he was dreaming. He knew it, because he could see her.

Ugh SJM why you gotta torture me like this! 😭 I can’t be crying this early in the book!

It was the hand on her rounded belly. She stared toward him, hair still flowing. Behind her, four small figures emerged. Rowan fell to his knees. The tallest: a girl with golden hair and pine-green eyes, solemn-faced and as proud as her mother. The boy beside her, nearly her height, smiled at him, warm and bright, his Ashryver eyes near-glowing beneath his cap of silver hair. The boy next to him, silver-haired and green-eyed, might as well have been Rowan’s twin. And the smallest girl, clinging to her mother’s legs … A fine-boned, silver-haired child, little more than a babe, her blue eyes harking back to a lineage he did not know. Children. His children. Their children. With another mere weeks from being born.

I hope this foreshadows the future for them bc they deserve it

To the other truth that they would face, the other burden. Tell Rowan that I’m sorry I lied. But tell him it was all borrowed time anyway. Even before today, I knew it was all just borrowed time, but I still wish we’d had more of it. He refused to accept that. Would never accept that she would be the ultimate cost to end this, to save their world.

Same Rowan. I refuse to accept it as well

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.

Yes you’ll get your wife back Rowan! I have faith in you!

The winter winds off the rough waves had chilled Chaol Westfall from the moment he’d emerged from his quarters belowdecks.

OMG we’re getting a Chaol POV too?!?? I thought for sure we wouldn’t hear from him until later in the story! 😱

Chaol slid his arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. “Am I not keeping you warm enough these days, wife?” Yrene blushed, and elbowed him in the ribs. “Cad.” Over a month later, and he was still marveling at the word: wife. At the woman by his side, who had healed his fractured and weary soul.

Ugh I love them so much 🥹

Falkan Ennar, shape-shifter and merchant-turned-rukhin-spy, had taken a falcon’s form this morning,

OMG I forgot about Lysandra relative (uncle? I can’t remember lol)!

That Maeve was not a Fae Queen at all, but a Valg imposter. An ancient Valg queen, who had infiltrated Doranelle at the dawn of time, ripping into the two sister-queens’ minds and convincing them that they had an elder sister.

Oh yes I forgot all of this! Wow I’m so glad SJM is reiterating all of this in this book because I forgot all of this in the two months it’s been since I read Tower of Dawn!

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.

OH MY GOD IS SHE PREGNANT?!?

Manon angled her head at him. “You’re … different today.” He shrugged. “If you want someone to warm your bed who cowers at your every word and obeys every command, look elsewhere.”

DORIAN YOU SASS MASTER 😱🔥

And when they found the Crochans, when the Thirteen were distracted, he’d learn what he needed from the spider, too.

Dorian’s got his own agenda… I can’t wait to see how this works out

The witch was keeping secrets, too. But were hers as dire as his?

Oooooo

She had been here before.

Could she actually be in Doranelle?!!

The blade plunged down. Not into Fenrys. But Connall’s own heart.

OMG WHAT?!? Maeve just had him kill himself??!!

Rough hands gripped her, Cairn shouting, raging shrieks of You little bitch, but she didn’t hear them. 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. A blink, and the blood flowed red. Its scent as coppery as her own. A trick of the light. A hallucination, another dream—

NO AELIN ITS ALL REAL SHE’S A VALG

It was not a wolf who slipped into the stone chamber, but a male. Each of Fenrys’s steps told her enough before she beheld the deadness of his eyes, the pallor of his usually golden skin. He stared at nothing, even as he stopped before where she lay chained.

Poor Fenrys 😢

Lingering salt tracks streaked his cheeks. Her chains rustled as she stretched a shaking finger toward him. Silently, he slid his hand into hers. She mouthed the words, even though he likely couldn’t make them out with the slit of the mask’s mouth. I’m sorry. His grip only tightened.

My heart is breaking for them

Let him stay in this form for a while longer, let him mourn as a male and not a wolf. Let him stay in this form so she could hear a friendly voice, feel a gentle touch— She began to cry. She couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop it once it started. Hated every tear and shuddering breath, every jerk of her body that sent lightning through her legs and feet. “I’ll get them out,” he said, and she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t start to explain that it wasn’t the glass, the shredded skin down to the bone. 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 …

HE’S COMING!! ROWAN IS COMING FOR YOU

Shield to shield and shoulder to shoulder in the snowy field that had since become a mud pit, they’d met the legion Erawan had marched through Eldrys.

And so the battles begin!