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

The dark queen with a spider’s smile tried to wield it against her. In the obsidian webs she wove, the illusions and dreams she spun at the culmination of each breaking point, the queen tried to twist the memory of him as a key into her mind.

If beings from another world could be considered gods at all.

The odds of Rolfe emerging to save their asses were as slim as the fabled Wolf Tribe at the far end of the Anascaul Mountains riding out of the hinterland. Or the Fae who’d fled Terrasen a decade ago returning from wherever they’d gone to join Aedion’s forces.

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.

“The All-Seeing One does not claim kinship with those spineless creatures,” Gavin growled. Dorian could have sworn a dusty, bone-dry wind rattled through the pass. “Then what is he?” “Can there not be many gods, from many places? Some born of this world, some born elsewhere?”

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.

“I crawled …” His throat bobbed. “I crawled after Aelin.”

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.

Fenrys’s claws clicked on stone, the sound no doubt meant to signal her that he remained nearby. She realized why he’d feel the need to do so as a female voice that was both young and old, amused and soulless, purred, “Remove the hood, Cairn.”

Maeve said, that spider’s smile never faltering

“Nox Owen.” The messenger bowed at the waist. “From Perranth.”

For Terrasen, she had gladly done this. All of it. For Terrasen, she deserved to pay this price. She had tried to make it right. Had tried, and failed. And she was so, so tired.

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.

“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!”

Severing the blood oath to one queen had snapped his life force, his soul. Swearing the blood oath to another might very well repair that cleaving, the ancient magic binding Fenrys’s fading life to Aelin’s.

Aelin spoke a third time, teeth flashing as she gave Fenrys her first order. Live. Rowan didn’t breathe as they waited. Long minutes passed. Then Fenrys’s eyes cracked open.

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.

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?”

She held her ground. Did not yield one inch to the ilken, who advanced another step. For Terrasen, she would do this. For Aelin.

Manon Blackbeak had described it to them. Ironteeth witches had no magic but that. The ability to unleash their dark goddess’s power in an incendiary blast that took out everyone around them. Including the witch herself.

Manon’s smile grew. And she could have sworn she felt two people standing at her shoulder. She knew no one would be there if she looked. Knew no one else could see them, sense them, standing with her. Standing with their daughter against the witch who had destroyed them.

Lysandra’s green eyes slid toward him, dim with exhaustion and sorrow. “Deep down,” she said quietly, “some part of me thought I’d live to see her sitting here.” She pointed to the dais, to where the antler throne had once been. “Deep down, I thought we might actually make it somehow. Even with Morath, and the Lock, and all of it.”

since those ancient days, only single blossoms had been spotted, so rare that their appearance was deemed a sign that the land had blessed whatever ruler sat on Terrasen’s throne. That the kingdom was truly at peace.

“See for yourself.” And then, breaking from between the peaks, they appeared. Red cloaks flowing on the wind, they filled the northern skies. So many he could not count them, nor the swords and bows and weapons they bore upon their backs, their brooms flying straight and unwavering.

“We are the Thirteen,” she said. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”

thanks to that Fae heritage. His mother’s, yes, but mostly from his father. Had Gavriel heard, across the sea or wherever their hunt for Aelin had taken him, that Terrasen was about to fall? Would he care?

Abraxos, Abraxos— Hers. He was hers, and she was his, and the Darkness had chosen them to be together.

She didn’t care about any of it. The Wastes, the Crochans and Ironteeth, her crown. She didn’t care about any of it, if Abraxos was not there with her.

Her Second, her cousin, her friend, smiled, eyes bright as stars. “Live, Manon.”

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.”

far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom.

“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.”

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.

Crescent City

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.

Valaris

Wide-eyed, the three Fae warriors blinked. “That’s where Aelin is,” was all Fenrys said.

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

Nehemia—Nehemia, who had given everything for Eyllwe. And yet … And yet, Nehemia had still felt the weight of her choices. Still wished to be free of her burdens. It had not made her weak. Not in the slightest.

The two women he had killed, directly or indirectly, and never thought twice about it. Two mothers, whose love for their daughters and hope for a better world was greater than any power Erawan might wield.

Silence fell, and Manon whispered, her voice shaking as she held that small, impossibly precious flower in her palm, “And return home.”

Aedion frowned at the dark stain on the stones. “We’re putting a rug over it,” Aelin told him. Lysandra laughed. “Something tacky, I hope.” “I’m thinking pink and purple. Embroidered with flowers. Just what Erawan would have loved.” The Fae males gaped at them, Ren blinking. Elide ducked her head as she chuckled. Rowan snorted again. “At least this court won’t be boring.”

Aelin’s heart raced, and she knew Rowan could hear it, but she bowed her head and said, I, Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, swear upon my immortal soul to guard, to nurture, and to honor Terrasen from this day until my very last.

For across every mountain, spread beneath the green canopy of Oakwald, carpeting the entire Plain of Theralis, the kingsflame was blooming.