Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

Connall raised his knife into the air between them. She could not surge to her feet. Could not rise against the chains and glass. Could do nothing, nothing— Cairn gripped her by the neck, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and ground her again into the blood-drenched shards. A rasping, broken scream cracked from her lips. Fenrys. Her only tether to life, to this reality— Connall’s blade glinted. He’d come to help at Mistward. He had defied Maeve then; perhaps he’d do it now, perhaps his hateful words had been a deception— The blade plunged down. Not into Fenrys. But Connall’s own heart. Fenrys moved—or tried to. Maw gaping in what might have been a scream, he tried and tried to lunge for his brother as Connall crashed to the tiled veranda. As blood began to pool. The owl on Maeve’s throne flapped its wings once, as if in horror. But Cairn let out a low laugh, the sound rumbling past Aelin’s head. Real. This was real. It had to be. Something cold and oily lurched through her. Her hands slackened at her sides. The light left Connall’s dark eyes, his black hair spilled on the floor around him in a dark mirror to the blood leaking away. Fenrys was shaking. Aelin might have been, too. “You tainted something that belonged to me, Aelin Galathynius,” Maeve said. “And now it must be purged.” Fenrys was whining, still attempting to crawl to the brother dead on the ground. Fae could heal; perhaps Connall’s heart could mend— Connall’s chest rose in a rattling, shallow breath. I...