Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

Gods, it was boiling in this useless excuse for a kingdom.

Birds circled above, keeping well away from the white-tailed hawk that had been perched atop a nearby chimney all morning, waiting to snatch up its next meal.

You ain't fooling anyone, Buzzard

If she had to be here thanks to Chaol’s misplaced good intentions, then at least she’d receive the answers she needed.

Maeve knew everything—as was expected when you were older than dirt.

As she reached into her cloak for her own hidden dagger, she realized he might have been handsome were it not for the promise of violence in his pine-green eyes.

Handsome was a light way of describing what Aedion was. Overwhelming was more like it. Towering and heavily muscled, Aedion was every inch the warrior rumor claimed him to be.

Oh, the prince wanted to tangle. Whatever self-control he’d had on their trek to the fortress was hanging by a thread. Good.

Her lip already aching and swollen, she told him exactly what he could go do to himself.

“Why should I waste flattery on a child who’s already in love with herself ?” “We’re related, you know.” “We’ve as much blood in common as I do with the fortress pig-boy.”

She had whispered the truth that day at Nehemia’s grave. She’d been running for so long that she didn’t know what it was to stand and fight.

Manon Blackbeak stood on a cliff beside the snow-swollen river, eyes closed as the damp wind bit her face. There were few sounds she enjoyed more than the groans of dying men, but the wind was one of them.

You didn’t need a weapon at all when you were born one.

Manon had been born soulless, her grandmother said. Soulless and heartless, as a Blackbeak ought to be. She was wicked right down to the marrow of her bones.

“He’s a stone-cold killer and a sadist is what he means,” Luca added. “The meanest of Maeve’s personal cabal of warriors, they say.”

He was armed to the teeth, his face a mask of unyielding brutality.

Chaol shrugged, and his father studied the heavy oak desk. A desk he’d inherited from his predecessor, and one on which he and Celaena had—

What had left Rowan so soulless?

“You’re free of your obligation to train me, so I have nothing more to say to you, and you have nothing more to say to me. Do us both a favor and go to hell.”

“Once all that is done,” she said, smiling faintly at her wyvern, “you and I are going to learn how to fly. And then we’ll stain this kingdom red.”

He didn’t back down. “See what you want, Aelin, and seize it. Don’t ask for it; don’t wish for it. Take it.” “I’m certain the average magic instructor would not recommend this to most people.”

He shot left to pinch or poke or hit her, and she whirled, slamming down his arm with an elbow and whacking him upside the head with her other hand. He stopped dead and blinked a few times. She smirked at him. He bared his teeth in a feral, petrifying grin. “Oh, you’d better run now.” When he lunged, she shot through the trees.

Rowan raced beside her, but made no move to grab her. No, Rowan was … playing. He threw a glance at her, breathing hard but evenly. And it might have been the sun through the canopy, but she could have sworn that she saw his eyes alight with a glimmer of that same, feral contentment. She could have sworn he was smiling.

There was a faint ringing in her ears that turned into a roar. And beneath it, a sudden wave of numbness, a too-familiar lack of sight or sound or feeling. She didn’t know why it happened, because she had been so dead set on hating him, but … it would have been nice, she supposed. It would have been nice to have one person who knew the absolute truth about her—and didn’t hate her for it. It would have been really, really nice.

“I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”

“It gives me comfort to know that people like you have a special place in hell waiting for them.”

She was mine, and no one could tell me otherwise.

“Together,” she said, and took his outstretched hand. And somewhere far and deep inside her, an ember began to glow.

There was a flutter of wings and a flash of light, and before she could roll over, he’d scooped her up, blanket and all.

She yawned, and Rowan rubbed his eyes, his other hand still in hers. But he didn’t let go. And when she awoke before dawn, warm and safe and rested, Rowan was still holding her hand, clasped to his chest. Something molten rushed through her, pouring over every crack and fracture still left gaping and open. Not to hurt or mar—but to weld. To forge.

Oh, he was definitely fussing, and though it warmed her miserable heart, it was becoming rather irritating.

“This conversation’s become too awful to have after eating,” she said, slumping against the pillows. “Tell me which one of your little cadre is the handsomest, and if he would fancy me.”

“At least if you’re going to hell,” he said, the vibrations in his chest rumbling against her, “then we’ll be there together.”

She tried to embrace him, but he would have none of that, and told her as much. Still, the next time she used the bathing room, she’d snuck behind his chair at the worktable and planted a great, smacking kiss on his cheek. He’d waved her off and wiped his face with a snarl, but she had the suspicion that he’d let her get past his defenses.

Down and down he fell, wings tucked in tight, tail straight and balanced. Down into hell, into eternity, into that world where, for a moment, she could have sworn that something tightened in her chest.

Rowan slung his shirt over his head to get at the weapons strapped beneath, revealing his broad back, muscled and scarred and glorious. Fine—some very feminine, innate part of her appreciated that.

It was the Song of Eyllwe. Then the Song of Fenharrow. And Melisande. And Terrasen. Each nation that had people in those labor camps. And finally, not for pomp or triumph, but to mourn what they had become, they played the Song of Adarlan. When the final note finished, the conductor turned to the crowd, the musicians standing with him. As one, they looked to the boxes, to all those jewels bought with the blood of a continent. And without a word, without a bow or another gesture, they walked off the stage. The next morning, by royal decree, the theater was shut down. No one saw those musicians or their conductor again.

And when she grasped the dagger, its weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into the very core of her, and said, “Fireheart.

He didn’t back away again as she approached and said with every ember left in her shredded heart, “I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”

“I claim you, Rowan Whitethorn. I don’t care what you say and how much you protest. I claim you as my friend.”

One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire.

There was solid ground beneath her. Moss and grass. Not hell—earth. The earth on which her kingdom lay, green and mountainous and as unyielding as its people. Her people. Her people, waiting for ten years, but no longer.

She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or broken would find their way to it, a beacon for those who still dwelled in that abyss. It would not take a monster to destroy a monster—but light, light to drive out darkness.

It was a message to the world. Aelin was a warrior, able to fight with blade or magic. And she was done with hiding.

“Eyllwe,” Chaol breathed. “Send word to Eyllwe. Tell them to hold on—tell them to prepare.” Perhaps it was the light, perhaps it was the cold, but Aedion could have sworn there were tears in the captain’s eyes as he said, “Tell them it’s time to fight back.”

Somewhere in Wendlyn, his friend was changing the world. She was fulfilling the promise she’d made him. She had not forgotten him, or any of them still here. And perhaps when they figured out a way to destroy that tower and free magic from his father’s yoke, she would know her friends had not forgotten her, either. That he had not forgotten her.

Maeve said, “You are free of me, Prince Rowan Whitethorn.” That was all Celaena needed to hear before she tossed the ring to Maeve, before Rowan rushed to her, his hands on her cheeks, his brow against her own. “Aelin,” he murmured, and it wasn’t a reprimand, or a thank-you, but … a prayer. “Aelin,” he whispered again, grinning, and kissed her brow before he dropped to both knees before her.

“Together, Fireheart,” he said, pushing back the sleeve of her tunic. “We’ll find a way together.”

No longer would they be locked away in her heart. No longer would she be ashamed.

The scream that erupted out of Dorian was the worst sound that Chaol had ever heard.

All sound except Dorian’s words as he turned to Chaol, his hands and clothes soaked with Sorscha’s blood. “Run. And when you come back …” The king was getting to his feet, but another wave of Dorian’s magic slammed into him, knocking him down. There were tears staining Dorian’s bloody cheeks now. “When you come back,” the prince said, “burn this place to the ground.”