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The curving stones of the gateway loomed, and she drew the sword from her back with her right hand, her left hand enveloped in flame.
🧝🏻♀️🗡️
This was the least she owed those murdered in Endovier and Calaculla—the least she could do, after so long. A monster to destroy monsters. The flames on her left hand burned brighter as Celaena stepped beyond the archway and into the beckoning abyss.
🧝🏻♀️🗡️
It was second nature, somehow, that flames leapt down her blade as she struck back, willing fire into the sword itself. When it met the black iron of the creature, blue sparks danced, so bright that she dared look into the creature’s face to glimpse—surprise. Horror. Rage. The hilt of the sword was warm—comforting—in her hand, and the red stone glowed as if with a fire of its own.
The one in the center, the one who had tasted her before, hissed at the sword, “Goldryn.”
“But you are not Athril, beloved of the dark queen,” one of them said. Another said, “And you are not Brannon of the Wildfire.”
About Goldryn & the Ring
the thing that lived inside Cain speaking. To her, and—Elena. Elena, daughter of Brannon. You were brought back, it said. All the players in the unfinished game. A game that had begun at the dawn of time, when a demon race had forged the Wyrdkeys and used them to break into this world, and Maeve had used their power to banish them. But some demons had remained trapped in Erilea and waged a second war centuries later, when Elena fought against them.
Oh gods. “You are the Valg,” she breathed. The three things inside those mortal bodies smiled. “We are princes of our realm.”
“A realm of eternal dark and ice and wind,” he said. “And we have been waiting a very, very long time to taste your sunshine again.”
Low laughter. “We were not beaten. Only contained. Until a mortal man was foolish enough to invite us back in, to use these glorious bodies.”
🏰
Rowan had not come back to help. But she told herself he would come, and he would help, because it was not weakness to admit she needed him, needed his help and—
Far up the hill, as if they had come racing down from the mountains and had not stopped for food or water or sleep, were a towering man, a massive bird, and three of the largest predators she had ever seen. Five in all. Answering their friend’s desperate call for aid. They hurtled through the trees and over stones: two wolves, one black and one moon-white; the powerfully built male; the bird swooping low over them; and a familiar mountain cat racing behind. Heading for the darkness looming between them and the fortress.
⚔️🛡️- The Cadre
“He’s inside,” she choked out. “Help him.” The great cat lingered, assessing her, and the wall, and the princes fighting against her flame. “Go,” she wheezed.
🥺🧝🏻♀️- telling 🦁 to go to 🦅
it was all useless. As useless as the vow she’d made to Nehemia’s grave. As useless as an heir to a broken throne and a broken name.
🥺🧝🏻♀️💔
“You eat like a fine lady,” she told him. His lips thinned
🧝🏼♀️ to Dorian when the King visited Terrasen when they were children
“Here in the North,” she went on as the prince’s knife and fork remained where they were on his dinner roll, “you need not be so formal. We don’t put on airs.” Hen, one of Quinn’s men, coughed pointedly from a few seats down. She could almost hear him saying, Says the little lady with her hair pressed into careful curls and wearing her new dress that she threatened to skin us over if we got dirty. She gave Hen an equally pointed look,
And he looked lonely enough that she said, “If you like, you could be my friend.”
🥹 little 🧝🏼♀️ to Dorian
Dorian lifted his chin. “I have a friend. He is to be Lord of Anielle someday, and the fiercest warrior in the land.”
🥹 little Dorian about Chaol
“What is it, Fireheart?” “I don’t feel well,” she said,
The King messing with 🧝🏼♀️ head when he visited Terrasen when she was a child
Lady Marion kept her company, reading to her, brushing her hair, telling her stories of her home in Perranth. Marion had been a laundress in the palace from her childhood. But when Evalin arrived, they had become friends—mostly because the princess had stained her new husband’s favorite shirt with ink and wanted to get it cleaned before he noticed.
Little explanation of Lady Marion’s story
The Amulet of Orynth. The heirloom honored above all others of their house. Its round disk was the size of her palm, and on its cerulean front, a white stag had been carved of horn—horn gifted from the Lord of the Forest. Between his curling antlers was a burning crown of gold, the immortal star that watched over them and pointed the way home to Terrasen.
Evalin Galathynius giving 🧝🏼♀️ the Amulet of Orynth
“Father
The Amulet of Orynth
The warm weight of the blanket wrapped around her again, and Lady Marion scooped her into her lap, rocking. “I know. I’m not going to leave—I’m going to stay with you until help comes. They’ll be here tomorrow. Lord Lochan, Captain Quinn, your Aedion—they’re all going to be here tomorrow. Maybe even by dawn.” But Lady Marion was shaking, too. “I know,” she kept saying, weeping quietly. “I know.”
Lady Marion not abandoning 🧝🏼♀️ the night her parents were murdered
“Aelin,” Marion whispered, and small, strong hands found her face, forcing her to look at the white-as-snow features, the bloodred lips. “Aelin, listen to me.” Though Marion was breathing quickly, her voice was even. “You are going to run for the river. Do you remember the way to the footbridge?” The narrow rope and wood bridge across the ravine and the rushing River Florine below. She nodded. “Good girl. Make for the bridge, and cross it. Do you remember the empty farm down the road? Find a place to hide there—and do not come out, do not let yourself be seen by anyone except someone you
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Lady Marion sacrificing herself for 🧝🏼♀️🥺
He had cut the bridge. It was her only thought as she plummeted, so fast she had no time to scream before she hit the icy water and was pulled under. That. That moment Lady Marion had chosen a desperate hope for her kingdom over herself, over her husband and the daughter who would wait and wait for a return that would never come. That was the moment that had broken everything Aelin Galathynius was and had promised to be.
🧝🏼♀️ lore
She had taken Lady Marion’s sacrifice and become a monster, almost as bad as the one who had murdered Lady Marion and her own family. That was why she could not, did not, go home.
🧝🏼♀️ lore
such bright lights, all hers to protect. And she had failed.
🧝🏼♀️ lore
It was what she had not been able to tell Chaol, or Dorian, or Elena: that when Nehemia arranged for her own death so it would spur her into action, that sacrifice … that worthless sacrifice …
🧝🏼♀️ lore
was not Chaol or Sam or Nehemia who lay across from her, watching her with those sad turquoise eyes. Her cheek against the moss, the young princess she had been—Aelin Galathynius—reached a hand for her. “Get up,” she said softly. Celaena shook her head. Aelin strained for her, bridging that rift in the foundation of the world. “Get up.” A promise—a promise for a better life, a better world. The Valg princes paused. She had wasted her life, wasted Marion’s sacrifice. Those slaves had been butchered because she had failed—because she had not been there in time. “Get up,” someone said beyond the
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🧝🏼♀️ lore
One by one, like shadows emerging from the mist, they appeared. The faces of the people she had loved with her heart of wildfire.
🧝🏼♀️🫶🏼💪🏻
And then there was Lady Marion, smiling beside her husband. “Get up,” she whispered, her voice full of that hope for the world, and for the daughter she would never see again. A tremor in the darkness.
🧝🏼♀️ lore
🧝🏼♀️ strength in fighting against the Valg at Mystward
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 could see the snow-capped Staghorns, the wild tangle of Oakwald at their feet, and … and Orynth, that city of light and learning, once a pillar of strength—and her home. It would be both again. She would not let that light go out. She would fill the world with it, with her light—her gift. She would light up the darkness, so brightly that all who were lost or wounded or
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🧝🏼♀️🫶🏼💪🏻🗡️❤️🩹
Rowan, who had been restrained by Gavriel and Lorcan in the grass outside the fortress,
🦅🫶🏼🧝🏼♀️🗡️😤
“No,” he snarled.
because during all these weeks that they had been breathing each other’s scents, they had become bonded. She was alive, but could be in any level of torment or decay. That was why Gavriel and Lorcan were holding him back. If they didn’t, he would run for the darkness, where Lyria beckoned. But for Aelin, he had tried to break free. “Rowan, the others—” “No.” Lorcan swore over the roar of the torrential rain. “She is dead, you fool, or close enough to it. You can still save other lives.” They began hauling him to his feet, away from her. “If you don’t let me go, I’ll rip your head from your
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🦅🫶🏼🧝🏼♀️🗡️😤
He had to get into that dark, had to find her. “Let go,” he growled again.
🦅🫶🏼🧝🏼♀️🗡️😤
The flame didn’t singe a hair on his head. It flowed above and past him, glorious and immortal and unbreakable.
🧝🏼♀️🫶🏼🦅
And there, beyond the stones, standing between two of those creatures, was Aelin, a strange mark glowing on her brow. Her hair flowed around her, shorter now and bright like her fire. And her eyes—though they were red-rimmed, the gold in her eyes was a living flame.
🧝🏼♀️🗡️🔥
Rowan ran all of one step before she flung out her arms, grabbing the creatures by their flawless faces—her palms over their open mouths as she exhaled sharply. As if she’d breathed fire into their cores, flames shot out of their eyes, their ears, their fingers. The two creatures didn’t have a chance to scream as she burned them into cinders. She lowered her arms. Her magic was raging so fiercely that the rain turned to steam before it hit her. A weapon bright from the forging.
🧝🏼♀️🗡️🔥
the gold and red and blue flames utterly hers, this heir of fire.
🧝🏼♀️🗡️🔥
The wall of black swelled, one final hammer blow to squash her, but she stood fast, a golden light in the darkness.
🧝🏼♀️🗡️🔥
That was all Rowan needed to see before he knew what he had to do. Wind and ice were of no use here, but there were other ways. Rowan drew his dagger and sliced his palm open as he sprinted through the gate-stones.
🦅🫶🏼🧝🏼♀️
He had come for her. She held his gaze as she grabbed her own dagger and cut her palm, right over the scar she’d given herself at Nehemia’s grave.
she said, “To whatever end?” He nodded, and she joined hands with him, blood to blood and soul to soul, his other arm coming around to grip her tightly. Their hands clasped between them, he whispered into her ear, “I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”
🥹🧝🏼♀️🫶🏼🦅❤️🩹❤️🔥
Yet this was not the end—this was not her end. She had survived loss and pain and torture; she had survived slavery and hatred and despair; she would survive this, too. Because hers was not a story of darkness. So she was not afraid of that crushing black, not with the warrior holding her, not with the courage that having one true friend offered—a friend who made living not so awful after all, not if she were with him.
🥹🧝🏼♀️🫶🏼🦅❤️🩹❤️🔥
A spear of black punched into her head—offering one more vision in a mere heartbeat. Not a memory, but a glimpse of the future.
🤨🧐
She smiled. “Do that again,” he breathed. So Sorscha smiled again, laughing. And he looked so baffled by it that she asked, “What?” “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Dorian 🫶🏼 Sorscha
“Here, here, and here,” he said, pointing to Rifthold, Amaroth, and Noll. “That’s where we know towers were built. Watchtowers, but all three had the same traits: black stone, gargoyles …”
🏰 the sites of the watch towers for the spell to stop magic
“The northward line cuts through the Ferian Gap; the southern cuts directly through Morath. You told Aedion that you thought my father had sent Roland and Kaltain to Morath, along with any other nobles with magic in their blood. What are the odds that it’s a mere coincidence?” “And the Ferian Gap …” Chaol had to swallow. “Celaena said she’d heard of wings in the Gap. Nehemia said her scouts did not come back, that something was brewing there.” “Two spots for him to breed whatever army he’s making, perhaps drawing on this power as it makes a current through them.” “Three.” Chaol pointed to the
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🏰
“You gave me the truth today, so I’ll share mine: even if it meant us being friends again, I don’t think I would want to go back to how it was before—who I was before. And this …” He jerked his chin toward the scattered crystals and the bowl of water. “I think this is a good change, too. Don’t fear it.” Dorian left, and Chaol opened his mouth, but no words came out. He was too stunned. When Dorian had spoken, it hadn’t been a prince who looked at him. It had been a king.
Dorian to Chaol
