Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

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.

Just her, just him. Just as it should be; no loss of life beyond their own, no soul stained but hers. It would take a monster to destroy a monster.

Whatever determination, whatever rage, whatever anything she’d felt upon leaving Adarlan had ebbed away, devoured by the nothingness that now gnawed at her.

But these days, Celaena knew the only threat she posed was to herself.

Tall, broad-shouldered, every inch of him seemingly corded with muscle, he was a male blooded with power. He paused in a dusty shaft of sunlight, his silver hair gleaming.

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.

All Fae possessed a secondary animal form. Celaena was currently in hers, her mortal human body as animal as the birds wheeling above.

He could probably kill her without a second thought—and then move on to his next task, utterly untroubled by ending her existence. It didn’t unnerve her as much as it should have.

Because Celaena was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne and rightful Queen of Terrasen.

Aedion Ashryver—the King of Adarlan’s infamous General of the North and cousin to Aelin Galathynius—stalked into the Great Hall.

Chaol put a hand on his sword, schooling his features to remain neutral, disinterested, even as the Wolf of the North came close enough to slaughter him.

Manon pulled her bloodred cloak tightly around herself and pressed into the shadows of the closet, listening to the three men who had broken into her cottage.

Because she was Manon Blackbeak, heir to the Blackbeak Witch-Clan, and she had been here for weeks, pretending to be a Crochan witch in the hope that it would flush out the real ones.

And there, lurking over the rim of a nearby boulder, were three sets of small, glowing eyes.

They had always known her, the Little Folk. Even when Adarlan’s shadow had covered the continent, they still recognized what she was.

Not beautiful, but—pretty. Clean, elegant lines, chestnut hair woven in a braid, and golden-tan skin that suggested at least one family member came from Eyllwe.

On top of it, she still had her weekly letter to write to her friend, who wanted every little detail about the palace.

She’d had enough of friends. Enough of them dying, too.

There were legends whispered over fires about the other skin Maeve wore. No one had lived to tell anything beyond shadows and claws and a darkness to devour your soul.

The Thirteen did not have a reputation for mercy—or making mistakes.

Unsurprisingly, the Blueblood Matron was tall and willowy, more priestess than warrior. She wore the traditional deep blue robes, and a band of iron stars circled her brow.

And when all of Manon’s twelve sentinels were seated around her, Thirteen from now until the Darkness embraced them, Manon allowed herself a smile, too.

“We are the Thirteen, from now until the Darkness claims us.”

but never to their aunt Maeve, waiting like a spider in a web to see what became of her niece.

“You’re worthless.” “Tell me something I don’t know.” He went on, “You would probably have been more useful to the world if you’d actually died ten years ago.”

And she might have told him it was the worst gods-damned reason she had ever heard, and that he was an arrogant prick, had he not tossed her his cloak—dry and warm. Then he dropped his jacket in her lap, too.

“You’re mine,” Manon said to him. The wyvern blinked at her, Titus’s blood still dripping from his cracked and broken teeth, and Manon had the feeling that he had come to the same decision. Perhaps he had known long before tonight, and his fight with Titus hadn’t been so much about survival as it had been a challenge to claim her. As his rider. As his mistress. As his

The rift with Dorian was worth it. For Dorian, even if his friend never forgave him; for Celaena, even if she never came back; even if he wished she were still Celaena and not Aelin … it was worth it.

When she came back, he was never letting her go.

“I serve you.” “She’s your Matron.” “I serve you.”

He cursed, but Manon kept walking, licking his blood off her nails. She almost spat it out. Vile. The blood tasted rotten, as if it had curdled or festered inside a corpse for days. She glanced at the blood on the rest of her hand. It was too dark for human blood.

“You are Abraxos,” Manon said to him, a chill slithering down her neck. “I gave you that name because he is the Great Beast, the serpent who wrapped the world in his coils, and who will devour it at the very end when the Three-Faced Goddess bids him to. You are Abraxos,” she repeated, “and you are mine

Abraxos was a warrior who’d had all the odds stacked against him and survived. Learned from it. Triumphed.

She could have flown, could have soared for the sudden surge of ecstasy in her blood, the sheer freedom granted by the marvel of creation that was her body.

Her mother had called her Fireheart.

“I know your mother was kin to—to her, but what of your father’s line?” “My mother never admitted who my father was, even when she was wasting away on her sickbed,”

“Eat it,” she said, shaking the freezing meat at Abraxos, who was now lying on his belly in the meadow, huffing at the first grasses and flowers to poke through the melting ice.

Abraxos continued to lie in the sun, vain and indulgent as a cat. “Warrior heart indeed.”

“There is nothing that I can give you. Nothing I want to give you. You are not owed an explanation for what I do outside of training. I don’t care what you have been through or what you want to do with your life. The sooner you can sort out your whining and self-pity, the sooner I can be rid of you. You are nothing to me, and I do not care

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.

She walked away without another word. With each step she took back to her room, that flickering light inside of her guttered. And went out.

“What are you doing?” “What?” Emrys didn’t raise his voice as he said, “To that girl. What are you doing that makes her come in here with such emptiness in her eyes?”

“She has no hope, Prince. She has no hope left in her heart. Help her. If not for her sake, then at least for what she represents—what she could offer all of us, you included.” “And what is that?” he dared ask. Emrys met his gaze unflinchingly as he whispered, “A better world.”

Fireheart—why do you cry? “Because I am lost,” she whispered onto the earth. “And I do not know the way.”

“But maybe,” he said, quietly enough that she looked at him again. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were inquisitive. “Maybe we could find the way back together.”

“I think,” she said, barely more than a whisper, “I would like that very much.” He held out a hand. “Together, then.”

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

“I suppose we are sisters, you and I. Two faces of the same dark coin, from the same dark maker. Sisters in spirit, if not in flesh.”

“The merchant himself was from there—a former shape-shifter. Lost his gifts, just like all of you truly mortal things. He was stuck in a man’s body, thankfully, but he did not realize that when he sold me twenty years of his life, some of his gifts passed to me.

“Second—whatever we are, whatever this is? I’m still figuring it out, too. So if I’m going to give you the space you deserve to sort yourself out, then you can damn well give it to me.” She studied him for a moment, their breath mingling. “Deal,” she said.