Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

His eyes were cold. “Don’t shut me out,” she breathed. “Never,” he murmured. “That’s not—” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I failed you tonight.” His words were a whisper in the darkness. “Rowan—” “He got close enough to kill you. If it had been another enemy, they might have.” The bed rumbled as he took a shuddering sigh and lowered his hand from his eyes. The raw emotion there made her bite her lip. Never—never did he let her see those things. “I failed you. I swore to protect you, and I failed tonight.” “Rowan, it’s fine—” “It’s not fine.” His hand was warm as it clamped on her shoulder. She let him turn her onto her back, and found him half on top of her as he peered into her face. His body was a massive, solid force of nature above hers, but his eyes—the panic lingered. “I broke your trust.” “You did no such thing. Rowan, you told him you wouldn’t hand over the key.” He sucked in a breath, his broad chest expanding. “I would have. Gods, Aelin—he had me, and he didn’t even know it. He could have waited another minute and I would have told him, ring or no ring. Erawan, witches, the king, Maeve … I would face all of them. But losing you …” He bowed his head, his breath warming her mouth as he closed his eyes. “I failed you tonight,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.”

“I trust you, Rowan.” He gave her a barely perceptible nod. “I missed you,” he said quietly, his gaze darting between her mouth and eyes. “When I was in Wendlyn. I lied when I said I didn’t. From the moment you left, I missed you so much I went out of my mind. I was glad for the excuse to track Lorcan here, just to see you again. And tonight, when he had that knife at your throat …” The warmth of his callused finger bloomed through her as he traced a path over the cut on her neck. “I kept thinking about how you might never know that I missed you with only an ocean between us. But if it was death separating us … I would find you. I don’t care how many rules it would break. Even if I had to get all three keys myself and open a gate, I would find you again. Always.”

Her breathing turned ragged as he dragged his stare to hers—hungry, feral, unyielding. “Not yet,” he said roughly, his own breathing uneven. “Not now.” “Why?” It was an effort to remember speech with him looking at her like that. Like he might eat her alive. Heat pounded through her core. “I want to take my time with you—to learn … every inch of you. And this apartment has very, very thin walls. I don’t want to have an audience,” he added as he leaned down again, brushing his mouth over the cut at the base of her throat, “when I make you moan, Aelin.”

She’d forgotten the name she’d been given, but it made no difference. She had only one name now: Death, devourer of worlds.

“When we get back,” he said, “remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?” He gave her a sly smile that made thinking impossible. Exactly what he wanted—to distract her from the horrors of tomorrow. “I’ll even let you decide how I tell you: with words”—his eyes flicked once to her mouth—“or with my teeth and tongue.”

“No matter what you see or hear, do not move. We need to assess Dorian before we act. Just one of those Valg princes is lethal.” “I know,” he said, refusing to meet her stare. “You can trust me.” “I need you to make sure Lysandra gets out. You know this forest better than any of us. Get her somewhere safe.” Chaol nodded. “I promise.” She didn’t doubt it. Not after this winter. She reached out, paused—and then put a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t touch Dorian,” she said. “I swear it.” His bronze eyes flickered. “Thank you.”

The man closest to the king didn’t bother glancing around. His sapphire eyes went right to Manon, and stayed there. He would have been beautiful were it not for the dark collar around his throat and the utter coldness in his perfect face. He smiled at Manon as though he knew the taste of her blood.

He cocked his head. “I’ve never been with a witch.” Let her rip out his throat for that. End it. A row of iron fangs snapped down over her teeth as her smile grew. “I’ve been with plenty of men. You’re all the same. Taste the same.” She looked him over as if he were her next meal. “I dare you,” he managed to say. Her eyes narrowed, the gold like living embers. He’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

“I think not, Prince,” she said in her midnight voice. She sniffed again, her nose crinkling slightly. “But would you bleed red, or black?” “I’ll bleed whatever color you tell me to.”

“What is your name.” A command, not a question, as eyes of pure gold met his. “Dorian,” he breathed.

Omg she can reach out to him!!!

Aelin Galathynius looked at Manon Blackbeak over their crossed swords and let out a low, vicious snarl.

Here it was again, that tug—toward Manon, whose arms buckled as she collapsed to the stone. Her enemy—her new enemy, who would have killed her and Rowan if given the chance. A monster incarnate. But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other every now and then. “Run!” Aedion roared from across the ravine. So she did. Aelin ran for Manon,

“I’m sorry,” he said again. She gazed up at the stars—toward the North. Her face was so cold. “Would you truly have killed him if you’d had the chance?” “Yes,” Chaol breathed. “I was ready for that.” She slowly turned to him. “We’ll do it—together. We’ll free magic, then you and I will go in there and end it together.” “You’re not going to insist I stay back?” “How can I deny you that last gift to him?” “Aelin—” Her shoulders sagged slightly. “I don’t blame you. If it had been Rowan with that collar around his neck, I would have done the same thing.” The words hit him in the gut as she walked away. A monster, he’d called her weeks ago. He had believed it, and allowed it to be a shield against the bitter tang of disappointment and sorrow. He was a fool.

Yes, a dammed fool!!!

She removed her shirt, and the one beneath, until her golden skin glowed in the sunlight, her breasts full and heavy. Asterin turned, and Manon fell to her knees in the grass. There, branded on Asterin’s abdomen in vicious, crude letters was one word: UNCLEAN “She branded me. Had them heat up the iron in the same flame where my witchling burned and stamped each letter herself. She said I had no business ever trying to conceive a Blackbeak again. That most men would take one look at the word and run.”

She had been lied to. Manon gazed westward across the mountains. Hope, Elide had said—hope for a better future. For a home. Not obedience, brutality, discipline. But hope.

“Aedion,” Rowan said, and the general paused in the doorway. “Thank you.” “Anytime, brother.”

“Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin … ,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.”

“You thought we wouldn’t come for you?” “I’ve never had friends who cared what happened to me, other than Sam and Wesley. Most people would have let me be taken—dismissed me as just another whore.”

“Och,” Aelin said, even as her own eyes filled. “I hate you for being so beautiful, even when you cry.” “Do you know how much money—” “Did you think I’d leave you enslaved to her?” “I don’t … I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know how to thank you—” “You don’t need to.” Lysandra put her face in her hands and sobbed.

What do you want me to tell you, Fireheart? She studied their joined hands, and the gold ring encircling her thumb. He squeezed her fingers gently. When she lifted her head, her eyes were blazing bright. “Tell me that we’ll get through tomorrow. Tell me that we’ll survive the war. Tell me—” She swallowed hard. “Tell me that even if I lead us all to ruin, we’ll burn in hell together.” “We’re not going to hell, Aelin,” he said. “But wherever we go, we’ll go together.”

“Even when we’re apart tomorrow, I’ll be with you every step of the way. And every step after—wherever that may be.”

She said softly, “You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”

The message on the wall had only been one sentence. Payment for a life debt. One sentence just for Aelin Galathynius; one sentence that changed everything: WITCH KILLER— THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM

She looked at them, at the three males who meant everything—more than everything. Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”

perhaps that was why the warrior-prince kept giving him stupid warnings. To piss him off enough to distract him—and maybe Rowan himself—from what was happening above them. What they carried between them. The Old Ways—to look out for their queen and their kingdom—but also for each other. Damn, it was almost enough to make him want to embrace the bastard.

Chaol spread his arms wide as the darkness hit him, shattered him, obliterated him until there was nothing but light—burning blue light, warm and welcoming. Aelin and Dorian had gotten away. It was enough. When the pain came, he was not afraid.

Rowan straightened as best he could, stalwart against the death that now beckoned, and Aedion could have sworn the prince whispered Aelin’s name. More shouting from the soldiers in the back; some in the front turning to see what the panic was about behind them. Aedion didn’t care. Not with a row of swords before them, gleaming like the teeth of some mighty beast. The commander’s hand came down. And was ripped clean off by a ghost leopard.

“Did you kill Chaol?” The light at Dorian’s hand burned and burned— But the collar remained around his neck. “You,” the king snapped—and Aelin realized he meant her just as a spear of darkness shot for her so fast, too fast— The darkness shattered against a wall of ice. Dorian. His name was Dorian. Dorian Havilliard, and he was the Crown Prince of Adarlan. And Celaena Sardothien—Aelin Galathynius, his friend … she had come back for him.

Dorian lifted his hands to the Wyrdstone collar—cold, smooth, thrumming. Don’t, the demon shrieked. Don’t! There were tears running down Aelin’s face as Dorian gripped the black stone encircling his throat. And, bellowing his grief, his rage, his pain, he snapped the collar from his neck.

“Dorian,” Aelin said, pain lancing down her spine as burnout neared. He turned his head, an eye still on the wall of flickering flames. Such pain, and grief, and rage in those eyes. Yet, somehow, beneath it all—a spark of spirit. Of hope. Aelin extended her hand—a question and an offer and a promise. “To a better future,” she said. “You came back,” he said, as if that were an answer. They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began. They were infinite. They were the beginning and the ending; they were eternity.

see the Fae ears and elongated canines, see the flames flickering around her fingers. “I killed your king. His empire is over. Your slaves are now free people. If I catch you holding on to your slaves, if I hear of any household keeping them captive, you are dead. If I hear of you whipping a slave, or trying to sell one, you are dead. So I suggest that you tell your friends, and families, and neighbors. I suggest that you act like reasonable, intelligent people. And I suggest that you stay on your best behavior until your king is ready to greet you, at which time I swear on my crown that I will yield control of this city to him. If anyone has a problem with it, you can take it up with my court.” She motioned behind her. Rowan, Aedion, and Lysandra—bloodied, battered, filthy—grinned like hellions. “Or,” Aelin said, the flames winking out on her hand, “you can take it up with me.”

Elide trembled—at the man who fell to the ground, bleeding and broken, and at the witch standing over him, bloodied and panting. The witch who had come for her. “We need to run,” Manon said.

“How long has it been since you destroyed the demon inside that collar, Kaltain?” A low, broken laugh. “A while.” “Does the duke know?” “My dark liege sees what he wants to see.” She shifted her eyes to Elide. Exhaustion, emptiness, sorrow, and rage danced there together.

Elide held it toward the lady as Kaltain reached into her arm, no expression of pain on that beautiful, bloodied face, and pulled out a glimmering sliver of dark stone. Kaltain’s red blood dripped off it. Carefully, the lady set it onto the scrap of fabric Elide held out, and folded Elide’s fingers around it. A dull, strange thudding pounded through Elide as she grasped the shard. “What is that?” Manon asked, sniffing subtly. Kaltain just squeezed Elide’s fingers. “You find Celaena Sardothien. Give her this. No one else. No one else. Tell her that you can open any door, if you have the key. And tell her to remember her promise to me—to punish them all. When she asks why, tell her I said that they would not let me bring the cloak she gave me, but I kept a piece of it. To remember that promise she made. To remember to repay her for a warm cloak in a cold dungeon.”

Kaltain flowed into the room, spreading her arms wide, and became shadowfire, became freedom and triumph, became a promise hissed in a dungeon beneath a glass castle: Punish them all. She burned the cradles. She burned the monsters within. She burned the men and their demon princes. And then she burned the witches, who looked at her with gratitude in their eyes and embraced the dark flame. Kaltain unleashed the last of her shadowfire, tipping her face to the ceiling, toward a sky she’d never see again. She took out every wall and every column. As she brought it all crashing and crumbling around them, Kaltain smiled, and at last burned herself into ash on a phantom wind.

save the world,” Aelin said, her voice like gravel, “and yet I wake up to you being pissy.” “It was a group effort,” Rowan said from a chair nearby. “And I’m pissy for about twenty different reasons, most of them having to do with you making some of the most reckless decisions I’ve ever—” “Dorian,” she blurted. “Is Dorian—” “Fine. Asleep. He’s been out as long as you.” “Chaol—” “Asleep. Recovering. But alive.”

“Three days?” Rowan nodded gravely. “Distracting Aedion with running the castle is the only way I’ve kept him from chewing on the furniture.”

thought you were dying,” he said roughly. She held him tighter, even if it made her back ache. “I was.” “Please don’t ever do that again.” It was her turn to puff out a laugh. “Next time, I’ll just ask Dorian not to stab me.” But Rowan pulled back, scanning her face. “I felt it—I felt every second of it. I went out of my mind.” She brushed a finger along his cheek. “I thought something had gone wrong for you, too—I thought you might be dead, or hurt. And it killed me not to be able to go to you.” “Next time we need to save the world, we do it together.” She smiled faintly. “Deal.”

He shifted his arm so he could brush her hair back. His fingers lingered along her jaw. “You make me want to live, too, Aelin Galathynius,” he said. “Not exist—but live.” He cupped her cheek, and took a steadying breath—as if he’d thought about every word these past three days, over and over again. “I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping—not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think … I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you.”

A strange, ever-changing female scent hit him, and Aedion found Lysandra leaning against the hallway door. Tears gleamed in her eyes even as she smiled. She gazed at the closed bedroom door, as if she could still see the prince and queen inside. “That,” she said, more to herself than to him. “That is what I am going to find one day.” “A gorgeous Fae warrior?” Aedion said, shifting a bit. Lysandra chuckled, wiping away her tears, and gave him a knowing look before walking away.

Rowan lingered at the end of the hallway, guarding the only way in or out. He gave her a nod, and even from the distance, she read the words in his eyes. I’ll be right here. One shout, and I’ll be at your side. She rolled her eyes at him. Overbearing, territorial Fae beast.

“It is going to take a while. And it might never be right again. But you …” She gripped his hand, as if he hadn’t used those hands to hurt and maim, to stab her. “You will learn to face it, and to endure it. What happened, Dorian, was not your fault.” “It was. I tried to kill you. And what happened to Chaol—” “Chaol chose. He chose to buy you time—because your father was to blame. Your father, and the Valg prince inside him, did that to you, and to Sorscha.”

When you’re ready, I’ll be here.” “You’re the Queen of Terrasen. You can’t be.” “Says who? We are the masters of our own fates—we decide how to go forward.” She squeezed his hand. “You’re my friend, Dorian.” A flicker of memory, from the haze of darkness and pain and fear. I came back for you. “You both came back,” he said. Her throat bobbed. “You pulled me out of Endovier. I figured I could return the favor.” Dorian looked at the carpet, at all the threads woven together. “What do I do now?” They were gone: the woman he’d loved—and the man he’d hated. He met her stare. No calculation, no coldness, no pity in those turquoise eyes. Just unflinching honesty, as there had been from the very start with her. “What do I do?” She had to swallow before she said, “You light up the darkness.”

“There’s never been a woman in the king’s guard before,” Dorian said, heading for the door. “And since you’re now Lord Chaol Westfall, the King’s Hand, I needed someone to fill the position. New traditions for a new reign.” Chaol broke Nesryn’s wide-eyed stare to gape at his friend. “What?” But Dorian was at the door, opening it. “If I have to be stuck with king duty, then you’re going to be stuck right there with me. So go to the Torre Cesme and heal fast, Chaol. Because we’ve got work to do.”

A moment later, thirteen great shadows passed overhead. One of them—the smallest—lingered, sweeping back a second time, as if in farewell. Elide didn’t know if Abraxos could see through the canopy, but she raised a hand in farewell anyway. A joyous, fierce cry echoed in response, and then the shadow was gone. North. To Terrasen. To fight, not run. To Aelin and Ren and Aedion—grown and strong and alive.

“Proposing to me? How unexpected.” Lysandra took the box but didn’t open it. Aelin waved a hand, her heart pounding. “Just—open it.” With a wary frown, Lysandra opened the lid and cocked her head at the ring inside—the movement purely feline. “Are you proposing to me, Aelin Galathynius?” Aelin held her friend’s gaze. “There’s a territory in the North, a small bit of fertile land that used to belong to the Allsbrook family. Aedion took it upon himself to inform me that the Allsbrooks have no use for it, so it’s been sitting open for a while.” Aelin shrugged. “It could use a lady.” The blood drained from Lysandra’s face. “What.” “It’s plagued by ghost leopards—hence the engraving on the ring. But I suppose if there were anyone capable of handling them, it’d be you.” Lysandra’s hands shook. “And—and the key symbol above the leopard?” “To remind you of who now holds your freedom. You.”

Lysandra gaped at her. “You are out of your mind.” “Will you accept?” “I don’t know the first thing about ruling a territory—about being a lady.” “Well, I don’t know the first thing about ruling a kingdom. We’ll learn together.” She flashed her a conspirator’s grin. “So?” Lysandra gazed at the ring, then lifted her eyes to Aelin’s face— and threw her arms around her neck, squeezing tight. She took that as a yes. Aelin grimaced at the dull throb of pain, but held on. “Welcome to the court, Lady.”

Aedion watched them, his face tight, his lips a thin line. Their eyes met. Ten years later, and they were all sitting together at a table again—no longer children, but rulers of their own territories. Ten years later, and here they were, friends despite the forces that had shattered and destroyed them. Aelin looked at the kernel of hope glowing in that dining room and lifted her glass. “To a new world,” the Queen of Terrasen said. The King of Adarlan lifted his glass, such endless shadows dancing in his eyes, but—there. A glimmer of life. “To freedom.”

“What was it like?” Manon asked quietly. “To love.” For love was what it had been—what Asterin perhaps alone of all the Ironteeth witches had felt, had learned. “It was like dying a little every day. It was like being alive, too. It was joy so complete it was pain. It destroyed me and unmade me and forged me. I hated it, because I knew I couldn’t escape it, and knew it would forever change me. And that witchling … I loved her, too. I loved her in a way I cannot describe—other than to tell you that it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt, greater than rage, than lust, than magic.” A soft smile. “I’m surprised you’re not giving me the ‘Obedience. Discipline. Brutality’ speech.” Made into monsters. “Things are changing,” Manon said.

She crossed her arms. “So I’m appointing you an official Ambassador for Terrasen. I don’t care what Dorian says. Make friends with the royal family, woo them, kiss their asses, do whatever you have to do. But we need that alliance.”