Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4)

by Sarah J. Maas

Dorian said, “So here we are.” “The end of the road,” Aelin said with a half smile. “No,” Chaol said, his own smile faint, tentative. “The beginning of the next.”

At dawn, Aedion had burst in, demanding why they weren’t ready to leave—to go home. Lysandra had shifted into a ghost leopard and chased him out. Then she returned, lingering in her massive feline form, and again sprawled beside Aelin. They managed to get another thirty minutes of sleep before Aedion came back and chucked a bucket of water on them. He was lucky to escape alive. But he was right—they had little reason to linger. Not with so much to do in the North, so much to plan and heal and oversee. They would travel until nightfall, where they’d pick up Evangeline at the Faliqs’ country home and then continue north, hopefully uninterrupted, until they reached Terrasen. Home. She was going home.

“So much has changed.” “And will keep changing,” she said, squeezing his arm once. “But … There are things that won’t change. I will always be your friend.”

Dorian squeezed her, and then stepped away as Aelin mounted her horse and nudged it into a walk. She moved to the head of the company, where Rowan rode a sleek black stallion. The Fae Prince caught her eye. Are you all right? She nodded. I didn’t think saying good-bye would be so hard. And with everything that’s to come— We’ll face it together. To whatever end.

Lysandra used the journey to test out her abilities—sometimes flying with Rowan overhead, sometimes running as a pretty black dog alongside Fleetfoot, sometimes spending days in her ghost leopard form and pouncing on Aedion whenever he least expected it.

Three weeks of grueling travel—but also three of the happiest weeks Aelin had ever experienced. She would have preferred a little more privacy, especially with Rowan, who kept looking at her in that way that made her want to combust. Sometimes when no one was watching, he’d sneak up behind her and nuzzle her neck or tug at her earlobe with his teeth, or just slide his arms around her and hold her against him, breathing her in. One night—just one gods-damned night with him was all she wanted.

They crested the hill and halted. Aelin released the reins and took a staggering step, the emerald grass soft underfoot. Aedion touched her shoulder. “Welcome home, Aelin.” A land of towering mountains—the Staghorns—spread before them, with valleys and rivers and hills; a land of untamed, wild beauty. Terrasen. And the smell—of pine and snow … How had she never realized that Rowan’s scent was of Terrasen, of home? Rowan came close enough to graze her shoulder and murmured, “I feel as if I’ve been looking for this place my entire life.” Indeed—with the wicked wind flowing fast and strong between the gray, jagged Staghorns in the distance, with the dense spread of Oakwald to their left, and the rivers and valleys sprawling toward those great northern mountains—it was paradise for a hawk. Paradise for her.

And at long last, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was home.