Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

by Sarah J. Maas

Atop his snowy head sat no crown. For gods among mortals did not need markers of their divine rule.

It had been ten years since then. Nearly eleven. And though she had crossed mountains and oceans … there were some days when Yrene felt as if she were still standing in Fenharrow, smelling that fire, splinters slicing under her nails, watching as the soldiers took their torches and burned her cottage, too.

Not rape, not theft—not something that cowards would rather hide from. Yell fire, the stranger had instructed her. A threat to all. If you are attacked, yell about a fire.

The scar on his face—from the nails she’d gouged into it when she first struck him … It was that hateful wish he thought of when he looked in the mirror. The body on the bed and that cold room and that scream. The collar on a tan throat and a smile that did not belong to a beloved face. The heart he’d offered and had been left to drop on the wooden planks of the river docks. An assassin who had sailed away and a queen who had returned. A row of fine men hanging from the castle gates. All held within that slim scar. What he could not forgive or forget.

“She was good,” Yrene whispered. “She was good and she was kind and she loved me.” She still did not wipe her tears. “And they took her away.”

He wished he’d been able to walk. So she could see him crawl toward her.

Wind-seeker, her mother had once called her. Unable to keep still, always wandering where the wind calls you. Where shall it beckon you to journey one day, my rose?

The dead do not speak.”

“Maybe you and I will have to learn how to live—if we survive this war.”

“So you’d heal here only so you can go die somewhere else?” The words snapped from her. “Yes.”

She reached the handle. Fumbled blindly for it. And if she left, if he let her walk out … Yrene pushed down on the handle. And Chaol took a step toward her.

It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.

“We don’t look back,” he said, meeting her stare. “It helps no one and nothing to look back.” The way he said it … It seemed as if it meant something more. To him, at least. But Chaol’s smile grew, his eyes lighting as he added, “We can only go on.”

“If they are partially responsible for you being … you,” she said, rising up to brush her mouth against his, “then I believe that they are.” “Were,” he breathed.

that knowledge that beauty was fleeting, yet power … power was a far more valuable currency.

This woman who held everything he was, all he had left, in her beautiful hands.

“I heard the spies’ stories of you. The fearless Balruhni woman in Adarlan’s empire. Neith’s Arrow. And I knew …” Nesryn sobbed, tugging and tugging. Sartaq smiled at her—gently. Sweetly. In a way she had not yet seen. “I loved you before I ever set eyes on you,” he said. “Please,” Nesryn wept. Sartaq’s hand tightened on hers. “I wish we’d had time.”

“We wait for the Queen of the Valg,” the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. “Who in this world calls herself Maeve.”

And I may have failed her in this life. But not in my death.”