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Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Yrene Towers loved this one best.
TELL A FRIEND TO TELL A FRIEND SHEEESSS BACK
Magic demanded a cost—to both healer and patient. But Yrene was willing to pay it. She had never minded the aftermath of a brutal healing. If it meant saving a life … Silba had granted her a gift—and a young stranger had given her another gift, that final night in Innish two years ago.
Words from a mysterious stranger, perhaps a god who had worn the skin of a battered young woman, whose gift of gold had gotten her here. Saved her.
Orcus. Mantyx. Erawan. Three Valg Kings. Wielders of the Keys.
“Chaol,” she breathed, and he thought it might have been the first time she’d called him such. But she looked down, dragging his stare with her. Down his bare torso, his bare legs. To his toes. To his toes, slowly curling and uncurling. As if trying to remember the movement.
Her aunt simply said, “The ruks will not fear wyverns.”
“Skull’s Bay,” he threw out. “Tell her fire can be found at Skull’s Bay.” It was perhaps the one place Aelin would never go—down to the domain of the Pirate Lord. He’d heard her story, once, of her “misadventure” with Rolfe.
He opened his eyes. And found his entire foot pressing into the couch cushions. Felt the silk and embroidery scratching against the bare arch of his foot. His toes. Felt.
She smiled—subdued, but … it was real. Not like the one she’d plastered on her face hours and hours ago. When she’d walked into his bedroom and found him there with Nesryn, and he’d felt the world slipping out from under him at the expression on her face. And when she had refused to meet his stare, when she’d wrapped her arms around herself … He wished he’d been able to walk. So she could see him crawl toward her.
Sartaq whispered in Nesryn’s ear, “I was praying to the Eternal Sky and all thirty-six gods that you’d say yes.” She smiled, even if he couldn’t see it. “So was I,” Nesryn breathed, and they leaped into the skies.
“Neith’s Arrow,” Sartaq said after uncounted minutes, leaning back against the rock.
“That’s what my spies called you, what I called you until you arrived. Neith’s Arrow.” The Goddess of Archery—and the Hunt, originally hailing from an ancient sand-swept kingdom to the west, now enfolded into the khaganate’s vast pantheon. A corner of his mouth tugged upward. “So don’t be surprised if there’s now a story or two about you already finding its way across the world.”
Awh
Yet Yrene wrapped her arms around herself and said, “I feel safer here.” Chaol tried not to blink at her. At the words. With him. She felt safer here with him.
“They didn’t mention that you’re beautiful.”
The stygian spiders—actually Valg hiding in plain sight all this time.
“Thank you for tonight,” Chaol said, stifling what tried to leap off his tongue: I can’t take my eyes off you.
And when Falkan waved on his feet before them, a hand pressed to the bloody wound in his ribs, Nesryn breathed, “You’re a shape-shifter.”
sulde blows northward—day and night, the horsehairs blow north. So perhaps I will find my destiny on the plains of Fenharrow. Or before the white walls of Orynth. But it is northward that I shall go—if my father will order me.”
The shape-shifter winced. “I’m afraid mine are rather dull.” He considered. “I did have an interesting visit to the Red Desert once, but …”
Oh my god he is from the novella
“That young captain, Yeran,” Falkan said carefully to Borte. “You seem to know him well.” Borte scowled. “He’s my betrothed.”
“I want to be able to fight alongside my men again,” Chaol said quietly. “To die beside them.”
Chaol felt the words hit their mark. Felt the stillness shudder through her body. Right as he pushed up—right as his weight adjusted and knees bent, and he found himself standing.
While I’m happy he’s standing I want to throttle him
There was only Yrene, and her hand on the doorknob, and the tears in her furious, lovely eyes. The most beautiful he’d ever seen.
And it was only when Yrene settled her hand on his chest, not to push him away but to feel the raging, thunderous heartbeat beneath, that Chaol lowered his head and kissed her.
YES GOD WOOO!
Indeed, she was already tracing the swirling letters he’d asked the jeweler in Antica to engrave on the front. She turned it over to the back— Yrene put a hand to her throat, right over that scar. “Mountains. And seas,” she whispered. “So you never forget that you climbed them and crossed them. That you—only you—got yourself here.”
His. She was his, and he had never had anything he could call such. Wanted to call such.
It was safety, and joy, and comfort, and knowing that no matter what befell them … He would not balk. He would not break. Yrene nuzzled her face against him.
Sartaq said to her, clear and steady, “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.
IF HE DIES I STOP READING
Sartaq’s hand tightened on hers. “I wish we’d had time.”
I’m killing myself
“Our queen,” the spider said. “We wait for Her Dark Majesty to return at last.”
Wild guess..Maeve?
“We wait for the Queen of the Valg,” the spider purred, rubbing against the carving. “Who in this world calls herself Maeve.”
Right again ffs
“When I was seven, my older brother sired a bastard daughter off a poor woman in Rifthold. Abandoned them both. It has been twenty years since then, and from when I was old enough to go to the city, to begin my trade, I looked for her. Found the mother after some years—on her deathbed. She could barely talk long enough to say she’d kicked the girl out. She did not know where my niece was. Didn’t care. She died before she could give me a name.”
Lysandra
“Find her,” Falkan said, taking a step toward the horrors churning below. “My fortune—all of it is for her. And I may have failed her in this life. But not in my death.”
Awh
There was a small bell, hanging just by the end of the chain. So oxidized that the writing was nearly impossible to read. But Yrene read the name there. Yafa Towers
Falkan wept. Put his head in his hands and wept when Nesryn told him what she suspected.
“But fire rid the Valg demon within him?” “Yes. And I think it helped save Dorian, too. Or at least bought him enough freedom to fight back on his own.” He angled his head. “Why do you ask?” “Because that theory I had …” Yrene’s knee bounced. She scanned the room, the doors. No one nearby. “I think …” She leaned closer, gripping his knee. “I think the Valg are parasites. Infections.”
Yrene whispered, “I think I can heal them. I think the Valg … I think they are parasites, and I can treat the people they infect.” “Then everyone Erawan has captured, held with those rings and collars—” “We could potentially free them.”
“Turns out,” Hasar mused, as if it were a passing thought, “there are quite a few people who think highly of her. And who believe in what she’s selling.” “Which is what?” Yrene whispered. Hasar shrugged. “I assume it’s what she tried to sell to me, when she wrote me a message weeks ago, asking for my aid. From one princess to another.” Chaol took a shuddering breath. “What did Aelin promise you?” Hasar smiled to herself. “A better world.”
But it was the woman standing beside the healer, a knife resting on her round belly, that made Chaol’s blood go cold. Duva. The khagan’s now-youngest daughter. She smiled at them as they approached—and the expression was not human. It was Valg.
Plot TWIST
“Except for keen-eyed little sister.” She clicked her tongue. “Tumelun suspected something was wrong. Caught me poking about in forgotten places. So I caught her, too.” Duva chuckled. “Or didn’t, I suppose. Since I shoved her right off that balcony.”
Then Yrene was not there. Then she was on the stones, thrown to the side as Chaol hurled himself between her and the princess. No shield, no weapon. Only his back, utterly exposed, as he shoved Yrene away and took the full brunt of the Valg attack.
More pain
The Other said, You offer this of your own free will? Yes. With my entire heart. It had been his from the start, anyway. Those loving, phantom hands brushed her cheek again and faded away. The Other said, I chose well. You shall pay the debt, Yrene Towers. And I hope you shall see it for what it truly is.
“There is another piece to the life-bond, to this bargain,” Hafiza added gently. They turned to her. “When it is time, whether the death is kind or cruel … It will claim you both.” Yrene’s golden eyes were still lined with silver. But there was no fear in her face, no lingering sorrow—none. “Together,” Chaol said quietly, and interlaced their hands. Her strength would be his strength. And when Yrene went, he would go.
“We did not return alone when we raced back here.” Chaol glanced between them. “How many?” Sartaq’s face tightened. “The rukhin are vital enough internally that I can only risk bringing half.” Chaol waited. “So I brought a thousand.”
“So I will go with you, with whatever ships I can bring, so that my sister will never again look over her shoulder in fear.”
People cried out in awe and surprise when the reddish-brown ruk sailed over the buildings and homes of Antica. Nesryn murmured to the bird, guiding him toward the Runni Quarter while they flew on a salt-kissed breeze as fast as his wings could carry them. She had claimed him upon leaving the Eridun aerie.
“I hope you told him that the fate of the world might depend upon it.” Sartaq chuckled. “I did. But I also told him that the woman I love now plans to head into war. And I intend to follow her.”
“I told him if that was what it took to be chosen as Heir, I didn’t want it. And I walked out.” Nesryn sucked in a breath. “Are you insane?” Sartaq smiled faintly. “I certainly hope not, for the sake of this empire.” He tugged her closer, until their bodies were nearly touching. “Because my father appointed me Heir before I could walk out of the room.”
SHOOK
“We will go to war, Nesryn Faliq. And when we shatter Erawan and his armies, when the darkness is at last banished from this world … Then you and I will fly back here. Together.” He kissed her again—a bare caress of his mouth. “And so we shall remain for the rest of our days.”
Swoon
He peered over Yrene’s shoulder, down to their interlaced fingers. To the twin rings now gracing both of their hands. “Watching the horizon won’t get us there any faster,” he murmured onto her neck. “Neither will teasing your wife about it.”
Ahh
