Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass, #7)

by Sarah J. Maas

A princess who was to live for a thousand years. Longer. That had been her gift. It was now her curse.

Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom …

A prince of ice and wind. A prince who had been hers, and she his. Long before the bond between their souls became known to them.

So she told herself the story. The darkness and the flame deep within her whispered it, too, and she sang it back to them. Locked in that coffin hidden on an island within the heart of a river, the princess recited the story, over and over, and let them unleash an eternity of pain upon her body.

There was nothing kind in the prince’s face. Nothing warm. Only cold-blooded predator. Hell-bent on finding the queen who held his heart.

Find someone else. Find a way to use your own powers to forge the Lock. Find a way to accept your fates to be trapped in this world, so we needn’t pay a debt that wasn’t ours to begin with.

She’d never let them break her. Never swear that blood oath. For Terrasen, for her people, whom she had left to endure their own torment for ten long years. She owed them this much.

Fenrys blinked, over and over and over. I am here, I am with you. It didn’t stop the hammer from falling. Or the scream that shattered from her throat.

“Only you can decide if you deserve it, Manon.”

But it made no difference if he cared. About them. About himself, he supposed. Caring hadn’t done him any favors. Hadn’t done Sorscha any favors.

All he had was an unmarked grave for a healer no one would remember, a broken empire, and a shattered castle.

“I inherited a bit of a mess from my father, I’m afraid.” “You were a Prince of Adarlan long before you became its king.” Dorian’s magic churned to ice, colder than the night around him. “Then consider me trying to atone for years of bad behavior.”

“She didn’t balk from it, even knowing what it meant for her fate. And neither did Aelin, who will have neither a long life with her own mate, nor eternity with him.” As I will not have, either. His heart began thundering, his magic rising with it. “And yet you would. You would run from it.”

Dorian dared a step forward. “Am I human?” Gavin’s sapphire eyes softened—just barely. “I’m not the person who can answer that.” And then the king was gone.

Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, consort, husband, and mate of the Queen of Terrasen, knew he was dreaming. He knew it, because he could see her.

And tell him thank you—for walking that dark path with me back to the light. It had been his honor. From the very beginning, it had been his honor, the greatest of his immortal life. An immortal life they would share together—somehow. He’d allow no other alternative. Rowan silently swore it to the stars. He could have sworn the Lord of the North flickered in response.

“People will die, Yrene. In horrible, painful ways, they will die, and even you and I will not be able to save them.”

She didn’t tell the Healer on High that she wasn’t entirely sure how much longer she’d be a help—not yet. Hadn’t whispered a word of that doubt to anyone, even Chaol. Yrene’s hand drifted across her abdomen and lingered.

but she squeezed his hand again, and blinked twice. No. Let him stay in this form for a while longer, let him mourn as a male and not a wolf. Let him stay in this form so she could hear a friendly voice, feel a gentle touch— She began to cry.

Lysandra had learned these months that battle was no orderly, neat thing. It was chaos and pain and there were no grand, heroic duels.

Fireheart, why do you cry? And from far away, deep within her, Aelin whispered toward that ray of memory, Because I am lost. And I do not know the way.

Borrowed time. Every moment of it had been borrowed time.

You have been very brave, her mother said. You have been very brave, for so very long.

It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.

You are my daughter. You were born of two mighty bloodlines. That strength flows through you. Lives in you.

You do not yield.

It filled him with sound, with fire and light. As if it screamed, again and again, I am alive, I am alive, I am alive.

“I was her great-grandmother.” Even the whipping wind quieted. “As I am yours.”

I was not supposed to love you.

“You think too much, young king.” “Better than too little,” he muttered.

If crossing line after line would spare any others from harm, he’d do it. He didn’t know what manner of king that made him.

He wondered if the Thirteen could ever see it—that hint of self-loathing that sometimes flickered across her face.

Only with her did he not need to explain. Only with her did he not need to be a king, or anything but what he was. Only with her would there be no judgment for what he’d done, who he’d failed, what he might still have to do.

He’d killed that spider like a blue-blooded witch, though. Not an ounce of mercy. It shouldn’t have thrilled her the way it did.

“When a Crochan Queen summons her people to war, a flame is taken from the royal hearth, and passed to each hearth, one camp and village to the other. The arrival of the flame is a summons that only a true Crochan Queen may make.”

Every intricate element played out without issue, as if the gods themselves aided them.

The camp was gone. The army with it.

If it hasn’t collapsed, then it’s not broken.”

“You don’t need to bother proving my value to him,” Yrene said, her icy eyes pinned on his father. “I know precisely how talented I am. I don’t require his blessing.”

“I am the heir apparent to the Healer on High of the Torre Cesme. I came at your son’s behest, back to the lands of my birth, to help in this war, along with two hundred healers from the Torre itself. Your son spent the last several months forging an alliance with the khaganate, and now all of the khagan’s armies sail to this continent to save your people. So while you sit here in your miserable keep, tossing insults at him, know that he has done what no other could do, and if your city survives, it will be because of him, not you.”

“I’m sorry for what he said to you.” She waved him off. “I’m sorry you ever had to deal with him for longer than that conversation.”

“If you’re debating flying there right now,” Lorcan growled, “then you’ll deserve whatever misery comes of your stupidity.”

He had killed his way across the world; he had gone to war and back more times than he cared to remember. And despite it all, despite the rage and despair and ice he’d wrapped around his heart, he’d still found Aelin.

Every horizon he’d gazed toward, unable and unwilling to rest during those centuries, every mountain and ocean he’d seen and wondered what lay beyond … It had been her. It had been Aelin, the silent call of the mating bond driving him, even when he could not feel it.

They’d walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not ...

“Caring doesn’t make you weak,”

Fenrys had seen his twin drive a knife through his heart. Had watched Connall bleed out onto the tiles and die. And had then been ordered to kneel before Maeve in that very blood as she’d bade him to attend her.

Despair shone in her eyes. True despair, without light or hope. The sort of despair that wished for death. The sort of despair that began to erode strength, to eat away at any resolve to endure. She blinked at him. Four times. I am here, I am with you.

Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey. He would not obey. And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.

Not a mark. Not a callus. Not a single scar. The ones Elide had marked in those days before Aelin had been taken were gone. As if someone had wiped them away.