Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #0.1–0.5, 1–7)

by Sarah J. Maas

“Never from you,” he said quietly.

Things from legends—that’s who surrounded him. The witches, the spider … He might as well have been a character in one of the books he’d lent Aelin last fall. Though none of them had ever endured such a yawning pit inside them.

Silently, Rowan grasped her own hand and eased on the emerald ring. “To whatever end,” he whispered. Silver lined her eyes. “To whatever end.” A reminder—and a vow, more sacred than the wedding oaths they’d sworn on that ship.

paid

Gone was the witch who had slept and wished for death. Gone was the witch who had raged at the truth that had torn her to shreds. And in her place, fighting as if she

Lorcan didn’t breathe as Elide gently reached out her hand. And interlaced their fingers. “I love you,” she whispered. He was glad he was lying down. The words would have knocked him to his knees. Even now, he was half inclined to bow before her, the true owner of his ancient, wicked heart. “I have loved you,” she went on, “from the moment you came to fight for me against Vernon and the ilken.” The light in her eyes stole his breath. “And when I heard you were somewhere on that battlefield, the only thing I wanted was to be able to tell you that. It was the only thing that mattered.”

He was no better than them. Had learned to enjoy what the Valg prince had shown him. Had shredded apart good men, and let the demon feed off his hate, his rage.

But Maeve kept her palm open. And as she began to walk down the hall, away from the sealed chamber, she said, “What you felt in there—that is why I left their world.” She gazed ahead, a shadow darkening her face. “Every day, that was what I felt.”

“It’s possible—to show a different world?” Dorian asked Maeve when they were again in their tower room. Maeve slid into a chair, her face distant. “Using mirrors, yes.”

But Aedion kept his attention fixed on Lysandra. “Please. I am begging you. I am begging you, Lysandra, to go.” Her chin lifted. “You are not asking our other allies to run.” “Because I am not in love with our other allies.” For a heartbeat, she blinked at him.

Evangeline laid her palms flat against the icy stones, as if she could draw some strength from them.

And it was not darkness, but light—light, bright and pure as the sun on snow, that erupted from Asterin. Light, as Asterin made the Yielding.

Had she looked, she would have seen the small white flowers they bore.

“Be the bridge, be the light. When iron melts, when flowers spring from fields of blood—let the land be witness, and return home.”

“Perhaps our gods are of a different sort,” Princess Hasar mused.

“A map home,” Mala said, the image fading. “To him.”

As it closed, all worlds overlapped. And she now fell through them. One after another after another. Worlds of water, worlds of ice, worlds of darkness.

She passed through a world where a great city had been built along the curve of a river, the buildings impossibly tall and glimmering with lights.

She passed through a world of snowcapped mountains under shining stars. Passed over one of those mountains, where a winged male stood beside a heavily pregnant female, gazing at those very stars. Fae. They were Fae, but this was not her world.

She flung out a hand, as if she might signal them, as if they might somehow help her when she was nothing but an invisible speck of power— The winged male, beautiful beyond reason, snapped his head toward her as she arced across his starry sky. He lifted a hand, as if in greeting. A blast of dark power, like a gentle summer night, slammed into her.

For a heartbeat, for eternity, they stared at each other. She couldn’t

Sorrow filled her beautiful face. “And I you.” She gestured to the western gate, to the soldiers waiting for its final cleaving. “Until the end?” Aedion hefted his shield, flipping the Sword of Orynth in his hand, freeing the stiffness that had seized his fingers. “I will find you again,” he promised her. “In whatever life comes after this.” Lysandra nodded. “In every lifetime.” Together, they turned toward the stairs that would take them down to the gates. To death’s awaiting embrace.

Turning it. Away from Orynth, from the castle. Precisely as Aelin had told him Sam Cortland had done in Skull’s Bay, the catapult’s mechanisms allowed her to rotate its base. Rowan wondered if the young assassin was smiling now—smiling to see her heaving the catapult into position.

Yet the songs would mention this—that the Lion fell before the western gate of Orynth, defending the city and his son. If they survived today, if they somehow lived, the bards would sing of it.

Yrene let that kiss sink into her skin, a mark of protection, of love that she’d carry with her into hell and beyond it. Chaol turned to where

He said his silent farewell, sending what remained of his heart on the wind to the woman who had saved him in every way that mattered.

“There was a kingdom—to the

east. Long ago. They believed in such things.” Pride glowed in his eyes, brighter than the dawn.

In silence, the two queens stared toward the decimated field. Toward the future beyond it.

And when Aelin lifted her head to survey the cheering crowd, when she smiled, Queen of Terrasen and the Faerie Queen of the West, she burned bright as a star.

A new world. A better world.

Sartaq’s dark eyes glittered. “We won the war, Nesryn Faliq.” He tugged her close. “And now we shall go home.” She’d never heard such beautiful words.

I have loved you from the moment I knew you were growing in my womb.

For a moment, Aelin and Yrene just stared at each other. “We’re a long way from Innish,” Yrene whispered. “But lost no longer,” Aelin whispered back, voice breaking as they embraced. The two women who had held the fate of their world between them. Who had saved it.

She’d sell her soul to a pack of demons for a cool breeze right now,

She walked until a surprisingly cold breeze swept past her. She halted.

Slowly, Celaena turned north, toward the source of the breeze, which smelled of a faraway land she hadn’t seen in eight years. Pine and snow—

The girl’s eyes flashed to hers. They were ringed with gold—stunning. Even with the bruises, the girl was alluring. Like wildfire, or a summer storm swept in off the Gulf of Oro.

Yrene thought of the scars she’d seen on her body and wondered if those were all reminders, too.

her. It wasn’t until she was done hanging her clothes on the hooks embedded in the wall that she noticed the leather pouch on the bed, and the note pinned beneath it. She knew what was inside, could easily guess based on the lumps and edges. Her breath caught in her throat as she pulled out the note. There, in elegant, feminine handwriting, the girl had written: For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.

crescent-shaped daggers

“I’m Ansel,”

Light burst all around them, and the roar of the wall of flame drowned out the hollering of Lord Berick’s men.

“Ansel of Briarcliff, Defender of the Realm.”

apparently—if the sewers weren’t flushed out every now and then, the filth would grow stagnant and reek even more.

She danced as she watched him, and, as if he had somehow sensed her all this time, their eyes met from across the room.

She twisted to see sapphire eyes gleaming at her.

“I have no name,” she purred. “I am whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be.”

They should have used iron shackles.

was a river in her native country of Terrasen that had almost claimed her life nine years ago—and now it seemed that whatever bargain she’d struck with the gods that night was finally over. The water would have her, one way or another, no matter how long it took.