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

by Sarah J. Maas

Rowan’s hands tightened on Aelin’s shoulders as the words settled into her, hollow and cold. “Maeve is a Valg queen?” he breathed. Aelin said nothing. Couldn’t find the words. Her power roiled. She didn’t feel it. Nesryn nodded solemnly. “Yes. The kharankui told us the entire history.” And so Nesryn did as well. Of how Maeve had somehow found a way into this world, fleeing or bored with her husband, Orcus. Erawan’s elder brother. Of how Erawan, Orcus, and Mantyx had torn apart worlds to find her, Orcus’s missing wife, and only halted here because the Fae had risen to challenge them. Fae led by Maeve, whom the Valg kings did not know or recognize, in the form she had taken. The life she had crafted for herself. The minds of all the Fae who had existed that she had ripped into, convincing them that there had been three queens, not two. Including the minds of Mab and Mora, the two sister-queens who had ruled Doranelle. Including Brannon himself. “The spiders claimed,” Nesryn went on, “that even Brannon didn’t know. Even now, in the Afterworld, he doesn’t know. That was how deep Maeve’s powers went into his mind, into all their minds. She made herself their true queen.” The words, the truth, pelted Aelin, one after another. Elide’s face was white as death. “But she fears the healers.” A nod toward Yrene. “She keeps that owl, you said—an enslaved Fae healer—should the Valg ever discover her.” For that was the other piece of it. The other thing Nesryn had revealed, Chaol and Yre...