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

by Sarah J. Maas

Queen of the Valg. “Maeve is Queen of the Fae,” Nesryn countered carefully. The spider chuckled, low and wicked. “So she has made them believe.”

“Long ago,” the spider said softly in that beautiful voice, “in another world, another lifetime, there existed a land of dark, and cold, and wind. Ruled by three kings, masters of shadow and pain. Brothers. The world had not always been that way, had not been born that way. But they waged a mighty war. A war to end all wars. And those three kings conquered it. Turned it into a wasteland, a paradise for those who had dwelled in darkness. For a thousand years, they ruled, equal in power, their sons and daughters spread throughout the land to ensure their continued dominion. Until a queen appeared—her power a new, dark song in the world. Such wondrous things she could do with her power, such horrible, wondrous things …” The spider sighed. “They each desired her, those kings. Pursued her, wooed her. But she only deigned to ally with one, the strongest of them.” “Erawan,” Nesryn murmured. “No. Orcus, eldest of the Valg kings. They wed, but Maeve was not content. Restless, our queen spent long hours pondering the riddles of the world—of other worlds. And with her gifts, she found a way to look. To pierce the veil between worlds. To see realms of green, of light and song.” The spider spat, as if such a thing were abhorrent. “And one day, when Orcus was gone to see his brothers, she took a path between realms. Stepped beyond her world, and into the next.” Nesryn’s blood went cold. “H-how?” “She had watched. Had learned of such rips between worlds. A door that could open and close ...

“A favor, Captain,” the shifter said to her. Time. They did not have time— “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.” Nesryn’s hands shook as she aimed the arrow toward the spider trying to edge past her burning sister. Sartaq warned, “Hurry.” Falkan said, “If she survived, if she is grown, she might have the shifter gift, too. But it doesn’t matter if she does or does not. What matters … She is my family. All I have left. And I have looked for her for a very long time.” Nesryn fired the third arrow. A spider screamed as it found its mark. The others fell back. “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.” Nesryn opened her mouth, not believing it, the words surging up— But Falkan sprinted down the path. Leaped right in front of that burning line of spiders.

The wind roared, but the ruk lifted them higher. Kadara fell into rank behind—guarding their rear. Through her whipping hair, Nesryn looked back toward the fire-limned pass. To where Borte and Yeran now soared upward, a dark form clutched in the claws of Yeran’s ruk. Utterly limp. Borte was not done. A light sparked atop her ruk. A flaming arrow. Borte fired it high into the sky. A signal, Nesryn realized as countless wings filled the air around them. And as Borte’s arrow landed atop a web, flame erupting, hundreds of lights kindled in the sky. Ruk riders. Each bearing a flaming arrow. Each now pointing downward. Like a rain of shooting stars, the arrows fell upon the darkness of Dagul. Landed on web and tree. And caught fire. One after another after another. Until the night was lit up, until smoke streamed, mingling with the rising screams from the peaks and wood.

Chaol let her fall into step beside him, and balanced on his cane long enough to press a kiss to her temple. He didn’t care who saw. Who reported on it. They could all go to hell. But behind them, he could have sworn Shen and the other guards were grinning from ear to ear.

“She told me that long ago, before man stumbled here, before the horse-lords and the ruks above the steppes, this land indeed belonged to Fae. A small, pretty little kingdom, its capital here. Antica was built atop its ruins. But they erected temples to their gods beyond the city walls—out in the mountains, in the river-lands, in the dunes.” “Like the necropolis at Aksara.” “Yes. And she told me that they did not burn their bodies, but entombed them within sarcophagi so thick no hammer or device could open them. Sealed with spells and clever locks. Never to be opened.” “Why?” “The drunk goat told me that it was because they lived in fear of someone getting in. To take their bodies.” Yrene was glad she was leaning on the table. “The way the Valg now use humans for possession.” A nod. “She rambled about how they had left their knowledge of healing for us to find. That they had stolen it from elsewhere, and that their teachings formed the basis of the Torre. That Kamala herself had been trained in their arts, their records discovered in tombs and catacombs long since lost to us. She founded the Torre based off what she and her small order learned. Worshipped Silba because she was their healing god, too.” Hafiza gestured to the owls carved throughout her workroom, the Torre itself, and rubbed at her temple. “So your theory could hold water. I never learned how the Fae came here, where they went and why they faded away. But they were here, and according to my predecessor, they ...

Yrene did not hesitate. She soared through him, down the ladder of his spine, down the corridors of his bones and blood. She was a spear of light, fired straight into the dark, aiming for that hovering shadow that had stretched out once more. That had tried to reclaim him. Yrene slammed into the darkness and screamed. It roared back, and they tangled, grappling. It was foreign and cold and hollow; it was rife with rot and wind and hate. Yrene threw herself into it. Every last drop. And above, as if the surface of a night-dark sea separated them, Chaol bellowed with agony. Today. It ended today. I know what you are. So Yrene fought, and so the darkness raged back.

What if we go on, only to more pain and despair? Aelin had smiled at his question, posed on that rooftop in Rifthold. As if she had understood, long before he did, that he would find this pit. And learn the answer for himself. Then it is not the end. This … This was not the end. This crack in him, this bottom, was not the end. He had one promise left. To that he would still hold. It is not the end.

“The darkness belongs to you. To shape as you will. To give it power or render it harmless.”

It was agony and despair and fear. It was joy and laughter and rest. It was life, all of it, and as that darkness lunged for Chaol and Yrene, he did not fear it. He only looked toward the dark and smiled. Not broken. Made anew. And when the darkness beheld him … Chaol slid a hand against its cheek. Kissed its brow. It loosened its grip and tumbled back into that pit. Curled up on that rocky floor and quietly, carefully, watched him. He had the sense of rising up, of being sucked through a too-thin door. Yrene grasped him, hauling him along with her. She did not let go. Did not falter. She speared them upward, a star racing into the night. White light slammed into them— No. Daylight. He squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness. The first thing he felt was nothing. No pain. No numbness. No ache or exhaustion. Gone. His legs were … He moved one. It flowed and shifted without a flicker of pain or tension. Smooth as butter. He looked to the right, to where Yrene always sat. She was simply smiling down at him.

“Everything hurts.” Falkan grimaced, rubbing at his leg. “Remind me never to do anything heroic again.” She chuckled over the crackle of the fire. “Thank you—for doing that.” “I have no one in my life who would miss me anyway.” Her throat tightened. But she asked, “If we fly north—to Antica, and finally to the northern continent …” She could no longer bring herself to say the word. Home. “Will you come?” The shifter was silent for a long moment. “Would you want me there? Any of you?” Nesryn turned from the fire at last, eyes burning. “I have something to tell you.”

Falkan wept. Put his head in his hands and wept when Nesryn told him what she suspected. She did not know much of Lysandra’s personal history, but the ages, the location matched. Only the description did not. The mother had described a plain, brown-haired girl. Not a black-haired, green-eyed beauty. But yes—yes, he would come. To war, and to find her. His niece. His last shred of family in the world, for whom he had never stopped looking.

Hasar looked up from her nails. “It was a spectacle, apparently. A Fae armada versus a cobbled-together human force—” “Hasar, please,” Yrene murmured. The princess sighed at the ceiling. “Fine. Maeve was trounced.” Chaol sank onto the sofa. Aelin—thank the gods Aelin had managed to find a way— “Though there were some interesting details.” Then the princess rattled off the facts. The numbers. A third of Maeve’s armada, bearing Whitethorn flags, had turned on their own and joined Terrasen’s fleet. Dorian had fought—held the front lines with Rowan. Then a pack of wyverns had soared in from nowhere—to fight for Aelin. Manon Blackbeak. Chaol would be willing to bet his life that somehow, either through Aelin or Dorian, that witch had done them a favor, and possibly altered the course of this war. “The magic, they say, was impressive,” Hasar went on. “Ice and wind and water.” Dorian and Rowan. “Even rumor of a shape-shifter.” Lysandra. “But no darkness. Or whatever Maeve fights with. And no flame.” Chaol braced his forearms on his knees. “Though some reports claim they spotted flame and shadow on shore—far away. Flickers of both. There and gone. And no one spotted Aelin or the Dark Queen in the fleet.” It would have been like Aelin, to shift the battle between her and Maeve to the shore. To minimize casualties, so she could unleash her full power without hesitation. “As I said,” Hasar continued, fluffing the skirts of her dress, “They were victorious. Aelin was spotted returning...

Nousha’s hands shook as she folded them in front of her middle. “Those tunnels have been left untouched for a very long time. Be on your guard. Even we do not know what lies down there.” Chaol debated mentioning the usefulness of cryptic warnings before plunging into battle, but simply entwined his fingers through Yrene’s and launched them down the hall.

“Why do you think Maeve has hoarded her healers, never allowing them to leave her patrolled borders? She knew we would return. She wanted to be ready—to protect herself. Her prized favorites, those Doranelle healers. Her secret army.” Duva hummed, motioning with the dagger to the necropolis. “How clever those Fae were, who escaped her clutches after the last war. They ran all the way here—the healers who knew their queen would keep them penned up like animals. And then they bred the magic into the land, into its people. Encouraged the right powers to rise up, to ensure this land would always be strong, defended. And then they vanished, taking their treasures and histories beneath the earth. Ensuring they were forgotten below, while their little garden was planted above.” “Why,” was all Chaol said. “To give those Maeve did not consider important a fighting chance should Erawan return.” Duva clicked her tongue. “So noble, those renegade Fae. And thus the Torre grew—and His Dark Majesty indeed rose again, and then fell, and then slept. And even he forgot what someone with the right gifts might do. But then he awoke once more. And he remembered the healers. So he made sure to purge the gifted ones from the northern lands.” A smile at Yrene, hateful and cold. “But it seems a little healer slipped the butcher’s block. And made it all the way to this city, with an empire to guard her.”

A candle ignited. A bloom of white. Then another. Another. Blooming lights, along that broken interior. And where they shone … Flesh knitted. Bone smoothed. Light after light after light. His chest continued to rise and fall. Rise and fall. But in the hurt and the dark and the light … A woman’s voice that was both familiar and foreign. A voice that was both Hafiza’s and … another. Someone who was not human, never had been. Speaking through Hafiza herself, their voices blending into the blackness. The damage is too great. There must be a cost if it is to be repaired. All those lights seemed to hesitate at that otherworldly voice. Yrene brushed herself along them, waded through them like a field of white flowers, the lights bobbing and swaying in this quiet place of pain. Not lights … but healers. She knew their lights, their essences. Eretia—that was Eretia closest to her. The voice that was both Hafiza and Other said again, There must be a cost. For what the princess had done to him … There was no returning from it. I will pay it. Yrene said into the pain and dark and light. A daughter of Fenharrow will pay the debt of a son of Adarlan? Yes. She could have sworn a gentle, warm hand brushed her face. And Yrene knew it did not belong to Hafiza or the Other. Did not belong to any healer alive. But to one who had never left her, even when she had been turned into ash on the wind. The Other said, You offer this of your own free will? Yes. With my entire heart. It had been his f...

“You sent a note to come back,” Nesryn said, her face deathly pale. “We flew as fast as we could. We were told you’d come to the Torre earlier this evening. The guards were right behind us, until we outran them. We got a bit lost down here, but then … cats led the way.” A bemused, puzzled glance over her shoulder, to where half a dozen beryl-eyed cats sat on the tunnel steps, cleaning themselves. They noticed the human attention and scattered, tails high. Sartaq added, smiling faintly, “We also thought healers might be necessary, and asked some to follow. But apparently, a great number more wanted to come.” Considering the number of women filing out after the vanished cats … All of them. All of them had come.

“You’re bleeding—” “I’m fine,” she said onto his shirt. Chaol pulled back, scanning her face. The bloody temple. “That is anything but fine,” he said, whipping his head toward Eretia. “She’s hurt—” Eretia rolled her eyes. “Good to see none of this put you out of your usual spirits.” Chaol gave the woman a flat stare. Hafiza peered over Eretia’s shoulder and wryly asked Yrene, “Are you certain this pushy man was worth the cost?” Before Yrene could answer, Chaol demanded, “What cost?” A stillness crept over them, and even Yrene looked to Hafiza as the woman extracted herself from Eretia’s care. The Healer on High said quietly, “The damage was too great. Even with all of us … Death held you by the hand.” He turned to Yrene, dread curling in his stomach. “What did you do,” he breathed. She didn’t meet his stare. “She likely made a fool’s bargain, that’s what,” Eretia snapped. “Offered to pay the price without even being told what it was. To save your neck. We all heard.” Eretia was close to not having a functioning neck herself, but Chaol said as calmly as he could, “Pay the price to whom?” “Not a payment,” Hafiza corrected, setting a hand on Eretia’s shoulder to quiet her, “but a restoration of balance. To the one who likes to see it intact. Who spoke through me as we all gathered within you.” “What was the cost,” Chaol rasped. If she’d given up anything, he’d find a way to retrieve it. He didn’t care what he had to pay, he’d— “To keep your life tethered in this world, we had...

“These are lies,” Arghun seethed. “From desperate, scheming people.” “They are not lies,” Hafiza cut in, chin high. “And we have witnesses who will tell you otherwise. Guards, healers, and your own brother, Prince, if you will not believe us.” To challenge the word of the Healer on High … Arghun shut his mouth.

I am not afraid of you, Yrene said into the dark. And you have nowhere to run.

The demon screamed the entire time. But bit by bit, she blasted it back, blasted it deeper. Until she saw it, curled within the core of her. Its true form … It was as horrific as she’d imagined. Smoke swirled and coiled about it, revealing glimpses of gangly limbs and talons, mostly hairless gray, slick skin, and unnaturally large dark eyes that raged as she looked upon it. Truly looked upon it. It hissed, revealing pointed, fish-sharp teeth. Your world shall fall. As the others have done. As all others will. The demon dug claws deep into the darkness. Duva screamed. “Pathetic,” Yrene told it. Perhaps she spoke the word aloud, for silence fell. Distantly, that bond flowing away … it thinned. The hand on her back drifted away. “Utterly pathetic,” Yrene repeated, her magic rallying behind her in a mighty, cresting white wave. “For a prince to prey on a helpless woman.” The demon scrambled back against the wave, clawing at the dark as if it would tunnel through Duva. Yrene pushed forward. Let her wave fall. And as her power slammed into that last remnant of the demon, it laughed. No prince am I, girl. But a princess. And my sisters shall soon find you.

The princess only looked to Yrene, then Chaol. “I will come with you.” Chaol didn’t dare move. Yrene said, “Alone?” “Not alone.” The mocking amusement was gone from her face. “You saved Duva’s life. And ours, if she had grown more bold.” A glance to Sartaq, who watched with mild surprise. “Duva is the best of us. The best of me.” Hasar’s throat bobbed. “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.” Except in fear of one another, Chaol refrained from saying. But Hasar caught the words in his eyes. “Not her,” she said quietly. “All the others,” she added with a stark look at Sartaq, who nodded grimly. “But never Duva.” An unspoken promise, Chaol realized, among the other siblings. “So you will have to suffer my company for a while yet, Lord Westfall,” Hasar said, but that edged smile was not as sharp. “Because for my sisters, both living and dead, I will march with my sulde to the gates of Morath and make that demon bastard pay.” She met Yrene’s stare. “And for you, Yrene Towers. For what you did for Duva, I will help you save your land.”

She had claimed him upon leaving the Eridun aerie. Had gone right to the nests, where he had still waited for a rider who would never return, and looked deep into his golden eyes. Had told him that her name was Nesryn Faliq, and she was daughter of Sayed and Cybele Faliq, and that she would be his rider, if he would have her. She wondered if the ruk, whose late rider had called him Salkhi, had known the burning in her eyes had not been from the roaring wind as he’d bowed his head to her. Then she’d flown him, Salkhi keeping pace with Kadara at the head of the host as the rukhin sailed northward. Raced to Antica.

Sartaq said, “I spoke to my father.” And she wondered, then, if this meeting was not to be a good one. If the army they had brought was to be ordered back to its aeries. Or if the prince, the life she saw for herself in those beautiful mountains … if perhaps the reality of that, too, had found them. For he was a prince. And for all that she loved her family, for all that they made her so proud, there was not one noble drop of blood in their lineage. Her father shaking Sartaq’s hand was the closest any Faliq had ever come to royalty. Nesryn managed to say, “Oh?” “We … discussed things.” Her chest sank at the careful words. “I see.” Sartaq stopped, the sandy alley humming with the buzzing bees in the jasmine that climbed the walls of the bordering courtyards. The one behind them: the back, private courtyard belonging to her family. She wished she could slither over the wall and hide within. Rather than hear this. But Nesryn made herself meet the prince’s eyes. Saw him scanning her face. “I told him,” Sartaq said at last, “that I planned to lead the rukhin against Erawan, with or without his consent.” Worse. This was getting worse and worse. She wished his face weren’t so damn unreadable. Sartaq took a breath. “He asked me why.” “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.” She didn’t let the words sink in. Didn’t let herself bel...

“We shall meet again, Yrene Towers. I am certain of it.” She smiled back at him, beyond words. But Kashin winked, pulling his hand from hers. “My sulde still blows northward. Who knows what I may find on the road ahead? Especially now that Sartaq has the burden of being Heir, and I’m free to do as I please.” The city had been in an uproar about it. Celebrating, debating—it still raged on. What the other royal siblings thought, Yrene did not know, but … there was peace in Kashin’s eyes. And in the eyes of the others, when Yrene had seen them. And part of her indeed wondered if Sartaq had struck some unspoken agreement that went beyond Never Duva. To perhaps even Never Us.

He kissed her cheek, but said nothing as she opened the locket and carefully removed the browned scrap. The wind tried to rip it from her fingers, but Yrene held tight, unfolding the slender fragment. She scanned the text she’d read a thousand times. “I wonder if she’ll return for this war. Whoever she was. She spoke of the empire like …” Yrene shook her head, more to herself, and folded it shut again. “Perhaps she will come home to fight, from wherever she sailed off to.” She offered him the piece of paper and turned away to the sea ahead. Chaol took the scrap from Yrene, the paper velvet-soft from its countless readings and foldings and how she’d held it in her pocket, clutched it, all these years. He unfolded the note and read the words he already knew were within: For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers. The waves quieted. The ship itself seemed to pause. Chaol glanced to Yrene, smiling serenely at the sea, then to the note. To the handwriting he knew as well as his own. Yrene went still at the tears he could not stop from sliding down his face. “What’s wrong?” She would have been sixteen, nearly seventeen then. And if she had been in Innish … It would have been on her way to the Red Desert, to train with the Silent Assassins. The bruises Yrene had described … The beating Arobynn Hamel had given her as punishment for freeing Rolfe’s slaves and wrecking Skull’s Bay. “Chaol?” For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more ...

They had entombed her in darkness and iron. She slept, for they had forced her to—had wafted curling, sweet smoke through the cleverly hidden airholes in the slab of iron above. Around. Beneath. A coffin built by an ancient queen to trap the sun inside. Draped with iron, encased in it, she slept. Dreamed. Drifted through seas, through darkness, through fire. A princess of nothing. Nameless. The princess sang to the darkness, to the flame. And they sang back.

The gods did not care who paid the debt. So she knew they would not come for her, save her. So she did not bother praying to them. But she still told herself the story, still sometimes imagined that the river sang it to her. That the darkness living within the sealed coffin sang it to her as well.

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

“We have to return to the camp,” Ren said, face dark. “See if we can get our fleet back down the Florine and strike with Rolfe from the sea. While we hammer from the land.” Aedion didn’t feel like reminding them that they hadn’t heard from Rolfe beyond vague messages about his hunt for the scattered Mycenians and their legendary fleet. The odds of Rolfe emerging to save their asses were as slim as the fabled Wolf Tribe at the far end of the Anascaul Mountains riding out of the hinterland. Or the Fae who’d fled Terrasen a decade ago returning from wherever they’d gone to join Aedion’s forces.

The commander beheld the power gathering in Lorcan’s hand, but managed to sneer at Rowan, blood coating his teeth. “She’ll kill all of you.” A black eye already bloomed, the lid swollen shut. Air pulsed at Elide’s ears as Rowan locked a shield of wind around them. Sealing in all sound. “Maeve will kill every last one of you traitors.” “She can try,” was Rowan’s mild reply. See, Anneith whispered again. When the commander began screaming this time, Elide did not look away.

“Only you can decide if you deserve it, Manon.” Manon let the words settle as she shifted her gaze to the western horizon. Perhaps she’d deserve that honor if she succeeded in bringing them back to a home they’d never set eyes on. If they survived this war and all the terrible things they must do before it was over.

The ancient king nodded to Damaris. “That sword is not ornamental. Let it guide you, if you cannot trust yourself.” “It really tells the truth?” “It was blessed by the All-Seeing One himself, after I swore myself to him.” Gavin shrugged, a half-tamed gesture. As if the man had never really left the wilds of Adarlan where he’d risen from war leader to High King. “You’ll still have to learn for yourself what is truth and what is lie.”

Gavin’s edges warped further, his face turning murky. 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.

Strange—it was still strange to work with the Lion, with Lorcan, without the bonds of Maeve’s oath binding them to do so. To know that they were here by choice. What it now made them, Rowan wasn’t entirely certain.

Rowan scanned the blanket of stars overhead. While all other constellations had wheeled past, the Lord of the North remained, the immortal star between his antlers pointing the way home. To Terrasen.

Tell him he has to fight. He must save Terrasen, and remember the vows he made to me. Time was not on their side, not with Maeve, not with the war unleashing itself back on their own continent. But he had no intention of returning without her, parting request or no, regardless of the oaths he’d sworn upon marrying her to guard and rule Terrasen. 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...

“The salves are made, Yrene.” Hafiza groaned as she rose from her perch on the steps and adjusted the lapels of her thick woolen jacket—cut and embroidered in the style of the Darghan riders. A gift from the last visit the Healer on High had made to the steppes, when she’d taken Yrene along with her. “They are counted. There are no more supplies with which to make them, not until we reach land and can see what might be used there.” Yrene clutched her cloak to her chest. “I need to be doing something.” The Healer on High patted the railing. “You will, Yrene. Soon enough, you will.” Hafiza ascended the stairs with that, leaving Yrene in the hold amid the stacks of crates. 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.

The spider seethed. “I took two decades from a young merchant’s life in exchange for my silk. The gift of his shifting flowed through his life force—some of it, at least.” All those eyes narrowed on Manon. “He willingly paid the price.”

Dorian jerked his chin to the shuddering spider. “Don’t kill her. Not yet. There’s more she might know beyond the Crochans’ whereabouts.” The spider hissed, “I do not need a boy’s mercy—” “It is a king’s mercy you receive,” Dorian said coldly, “and I’d suggest being quiet long enough to receive it.” Rarely, so rarely did Manon hear that voice from him, the tone that sent a thrill through her blood and bones. A king’s voice.

A path would find him here, Gavin had said. A path into Morath. Not a physical road, not a course of travel, but this. The unholy terror remained quiet for a beat before she said, “Our gifts are strange and hungry things. We feed not just on your life, but your powers, too, if you possess them. Once magic was freed, I learned to wield the abilities the shape-shifter had transferred to me.” Damaris warmed in his hand. Truth. Every word the spider had spoken had been truth. And this … A way into Morath—as something else entirely. In another’s skin.

“I have seen many wars. Sent my warriors to fight in them, end them. I have seen how destructive they are. The very glass you lay on comes from one of those wars, you know. From the glass mountains in the South. They once were sand dunes, but dragons burned them to glass during an ancient and bloody conflict.” A hum of amusement. “Some claim it’s the hardest glass in the world. The most unyielding. I thought, given your own fire-breathing heritage, you might appreciate its origins.”

She sat beside her father on the few steps descending into the open-air fighting ring of the castle. It was more temple than brawling pit, flanked by weathered, pale columns that for centuries had witnessed the rise of Terrasen’s mightiest warriors. This late in the summer afternoon, it was empty, the light golden as it streamed in. Rhoe Galathynius ran a hand down his round shield, the dark metal scarred and dinged from horrors long since vanquished. “Someday,” he said as she traced one of the long scratches over the ancient surface, “this shield will pass to you. As it was given to me, and to your great-uncle before me.” Her breath was still jagged from the training they’d done. Only the two of them—as he’d promised. The hour once a week that he set aside for her. Her father placed the shield on the stone step below them, its thunk reverberating through her sandaled feet. It weighed nearly as much as she did, yet he carried it as if it were merely an extension of his arm. “And you,” her father went on, “like the many great women and men of this House, shall use it to defend our kingdom.” Her eyes rose to his face, handsome and unlined. Solemn and kingly. “That is your charge, your sole duty.” He braced a hand on the rim of the shield, tapping it for emphasis. “To defend, Aelin. To protect.” She had nodded, not understanding. And her father had kissed her brow, as if he half hoped she’d never need to.

Aelin’s fingers curled in the ancient glass. “Think on it. Think on this night, Aelin.” Maeve snapped her fingers. “We’re done here.” Cairn’s hands wrapped around the chains. Her legs buckled, feet splitting open anew. She barely felt it, barely felt it through the rage and the sea of fire down deep, deep below. But as Cairn hauled her up, his savage hands roving, she struck. Two blows. A shard of glass plunged into the side of his neck. He staggered back, cursing as blood sprayed. Aelin whirled, glass ripping her soles apart, and hurled the shard in her other hand. Right at Maeve. It missed by a hairsbreadth. Scraping Maeve’s pale cheek before clattering off the throne behind her. The owl perched just above it screeched. Rough hands gripped her, Cairn shouting, raging shrieks of You little bitch, but she didn’t hear them. Not as a trickle of blood snaked down Maeve’s cheek. Black blood. As dark as night. As dark as the eyes that the queen fixed on her, a hand rising to her cheek. Aelin’s legs slackened, and she didn’t fight the guards heaving her away. A blink, and the blood flowed red. Its scent as coppery as her own. A trick of the light. A hallucination, another dream— Maeve peered at the crimson stain coating her pale fingers. An onyx wind snapped for Aelin, wrapping around her neck. It squeezed, and she knew no more.

The world had become only freezing mud, and red and black blood, and the screams of the dying rising to the frigid sky. Lysandra had learned these months that battle was no orderly, neat thing. It was chaos and pain and there were no grand, heroic duels. Only the slashing of her claws and the rip of her fangs; the clash of dented shields and bloodied swords. Armor that had once been distinguishable quickly turned gore-splattered, and were it not for the dark of her enemy’s colors, Lysandra wasn’t entirely certain how she would have discerned ally from foe. Their lines held. At least they had that much.

She was so tired. So, so tired. For Terrasen, she had gladly done this. All of it. For Terrasen, she deserved to pay this price. She had tried to make it right. Had tried, and failed. And she was so, so tired. Fireheart. The whispered word floated through the eternal night, a glimmer of sound, of light. Fireheart. The woman’s voice was soft, loving. Her mother’s voice. Aelin turned her face away. Even that movement was more than she could bear. Fireheart, why do you cry? Aelin could not answer. Fireheart. The words were a gentle brush down her cheek. 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. Cairn was still talking. Still scraping his knife over the coffin’s lid. But Aelin did not hear him as she found a woman lying beside her. A mirror—or a reflection of the face she’d bear in a few years’ time. Should she live that long. Borrowed time. Every moment of it had been borrowed time. Evalin Ashryver ran gentle fingers down Aelin’s cheek. Over the mask. Aelin could have sworn she felt them against her skin. You have been very brave, her mother said. You have been very brave, for so very long. Aelin couldn’t stop the silent sob that worked its way up her throat. But you must be brave a little while longer, my Fireheart. She leaned into her mother’s touch. You must be brave a little while longer, and remember … Her mother placed a phantom hand over Aelin’s heart. It is th...

“Who are you, though?” Manon instead asked the crone. “You lead these covens.” “I am Glennis. My family served the Crochan royals, long before the city fell.” The ancient witch’s eyes went to the strip of red cloth tying Manon’s braid. “Rhiannon found you, then.” Dorian had listened when Manon had explained to the Thirteen the truth about her heritage, and who her grandmother had bade her to slaughter in the Omega. Manon kept her chin up, even as her golden eyes flickered. “Rhiannon didn’t make it out of the Ferian Gap.” “Bitch,” a witch snarled, others echoing it. Manon ignored it and asked the ancient Crochan, “You knew her, then?” The witches fell silent. The crone inclined her head, that sorrow filling her eyes once more. Dorian didn’t need Damaris’s confirming warmth to know her next words were true. “I was her great-grandmother.” Even the whipping wind quieted. “As I am yours.”

“The power is in me now,” the spider said simply. “I listened to it.” Dorian let a tendril of his magic snake toward the spider. She tensed. But his magic brushed up against her, gentle and inquisitive as a cat. Raw magic, to be shaped as he desired. He willed it toward her—willed it to find that seed of power within her. To learn it. “What are you doing,” the spider breathed, shifting on her feet. His magic wrapped around her, and he could feel it—each hateful, horrible year of existence. Each— His mouth dried out. Bile surged in his throat at the scent his magic detected. He’d never forget that scent, that vileness. He’d bear the mark on his throat forever as proof. Valg. The spider, somehow, was Valg. And not possessed, but born. He kept his face neutral. Uninterested. Even as his magic located that glowing, beautiful bit of magic. Stolen magic. As the Valg stole all things. Took everything they wanted.

“You know about court intrigue and scheming,” she said, deft fingers again flying over the laces and hooks of the boots. “How would you … play this, as you called it earlier? My situation with the Crochans.” Dorian rested a hand under his head. “The problem is that they hold all the cards. You need them far more than they need you. The only card you have to play is your heritage—and that they seem to have rejected, even with the skirmish. So how do we make it vital for them? How do you prove that they need their last living queen, the last of the Crochan bloodline?” He contemplated it. “There is also the prospect of peace between your peoples, but you …” He winced. “You’re no longer recognized as Heir. Any bargaining you might have as a Blackbeak would be on behalf of only you and the Thirteen, not the rest of the Ironteeth. It wouldn’t be a true peace treaty.”