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

by Sarah J. Maas

Kaltain stared at the cloak that landed in her lap, and Celaena pivoted to return down the narrow, icy corridor and up to the warmer levels above. “Sometimes,” Kaltain said softly, and Celaena paused. “Sometimes I think they brought me here. Not to marry Perrington, but for another purpose. They want to use me.” “Use you for what?” “They never say. When they come down here, they never tell me what they want. I don’t even remember. It’s all just … fragments. Shards of a broken mirror, each gleaming with its own individual image.” She was mad. Celaena clamped down the urge to make a cutting remark, the memory of Kaltain’s bruises staying her tongue. “Thank you for your help.” Kaltain wrapped Celaena’s cloak around herself. “Something is coming,” she whispered. “And I am to greet it.”

Nehemia went on. “I think such honor faded from Adarlan generations ago, but before Terrasen fell, its royal court was the one that set the example. My father used to tell me stories of Terrasen’s court—of the warriors and lords who served King Orlon in his inner circle, of the unrivaled power and bravery and loyalty of his court. That was why the King of Adarlan targeted Terrasen first. Because it was the strongest, and because if Terrasen had been given the chance to raise an army against him, Adarlan would have been annihilated. My father still says that if Terrasen were to rise again, it might stand a chance; it would be a genuine threat to Adarlan.”

I’ve heard the court in Wendlyn still follows the old ways, but they’re across the ocean, and do us no good. They looked in the other direction while the king enslaved our lands, and they still refuse all calls for aid.”

“Do you even have any weapons with you?” She stomped down the main staircase that led to the entrance hall. “Yes, Chaol, I have weapons. And I’m wearing this dress because I want Archer to ask the same thing. To think I don’t have any on me.” There were indeed knives strapped to her legs, and the pins sweeping her hair into a curling cascade down one shoulder were long and razor-sharp—commissioned, to her delight, by Philippa, so she didn’t need to “go traipsing around with cold metal jammed between your breasts.”

She wouldn’t have him thinking her vulnerable, or foolish, or inexperienced—not when she’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get to this point. Maybe it had been a mistake to let him in; because the idea of him thinking that she was weak, that she needed to be protected, made her want to shatter someone’s bones.

“I’ve only heard my clients whispering about it, every now and then. But there’s a group that’s formed, right here in Rifthold, and they want to put Aelin Galathynius back on Terrasen’s throne.” Her heart stopped beating. Aelin Galathynius, the lost heir of Terrasen. “Aelin Galathynius is dead,” she breathed. Archer shook his head. “They don’t think so. They say she’s alive, and that she’s raising an army against the king. She’s looking to reestablish her court, to find what’s left of King Orlon’s inner circle.” She just stared at him, willing her fingers to unclench, willing air into her lungs. If it were true … No, it wasn’t true. If these people actually claimed to have met the heir to the throne, then she had to be an imposter.

“They spent more time ranting about the king than making plans. And regardless of what they might claim, I don’t think they truly care about Aelin Galathynius. I think they just want to find a ruler who best serves their interests—and maybe they only want her to raise an army so their businesses can thrive during the war that would ensue. If they aid her, give her badly needed supplies …” “Then she’d owe them. They want a puppet queen, not a true ruler.” Of course—of course they would want something like that.

The art of using the Wyrdmarks was lost; only Nehemia’s family knew how to properly use their power. But here, in her hands … She flipped through the book. Someone had written a sentence on the inside of the back cover, and Celaena brought the candle closer as she peered at what had been scribbled. It was a riddle—or some strange turn of phrase: It is only with the eye that one can see rightly.

He shook his head and stared at the wall. Dark smudges lay under his eyes, stubble coated his jaw, and utter exhaustion lined every inch of his body. He probably hadn’t fallen asleep until a little while ago. She’d hardly known where she was going while the gloriella tore through her; all she’d known was that she had to get someplace safe. And somehow, she had wound up exactly where she knew she’d be safest.

Dorian shook off the last bit of the cold and walked to his dressing room to change his wrinkled tunic. As he turned, he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of a faint ring of frost around where his body had lain on the couch. But when he looked back to see it more fully, there was nothing there.

Fae. It was impossible to miss those delicately pointed ears and elongated canines. The Fae lounged and danced and played music, content to bask in their immortality and ethereal beauty. No, the king and his cronies couldn’t know about this place, because they certainly would have defaced these carvings by now. Celaena didn’t need a historian to know that this stairwell was old—far older than the one through which she had just descended, perhaps even older than the castle itself. Why had Gavin picked this site to build his castle? Had there been something here before? Or something beneath it worth hiding? A cold sweat slithered down her spine as she peered into the stairwell. Against all odds, another breeze wafted up from below. Iron. It smelled like iron.

Iron was the one element immune to magic; she remembered that much. There had been so many kinds of magic-wielders ten years ago—people whose power was believed by some to have long ago originated from the gods themselves, despite the King of Adarlan’s claim that magic was an affront to the divine. Wherever it came from, magic had countless variations: abilities to heal, to shape-shift, to summon flame or water or storm, to encourage the growth of crops and plants, to glimpse the future, and on and on. Most of those gifts had been watered down over the millennia, but for some rare strong ones, when they held on to their power too long, the iron in their blood caused fainting spells. Or worse. She had seen hundreds of doors in the castle—doors of wood, of bronze, of glass—but never one of solid iron. This one was ancient, from a time when an iron door meant something. So was this supposed to keep someone out—or to keep something in?

He would move on. Because he would not be like the ancient kings in the song and keep her for himself. She deserved a loyal, brave knight who saw her for what she was and did not fear her. And he deserved someone who would look at him like that, even if the love wouldn’t be the same, even if the girl wouldn’t be her.

So Dorian closed his eyes, and took another long breath. And when he opened his eyes, he let her go.

“Any last words?” A queer, calm rage settled over her lined face, and she lifted her chin. “I have worked for ten years to become famous enough to gain an invitation to this castle. Ten years, so I could come here to sing the songs of magic that you tried to wipe out. So I could sing those songs, and you would know that we are still here—that you may outlaw magic, that you may slaughter thousands, but we who keep the old ways still remember.” Behind him, Roland snorted. “Enough,” the king said, and snapped his fingers. The guards shoved her head down on the block. “My daughter was sixteen,” she went on. Tears ran over the bridge of her nose and onto the block, but her voice remained strong and loud. “Sixteen, when you burned her. Her name was Kaleen, and she had eyes like thunderclouds. I still hear her voice in my dreams.” The king jerked his chin to the executioner, who stepped forward. “My sister was thirty-six. Her name was Liessa, and she had two boys who were her joy.” The executioner raised his ax. “My neighbor and his wife were seventy. Their names were Jon and Estrel. They were killed because they dared try to protect my daughter when your men came for her.” Rena Goldsmith was still reciting her list of the dead when the ax fell.

As Nehemia strode about, Celaena leaned against a wall and slumped to the ground. Sighing, she rubbed her heel against one of the raised stars on the floor, examining the curve that they made across the room. Do they make a constellation? Celaena rose to her feet and stared down. Nine of the stars made up a familiar pattern—the Dragonfly. Her brows rose. She’d never realized it before. A few feet away another constellation lay on the floor—the Wyvern. It sat at the head of Gavin’s sarcophagus. A symbol of Adarlan’s house, as well as the second constellation in the sky.

“What is it?” Celaena was staring down at the last constellation—the Stag, Lord of the North. The symbol of Terrasen, Elena’s home country. The constellation faced the wall, and its head seemed to be pointed upward, as though it were looking at something … Celaena followed the stag’s stare, up through the dozens of Wyrdmarks that covered the wall, until— “By the Wyrd. Look at this,” she said, pointing. An eye, no larger than her palm, was etched into the wall. A hole was bored in its center, a perfectly crafted puncture that had been carefully concealed within the eye. The Wyrdmark itself made a face, and while the other eye was filled in and smooth, this one held a hollowed-out iris. It is only with the eye that one can see rightly. There was no way she was that lucky—it was surely no more than coincidence. Calming her growing excitement, she lifted onto her toes to see into the eye. How had she not noticed this before? She took a step back, and the Wyrdmark faded into the wall. She stepped back onto the constellation, and it appeared again. “You can only see the face when you stand on the stag,” Nehemia whispered.

“Don’t lie to me.” “Lie to you? To you? Oh, I couldn’t lie to you. You asked me whether it makes sense, and I said no. You must learn to ask the right questions before you can receive the right answers.” Celaena growled. “What sort of question might I ask to receive the right answer?” Mort clicked his tongue. “I’ll have none of that. Come back when you have some proper questions.” “You promise you’ll tell me then?” “I’m a door knocker; it’s not in my nature to make promises.”

Celaena beamed at Philippa and took it, and her smile grew as she read the contents once the servant left. “It’s from Archer,” she told Nehemia. “He’s given me some names of people who might be involved in this movement—people associated with Davis.” She was a little shocked he’d risk putting it all in a letter. Perhaps she needed to teach him a thing or two about code-writing. Nehemia had stopped smiling, though. “What sort of man just hands out this information like it’s nothing more than morning gossip?” “A man who wants his freedom and has had enough of serving pigs.” Celaena folded the letter and stood. If the men on this list were anything like Davis, then perhaps handing them over to the king and using them as leverage wouldn’t be so horrible after all.

Nehemia stared at him for a long moment before nodding. “You have power in you, Prince. More power than you realize.” She touched his chest, tracing a symbol there, too, and some of the court ladies gasped. But Nehemia’s eyes were locked on his. “It sleeps,” she whispered, tapping his heart. “In here. When the time comes, when it awakens, do not be afraid.” She removed her hand and gave him a sad smile. “When it is time, I will help you.” With that, she walked away, the courtiers parting, then swallowing up her wake. He stared after the princess, wondering what her last words had meant. And why, when she had said them, something ancient and slumbering deep inside of him had opened an eye.

His father was smiling faintly at Roland, his head propped on a fist. The black ring on the king’s hand glinted in the dim light from the beastly fireplace, that mouth-shaped hearth that seemed poised to devour the room. From his spot beside Perrington, Roland gestured to the map. Another black ring glinted on Roland’s hand—the same as the one Perrington wore, too. “As you can see, Calaculla can’t support the current number of slaves. There are too many to even fit in the mines as it is—and though we have them digging for new deposits, the work has been stagnant.” Roland smiled. “But, slightly to the north, right along the southern edge of Oakwald, our men have discovered an iron deposit that seems to cover a large area. It’s close enough to Calaculla that we could erect a few new buildings to house additional guards and overseers, bring in even more slaves if we want, and start work on it right away.” Impressed murmurs, and a nod from his father to Roland made Dorian’s jaw clench. Three matching rings; three black rings to signify—what? That they were bound in some way to each other? How had Roland gotten past his father’s and Perrington’s defenses so quickly? Because of his support of a place like Calaculla?

“I had an Asterion mare once,” she admitted, and both of them blinked. Celaena went up to the stall and held out her fingers, letting the stallion sniff her. “Her name was Kasida.” She smiled at the memory, stroking the stallion’s velvet-soft nose. “It meant ‘Drinker of the Wind’ in the dialect of the Red Desert. She looked like a storm-tossed sea.” “How did you get an Asterion mare? They’re worth even more than the stallions,” Dorian said. It was the first normal-sounding question he’d asked her in weeks. She looked over her shoulder at them and flashed a fiendish grin. “I stole her from the Lord of Xandria.” Chaol’s eyes grew wide, and Dorian cocked his head. It was so comical that she started laughing. “I swear on the Wyrd it’s the truth. I’ll tell you the story some other time.”

Celaena stood on the barren edge of a ravine, a chill northern wind ruffling her hair. She’d had this dream before; always this setting, always this night of the year. Behind her sloped a rocky, wasted plain, and before her stretched a chasm so long it disappeared into the starlit horizon. Across the ravine was a lush, dark wood, rustling with life. And on the grassy lip of the other side stood the white stag, watching her with ancient eyes. His massive antlers glowed in the moonlight, wreathing him in ivory glory, just as she remembered. It had been on a chill night like this that she’d spotted him through the bars of her prison wagon on the way to Endovier, a glimmer of a world before it was burned to ash. They watched each other in silence.

She got out of bed, Fleetfoot leaping down beside her. She walked a few steps, then paused in the center of the room, staring into the dark, into the endless ravine still beckoning to her. Fleetfoot nuzzled her bare legs, and Celaena reached down to stroke the hound’s head. They remained there for a moment, gazing into that blackness without end.

Chaol took the morning training run alone. He ran through the mist-shrouded game park until his very bones were exhausted.

He was surprised to see the book sitting there, given how his father had destroyed that noble house ten years ago. But there it was: a history of the Galathynius line, starting with the Fae King Brannon himself. Dorian flipped through the pages, his brows raised high. He’d known the line was blessed with magic, but this … It was a powerhouse. A bloodline so mighty that other kingdoms had lived in terror of the day the Lords of Terrasen would come to claim their lands. But they never had.

Half of the books in the row had been tossed off their shelves and scattered about, as if thrown by some invisible force. He rushed to them, shoving volumes back onto their shelves in no order whatsoever, working as fast as he could before one of the crotchety royal librarians came hobbling over to see what the noise was about. It took him a few minutes to put them all back, his heart pounding so hard he thought he’d be sick again. His hands trembled—and not just with fear. No, there was some force still running through him, begging him to unleash it again, to open himself up … Dorian crammed the last book back onto the shelf and took off at a run. He could tell no one. Trust no one.

“That would make you over five hundred years old.” She gave him a smile. “It’s a marvel I’ve stayed so young, isn’t it?” “So it’s true: witches really are blessed with the long lifespans of the Fae.” She tossed another bone at the foot of the wooden steps. “Fae or Valg. We never learned which one.” Valg. He knew that name. “The demons who stole Fae to breed with them; which made the witches, right?” And, if he recalled correctly, the beautiful Crochan witches had taken after their Fae ancestors—while the three clans of Ironteeth witches took after the race of demons that had invaded Erilea at the dawn of time.

“We don’t know how or why magic vanished. I hear rumors every now and then that the power still exists on other continents, but not here. So that’s the real question: why did magic vanish only here, and not across the whole of Erilea? What crimes did we commit to make the gods curse us like that, to take away what they had once given us?” She tossed the rib cage of the chicken onto the ground. “Hypothetically, if someone had magic and I wanted to learn why, I’d start by figuring out why magic left in the first place. Maybe that would explain how there could be an exception to the rule.” She licked the grease off her deadly fingers. “Strange questions from a lordling dwelling in the glass castle. Strange, strange questions.”

Nehemia ran a hand over her face, letting out a deep breath. “The king has asked me to speak to the rebel forces. To convince them to back down. Or else he’ll butcher them all.” “He threatened to do that?” “Not directly, but it was implied. At the end of the month, he’s sending Perrington to the duke’s keep in Morath. I don’t doubt for one minute that he wants Perrington at the southern border so he can monitor things. Perrington is his right hand. So if the duke decides the rebels need to be dealt with, he has permission to use whatever force is necessary to put them down.”

Nehemia took her hand. “Promise me,” she said, her dark eyes shining. “Promise me that you’ll help me free Eyllwe from him.” Ice shot through Celaena’s veins. “Free Eyllwe?” “Promise me that you’ll see my father’s crown restored to him. That you’ll see my people returned from Endovier and Calaculla.”

“So what will you be a part of, Celaena?” Nehemia stood, jostling Fleetfoot from her lap. “What will you stand for? Or will you only stand for yourself?” Her throat ached, but Celaena forced the words out. “You have no idea what sort of things he can do to you, Nehemia. To your people.” “He massacred five hundred rebels and their families!” “And he destroyed my entire kingdom! You daydream about the power and honor of Terrasen’s royal court, yet you don’t realize what it means that the king was able to destroy them. They were the strongest court on the continent—they were the strongest court on any continent, and he killed them all.” “He had the element of surprise,” Nehemia countered. “And now he has an army that numbers in the millions. There is nothing that can be done.” “When will you say enough, Celaena? What will make you stop running and face what is before you? If Endovier and the plight of my people cannot move you, what will?” “I am one person.” “One person chosen by Queen Elena—one person whose brow burned with a sacred mark on the day of that duel! One person who, despite the odds, is still breathing. Our paths crossed for a reason. If you are not gods-blessed, then who is?” “This is ridiculous. This is folly.” “Folly? Folly to fight for what is right, for people who cannot stand up for themselves? You think soldiers are the worst he can send?” Nehemia’s tone softened. “There are far darker things gathering on the horizon. My dreams have been filled with shadow...

“You do understand. When you look at him, you sense that there is a greater, twisted power around him. How did such a man conquer so much of the continent so quickly? With military might alone? How is it that Terrasen’s court fell so quickly, when its retainers had been trained for generations to be warriors? How did the most powerful court in the world get wiped out within a matter of days?”

“One of them has to break,” the queen said to the princess. “Only then can it begin.” “I know,” the princess said softly. “But the prince isn’t ready. It has to be her.” “Then do you understand what I am asking of you?” The princess looked up, toward the shaft of moonlight spilling into the tomb. When she looked back at the ancient queen, her eyes were bright. “Yes.” “Then do what needs to be done.” The princess nodded and walked out of the tomb. She paused on the threshold, the darkness beyond beckoning to her, and turned back to the queen. “She won’t understand. And when she goes over the edge, there will be nothing to pull her back.” “She will find her way back. She always does.” Tears formed, but the princess blinked them away. “For all our sakes, I hope you’re right.”

Celaena paused in front of the guard, pointing a blood-drenched sword at him. “Get out of my way, or I’ll cut you into pieces.” His guard, the fool, snorted, lifting his swords a little higher. “Come and get him.” Celaena smiled. But then the hooded man with the ancient voice was rushing to them, arms spread to show he wasn’t armed. “Enough! Put down your weapons,” he told the guard. The guard faltered, but Celaena’s swords remained at the ready. The old man took one step toward Celaena. “Enough! We have enough enemies as it is! There are worse things out there to face!” Celaena slowly turned to him, her face splattered with blood and eyes blazing bright. “No, there aren’t,” she said. “Because I’m here now.”

But she just stayed there, letting the others fan out around her as they rushed to assess the three cooling bodies in the room. That ancient, ageless drum—her heartbeat—pulsed through her ears, drowning out any sound. Nehemia was gone. That vibrant, fierce, loving soul; the princess who had been called the Light of Eyllwe; the woman who had been a beacon of hope—just like that, as if she were no more than a wisp of candlelight, she was gone. When it had mattered most, Celaena hadn’t been there. Nehemia was gone.

“Stop.” But the Celaena he knew was gone. The girl he’d imagined as his wife, the girl he’d shared a bed with for the past week, was utterly gone. Her clothes and hands were caked with the blood of the men in the warehouse. She wedged a knee up, pounding it between his legs so hard he lost his grip on her, and then she was on top of him, dagger drawn, plunging down toward his chest— He grabbed her wrist again, crushing it in his hand as the blade hovered over his heart. Her whole body trembled with effort, trying to shove it the remaining few inches. She reached for her other dagger, but he caught that wrist, too. “Stop.” He gasped, winded from the blow she’d landed with her knee, trying to think past that blinding pain. “Celaena, stop.” “Captain,” one of his men ventured. “Stay back,” he snarled again. Celaena threw her weight into the dagger she held aloft, and gained an inch. His arms strained. She was going to kill him. She was truly going to kill him. He made himself look into her eyes, look at the face so twisted with rage that he couldn’t find her. “Celaena,” he said, squeezing her wrists so hard that he hoped the pain registered somewhere—wherever she had gone. But she still wouldn’t loosen her grip on the blade. “Celaena, I’m your friend.”

There were things Chaol still wasn’t telling him, but Dorian understood it well enough. His friend was trembling—which was a horror in itself, another foundation slipping out from beneath their feet. “I’ve never seen anyone move like she did,” Chaol breathed. “I’ve never seen anyone run that fast. Dorian, it was like …” Chaol shook his head. “I found a horse within seconds of her taking off, and she still outran me. Who can do that?”

“How long will you keep her here?” Dorian said, looking down the stairs. She had attacked the Captain of the Guard in front of his men. Worse than attacked. “As long as it takes,” Chaol said quietly. “For what?” “For her to decide not to kill us all.”

Kaltain laughed quietly. “Who knows what games these people play, and what ends they have in mind?” She rubbed her dirty hands on her face. “My headaches are worse,” she mumbled. “And those wings—they never stop.” My dreams have been filled with shadows and wings, Nehemia had said; Kaltain, too. “What has one to do with the other?” Celaena demanded, the words sharp and hollow.

She wouldn’t care. Let them execute her. Let them put an end to her, too. Nehemia had been the hope of a kingdom, of many kingdoms. The court Nehemia had dreamed of would never be. Eyllwe would never be free. Celaena would never get the chance to tell her that she was sorry for the things she’d said. All that would remain were the last words Nehemia had spoken to her. The last thing her friend had thought of her. You are nothing more than a coward. “If they let you out,” Kaltain said, both of them staring into the blackness of their prisons, “make sure that they’re punished someday. Every last one of them.” Celaena listened to her own breathing, felt Chaol’s blood under her nails, and the blood of all those men she’d hacked down, and the coldness of Nehemia’s room, where all that gore had soaked the bed. “They will be,” Celaena swore to the darkness. She had nothing left to give, except that.

By the Valg, three were made, Of the Gate-Stone of the Wyrd: Obsidian the gods forbade And stone they greatly feared. In grief, he hid one in the crown Of her he loved so well, To keep with her where she lay down Inside the starry cell. The second one was hidden In a mountain made of fire, Where all men were forbidden Despite their great desires. Where the third lies Will never be told By voice or tongue Or sum of gold. Celaena shook her head. More nonsense. And the rhyme with “Wyrd” and “feared” was off. Not to mention the break in the rhyme scheme in the final lines.

She was hiding something—a secret she kept locked up so tight that only the horror and shattering loss of that night could have made her slip in such a way. So the more he could discover about her, the better chance he stood of being prepared when the secret came to light.

They were close to the office, and he knew that once they arrived, the little bastard would probably shut him out until he’d brought Fleetfoot to justice. Chaol pressed a bit harder. “So there are no dirges in Terrasen that are sung in a different language?” “No,” he said, drawing out the word as he pondered. “But I once heard that in the high court of Terrasen, when the nobility died, they sang their laments in the language of the Fae.” Chaol’s blood froze and he almost tripped, but he managed to keep walking and say, “Would these songs have been known by everyone—not just the nobility?” “Oh, no,” Sensel said, only half-listening as he recited whatever history was in his head. “Those songs were sacred to the court. Only those of noble blood ever learned or sang them. They were taught and sung in secret, their dead buried by the light of the moon, when no other ears could hear them. At least, that’s what rumor claimed. I’ll admit to my own morbid curiosity in that I’d hoped to hear them ten years ago, but by the time the slaughter had ended, there was no one left in those noble houses to sing them.” No one, except … You will always be my enemy. “Thank you,” Chaol got out, then quickly turned away, walking toward the exit. Sensel called after him, demanding his oath that he’d find the dog and punish it, but Chaol didn’t bother to reply. Which house did she belong to? Her parents hadn’t just been murdered—they were part of the nobility who had been executed by the king. Slau...

Regardless of what territory her parents had lorded over, if Celaena ever took up the mantle she’d lost, and if Terrasen ever got to its feet … Then Celaena could become a powerhouse—potentially capable of standing against Adarlan. And that made Celaena more than just his enemy. It made her the greatest threat he’d ever encountered.

“Don’t you have people who dress you? I would have thought that Roland would be your devoted servant, at least.” Dorian snorted, plumping his pillows. “Roland’s tried. Thankfully, he’s been suffering from awful headaches lately and has backed off.” That was good to hear—sort of. The last she’d bothered to check, the Lord of Meah had indeed become close to Dorian—a friend, even.

And she didn’t quite know why the words came out, but she spoke the truth anyway. “Because I have nowhere else to go.” Sitting in her rooms in silence made the pain worse, going to the tomb only frustrated her, and the thought of Chaol still hurt so badly she couldn’t breathe. Every morning, she walked Fleetfoot by herself, then ran alone in the game park. Even the girls who had once lined the garden pathways, waiting for Chaol, had stopped showing up. Dorian nodded, looking at her with kindness she couldn’t stand. “Then you will always have a place here.”

Some of the tightness in her chest loosening, Celaena pulled the riddle from her pocket and read it aloud. When she was done, Yellowlegs slowly turned her head to Celaena, her voice low and rough. “Where did you find that?” Celaena shrugged. “Give me the answer and I might tell you. What sort of objects does this riddle describe?” “Wyrdkeys,” Yellowlegs breathed, eyes glowing. “It describes the three Wyrdkeys to open the Wyrdgate.” Cold slithered down Celaena’s spine, but she said, with more bravado than she felt, “Tell me what they are—the Wyrdkeys, the Wyrdgate. For all I know, you might be lying about the answer. I’d rather not be made a fool of.” “This information is not for the idle games of mortals,” Yellowlegs snapped. Gold gleamed in Celaena’s palm. “Name your price.” The woman studied her from head to toe, sniffing once. “Nameless is my price,” Yellowlegs said. “But gold will do for now.”

“The Wyrd governs and forms the foundation of this world. Not just Erilea, but all life. There are worlds that exist beyond your knowledge, worlds that lie on top of each other and don’t know it. Right now, you could be standing on the bottom of someone else’s ocean. The Wyrd keeps these realms apart.” Yellowlegs began to hobble around the sitting area, lost in her own words. “There are gates—black areas in the Wyrd that allow for life to pass between the worlds. There are Wyrdgates that lead to Erilea. All sorts of beings have come through them over the eons. Benign things, but also the dead and foul things that creep in when the gods are looking elsewhere.”

“But long ago, before humans overran this miserable world, a different sort of evil broke through the gates: the Valg. Demons from another realm, bent on the conquest of Erilea, and with the force of an endless army behind them. In Wendlyn, they fought against the Fae. Try as the immortal children might, they could not defeat them. “Then the Fae learned that the Valg had done something unforgivable. They had taken a piece of a Wyrdgate with their dark magic, and split it into three slivers—three keys. One key for each of their kings. Using all three at once, the Valg Kings were able to open that Wyrdgate at will, to manipulate its power to strengthen their forces, to allow an endless line of soldiers to pour into the world. The Fae knew that they must stop it.”