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

by Sarah J. Maas

“But the Wyrdkeys were indeed retrieved, and the Fae Queen Maeve banished the Valg to their realm. Yet for all her wisdom, Maeve couldn’t discover how to put the keys back in the gate—and no forge, no steel, no weight could destroy them. So Maeve, believing that no one should have their power, sent them across the sea with Brannon Galathynius, first King of Terrasen, to hide on this continent. And thus the Wyrdgate remained protected, its power unused.”

“The person who holds all three Wyrdkeys would have control over the broken Wyrdgate—and all Erilea. They would be able to open and close the gate at will. They could conquer new worlds or let in all sorts of life to bend to their cause. But even one key could make someone immensely dangerous. Not enough power to open the gate, but enough to be a threat. You see, the keys themselves are pure power—power to be shaped as the wielder wills it. Tempting, isn’t it?”

Yellowlegs only let out a confirming chuckle. Celaena kept shaking her head, her heart beating so violently she could hardly breathe. “The king has some of the Wyrdkeys? That’s how he was able to conquer the continent so easily?” But if he’d already done that—then what further plans did he have? “Perhaps,” Yellowlegs said. “If I were to wager my hard-earned gold, I’d say he has at least one.”

Swearing under her breath, Celaena’s wrists ached against the cold iron. But she’d been taught to free herself from worse. Arobynn had bound her up from head to toe and made her learn how to get loose, even if it meant spending two days prostrate on the ground in her own filth, or dislocating her shoulder to get out. So, not all that surprisingly, she had the chains off in a matter of seconds.

“You killed a witch—and you’re now marked by a witch. It will not be the usual sort of wound.” Mort’s eyes narrowed. “You understand that you may have just landed yourself in a heap of trouble.” Celaena groaned. “Baba Yellowlegs was a leader—a queen to her clan,” Mort went on. “When they destroyed the Crochan family, they joined with the Blackbeaks and the Bluebloods in the Ironteeth Alliance. They still honor those oaths.” “But I thought all the witches were gone—scattered to the winds.” “Gone? The Crochans and those who followed them have been in hiding for generations. But the clans in the Ironteeth Alliance still travel about, as Baba did. Though many more of them live in the ruined and dark places of the world, content in their wickedness. But I suspect that when the Yellowlegs learn of their matron’s death, they will muster the Blackbeaks and the Bluebloods and demand answers from the king. And you will be fortunate if they do not come on their brooms and drag you into it.” She grimaced. “I hope you’re wrong.” Mort’s brows lowered slightly. “So do I.”

At least she’d finally discovered a possible source of the king’s power. But she still needed to learn more. And then the real question: what was the king planning to do with the keys that he had not done already? She had a feeling she didn’t want to know.

There were so many words trying to work their way out of him that he couldn’t speak at all. All of that money—she’d left everything to him. Left it to him because of what she’d felt for him … even Dorian had seen it from the start. “At least now,” she said, pushing off the doorframe and turning away, “when the king sacks you for being so damn lousy at your job, you’ll have something to fall back on.” He couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t just done it out of generosity. But rather because she knew that if he ever lost his position, he’d have to consider going back to Anielle, to his father’s money. And that it’d kill part of him to do that. But she’d have to be dead for him to see that money. Verifiably dead, and not a traitor to the crown, either—if she died a traitor, then all her assets had to go to the king.

And the only way she’d die a traitor would be for her to do what he feared: ally with this secret organization, find Aelin Galathynius, and return to Terrasen. This was a hint that she had no intention of doing that. She had no plans to reclaim her lost title, and posed no threat to Adarlan or Dorian. He’d been wrong. Yet again, he’d been wrong.

Nehemia was gone. And the world … it was moving on without her. When Sam had died, she had tucked him into her heart, tucked him in alongside her other beloved dead, whose names she kept so secret she sometimes forgot them. But Nehemia—Nehemia wouldn’t fit. It was as if her heart was too full of the dead, too full of those lives that had ended well before their time. She couldn’t seal Nehemia away like that, not when that bloodstained bed and those ugly words still haunted her every step, every breath. So Celaena just hovered at the pianoforte, tracing her fingers over the keys again and again, and let the silence devour her.

Staring down into the stairwell, Celaena touched Damaris, then looked at the two jeweled daggers hanging from her belt. She was fine. No reason to be nervous. What sort of evil did she expect to find in a library, of all places?

Her torch revealed a small staircase of about ten steps, which led down to another long, narrow passageway. Cobwebs and dust filled every inch of it, but it wasn’t the neglected look of the place that made her pause. Rather it was the doors, the dozens of iron doors that lined both sides of the hallway. All as nondescript as the door behind her, all revealing nothing of what might be behind them. At the opposite end of the hall, another iron door gleamed dully in the torchlight.

Is this some sort of dungeon? But the floor held no traces of blood, no remnants of bones or weapons. It didn’t even smell that bad—just dusty. Dry. She tried opening one of the doors, but it was firmly locked. All of the doors were locked. And some instinct told her to keep them that way. Her head throbbed slightly with the beginnings of a headache. The hallway went on and on, until she reached the door at the far end, the cells on either side numbered ninety-eight and ninety-nine.

She walked until she reached the door on the other end of the hall. Sixty-six cells this time, all sealed shut. She unlocked the end door with the Wyrdmarks. She entered the third passageway, which also made a sharp right turn, and found it to be even shorter. Thirty-three cells. The fourth hallway veered right again, and she counted twenty-two cells. The slight throbbing in her head turned into a full-on pounding, but it was so far to her rooms, and she was here already … Celaena paused before the fourth end door. It’s a spiral. A labyrinth. Bringing you deeper and deeper inside, farther belowground … She bit her lip but unlocked the door. Eleven cells. She increased her pace, and swiftly reached the fifth door. Nine cells.

Her torch revealed a hallway in ruin. Parts of the walls had caved in, and the wooden beams were left in splinters. Cobwebs stretched between the broken shafts of wood, and tattered scraps of cloth, impaled upon rock and beam, swayed in the slight breeze. Death had been here. And not too long ago. If this place were as ancient as Gavin and Brannon, most of the cloth would be dust. She looked at the three cells that lined the short hallway. There was one more door at the end, which hung crookedly on its one remaining hinge. Darkness filled the void beyond. But it was the third cell that held her interest. The iron door to the third cell had been smashed, its surface dented and folded in upon itself. But not from the outside. Celaena raised Damaris before her as she faced the open cell. Whoever had been within had broken loose.

Up and up and up she climbed, grateful for all her training. Her headache only grew worse, but when she reached the top, she forgot about fatigue, forgot about pain. She raised the torch. Shimmering obsidian walls surrounded her, reaching high, high, high—so high that she couldn’t see the ceiling. She was inside some sort of chamber at the bottom of a tower. Twining through the strange stone walls, greenish veins glittered in the torchlight. She had seen this material before. Seen it— The king’s ring. The ring on Perrington’s finger. And Cain’s … She touched the stone, and a shock went through her, her head pounding so badly she gagged. The Eye of Elena gave a pulse of blue light but quickly died, as if the light itself had been sucked toward the stone and devoured. She staggered back toward the stairs. Gods above. What is this? As if in response, a boom shuddered through the tower, so loud that she jumped back. It echoed and echoed, turning metallic. She raised her gaze to the darkness above. “I know where I am,” she whispered as the sound subsided. The clock tower.

Dorian quickly descended the staircase and found a dimly lit hallway with a single door left ajar, two marks written on it in chalk. When he saw the cell-lined hallway beyond, he froze. The iron reeked, somehow—and made his stomach turn. “Celaena?” he called down the hallway. No response. “Celaena?” Nothing. He had to tell her to get out. Whatever this place was, neither of them should be here. Even if the power in his blood wasn’t screaming it, he would have known. He had to get her out. Dorian descended the staircase.

What had been in there? This had nothing to do with Gavin, or Brannon. Maybe the dungeon had been built then, but this—all of this—had to be connected to the king. Because he had built the clock tower; built it out of— Obsidian the gods forbade And stone they greatly feared. But—but the keys were supposed to be small. Not mammoth, like the clock tower. Not— Celaena hit the bottom of the clock stairs and froze as she beheld the passage that contained the destroyed cell. The torches had been extinguished. She looked behind her, toward the clock tower. The darkness seemed to expand, reaching for her. She wasn’t alone.

It peered out from the shadows of the cell, clutching at its cloak with taloned hands. Food. For the first time in months. She was so warm, so teeming with life. It skittered out of the cell past her as she continued her blind retreat. Since they had locked it down here to rot, since they had gotten tired of playing with it, it had forgotten so many things. It had forgotten its own name, forgotten what it used to be. But it now knew more useful things—better things. How to hunt, how to feed, how to use those marks to open and close doors. It had paid attention during the long years; it had watched them make the marks. And once they had left, it had waited until it knew they weren’t coming back. Until he was looking elsewhere and had taken all his other things with him. And then it had begun opening the doors, one after another. Some shred of it remained mortal enough to always seal those doors shut, to come back here and form the marks that again locked the doors, to keep it contained. But she had come here. She had learned the marks. Which meant she had to know—to know what had been done to it. She had to have been a part of it, the breaking and shattering and then the brutal rebuilding. And since she had come here … It ducked into another shadow and waited for her to walk into its claws.

Upstairs, the blue light had been enough to keep it away—the blue light that had tasted of power. But down here, down in the shadow of the black, breathing stone, that light was diminished. Down here, now that it had put out the torches she’d ignited, there was nothing to stop it, and no one to hear her. It had not forgotten, even in the twisted pathways of its memory, what had been done to it on that stone table. With a dripping maw, it smiled.

The hood had fallen off the creature, revealing what looked like a man’s face—looked like, but no longer was. His hair was sparse, hanging off his gleaming skull in clumpy strings, and his lips … there was such scarring around his mouth, as though someone had ripped it open and sewed it shut, then ripped it open again. The creature pushed a gnarled hand against its abdomen, panting through those brown, broken teeth as it looked at her—looked at her with such hatred that she couldn’t move. It was such a human expression … “What are you?” She gasped, swinging Damaris as she took another step back. But it suddenly began clawing at itself, tearing at the dark robes, pulling out its hair, pushing against its skull, as if it would reach in and rip something out. And the shrieks it made, the rage and despair— The creature had been in the castle hallway. Which meant … This thing, this person—it knew how to use the Wyrdmarks, too. And with its unnatural strength, no mortal barrier would keep it contained.

With a final breath, he leapt away. The creature slammed into the door, flinging it open. And, just like she had said, it froze on the threshold, its animalistic eyes wild as its head jutted out into the hall. There was a pause then, a pause during which Dorian could have sworn that Celaena and the creature looked at each other—and its wildness calmed, just for a moment. Just for a moment, and then Celaena moved.

No need to tell him that she was starting to believe the king had created it. The clock tower had been built by the king himself—so he had to know what it connected to. She knew that the creature had been made, because in its chest had been a human heart. Celaena was willing to bet that the king had used at least one Wyrdkey to make both tower and monster.

There had been so many doors. Well over two hundred, all locked. And both Kaltain and Nehemia had mentioned wings—wings in their dreams, wings flapping through the Ferian Gap. What was the king brewing there?

They want to use me. They tricked me, Kaltain had said. And in Dorian’s book of Adarlan’s noble lineages, the Rompier family had been listed as one with a strong magical line, supposedly vanished two generations ago. Sometimes I think they brought me here, Kaltain had said. Not to marry Perrington, but for another purpose. Brought Kaltain here, the way Cain had been brought here. Cain, of the White Fang Mountains, where powerful shamans had long ruled the tribes.

Something is coming, Kaltain had whispered. And I am to greet it. My headaches are worse every day, and full of all those flapping wings. Celaena nearly stumbled on a step. Roland has been suffering from awful headaches lately, Dorian told her a few days ago. And now Roland, who shared Dorian’s Havilliard blood, had gone to Morath, too. Gone, or been taken? Celaena touched her shoulder and felt the open, bloody wounds beneath. The creature had been clawing at its head, as though it were in pain. And when it had shoved through the door, for those last few seconds it had been frozen in place, she had seen something human in its warped eyes—something that looked so relieved, so grateful for the death she gave him. “Who were you?” she whispered, recalling the human heart and manlike body of the creature under the library. “And what did he do to you?” But Celaena had a feeling she already knew the answer. Because that was the other thing the Wyrdkeys could do, the other power that the Wyrdmarks controlled: life. They hear wings in the Ferian Gap, Nehemia had said. Our scouts do not come back. The king was twisting far worse things than mortal men. Far, far worse things. But what did he plan to do with them—with the creatures, with the people like Roland and Kaltain? She needed to learn how many of the Wyrdkeys he had found. And where the others might be.

The tomb still didn’t make sense, though. What did the trees on the ceiling and the stars on the floor have to do with the riddle? The stars had led to the secret hole, but they could just as easily have been on the ceiling to do that. Why make everything backward? Would Brannon have been so foolish as to put all the answers in one place? She uncrumpled the scrap of paper, now stained with the creature’s oily blood. Ah! Time’s Rift! There was no inscription at Gavin’s feet—only Elena’s. And the words made little sense. … But what if they weren’t meant to make sense? What if they were only just logical enough to imply one thing, but really mean another? Everything in the tomb was backward, rearranged, the natural order in reverse. To hint that things were jumbled, misarranged. So the thing that should have been concealed was right in the open. But, like everything else, its meaning was warped. And there was one person—one being—who could possibly tell her whether she was right.

The first Wyrdkey of the three. Celaena moved around the stone body, her eyes on Elena’s sleeping face. As she looked upon those fine features, she whispered the words. 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.

No one has the right to open the door to this realm, no matter how fierce their grief.”

Celaena just stood there, unable to move or think. Her throat burned with those pent-up words, the words that now choked the life out of her. “Elentiya.” Nehemia paused to look back at her. The void seemed to be swirling, swallowing her up bit by bit. “You will not understand yet, but … I knew what my fate was to be, and I embraced it. I ran toward it. Because it was the only way for things to begin changing, for events to be set in motion. But no matter what I did, Elentiya, I want you to know that in the darkness of the past ten years, you were one of the bright lights for me. Do not let that light go out.” And before Celaena could reply, the princess was gone. There was nothing in the dark. As though Nehemia had never been. As though she’d made it all up. “Come back,” she whispered. “Please—come back.” But the darkness remained the same. And Nehemia was gone.

Archer bowed his head. “Because I know what you are, Celaena. Arobynn told me one night, after you went to Endovier.” She shoved the twinge of genuine pain and betrayal down until it couldn’t distract her. “And for our cause to succeed, we need you. I need you. Some members of the movement are already starting to fight me, to question my leadership. They think my methods are too rough.” That explained the fight she’d seen with that young man. He took a step toward her. “But you … Gods, from the moment I saw you outside the Willows, I’ve known how good we’d be together. The things we’ll accomplish …” “I know,” she said, looking into those green eyes, so bright in the matching lights of the portal. “Archer, I know.” He didn’t see the dagger coming until she’d shoved it into him.

She was through in a heartbeat. And when she saw Chaol shielding Fleetfoot with nothing but his bare hands, his discarded sword snapped in two by the demon who hovered over them, she didn’t think twice before she unleashed the monster inside herself.

She was between them now, sword raised. She roared, revealing elongated canines, and the sound was unlike anything he’d ever heard. There was nothing human in it. Because she wasn’t human, Chaol realized, gaping up at her from where he still crouched over Fleetfoot. No—she wasn’t human at all. Celaena was Fae.

“I knew you were a good woman,” he said. Celaena halted. Turned. There was a hint of triumph in his eyes. He thought he’d won. Manipulated her again. One foot after another, she walked back toward him with predatory calmness. She stopped, close enough to kiss him. He gave her a wary smile. “No, I’m not,” she said. Then she moved, too fast for him to stand a chance. Archer’s eyes went wide as she slid the dagger home, jamming it up into his heart. He sagged in her arms. She brought her mouth to his ear, holding him upright with one hand and twisting the dagger with the other as she whispered, “But Nehemia was.”

He had never learned anything about the mark that had glowed on her head during the duel. The Wyrdmark was impossible to decipher. It either meant “nameless” or “unnamed,” or something akin to “anonymous.” But gods-blessed or not, from the wicked grin on her face, the king knew she’d enjoy this task.

“I want you to know,” she whispered to the wind, to the earth, to the body far beneath her, “that you were right. You were right. I am a coward. And I have been running for so long that I’ve forgotten what it is to stand and fight.” She bowed deeper, putting her forehead against the dirt. “But I promise,” she breathed into the soil, “I promise that I will stop him. I promise that I will never forgive, never forget what they did to you. I promise that I will free Eyllwe. I promise that I will see your father’s crown restored to his head.” She raised herself, drawing a dagger from her pocket, and sliced a line across her left palm. Blood welled, ruby-bright against the golden dawn, sliding down the side of her hand before she pressed her palm to the earth. “I promise,” she whispered again. “On my name, on my life, even if it takes until my last breath, I promise I will see Eyllwe freed.” She let her blood soak into the ground, willing it to carry the words of her oath to the Otherworld where Nehemia was safe at last. From now on, there would be no other oaths but this, no other contracts, no other obligations. Never forgive, never forget. And she didn’t know how she would do it, or how long it would take, but she would see it through. Because Nehemia couldn’t. Because it was time.

Chaol was just staring at her, such grief and fear in his eyes that speech failed her. And then she did the most reckless thing she’d ever done in her life. She stood on her toes and whispered the words into his ear. The words that would make him understand, understand why it was so important to her, and what it meant when she said she would return. And he would hate her forever for it, once he understood. “What does that mean?” he demanded. She smiled sadly. “You’ll figure it out. And when you do …” She shook her head, knowing she shouldn’t say it, but doing it anyway. “When you do, I want you to remember that it wouldn’t have made any difference to me. It’s never made any difference to me when it came to you. I’d still pick you. I’ll always pick you.”

Celaena Sardothien was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne and rightful Queen of Terrasen.

Celaena was Aelin Galathynius, the greatest living threat to Adarlan, the one person who could raise an army capable of standing against the king. Now, she was also the one person who knew the secret source of the king’s power—and who sought a way to destroy it. And he had just sent her into the arms of her strongest potential allies: to the homeland of her mother, the kingdom of her cousin, and the domain of her aunt, Queen Maeve of the Fae. Celaena was the lost Queen of Terrasen.

If she had to be here thanks to Chaol’s misplaced good intentions, then at least she’d receive the answers she needed. There was one person in Erilea who had been present when the Wyrdkeys were wielded by a conquering demon race that had warped them into three tools of such mighty power that they’d been hidden for thousands of years and nearly wiped from memory. Queen Maeve of the Fae. Maeve knew everything—as was expected when you were older than dirt.

There was nothing left in her, not really. Only ash and an abyss and the unbreakable vow she’d carved into her flesh, to the friend who had seen her for what she truly was.

Wendlyn. A land of myths and monsters—of legends and nightmares made flesh. The kingdom itself was a spread of warm, rocky sand and thick forest, growing ever greener as hills rolled inland and sharpened into towering peaks. The coast and the land around the capital were dry, as if the sun had baked all but the hardiest vegetation. Vastly different from the soggy, frozen empire she’d left behind.

As Aedion reached for the water, Chaol glimpsed the hilt of his sword. Dull metal flecked with dings and scratches, its pommel nothing more than a bit of cracked, rounded horn. Such a simple, plain sword for one of the greatest warriors in Erilea. “The Sword of Orynth,” Aedion drawled. “A gift from His Majesty upon my first victory.” Everyone knew that sword. It had been an heirloom of Terrasen’s royal family, passed from ruler to ruler. By right, it was Celaena’s. It had belonged to her father. For Aedion to possess it, considering what that sword now did, the lives it took, was a slap in the face to Celaena and to her family. “I’m surprised you bother with such sentimentality,” Dorian said. “Symbols have power, Prince,” Aedion said, pinning him with a stare. Celaena’s stare—unyielding and alive with challenge. “You’d be surprised by the power this still wields in the North—what it does to convince people not to pursue foolhardy plans.”

Aedion went on eating, but Chaol could still feel his relentless focus pinned on them. “Rumor has it a Matron of a witch clan was killed on the premises not too long ago,” Aedion said casually. “She vanished, though her quarters indicated she’d put up a hell of a fight.” Dorian said sharply, “What’s your interest in that?” “I make it my business to know when the power brokers of the realm meet their end.”

Because she was Manon Blackbeak, heir to the Blackbeak Witch-Clan,

The tangle of wood and moss and stone loomed, full of the rustling of heavy leaves, the gurgling of the swollen brook, the flapping of feathered wings. And there, lurking over the rim of a nearby boulder, were three sets of small, glowing eyes. The hilt of her dagger was in her palm a heartbeat later. But they just stared at her. Rowan didn’t seem to notice. He only leaned his head against the oak trunk. They had always known her, the Little Folk. Even when Adarlan’s shadow had covered the continent, they still recognized what she was. Small gifts left at campsites—a fresh fish, a leaf full of blackberries, a crown of flowers. She’d ignored them, and stayed out of Oakwald Forest as much as she could.

She took in every detail, every exit, every weakness as they entered the large courtyard beyond the wall, two rather mortal-looking stable hands rushing to help them dismount. It was so still. As if everything, even the stones, was holding its breath. As if it had been waiting. The sensation only worsened when Rowan wordlessly led her into the dim interior of the main building, up a narrow set of stone stairs, and into what looked to be a small office. It wasn’t the carved oak furniture, or the faded green drapes, or the warmth of the fire that made her stop dead. It was the dark-haired woman seated behind the desk. Maeve, Queen of the Fae. Her aunt. And then came the words she had been dreading for ten years. “Hello, Aelin Galathynius.”

The blood rushed from Celaena’s head. She forced herself to take a breath. And another. Then she said in a too-quiet voice, “Aelin Galathynius is dead.” Just speaking her name aloud—the damned name she had dreaded and hated and tried to forget … Maeve smiled, revealing sharp little canines. “Let us not bother with lies.” It wasn’t a lie. That girl, that princess had died in a river a decade ago. Celaena was no more Aelin Galathynius than she was any other person.

The Queen of the Fae remained silent, her long fingers moon-white and folded in the lap of her violet gown, a white barn owl perched on the back of her chair. She didn’t bother with a crown, and Celaena supposed she didn’t need one. Every creature on earth would know who she was—what she was—even if they were blind and deaf. Maeve, the face of a thousand legends … and nightmares. Epics and poems and songs had been written about her, so many that some even believed she was just a myth. But here was the dream—the nightmare—made flesh.

It was somewhat absurd, though—Maeve holding court in this half-rotted office, at a desk stained with the Wyrd knew what. Gods, the fact that Maeve was seated at a desk. She should be in some ethereal glen, surrounded by bobbing will-o’-the-wisps and maidens dancing to lutes and harps, reading the wheeling stars like they were poetry. Not here.

There were legends whispered over fires about the other skin Maeve wore. No one had lived to tell anything beyond shadows and claws and a darkness to devour your soul.