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Throne of glass
I will not be afraid.
Princes are not supposed to be handsome! They’re sniveling, stupid, repulsive creatures! This one … this … How unfair of him to be royal and beautiful.
Speak your truth!!
the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.
“you’d vanish with three arrows buried in your spine.”
What a ridiculous idea: a castle made of glass.
The King’s Champion indeed. She looked more like the King’s Lapdog.
Compared to the sunlit hallway, the interior that stretched beyond them seemed formidably dark, but as she stepped inside, candelabras came into view, along with black-and-white marble floors, large mahogany tables with red velvet chairs, a slumbering fire, mezzanines, bridges, ladders, railings, and then books—books and books and books.
“Over a million? A million books?” Her heart leapt and danced, and she cracked a smile. “I’d die before I even got through half of that!” “You like to read?” She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you?”
“Guards are of no use in a library.” Oh, how wrong he was! Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.
I am Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s Assassin. If these men knew who I was, they’d stop laughing. I am Celaena Sardothien. I am going to win. I will not be afraid.
Celaena eyed the pianoforte. She used to play—oh, she’d loved to play, loved music, the way music could break and heal and make everything seem possible and heroic.
She glared at him over her shoulder before she strode into the bathing chamber, Chaol close behind. She paused on the threshold. “Are you going to join me?” she said, and Chaol stiffened, realizing his error. He slammed the door in response.
“You know your history,” said a light, female voice, and Celaena jumped, yelping as she tripped over a spear and fell into a gold-filled chest.
She moaned into her pillow. “Go away. I feel like dying.” “No fair maiden should die alone,” he said, putting a hand on hers. “Shall I read to you in your final moments? What story would you like?”
Celaena closed her eyes and smiled. She could think of no nicer Yulemas gift than for Cain to be found dead the next morning.
All of her favorites were there: chocolate-covered gummies, chocolate almond bark, berry-shaped chews, gem–shaped hard sugar, peanut brittle, plain brittle, sugarlace, frosted red licorice, and, most importantly, chocolate. She popped a hazelnut truffle into her mouth. “Someone,” she said in between chews, “is very good to me.”
How big is this bag??
“Sick? Who can get sick from candy?” Celaena made a face and exposed her crimson teeth. “You look like a demon,” said Philippa. “Just don’t open your mouth and no one will notice.” “You and I both know that’s not possible.”
“Your scars are awful,” he said, almost whispering. She put a hand on a hip and walked to the dressing room door. “We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happen to be more visible than most.
I name you Elentiya, ‘Spirit That Could Not Be Broken.’
He pulled out the chair in front of him and sat down. She filled a goblet with wine and handed it to him. “To four years until freedom,” she said, lifting her glass. He raised his in salute. “To you, Celaena.” Their eyes met, and Chaol didn’t hide his smile as she grinned at him. Perhaps four years with her might not be enough.
“You could rattle the stars,” she whispered. “You could do anything, if you only dared. And deep down, you know it, too. That’s what scares you most.”
Elena bowed her head. “Blood ties can’t be broken,” she whispered, and then vanished, her words echoing in the silent tomb.
“I’d like to debrief you.” She raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you at least going to take me to dinner first?” His eyes narrowed, and she gave him a pout.
The knocker chuckled. “Alive? I’m made of bronze. I do not breathe, nor do I eat or drink. So, no, I am not alive. Nor am I dead, for that matter. I simply exist.”
Same.
As they traveled to his kingdom, his fear turned to love—and he saw her not for the power she wielded, but for the woman beneath. Of all the kings and emperors who had come courting her with promises of wealth beyond imagining, it was the knight’s gift, of seeing her for who she was—not what she was—that won her heart.
Then she quietly slipped from his room, taking the remnants of the chocolate cake with her.
“Does your love for yourself know no bounds?” “Absolutely none.”
“You’re going to have to be very quiet.” She reached the knob and opened the door, tugging him inside. “I have a feeling that I’m going to be telling you that in a few moments,” she purred, eyes gleaming with the challenge.
His soul was bound to hers by some unbreakable chain. He snorted, imagining what his father would think when he learned that Chaol had taken Adarlan’s Assassin for his wife.
He was still envisioning that impossibly beautiful future when someone grabbed him from behind and pressed something cold and reeking against his nose and mouth, and the world went black.
Excuse me what?!
She didn’t care what this group wanted with her. She didn’t care what sort of information they expected to twist from her. When they had taken Chaol, they’d made the biggest mistake of their lives. The last mistake, too.
It froze his heart.
She was Adarlan’s Assassin—she was Celaena Sardothien. She would not fail. The gods owed her. The Wyrd owed her. She would not fail Nehemia. Not when there were so many awful words left between them.
“Five days; I’ll be back in five days. If you aren’t prepared to leave Rifthold, then I won’t bother faking your death. I’ll kill you before you know I’m in the room.”
But it had been too late to stop Celaena from burning the dress she’d worn the night of Chaol’s birthday. That gown had burned first.
“In case you didn’t realize,” called Mort, “you’re supposed to hold the eye against the hole in the wall and look through it.”
Dredging up some semblance of annoyance, Celaena stuck out her tongue. At the guards, at the market, at the hawk on the nearby chimney, at the castle and the prince who lived inside it.
The dream shifted again, and Chaol was pinned beneath her as she writhed above him, her head still thrown back, that same expression of ecstasy written across her blood-splattered face. Enemy. Lover. Queen.
Because Celaena was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne and rightful Queen of Terrasen.
But she was tired. Not just from the day, or the wine, or the riding. In her bones, in her blood and breath and soul, she was so, so tired.
She didn’t even have a throne, or a crown, or a court. Didn’t want them. And she could bring down the king as Celaena Sardothien, thank you very much.
There were few sounds she enjoyed more than the groans of dying men, but the wind was one of them.
(gods, she was already sick of potatoes),
And any shred of regret she felt at not approaching them was burned up by the fact that no one bothered to approach her, either.
Because she was Manon Blackbeak, and she’d never failed at anything. And there would be nothing better than watching Abraxos bite off Iskra’s head on the battlefield.
“When she returns,” Aedion said quietly, “what she will do to the King of Adarlan will make the slaughtering ten years ago look merciful.” And in his heart, Aedion hoped he spoke true.
Asterin flashed a grin. “We don’t move without your command, Lady.”
A line had been marked in the dirt where the safety of the chains ended. Manon took three steps beyond it, one for each face of their Goddess: Maiden. Mother. Crone.
Each of the scars, the chipped teeth and broken claws, the mutilated tail—they weren’t the markings of a victim. Oh, no. They were the trophies of a survivor.
