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July 25 - October 15, 2025
“Because that golden-haired witch, Asterin …,” Aelin said. “She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours.”
“We do not look back, Chaol. It helps no one and nothing to look back. We can only go on.”
He should have savored every second with his friend. He’d never realized how precious the calm moments were.
“Promise me,” she repeated, looking at their hands again, “that you will walk out of that castle tomorrow.”
Aelin leaned against the closet doorway, clad in a nightgown of gold. Metallic gold—as he’d requested.
“You and I have always relished damning the odds.”
She smiled at last. And damn if it didn’t kill him, the quiet joy in her face. They had walked out of darkness and pain and despair together. They were still walking out of it. So that smile … It struck him stupid every time he saw it and realized it was for him.
She said softly, “You make me want to live, Rowan. Not survive; not exist. Live.”
WITCH KILLER— THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM
Then she smiled with every last shred of courage, of desperation, of hope for the glimmer of that glorious future. “Let’s go rattle the stars.”
They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.
The king standing before them gaped as the shield of flame died out to reveal Aelin and Dorian, hand in hand, glowing like newborn gods as their magic entwined.
“You find Celaena Sardothien. Give her this. No one else. No one else. Tell her that you can open any door, if you have the key. And tell her to remember her promise to me—to punish them all. When she asks why, tell her I said that they would not let me bring the cloak she gave me, but I kept a piece of it. To remember that promise she made. To remember to repay her for a warm cloak in a cold dungeon.”
“I spent centuries wandering the world, from empires to kingdoms to wastelands, never settling, never stopping—not for one moment. I was always looking toward the horizon, always wondering what waited across the next ocean, over the next mountain. But I think … I think that whole time, all those centuries, I was just looking for you.”
“Turns out I wound up breaking my promise to you after all,” he said. “Since I technically can’t walk out of this castle.”
“Let’s have an adventure, Nesryn Faliq.”
And as they passed by the domed Royal Theater, there was music—beautiful, exquisite music—playing within.
This thing between them, the force of it, could devour the world.
“You are a Crochan. The last of their royal bloodline with the death of your sister at your own hand. You are a Crochan Queen.”
“You will find, Rolfe, that one does not deal with Celaena Sardothien. One survives her.”
Aelin and Lysandra fixed the warrior with an unimpressed look that would have sent lesser men running.
“The world,” Aelin said, “will be saved and remade by the dreamers, Rolfe.”
“One, I did not deny you anything, kitty-cat.”
“Even if Maeve had kept me enslaved, I would have fought her. Every day, every hour, every breath.” He kissed her softly and said onto her lips, “I would have fought for the rest of my life to find a way to return to you again. I knew it the moment you emerged from the Valg’s darkness and smiled at me through your flames.”
“I think Maeve likes to collect pretty men.” Aedion snorted. “Why not? She has to deal with them for eternity. They might as well be pleasant to look at.”
Despite herself, despite what she’d done, she decided she wanted Rowan to call her milady at least once every day.
Aelin was insane, Dorian realized. Brilliant and wicked, but insane.
This war would not be won on smiles and manners.
“This battle is no place for a king.” “And it’s one for a queen?”
They had not come ten years ago. She wanted them to know she had not forgotten it.
“Because I am going to marry you,” he promised her. “One day. I am going to marry you. I’ll be generous and let you pick when, even if it’s ten years from now. Or twenty. But one day, you are going to be my wife.”
“Princess Lysandra Ashryver sounds nice, doesn’t it?”
“Isn’t it enough to contend with Erawan and Maeve, to do the bidding of Brannon and Elena? Now I have to face the gods breathing down my neck about it as well?”
Never underestimate the power of that insufferable swagger.”
“Something tells me,” he said, his breath skittering along her skin, “you might not mind if we were discovered. If someone saw how thoroughly I plan to worship you.”
“I love you. There is no limit to what I can give to you, no time I need. Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will love you.”
“Believe it or not, this ship has an unnatural number of attractive men and women on board. You’ll fit right in. And fit in with the cranky immortals, I suppose.”
Here’s hoping you discover more creative terms than “bitch” to call me when you find this. With all my love, A.A.G.
“It’s murder.” “It’s war. War is sanctioned murder, no matter what side you’re on.”
“I wanted to go to Perranth with you.” Lorcan dropped the shield.
“Hello, bitch,” Ansel purred. “Hello, traitor,” Aelin purred right back,
“There was not one hour that I did not think about what I did in the desert. How you fired that arrow after twenty-one minutes. You told me twenty, that you’d shoot even if I wasn’t out of range. I was counting; I knew how many it had been. You gave me an extra minute.”
“It is not such a hard thing, is it—to die for your friends.”
She had made a promise to that court, that future. To Aedion. And to her queen. She would not fail her. And if gods-damned Maeve wanted to go head-to-head with them, if Maeve thought to strike them when they were weakest … Lysandra was going to make the bitch regret it.
Now the dark queen’s flag vanished entirely, as Fae ships bearing the silver banner of the House of Whitethorn opened fire upon their own armada.
A wyvern. A wyvern with shimmering wings. And behind it, descending upon the Fae fleet with wicked delight, flew twelve others.
“Where is my wife?”
For Terrasen. For them. For a better world. Aelin Galathynius had raised an army not just to challenge Morath … but to rattle the stars.
Unleashing a cry that set the world trembling, Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, Consort of the Queen of Terrasen, began the hunt to find his wife.
For wherever you need to go—and then some. The world needs more healers.
