Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas

Darrow went on in the stunned quiet, “I should like to face my enemies knowing that the heart of my lands, of this kingdom, will beat on in the chest of Evangeline. That no matter the gathering shadow, Terrasen will always live in someone who understands its very essence without needing to be taught. Who embodies its very best qualities.” He gestured to Lysandra. “If that is agreeable to you.”

To make her his ward—and a lady … Evangeline clasped Darrow’s hand. He squeezed back.

“I …” Lysandra blinked, and turned to her, eyes bright. “It is not my call, is it?”

So Evangeline smiled up at Darrow. “I would very much like that.”



The bone drums beat all night long.

What new horrors would be unleashed with the dawn, Manon didn’t know.

Sitting beside Abraxos in the aerie tower, she stared with him at the endless sea of blackness.

It would be over soon. The desperate hope of Aelin Galathynius had flickered out.

Would any be able to escape once the city walls were breached? And where would they even go? Once Erawan’s shadow settled, would there be any stopping him?

Dorian—Dorian could. If he had gotten the keys. If he had survived.

He might be dead. Might be marching on them right now, a black collar around his throat.

Manon leaned her head against Abraxos’s warm, leathery side.

She would not be able to see her people home. To bring them to the Wastes.

Tomorrow—in her wicked, old bones she knew it would be tomorrow that the city walls fell at last. They had no weapons left beyond swords and their own defiance. That would only last so long against the endless force waiting for them.

Abraxos shifted his wing so that it shielded her from the wind.

“I would have liked to have seen it,” Manon said quietly. “The Wastes. Just once.”

Abraxos huffed, nudging her gently with his head. She stroked a hand over his snout.

And even with the darkness squatting on the battlefield, she could picture it—the rolling, vibrant green that flowed to a thrashing gray sea. A shining city along its shore, witches soaring on brooms or wyverns in the skies above it. She could hear the laughter of witchlings in the streets, the long-forgotten music of their people floating on the wind. A wide, open space, lush and evergreen.

“I would have liked to have seen it,” Manon whispered again.





CHAPTER 105

Blood rained over the battlefield.

Blood and arrows, so many that as they found marks in Lysandra’s flank, her wings, it barely registered.

Morath had been reserving its arsenal. Until today.

With the dawn, they had unleashed such a torrent of arrows that getting into the skies had been a lethal gauntlet. She had not wanted to know how many Crochans had fallen, despite the best efforts of the rebel Ironteeth to shield them with their wyverns’ bodies.

But most had made it into the air—and right into the onslaught of the Ironteeth legion.

Below, Morath swarmed with an urgency she had not yet witnessed. A black sea that crashed against the city walls, breaking over it every now and then.

Siege ladders went up faster than they could be taken down, and now, the sun barely cresting, siege towers inched forward.

Lysandra barreled into an Ironteeth witch—a Blackbeak, from the dyed leather band on her brow—and tore her from the saddle before ripping out the throat of her wyvern.

One. Only one out of the mass in the skies.

She dove, picking another target.

Then another. And another. It would not be enough.

And where the Ironteeth legion had been content to engage them in battle these past few weeks, today they pushed. Drove them back foot by foot toward Orynth.

And there was nothing Lysandra, nor any of the Crochans or rebel Ironteeth, could do to stop it.

So witches died.

And below them, on the city walls, soldiers from so many kingdoms died as well.

The final stand, the last few hours, of their desperate alliance.



Manon’s breath was a rasp in her throat, her sword arm aching.

Again and again, they rallied and drove against the Ironteeth legion.

Again and again, they were shoved back. Back toward Orynth. Toward the walls.

The Crochan lines were foundering. Even the Ironteeth rebels had begun to fly sloppily.

How had they fought and fought and still come to this? The Thirteen had given up their lives; her chest was hollowed out, the din of battle still a distant roar over the silence in her head. And yet it had come to this.

If they kept it up, they would be overrun by nightfall. If they did not reconfigure their plan of attack, they would have nothing left by dawn. Enough remained of her shredded spirit to find that unacceptable. To rage against that end.

They had to retreat to the city walls. To regroup and use Orynth, the mountains behind it, to their advantage. The longer they lingered in the open air, the deadlier it would become.

Manon freed the horn from her side and blew twice.

Crochan and Ironteeth whirled toward her, eyes wide in shock. Manon blew the horn again.

Fall back, the horn bleated. Fall back to the city.



The western gate to the city shuddered.

Where intricate, ancient carvings had once graced the towering iron plates, now only dents and splattered blood remained.

A thunderous boom echoed throughout the city, the mountains, and Aedion, panting as he fought atop the battlements above the gates, dared to look away from his latest opponent. Dared to survey the wake of the battering ram’s latest blow.