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

Not alone.

He had not been alone then, and neither had she.

The veranda in Doranelle and bloodied snows outside Orynth blended and flashed.

I am here, I am with you.

Maeve stood there. Before Aelin and Rowan, burning with power. Before Lorcan, his dark gifts a shadow around him. Fae—so many Fae and wolves, some riding them—pouring on to the battlefield through holes in the air.

It had worked, then. Their mad plan, to be enacted when all went to hell, when they had nothing left.

Yet Maeve’s power swelled.

Aelin’s eyes remained upon him, anchoring him. Pulling him from that bloodied veranda. To a body trembling in pain. A face that burned and throbbed.

I am here, I am with you.

And Fenrys found himself blinking back. Just once.

Yes.

And when Aelin’s eyes moved again, he understood.



Aelin looked to Rowan. Found her mate already smiling at her. Aware of what likely awaited them. “Together,” she said quietly. Rowan’s thumb brushed against hers. In love and farewell.

And then they erupted.

Flame, white-hot and blinding, roared toward Maeve.

But the dark queen had been waiting. Twin waves of darkness arched and cascaded for them.

Only to be halted by a shield of black wind. Beaten aside.

Aelin and Rowan struck again, fast as an asp. Arrows and spears of flame that had Maeve conceding a step. Then another.

Lorcan battered her from the side, forcing Maeve to retreat another step.

“I’d say,” Aelin panted, speaking above the glorious roar of magic through her, the unbreakable song of her and Rowan, “that you haven’t wronged us the most at all.”

Like alternating punches, Lorcan struck with them. Fire, then midnight death.

Maeve’s dark brows narrowed.

Aelin flung out a wall of flame that pushed Maeve back another step. “But him—oh, he has a score to settle with you.”

Maeve’s eyes went wide, and she made to turn. But not fast enough.

Not fast enough at all as Fenrys vanished from where he knelt, and reappeared—right behind Maeve.

Goldryn burned bright as he plunged it through her back.

Into the dark heart within.





CHAPTER 115

Maeve’s dark blood leaked onto the snow as she fell to her knees, fingers scrabbling at the burning sword stuck through her chest.

Fenrys stepped around her, leaving the sword where he’d impaled her as he walked to Aelin’s side.

Embers swirling around her and Rowan, Aelin approached the queen.

Baring her teeth, Maeve hissed as she tried and failed to pry free the blade. “Take it out.”

Aelin only looked to Lorcan. “Anything to say?”

Lorcan smiled grimly, surveying the Fae and wolf-riders wreaking havoc on the spiders. “Long live the queen.” The Faerie Queen of the West.

Maeve snarled, and it was not the sound of a Fae or human. But Valg. Pure, undiluted Valg.

“Well, look who stopped pretending,” Aelin said.

“I will go anywhere you choose to banish me to,” Maeve seethed. “Just take it out.”

“Anywhere?” Aelin asked, and let go of Rowan’s hand.

The lack of his magic, his strength, hit her like plunging into an ice-cold lake.

But she had plenty of her own.

Not magic, never again as it had been, but a strength greater, deeper than that.

Fireheart, her mother had called her.

Not for her power. The name had never once been about her power.

Maeve hissed again, clawing at the blade.

Wreathing her fingers in flame, Aelin offered her hand to Maeve. “You came here to escape a husband you did not love. A world you did not love.”

Maeve paused, studying Aelin’s hand. The new calluses on it. She winced—winced in pain at the blade shredding her heart but not killing her. “Yes,” Maeve breathed.

“And you love this world. You love Erilea.”

Maeve’s dark eyes scanned Aelin, then Rowan and Lorcan, before she answered. “Yes. In the way that I can love anything.”

Aelin kept her hand outstretched. The unspoken offer in it. “And if I choose to banish you, you will go wherever it is we decide. And never bother us again, or any other.”

“Yes,” Maeve snapped, grimacing at the immortal blade piercing her heart. The queen bowed her head, panting, and took Aelin’s outstretched hand.

Aelin drew close. Just as she slid something onto Maeve’s finger.

And whispered in Maeve’s ear, “Then go to hell.”

Maeve reared back, but too late.

Too late, as the golden ring—Silba’s ring, Athril’s ring—shone on her pale hand.

Aelin backed to Rowan’s side as Maeve began to scream.

Screaming and screaming toward the dark sky, toward the stars.

Maeve had wanted the ring not for protection against Valg. No, she was Valg. She’d wanted it so that no other might have it.

Yet when Elide had given it to Aelin, it had not been to destroy a Valg queen. But to keep Aelin safe. And Maeve would never know it—that gift and power: friendship.

What Aelin knew had kept the queen before her from becoming a mirror. What had saved her, and this kingdom.

Maeve thrashed, Goldryn burning, twin to the light on her finger.

Immunity from the Valg. And poison to them.

Maeve shrieked, the sound loud enough to shake the world.