Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass #4) by Sarah J. Maas

“I am death,” she said simply. “Should you want it.”

The man sagged, the demon vanishing. “Yes,” he sighed. “Yes.”

“What would you offer me in exchange?”

“Anything,” the man breathed. “Please.”

She looked at his hand, at his ring, and reached into her pocket. “Then listen carefully.”





Aelin awoke, drenched in sweat and twisted in the sheets, fear clenching her like a fist.

She willed herself to breathe, to blink—to look at the moon-bathed room, to turn her head and see the Fae Prince slumbering across the bed.

Alive—not tortured, not dead.

Still, she reached a hand out over the sea of blankets between them and touched his bare shoulder. Rock-hard muscle encased in velvet-soft skin. Real.

They’d done what they needed to, and the Valg commander was locked in another building, ready and waiting for tomorrow night, when they would bring him to the Keep, Arobynn’s favor at last fulfilled. But the words of the demon rang through her head. And then they blended with the voice of the Valg prince that had used Dorian’s mouth like a puppet.

I will destroy everything that you love. A promise.

Aelin loosed a breath, careful not to disturb the Fae Prince sleeping beside her. For a moment, it was hard to pull back the hand touching his arm—for a moment, she was tempted to stroke her fingers down the curve of muscle.

But she had one last thing to do tonight.

So she withdrew her hand.

And this time, he didn’t wake when she crept out of the room.





It was almost four in the morning when she slipped back into the bedroom, her boots clutched in one hand. She made it all of two steps—two immensely heavy, exhausted steps—before Rowan said from the bed, “You smell like ash.”

She just kept going, until she’d dropped her boots off in the closet, stripped down into the first shirt she could find, and washed her face and neck.

“I had things to do,” she said as she climbed into bed.

“You were stealthier this time.” The rage simmering off him was almost hot enough to burn through the blankets.

“This wasn’t particularly high risk.” Lie. Lie, lie, lie. She’d just been lucky.

“And I suppose you’re not going to tell me until you want to?”

She slumped against the pillows. “Don’t get pissy because I out-stealthed you.”

His snarl reverberated across the mattress. “It’s not a joke.”

She closed her eyes, her limbs leaden. “I know.”

“Aelin—”

She was already asleep.





Rowan wasn’t pissy.

No, pissy didn’t cover a fraction of it.

The rage was still riding him the next morning, when he awoke before she did and slipped into her closet to examine the clothes she’d shucked off. Dust and metal and smoke and sweat tickled his nose, and there were streaks of dirt and ash on the black cloth. Only a few daggers lay scattered nearby—no sign of Goldryn or Damaris having been moved from where he’d dumped them on the closet floor last night. No whiff of Lorcan, or the Valg. No scent of blood.

Either she hadn’t wanted to risk losing the ancient blades in a fight, or she hadn’t wanted the extra weight.

She was sprawled across the bed when he emerged, his jaw clenched. She hadn’t even bothered to wear one of those ridiculous nightgowns. She must have been exhausted enough not to bother with anything other than that oversized shirt. His shirt, he noticed with no small amount of male satisfaction.

It was enormous on her. It was so easy to forget how much smaller she was than him. How mortal. And how utterly unaware of the control he had to exercise every day, every hour, to keep her at arm’s length, to keep from touching her.

He glowered at her before striding out of the bedroom. In the mountains, he would have made her go on a run, or chop wood for hours, or pull extra kitchen duty.

This apartment was too small, too full of males used to getting their own way and a queen used to getting hers. Worse, a queen hell-bent on keeping secrets. He’d dealt with young rulers before: Maeve had dispatched him to enough foreign courts that he knew how to get them to heel. But Aelin …

She’d taken him out to hunt demons. And yet this task, whatever she had done, required even him to be kept in ignorance.

Rowan filled the kettle, focusing on each movement—if only to keep from throwing it through the window.

“Making breakfast? How domestic of you.” Aelin leaned against the doorway, irreverent as always.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping like the dead, considering your busy night?”

“Can we not get into a fight about it before my first cup of tea?”

With lethal calm, he set the kettle on the stove. “After tea, then?”

She crossed her arms, sunlight kissing the shoulder of her pale-blue robe. Such a creature of luxury, his queen. And yet—yet she hadn’t bought a single new thing for herself lately. She loosed a breath, and her shoulders slumped a bit.

The rage roaring through his veins stumbled. And stumbled again when she chewed on her lip. “I need you to come with me today.”

“Anywhere you need to go,” he said. She looked toward the table, at the stove. “To Arobynn?” He hadn’t forgotten for one second where they would be going tonight—what she would be facing.