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

Halfway—nothing but a death-plunge waiting for them. Manon coughed blue blood onto the wooden slats. Aelin snapped, “What the hell good are your beasts if they can’t save you from this kind of thing?”

The island veered back in the other direction, and the bridge went taut—oh, shit—shit, it was going to snap. Faster they ran, until she could see Aedion’s straining fingers and the whites of his eyes.

The rock cracked, so loudly it deafened her. Then came the tug and stretch of the bridge as the island began to crumble into dust, sliding to the side—

Aelin lunged the last few steps, gripping Manon’s red cloak as the chains of the bridge snapped. The wooden slats dropped out from beneath them, but they were already leaping.

Aelin let out a grunt as she slammed into Aedion. She whirled to see Chaol grabbing Manon and hauling her over the lip of the ravine, her cloak torn and covered in dust, fluttering in the wind.

When Aelin looked past the witch, the temple was gone.





Manon gasped for air, concentrating on her breathing, on the cloudless sky above her.

The humans left her lying between the stone bridge posts. The queen hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye. She’d just dashed for the injured Fae warrior, his name like a prayer on her lips.

Rowan.

Manon had looked up in time to see the queen fall to her knees before the injured warrior in the grass, demanding answers from the brown-haired man—Chaol—who pressed a hand to the arrow wound in Rowan’s shoulder to stanch the bleeding. The queen’s shoulders were shaking.

Fireheart, the Fae warrior murmured. Manon would have watched—would have, had she not coughed blood onto the bright grass and blacked out.

When she awoke, they were gone.

Only minutes had passed—because then there were booming wings, and Abraxos’s roar. And there were Asterin and Sorrel, rushing for her before their wyverns had fully landed.

The Queen of Terrasen had saved her life. Manon didn’t know what to make of it.

For she now owed her enemy a life debt.

And she had just learned how thoroughly her grandmother and the King of Adarlan intended to destroy them.





61



The trek back through Oakwald was the longest journey of Aelin’s miserable life. Nesryn had removed the arrow from Rowan’s shoulder, and Aedion had found some herbs to chew and shove into the open wound to stanch the bleeding.

But Rowan still sagged against Chaol and Aedion as they hurried through the forest.

Nowhere to go. She had nowhere to take an injured Fae male in the capital city, in this entire shit-hole kingdom.

Lysandra was pale and shaking, but she’d squared her shoulders and offered to help carry Rowan when one of them tired. None of them accepted. When Chaol at last asked Nesryn to take over, Aelin glimpsed the blood soaking his tunic and hands—Rowan’s blood—and nearly vomited.

Slower—every step was slower as Rowan’s strength flagged.

“He needs to rest,” Lysandra said gently. Aelin paused, the towering oaks pressing in around her.

Rowan’s eyes were half-closed, his face drained of all color. He couldn’t even lift his head.

She should have let the witch die.

“We can’t just camp out in the middle of the woods,” Aelin said. “He needs a healer.”

“I know where we can take him,” Chaol said. She dragged her eyes to the captain.

She should have let the witch kill him, too.

Chaol wisely averted his gaze and faced Nesryn. “Your father’s country house—the man who runs it is married to a midwife.”

Nesryn’s mouth tightened. “She’s not a healer, but—yes. She might have something.”

“Do you understand,” Aelin said very quietly to them, “that if I suspect they’re going to betray us, they will die?”

It was true, and maybe it made her a monster to Chaol, but she didn’t care.

“I know,” Chaol said. Nesryn merely nodded, still calm, still solid.

“Then lead the way,” Aelin said, her voice hollow. “And pray they can keep their mouths shut.”





Joyous, frenzied barking greeted them, rousing Rowan from the half consciousness he’d fallen into during the last few miles to the little stone farmhouse. Aelin had barely breathed the entire time.

But despite herself, despite Rowan’s injuries, as Fleetfoot raced across the high grass toward them, Aelin smiled a little.

The dog leaped upon her, licking and whining and wagging her feathery, golden tail.

She hadn’t realized how filthy and bloody her hands were until she put them on Fleetfoot’s shining coat.

Aedion grunted as he took all of Rowan’s weight while Chaol and Nesryn jogged for the large, brightly lit stone house, dusk having fallen fully around them. Good. Fewer eyes to see as they exited Oakwald and crossed the freshly tilled fields. Lysandra tried to help Aedion, but he refused her again. She hissed at him and helped anyway.

Fleetfoot danced around Aelin, then noticed Aedion, Lysandra, and Rowan, and that tail became a bit more tentative. “Friends,” she told her dog. She’d become huge since Aelin had last seen her. She wasn’t sure why it surprised her, when everything else in her life had changed as well.

Aelin’s assurance seemed good enough for Fleetfoot, who trotted ahead, escorting them to the wooden door that had opened to reveal a tall midwife with a no-nonsense face that took one look at Rowan and tightened.