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

Nesryn remained on the rooftop while Aelin went to another across the square—faster than Chaol had thought possible. That left him on street level.

He hurried as swiftly as he could through the crowd, spotting his three men gathered near the other edge of the platform—ready.

The clock struck six just as Chaol positioned himself, after making sure two more of his men were waiting down a narrow alley. Just as the guards finally cleared away the body of the first prisoner and dragged forward the second. The man was sobbing, begging them as he was forced to kneel in the puddle of his friend’s blood.

The executioner lifted his ax.

And a dagger, courtesy of Aelin Galathynius, went clean through the executioner’s throat.

Black blood sprayed—some onto the streamers, as Aelin had promised. Before the guards could shout, Nesryn opened fire from the other direction. That was all the distraction Chaol needed as he and his men surged toward the platform amid the panicking, fleeing crowd. Nesryn and Aelin had both fired again by the time he hit the stage, the wood treacherously slick with blood. He grabbed the two prisoners and roared at them to run, run, run!

His men were blade-to-blade with the guards as he rushed the stumbling prisoners down the steps and into the safety of the alley—and the rebels waiting beyond.

Block after block they fled, leaving the chaos of the square behind, until they hit the Avery, and Chaol set about attaining them a boat.

Nesryn found him leaving the docks an hour later, unharmed but splattered with dark blood. “What happened?”

“Pandemonium,” Nesryn said, scanning the river under the setting sun. “Everything fine?”

He nodded. “And you?”

“Both of us are fine.” A kindness, he thought with a flicker of shame, that she knew he couldn’t bring himself to ask about Aelin. Nesryn turned away, heading back in the direction she’d come.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To wash and change—and then go tell the family of the man who died.”

It was protocol, even if it was horrible. Better to have the families genuinely mourn than risk being looked on any longer as rebel sympathizers. “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “I’ll send one of the men.”

“I’m a city guard,” she said plainly. “My presence won’t be unexpected. And besides,” she said, her eyes glinting with her usual faint amusement, “you yourself said I don’t exactly have a line of suitors waiting outside my father’s house, so what else do I have to do with myself tonight?”

“Tomorrow’s an important day,” he said, even as he cursed himself for the words he’d spat the other night. An ass—that’s what he’d been, even if she’d never let on that it bothered her.

“I was just fine before you came along, Chaol,” she said—tired, possibly bored. “I know my limits. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

But he said, “Why go to the families yourself?”

Nesryn’s dark eyes shifted toward the river. “Because it reminds me what I have to lose if I’m caught—or if we fail.”





Night fell, and Aelin knew she was being followed as she stalked from rooftop to rooftop. Right now, even hours later, hitting the street was the most dangerous thing she could possibly do, given how pissed off the guards were after she and the rebels had stolen their prisoners right out from under them.

And she knew that because she’d been listening to them curse and hiss for the past hour as she trailed a patrol of black-uniformed guards on the route she’d noted the night before: along the docks, then keeping to the shadows off the main drag of taverns and brothels in the slums, and then near—but keeping a healthy distance from—the riverside Shadow Market. Interesting to learn how their route did or didn’t change when chaos erupted—what hidey-holes they rushed to, what sort of formations they used.

What streets were left unmonitored when all hell broke loose.

As it would tomorrow, with Aedion.

But Arobynn’s claims had been right—matching the maps Chaol and Nesryn had made, too.

She’d known that if she told Chaol why she’d shown up at the execution, he would get in the way somehow—send Nesryn to follow her, perhaps. She’d needed to see how skilled they were—all the parties that would be so crucial in tomorrow’s events—and then see this.

Just as Arobynn had told her, each guard wore a thick black ring, and they moved with jerks and twitches that made her wonder how well the demons squatting inside their bodies were adjusting. Their leader, a pale man with night-dark hair, moved the most fluidly, like ink in water, she thought.

She had left them to stalk toward another part of the city while she continued on toward where the craftsman district jutted out into the curve of the Avery, until all was silent around her and the scent of those rotting corpses faded away.

Atop the roof of a glass-blowing warehouse, the tiles still warm from the heat of the day or the massive furnaces inside, Aelin surveyed the empty alley below.

The infernal spring rain began again, tinkling on the sloped roof, the many chimneys.

Magic—Chaol had told her how to free it. So easy, and yet—a monumental task. In need of careful planning. After tomorrow, though—if she survived—she’d set about doing it.