Book Review: Kingdom of Ash

Title: Kingdom of Ash
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Romance

What It’s About:

The prince has been searching for his mate for so long that he has forgotten his own name, only remembered by those traveling with him. He would have changed into a hawk, and flown off if he had known that he did not need anyone with him to save her, his mate.

The princess has been tied to the slab, and tortured. She doesn’t know how long she has been tortured, how long she was laying on the slab or how long she has been in the iron box, but she is not willing to fail. So she tells herself the same story she once told her prince, that long ago there was once a princess who loved her kingdom very much.

Part One

Aedion, Lysandra and Ren are in a mountain pass waiting to see if someone will come through to attack Terrasen. Sure enough some Valg soldiers come through the pass, but because it’s so narrow, not many of them are able to get through—a scouting party to see if the pass is passable. The three kill the soldiers, after not being able to gain any more information. They then return to Allsbrook castle, where Aedion and Ren talk about where it would be best to have a battle against the soldiers of Erawan, should they come. At some point, Evangeline comes in and Lysandra transforms from her bird to her human self and goes to spend some time with Evangeline. A messenger comes in from Kyllian, Aedion’s second in command of the Bane, that Erawan’s forces had attacked a town, Eldrys, where Aelin supposedly had gone off to despite it being a ruse because Aelin is not with them. Kyllian supposes that Aelin had left before the attack. Aedion, Ren, and Lysandra return to the Bane, and the remainder of their army—something that they have been working on with Galan Ashryver, Ansel of Briarcliff, and the remaining Whitethorns at their side. They know that a host is coming to them, 5,000 soldiers strong, and so they prepare a plan to defeat them, to fight them back. The army is moved to a camp near the border to intercept and kill the soldiers, and the battle goes well, with Lysandra killing in her ghost leopard form. After the battle, Aedion goes to meet with Kyllian and his generals, and Lysandra tries to talk to him—she noticed that he had shut down after her plan was revealed. She also listens into the conversation with the generals in a different form, and later offers to do what needs to be done, though Aedion tells her not to. They are forced to ride back to meet with Lord Darrow, because it seems like he had been prepared for them to try to go south and called the Army back, and they meet with the Lord at the new camp, where Aelin makes an appearance. Lord Darrow uses a vote between the lords of Terrasen to determine where the army would go, which is decided in favor to moving north to Orynth—something that Aedion is against. Galan, Ansel, Ilias, and the two Whitethorn royals are told by Darrow that they can do whatever they want, but they say that they are here to help and they wouldn’t go back on their word to help. Suddenly, a messenger—Nox Owen—comes into the tent, notices Aelin, and looks at Aedion, realizing that they look alike. He tells them that there was a messenger for them, who then turns out to be nothing but Valg, and attempts to kill Lysandra-as-Aelin. Aedion gets in front of her, and some of the other royals get around to protect Aelin—both Lysandra and Aedion notice that the Valg messenger had sent the message back that Aelin is not here, which later causes panic for Lysandra, but they manage to kill the Valg Messenger. As she heads back to her tent, set up alongside the Whitethorn royals, Nox Owen joins her and tells her that she’s not Aelin, and reveals that he had known Celaena Sardothien as a champion in the Castle, had worked along side her, but he really was a thief meant to be working for the rebels. Lysandra does not reveal who she truly is, but notices the honesty in Nox, and asks him if he wants to help them.

That night, the war camp opens up bottles of wine, and Nox spikes them with something that will knock out Lord Darrow and the side of the army that belongs to him and the four remaining lords. Ansel, Ilias, Galan, the two Whitethorn Royals, and the Bane that are sworn to Aedion and thereby to Aelin, pack up and leave for the south—Aedion having always courted treason, and he wouldn’t stop now.

Chaol and Yrene are on their ships heading towards the continent, coming through Fenharrow and Eyllwe towards the north. He wonders where Dorian is, and the two of them talk, watching as Sartaq and Nesryn get ready to scout ahead. Yrene later goes over to the other ship and counts the supplies again—Hafiza sits on the stairs and tells her that war is messy, and they have enough supplies now, but that there will be a breakdown of the supply chains, and it will be difficult to find what they need. She tells her to take her time, because War will be upon them soon enough, and they will have to figure out what they can use on land to heal. As Hafiza leaves, Yrene wonders if she knows that Yrene may soon not be able to see the battle, and places her hand on her stomach. Nesryn and Sartaq fly over the land, scouting, and they find six Valg soldiers who are behind the massive army of 10,000 strong. They return to Chaol and Yrene, and reveal that this 10,000 strong army is marching for Anielle—the group wonders if it is even worth to save Anielle, to which Yrene responds that it is his home, and so that should be enough. They are able to spare Chaol and Yrene on a Ruk to fly to Anielle, where he takes the two of them through the keep, which is starting to fall apart. Chaol tells Yrene that his father is of the mindset that if it isn’t broken, to not fix it, even if it might be in slight disrepair. They meet with his father, Lord Westfall, who tells them that he knows that Morath is on the move and had sent away his wife and second son, Terrin. They exchange some barbs, and Yrene also shuts up her father-in-law with some words, before Chaol tells them that there is a force 10,000 strong that is marching for Anielle, and to do something about the Wild Men in the mountains behind Anielle to get their help. His father is reluctant to do so, but does put out the call to the city to move people out of the way of the military and get them to safety. Chaol and Yrene are shown to a room—a guest room rather than Chaol’s own personal quarters, which seems to imply just what his father thinks of him— and just spend some time together in silence. They then come out and watch as Ruks land on the plains by the lake— a host of a thousand of them, which sends fear through the locals and the soldiers of Anielle at first.

Manon and her Thirteen with Dorian in tow camp out by a Crochan fire pit—they have been looking for them for two months and had not found a single one of them till date. They decide to camp there for the night before moving on, and Dorian sneaks out while everyone is asleep to draw wyrdmarks on the ground and call on Gavin. Gavin is angry that Dorian had given up Adarlan, which was his pride and joy. He’s also angry about the fact that his mate will not be with him in the afterlife, because that is the price that she had paid to push this as far back as she did. Dorian asks him about the Wyrdkeys, and at first Gavin doesn’t say anything, but he finally tells him that the third Wyrdkey is in Morath. Dorian asks how to get to Morath, and Gavin tells him that he shouldn’t go alone, but rather stay at the camp because the path to Morath will find him at this camp. He also tells Dorian that he should trust the sword, Damaris, which can tell when someone is telling the truth or a lie, because it is a sword blessed by the Truth God, and could be useful to him in finding his path to Morath, and the third wyrdkey. So Dorian returns to the camp, spends the night, and the next morning as they are packing up to leave, a white bear comes up upon them, which turns out to be nothing but a Stygian Spider. Manon wants to kill it, but before she does, the spider tells them that she had found a camp of Crochan witches not too far away, closer to Morath. The spider changes into a human form, and Dorian tells Manon to hold onto the spider, who reveals their name as Cyrene. They fly into the pass where the spider said there would be a camp, and they find the Crochan Camp. Manon had flown off alone earlier, while they watched the camp, and then the whole group—Dorian, the Thirteen, and the Spider, enter the camp. Of course, the Crochans are quick to get their weapons, despite Manon’s assurances that they are not here to harm, the witches tell her that they will only put down their weapon when the leader says so—pointing to an elderly woman by a camp, who reveals that she is Manon’s great-grandmother. A coven of Yellowleg witches comes and attacks the camp, and Manon, Dorian and the thirteen fight them off with the wyvern they have. When one of the witches accuses Manon of bringing the yellowlegs to them, the great-grandmother says that she did not, and asks Manon to swear it. Manon swears it, that she does not, but Dorian knows that she has lied because his sword had turned ice cold. Manon had indeed lead the Yellowlegs to them, because she does not know how to earn their trust besides battle. They sit around the fire with the great-grandmother, who reveals that she had given birth to Manon’s grandfather, who then mated with the Crochan Queen that lead to Tristian’s birth. She tells them that Tristian waited for Manon’s mother, but then, not knowing what had happened to her or her witching, he accepted his duty and had a family with another witch, resulting in Rhiannon, Manon’s half-sister who was killed by her hands. Dorian is surprised that the Crochan royal blood had existed, and Glennis, Manon’s great-grandmother, reveals that actually the daughter of the Crochan Queen had given birth to a baby, but that Rhiannon had the news go out that it was a stillborn. Glennis’s own mother then smuggled the baby out of the witch city to safety. Dorian goes to visit the Stygian spider, and asks her how she figured out how to shift—he uses his magic to understand how the shifting magic works, and then kills her. That night, Dorian and Manon share a tent, and he tells her that she did what she had to do, and that they don’t really have time to build trust slowly because this is war. He tells her that he may have done the same as a King, and gives her tips on what to do next, having learned some leadership from the lessons he took as a child. They make love, twice, and then the next morning Manon goes to speak with Glennis, who reveals that they are heading to Eyllwe because they received a call for help. Glennis reveals that in order to get the Crochans to help, it would be to light the witch-fire in the heart of every Crochan clan, and to be able to light it, she needs to be the Queen of the Crochans, but she does not give Manon the answer on how she could be accepted as such.

Aelin has been tied to the slab on and off, and whipped, broken and tortured. She still has not given in to give up the location of the Wyrdkeys or even swear the blood oath to Maeve, as Maeve had wanted. Fenrys, in his wolf form, watches on as she is tortured every time, and they had come up with their own language of winks to communicate. Sometimes, Aelin has visions of her past—her conversation with her father about the shield that he carried, after one of their sparring sessions, where he tells her that she will be bearing this shield some day to protect Terrasen. Another time, she is brought to Maeve, and made to kneel and lay on broken glass—glass created by dragon fire, something that Maeve had extinguished many years ago—and watches as Connall tells his twin, Fenrys, how much he hates him, before eventually being forced to turn a knife upon himself and stabbing himself with it. Maeve also reveals that Rowan is in Terrasen with her Court, and that there is another Aelin there. Aelin has enough rage in her to throw a glass at Maeve, and sees that the cut in her cheek yields black blood, before it turns to red. Another time, Aelin is placed into the iron box, and sees her mom, Evalin talking to her. Evalin tells her to keep being strong, that only a little while longer, and tells her that she does not yield. Aelin starts pounding on the Iron box, to the point that Cairn is bothered by it, and has gloriella smoke pushed through the box to knock her out. When she comes to on the slab, she realizes with no small amount of satisfaction that she had dented the lid. Then Maeve pushes a vision onto her—one where she is sitting with her aunt, as Maeve tells her the story of a Valg queen who had been chased across the galaxy by the three Valg Kings, sending back two to the other realm. She tells her that she wants to only save this world because she quite likes it, and then asks about the Wyrdkeys. Something stops Aelin from revealing their location—having taken note of Rowan who has been her mate—and she realizes that none of this is true, that there are scars on her body that she is not seeing in this vision. Maeve pulls her out of the vision, and reveals that she had heard that there were Valg soldiers on her lands, so she is going to go find them, and bring back a wyrdstone collar to put on Aelin to control her. Aelin worries about the wyrdstone collar because that would be a nightmare, the end of her, and later Cairn comes back to tell her that she is being moved because Maeve is going to be gone and wants her someplace more secure. This makes Aelin think of the time she told that girl in Innish about not being taken someplace else, because that would mean her death. Cairn doesn’t say anything about where he is taking her, only to tell her that he just wants to torture her some more.

Elide travels with Lorcan, Gavriel, and Rowan. They get hold of a fae commander, who tells them that he received his order from a different country to the south of Doranelle. Elide’s instincts—or rather Annieth, the goddess who speaks to her—tells her to see and watch and listen. Later, they are at a fire camp, discussing where to go, and Lorcan and Gavriel are all for heading to the different country because it’s closer and they don’t think that Maeve would be in Doranelle with Aelin. Elide tells them that she does think she is because Maeve might want them to think that the simple answer is just too simple so they would look elsewhere. Rowan, who had been in deep thought about Aelin and his mate bond, how he had not realized that she was his mate while simultaneously knowing that she was his mate, makes the decision that they are to head south to the country. As they are making their way to the nearest city, a pulse of magic goes out, and they all recognize it—Rowan most of all as it’s Aelin’s magic. They realize that she has been in Doranelle all of this time. They make their way to the city, watching Doranelle from the outskirts, and then as they walk towards a cave to hide in, Elide is full of fear. That is when they realize that there is a huge army camping right outside of Doranelle—having been hidden by Maeve with an illusion full of lush scenery. Elide offers to go into Doranelle using a disguise, and Lorcan argues against it, but she tells him that she is not in his court, and then turns to Rowan, who agrees to it once he hears her plan—to pretend to be a woman who had been jilted by Cairn, because if they find Cairn, they’ll find Aelin.

Elide goes into Doranelle wearing Lorcan’s shirt—and she found the strips that he had made out of his shirt for her period in his bag, which she pretended she did not find, though it did make her heart soften—and Rowan’s cape. She goes looking into the town, and comes across a group of soldiers with a beauty, where she asks about Cairn, pretending to be his jilted lover. They tell her that she should stay as far away from Cairn as possible, and that he is in the eastern camp. After waiting for a little bit, she heads back out to the wilds, where she takes a moment to fix her makeup and finds herself face to face with the beauty, who introduces herself as Essar. She reveals that she knows Lorcan and Rowan, and they talk more about Cairn, his location and the fact that he has Aelin of the Wildfire. Lorcan keeps waiting for Elide to show up along with Gavriel and Rowan. He is about to go fetch her, feeling worried about her, when she returns to them and tells them all of the information that she had found out from Essar about where Cairn is. Rowan, Gavriel, and Lorcan make a plan of attack on how to get to Cairn and Aelin.

Aelin wakes up in a tent, and sees Fenrys by the side of a cabinet. Cairn enters and moves the braziers containing unlit logs underneath her head, her body and her legs, and tells her that he wonders how long she will manage without her fire—he had done it to her hands before inside the gauntlet. She manages to hold him off while simultaneously riling him up so that he is blinded to attack her, and she gets her hands on a scalpel to fight him. Fenrys, seeing and hearing the horrors that Cairn was going to inflict on Aelin, pushes against the Blood Oath that he had taken. Cairn is shocked when Fenrys does not follow his orders and actually comes after Cairn. The wolf fights Cairn, while speaking through his eyes to Aelin that she run. She uses the poker to snap her chains, and starts running through the camp, unbeknownst that she is heading towards Lorcan. At first, no one follows her but then she has soldiers on her, running after her.

Rowan had been waiting for the plan, but a voice tells him—urges him—to go now, so he runs into camp making his way towards the tent containing Cairn. He fights his way through towards it, when he has to. Lorcan watches the camp and feels death, feels as Rowan is doing his thing, but then notices another cluster of death, and realizes that it is Aelin. He watches as she fights the Fae soldiers off, and comes towards him—when she does make it close to him, he puts up a wall to keep the fae soldiers away from coming after them or hurting them, and Gavriel comes with them to protect her. They take her to the glen, where Rowan shows up in his hawk from, before shifting in front of her. She cries out about Fenrys, and points out towards the camp. Rowan decides to head back in with Gavriel at his side, leaving Lorcan to protect both Elide and Aelin in that glen. Rowan goes into the tent, grabs an unconscious Cairn, ties him up to the slab and when Cairn wakes up, he gets to work on Cairn, who in turn pisses himself. The two fae males return to Aelin with the white wolf—Fenrys. She started to demand that they get off the mask, when she was alone with Elide and Lorcan, but she is more insistent once Rowan and Gavriel show up. They are not able to get the lock off because it’s not like a lock that they had seen before and she is panicking. Rowan calms her and tells her that they will try but when they realize that they have nothing to work with, Rowan realizes that Aelin starts making signs in the grass—wyrdmark for the meaning to open. He uses his blood and asks her to draw the wyrdmarks on her shackles, which then open for her—including the ones on her arms. He then does it on the lock on her mask.

She then goes over to Fenrys, and offers him the Blood Oath, which Fenrys willingly takes and then wills him to live. She tells him to live three times, and he finally rises after the third call. Then the group has to move, but Aelin sees the Little Folk in the glen, and they signal for the group to follow, so they walk for hours until they reach a hidden cave, where the Little Folk tell Aelin that they will be safe. She then sits down and falls asleep. When she wakes up, she sees Rowan, and they briefly talk before she decides to go into the water first—ice cold lake water, that ends up steaming from her touch. She swims around to cool off and then Rowan and Aelin talk some more—he had realized that her body is different because it had been healed many times over to the point that the scars that Aelin once had are now gone. She doesn’t share much beyond telling him that she thought it was a dream,and that the Little Folk had told her it was safe. Suddenly, a boat comes along with two eel-like creatures tugging them, and Aelin gets out of the water at Rowan’s behest, but she then explains that the Little Folk had gotten them passage out of the Cavern and out of Doranelle through this. So the group gets into the boat and they make their way through the dark. Lorcan and Elide sit separately, as far away as possible from each other, though Lorcan keeps looking back at her. Fenrys stays in his wolf form, and Aelin figures that it might be because he doesn’t want to talk about anything. They reach a space where there are Barrows with Wights in them, and Aelin asks them to dock. So the boat docks, she gets off, and Rowan follows her to the Barrows. Fenrys and Gavriel go in tow, while Lorcan stays with Elide. While the group is gone, Lorcan and Elide talk with him wondering how much he would have to atone for what he had done, and reveals that he hadn’t actually been crawling after Maeve, but after Aelin on that beach.

The group goes up into the Barrow, and Aelin starts rifling and grabbing gold from the barrow. Gavriel is uncomfortable with this because the gold is buried with the dead, to which Aelin tells him that they need the money to pay for the war, and that the dead can’t do anything with it. Fenrys shifts from his wolf form, claiming that there is need for more pockets, and they all start putting money into their pockets where they can. At some point Gavriel and Fenrys leave, and Aelin and Rowan are left behind. Rowan tells her that they should move along, and Aelin comes to him with rings—she tells him that her intention wasn’t to escape from Maeve, and that she wants to have rings to symbolize their love, as a reminder since she does not have any scars or tattoos. He offers to add the tattoos back on her. They get back onto the boat as well, and eventually, the boat makes its way to the coast, dropping them not too far off from the port in Wendlyn, where they find a boat to make their way across the ship to Terrasen. While on the ship, Aelin begins to fight and train again to make up her calluses.

Manon, the Thirteen and Dorian stay with the Crochans while they injured recover—it takes them a week, and then she decides to go with the Crochans south to Eyllwe, where they had been called for help. While they wait that week, Dorian practices his magic for shifting. Then, he decides to use the wyrdmarks to call Gavin, but instead he receives Kaltain Rompier. He apologizes to her that he didn’t treat her right, and they talk a little bit during which she tells him that Morath is no joke; it’s not easy to go there and be there, and that only he knows if he is ready. After speaking to her, he manages to change into a crow, when Manon comes out and asks him when he was planning on telling her about his plan to go to Morath. She calls him a fool, and refuses to sleep in the same tent. The whole host flies off to Eyllwe, but they are too late—the call for help had come from a place that had been burnt by Morath’s forces. Not seeing how to get the Crochans to rally, as the group heads back North towards Morath, Manon decides to try to speak with the Ironteeth at the Ferian Gap. She asks Dorian to prove to her that he is ready to go to Morath by doing a mission for them. They get to the Ferian Gap, and Dorian turns into a Valg-looking like person, before walking Narene, Asterin’s wyvern, into the hold of the Omega stalls. He walks through that, and later shows up on Narene, flying towards Asterin and Manon, who in turn looses a breath. He tells them that the Matrons are not there, and so the whole Thirteen travel into the Wyvern stalls at the Ferian Gap, where Petrah Blueblood gives them the freedom to arrive, and speak without being attacked. Manon gives a speech about the fact that they were made, not born this way, and Asterin shows her scar “Unclean.” She beseeches them to consider allying themselves with her because how many of them have had such cruelty done to them, and she wants a better world. She the leaves the same way she came—on her wyvern and untouched—flying to pick up Dorian, and then they continue on until they meet at the Crochan camp with Glennis. She tells them that they will see what the Ironteeth will do.

As they are resting in this camp, the three Ironteeth Matrons show up. Upon the Yellowlegs Matrons, there is this crown of starlight, and when Glennis and Bronwen—Manon’s distant cousin—see it, they hiss that this is the crown of the Crochan Queen. Manon steps in front of all of them, tells the Yellowlegs matron that the crown does not belong to her, and then she fights and kills the Yellowlegs matron, and takes the crown from her, putting it upon her own head. Manon lets the Blueblood Matron go without any repercussions because it seems like she had realized that there was more to the story than she was told, and tells her to take the wyvern belonging to the Yellowlegs Matron with her. Then she fights with her grandmother, viciously against her, but never lets her grandmother harm her. When she pauses momentarily from the fight, her grandmother flees and Manon tells them to let her go. She hands over the crown to Glennis, who in turn tells her that it belongs to Manon, and when Manon accepts it, Glennis proclaims her the Queen of the Crochans. Later that night, she asks Dorian if she had done the right thing in letting them go, and he tells her that she did, showing that she humiliated her grandmother, but is not vengeful. The host moves to another camp, to stay away from the matrons finding them, and Dorian makes the plan to leave for Morath. Manon asks Dorian that night to stay, offers for them to rule together as Queen and King, to be married. Dorian doesn’t say anything beyond telling her she is beautiful, knowing that marriage between them would be a chain for Manon, and they make love.

The next morning, Dorian has flown off to Morath, disappearing before Manon had woken up. When Asterin and Manon talk about what their plan will be, a scout comes in claiming that Terrasen calls for aid. Manon decides that they will head north to aid Terrasen, and Glennis asks her to light the Queen’s fire in the Hearths of the 7 Great clans. Each of the clans accepts the call to aid, to follow Manon to war in Terrasen, and when all Hearths are lit, the scout heads out in search of their sisters across the continent with the call to aid Terrasen. Women pull out brooms, capes and ancient swords from wherever they have been stored, surprising their husbands and their neighbors that there have been witches among them all this time and they fly off.

Aedion, the Bane,Lysandra, and the various royals of the remaining army make their way to the border between Terrasen, and after several days of battle against Morath’s forces, they are forced to yield. Aedion, in an argument with Lysandra, after the loss of the battle blames her for the loss, and for having lied to them with Aelin. He kicks her out, naked and barefoot into the cold outside of his tent, after calling her some choice words. Their ride to Perranth is strained, as Lysandra rides with Ren, while Aedion stays on his own. The army makes their way across the river, and waits for Morath’s forces to come for them. The fight starts out well enough with Morath’s army getting onto the river, where the two Whitethorn royals crack the ice and send the army plunging into the river. They aren’t able to do much beyond that and fight back. At some point, the army starts falling apart because Morath forces do not stop coming, and they also send a volley of arrows along with the heads of Angel’s remaining army. Lysandra decides to rally the troops by turning into Aelin and fighting against the Ilken as Aelin. This does rally the troops, but Aedion realizes that she had put herself into the path of danger, and starts running towards her, pushing away his troops and any men that are close to them. He manages to get a hold of her, when he sees the witch tower that Manon had told them about, and dives with her into a trench, covering her up with his body as a witch in the tower does the Yielding and the blast decimates everything in its path. They escape again, and get to safety, where Lysandra wakes up with a healer tending to her and learns that Aedion had brought her in to the healer, but that she had shifted back to her human form, from Aelin, and tells them not to worry about it. He apologizes to her, and tells her that he had meant every word he had said to her at the beach on Skulls Bay, and she tells him that she had never felt as humiliated in her life as she had when he threw her out of his tent, and asks him if it takes her nearly dying to make him see her as human again. He leaves her alone and heads out to his own tent, when he comes across the men at the fire pit near his tent—amongst them is Darrow, who strips him of his title as General-prince, and asks for Aedion to return the Sword of Orynth, before telling him to report to Kyllian, who is now the Commander of the Bane. He also tells Aedion that if Lysandra ever dresses up as Aelin again, he will sign an execution order for her.

Kyllian outright refuses to make any calls with Aedion’s input and approval or any of the expectations of him as the Commander of the Bane. The whole contingent makes their way towards Orynth, towards the Florine River, where he knows that they will have to make their stand as Morath has gained ground upon them. So they make it to the river after Lysandra had scouted it and told them that Morath had burned the bridge and that there is no ice on the river. So they make their stand again near the river, and as they are coming face to face with Morath soldiers, fire comes out from Aedion’s left flank. Not too long after he realizes that it’s not Aelin, but rather Rolfe and the Mycenians who had come to their aid on the river. He gets everyone on the boats and they take off through the river up to Orynth. They make it to Orynth where Darrow meets them, and asks who they are—Rolfe tells them that they are the Mycenians and that they had come to pay an old debt, which has Darrow in disbelief because he thought that they were gone. And so Orynth begins to prepare itself for a siege.

Chaol and Yrene deal with the battle in Anielle, and Chaol’s father reveals to him that Yrene is pregnant, but they don’t have much time to speak about it between the healing and the battle itself. The ruks do help out, and eventually the Darghan army is behind Morath, so they are able to beat them back but they do not win right away. Chaol goes to meet with the Khagan princesses and princes in a tent to figure out their plan of attack, and at some point Aelin, Rowan, Gavriel, Fenrys, Elide, and Lorcan show up. The group had briefly stopped on land while the ships dealt with horrendous weather where they recovered, and then made their way up on the ship, finding Ruks, which they then followed to the meeting. Chaol introduces Yrene to Aelin, but she recognizes her from their time in Innish, and is happy to see them. Yrene gives Aelin the note that she had left her and tells her how much it helped them. Aelin is really happy to see Chaol and happy about Yrene healing him as well as becoming his wife. The group talk and Aelin learns that Maeve is actually a Valg Queen—something that Nesryn had found out during her time with the Kharankui. It does not fully surprise her because it click some things into place for her—the black blood that she saw on the queen once, and the story the queen had told her. Rowan, Fenrys, Gavriel and Lorcan all claim that they had not tasted anything different about her blood when they made their blood oath. They are all a little bit sickened by the thought, and Lorcan, though he agrees with their plan, goes inside himself a little bit.

The next morning as the battle begins, the fae males comment on how much fear there is in the humans fighting in Anielle, and then start fighting. Aelin had raided the coffers in Anielle, finding some armor for them and for herself, and she comes out onto the battlements when the sun rises, shining on her. They fight, and Lorcan continues to go outside of the walls of Anielle to fight off the Valg. At some point he takes on several of them at a time, and then gets injured, falling on the field. Nesryn and Sartaq fly on their ruks above the battle field checking on things, when they come across the Morath soldiers on the dam, who had been doing what Sartaq had thought to do—to destroy the dam and flood the plains, which would have not only killed Morath’s army but also the Khagan army. They kill them, but they see that they are a bit too late—the damage has been too great. The group manages to fight off Morath, killing most of them, and the healers are out on the land working on healing them, when Nesryn and Sartaq show up with the news. They have to change their tactic, and tell anyone who is near the keep to get into the walls of the keep, and anyone who is not, they will have to run into Oakwald forest. Elide shows up to see what is happening, and overhears everything, at which point, she asks where is Lorcan—no one had seen him since Gavriel last saw him fighting his way to the Keagan’s army. Elide decides to go after him, and she takes Farasha—Chaol’s horse—to ride to search for him. Chaol, Aelin, Rowan, Gavriel and Fenrys watch in despair as Elide rides across the fields on Farasha. Gavriel and Fenrys comment that Lorcan had been blessed by Hellas, and Elide was blessed by Annieth, Hellas’s consort. Chaol looks and tells them that he’s always called Farasha, Hellas’s horse.

Elide rides through the fields calling for Lorcan, looking for him, and going near the lake where she thinks he might be. She finds a number of valg bodies, that could only mean that he was here and left in his wake. She calls out to Lorcan again, when he groans and pushes his hand through the bodies of the Valg. She helps pull the bodies off of him, and realizes that he’s been severely injured. She hauls him up, and demands he stand and get up. Then tries to get him onto the horse, also seeing the horrible gash by his spine. Elide has to scream at him to get onto the horse, and Lorcan finally does, before helping haul her up, as she takes a running jump. As they ride, with Farasha going as fast as she can, Lorcan tells her that he loves her, and has loved her from the moment they had faced the Ilken together. He then asks her to let him go, seeing that they will not make it in time to the keep before the dam breaks. Elide refuses, and urges Farasha to run faster. They are almost upon the gate, when the whole dam comes crashing down. Rowan realizes that Aelin has disappeared on wings—a Ruk has taken her down into the plains, right into the path of the water, as she had watched Elide and Lorcan and decided to save the army. Rowan realizes that in the three months that she had been unable or unwilling to use her magic, she had gone into her power to store her magic and then to unleashed it on Maeve. Except that she had chosen to unleash it on the city to save it from the dam, and he bellows at everyone to get down, as Aelin unleashes her magic, and the water crashes upon that fire, turning into steam—one that Rowan uses his own magic to move and keep away from hurting the people in the keep. Aelin then passes out, as he flies to her and takes her on a ruk back to the keep. The remainder of the army—Kashin at the front—shows up and everyone is thankful that Aelin had done what she had done, because it kept the new fresh army from being harmed.

Three days later, Aelin and Rowan wake up, and meet with Chaol and the other royals. They make a decision to go to the north, to head towards Terrasen, especially since they have received news that Morath is marching north. Chaol’s father doesn’t agree with them giving any land to the Wild Men who had terrorized Anielle for years, but Aelin reminds Chaol that he technically outranks his father as the Hand of the King, and Chaol decides to do just that in order to get help from the Wild men to make their way through the mountains to the other side of the Ferian Gap, where the rest of the army will meet, in hopes of crashing Morath’s forces between the mountains. Elide and Lorcan talk a bit, and she tells him that she couldn’t leave him to die, because she really cares for him, and he admits to her that he loves her—that all he had said to her on the horse was true—and she tells him that she had loved him from the time the Ilken had come for them and her uncle almost was going to take her away. They spend time together again, as he heals up from the damage he took at the war. The army begins to head through the mountains into the Ferian Gap with the help of the Wild Men, while the infantry and most of the host heads around the Mountains towards the same plains.

Part Two

Dorian arrives in Morath after having hidden the two wyrdkeys and shifting into a crow. He uses the other crows to hide his approach into Morath, and then hops into a hallway, turning into a mouse form. He uses this mouse form to explore Morath, and finds his way through the hallways, into the kitchen, where he overhears the kitchen staff talk about someone showing up to speak with Erawan. He uses this opportunity to go find Erawan, and scuttles into a meeting room, where he finds out that the visitor is Maeve, the Fae Queen, though she reveals that she is the Valg Queen. He listens in as she talks to Erawan and finds out that the Fae of Doranelle had risen up against Maeve and kicked her out of the city, leaving her defenseless and unable to raise an army, so she had come to Erawan and offered a partnership. She tells him that she will give him six of her handmaidens—the Kharankui—as hostesses for the Valg Princesses that he wants to bring over. Dorian follows Maeves out of the room, deciding not to stay with Erawan in case he runs into issues, and follows her to a guest room, where she calls him out and tells him that she knows him because she recognized him from Aelin’s memories. Dorian shifts to his human form, and Maeve immediately attacks, wanting to know where the Wyrdkey is, but he does not give her any of that information, using his ice as a way to slam shut the barriers in his mind. She laughs and tells him that it is an effective method. They talk and he offers to get married to her so that she can be the Queen of Adarlan, and she agrees to help him while he looks around Morath to find the third Wyrdkey. Dorian runs around Morath in different forms looking for the Wyrdkey, but is unable to find it. In one instance, goes into an iron door with a sarcophagus, where he discovers Erawan keeps Wyrdstone rings and necklaces. He continues flying around in his fly form freaking out, until Maeve pulls him out through the door and calls him a fool. He then convinces her to help him get into Erawan’s tower—she dresses up in a sheer outfit, and with Dorian in a different form, she goes to Erawan’s tower, looking for him. She tries to seduce Erawan, but he does not fall for it, and tells her that she is his brother’s wife, before telling her goodnight and shutting the door in her face. So then she works with Erawan on bringing the princesses over into the Kharankui spiders, and Dorian steps through the portal that Maeve had made for him into Erawan’s room. There, he finds the wyrdkey inside another girl, and takes it out, but when she comes to herself momentarily, she asks Dorian to kill her. He hesitates, and Maeve kills her instead, telling him that it’s good that they are working together so that Erawan wouldn’t find out about his involvement. He then reveals that he hadn’t been doing nothing while exploring Morath, but rather putting his ice and making cracks where he could. Morath starts coming down around them all, and he tells Maeve that she is going to stay here with Erawan, and not go anywhere-before taking her magic and her ability to portal between places from her, as he flies away from her into the mountains. He picks up the remaining two Wyrdkeys and flies to Oakwald Forest, where he rests, turns into a wyvern, and then joins the legion of Ironteeth witches as they fly overhead.

Aedion and his friends are fighting against Morath’s forces—100,000 of them—that had come, and they used the darkness to hide some explosive materials in the ground the night before Morath moves towards Orynth. They then explode the materials when the witch towers get close to or on top of them—two of the three witch towers are completely destroyed, and the third one is disabled, but can be operational before long. Things are not looking good for them, and start to look even worse when they see a whole legion of Ironteeth witches coming from Morath’s side. But then suddenly Manon shows up with her thirteen, and meets Aedion and Darrow outside on the walls, telling them that they had previously fought with Terrasen, and are here to pay a debt now—to Aelin for a better future and a better world. This has Darrow shaking in anger, but then Crochans alight onto the castle walls and the castle, and the battle begins, with the witches taking on Ironteeth legions. They make a plan with Lysandra as a river dragon, and she uses the sewers to get through to destroy Morath on the ice. But with this, comes a danger—Morath now knows about the underground tunnels and is trying to get through to them, while Lysandra fights them off. Aedion yells for Manon and her thirteen, and they realize what they need to do. Manon flies for the grates behind Lysandra, only to be intercepted by Iskra Yellowlegs, and her bull of a wyvern, who takes a bite into Abraxos’s throat. Manon tries to get off the saddle to fight him off and get Iskra out, even going as far as begging Iskra to let Abraxos free, but Iskra laughs and refuses to do anything. Suddenly, Petrah Blueblood shows up with her legion of Ironteeth witches, and fights off Iskra, freeing Manon to fly to save the entryway from being used by Morath’s soldiers. Manon feels relieved that Petrah had decided to help them with her legion for a better future. Manon and the thirteen use their wyvern to move rocks to the grates to the tunnel, but Abraxos is barely able to continue flying, and he goes collapsing inside the walls. The Thirteen help stem the flow of blood as a healer comes in to help save Abraxos. Once Abraxos is taken care of to some extent, and resting, Manon and the Thirteen head out to the battle field.

Then they find that the witch tower has been mobilized again, and Aedion tells them that they have no chance if they can’t get past the Ironteeth witches protecting the tower, and it comes close to them, they will be dead. Manon asks for another wyvern to take the Thirteen and lead them to destroy the tower. The Thirteen look at each other, and then Astrid comes up to Manon, and punches her, telling her to “Live, Manon, Live” and to bring them home, to the Wastes. Then the twelve of them fly towards the Ironteeth witches protecting the tower, and execute a perfect maneuver that they had practiced together as the Thirteen. Manon watches as Asterin’s Wyvern throws itself upon the tower, and Asterin jumps into it, knocking the witch that is about to do the Yielding off the edge, and Asterin does the Yielding herself next to Manon’s grandmother—who had not been expecting it and seems to have been asking for mercy. One by one, Manon’s Thirteen do the Yielding—and instead of a darkness coming out of them, a light comes out of each one of them, bright and beautiful. They take out the tower and the witches nearby. After the battle stops, Manon goes over to the tower and cries in front of it—feeling the loss of her friends, her Thirteen. Loads of humans, fae and witches come up to the tower, and they lay down flowers, rocks and whatever trinkets they can to honor the Thirteen that had given up their lives. Glennis comes up to Manon and tells her that when iron breaks, light shines, and blood turns to flowers, so will things change. Many miles away in the Wastes, a flower blooms. Manon ends up staying in shock, but Ansel comes to her and tells her that she understands; she had lost her army as well, many of which she had known, and she offers to recognize Manon’s borders of the former Witch Kingdom, while she keeps the borders of her kingdom. Manon recognizes the offer, but says nothing to it.

As the battle goes on, Manon fights, and so does Aedion, despite his injuries, and Lysandra, despite her own. At one point, Murtagh sees that one of the walls is going to need help, so he tells Darrow that he’s going to rally the soldiers and fight at the walls because he can. Murtagh dies as a result of the battle, and Ren cries next to his body in one of the chambers. Aedion finds himself there too, to pay his respects, and feels angry that he wasn’t there to do something about it, to rally the men. He is also not happy with the fact that Darrow let Murtagh go and didn’t have an ounce of courage to fight himself at the walls. Eventually things are getting dire enough that Evangeline—Lysandra’s ward who had been given the task of running messages—gets asked by Darrow whether she would give up or she would fight. Evangeline tells him that she would have liked to live in Caravarre, and to spend that time with her friends, all of whom are different and just want a better world, so she says that she would fight. Darrow asks her to follow him, and he goes to the line waiting for food, where he finds Aedion and Lysandra together—the two of them having become honest about their feelings for one another during the fight, and stealing kisses in hallways where they can. Darrow turns to Aedion and gives him the Sword of Orynth—the one that he had stripped Aedion of at an earlier battle—and tells him that this is his home, the home he had fought for and that he deserves to be the leader, thanks to a reminder from someone wise. He then turns to Lysandra and tells her that he recognizes Caravarre and her as it’s Lady, with any heirs that she and Aedion may have to be their next in line. Lysandra tells him that Evangeline is her heir, and he tells her that he would like to make Evangeline his heir, because he does not have anyone anymore. Evangeline accepts to be his ward, and eventual heir. The battle goes on and it’s becoming clear that Morath will overrun Orynth.

Aelin, Rowan, Fenrys, Lorcan, Elide, Gavriel, Chaol, Yrene and the Khaganate army reach the Ferian gap with the help of the wild men. The rukhin check the Omega and the aeries in the Ferian Gap, but they’re not able to find any one—just trainers but no Ironteeth witches or army. They do, however, find Vernon there, and Elide is brought up to the room where the group has contained him, to decide what to do with him as the Lady of Perranth. Lorcan offers to kill him for her, but she tells them that she does not care what they do with him, but wants it quick. The group goes in to talk to Vernon, with Elide leading the conversation. He only mocks her, and she eventually tells him that she does not care about him, and that he should figure out how to live being caged the same way that he had caged her all these years. Elide then walks out. Vernon doesn’t want to tell them much, but Aelin brings him ale and they chat, at which point he reveals that Maeve is on the continent, but that he doesn’t know much about her plans with Erawan. Apparently, he was told by Erawan that he asked too many questions—unbeknownst to him, Dorian had worn his disguise and asked Erawan several questions—and so he was sent here to the Ferian Gap, which Aelin claims was because he was determined to be useless for them. She does tell him that her court will not hurt him, but as she gets up to leave, she leaves him chained to the chair—in fact, the chains are tightened—and walks away, telling him that she had never promised that she would let him go. As she walks out of the room, she has the group barricade it and tells Elide that this will not be a kind death, or an easy one. Elide tells her to just make sure that it’s well barricaded, and then they leave.

The group makes their way from the Ferian Gap through the Oakwald Forest, and they near the Endovier Salt Mines, when they come across a lone Wyvern. The Rukhin chase it, but Aelin recognizes the magic—it is using ice magic to protect the Rukhin and keep them safe—before the Wyvern lands and turns into Dorian. Aelin rides towards him with her group, and Chaol and Yrene following them. There is a reunion there, and they catch up with Dorian revealing that Maeve had come alone because she was ousted from Doranelle, and Rowan muses that Aelin’s letters in Wendlyn after they left the cave had worked to get the fae of Doranelle to rise up against Maeve. Dorian reveals Maeve’s plans and that he has the three wyrdkeys, and Aelin makes their group vote on what they want to do—to go against Maeve and Erawan in battle first, or to put the Wyrdkeys back into the gate. The group votes to go put it into the gate so that Erawan cannot bring any more of his valg soldiers into this world. The group votes to put the keys into the gate, and later that night Rowan argues with Aelin about it—why doesn’t she take Dorian as well with her, maybe the both of them could use their power so that she is able to come back, and not have her power used up. Dorian had been willing to be the one who puts the keys back into the gate, after all, to be the sacrifice. Aelin and Rowan go to speak with Dorian, and he agrees to be with her, and they grab Chaol. Then they go into the mines themselves, and Aelin draws the wyrdmarks to open the portal. Rowan tells her to come back to him. Aelin and Dorian start, and their bodies go rigid.

Dorian and Aelin find themselves inside the space containing numerous doors. There, they use their magic to forge the lock, and are getting close to spent, when Dorian’s father shows up and tells them that he will finish it. At first they argue with him, but then he reminds them that Nameless is the price, and that no one knows his name. They realize that they never knew his name at all, and so Aelin accepts him, pushing Dorian out of the space, and letting his father take the space. Dorian is thrown back into his body and outside of the wyrdmarks that Aelin had made—and he realizes that Aelin had planned to kick him out regardless. Aelin and the king of Adarlan forge the remainder of the lock, and the King of Adarlan tells her that her parents are so very proud of her and that she is everything that they had hoped for, just as he disappears. The gods appear with Elena between them, and ask Aelin to open up the portal to their world. Aelin asks them to let Elena go in exchange for them keeping and dealing with Erawan. One of the gods laughs, and disappears Elena’s spirit anyway. So Aelin opens the portal to their world, and Mala, the goddess who was Elena’s mother, and the source of Aelin’s fire power, turns to her and tells her that she had remembered Elena and Brannon. Mala gives her a kernel of fire power to do what must be done, and to close the portal. Aelin accepts it, then rips open the portal to the dark demonic world inside the world where the Gods and Goddesses had entered, and then she shuts that door to that world. She continues to shut the doors of all the other worlds, by putting in her fire power into the lock, which had been shaped as the Eye of Elena. Once that is done, she feels the tug to go home, and she starts falling through worlds—she sees a world with a booming city full of tall buildings by the river, a world with mountains and starry skies where a male with wings stands alongside a heavily pregnant female. She reaches out to them, and the male responds with a wave back to her, before slowing her down through his dark magic that is like a caress. Aelin continues falling through the worlds—the wyrdmarks that Rowan had tattooed into her back during their days of travels alongside with the stories of her loved ones, lead her back through the worlds into her own, into her own body.

When Aelin is back, she reveals that she does not have a human body anymore and that her pool of magic is not as deep as it had been—that was the cost of forging the lock. She also explains what she had done, the deal that she had made for Elena, that the gods did not honor. They return to camp and spend the nights there as snow has started falling. Elide and Aelin are in the tub soaking when Elide asks her about her power, and Aelin explains how much she had before and how much she has now. Borte shows up and asks Aelin to let her lead and protect her flank rather than Sartaq’s as she has been doing, because she’s good at it and bored of it. Aelin agrees to it. Alas, they do not make their way to Orynth because of the snow, but then one night, the little folk show up along with the Lord of the Night—the white stag that is symbolic of Terrasen. The Little Folk and the Lord of the Night tell them that the army has to hurry—there is a path through Oakwald forest that they can take that will get them to Orynth in time, and so the army packs up and hurries north. At some point, Aelin gets onto the Lord of the North as his rider—the only time he allows someone onto his back, as they reach the battlefield of Orynth.

Aedion, Lysandra, and the army at Orynth know that things are dire, and that they might die. Just as Morath continues a newer, stronger push towards the walls of Orynth, another army swarms them from behind, crushing Morath’s forces between them. Aelin is at the head of the army fighting her way through on the Lord of the North, while Rowan, Lorcan, Gavriel, and Fenrys fight beside her; though they do get separated. Aedion is forced to try to close the western gate to ensure that Morath doesn’t get into Orynth and Gavriel makes his way to his son. The two talk momentarily, and Gavriel tells him that he wants the two of them to close the door together, before Gavriel pushes Morath back with his magic and his ability out the western gate, while the door gets shut by Aedion. He’s in disbelief that his father had done that, and Gavriel ends up going down, being cut down by the soldiers. Aelin and Ansel fight side by side, bringing down Morath’s catapults. The armies defeat Morath, but then realize that there is another group behind them, this time brought together with Darkness as Erawan and Maeve are leading this army with Maeve’s six Kharankui-Valg Princess hybrids. They get as many of the soldiers behind walls as they can, and then Aelin goes to face Maeve and Erawan together. She talks quite a bit to Erawan, sowing mistrust in him, and hoping that Yrene will see the opportunity that she is leaving for her to deal with Erawan. She knows that she does not have enough power to fight off both. Rowan is injured and unable to shift but wants to make it to his mate—he pulls out the iron tip of the arrow, before finding Lorcan and Fenrys and the three of them make their way towards Aelin as she uses her fire to keep back Maeve and Erawan, while keeping them engaged.

Elide wonders what Aelin is trying to do—she knows that Aelin is close to burn out—and unfortunately Anneith is nowhere to be found, since the gods are gone. But she recalls that Anneith had told her to see—so she looks around and realizes what must be done. She grabs Yrene, tells her what the plan is, and the two women get onto a ruk and find Chaol and Dorian. Chaol realizes the plan sooner than Dorian, as they explain it, though Chaol doesn’t want Yrene to do it for fear for her safety. She tells him that she will be fine, and Yrene, Elide, and Dorian take off. Back on the battle field, Erawan senses the healer and realizes that Aelin had been speaking the truth-that Maeve had lied to him, and he takes off towards the healer, on top of the tower. He lands at the tower, and tries to speak to Yrene, who turns out to be none other than Dorian in disguise. Dorian spears Erawan with Damaris to the ground Then Yrene shows up on the ruk, dropping onto the landing, and she uses her magic on him. Erawan reveals that they had healers in his world too, that they were able to destroy their souls and the Valg, and that he had been looking for her when he heard that she had gotten away to control her. Yrene’s magic spills out, and with Erawan having been speared into the stone with Damaris, she pushes away the blackness in him, until she sees a shriveled up figure and kills it. She asks Dorian to light him on fire, and Dorian does light the body on fire, but it turns to ash before they can do much about it, and floats away.

Aelin in the meantime faces Maeve, who taunts her about her lack of power, and that she had wanted to let Aelin keep her power; that it’s a waste what she did with the wyrdkeys. She tells Aelin to take the blood oath and bend to her, so that she can fix the mess that Aelin made. Lorcan, Rowan and Fenrys show up telling Maeve that Aelin has their power too, but Maeve uses her mind magic on them to make them see horrors. Rowan sees Lydia who tells him that she can’t believe that he chose Aelin over her, while Aelin’s body hangs from castle walls, and he cries. Lorcan sees Elide dying at an old age, coughing from illness, while Fenrys is dealing with his brother, Connall, who is still angry at him. Aelin uses her fire on each of the males to bring them out of the visions, though they still seem to be caught up in it. She sees Rowan make a sign—something that seems innocuous to Maeve, but that she picks up on because their bodies know each other. And then Rowan and Lorcan stand up—Aelin has to pull on the blood oath to Fenrys to get him to look at her, and blinks at him with their secret code. Fenrys barely manages to respond. Then Aelin reveals that there are wyrdmarks everywhere on the grass, and those wyrdmarks open portals across the plain to show the Wolf Tribe—human that ride huge wolves, and the fae of Terrasen who had run away there to stay safe, and who had healers. The wolf tribe comes through and takes the fight to Morath, since they know exactly how to kill the soldiers and the Kharankui. Maeve is furious, and then Aelin tells her that the vengeance isn’t hers to take on Maeve, but his. Fenrys uses his magic to skip between his location and Maeve, grabs Goldryn, Anthril’s sword, and stabs Maeve through the chest from the back. She demands that they take the sword out, but Aelin walks up to her and puts Antril’s ring on her —she received it from Elide in the tent when they took the bath. Between the ring and the sword, Maeve’s Valg queen gets burnt out of her. And Erawan had gotten killed as well, at which point all of Morath’s armies had fallen—stopped fighting. Aelin uses this moment to chant Yrene’s name. The whole field starts chanting Yrene’s name as the savior.

Aelin later speaks to Aedion, giving him a hug, and they go to see Gabriel’s body. She posthumously gives him the blood oath for what he had done—telling him that she was waiting to give it to him until Aedion has had his, but that he will be buried with the royals for his service. She also goes to speak with Manon, telling her that she will erect a memorial for the Thirteen so that what they had done will never be forgotten. Rowan, Aelin, and their friends talk, and Rowan reveals that with Maeve dead, he is once again a prince of Doranelle, and that half of Maeve’s fortune goes to Aelin, while the remaining half goes to the Whitethorn family, so he now has the funds to build them a library and a royal theater, which he tells Aelin will be his wedding gift to her. She is happy. Yrene talks to Hafiza and confirms that she will not be returning to the Southern Continent, so Hafiza has to find another heir, but she would like to establish her own Torre in the Northern continent once she gets settled in and has her baby. At some point, Glennis speaks with Manon in front of Bronwen and Petrah, showing her a flower from the Wastes—the flower that would bloom only once the the curse had been broken—and repeats what she had said to Manon at the mark where the Thirteen sacrificed themselves. Manon then realizes that everything that happened at the witch tower during the battle and after was what broke the curse on the Wastes, making it inhabitable again. Dorian meets with Sartaq, who reveals that some of his Rukhin had found wyvern eggs in the Ferian Gap and that they would like to stay in Adarlan to train the wyvern. He approves their stay and has an idea—later approaching Manon, and telling her that he would like her to be the leader and trainer of his aerial army, if she doesn’t want to be his queen. Manon tells him that she would consider it, and after all Bronwen and Petrah can take care of her kingdom while she dips out to train from time to time. The healers from Torre Cesme would need to stay a while to remove the Valg demons from the human bodies and heal them.

The coronation happens shortly after, with Darrow getting the Lord to agree to make Aelin the Queen. They do not have anything as the Royal palace had been ravaged by Adarlan’s viceroys, and so they had to quickly make a crown from a smith that was able to do it. Darrow had given the flower of peace in Terrasen to be added to the crown. And Aelin gets crowned amongst her friends, after which she turns to Aedion and offers him the blood oath, since he wanted it to be a public spectacle after all. Before Aelin sits down on the throne, the Little Folk show up and give her Mab’s crown. She takes it and tells them that she will be honored to be their queen too, and puts the crown on top of her Terrasen crown. After the ceremony, Aelin and her friends take a walk through town, and she links their arms telling them that they should walk together. As winter eases up just a little bit, everyone heads out to their own kingdoms—Manon and Ansel to the Wastes, the Silent Assassins to the Red Desert, Chaol, Dorian and Yrene to Adarlan. The Fae to Doranelle, and Galan Ashryver with his army back to Wendlyn. The Khaganate Princes go back to the Southern Continent. Falkan Ennar, who had regained his years back after Dorian had killed the Stygian Spider and spoke to Lysandra after the end of the battle at Orynth revealing himself as her uncle, stays in Orynth to be near his only family member and to establish his own merchant empire. And so the rebuilding of their kingdoms begin.

Several months later, spring has come, and there has been rebuilding underway—members of the Wolf Tribe had come to Terrasen along with the Fae originally from Terrasen had returned. The city is being rebuilt and Aelin wakes up one morning next to Rowan. There is an emptiness in her where her human form was, sometimes. Elide Lochan and Lorcan had gotten married, and Lorcan had become Lord Lorcan Lochan, which has been amusing for Aelin. They had gone to Perranth—where Erawan’s army had fallen just the same as they had fallen in Orynth—to rebuild the city. Aedion and Lysandra will be getting married soon though, so that means that the Lords and the Ladies of Terrasen will be making their way back to Orynth for the wedding. As Aelin leaves the bed and goes onto the balcony, she is surprised—the flower that has been a symbol of a peaceful reign in Terrasen has bloomed across all of the fields. She calls to Rowan, and he comes out, sees it and tells her that it is all for her.

My Thoughts:

I bawled my eyes out at the sacrifice of the Thirteen— I do not recall this impacting me this much the first time around, but reading it this time, it really hit me hard. This scene alone—and Manon’s later sadness for the loss of the witches she had loved and protected, and who protected and loved her back in ways that were not supposedly possible for Ironteeth—necessitated me sitting down with these feelings for a long while. I think it’s in this moment that I realized just how much I came to love and respect Asterin, Sorrell and Vesta—though I do wonder if it was necessary for all twelve of them to die, when one or two of them would have been more than enough to take out the witch tower and the remaining Ironteeth legion considering how powerful the Yielding is. Furtherly, having read ACOTAR and also Crescent City, there were elements that I had recognized from both worlds—including some peeks at the two while Aelin is flying through worlds, which is such an Easter egg for the series that came later. I always thought that winged male and heavily pregnant female were a bit odd in that scene, but knowing what I know now, I understand that connection. Overall, a beautiful story and a wonderful ending to the series—though I do wish that we could have found out more about what came of Dorian and Manon, whether Elide’s ankle got healed by Yrene, and whether Aelin and Rowan had the children that Rowan dreamed of in his dream. I loved the story, the series, the characters, and their boldness, and I will miss this series very much.