Throne of Glass Quotes

When it had mattered most, Celaena hadn’t been there.

Nehemia was gone.

Elide began crying, shoving away from Lorcan. “I’ll go with you, I’ll come with you—”

The girl would. The girl would face Cairn, and Maeve … But Terrasen would need that sort of courage. If it was to survive, if it was to heal, Terrasen would need Elide Lochan.

As if she were blowing out a candle, Aelin exhaled a breath toward the man.

First the commander went quiet. As if every thought, every feeling had halted. Then his body seemed to stiffen, like he’d been turned to stone.

And for a heartbeat, Aedion thought the man had been turned to stone as his skin, his Adarlanian uniform, turned varying shades of gray.

But as the sea breeze brushed past, and the man simply fell apart into nothing but ashes, Aedion realized with no small amount of shock what she had done.

She’d burned him alive. From the inside out.

“They are well-trained warriors, who have seen more war and battle than you ever will,” Chaol said coldly.

Chaol chuckled. “I’d advise never to say that to someone from Terrasen.”

“I suppose there’s nothing else to do while living amongst all the snow and sheep beyond drink,” Arghun drawled, lounging in his chair.

“That may be,” Chaol said, putting an arm on Yrene’s back to guide her to the trees and tents, “but it won’t stop Aelin Galathynius or Aedion Ashryver from drinking you under the table.”

“What a waste of a life that was,” Darrow spat. “A princess actually dedicated to her people, who fought until her last breath for—”

“One more word,” Rowan said softly, “and I don’t care how many lords support you or what your laws are. One more word about that, and I will gut you before you can get up from that chair. Understand?”

For the first time, Darrow looked into Rowan’s eyes and blanched at the death he found waiting there.

It was flawless—the rage and the arrogance and the triumph. But as he stared each of them down, Chaol’s heart fractured.

Because for a flicker, as those turquoise eyes met with his, there was none of that rage or triumph. Only a message to the queen that Aedion would never see. And there were no words to convey it—the love and the hope and the pride. The sorrow at not knowing her as the woman she had become. The gift Aedion thought he was giving her in sparing Chaol’s life.

Celaena listened to her own breathing, felt Chaol’s blood under her nails, and the blood of all those men she’d hacked down, and the coldness of Nehemia’s room, where all that gore had soaked the bed.

“They will be,” Celaena swore to the darkness.

Yes, they had replied. Nehemia would wish it so.

Aelin had kept their letter on her desk for months. Not a scar on her palm, but a promise of tomorrow. A vow to make the future as brilliant as Nehemia had dreamed it could be.”

“Because I’m still more expendable than you are.”

“Not to me.”

He did not know all of her story, did not know what had been truth and what had been lies, or what it had been like in Endovier to slave beside her countrymen, or to bow to the man who had murdered her family. But he had seen her—seen glimpses of the person beneath, regardless of name or title.

And he knew, deep down, that she had not blinked at his magic but rather understood that burden, and that fear. She had not walked away or wished him to be anything but what he was. I’ll come back for you.

So he stared down his friend, even though he knew Chaol was hurting and adrift, and said, “I’ve already made my decision about her. And when the time comes, regardless of whether you are here or in Anielle, I hope your choice is the same as mine.”