The Three Sacred Mountains | The Sister Peaks
This post is a continuation of all my previous ones, and will focus on why I think that ACOTAR 5 is Elain’s book. Once again, please take your shipping and preference for other characters out of the equation if you plan on reading this post.
Isn’t it interesting how everything that is significant to the plot (death gods, objects, sisters, brothers, mountains, stars) comes in threes?
When I was reading this quote, I went back and searched through all the books to see if “sister peaks” has ever been mentioned before. It hasn’t.
It seems odd, then, that it would be mentioned now, in a book that constantly drew the attention of the reader to the three sisters.
So now we have three sisters and three sister peaks.
And what do we know about these sacred mountains?
Under the Mountain was at the heart of Feyre’s journey.
Similarly, climbing Ramiel was the final turning point of Nesta’s journey.
All that is left now is the Prison. And Elain.
One sister peak. One sister. One last journey.
I am going to repeat this over and over again—nothing is a coincidence. Why are there three sacred mountains? Three sister peaks? Three sisters?
SJM is leaving the best for last: the Prison.
“The Prison is law unto itself; the island may be even an eighth court”
“The bone-gates swung open silently, revealing a cavern of black so inky I had never seen its like, even Under the Mountain.”
“With the small lights floating ahead, I tried not to look too long at the gray walls. Especially when they were so rough-hewn that the jagged bits could have been a nose, or a craggy brow, or a set of sneering lips.”
“And there was silence. Utter silence as we rounded a bend, and the last of the light from the misty world faded into inky black.”
“I focused on my breathing. I couldn’t be trapped here; I couldn’t be locked in this horrible, dead place.”
“My words were so soft they were devoured by the dark. Even that thrumming power in my veins had vanished, burrowing somewhere in my bones.”
“Once the sentence is given and a prisoner passes those gates … They belong to the Prison. It will never let them out.”
“There were no doors. No lights. No sounds. Not even a trickle of water.
But I could feel them. I could feel them sleeping, pacing, running hands and claws over the other side of the walls.
They were ancient, and cruel in a way I had never known, not even with Amarantha. They were infinite, and patient, and had learned the language of darkness, of stone.”
“Down and down we went, and time lost its grip. It could have been hours or days, and we paused only when my useless, wasted body demanded water. Even while I drank, he didn’t let go of my hand. As if the rock would swallow me up forever.”
“The hall continued down—down into the ageless dark. The air here was tight, compact. Even my puffs of breath on the chill air seemed short-lived.”
Who is the last person you could picture in this environment? A mountain filled with the worst creatures you can think of—creatures we know nothing about? Who is the character who is the least likely to survive in such a place, let alone conquer it?
Elain. Sweet, gentle Elain.
The antithesis of everything the Prison is.
“But Elain, the flower-grower, the gentle heart … Nesta would go down swinging for her.”
“I marveled at it, actually—that those years of poverty hadn’t stripped away that light from Elain. Perhaps buried it a bit, but she was generous, loving, and kind—a woman I found myself proud to know, to call sister.”
“I gazed again at that sad, dark house—the place that had been a prison. Elain had said she missed it, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at the cottage. If she beheld not a prison but a shelter—a shelter from a world that had possessed so little good, but she tried to find it anyway, even if it had seemed foolish and useless to me.”
“She had looked at it that cottage with hope; I had looked at it with nothing but hatred. And I knew which one of us had been stronger.”
“Nesta hadn’t wanted any dealings with the Fae, and Elain was so gentle, so sweet … how could I bring them into this?
“Beautiful—she’d always been the most beautiful of us. Soft and lovely, like a summer dawn.”
“My sister Elain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles.”
“Elain, who had been gentle and sweet. Elain, who was to marry a lord’s son who hated faeries …”
“Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light.”
“Even wasted away by grief and despair, Elain’s beauty was remarkable. Hers was a face that could bring kings to their knees.”
“Elain nodded, smiling up at me, and it was tentative joy—and life that shone in her eyes. A promise of the future, gleaming and sweet.”
“That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room.”
“Elain’s smile was as bright as the setting sun beyond the windows.”
“Elain had gone from lovely to devastatingly beautiful. Elain never seemed to realize it.”
Can you picture her in the Prison? No? Neither can I. Yet.
Out of all the sisters, Elain is described as the most gentle. The warmest. Sweetest. Loveliest. Kindest.
And out of the three sacred mountains, the Prison is described as the worst. The coldest. The most barren. The most lifeless.
What will happen when the gentle grower of things enters the Prison? Will the Prison dim the light that is inside her, or will she infuse the mountain with warmth?
We’ll have to wait and see because, as Amren said,
