sjmaassassin

[sjmaassassin]

“She rested her forehead on her scarred knees, her skin nearly scorching. She shut her eyes, piecing her splintered consciousness together.

The door opened. Rowan. She kept herself in that cool darkness, savoring the growing chill in the water, the quieting pulse under her skin. He sounded about halfway across the room when his footsteps halted.

His breath caught, harsh enough that she looked over her shoulder.

But his eyes weren’t on her face. Or the water. They were on her bare back.

Curled as she was against her knees, he could see the whole expanse of ruined flesh, each scar from the lashings. “Who did that to you?”

It would have been easy to lie, but she was so tired, and he had saved her useless hide. So she said, “A lot of people. I spent some time in the Salt Mines of Endovier.”

He was so still that she wondered if he’d stopped breathing. “How long?” he asked after a moment. She braced herself for the pity, but his face was so carefully blank—no, not blank. Calm with lethal rage.

“A year. I was there a year before... it’s a long story.” She was too exhausted, her throat too raw, to say the rest of it. She noticed then that his arms were bandaged, and more bandages across his broad chest peeked up from beneath his shirt. She’d burned him again. And yet he had held on to her—had run all the way here and not let go once.

“You were a slave.”

She gave him a slow nod. He opened his mouth, but shut it and swallowed, that lethal rage winking out. As if he remembered who he was talking to and that it was the least punishment she deserved.

He turned on his heel and shut the door behind him. She wished he’d slammed it—wished he’d shattered it. But he closed it with barely more than a click and did not return.

~

Rowan

Her back.

Rowan soared over the trees, riding and shaping the winds to push him onwards, faster, their roar negligible to the bellowing in his head. He took in the passing world out of instinct rather than interest, his eyes turned inward—toward that slab of ruined flesh glistening in the candlelight.

[...]

Maeve had lied. Or lied by omission. But she knew. She knew what the girl had gone through—knew she’d been a slave. That day—that day early on, he’d threatened to whip the girl, gods above. And she had lost it. He’d been such a proud fool that he’d assumed she’d lashed out because she was nothing more than a child. He should have known better—should have known that when she did react to something like that, it meant the scars went deep.

[...]

He gripped the winds with his magic, choking off their current. Aelin... Aelin had not trusted him—had not wanted him to know.

And she’d almost burned out completely, gods be damned, leaving her currently defenseless. Primal anger sharpened in his gut, brimming with a territorial, possessive need. Not a need for her, but a need to protect—a male’s duty and honor. He had not handled the news as he should have.

So he veered back to the north and reined in his magic to pull the winds with him, easing his flight back to the fortress.”

-Heir of Fire, pages 363-366

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #fantasy #fiction #throne of glass #heir of fire #rowan whitethorn #rowan #aelin galathynius #aelin #scars

[sjmaassassin]

“The girl was nowhere to be seen, and for a heartbeat, he hoped she’d left again, if only so he didn’t have to face what he’d said yesterday. The door to the outside was open—as if someone had thrown it wide. She’d probably gone that way.

Rowan took a step toward it, nodding his greeting, but the old male looked him up and down and quietly said, “What are you doing?”

“What?”

Emrys didn’t raise his voice as he said, “To that girl. What are you doing that makes her come in here with such emptiness in her eyes?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Emrys pressed his lips into a tight line. “What do you see when you look at her, Prince?”

He didn’t know. These days, he didn’t know a damn thing. “That’s none of your concern, either.”

Emrys ran a hand over his weathered face. “I see her slipping away, bit by bit, because you shove her down when she so desperately needs someone to help her back up.”

“I don’t see why I would be of any use to—”

“Did you know that Evalin Ashryver was my friend? She spent almost a year working in this kitchen—living here with us, fighting to convince your queen that demi-Fae have a place in your realm. She fought for our rights until the very day she departed this kingdom—and many years after, until she was murdered by those monsters across the sea. So I knew. I knew who her daughter was the moment you brought her into this kitchen. All of us who were here twenty-five years ago recognized her for what she is.”

It wasn’t often that he was surprised, but... Rowan just stared.

“She has no hope, Prince. She has no hope left in her heart. Help her. If not for her sake, then at least for what she represents—what she could offer all of us, you included.”

“And what is that?” he dared ask.

Emrys met his gaze unflinchingly as he whispered, “A better world.””

-Heir of Fire, pages 279-280

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #fantasy #fiction #throne of glass #heir of fire #rowan whitethorn #rowan #emrys

[sjmaassassin]

““Don’t use that tone when you talk about her.”

“Oh, I can use whatever tone I want. And you can taunt and snarl at me and make me chop wood all day, but short of ripping out my tongue, you can’t—”

Faster than lightning, his hand shot out and she gagged, jolting as he grabbed her tongue between his fingers. She bit down, hard, but he didn’t let go. “Say that again,” he purred.

She choked as he kept pinching her tongue, and she went for his daggers, simultaneously slamming her knee up between his legs, but he shoved his body against hers, a wall of hard muscle and several hundred years of lethal training trapping her against a tree. She was a joke by comparison—a joke—and her tongue—

He released her tongue, and she gasped for breath. She swore at him, a filthy, foul name, and spat at his feet. And that’s when he bit her.

She cried out as those canines pierced the spot between her neck and shoulder, a primal act of aggression—the bite so strong and claiming that she was too stunned to move. He had her pinned against the tree and clamped down harder, his canines digging in deep, her blood spilling onto her shirt. Pinned, like some weakling. But that was what she’d become, wasn’t it? Useless, pathetic.

She growled, more animal than sentient being. And shoved.

Rowan staggered back a step, teeth ripping her skin as she struck his chest. She didn’t feel the pain, didn’t care about the blood or the flash of light.

No, she wanted to rip his throat out—rip it out with the elongated canines she bared at him as she finished shifting and roared.”

-Heir of Fire, pages 158-159

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #fantasy #fiction #throne of glass #heir of fire #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #rowan #aelin #rowan x aelin #rowaelin

[sjmaassassin]

“[Rowan] shot left to pinch or poke or hit her, and she whirled, slamming down his arm with an elbow and whacking him upside the head with her other hand. He stopped dead and blinked a few times. She smirked at him.

He bared his teeth in a feral, petrifying grin. “Oh, you’d better run now.”

When he lunged, she shot through the trees.

~

She had a suspicion that Rowan was letting her get ahead for the first few minutes, because though she moved faster, she could barely adjust enough to her altered body to leap over rocks and fallen trees. He’d said they were going southwest, and that was where she went, dodging between the trees, the anger simmering away, shifting into something else entirely.

Rowan was a silver and white streak beside and behind her, and every time he got too close, she veered the other way, testing out the senses that told her where the trees were without seeing them—the smell of oak and moss and living things, the open coolness of the mist passing between them like a path that she followed.

They hit a plateau, the ground easy beneath her boots. Faster—she wanted to see if she could go faster, if she could outrun the wind itself.

Rowan appeared at her left, and she pumped her arms, her legs, savoring the breath in her lungs—smooth and calm, ready to see what she would do next. More—this body wanted more.

She wanted more.

And then she was going swifter than she ever had in her life, the trees a blur, her immortal body singing as she let its rhythms fall into place. Her powerful lungs gobbled down the misty air and filled with the smell and taste of the world, only instinct and reflex guiding her, telling her she could go faster still, feet eating up the loamy earth step by step by step.

Gods. Oh, gods.

She could have flown, could have soared for the sudden surge of ecstasy in her blood, the sheer freedom granted by the marvel of creation that was her body.

Rowan shot at her from the right, but she dodged a tree with such ease that she let out a whoop, then threw herself between two long-hanging branches, mere hurdles that she landed with feline skill.

Rowan was at her side again, lunging with a snap of his teeth, but she whirled and leapt over a rock, letting the moves she’d honed as an assassin blend into the instincts of her Fae body.

She could die for the love of this speed, the surety in her bones. How had she been afraid of this body for so long? Even her soul felt looser. As if it had been locked up and buried and was only now starting to shake free. Not joy, perhaps not ever, but a glimmer of what she had been before grief had decimated her so thoroughly.

Rowan raced beside her, but made no move to grab her. No, Rowan was... playing.

He threw a glance at her, breathing hard but evenly. And it might have been the sun through the canopy, but she could have sworn that she saw his eyes alight with a glimmer of that same, feral contentment. She could have sworn he was smiling.”

-Heir of Fire, pages 235-237

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #fantasy #fiction #throne of glass #heir of fire #rowan whitethorn #rowan #aelin galathynius #aelin #rowan x aelin #rowaelin

[sjmaassassin]

“The bait beast wanted a shot at Titus.

Allies. If only for this moment.

Again, Manon felt that ebb and flow in the world, that invisible current that some called Fate and some called the loom of the Three-Faced Goddesses. Titus roared his final threat.

Manon twisted to her feet and ran.

Every step made stars flash, and the ground shook as Titus barreled after her, willing to tear through the bait beast to kill her if necessary.

Manon scooped up her sword and whirled, bringing it down upon the thick, rusted chain with every bit of strength left in her.

Wind-Cleaver, they called her blade. Now they would call it Iron-Cleaver. The chain snapped free as Titus leapt for her.

Titus didn’t see it coming, and there was something like shock in his eyes as the bait beast tackled him and they rolled.

Titus was twice its size and uninjured, and Manon didn’t wait to see the outcome before she took off for the tunnel, where the men were frantically lifting the gate.

But then a boom and a shocked murmur sounded, and Manon dared one look in time to see the wyverns leap apart and the bait beast strike again.

The blow from that scarred, useless tail was so strong that Titus’s head slammed into the dirt.

As Titus surged to his legs, the bait beast feinted with its tail and made a swipe with jagged claws that had Titus roaring in pain.

Manon froze, barely fifteen feet from the gate.

The wyverns circled each other, wings scraping against the ground. It should have been a joke. And yet the bait beast wouldn’t stand down, despite the limp, despite the scars and the blood.

Titus went right for the throat with no warning growl.

The bait beast’s tail connected with Titus’s head. Titus reeled back but then lunged, jaws and tail snapping. Once those barbs got into the flesh of the bait beast, it would be done. The bait beast dodged the tail by slamming its own down atop it, but it couldn’t escape the jaws that latched on to its neck.

Over. It should be over.

The bait beast thrashed, but couldn’t get free. Manon knew she should run. Others were shouting. She had been born without sympathy or mercy or kindness. She didn’t care which one of them lived or died, so long as she escaped. But that current was still flowing, flowing toward the fight, not away from it. And she owed the bait beast a life debt.

So Manon did the most foolish thing she’d ever done in her long, wicked life.

She ran for Titus and brought Wind-Cleaver down upon his tail. She severed clean through flesh and bone, and Titus roared, releasing his prey. The stump of his tail lashed at her, and Manon took it right in the stomach, the air knocked out of her before she could even hit the ground. When she raised herself, she saw the final lunge that ended it.

Throat exposed by his bellows of pain, Titus didn’t stand a chance as the bait beast pounced and closed its jaws around that mighty neck.

Titus had one last thrash, one final attempt to pry himself free. The bait beast held firm, as though he’d been waiting for weeks or months or years. He clamped down and wrenched his head away, taking Titus’s throat with him.

Silence fell. As if the world stopped when Titus’s body crashed to the ground, black blood spilling everywhere. Manon stood absolutely still. Slowly, the bait beast lifted its head from the carcass, Titus’s blood dripping from his maw. Their eyes met.

People were shouting at her to run, and the gates groaned open, but Manon stared into those black eyes, one of them horribly scarred but intact. He took a step, then another toward her.

Manon held her ground. It was impossible. Impossible. Titus was twice his size, twice his weight, and had years of training.

The bait beast had trounced him—not because he was bigger or stronger, but because he wanted it more. Titus had been a brute and a killer, yet this wyvern before her... he was a warrior.

Men were rushing in with spears and swords and whips, and the bait beast growled.

Manon held up a hand. And again, the world stopped.

Manon, eyes still upon the beast, said, “He’s mine.”

He had saved her life. Not by coincidence, but by choice. He’d felt the current running between them, too. “What?” her grandmother barked from above.

Manon found herself walking toward the wyvern, and stopped with not five feet between them. “He’s mine,” Manon said, taking in the scars, the limp, the burning life in those eyes.

The witch and the wyvern looked at each other for a moment that lasted for a heartbeat, that lasted for eternity. “You’re mine,” Manon said to him.

The wyvern blinked at her, Titus’s blood still dripping from his cracked and broken teeth, and Manon had the feeling that he had come to the same decision. Perhaps he had known long before tonight, and his fight with Titus hadn’t been so much about survival as it had been a challenge to claim her.

As his rider. As his mistress. As his.”

-Heir of Fire, pages 184-186

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #fantasy #fiction #throne of glass #heir of fire #manon blackbeak #manon #abraxos #manon and abraxos

[sjmaassassin]

“Nesta gritted her teeth, trying to haul Cassian up once more. A broken sound of pain ripped from him. “Go!” he barked at her.

“I can’t,” she breathed, voice breaking. “I can’t.”

The same words Rhys had given him.

Cassian grunted in pain, but lifted his bloodied hands—to cup her face. “I have no regrets in my life, but this.” His voice shook with every word. “That we did not have time. That I did not have time with you, Nesta.”

She didn’t stop him as he leaned up and kissed her—lightly. As much as he could manage.

Cassian said softly, brushing away the tear that streaked down her face, “I will find you again in the next world—the next life. And we will have that time. I promise.”

The King of Hybern stepped into that clearing, dark power wafting from his fingertips.

And even the Cauldron seemed to pause in surprise—surprise or some... feeling as Nesta looked at the king with death twining around his hands, then down at Cassian.

And covered Cassian’s body with her own.

Cassian went still—then his hand slid over her back.

Together. They’d go together.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, page 652

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #fantasy #fiction #cassian #nesta #nesta x cassian #king of hybern

[sjmaassassin]

“Rhys looked them each in the eye, even my sisters, his hand brushing the back of my own.

“Do you want the inspiring talk or the bleak one?” he asked.

“We want the real one,” Amren said.

Rhys pushed his shoulders back, elegantly folding his wings behind him. “I believe everything happens for a reason. Whether it is decided by the Mother, or the Cauldron, or some sort of tapestry of Fate, I don’t know. I don’t really care. But I am grateful for it, whatever it is. Grateful that it brought you all into my life. If it hadn’t... I might have become as awful as that prick we’re going to face today. If I had not met an Illyrian warrior-in-training,” he said to Cassian, “I would not have known the true depths of strength, of resilience, of honor and loyalty.” Cassian’s eyes gleamed bright. Rhys said to Azriel, “If I had not met a shadowsinger, I would not have known that it is the family you make, not the one you are born into, that matters. I would not have known what it is to truly hope, even when the world tells you to despair.” Azriel bowed his head in thanks.

Mor was already crying when Rhys spoke to her. “If I had not met my cousin, I would never have learned that light can be found in even the darkest of hells. That kindness can thrive even amongst cruelty.” She wiped away her tears as she nodded.

I waited for Amren to offer a retort. But she was only waiting.

Rhys bowed his head to her. “If I had not met a tiny monster who hoards jewels more fiercely than a firedrake...” A quiet laugh from all of us at that. Rhys smiled softly. “My own power would have consumed me long ago.”

Rhys squeezed my hand as he looked to me at last. “And if I had not met my mate...” His words failed him as silver lined his eyes.

He said down the bond, I would have waited five hundred more years for you. A thousand years. And if this was all the time we were allowed to have... The wait was worth it.

He wiped away the tears sliding down my face. “I believe that everything happened, exactly the way it had to... so I could find you.” He kissed another tear away.

And then he said to my sisters, “We have not known each other for long. But I have to believe that you were brought here, into our family, for a reason, too. And maybe today we’ll find out why.”

He surveyed them all again—and held out his hand to Cassian. Cassian took it, and held out his other for Mor. Then Mor extended her other to Azriel. Azriel to Amren. Amren to Nesta. Nesta to Elain. And Elain to me. Until we were all linked, all bound together.

Rhys said, “We will walk onto that field and only accept Death when it comes to haul us away to the Otherworld. We will fight for life, for survival, for our futures. But if it is decided by that tapestry of Fate or the Cauldron or the Mother that we do not walk off that field today...” His chin lifted. “The great joy and honor of my life has been to know you. To call you my family. And I am grateful—more than I can possibly say—that I was given this time with you all.”

“We are grateful, Rhysand,” Amren said quietly. “More than you know.”

Rhys gave her a small smile as the others murmured their agreement.

He squeezed my hand again as he said, “Then let’s go make Hybern very ungrateful to have known us, too.””

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, pages 612-613

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #feyre #rhysand #fantasy #fiction #cassian #azriel #elain #nesta #amren #morrigan #mor #inner circle

[sjmaassassin]

“I was still running for the cliff as [Azriel] whirled, revealing a pain-bleached face, while he gripped the two women tightly.

But he beheld what charged after me. The sprint ahead. And for the first time since I had known him, there was terror in Azriel’s eyes as he watched me make that run.

I flapped my wings, an updraft hailing my feet up, then crashing them down onto the rock. I stumbled, but kept running, kept flapping, back screaming—

Another one of the hounds broke past Tamlin’s guard. Came barreling down that narrow stretch of rock, claws gouging the stone beneath. I could have sworn the king laughed from behind.

“Faster!” Azriel roared, blood oozing with each wing beat. I could see the dawn through the sheds in the membrane. “Push up!”

The stone echoed with the thunderous steps of the hound at my heels.

“Hold them high!”

I stretched my wings as far as they would go. Thirty steps between me and the ledge.

“Legs up!”

Twenty steps. The sun broke over the eastern horizon, gilding Azriel’s bloody armor with gold.

Ten steps. I beat my wings, muscles screaming, blood sliding past even that Siphon’s bandage. Beat them as I sent a wave of wind rising up beneath me, air filling the flexible membrane, even as the bone and sinews strained to snapping.

My feet lifted from the ground. Then hit again. I pushed with the wind, flapping like hell. The hound gained on me.

Five steps. I knew—I knew that whatever force had compelled me to learn to fly... Somehow, it had known. That this moment was coming. All of it—all of it, for this moment.

And with barely three steps to the edge of that cliff... A warm wind, kissed with lilac and new grass, blasted up from beneath me. A wind of—spring. Lifting me, filling my wings.

My feet rose. And rose. And rose.

The hound leaped after me.

“Bank!”

I threw my body sideways, wings swinging me wide. The rising dawn and drop and sky tilted and spun before I evened out.

I looked behind me to see that naga-hound snap at where my heels and been. And then plunge down, down, down into the ravine and river below.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, pages 578-580

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #feyre #fantasy #fiction #azriel #wings

[sjmaassassin]

“Run, the Suriel mouthed once more, blood dribbling past its withered lips.

That was pain in its eyes. Real pain, as mortal as any creature. And if Ianthe took it alive to Hybern... The Suriel knew it was a possibility. It had begged me for freedom once... yet it was willing to be taken. For me to run.

Its milky eyes narrowed—in pain and understanding. Yes, it seemed to say. Go.

[...]

Sprawled out, the Suriel’s bony chest heaved unevenly, its breaths few and far between.

Dying.

I slid to my knees before it, sinking in the bloody moss. “Let me help you. I can heal you.”

I’d do it the same way I’d helped Rhysand. Remove those arrows—and offer it my blood.

I reached for the first one, but a dry, bony hand settled on my wrist. “Your magic...,” it rasped, “is spent. Do not... waste it.”

“I can save you.”

It only gripped my wrist. “I am already gone.”

“What—what can I do?” The words turned thin—brittle.

“Stay...,” it breathed. “Stay... until the end.”

I took its hand in mine. “I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say. I had done this—I had brought it here.

“I knew,” it gasped, sensing my shift in thoughts. “The tracking... I knew of it.”

“Then why come at all?”

“You... were kind. You... fought your fear. You were... kind,” it said again.

I began crying.

“And you were kind to me,” I said, not brushing away the tears that fell into its bloodied, tattered robe. “Thank you—for helping me. When no one else would.”

A small smile on that lipless mouth. “Feyre Archeron.” A labored breath. “I told you—to stay with the High Lord. And you did.”

Its warning to me that first time we’d met. “You—you meant Rhys.” All this time. All this time—

“Stay with him... and live to see everything righted.”

“Yes. I did—and it was.”

“No—not yet. Stay with him.”

“I will.” I always would.

Its chest rose—then fell.

“I don’t even know your name,” I whispered. The Suriel—it was a title, a name for its kind.

That small smile again. “Does it matter, Cursebreaker?”

“Yes.”

Its eyes dimmed, but it did not tell me. It only said, “You should go now. Worse things—worse things are coming. The blood... draws them.”

I squeezed its bony hand, the leathery skin growing colder. “I can stay a while longer.”

I had killed enough animals to know when a body neared death. Soon, now—it would be a matter of breaths.

“Feyre Archeron,” the Suriel said again, gazing at the leafy canopy, the sky peeking through it. A painful inhale. “A request.”

I leaned close. “Anything.”

Another rattling breath. “Leave this world... a better place than how you found it.”

And as its chest rose and stopped altogether, as its breath escaped in one last sigh, I understood why the Suriel had come to help me, again and again. Not just for kindness... but because it was a dreamer.

And it was the heart of a dreamer that had ceased beating inside that monstrous chest.

Its sudden silence echoed into my own.

I laid my head on its chest, on that now-silent vault of bone, and wept.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, pages 533-539

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #feyre #fantasy #fiction #suriel #feyre cursebreaker #feyre archeron

[sjmaassassin]

“There was one mounted commander who did not go easily. Who didn’t turn his horse toward that river behind them to flee.

Cassian selected him as his opponent.

Mor gripped my hand tight enough to hurt as Cassian stepped out of that impenetrable front line of shields and swords, the soldiers around him immediately closing the gap. Mud and blood splattered Cassian’s dark helmet, his armor.

He ditched his tall shield for a round one strapped across his back, crafted from the same ebony metal.

And then he launched into a run.

I could have sworn even Rhys paused on the other end of the battlefield to watch as Cassian cut his way through those enemy soldiers, aiming for the mounted Hybern commander. Who realized what and who was coming for him and started to search for a better weapon.

Cassian had been born for this—these fields, this chaos and brutality and calculation.

He didn’t stop moving, seemed to know where every opponent fought both ahead and behind, seemed to breathe in the flow of the battle around him. He even let his Siphons’ shield drop—to get close, to feel the impact of the arrows that he took in that ebony shield. If he slammed that shield into a soldier, his other arm was already swinging his sword at the next opponent.

[...]

Three soldiers were brave or stupid enough to try to charge him. Cassian had them down and dying with four maneuvers.

“Holy Mother,” I breathed.

That was who had been training me. Why Fae trembled at his name.

Why the high-born Illyrian warriors had been jealous enough to want him dead.

But there Cassian was, no one between him and the commander.

The commander had found a discarded spear. He threw it.

Fast and sure, I skipped a heartbeat as it spiraled for Cassian.

His knees bent, wings tucked in tight, shield twisting—

He took the spear in the shield with an impact I could have sworn I heard, then sliced off the shaft and kept running.

Within a heartbeat, Cassian had sheathed both the shield and sword across his back.

And I would have asked why but he’d already picked up another fallen spear.

Already hurled it, his entire body going into the throw, the movement so perfect that I knew I’d one day paint it.

Both armies seemed to stop at the throw.

Even with the distance, Cassian’s spear hit home.

It went right through the commander’s chest, so hard it knocked the male clean off his horse.

By the time he was done falling, Cassian was there.

His sword caught the sunlight as it lifted and plunged down.

Cassian had picked his mark well. Hybern fled now. Outright turned and fled for the river.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, pages 509-510

Art Credit to: @pojainter

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #feyre #rhysand #fantasy #fiction #cassian #commander #hybern #illyrian

[sjmaassassin]

There’s so much debate about who Elain would be better with—Azriel or Lucien?

Lucien is her mate; her equal; her soul-bonded. He can feel her in ways others cannot, and he is a noble enough Fae male to be deserving of sweet Elain.

On the other hand, Azriel is soft-spoken; unyielding when he needs to be, but understanding and respectful all the same. Despite Lucien being Elain’s mate, there are a lot of signs that point to Azriel being a better match for her. I feel as though they would be comfortable together; always, and have unbroken loyalty to each other.

An Archeron sister for each of the Inner Circle males may be too cliché for Sarah J Maas and her prodigious plots!

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #fantasy #fiction #elain #elain x lucien #elain x azriel #lucien #lucien vanserra #azriel #shadowsinger

[sjmaassassin]

“Dark-haired, with eyes of crushing blue.

I started at the child’s face—what I had not noticed that first time. What I had not understood.

It was Rhysand’s face. The coloring, the eyes... it was my mate’s face.

But the Carver’s full, wide mouth, curled into that hideous smile... That was my mouth. My father’s mouth.

[...]

The High Lord’s son. My son. Our son. Should we survive long enough to bear him.

[...]

Not just any boy, then.

No. Not just any boy.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, page 235 & 385

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #feyre #rhysand #fantasy #fiction #bone carver #carver

[sjmaassassin]

Rhysand

Two Years Before the Wall

“The buzzing flies and screaming survivors had long since replaced the beating war-drums.

The killing field was now a tangled sprawl of corpses, human and faerie alike, interrupted only by broken wings jutting toward the gray sky or the occasional bulk of a felled horse.

With the heat, despite the heavy cloud cover, the smell would soon be unbearable. Flies already crawled along eyes gazing unblinkingly upward. They didn’t differentiate between mortal and immortal flesh.

[...]

So still—the battlefield was so still, compared to the slaughter and chaos that had finally halted hours ago. The Loyalist army had retreated rather than surrender, leaving their dead for the crows.

[...]

A half-shredded Illyrian wing jutted from a cluster of High Fae corpses, as if it had taken all six of them to bring the warrior down. As if he’d taken them all out with him.

My heartbeat pounded through my battered body as I hauled away the piled corpses.

[...]

My aching, bloody fingers dug into the dented armor and clammy, stiff flesh as I heaved away the last of the High Fae corpses piled atop the fallen Illyrian soldier.

The dark hair, the golden-brown skin... The same as Cassian’s.

But it was not Cassian’s death-gray face that gaped at the sky.

My breath whooshed from me, my lungs still raw from roaring, my lips dry and chapped.

[...]

I picked my way through the corpses to another Illyrian.

Then another. And another.

Some I knew. Some I didn’t. Still the killing field stretched onward under the sky.

Mile after mile. A kingdom of the rotting dead.

And still I looked.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, pages 1-4

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #rhysand #fantasy #fiction #war #cassian #azriel #illyrian

[sjmaassassin]

The badass character couples from Sarah J Maas’s three series; Feyre, Bryce and Aelin; Rhysand, Hunt and Rowan. ✨

#sarah j maas #sjmaas #acotar #acowar #acomaf #feyre #rhysand #throne of glass #fantasy #fiction #aelin galythinius #aelin #rowan whitethorn #rowan #hunt #bryce #crescent city

[sjmaassassin]

“But he’d at last approached Nesta. And as the world began to turn to shadows and wind, I saw Cassian tower over my sister, saw her chin lift defiantly, and heard him growl, “Hello, Nesta.”

Rhys seemed to halt his winnowing as my sister said, “So you’re alive.”

Cassian bared his teeth in a feral grin, wings flaring slightly. “Were you hoping otherwise?”

Mor was watching—watching so closely, every muscle tense. She again reached for his arm, but Cassian angled out of reach, not tearing his eyes from Nesta’s blazing gaze.

Nesta blurted, “You didn’t come to—” She stopped herself.

The world seemed to go utterly still at that interrupted sentence, nothing and no one more so than Cassian. He scanned her face as if furiously reading some battle report.

Mor just watched as Cassian took Nesta’s slim hand in his own, interlacing their fingers. As he folded his wings and blindly reached his other hand back toward Mor in a silent order to transport them.

Cassian’s eyes did not leave Nesta’s; nor did hers leave his. There was no warmth, no tenderness on either of their faces. Only that raging intensity, that blend of contempt and understanding and fire.

Rhys began to winnow us again, and just as the dark wind swept in, I heard Cassian say to Nesta, his voice low and rough, “The next time, Emissary, I’ll come say hello.””

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, pages 398-399

#acotar #acomaf #acowar #sarah j maas #sjmaas #cassian #nesta #nessian #nesta x cassian

[sjmaassassin]

“Rhys held out a hand for me to ascend the dais steps. I kept my head high, back straight, as I gripped his fingers and strode up the few stairs. Toward that solitary throne.

Rhys only winked as he gracefully escorted me right into that throne, the movement as easy and smooth as a dance.

The crowd murmured as I sat, the black stone bitingly cold against my bare thighs.

They outright gasped as Rhys simply perched on the arm of the throne, smirked at me, and said to the Court of Nightmares, “Bow.”

For they had not. And with me seated on that throne...

Their faces were still a mixture of shock and disdain as they all dropped to their knees.”

-A Court of Wings and Ruin, page 263

#acotar #acomaf #acowar #sarah j maas #sjmaas #feyre #rhysand #court of nightmares

[sjmaassassin]

“I stared out at Velaris with him, listening to the sounds of the day wrapping up—and the night unfolding. Adriata felt rudimentary by comparison.

“I understand,” I said, rubbing some warmth into my now-chilled hands, “why you did what you had to in order to protect this city.” Imagining the destruction that had been wreaked upon Adriata here in Velaris made my blood run cold. His eyes slid to me, wary and dull. I swallowed. “And I understand why you will do anything to keep it safe during the times ahead.”

“And your point is?”

A bad day—this was a bad day, I realized, for him. I didn’t scowl at the bite in his words. “Get through this war, Rhysand, and then worry about Tarquin and the blood rubies. Nullify the Cauldron, stop the king from shattering the wall and enslaving the human realm again, and then we’ll figure out the rest after.”

“You sound as if you plan to stay here for a while.” A bland, but edged question.

“I can find my own lodging, if that’s what you’re referring to. Maybe I’ll use that generous paycheck to get myself something lavish.”

Come on. Wink at me. Play with me. Just—stop looking like that.

He only said, “Spare your paycheck. Your name has already been added to the list of those approved to use my household credit. Buy whatever you wish. Buy yourself a whole damn house if you want.”

I ground my teeth, and maybe it was panic or desperation, but I said sweetly, “I saw a pretty stop across the Sidra the other day. It sold what looked to be lots of little lacy things. Am I allowed to buy that on your credit, too, or does that come out of my personal funds?”

Those violet eyes again drifted to me. “I’m not in the mood.”

There was no humor, no mischief. I could go warm myself by a fire inside, but...

He had stayed. And fought for me.

Week after week, he’d fought for me, even when I had no reaction, even when I had barely been able to speak or bring myself to care if I lived or died or ate or starved. I couldn’t leave him to his own dark thoughts, his own guilt. He’d shouldered them long enough.

[...]

“I gave [Tarquin] a few smiles and he handed over a family heirloom. I bet he’d give me the keys to his territory if I showed up wearing those undergarments.”

“Someone thinks mighty highly of herself.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You seem to have difficult not staring at me day and night.”

There it was—a kernel of truth and a question.

“Am I supposed to deny,” he drawled, but something sparked in those eyes, “that I find you attractive?”

“You’ve never said it.”

“I’ve told you many times, and quite frequently, how attractive I find you.”

I shrugged, even as I thought of all those times, when I’d dismissed them as teasing compliments, nothing more. “Well, maybe you should do a better job of it.”

The gleam in his eyes turned into something predatory. A thrill went through me as he braced his powerful arms on the table and purred, “Is that a challenge, Feyre?”

I held that predator’s gaze—the gaze of the most powerful male in Prythian. “Is it?”

His pupils flared. Gone was the quiet sadness, the isolated guilt. Only that lethal focus—on me. On my mouth.”

-A Court of Mist and Fury, pages 365-367

#acotar #acomaf #acowar #sarah j maas #sjmaas #rhysand #feyre #velaris