Sarah J. Maas

“It was not the sorrowful, lovely piece she had once played for Dorian, and it was not the light, dancing melodies she'd played for sport; it was not the complex and clever pieces she had played for Nehemia and Chaol. This piece was a celebration—a reaffirmation of life, of glory, of the pain and beauty in breathing.Perhaps that was why she'd gone to hear it performed every year, after so much killing and torture and punishment: as a reminder of that she was, of what she struggled to”

“Say it,” I gritted out.“The High Lord of the Night Court is your mate.”

“Having Aelin help him the first time had been awkward enough that he couldn’t even go until she started singing a bawdy tune at the top of her lungs and turned on the sink faucet, all the while helping him stand over the toilet.”

“Aelin sighed. 'This place has been shut down for months, and yet I swear I can still hear the music floating in the air.'Rowan angled his head, studying the dark with those immortal senses. 'Perhaps the music does live on, in some form.'The thought made her eyes sting.”

“I didn’t think saying good-bye would be so hard. And with everything that’s to come—We’ll face it together. To whatever end.”

“I like music,' she said slowly, 'because when I hear it, I...I lose myself within myself if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once.”

“Sam," she said."I'm trying!""Sam," she repeated."No," he spat, hearing her tone. "No!"He began screaming for help then. Celaena pressed her face to one of the holes in the grate. Help wasn't going to come-not fast enough."Please," Sam begged as he beat and yanked on the grate, he tried to wedge another dagger under the lid. "Please don't."She knew he wasn't speaking to her.The water hit her neck."Please," Sam moaned, his fingers now touching hers. She'd have one last breath. Her last words."Take my body home to Terrasen, Sam," she whispered. And with a gasping breath, she went under.”

“I have no name," she purred. "I'm whoever the keepers of my fate tell me to be.”

“She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, it's long blade gleaming as if he'd been secretly polishing and caring for it these months.And when she grasped the dagger, it's weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into her very core of her, and said, 'Fireheart'.”

“A life of open skies and roads, of wandering where the wind takes you, answering to no one and nothing? A life of freedom…” She shook her head. “What more could I ask than to live a life unchecked by cages?”

“Perhaps there was an unstoppable magic inherent in music and art.”

“Hearing that people read my books when they were sick, or that the books helped them find an escape when they were having a hard time... stuff like that makes all the hard work pay off.”

“Where do men find it in themselves to do such monstrous things?”

“Everyone wants to talk-talk-talk. Can't we eat-eat-eat, and then talk?”

“But Amarantha rolled her eyes and slouched in her throne. “Shatter him, Rhysand.” She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. “You may do what you want with the body afterward.”The High Lord of the Summer Court bowed—as if he’d been given a gift—and looked to his subject, who had gone still and calm on the floor, hugging his knees. The male faerie was ready—relieved.Rhys slipped a hand out of his pocket, and it dangled at his side. I could have sworn phantom talons flickered there as his fingers curled slightly.“I’m growing bored, Rhysand,” Amarantha said with a sigh, again fiddling with that bone. She hadn’t looked at me once, too focused on her current prey.Rhysand’s fingers curled into a fist.The faerie male’s eyes went wide—then glazed as he slumped to the side in the puddle of his own waste. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ears, pooling on the floor.That fast—that easily, that irrevocably … he was dead.“I said shatter his mind, not his brain,” Amarantha snapped.The crowd murmured around me, stirring. I wanted nothing more than to fade back into it—to crawl back into my cell and burn this from my mind. Tamlin hadn’t flinched—not a muscle. What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn’t broken that distant expression, that control?Rhysand shrugged, his hand sliding back into his pocket. “Apologies, my queen.” He turned away without being dismissed, and didn’t look at me as he strode for the back of the throne room. I fell into step beside him, reining in my trembling, trying not to think about the body sprawled behind us, or about Clare—still nailed to the wall.The crowd stayed far, far back as we walked through it. “Whore,” some of them softly hissed at him, out of her earshot; “Amarantha’s whore.” But many offered tentative, appreciative smiles and words—“Good that you killed him; good that you killed the traitor.”

“You can't get any more epic than a lightsaber battle.”

“Why does anything cling to something? Maybe they love wherever they're going so much that it's worth it. Maybe they'll keep coming back, until there's only one star left. Maybe that one star will make the trip forever, out of the hope that someday—if it keeps coming back often enough—another star will find it again.”

“The stag’s enormous head turned slightly—toward the wagon, toward the small window.The Lord of the North.So the people of Terrasen will always know how to find their way home, she’d once told Ansel as they lay under a blanket of stars and traced the constellation of the stag. So they can look up at the sky, no matter where they are, and know Terrasen is forever with them.”

“The winds shifted, and Abraxos rode them, rising higher into the sky, the darkened kingdom below passing by in a blur.Changing winds—a changing world.Perhaps a changing Thirteen, too. And herself.She didn't know what to make of it,But Manon hoped they'd all survive it.She hoped.”

“Hide from fate all you like,” Baba Yellowlegs said as they turned away. “But it shall soon find you!”