163
" There was a second scream then, from the mountains. From the Blueblood Matron, screaming for her daughter as she plummeted down to the rocks below. The other Bluebloods whirled, but they were too far away, their wyverns too slow to stop that fatal plunge.
But Abraxos was not.
And Manon didn't know if she gave the command or thought it, but that scream, that mother's scream she'd never heard before, made her lean in. Abraxos dove, a shooting star with his glistening wings.
They dove and dove, for the broken wyvern and the still-living witch upon it. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
164
" There is... this rage." she said "This despair and hatred and rage that lives and breathes inside me. There's not sanity to it, no gentleness. It is a monster dwelling under my skin. For the past ten years, I have worked every day, every hour, to keep that monster locked up. And the moment I talk about those two days, and what happened before and after, that monster is going to break loose, and there will be no accounting for what I do."
"That is how I was able to stand before the King of Adarlan, how I was able to befriend his son and his captain, how I was able to live in that palace. Because I did not give that rage, those memories, one inch. And right now I am looking for the tools that might destroy my enemy, and I cannot let out the monster, because it will make me use those tools against the king, not put them back as I should—and I might very well destroy the world for spite. So that is why I must be Celaena, not Aelin—because being Aelin means facing those things, unleashing that monster. Do you understand? "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
171
" 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 lashing. "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 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 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. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
173
" She didn't want to recall how Nehemia had been used—had used herself—against her, to force her to act. Wanted to pretend she wasn't starting to forget what Nehemia had looked like.
"Shift again," Rowan ordered, jerking his chin at her. "This time, try to—"
She was forgetting what Nehemia looked like. The shade of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the smell of her. Her laugh. The roaring in Celaena's head went quiet, silenced by that familiar nothingness.
Do not let that light go out
But Celaena didn't know how to stop it. The one person she could have told, who might have understood . . . She was buried in an unadorned grave, so far from the sun-warmed soil that she had loved. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
174
" So Dorian let his father rage. He sat in on those meetings and shut down his revulsion and horror when his father sent a third minister to the butchering block. For Sorscha, for the promise of keeping her safe, of someday, perhaps, not having to hide what and who he was, he kept on his well-worn mask, offered banal suggestions about what to do regarding Aelin, and pretended. One last time.
When Celaena got back, when she returned as she'd sworn she would . . .
Then they would set about changing the world together. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
175
" No."
Chaol thought he had not heard it, the word that cleaved through the air just before the guard's sword did.
One blow from that mighty sword.
That was all it took to sever Sorscha's head.
The scream that erupted out of Dorian was the worst sound that Chaol had ever heard.
Worse even than the wet, heavy thud of her head hitting the red marble.
Aedion began roaring—roaring and cursing at the king, thrashing against his chains, but the guards hauled him away, and Chaol was too stunned to do anything other than watch the rest of Sorscha's body topple to the ground. And then Dorian, still screaming, was scrambling through the blood toward it—toward her head, as if he could put it back.
As if he could piece her together. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
177
" So Sorscha lifted her head, even as her mouth trembled, even as her eyes burned, and stared down the King of Adarlan.
“You destroyed everything I had, and you deserve everything that's to come,” she said. Then she looked at Dorian, whose eyes were indeed wide, his face bone-white. “I was not supposed to love you. But I did. I do. And there is so much I wish . . . I wish we could have done together, seen together. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)
179
" Maybe there could be no future, no hope of anything more, but just looking at him standing there, in this moment, she wanted to be selfish and stupid and wild.
It could all go to hell tomorrow, but she had to know what it was like, just for a little while, to belong to someone, to be wanted and cherished.
He did not move, didn't do anything but stare—seeing her exactly how she saw him—as she grabbed the lapels of his tunic, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him fiercely. "
― Sarah J. Maas , Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3)