Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Chaol couldn’t start the fight, not with that sword resting on Sorscha’s neck. That was his
first goal: get the girl out alive. Then Aedion. Dorian, the king wouldn’t kill—not here,
not in this way. But Aedion and Sorscha had to get away. And that could not happen until
the king called off the guard. Then Dorian spoke.

“Let her go and I’ll tell you anything.” Dorian took a step toward his father, palms out.
“She has nothing to do with—with whatever this is. Whatever you think has happened.”

“But you do?” The king was still smiling. There was a carved, round bit of familiar
black stone resting on the small table beside the king. From the distance, Chaol couldn’t
see what it was, but it made his stomach turn over regardless. “Tell me, son: why were
General Ashryver and Captain Westfall meeting these months?”

“I don’t know.”

The king clicked his tongue, and the guard raised his sword to strike. Chaol started
forward as Sorscha sucked in a breath.

“No—stop!” Dorian flung out a hand.

“Then answer the question.”

“I am! You bastard, I am! I don’t know why they were meeting!”

The guard’s sword still remained up, ready to fall before Chaol could move an inch.

“Do you know that there has been a spy in my castle for several months now, Prince?
Someone feeding information to my enemies and plotting against me with a known rebel
leader?”

Shit. Shit. He had to mean Ren—the king knew who Ren was, had sent those men to
hunt him down.

“Just tell me who, Dorian, and you can do whatever you wish with your friend.”

The king didn’t know, then—if it was he or Aedion or both of them who had been
meeting with Ren. He didn’t know how much they’d learned about his plans, his control
over magic. Aedion was somehow still keeping his mouth shut, somehow still looking
ready for battle.

Aedion, who had survived for so long without hope, holding together his kingdom as
best he could … who would never see the queen he so fiercely loved. He deserved to meet
her, and she deserved to have him serve in her court.

Chaol took a breath, preparing himself for the words that would doom him.

But it was Aedion who spoke.

“You want a spy? You want a traitor?” the general drawled, and flung his replicated
black ring on the floor. “Then here I am. You want to know why the captain and I were
meeting? It was because your stupid bastard of a boy-captain figured out that I’d been
working with one of the rebels. He’s been blackmailing information out of me for months
to give to his father to offer you when the Lord of Anielle needed a favor. And you know
what?” Aedion grinned at them all, the Northern Wolf incarnate. If the king was shocked

about the ring, he didn’t show it. “All you monsters can burn in hell. Because my queen is
coming—and she will spike you to the walls of your gods-damned castle. And I can’t wait
to help her gut you like the pigs you are.” He spat at the king’s feet, right on top of the
fake ring that had stopped bouncing.

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.

Chaol nodded slightly, because he understood that he could not help, not at this point—
not until that sword was removed from Sorscha’s neck. Then he could fight, and he might
still get them out alive.

Aedion didn’t struggle as the guards clapped shackles around his wrists and ankles.

“I’ve always wondered about that ring,” the king said. “Was it the distance, or some
true strength of spirit that made you so unresponsive to its suggestions? But regardless, I
am so glad that you confessed to treason, Aedion.” He spoke with slow, deliberate glee.
“So glad you did it in front of all these witnesses, too. It will make your execution that
much easier. Though I think…” The king smiled and looked at the fake black ring. “I
think I’ll wait. Perhaps give it a month or two. Just in case any last-minute guests have to
travel a long, long way for the execution. Just in case someone gets it into her head that
she can rescue you.”

Aedion snarled. Chaol bit back his own reaction. Perhaps the king had never had
anything on them—perhaps this had only been a ruse to get Aedion to confess to
something, because the king knew that the general would offer up his own life instead of
an innocent’s. The king wanted to savor this, and savor the trap that he had now set for
Aelin, even if it cost him a fine general in the process. Because once she heard that Aedion
was captured, once she knew the execution date … she would run to Rifthold.

“After she comes for you,” Aedion promised the king, “they’ll have to scrape what’s
left of you off the walls.”

The king only smiled. Then he looked to Dorian and Sorscha, who seemed to be hardly
breathing. The healer remained on the floor and did not lift her head as the king braced his
massive forearms on his knees and said, “And what do you have to say for yourself, girl?”

She trembled, shaking her head.

“That’s enough,” Dorian snapped, sweat gleaming on his brow. The prince winced in
pain as his magic was repressed by the iron in his system. “Aedion confessed; now let her
go.”

“Why should I release the true traitor in this castle?”

Sorscha couldn’t stop shaking as the king spoke.

All her years of remaining invisible, all her training, first from those rebels in
Fenharrow, then the contacts they’d sent her family to in Rifthold … all of it ruined.

“Such interesting letters you send to your friend. Why, I might not ever have read
them,” the king said, “if you hadn’t left one in the rubbish for your superior to find. See—
you rebels have your spies, and I have mine. And as soon as you decided to start using my
son…” She could feel the king smirking at her. “How many of his movements did you
report to your rebel friends? What secrets of mine have you given away over the years?”

“Leave her alone,” Dorian growled. It was enough to set her crying. He still thought
she was innocent.

And maybe, maybe he could get out of this if he was surprised enough by the truth, if
the king saw his son’s shock and disgust.

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 that 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.”

The prince just stared at her, then walked to the foot of the dais and dropped to his
knees. “Name your price,” he said to his father. “Ask it of me, but let her go. Exile her.
Banish her. Anything—say it, and it will be done.”

She began shaking her head, trying to find the words to tell him that she hadn’t
betrayed him—not her prince. The king, yes. She had reported his movements for years, in
each carefully written letter to her “friend.” But never Dorian.

The king looked at his son for a long moment. He looked at the captain and Aedion, so
quiet and so tall—beacons of hope for their future.

Then he looked again at his son, on his knees before the throne, on his knees for her,
and said, “No.”

“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.

Chapter 65

Chaol hadn’t been able to move a muscle from the moment the guard cut off Sorscha’s
head to the moment Dorian, still kneeling in a pool of her blood, stopped screaming.

“That is what awaits traitors,” the king said to the silent room.

And Chaol looked at the king, at his shattered friend, and drew his sword.

The king rolled his eyes. “Put away your sword, Captain. I’ve no interest in your noble
antics. You’re to go home to your father tomorrow. Don’t leave this castle in disgrace.”

Chaol kept his sword drawn. “I will not go to Anielle,” he growled. “And I will not
serve you a moment longer. There is one true king in this room—there always has been.
And he is not sitting on that throne.”

Dorian stiffened.

But Chaol went on. “There is a queen in the north, and she has already beaten you
once. She will beat you again. And again. Because what she represents, and what your son
represents, is what you fear most: hope. You cannot steal it, no matter how many you rip
from their homes and enslave. And you cannot break it, no matter how many you murder.”

The king shrugged. “Perhaps. But maybe I can start with you.” He flicked his fingers at
the guards. “Kill him, too.”

Chaol whirled to the guards behind him and crouched, ready to fight a path out for
himself and Dorian.

Then a crossbow snapped and he realized there had been others in the room—hidden
behind impossibly thick shadows.

He had only enough time to twist—to see the bolt firing for him with deadly accuracy.

Only enough time to see Dorian’s eyes widen, and the whole room plunge into ice.

The arrow froze midflight and dropped to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.

Chaol stared at Dorian in mute horror as his friend’s eyes glowed a deep, raging blue,
and the prince snarled at the king, “Don’t you touch him.”

The ice spread across the room, up the legs of the shocked guards, freezing over
Sorscha’s blood, and Dorian got to his feet. He raised both hands, and light shimmered
along his fingers, a cold breeze whipping through his hair.

“I knew you had it, boy—” the king started, standing, but Dorian threw out a hand and
the king was blasted into his chair by a gust of frozen wind, the window behind him
shattering. Wind roared into the room, drowning out all sound.

All sound except Dorian’s words as he turned to Chaol, his hands and clothes soaked
with Sorscha’s blood. “Run. And when you come back…” The king was getting to his

feet, but another wave of Dorian’s magic slammed into him, knocking him down. There
were tears staining Dorian’s bloody cheeks now. “When you come back,” the prince said,
“burn this place to the ground.”

A wall of crackling black hurtled toward them from behind the throne.

“Go,” Dorian ordered, turning toward the onslaught of his father’s power.

Light exploded from Dorian, blocking out the wave, and the entire castle shook.

People screamed, and Chaol’s knees buckled. For a moment, he debated making a stand
with his friend, right there and then.

But he knew that this had been the other trap. One for Aedion and Aelin, one for
Sorscha. And this one—this one to draw out Dorian’s power.

Dorian had known it, too. Known it, and still walked into it so Chaol could escape—to
find Aelin and tell her what had happened here today. Someone had to get out. Someone
had to survive.

He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known,
from the moment they’d met, when he’d understood that the prince was his brother in
soul. “I love you.”

Dorian merely nodded, eyes still blazing, and lifted his hands again toward his father.
Brother. Friend. King.

As another wave of the king’s power filled the room, Chaol shoved through the still-
frozen guards and fled.

Aedion knew everything had gone to hell as the castle shuddered. But he was already on
his way to the dungeons, bound from head to toe.

It had been such an easy choice to make. When the captain had been about to take the
fall for both of them, he’d thought only of Aelin, what it would do to her if her friend died.
Even if he never got to see her, it was still better than having to face her when he
explained that the captain was dead.

From the sound of it, it seemed the prince was providing a distraction so the captain
could flee—and because there was no way in hell the prince would let his father go
unpunished for that woman’s death. So Aedion Ashryver let himself be led into the
darkness.

He did not bother with prayers, for himself or for the captain. The gods had not helped
him these past ten years, and they would not save him now.

He did not mind dying.

Though he still wished he’d gotten a chance to see her—just once.

Dorian slammed into the marble floor, where the puddle of Sorscha’s blood had now
melted.

Even as his father sent a wave of blinding, burning black power crashing onto him,

filling his mouth and his veins; even as he screamed, all he could see was that moment—
when the sword cut through flesh and tendon and bone. He could still see her wide eyes,
her hair glimmering in the light as it, too, was severed.

He should have saved her. It had been so sudden.

But when the arrow had fired at Chaol … that was the death he could not endure. Chaol
had drawn his line—and Dorian was on his side of it. Chaol had called him his king.

So revealing his power to his father did not frighten him.

No, to save his friend, dying did not scare him one bit.

The blast of power receded, and Dorian was left panting on the stones. He had nothing
left.

Chaol had gotten away. It was enough.

He reached out an arm toward where Sorscha’s body lay. His arm burned—maybe it
was broken, or maybe it was his father’s power still branding him—but he reached for her
nonetheless.

By the time his father stood over him, he’d managed to move his hand a few inches.

“Do it,” Dorian rasped. He was choking—on blood and the gods knew what.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” his father said, digging a knee into his chest. “It won’t be death
for you, my gifted son.”

There was something dark and gleaming in his father’s hands.

Dorian fought like hell against the guards now pinning his arms, trying to drag up any
ounce of power as his father brought the collar of Wyrdstone toward his neck.

A collar, like the ones worn by those things Chaol had said were in the Dead Islands.

No—no.

He was screaming it—screaming it because he’d seen that creature in the catacombs,
and heard what was being done to Roland and Kaltain. He had seen what a mere ring
could do. This was an entire collar, with no visible keyhole …

“Hold him still,” his father barked, digging his knee in deeper.

The breath was sucked from his chest, and his ribs groaned in agony. But there was
nothing Dorian could do to stop it.

He wrenched his arm from one of the guards—wrenched it free and reached,
bellowing.

He had just touched Sorscha’s limp hand when cool stone gripped his throat, there was
a faint click and hiss, and the darkness swept in to tear him apart.

Chaol ran. He did not have the time to take anything except what he had on him as he
sprinted like hell for Dorian’s rooms. Fleetfoot was waiting, as she had been all night, and
he scooped her over a shoulder and hauled her to Celaena’s room and into the secret

passage. Down and down they went, the dog unusually obedient.

Three blasts shook the castle, shaking dust from the stones above. He kept running,
knowing each blast meant Dorian was alive a bit longer, and dreading the silence to come.

Hope—that was what he carried with him. The hope of a better world that Aedion and
Sorscha and Dorian had sacrificed themselves for.

He made one stop, with Fleetfoot still gripped over his shoulder.

With a silent prayer to the gods for their forgiveness, Chaol hurtled into the tomb to
grab Damaris, shoving the sacred blade through his belt and stuffing a few handfuls of
gold into his cloak pockets. And though the skull-shaped knocker didn’t move, he told
Mort precisely where he would be. “Just in case she comes back. In case … in case she
doesn’t know.”

Mort remained stationary, but Chaol had the sense he’d been listening all the same as
he grabbed the satchel containing Dorian and Celaena’s magic books and fled to the
passage that would take him to the sewer tunnel. A few minutes later, he was raising the
heavy iron grate over the sewer stream. The outside beyond was wholly dark and still.

As he heaved Fleetfoot back into his arms to swing them both around the wall and onto
the stream bank beyond, the castle went silent. There were screams, yes, but silence lurked
beneath them. He did not want to know if Dorian was alive or dead.

He couldn’t decide which was worse.

When Chaol got to the hidden apartment, Ren was pacing. “Where’s—”

There was blood on him, he realized. The spray from Sorscha’s neck. Chaol didn’t
know how he found the words, but he told Ren what had happened.

“So it’s just us?” Ren asked quietly. Chaol nodded. Fleetfoot was sniffing around in the
apartment, having made her inspection and decided Ren wasn’t worth eating—even after
Ren had protested that the dog might draw too much attention. She was staying; that was
nonnegotiable.

A muscle feathered in Ren’s jaw. “Then we find a way to free Aedion. As soon as
possible. You and me. Between your knowledge of the castle and my contacts, we can find
a way.” Then he whispered, “You said Dorian’s woman was—was a healer?” When Chaol
nodded, Ren looked like he was about to be sick, but he asked, “Was she named Sorscha?”

“You were the friend she sent those letters to,” Chaol breathed.

“I kept pressing her for information, kept…” Ren covered his face and took a
shuddering breath. When his eyes at last met Chaol’s, they were bright. Slowly, Ren held
out a hand. “You and me, we’ll find a way to free them. Both Aedion and your prince.”

Chaol didn’t hesitate as he gripped the rebel’s outstretched hand.

Chapter 66

“Morath,” Manon said, wondering if she’d heard right. “For battle?”

Her grandmother turned from the desk, eyes flashing. “To serve the duke, just as the
king ordered. He wants the Wing Leader in Morath with half the host ready to fly at a
moment’s notice. The others are to stay here under Iskra’s command to monitor the north.”

“And you—where will you be?”

Her grandmother hissed, rising. “So many questions now that you’re Wing Leader.”

Manon bowed her head. They had not spoken of the Crochan. Manon had gotten the
message: next time, it would be one of the Thirteen on her knees. So she kept her head
down as she said, “I only ask because I would not be parted with you, Grandmother.”

“Liar. And a pathetic one.” Her grandmother turned back to the desk. “I shall remain
here, but come to you in Morath during the summer. We have work to finish here.”

Manon lifted her chin, her new red cloak pooling around her, and asked, “And when
shall we fly to Morath?”

Her grandmother smiled, iron teeth shining. “Tomorrow.”

Even under the cover of darkness, the warm spring breeze was full of new grass and snow-
melted rivers, only disrupted by the booming of wings as Manon led the host south along
the Fangs.

They kept to the shadows of the mountains, shifting ranks and dipping out of sight to
prevent anyone from getting an accurate count of their numbers. Manon sighed through
her nose, and the wind ripped the sound away, just as it streamed her long red cloak
behind her.

Asterin and Sorrel flanked her, silent like the rest of the covens for the long hours
they’d flown down the mountains. They would cross Oakwald where Morath’s mountains
were closest, then rise above the cover of the cloud line for the rest of the journey. Unseen
and as quiet as possible—that was how the king wanted them to arrive at the duke’s
mountain fortress. They flew all night down the Fangs, swift and sleek as shadows, and
the earth below quivered in their wake.

Sorrel was stone-faced, monitoring the skies around them, but Asterin was smiling
faintly. It was not a wild grin, or one that promised death, but a calm smile. To be aloft and
skimming the clouds. Where every Blackbeak belonged. Where Manon belonged.

Asterin caught her stare and smiled wider, as if there wasn’t a host of witches flying
behind them and Morath lying ahead. Her cousin turned her face into the wind, breathing
it in, exultant.

Manon did not let herself savor that beautiful breeze or open herself to that joy. She had

work to do; they all did. Despite what the Crochan had said, Manon had not been born
with a heart, or a soul. She did not need them.

Once they fought the king’s war, when his enemies were bleeding out around them …
only then would they ride to reclaim their broken kingdom.

And she would go home at last.

Chapter 67

The rising sun was staining the Avery River with gold as the cloaked man strode onto a
rickety dock in the slums. Fishermen were heading out for the day, revelers were
stumbling in for the night, and Rifthold was still asleep—unaware of what had happened
the night before.

The man pulled out a lovely blade, its eagle pommel glinting in the first light of dawn.
For a long moment, he stared at the sword, thinking of all that it had once embodied. But
there was a new sword at his side—an ancient king’s blade, from a time when good men
had served noble rulers and the world had prospered for it.

He would see that world reborn, even if it took his last breath. Even if he had no name
now, no position or title save Oath-Breaker, Traitor, Liar.

No one noticed when the sword was jettisoned over the river, its pommel catching the
sun and burning like golden fire, a flash of light before it was swallowed by the dark
water, never to be seen again.

Chapter 68

It turned out that the “submission” part of a blood oath was something Rowan liked to
interpret as it suited him. During their two-week trek to the nearest port in Wendlyn, he
bossed Celaena around even more—seeming to believe that now he was part of her court,
it entitled him to certain nonnegotiable rights regarding her safety, her movements, and her
plans.

She was starting to wonder, as they approached the docks at the end of the cobblestone
street, if she had made a teensy mistake in binding him to her forever. They’d been
arguing for the past three days about her next move—about the ship she’d hired to take her
back to Adarlan.

“This plan is absurd,” Rowan said for the hundredth time, stopping in the shadows of a
tavern by the docks. The sea air was light and crisp. “Going back alone seems like
suicide.”

“One, I’m going back as Celaena, not Aelin—”

“Celaena, who did not accomplish the king’s mission, and who they are now going to
hunt down.”

“The King and Queen of Eyllwe should have gotten their warning by now.” She’d sent
it the first time they’d gone into town while investigating the murder of those poor people.
Though letters were nearly impossible to send into the empire, Wendlyn had certain ways
of getting around that. And as for Chaol … well, that was another reason why she was
here, on this dock, about to get onto this ship. She had awoken this morning and slipped
the amethyst ring off her finger. It had felt like a blessed release, a final shadow lifted
from her heart. But there were still words left unsaid between them, and she needed to
make sure he was safe—and would remain that way.

“So you’re going to get the key from your old master, find the captain, and then what?”

Complete submission to her indeed. “Then I go north.”

“And I’m supposed to sit on my ass for the next gods know how many months?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous, Rowan. If your tattoos don’t
attract attention, then the hair, the ears, the teeth…”

“I have another form, you know.”

“And, just like I said, magic doesn’t work there anymore. You’d be trapped in that
form. Though I do hear that Rifthold rats are particularly delicious, if you want to eat them
for months.”

He glared at her, then scanned the ship—even though she knew he’d snuck out of their
room at the inn last night to inspect it already. “We’re stronger together than apart.”

“If I’d known you would be such a pain in the ass, I never would have let you swear

that oath.”

“Aelin.” At least he wasn’t calling her “Majesty” or “My Lady.” “Either as yourself or
as Celaena, they will try to find you and kill you. They are probably already tracking you
down. We could go to Varese right now and approach your mother’s mortal kin, the
Ashryvers. They might have a plan.”

“My chance at success in getting the Wyrdkey out of Rifthold lies in stealth as
Celaena.”

“Please,” he said.

But she merely lifted her chin. “I am going, Rowan. I will gather the rest of my court
—our court—and then we will raise the greatest army the world has ever witnessed. I will
call in every favor, every debt owed to Celaena Sardothien, to my parents, to my
bloodline. And then…” She looked toward the sea, toward home. “And then I am going to
rattle the stars.” She put her arms around him—a promise. “Soon. I will send for you soon,
when the time is right. Until then, try to make yourself useful.” He shook his head, but
gripped her in a bone-crushing embrace.

He pulled back far enough to look at her. “Perhaps I’ll go help repair Mistward.”

She nodded. “You never told me,” she said, “what you were praying to Mala for that
morning before we entered Doranelle.”

For a moment, it looked like he wouldn’t tell her. But then he quietly said, “I prayed for
two things. I asked her to ensure you survived the encounter with Maeve—to guide you
and give you the strength you needed.”

That strange, comforting warmth, that presence that had reassured her … the setting
sun kissed her cheeks as if in confirmation, and a shiver went down her spine. “And the
second?”

“It was a selfish wish, and a fool’s hope.” She read the rest of it in his eyes. But it came
true.

“Dangerous, for a prince of ice and wind to pray to the Fire-Bringer,” she managed to
say.

Rowan shrugged, a secret smile on his face as he wiped away the tear that escaped
down her cheek. “For some reason, Mala likes me, and agreed that you and I make a
formidable pair.”

But she didn’t want to know—didn’t want to think about the Sun Goddess and her
agenda as she flung herself on Rowan, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him.
The first member of her court—the court that would change the world. The court that
would rebuild it. Together.

She boarded the boat as night fell, herded into the galley with the other passengers to
keep them from learning the route through the reef. With little fuss they set sail, and when
they were at last allowed out of the galley, she emerged onto the deck to find dark, open
ocean around them. A white-tailed hawk still flew overhead, and it swooped low to brush
its star-silvered wing against her cheek in farewell before it turned back with a sharp cry.

In the moonless light, she traced the scar on her palm, the oath to Nehemia.

She would retrieve the first Wyrdkey from Arobynn and track down the others, and
then find a way to put the Wyrdkeys back in their Gate. She would free magic and destroy
the king and save her people. No matter the odds, no matter how long it took, no matter
how far she had to go.

She lifted her face to the stars. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir of two
mighty bloodlines, protector of a once-glorious people, and Queen of Terrasen.

She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius—and she would not be afraid.

Acknowledgments

This book would not exist without my friends. Especially my best friend, Jaeger
copilot, and anam cara, Susan Dennard.

It’s to her that I owe the biggest debt, for the entire days spent brainstorming and
figuring out the right way to tell the story, for holding my hand as I walked down the dark
paths of this book, for being the voice in my head telling me to keep going, keep going,
keep going. There was no one else that this book could have been dedicated to; no one
else who challenges and uplifts and inspires me so greatly. So, thank you, Soozyface, for
being the kind of friend I was so sure didn’t exist in this world. Love you, dude.

I also owe a huge debt to my brilliant and immensely talented friend Alex Bracken, for
the genius feedback, for the bajillion-page e-mails, and for being so, so incredibly
supportive. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that our paths crossed all those years ago—
what an insane journey it’s been.

And none of this would ever have happened without my lovely and badass agent,
Tamar Rydzinski, who has been with me from the very beginning, and whose tireless work
has made this series reality. I’m so honored to call you my agent, but even more honored
to call you my friend.

To the incredible worldwide team at Bloomsbury—how can I ever fully convey what a
joy it is to work with you all? Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do for me
and Throne of Glass. To my editor, Margaret Miller—this book would be a hot mess
without you. To Cat Onder, Cindy Loh, and Rebecca McNally—you guys are the absolute
best. To Erica Barmash, Hali Baumstein, Emma Bradshaw, Kathleen Farrar, Cristina
Gilbert, Courtney Griffin, Alice Grigg, Natalie Hamilton, Bridget Hartzler, Charli Haynes,
Emma Hopkin, Linette Kim, Lizzy Mason, Jenna Pocius, Emily Ritter, Amanda Shipp,
Grace Whooley, and Brett Wright: thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your hard
work, enthusiasm, and dedication.

To the team at Audible and to the Throne of Glass audiobook narrator, Elizabeth Evans,
thank you for making Celaena’s world come to life in a whole new way, and for giving her
a voice. And thank you to Janet Cadsawan, whose beautiful Throne of Glass jewelry line
continues to blow my mind.

To the lovely Erin “Ders” Bowman, for the cheerleading and the unfailing
encouragement, for the video chats, and the epic (non-writing) retreats. Hero Squad
Forever.

To Mandy Hubbard, Dan Krokos, Biljana Likic, Kat Zhang, and the Publishing Crawl
gang—thanks so much for being some of the bright lights.

To my parents—my number-one fans—for the many adventures that so often serve as
inspiration for these books. To my family, for the love and support, and for pushing this
series on your friends and book clubs. Love you all. To my wonderful Grandma Connie—
I miss you and wish you were here to read this.

To the readers who have picked up and championed this series—words cannot express
my gratitude. I am truly blessed to have you all as fans. You make the hard work worth it.

To my dog, Annie: you can’t read (though it wouldn’t surprise me if you secretly
could), but I want it written here—for eternity—that you’re the best canine companion
anyone could hope for. Thanks for the cuddles, for sitting in my lap while I’m trying to
write, and for giving me someone to talk to all day. Sorry I play the music so loudly when
you’re trying to snooze. Love you, love you, love you forever and ever and ever.

And to my husband, Josh: You get last billing here, but that’s because you’re first in my
heart. I’ll never stop being grateful that I get to share this wild journey with you.

Also by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass
Crown of Midnight

The Assassin’s Blade

Text copyright © 2014 by Sarah J. Maas
Map copyright © 2012 by Kelly de Groot

All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this
publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation
electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise),

without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any
unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and

civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in September 2014
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

E-book edition published in September 2014
www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maas, Sarah J.

Heir of fire / by Sarah J. Maas.
pages cm

Sequel to: Crown of midnight.
Summary: Royal assassin Celaena must travel to a new land to confront a truth about her

heritage, while brutal and monstrous forces are gathering on the horizon, intent on
enslaving her world.

[1. Fantasy. 2. Assassins—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M111575He 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2014005016

ISBN: 978-1-61963-066-6 (e-book)

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