Tower of Dawn

He’d almost told the princess that she could keep Hellas’s Horse, but there was something to be said about the prospect of charging down Morath foot soldiers atop a horse named Butterfly.

I will cherish it always. No matter what may befall the world. No matter the oceans, or mountains, or forests in the way.

Rowan beheld all Aelin was and is, and he was not afraid.

A gift. A gift from a queen who had seen another woman in hell and thought to reach back a hand. With no thought of it ever being returned. A moment of kindness, a tug on a thread.

you must enter where you fear to tread

What did Aelin promise you?” Hasar smiled to herself. “A better world.

Using the chair is not a punishment. It is not a prison,' he said softly. 'It never was. And I am as much of a man in that chair, or with that cane, as I am standing on my feet.' He brushed away the tear that slipped down her cheek. 'I wanted to heal you,' she breathed. 'You did,' he said, smiling. 'Yrene, in every way that truly matters . . . You did.' Chaol wiped away the other tears that fell, brushing a kiss to her hot cheek.

Sartaq chuckled. “I did. But I also told him that the woman I love now plans to head into war. And I intend to follow her.

The heart he’d offered and had been left to drop on the wooden planks of the river docks. An assassin who had sailed away and a queen who had returned.

Here, with her, he was home.

Don’t you waste one heartbeat being afraid of a coward who hunts women in the darkness,” Chaol snapped at her.

The most powerful pure-blooded Fae male in the world,” Chaol said simply. “A worthy asset for any court. Especially when they had fallen in love with each other.

No lady, beautiful or plain, young or old, deserved to be gawked at.

He didn't understand-how she could be so delicate, so small, when she had overturned his life entirely. Worked miracles with those hands and that soul, this woman who had crossed mountains and seas.

We don't look back. It helps no one and nothing to look back.

Then it is a good thing, Yrene Towers, that I love you as well.

I once lived in fear of other people. I let other people walk all over me just because I was too afraid of the consequences for refusing. I did not know how to refuse.

It was agony and despair and fear. It was joy and laughter and rest. It was life, all of it...

Everything hurts.” Falkan grimaced, rubbing at his leg. “Remind me never to do anything heroic again.

This was not the end. This crack in him, this bottom, was not the end. He had one promise left.

Aelin frightens everyone…But not him. I think that’s why she fell in love with him, against her best intentions. Rowan beheld all Aelin was and is, and he was not afraid

Every step. Every curve into darkness. Every moment of despair and rage and pain. It had led him to precisely where he needed to be. Where he wanted to be.

You would be surprised by how closely the healing of physical wounds is tied to the healing of emotional ones.

Aelin would have been beside herself with glee.

I think she was a god... I never learned her name. She only left a note with two lines. "For wherever you need to go - and then some. The world needs more healers." - Yrene, about Aelin

Some swore the cats had been caught pawing through the pages of open books - reading.

It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.

He supposed he'd learned that strength could be hidden beneath the most unlikely faces.