Throne of Glass

Crown Prince Dorian Havilliard pulls Celaena out of Endovier to compete as his champion; Captain of the Guard Chaol Westfall trains her, and both men fall for her. She befriends Princess Nehemia Ytger of Eyllwe, who is quietly a master of the Wyrdmarks.

Competitors start turning up torn apart. The killer is Cain, using the Wyrdmarks to summon a Ridderak through a portal the king’s own power has opened. Celaena is visited by the ghost of Queen Elena Galathynius, who tells her she is meant to be the realm’s champion and gives her the Eye amulet.

In the final duel Celaena kills Cain and destroys the Ridderak with Elena’s Eye and Nehemia’s marks. She wins, and is bound to serve the king for four years in exchange for her freedom.

Celaena fakes the deaths of every target the king assigns her, smuggling them out instead. She and Chaol become lovers. Archer Finn feeds her information about a rebel movement searching for the lost heir of Terrasen.

Nehemia is murdered. Celaena’s grief nearly destroys the castle, and nearly kills Chaol with it. Then the worse truth arrives: Nehemia arranged her own assassination, as a political act designed to force Celaena off the fence.

Celaena kills Archer, finds one of the three Wyrdkeys, and understands what the King of Adarlan has been building his power on. In the last pages Chaol works out who she is: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. He has her sent to Wendlyn, officially to assassinate its royal family, in truth to get her out of Adarlan alive.

Celaena, seventeen and the Assassins’ Guild’s prize, is sent to Skull’s Bay to close a slave-trade deal with Captain Rolfe. She and Sam Cortland free the slaves and burn the arrangement instead, costing her master Arobynn Hamel a fortune. He beats her nearly to death and exiles her to the Red Desert to train under the Mute Master of the Silent Assassins.

There she befriends Ansel of Briarcliff, who poisons the Master and tries to seize the fortress. Celaena stops her and spares her life, giving her an hour’s head start out of sentiment she will spend years regretting.

Back in Rifthold she and Sam fall in love and try to buy their freedom from the guild. The last job goes wrong. Sam is taken, tortured and killed by Rourke Farran, in an arrangement Arobynn made. Celaena kills Farran, is captured, and is sentenced to the salt mines of Endovier. The final page is the first page of Throne of Glass.

In Wendlyn, Aelin is collected by Rowan Whitethorn on Queen Maeve’s orders. Maeve will answer her questions about the Wyrdkeys only once Aelin masters the fire magic she has spent a decade suppressing. Rowan trains her brutally; over months of it they become carranam, and then something like family.

In the Ferian Gap, Manon Blackbeak is named Wing Leader of the Ironteeth host and bonds with Abraxos, the runt nobody wanted. In Rifthold, Dorian’s raw magic surfaces, he falls in love with the healer Sorscha, and the king beheads her when her rebel ties are discovered. Chaol resigns as Captain and goes to the rebels; Aedion Ashryver is arrested for treason.

Aelin refuses Maeve’s bargain, claims her name in front of her, and sails for home with Rowan.

Aelin returns to free Aedion, kill Arobynn, and take the last Wyrdkey. She finds Chaol changed and bitter, and finds an unexpected ally in Lysandra, a shapeshifter who has been playing courtesan her whole life. Arobynn manipulates everyone one final time and dies for it, killed by Lysandra.

Dorian has been collared by a Valg prince. In the confrontation to free him, Dorian kills his own father. Chaol is paralysed by a Valg blast. Aelin brings the glass castle down.

Manon, ordered to wipe out the Crochans, spares Elide Lochan instead and lets her run. Aelin sails for Terrasen; Chaol and Nesryn Faliq leave for the southern continent to find healing and allies.

Aelin gathers Rowan, Aedion, Lysandra, Elide, Lorcan, Fenrys and Gavriel, and courts every ally Terrasen has left. The price of sealing the Wyrdgate emerges: the Lock must be forged, and whoever forges it pays with their life.

Manon learns that she is the last Crochan Queen, and is cast out by her grandmother for it. Erawan is loosed. Lorcan, working for Maeve, betrays the group.

In the final chapter Maeve’s armada arrives. Aelin has planned for it: she lets herself be taken so her court survives, and is beaten, chained and locked into an iron coffin. The book ends with her inside it.

Chaol and Nesryn Faliq reach Antica seeking healing at the Torre Cesme and an alliance with the khagan. Chaol is assigned to Yrene Towers, a healer whose family Adarlan destroyed and who wants nothing to do with him. Their hostility turns to respect and then to love.

Yrene discovers that Chaol’s injury is entangled with Valg residue, and that in treating it her healing magic proves uniquely destructive to the Valg. That is the discovery the entire war turns on.

Nesryn rides with Prince Sartaq and the ruk riders, uncovering the Valg’s history and a nest of them hidden in the mountains. Chaol walks again. The khaganate commits its armies.

Aelin spends months in the iron coffin being tortured by Maeve while Rowan, Aedion, Lysandra, Elide and the Cadre hunt for her. Fenrys is forced to watch and forbidden to help. She is found and freed, and the court fights north to Terrasen through the worst winter in memory.

Manon unites the Ironteeth and the Crochans under one queen. Dorian goes alone after the third Wyrdkey and gets it. Gavriel dies holding the gates of Orynth. The Thirteen fly into the Ironteeth host and detonate themselves to save the city; Asterin goes with them.

Maeve is revealed as a Valg queen and killed. Aelin forges the Lock and reseals the Wyrdgate, expecting to die. The gods use her body to cross back, and in leaving they give her life back. Erawan is destroyed. Terrasen holds. Aelin is crowned, and the eight books end with her standing in her own city.