Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6)

Chaol manages to walk toward Yrene, whose tears are exchanged for an expression of joy and pride. Chaol apologizes for what he said, claiming it is his feelings of inadequacy that he was shoving onto her. Upon reaching her, Chaol kisses Yrene.

A week later, Chaol’s healing has progressed. He can walk with a cane but easily tires and needs his chair. Chaol and Yrene continue their romance, keeping it a secret. Meanwhile, Yrene convinces Hasar to throw a party for Yrene’s birthday. Through careful coercing, Yrene has given Hasar the idea to host the party in the Aksara Oasis. Yrene and Chaol plan to use the party as a distraction while they search the area for more information about the Valg.

Sartaq, Nesryn, and Falkan—in the form of a mouse Nesryn stuffs in her breast pocket—head to Dagul Fells, the kharankui territory. They discover a struggling hatchling escaping and fly for it but realize too late that it’s a trap. Kadara flies into a kharankui’s web.

A kharankui appears and kills the hatchling while Nesryn and a wounded Sartaq hurry to free Kadara from the web. Just in time, they free Kadara, who flies away. Sartaq and Nesryn set off running through the narrow walls of the winding pass.

Chaol begins riding without a brace. He is given a stubborn horse named Farasha for the journey to the Oasis. As they approach the desert campsite erected for the royal party, Chaol challenges Yrene to a horse race. The winner gets a kiss, when and where they choose. Though Chaol could easily win by a distance, he keeps just ahead of Yrene, close enough to witness and admire her beautiful laughter as they fly across the sands.

Yrene brings Chaol to her tent, where she assesses the health of his back and legs after the riding. Afterward, while the others bathe, they take a walk through the oasis jungle. When Yrene asks Chaol about his past as a guard, he tells her about his friends—how they were tortured, killed, and left to hang on the castle gates because he dared to rebel against the King of Adarlan. They search for the caves Nousha mentioned but only find ruins. They find pillars covered in carvings. They recognize it as a Fae burial site. Chaol theorizes that the healers are descendants of the Fae and can be used to fight the Valg.

They return to the main area for dinner, where Hasar muses that Aelin should marry one of her brothers. Chaol tells them of her relationship with Rowan Whitethorn and how Aelin freed him of his bonds to Maeve, earning equal parts awe and wariness from them. Hasar then begins to pressure Yrene into marrying Kashin, which gets a forceful reaction from Chaol. The tense conversation is sidestepped, and the dinner continues. However, when Hasar makes a demeaning joke about Chaol, Yrene’s anger gets the best of her, and she flips Hasar’s chair into the pool behind her.

Fortunately, Hasar’s lover, Renia, and Kashin laugh at the ordeal, freeing Yrene of any deadly consequences for treating Princess Hasar in such a way. Hasar eyes Yrene with begrudging respect for the backbone she showed. Chaol and Yrene retreat to her tent. When asked, Chaol explains his romantic history with Aelin and Nesryn, yet claims he does not love either woman anymore. Chaol gifts her a locket for her birthday. He has noticed her grabbing something in her pocket—the note from her mysterious female stranger in Innish—and says the locket will provide a safe space for her to keep it contained. Yrene appreciates the gift, and they have sex.

Yrene tells Chaol about the girl who saved her years ago in Innish. The girl saved her from mercenaries, taught her self-defense, and then paid for her passage to the Southern Continent, leaving Yrene with the handwritten note that claimed the world needs more healers. Not yet aware the woman Yrene speaks of is Aelin, Chaol states he will forever be grateful to that mysterious girl for what she did for Yrene.

The pass between the Dagul peaks becomes narrower, and eventually, Sartaq cannot continue. Sartaq admits to falling in love with Nesryn just before a spider drags him away. After overhearing the spider stating it’ll bring Sartaq back to its home, Nesryn pretends to tire, so she, too, is caught by the kharankui.

Nesryn wakes wrapped in webs. Falkan begins chewing through the threads in his mouse form. The spider watching over her and Sartaq’s bodies tells Nesryn that she and her sisters have guarded the gate, waiting for Her Dark Majesty to return. When Nesryn asks whom they speak, the kharankui names Maeve, calling her the Queen of the Valg.

To distract the spider from noticing the sound of Falkan chewing through the webs, Nesryn convinces her to tell her one last story. The Valg tells Nesryn of a dark, cold land where the Valg first resided. They were ruled over by three brothers, the Valg kings, for thousands of years until a queen appeared with dark, powerful magic. Maeve was pursued by the kings but she only desired the strongest—Orcus. Maeve was discontent after they wed, however, and studied the world’s workings. She eventually discovered a way to pierce the veil between worlds and travel into new ones.

Maeve took her spider handmaidens with her to this world and left them behind to guard the gate against the three Valg kings, for she did not want to return home. After discovering what she’d done, Orcus and his brothers went beyond her learning. Rather than simply traveling between open gateways, they created three Wyrdkeys capable of controlling gates at a whim. They entered many realms, destroying them in their search for Maeve until they landed here.

Maeve had hidden herself well, though. She found the Fae kingdoms, ruled by the sister queens Mab and Mora. Maeve used her powers to break into their minds and write herself into their memories as the third and eldest sister. Maeve did the same to every Fae she met until history had rewritten itself. The Valg kings sought Maeve but never discovered her identity in this new world. Maeve stole the keys and sent two kings back, but Brannon, the fire-king of Terrasen, stole the keys before she could banish Erawan as well. Though Brannon never discovered Maeve’s identity, he knew she feared fire as all Valg do.

During the tale, Falkan finishes his chewing and Nesryn and Sartaq are released from their binds. Falkan then sneaks away, transforms into a spider, and lures the kharankui away by claiming 20 ruks are approaching on the horizon.

The spider falls for the lie and leaves the cave, allowing Nesryn, Sartaq, and Falkan to escape. After realizing the deception, the spider shrieks and gives chase. Falkan decides to sacrifice himself to buy Nesryn and Sartaq time to flee. Before doing so, Falkan reveals that his older brother sired a bastard daughter with a poor woman in Rifthold and then abandoned them both. Thirteen years later, at age 20, Falkan went in search of the child. When he found the mother, she admitted to kicking his niece out long ago. He doesn’t know what she looks like or her name, but he asks Nesryn to find her if she can because he wants to gift his considerable fortune to her after his death. Nesryn realizes his niece might be Lysandra but does not get a chance to tell him this before he throws himself into the fray. Just in time, Borte appears on her ruk.

Kadara appears, leading many ruk riders along with Borte’s betrothed, Yaren. The army of ruks shoot arrows that set fire to the Dagul Fells.

Chaol and Yrene return to the palace at dawn. They are impatient to scour the scrolls and books for information on the healers and their powers against the Valg. However, when they arrive at Chaol’s suite, they find it trashed and all the scrolls and texts stolen—aside from the one ancient scroll Yrene hid in one of Chaol’s boots.