They joined hands.So the world ended.And the next one began.

But they held tighter to each other, past and present and future; flickering between an ancient hall in a mountain castle perched above Orynth, a bridge suspended between glass towers, and another place, perfect and strange, where they had been crafted from stardust and light. A wall of night knocked them back. But they could not be contained. The darkness paused for breath. They erupted.

Power lay in her hand. Death gripped her by the other.

Lucien studied the wine in his goblet. "You don’t hold on to power by being everyone’s friend. And among the faeries, lesser and High Fae alike, a firm hand is needed. We’re too powerful, and too bored with immortality, to be checked by anything else.

She made herself look. To face down that place of pain and despair. It would always leave a mark, a stain on her, but she would not let it define her. Hers was not a story of darkness. This would not be the story. She would fold it into herself , this place, this fear, but it would not be the whole story. It would not be her story.

Celaena opened her arms wide, Goldryn burning bright in one hand. “Behold my power, Maeve. Behold what I grapple with in the deep dark, what prowls under my skin.”Celaena exhaled a breath and extinguished each and every flame in the city.The power wasn't in might or skill. It was in the control — the power lay in controlling herself.