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Quote by Sarah J. Maas

“Her magic sent him sprawling, and it then hurled into Rhysand again - so hard that his head cracked against the stones and the knife dropped from his splayed fingers. No one made a move to help him, and she struck him once more with her power. The red marble splintered where he hit it, spiderwebbing toward me. With wave after wave she hit him. Rhys groaned. "Stop," I breathed, blood filling my mouth as I strained a hand to reach her feet. "Please." Rhys's arms buckled as he fought to rise, and blood dripped from his nose, splattering on the marble. His eyes met mine. The bond between us went taut. I flashed between my body and his, seeing myself through his eyes, bleeding and broken and sobbing. I snapped back into my own mind as Amarantha turned to me again. "Stop? Stop? Don't pretend you care, human," she crooned, and curled her finger. I arched my back, my spine straining to the point of cracking, and Rhysand bellowed my name as I lost my grip on the room.”

Quote by Sarah J. Maas

Work

A Court of Thorns and Roses

This novel is a blend of fantasy and romance, set in a world where magic is real and love can be dangerous. The story follows a young protagonist who becomes entangled in a complex web of politics, magic, and forbidden love. more

Author

Sarah J. Maas
Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas is an American author known for her fantasy novels. Her works are celebrated for their rich imagination, complex characters, and gripping plots. Born on March 5, 1986, Maas has developed a passion for writing from a young age and has become a successful author in her own right. more

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“Faeries began calling foul play, demanding Tamlin be released from the curse, calling her a liar. Through the haze, I saw Rhysand crouching by Tamlin. Not to help him, but to grab the- "You are all pigs - all scheming, filthy pigs." Then Rhysand was on his feet, my bloody knife in his hands. He launched himself at Amarantha, swift as a shadow, the ash dagger aimed at her throat. She lifted a hand - not even bothering to look - and he was blasted back by a wall of white light. But the pain paused for a second, long enough for me to see him hit the ground and rise again and lunge for her - with hands that now ended in talons. He slammed into the invisible wall Amarantha had raised around herself, and my pain flickered as she turned to him. "You traitorous piece of filth," she seethed at Rhysand. "You're just as bad as the human beasts." One by one, as if a hand were shoving them in, his talons pushed back into his skin, leaving blood in their wake. He swore, low and vicious. "You were planning this all along.”

“Rhys kept starting at the table as he said, 'I didn't know. That you were with Tamlin. That you were staying at the Spring Court. Amarantha sent me that day after the Summer Solstice because I'd been so successful on Calanmai. I was prepared to mock him, maybe pick a fight. But then I got into that room, and the scent was familiar, but hidden... And then I saw the plate, and felt the glamour, and... There you were. Living in my second-most enemy's house. Dining with him. Reeking of his scent. Looking at him like... Like you loved him.' The whites of his knuckles showed. 'And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin. I had to scare you, and Lucien, but mostly Tamlin. Because I saw how he looked at you, too. So what I did that day...' His lips were pale, tight. 'I broke into your mind and held it enough that you felt it, that it terrified you, hurt you. I made Tamlin beg- as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. Because she was going to find you. If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you. 'But I was so selfish- I was so stupidly selfish that I couldn't walk away without knowing your name. And you were looking at me like I was a monster, so I told myself it didn't matter, anyway. But you lied when I asked. I knew you did. I had your mind in my hands, and you had the defiance and foresight to lie to my face. So I walked away from you again. I vomited my guts up as soon as I left.' My lips wobbled, and I pressed them together. 'I checked back once. To ensure you were gone. I went with them the day they sacked the manor- to make my performance complete. I told Amarantha the name of that girl, thinking you'd invented it. I had no idea... I had no idea she'd sent her cronies to retrieve Clare. But if I admitted my lie...' He swallowed hard. 'I broke into Clare's head when they brought her Under the Mountain. I took away her pain, and told her to scream when expected to. So they... they did those things to her, and I tried to make it right, but... After a week, I couldn't let them do it. Hurt her like that anymore. So while they tortured her, I slipped into her mind again and ended it. She didn't feel any pain. She felt none of what they did to her, even at the end. But... But I still see her. And my men. And the others that I killed for Amarantha.' Two tears slid down his cheeks, swift and cold. He didn't wipe them away as he said, 'I thought it was done after that. With Clare's death. Amarantha believed you were dead. So you were safe, and far away, and my people were safe, and Tamlin had lost, so... It was done. We were done. But then... I was in the back of the throne room that day the Attor brought you in. And I have never known such horror, Feyre, as I did when I watched you make that bargain. Irrational, stupid terror- I didn't know you. I didn't even know your name. But I thought of those painter's hands, the flowers I'd seen you create. And how she'd delight in breaking your fingers apart. I had to stand and watch as the Attor and its cronies beat you. I had to watch the disgust and hatred on your face as you looked at me, watched me threaten to shatter Lucien's mind. And then- then I learned your name. Hearing you say it... it was like an answer to a question I'd been asking for five hundred years.”

“I saw you through your dreams- and I hoarded the images, sorting through them over and over again, trying to place where you you were, who you were. But you had such horrible nightmares, and the creatures belonged to all courts. I'd wake up with your scent in my nose, and it would haunt me all day, every step. But then one night, you dreamed of standing amongst green hills, seeing unlit bonfires for Calanmai.' There was such silence in my head. 'I knew there was only one celebration that large; I knew those hills- and I knew you'd probably be there. So I told Amarantha...' Rhys swallowed. 'I told her that I wanted to go to the Spring Court for the celebration, to spy on Tamlin and see if anyone showed up wishing to conspire with him. We were so close to the deadline for the curse that she was paranoid- restless. She told me to bring back traitors. I promised her I would.' His eyes lifted to mine again. 'I got there, and I could smell you. So I tracked that scent, and... And there you were. Human- utterly human, and being dragged away by those piece-of-shit picts, who wanted to...' He shook his head. 'I debated slaughtering them then and there, but then they shoved you, and I just... moved. I started speaking without knowing what I was saying, only that you were there, and I was touching you, and...' He loosed a shuddering breath. There you are. I've been looking for you. His first words to me- not a lie at all, not a threat to keep those faeries away. Thank you for finding her for me. I had the vague feeling of the world slipping out from under my feet like sand washing away from the shore. 'You looked at me,' Rhys said, 'and I knew you had no idea who I was. That I might have seen your dreams, but you hadn't seen mine. And you were just... human. You were so young, and breakable, and had no interest in me whatsoever, and I knew that if I stayed too long, someone would see and report back, and she'd find you. So I started walking away, thinking you'd be glad to get rid of me. But then you called after me, like you couldn't let go of me just yet, whether you knew it or not. And I knew... I knew we were on dangerous ground, somehow. I knew that I could never speak to you, or see you, or think of you again. 'I didn't want to know why you were in Prythian; I didn't even want to know your name. Because seeing you in my dreams had been one thing, but in person... Right then, deep down, I think I knew what you were. And I didn't let myself admit it, because it there was the slightest chance that you were my mate... They would have done such unspeakable things to you, Feyre. 'So I let you walk away. I told myself after you were gone that maybe... maybe the Cauldron had been kind, and not cruel, for letting me see you. Just once. A gift for what I was enduring. And when you were gone, I found those three picts. I broke into their minds, reshaping their lives, their histories, and dragged them before Amarantha. I made them confess to conspiring to find other rebels that night. I made them lie and claim that they hated her. I watched her carve them up while they were still alive, protesting their innocence. I enjoyed it- because I knew what they had wanted to do to you. And knew that it would have paled in comparison to what Amarantha would have done if she'd found you.' I wrapped a hand around my throat. I had my reasons to be out there, he'd once said to me Under the Mountain. Do not think, Feyre, that it did not cost me.”

“Thank you for warming the bed,' I said into the dimness. His back was to me, but I heard him clearly as he said. 'Amarantha never once thanked me for that.' Any warmth leeched away. 'She didn't suffer enough.' Not even close, for what she had done. To me, to him, to Clare, to so many others.”

“I had done everything- everything for that love. I had ripped myself to shreds, I had killed innocents and debased myself, and he had sat beside Amarantha on that throne. And he couldn't do anything, hadn't risked it- hadn't risked being caught until there was one night left, and all he'd wanted to do wasn't free me, but fuck me, and- ... And when Amarantha had broken me, when she had snapped my bones and made my blood boil in its veins, he'd just knelt and begged her. He hadn't tried to kill her, hadn't crawled for me. Yes, he'd fought for me- but I'd fought harder for him. ... And he had the nerve once his powers were back to shove me into a cage. The nerve to say I was no longer useful; I was to be cloistered for his peace of mind. He'd given me everything I'd needed to become myself, to feel safe, and when he got what he wanted- when he got his power back, his lands back... he stopped trying. He was still good, still Tamlin, but he was just... wrong. And then I was sobbing through my clenched teeth, the tears washing away that infected wound, and I didn't care that Cassian was there, or Rhys or Azriel.”

“Some small part of me whispered that I could survive Amarantha; I could survive leaving Tamlin; I could survive transitioning into this new, strange body... But that empty, cold hole in my chest... I wasn't sure I could survive that. Even in the years I'd been one bad week away from starvation, that part of me had been full of colour, of light. Maybe becoming a faerie had broken it. Maybe Amarantha had broken it. Or maybe I had broken it, when I shoved that dagger into the hearts of two innocent faeries and their blood had warmed my hands.”

“When Amarantha made me kill those two faeries, if the third hadn't been Tamlin, I would have put the dagger in my own heart at the end.' Rhys went still. 'I knew there was no coming back from what I'd done,' I said, wondering if the blue flame in the Carver's eyes might burn my ruined soul to ash. 'And once I broke their curse, once I knew I'd saved them, I just wanted enough time to turn that dagger on myself. I only decided I wanted to live when she killed me, and I knew I had not finished whatever... whatever it was I'd been born to do.' I dared a glance at Rhys, and there was something like devastation on his beautiful face. It was gone in a blink.”

“I didn't think I could get through that dinner.' 'What do you mean?' He'd been rather... calm. Contained. 'Your sisters mean well, or one of them does. But seeing them, sitting at that table... I hadn't realised it would hit me as strongly. How young you were. How they didn't protect you.' 'I managed just fine.' 'We owe them our gratitude for letting us use this house,' he said quietly, 'but it will be a long while yet before I can look at your sisters without wanting to roar at them.' 'A part of me feels the same way,' I admitted, nestling down into the blankets. 'But if I hadn't gone into those woods, if they hadn't let me go out there alone... You would still be enslaved. And perhaps Amarantha would now be readying her forces to wipe out these lands.”

“Every year that I was Under the Mountain and Starfall came around, Amarantha made sure that I... serviced her. The entire night. Starfall is no secret, even to outsiders- even the Court of Nightmares crawls out of the Hewn City to look up at the sky. So she knew... She knew what it meant to me.' I stopped hearing the celebrations around us. 'I'm sorry.' It was all I could offer. 'I got through it by reminding myself that my friends were safe, that Velaris was safe. Nothing else mattered, so long as I had that. She could use my body however she wanted. I didn't care.' 'So why aren't you down there with them?' I asked, even as I tucked the horror of what had been done to him into my heart. 'They don't know- what she did to me on Starfall. I don't want it to ruin their night.' 'I don't think it would. They'd be happy if you let them shoulder the burden.' 'The same way you rely on others to help with your own troubles?' We started at each other, close enough to share breath. And maybe all those words bottled up in me... Maybe I didn't need them right now.”