Hey guys! I finished reading Empire of Storms last night, and so I’ll be posting my mini review here, in addition to quotes that I really liked. (by the way, I’ve been thinking maybe I could post quotes from books I like more often, what do you think? Tell me in comments please. 🙂 )
Mini Review
I think I speak for all of us, each and every SJM reader, when I say that this book should have been titled “A Book of Pain and Agony”. Alternatively, “Crusher of Souls, Hope and Everything Good in the World” may have worked too. Because that is exactly what reading this book does to you. It rips out your heart, and shreds it into tiny, tiny pieces.
Quotes (beware of spoilers)
“The world,” Aelin said, “will be saved and remade by the dreamers, Rolfe.”
“The world will be saved by the warriors, by the men and women who will spill their blood for it. Not for empty promises and gilded dreams.”
“The wind in the grasses died; the campfire far beyond their tent flickered, the people around it huddling closer together as the nighttime insects went silent and the small, furred creatures of the plains scampered into their burrows.”
“They could burn the entire world to ashes with it. He was hers and she was his, and they had found each other across centuries of bloodshed and loss, across oceans and kingdoms and war.”
“Despite herself, despite what she’d done, she decided she wanted Rowan to call her milady at least once every day.”
“Today her message would thunder across the realms.
She was not a rebel princess, shattering enemy castles and killing kings.
She was a force of nature. She was a calamity and a commander of immortal warriors of legend.”
“The core of his power yielded to her own, melted and became embers and wildfire. Became the molten heart of the earth, shaping the world and birthing new lands.”
“The pillar of flame began expanding, laced now with blue and turquoise. Flame that could melt bone, crack the earth.”
“The flame she would unleash would be so cold it burned, realized it was the cold of the stars, the cold of stolen light.
Not wildfire – but moonfire.”
“I love you. There is no limit to what I can give to you, no time to need. Even when this world is a forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, I will love you.”
“And he wondered if Aelin was somehow watching the archipelago, and the seas, and the skies, as if she might never see them again.”
“Death smelled like salt and blood and wood and rot.
And it hurt.
Darkness embrace her, it hurt like hell. The Ancient Ones had lied that it cured all ills, if the slice of pain across her abdomen was any indication. Not to mention the pounding headache, the sheer dryness of her mouth, the burning sting in the other cut on her arm.
Perhaps the Darkness was another world, another realm. Perhaps she’d gone to the hell-realm the humans so feared.
She hated Death.
And Death could go to hell, too –”
“The world began and ended in fire.
A sea of fire with no room for air, for sound beyond the cascading molten earth. The true heart of fire – the tool of creation and destruction.
And she was drowning in it.”
“The Queen of Flame and Shadow, the Heir of Fire, Aelin of the Wildfire, Fireheart…”
“A court that wouldn’t just change the world. It would start the world over.
A court that could conquer this world, and any other it wished.”
“Now the dark queen’s flag vanished entirely, as Fae ships bearing the sliver banner of the House of Whitethorn opened fire upon their own armada.”
“Rowan wished his Fireheart were there to see it as the House of Whitethorn slammed into Maeve’s fleet, and ice and wind exploded across the waves.”
“Rowan surveyed his brother’s wound.” (literally squealed at this – brothers!!)
“The Queen of the Fae was exactly as Aelin remembered. Swirling dark robes, a beautiful pale face beneath onyx hair, red lips set in a faint smile… No crown adorned her head, for all who breathed, even the dead who slumbered, would know her for what she was.
Dreams and nightmares given form; the dark face of the moon.”
“Flame slammed outward, red and golden – just as a wall of darkness lashed for Aelin.
The impact shook the world.”
“Maeve and Aelin struck again.
Light and darkness.”
“Darkness devoured flame.”
“Aelin’s body hurt.
Everything hurt. Her blood, her breath, her bones.
There was no magic left. Nothing left to save her.”
“Time – she was grateful Elena had given her that stolen time.
Grateful she had met them all, that she had seen some small part of the world, had heard such lovely music, had danced and laughed and known true friendship. Grateful that she had found Rowan.”
“So Aelin Galathynius dried her tears.”
“I am going to find the Crochans. And I am going to raise an army with them. For Aelin Galathynius. And her people. And for ours.”
“And the road that now sprawled away before him, curving into unknown, awaiting shadow… it did not frighten him.”
“And then the general-prince stepped forward and embraced the king.”
And now for the amazing Aelin/Rowan quotes that made tears come to my eyes (and in the first, may I say, that I think we were all Elide):
“Rowan hissed, “Where is my wife?”
(…)
“Oh, gods,” Elide sobbed as she overheard, the words carrying the sound of Lorcan’s own fractured heart. “Oh, gods…”
“Rowan had married Aelin before dawn barely two days ago.”
“His Fireheart.
His equal, his friend, his lover. His wife.
His mate.”
“And he would not accept that he had found her, and she had found him, and they had survived such sorrow and pain and despair together, only to be cleaved apart. He would not accept the fate that had been dealt to her, would not accept that her life was the asking price for saving this world.”
“He would not accept it for one heartbeat.”
“Rowan shifted and soared high on a fast, wicked wind of his own making, the glimmering sea sprawling to his right, the marshes a green-and-gray tangle to his left. Chaining the wind to him, swiftly catching up to his companions now flying down the coast, he committed her scent to memory, committed that flicker in the bond to memory.
That flicker he could have sworn he felt in answer, like the fluttering heart of an ember.”
“Unleashing a cry that set the world trembling, Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, Consort of the Queen of Terrasen, began the hunt to find his wife.”
Tell me what you thought of this post, did you like it? Want me to do it again? Comment below. (:
Find this review on my Goodreads
Byeeeeee ❤
avidfangirlforlife 