Long Live the Queen
Not an official throne—just a larger, finer chair that had been selected
from the sad lot of candidates.
Darrow, too, stared toward the open doors, face impassive. Yet his
eyes glowed.
The trumpets rang out.
A four-note summons. Repeated three times.
Pews groaned as everyone twisted to the doors.
Behind the dais, hidden beyond a painted wooden screen, a small
group of musicians began playing a processional. Not the grand,
sprawling orchestra that might accompany an event of this magnitude,
but better than nothing.
It didn’t matter anyway.
Not as Elide appeared in a lilac gown, a garland of ribbons atop her
braided black hair. Every step limped, and Rowan knew it was because
she had asked Lorcan not to brace her foot. She’d wanted to make this
walk down the long aisle on her own two feet.
Poised and graceful, the Lady of Perranth kept her shoulders thrown
back as she clutched the bouquet of holly before her and walked to the
dais. Lady of Perranth—and one of Aelin’s handmaidens. For today.
For Aelin’s coronation.
Elide was halfway down the aisle when Lysandra appeared, clad in
green velvet. People murmured. Not just at the remarkable beauty, but
what she was.
The shape-shifter who had defended their kingdom. Had helped take
down Erawan.
Lysandra’s chin remained high as she glided down the aisle, and
Aedion’s own head lifted at the sight of her. The Lady of Caraverre.
Then came Evangeline, green ribbons in her red-gold hair, beaming,
those scars stretched wide in utter joy. The young Lady of Arran.
Darrow’s ward. Who had somehow melted the lord’s heart enough for
They are there
I am here, I am with you.
A queen had said that to him. In their secret, silent language. During
the unspeakable hours of torment, they had said that to each other.
Not alone.
He had not been alone then, and neither had she.
The veranda in Doranelle and bloodied snows outside Orynth blended
and flashed.
I am here, I am with you.
Maeve stood there. Before Aelin and Rowan, burning with power.
Before Lorcan, his dark gifts a shadow around him. Fae—so many Fae
and wolves, some riding them—pouring on to the battlefield through
holes in the air.
It had worked, then. Their mad plan, to be enacted when all went to
hell, when they had nothing left.
Yet Maeve’s power swelled.
Aelin’s eyes remained upon him, anchoring him. Pulling him from
that bloodied veranda. To a body trembling in pain. A face that burned
and throbbed.
I am here, I am with you.
And Fenrys found himself blinking back. Just once.
Yes.
And when Aelin’s eyes moved again, he understood.
Aelin looked to Rowan. Found her mate already smiling at her. Aware of
what likely awaited them. “Together,” she said quietly. Rowan’s thumb
brushed against hers. In love and farewell.
And then they erupted.
Flame, white-hot and blinding, roared toward Maeve.
But the dark queen had been waiting. Twin waves of darkness arched
and cascaded for them.
Only to be halted by a shield of black wind. Beaten aside.
From now until the Darkness claims us.
Asterin spoke first, cutting through the silence of the coven. “We
know their every move, every weapon. And now the Crochans do, too.
The Matrons are likely in a panic.”
She’d never seen her grandmother in a panic, but Manon huffed a
dark laugh. “We shall see tomorrow, I suppose.” She surveyed her
Thirteen. “You have come with me this far, but tomorrow it will be your
own kind that we face. You may be fighting friends or lovers or family
members.” She swallowed. “I will not blame you if you cannot do it.”
“We have come this far,” Sorrel said, “because we are all prepared for
what tomorrow will bring.”
Indeed, the Thirteen nodded. Asterin said, “We are not afraid.”
No, they were not. Looking at the clear eyes around her, Manon could
see that for herself.
“I’d expected at least some,” Vesta groused, “from the Ferian Gap to
join us.”
“They don’t understand,” Ghislaine said. “What we even offered
them.”
Freedom—freedom from the Matrons who had forged them into tools
of destruction.
“A waste,” Asterin grumbled. Even the green-eyed demon twins
nodded.
Silence fell again. Despite their clear eyes, her Thirteen were well
aware of the limitations of five thousand Crochans against the Ironteeth,
and the army beneath it.
So Manon said, looking them each in the eye, “I would rather fly with
you than with ten thousand Ironteeth at my side.” She smiled slightly.
“Tomorrow, we will show them why.”
Her coven grinned, wicked and defiant, and touched two fingers to
their brows in deference.
Manon returned the gesture, bowing her head as she did. “We are the
Thirteen,” she said. “From now until the Darkness claims us.”
She Escaped
“Someone’s making a move this way,” Lorcan murmured to Gavriel.
“But Whitethorn’s still over there.”
Fenrys. Or Connall, perhaps. Maybe Essar’s sister, who he’d never
liked. But he wouldn’t give a shit about that if she hadn’t betrayed them.
He pointed north of the entrance. “You take that side. Be ready to
strike from the flank.”
Gavriel sped off, a predator ready to pounce unseen when Lorcan
attacked head-on.
Death glimmered. Whitethorn was nearly at the camp’s center. And
that force approaching their eastern entrance …
To hell with waiting.
Lorcan broke from the cover of trees, dark power swirling, primed to
meet whatever broke through the line of tents.
Freeing the sword at his side, he searched the sky, the camp, the world
as death flickered, as the rising sun gilded the rolling grasses and set the
dew steaming.
Nothing. No indication of what, of who—
He’d reached the first of the hollows that flowed to the camp edge,
the dips narrow and steep, when Aelin Galathynius appeared.
Lorcan didn’t expect the sob in his throat as she raced between the
tents, as he beheld the iron mask and the chains on her, hands still bound.
As he beheld the blood soaking her skin, the short white shift, her
hair, longer than he’d last seen and plastered to her head with gore.
His knees stopped working, and even his magic faltered at the sight of
her wild, desperate race for the camp’s edge.
Soldiers ran toward her.
Lorcan surged into motion, flaring his magic up and wide. Not to her,
but to Whitethorn, still charging for the center of the camp.
She’s here, she’s here, she’s here, he signaled.
But Lorcan was too far, the grassy bumps and hollows between them
This book has also made a second argument. Whatever the skills of particular venture partnerships or individual VCs, venture capitalists as a group have a positive effect on economies and societies. (…) As with this book's claim about individual VC skill, there are legitimate objections to the claim about VCs' collective impact. (…) The least persuasive of these complaints is that venture-backed businesses are not socially useful. Of course, Big Tech has a dark side. Companies as huge as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (…) Violations of privacy, the propagation of fake news, and the sheer power of private actors to determine who gets to communicate when and to whom (…) When VCs originally backed the tech giants, they were helping to create products that were good (…) nobody wants to return to a world without e-commerce, personal computer (…) Venture Capital is also attacked for the businesses it has failed to create (…) most common form of this complaint is that venture Capital has flowed more copiously to frivolous apps than to socially useful projects, notably the vital area of technologies to fight climate change. (…) Perhaps venture investors have their hearts in the right place, but their style of finance is unsuited to capital-intensive areas such as clean-tech? (…) the pre-2010 clean-tech flop was as much a government failure as a venture-Capital one (…) In putting Capital behind products that they can sell at a proflt, VCs are at least respecting the choices of millions of consumers. (…) What of the second broad area of complaint: that venture Capital is dominated by white men drawn from a narrow collection of elite colleges? (…) the venture industry is trying to improve. (…) On the issue of race, progress has been even slower. (…) To be fair, the venture
"Işığınızı oluşturmak için karanlığın içine girmelisiniz."
-Debbie Ford. The Dark Side of the Light Chasers
