Crown of Midnight, Sarah J Maas, 2013
Let it first be noted that the reading order for the Throne of Glass series is highly debated, but I’m going by publication order rather than chronological order.
Right before beginning reading the second book in the Throne of Glass series, Crown of Midnight, I came across a TikTok saying that Crown of Midnight is one of the less enjoyed books in the TOG series—but I disagree! I liked Book 2 better than Book 1, mainly because I enjoy the magic aspect, which was developed here, rather than the assassin/training/murders aspect which Book 1 led with.
The story picks up two months from the close of Book 1. Celaena has now been made the King’s Assassin, tasked with murdering the King’s rivals, without being able to ask or argue. If she denies or fails a mission, her best friends—the king’s Captain of the Guard, Chaol Westfall and Princess Nehemia of Ellywe—will be killed.
She is given a mission to assassinate Archer Finn, a harmless courtesan who she’d known in her youth. She doesn’t intend to follow through with his murder; in fact, she hasn’t followed through with any murder; she’s been giving all the king’s victims an ultimatum to flee instead.
Early on, we see that Celaena and Chaol have become much closer, discontenting the humble Prince Dorian. Dorian’s beginning to worry that their little romance in Book 1 was a mere manipulation tactic in order for Celaena to become King’s Champion. The impression we get between the two of them is that Dorian will always be impressed with—or in love with—her, and she’ll always have thoughts about him as well, but Chaol ultimately takes the gold. Despite how close she is with Chaol—borderline romantic, as is seen in their constant flirty, jealous, and teasing moments—she lies to him along with everyone else about murdering the King’s enemies.
Celaena continues to spend time in the library to study the Wyrdmarks and “evil” which the late Queen Elena had requested she deal with in Book 1. She meets Mort, the skull knocker on the tomb door (one hell of a sarcastic inanimate object), who delivers a message from Elena about a greater evil involving the king, and again, puts the burden on Celaena to beat it.
On a visit to Kaltain Rompier’s dungeon cell (the villain in Book 1 who played a part in poisoning Celaena) Celaena finds that through Kaltain’s exhaustion and confusion, she is able to suggest that she’d been used by Perrington and the King, though she doesn’t know for what.
When Celaena meets with Archer to give him his ultimatum, he admits that there is a rebel group (not that he leads it) looking to put Aelin Galathynius, the lost heir of Terrasen, back on Terrasen’s throne—to fight the Adarlan king since Terrasen is the only kingdom with a chance. She gives him a month before fleeing so he can give her all the information he knows on the rebel group.
Princess Nehemia, in another storyline, requests that Dorian stand with her against the injustices at the Calaculla slave camp in Ellywe (her home territory). She implies that he is stronger than he knows, and she tells him (cryptically) that she’ll help him when the time comes. At the next Court assembly, Dorian does take a stand in defense of Calaculla, and then angrily storms off after the Court suggests an expansion of the slave camp. Enraged, he smashes a window, prompting an explosion of glass everywhere, except in a suspicious circular ring around him—he becomes aware that he has magic, though he has no idea how (remember, the King had ruled out magic when he came to power).
Chaol and Celaena become official when she finally tells him that she hasn’t actually killed any of the king’s victims. She tells him her plan—that with the information from Archer about the rebels, she’ll bargain her time working for the King and run before the King finds out she hasn’t followed through with her orders. Chaol says he’ll go with her. This is it guys!! They do the thang.
Dorian visits a killer witch (Babalegs) for information about his newly discovered magic, and she suggests he figure out how magic was eliminated in the first place to figure out why one may still have it.
While Chaol rationalizes why not to tell Nehemia nor Celaena about the king’s suspicions about Nehemia (being an activist for Ellywe against Adarlan), nor an anonymous threat made to her, he is taken as hostage by the rebel group Archer had told Celaena about. When Celaena finds him and saves him (killing all of the guards), Archer tells her that he and Nehemia are the leaders. He also says that the king suspects Nehemia—which is true—and that they took Chaol because he knew—also true. They imply that Nehemia may be killed by the king tonight, and Celaena, who now sees Chaol as a traitor, finds a bloody Nehemia killed on her bed.
Dorian and Chaol both arrive at the scene, and Celaena, in a frenzied stupor, attempts to kill Chaol, but is magically stopped by Dorian before a guard knocks her unconscious. In a discussion between Chaol and Dorian, we realize that it wasn’t in fact the king who had killed Nehemia, but whatever anonymous threat had been made earlier.
In Celaena’s next visit to Archer, he admits maybe they went about things with Nehemia the wrong way (lol), but he, too eagerly, asks her to replace Nehemia as leader for the rebel movement. Meanwhile, at the castle Chaol’s father from Anielle is back—a real douche of a guy—to request Chaol leave Captain of the Guard in Adarlan and return to Anielle, his home territory. He initially refuses.
While Celaena clears out Nehemia’s room, she finds information which leads her to a poem/riddle in the tomb about 3 hidden, powerful items that she’ll need to find in order to beat the evil Elena has tasked her with.
She sneaks alone to Nehemia’s grave to sing a Terrasen dirge, and Chaol finds her there. When he does his research, he finds that she was singing an old Fae tune only known by nobility, which doesn’t check out, but he figures there’s another explanation why Celaena would know it.
Before Celaena kills the cannibalistic witch Yellowlegs in her carnival house of mirrors (this scenery was incredible), the witch tells her the three hidden objects from the riddle are Wyrdkeys, which together will open the Wyrdgate to other realms with demons (Valg). On their own, however, they still hold immense power. The king must have one (at the least), which has allowed him to capture so many territories and remove magic.
Entering the tomb again, she finds a hooded creature that had creeped her earlier—half man, half monster—without realizing Dorian had followed her. His magic (which he still doesn’t quite understand) helps to seal the creature behind a door and kill it.
Later, Celaena gets the brilliant idea to use an ancient spell book to open the realm gate and speak to Nehemia. When she does, she doesn’t get to tell Nehemia anything she wants to say (her sweet goodbyes). Nehemia only tells her never to open it again because she’s risking letting things out, and then Archer appears in the passageway. Archer is acting incredibly suspicious—talking hastily about using their power to overthrow the king and be in control, and Celaena, sensing that he is not to be trusted, pretends to agree with him. He reveals it was him who killed Nehemia, as a means to his powerful ends. In their fight, a monster/demon comes through the portal she’d opened for Nehemia.
Simultaneously, Dorian receives an apparition from the ancient King Gavin telling him to go to Celaena through the passageway in the tapestry (which no one had known about yet). Dorian runs to Chaol for help saving Celaena, and, shocked, but without asking questions, Chaol follows Dorian through the tapestry passageway and they find Celaena knocked onto the floor and Archer chanting something at the monster.
When Celaena wakes up, Dorian is holding her and Chaol is fighting a demon. In order to close the portal, they need the book she’d done the spell from, but Archer has just run off with it. She and Dorian are ready to chase Archer for the book, but then Celaena’s puppy is pulled into the portal, and Chaol goes in after him.
Celaena follows the two of them, turning into a LITERAL FAE. Yes, that is correct! Celaena turns into a Fae. In her Fae form, she fights off the demon while Chaol grabs the pup out of the portal. Celaena ends the battle with the demon when she uses Demaris (King Brannon’s sword) to split the ground, scaring the demon away.
Immediately, she loses her Fae form and falls to the ground as a human, and Chaol sweeps back in to scoop her up and out of there. She tells Dorian she’s too weak to close the portal but that he, with his magic, can (another shocker to Chaol, who hadn’t known about his magic). Before offering an explanation to Chaol about what he just saw happen, she runs through the tunnels for one last go, and that is to kill Archer.
When she finds Archer, he’s still deluded by his suggestion that they rise against the King and all power to them. She considers sparing him until he makes a remark about how he knew she wouldn’t be so awful as to kill him, so then she does (slay).
Celaena explains to Chaol that her great grandmother was Fae, and although it skipped a generation, she has the ability to shift in and out of her Fae form. She hasn’t been able to turn since the King’s elimination of magic, but in the magic realm she’d opened with the book, she had no control and was thus forced to shift.
Since she and Chaol are now on civil terms again, she admits she’ll always have feelings for him (as he does for her) but she can never trust him.
Chaol, wanting first and foremost to protect her, finds his father to suggest they propose to the King that Celaena assassinate the Wendlyn Royal family, which would both eliminate it and send a message to other territories. He tells his father that with his support, he’ll agree to leave his post in Adarlan and return to Anielle. Chaol’s ulterior motive, of course, is for Celaena to be given the chance to escape Adarlan and reunite with Fae who have fled to Wendlyn when magic was outlawed. The King, power hungry dude he is, eats this up.
Celaena, on the other hand, is horrified at this request because she, obviously, can not just tell the Wendlyn Royal Family to flee and then stage their deaths. They would instead, you know, use their army to fight. She’ll have to actually go through with this one; Chaol does not know that part of her job stipulations are that if she fails, he will be killed.
Queen Elena comes to her, and tells her she must go anyway.
Dorian confronts Chaol on his “brilliant” idea. Chaol can’t tell Dorian that Celaena is Fae (he wasn’t in the portal when she turned), so he puts up a ruse of acting like a loyal Captain of the Guard, suggesting that it would be a bad idea having Celaena around just to open portals every time she wants to talk to Nehemia. In his inner rationalization for this act, he says that it’s best Dorian is angry at him anyway because when he goes to Anielle, it’ll hurt Dorian less if he wants him gone (we <3 the bromance).
Before Celaena’s immediate departure to Wendlyn (by ship), she visits Nehemia’s grave and promises to free Ellywe, even if it’s the last thing she does.
She and Dorian have a sweet but friendly moment, and she gives him her pup while she’s gone. She is ready to board the ship of female and child refugees to Wendlyn when Chaol catches up with her. He asks if she understands why he did this. She says yes and immediately tells him everything—the 3 wyrdkeys and how the king has at least one and is going to use it, and about how Kaltain was part of the plan and possibly Roland (Dorian’s cousin). She tells him she will always choose him, and he tells her he loves her (*sobs*), and before leaving, she whispers in his ear the date of the day her parents were killed 10 years before.
In her rooms later that night, Chaol finds books Dorian had hidden there for safekeeping, about Genealogy and the chronology of Terrasen (Celaena’s home territory). Chaol finds that on the day her family was killed, the royal family was also killed, as well as Aelin, the lost princess. At this moment, all the pieces fall into place, and he realizes that Celaena is in fact Aelin, the LOST PRINCESS of Terrasen and now the rightful Queen. She is the King’s biggest threat. He has also just sent Celaena into the territory of her biggest allies—her extended family in Wendlyn—to kill them.
INCREDIBLE! I love how slowly Chaol and Celaena’s relationship is building. They’ve established their emotions but they’re not quite falling desperately on their knees for one another yet like is typical in a lot of romantasy novels; it feels more realistic this way. And I love the aspect of magic which is beginning to become pertinent, as shown through the magic realms as well as the creepy witch. Sarah J. Maas does fantastic in creating scenary in this novel; the witch’s carnival house of mirror is haunting and will leave you with a keen sense of disorientation. And now we’re starting to really involve the Fae! This plot twist was incredible, especially since we get the feeling Celaena downplays her own royalty and power, so it fits that in her POV sections she hadn’t revealed this insane plot point before. I look forward to book 3 (which I’m still researching for the best reading order—I’m thinking I’ll do The Assassin’s Blade, prequel).
I gave this 5/5 on Goodreads, but I think more accurately 4.5/5.
Trigger Warnings for death, violence, and implications of SA.
Quotes:
So Dorian closed his eyes, and took another long breath. And when he opened his eyes, he let her go.
The kiss obliterated her. It was like coming home or being born or suddenly finding an entire half of herself that had been missing.
She smiled bitterly as she opened her eyes. It was always the same story, the same loss.
Celaena put a hand against her chest. How absurd—how utterly absurd and useless—that her heart still beat and Nehemia’s didn’t.
