Heir Of Fire: Celaena's Story

Celaena’s Story

This book picks up where Crown of Midnight ends. Chaol sends Celaena to Wendlyn to 'assassinate' the royal family, but instead she meets Rowan Whitethorn, a mysterious Fae warrior covered in tattoos. He takes her to Mistward, as Maeve instructs him to do. There she finds out that she is supposed to train and eventually prove herself worthy of entering Doranelle. Maeve is her ancient Fae ancestor, an aunt. When she isn't training Celaena is expected to earn her stay in Mistward as everyone else does. Introduces herself as Elentiya, the name Nehemia gave her, because she still hates being called Aelin or being reminded that she is supposed to be a queen.

At Mistward, Celaena trains with Rowan and works in the kitchen with Emrys and Luca. We learn more about Fae abilities, including mates, shapeshifting, and carranam. Celaena's main goal is learning to control her fire and shape it into weapons and shields. She has a couple crashouts along the way. She realizes Maeve only chooses the full Fae and Demi-Fae with strong enough powers into Doranelle. And that some Demi-fae have been working for YEARS to get into the land. This pisses her off because seh doesnt have time, she doesnt have years. She has to fulfil her promise to Nehemiah adn free the slaves, her kingdom, her people. She gets into another argument with Rowan and decides she will find another way.  She packs the little she has and leaves the fortress.

The sun sets and she settles into in a cave, Celaena starts a fire despite Rowan specifically telling her not to on their first trip to Mistward. We shortly figure out why, because there are fucken skinwalkers living in the mountains, and she barely survives the attack. Rowan had secretly been watching over her in his hawk form, and together they escape by jumping off a cliff. Celaena unleashes enough fire to destroy the creatures but nearly burns herself out, teaching her about the dangers of pushing her magic too far.

Celaena and Rowan discover dead Demi-Fae whose life has been completely drained from them. They eventually figure out that the creatures doing this are the same kind of creatures Celaena encountered during one of her earlier trainings. They feed off fear and horrible memories, forcing her to relive the deaths of her parents and Nehemia. We also learn more about Celaena’s childhood and her cousin Aedion. We find out that her mother used to call her “Fireheart” and that she was raised knowing she was supposed to become the Queen of Terrasen one day. All of these memories give us a better understanding of the girl Celaena used to be before everything was taken from her.

Her relationship with Rowan gets especially bad after he becomes even colder toward her. After an argument, he tells her that he doesn't care about her and that she means nothing to him. Celaena walks back into the kitchen so done with it all. Those words of little meaning about her crush her. Emrys, Luca, and Malakai are there, but when Emrys shows her a knife from Eyllwe, it reminds her of Nehemia and everything she has lost. She completely loses it, lashing out at all of them before walking away. She is so numb and broken that she doesn't even realize how much she has hurt the people who have been trying to care about her. Rowan later learns from Emrys that he has been pushing Celaena down when she desperately needs someone to help her back up. Emrys also reveals that he knew Celaena's mother, Evalin, and recognized who she was from the moment she arrived at Mistward.

After this, Rowan gives Celaena another training exercise, and this time he uses Luca. He chains Luca to the middle of a frozen lake and tells Celaena that she has to rescue him using her fire without destroying the ice. Celaena is furious with Rowan for putting Luca in danger, but she refuses to leave Luca there. She manages to control her fire enough to melt through the ice and free him. But then they realize there is something enormous living underneath the lake. They barely escape, and the whole thing brings back memories of Nehemia's death and how she had been used as part of a plan to break Celaena.

Eventually, Rowan begins opening up about his own past. He reveals that his pregnant mate was murdered more than two hundred years ago. After losing her, he completely lost himself and let his light go out. Maeve eventually decided that it was time for him to move on, and because he had sworn a blood oath to her, he really had no choice. Learning this helps Celaena understand him better. She realizes that the cold, cruel Rowan she has been fighting with is also someone who has spent centuries carrying around his own grief.

Their relationship slowly starts changing after this. They begin to understand each other's pain instead of constantly trying to hurt each other. Celaena learns more about Maeve, her sisters, and the history of her own family, while Rowan starts seeing that Celaena is not just an assassin who refuses to accept her magic. She is someone who has lost almost everyone she has ever loved and is trying to figure out how to become herself again.

Meanwhile, things are getting much worse outside Mistward. Narrok and the Valg are preparing an attack, and we learn that after Nehemia's death, the slaves in Endovier and other labor camps rebelled. The King responded by sending soldiers to slaughter them. It is absolutely horrifying, especially because we finally see how the uprising mentioned in Crown of Midnight ends.

Eventually, Narrok's forces attack Mistward after someone betrays them. Celaena sacrifices herself to protect everyone while Rowan fights the soldiers coming through the tunnels. The Valg creatures attack her by feeding on her fear, pain, and memories, but she eventually reaches her breaking point and completely unleashes her fire. During the battle, she remembers the truth about what happened to her family. The King of Adarlan had used dark magic against her when she was a child, causing her magic to spiral out of control while her parents were murdered.

Celaena finally realizes that the amulet her mother gave her was actually a Wyrdkey, and it protected her that night. Word begins spreading that Aelin Galathynius is alive, and Maeve becomes interested in finding the Wyrdkey. Celaena eventually bargains with Maeve using the ring she discovered in the cave. Maeve agrees to release Rowan from his blood oath, and Rowan chooses to make a new blood oath to Celaena instead.

The end of the book clears with Celaena preparing to return to Rifthold. She accepts her fate and her true name. She figured out that the amulet her mother gave her was a Wyrdkey and that it had saved her the night she fell into the river. She would have died if she had truley lost it, so that could only mean one thing Arobynn kept that amulet. He has it and shes going back to get it.