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A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapters 40–46 Summary
This Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses chapter summary contains full spoilers.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 40
Feyre is brought before Amarantha for her second trial and lowered into a pit where Lucien is chained on the other side of an iron grate. Two massive spike-covered grates begin descending from the ceiling, and the only way to stop them is to pull the correct lever out of three by solving a riddle carved into the wall.
The catch is that Feyre can’t read. Panic rises as the spikes close in and the heat becomes unbearable, leaving her unable to work out the words in time. Just before the grates reach her, she notices the eye tattoo on her palm reacting each time she reaches toward a lever. It burns at the wrong ones and stays quiet at the third. She pulls the third lever, and the grates stop.
Feyre is brought back up, having survived, but she’s shaken because she knows she only made it through by luck and Rhysand’s interference, not by her own ability. Back in her cell, she falls apart. Rhysand shows up and does something strange and unsettling enough to jolt her out of her spiral, then admits matter‑of‑factly he did it just to make her stop crying. Before he leaves, he lets slip that he knows she can’t read and tells her that when she comes to his court, he plans to make her learn.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 41
After her second trial, Feyre sinks into a deep depression and stops trying to solve Amarantha’s riddle. Convinced she won’t survive the third trial, she gives up fighting and relies on the faerie wine Rhysand provides just to get through each day.
During one of those days, Feyre and her attendants stumble across a conversation between the Attor and a strange creature. The creature tells the Attor that the High King of Hybern is losing patience with Amarantha. Her bargain with Feyre has disrupted his plans, and this isn’t the first time her behavior has cost him. The Attor pushes back, but the creature makes clear the king holds real power over Amarantha and refuses to keep waiting.
Feyre is shaken. She senses the king’s campaign against the mortal world is closer to starting than anyone realized, though her only reassurance is that Nesta is already prepared to move their family to safety.
Back in her cell, Feyre hears faint music through a small vent. It pulls her completely out of herself. She cries, thinks of Tamlin, and for the first time in days remembers what she’s fighting for. By the time the music fades, something in her has shifted. Two days remain until her final trial.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 42
Feyre spends what she believes is her last night at one of Amarantha’s parties, dreading what the next day will bring. Tamlin signals her discreetly, and they slip away through a hidden door. What follows is brief and intense, both of them knowing it may be the last time they share a moment alone before her trials.
Rhysand interrupts and threatens to tell Amarantha, who would almost certainly take it out on Lucien. Tamlin backs off and leaves. Amarantha arrives to find Feyre alone with Rhysand, who has already kissed her to muddy the scene. She misreads the situation, and Tamlin walks out,
That night Rhysand visits Feyre’s cell and, for once, speaks plainly. He explains that provoking Tamlin into a blinding rage is the plan because the moment Feyre breaks the curse, Tamlin’s fury will be what finally takes Amarantha down. He says he kept his hands off Feyre earlier so he’d have proof to show Tamlin later that he was on her side. Almost in passing, he mentions that Amarantha singled him out for cruel treatment because his father killed Tamlin’s father, who had been her friend.
As Rhysand leaves, Feyre works something out. His kiss wasn’t random or selfish; it protected her. She also points out that when he healed her arm, he had far more bargaining power than he chose to use. He acknowledges it and walks away.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 43
Feyre is brought before Amarantha for her third and final trial. The crowd falls unusually quiet, and some faeries make a gesture of honor toward her. Amarantha then reveals what she must do. Three hooded figures are brought out, and Feyre has to stab each of them through the heart with an ash dagger. If she refuses, she dies.
The first figure, a young man, begs Feyre to stop before she kills him. The second, a young woman, recites a prayer and gives Feyre a silent nod before the end. When the hood comes off the third figure, it’s Tamlin. The Tamlin who had been sitting on the throne the whole time was actually the Attor in disguise.
Instead of breaking down, Feyre starts piecing together something she overheard long before. Both Tamlin and the Attor had said Tamlin had “a heart of stone,” and Feyre suddenly realizes those words were literal. She has never felt his heartbeat, not once. She concludes his heart may have actually been turned to stone, which would mean plunging the dagger into his chest wouldn’t kill him.
Trusting her own reasoning and believing Tamlin had deliberately placed those clues where she’d find them, Feyre takes the last dagger and stabs him.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 44
Feyre stabs Tamlin with an ash dagger, but the blade strikes something hard inside him and bounces back without killing him. Amarantha rises and refuses to honor her promise, claiming she never agreed to free the faeries the moment the trials ended. She turns her magic on Feyre instead, shattering her bones and demanding she confess she doesn’t truly love Tamlin.
Rhysand tries to stop Amarantha, seizing the dagger and hurling himself at her, then rising again when she blasts him back. She beats him viciously into the stone floor and leaves him there while she turns back to Feyre.
No matter how much pain Feyre endures, she won’t deny her love for Tamlin. Tamlin crawls toward Amarantha and begs her to stop, even apologizing for an old remark he once made about someone named Clythia, but she ignores him.
As Feyre is dying, she suddenly understands the answer to the riddle Amarantha set at the beginning. She uses the last of her breath to say it aloud. The answer is love. Then her spine breaks.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 45
Feyre dies, and the scene unfolds through Rhysand’s eyes. Amarantha is visibly shaken by her death, but Tamlin’s grief quickly turns to rage. He shifts into his beast form and tears into the queen before she can mount any real defense. Lucien throws him a sword, and Tamlin uses it to finish her off for good.
Once Amarantha falls, Tamlin goes straight to Feyre’s body. He holds her and weeps openly. Then, one by one, the High Lords of the other courts step forward, each offering a fragment of their power and placing it on her chest. Rhysand comes last, giving back the piece of Feyre’s soul he had been carrying. Finally, Tamlin presses his glowing hand over Feyre’s heart, tells her he loves her, and kisses her as he channels his power into her.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Chapter 46
Feyre wakes on the throne room floor, alive and transformed into High Fae. Amarantha is dead, and the courts are free.
The room descends into chaos as dangerous faeries flee while Tamlin’s allies celebrate and hold urgent meetings. Feyre stays silent, struggling to adjust to her new body and carrying the guilt of having killed two faeries to break the curse.
Tamlin eventually leads Feyre to a quiet room and heals her wounds, then the two become intimate instead of talking about what happened.
Later, a magical pull draws Feyre to a balcony where Rhysand is waiting. He says he fought against Amarantha at the end because he refused to let Feyre face it alone. Just before he disappears, something in Feyre’s expression visibly shocks him, and he vanishes without a word.
Feyre and Tamlin walk out of the mountain together into sunlight as the remaining High Fae seal the entrance behind them. Looking down at their manor, with Alis and her nephews playing freely in the fields for the first time, they share a quiet moment before heading home.
Disclaimer: This is A Court of Thorns and Roses summary. The original work is the property of Sarah J. Maas and Bloomsbury Publishing.
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