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Heir of Fire Chapters 25–35 Summary
This Sarah J. Maas Heir of Fire chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Heir of Fire Chapter 25
A week passes without incident, but Celaena makes no real progress learning to shift into her Fae form. Rowan takes her to the ruins of Mala‘s temple to practice every day, and each day she fails. While wandering the ruins one afternoon, Celaena spots a carved stag with a star between its antlers, an image she recognizes from Terrasen. They talk briefly about the Fae on her continent, and Rowan mentions that Maeve had offered refuge to any who escaped to Wendlyn after the King of Adarlan began hunting them down.
The next morning, Rowan leads Celaena deep into the woods near the coast, where they find a woman’s body lodged in a stream. The woman shows no signs of physical injury but looks completely hollowed out, her skin dried and colorless, her face frozen in horror, with only dried blood at her nose and ears. Celaena recognizes the smell from the barrow field and realizes the creature they encountered there is responsible.
Rowan tells Celaena this is the fourth victim found in recent weeks, all near the coastline. Celaena suggests the killer may be leaving the bodies to be found on purpose. Before they head back, Celaena pulls the woman from the stream and builds a small pyre. Rowan sends wind to feed the flames, and they stand in silence until nothing is left.
Heir of Fire Chapter 26
Chaol brings Aedion to Celaena’s secret apartment, which Celaena left to him in her will, and gives Aedion a moment alone with the space. It’s the first time Aedion feels his cousin’s world is real.
When Chaol and Aedion get down to business, Aedion describes what he witnessed the day magic vanished. He saw two strange waves of birds moving in unnatural directions, with the source seeming to originate deep in the south, possibly as far as Endovier. He shares similar accounts from Ren, Murtaugh, and a merchant from the Deserted Peninsula, where three waves struck instead of two. Murtaugh has drawn theories from all of it, but Chaol must wait three days to hear them.
Aedion then asks Chaol to explain why he has turned against his own king. Chaol admits that seeing the labor camps and massacres destroyed everything he’d been raised to believe about Adarlan being a civilizing force on the continent.
Elsewhere, Dorian spends an hour each day in a hidden workroom with Sorscha, trying to find a way to bring his magic under control. Sorscha proposes giving him a concentrated dose of iron to see if it might dampen his power from the inside. Dorian drinks it, tries to summon his magic, and succeeds, though the effort puts him through intense physical pain.
In the relief of the moment, Dorian crosses the room and kisses Sorscha. She murmurs a quiet “Tomorrow?” and returns to her work, her expression unreadable. Dorian leaves without knowing what to make of it.
Heir of Fire Chapter 27
Manon watches the Yellowlegs coven leave for the morning and instructs Asterin to keep the Thirteen occupied so she can slip away to train with Abraxos. Asterin makes clear that her loyalty belongs to Manon rather than the Matron and reveals she already has the Shadows keeping tabs on the Yellowlegs. Manon adds her own orders about monitoring them in the air.
Down in the pen, the handlers get nowhere with Abraxos. Manon dismisses them and walks past the safety line alone. Then she and Abraxos reach an understanding. Manon tells him she’ll have iron spikes fitted to his tail and iron fangs put in his mouth and that once it’s done, they’re going to learn to fly together. Abraxos presses his snout into her hand.
The modifications take five days. Manon stays with Abraxos through all of it, talking him through the pain to keep him calm and guiding the handlers to be careful.
Afterward, Manon meets with Asterin and Sorrel to go over the Thirteen’s training. A young coven leader is struggling, and Manon decides to give her two more days to turn it around. Manon also tells Sorrel to rein in Vesta before the death toll among the men gets out of hand.
Manon then tells Asterin and Sorrel she’ll be airborne with Abraxos within a week. She knows it isn’t true, but they believe her.
Heir of Fire Chapter 28
Rowan takes Celaena to a healers’ commune, a place she finds peaceful and absorbing, though she can’t shake the feeling that Rowan brought her there to remind her how far she’s fallen. The next morning, they go to a nearby town to investigate another demi-Fae death that resembles the earlier killing. Rowan needs her along because the locals will talk more freely to her than to him.
To cover the twenty miles, Rowan pushes Celaena to shift into her Fae form, and they run the whole way through the forest. For the first time, Celaena gets a real sense of what her Fae body can do, how fast it moves and how natural it feels, and somewhere in that run, something loosens inside her.
The town is unwelcoming. Windows close as Celaena and Rowan approach, and no one wants anything to do with two Fae strangers. Celaena starts buying things, chocolates first and then whatever else catches her eye, and the spending accomplishes what charm couldn’t. People come back out and talk, but the villagers offer little worth knowing.
That night in the forest, Celaena dreams of her parents arguing in hushed voices about her safety and what her power might cost her. She wakes heavy with the memory. Rowan tells her to light the campfire using her magic, but the weight of the dream throws her off, and she incinerates everything around her instead.
Heir of Fire Chapter 29
Sorscha brings Dorian his daily iron tonic, but when he gets close and tries to thank her in an intimate way, she pulls back and leaves. Standing outside his door, Sorscha changes her mind, and when Dorian opens it, she’s the one who pulls him in and kisses him.
Meanwhile, Chaol slips away from the castle to meet Aedion in a dark alley, where they wait to connect with two Terrasen lords, Ren and Murtaugh. Ren arrives alone and badly wounded after being ambushed and trailed by a group of armed men. Aedion tucks Chaol and Ren out of sight behind some barrels and takes out all six pursuers himself.
When Chaol, Aedion, and Ren go through what the men were wearing, they spot a wyvern on one of the uniforms, the royal sigil, though Chaol doesn’t recognize it. Aedion notices that more men are sweeping the area looking for Ren, so they need to move. Ren tells them he knows somewhere they can go.
Heir of Fire Chapter 30
Chaol and Aedion haul Ren through the crowded streets and duck into an opium den just as soldiers begin raiding nearby buildings. The madam recognizes Ren and moves quickly, disguising Chaol and Aedion as drugged-out patrons while Ren, barely conscious, already looks the part. The soldiers sweep through and move on without suspecting anything.
About an hour later, Murtaugh arrives. The madam stitches Ren’s wound and says he’ll pull through, though he needs time to recover. Murtaugh believes one of Ren’s informants sold them out, and he admits that he and Ren have been homeless for years, moving between abandoned buildings and boardinghouses whenever they can afford it.
Once Ren is stable enough, Murtaugh shares what they’ve pieced together about magic vanishing from the continent. They believe a spell was cast from three separate points that form a triangle, with Rifthold at one corner. They want to investigate the origin points but cannot get near them because the king’s forces control all three. Aedion realizes this is the real reason Murtaugh kept urging Ren to stay on good terms with him.
Chaol wraps things up by offering Ren and Murtaugh a hidden apartment in the slums and reassures Murtaugh that the owner will not mind.
Heir of Fire Chapter 31
Manon takes Abraxos to a mountain meadow, hoping to reward him with a leg of mutton, but Abraxos wants nothing to do with it and spends the whole time sniffing wildflowers instead. The only way Manon can get him to eat is to hunt for him herself. She climbs a cliff, brings down a mountain goat after an undignified struggle, and hauls it back. Abraxos devours the goat in two bites and promptly returns to the flowers.
Afterward, Manon’s grandmother gives Manon an ultimatum. The Yellowlegs have already been flying as a unit for three days, and Manon has nothing to show for her time. Manon has until the following evening to be airborne with her Thirteen, or she shouldn’t bother coming back.
The next morning, Manon takes Abraxos to a peak used for training reluctant fliers. The eastern side has a short survivable drop onto a smooth slope, while the western side plunges to jagged rocks. Manon tries to coax Abraxos toward the eastern edge, but Abraxos ignores her completely.
Out of options, Manon scrambles onto the wyvern’s back, forces herself into the saddle, and digs in her heels. Abraxos panics and bucks wildly, thrashing away from the safe side and toward the deadly western drop. Manon cannot stop him in time. Abraxos loses his footing at the edge, and they fall.
Heir of Fire Chapter 32
Manon and Abraxos go over the cliff and drop toward a ravine packed with jagged rocks and trees. Manon screams at Abraxos to open his wings, and Abraxos finally does right before impact, catching a draft and swinging them back upward. They clear a mountain peak and burst into open sky, sailing through a vast cloudscape.
For Abraxos, who spent his whole life underground and in chains, it seems to be the first real taste of freedom he’s ever had, and Manon lets herself get swept up in it too.
The next morning, Manon gathers the Thirteen and their wyverns at a canyon entrance. Manon tells the group they’ll be training there every day before their regular afternoon sessions and that the arrangement stays between them. She wants the wyverns flying in tight formation with no gaps, territorial instincts be damned. Then Manon sends the Thirteen and their wyverns into the canyon.
Heir of Fire Chapter 33
Celaena has been training under Rowan, attempting to channel her magic precisely enough to light a single candle without destroying everything around her.
One evening, as Celaena scrubs dishes and listens to Emrys tell stories by the fire, she asks the elder about Queen Maeve. Emrys recounts Maeve’s origins and her two sisters, Mora and Mab, who each gave up immortality for a human man. He adds that Maeve once nearly bonded with a warrior she loved, but the warrior died in battle and she has never taken a mate since.
While Celaena listens, she spots what she thinks is a mountain cat crossing the grounds in the rain. The animal shifts into a Fae male named Gavriel, one of Rowan’s companions. Rowan meets Gavriel outside and leads him in without a word to Celaena.
Later, Celaena brings food to Rowan’s room and walks in on him tattooing Gavriel, who’s clearly in deep emotional pain. Rowan tells Celaena to leave.
In the hallway afterward, Celaena confronts Rowan. She tells him she’s exhausted by his contempt and hurt that he didn’t bother to let her know he’d be unavailable. She admits she has no one left. Rowan responds coldly that Celaena means nothing to him, her past doesn’t concern him, and he has no interest in giving her anything. Celaena walks away without another word, and something inside her goes dark.
Heir of Fire Chapter 34
Celaena wakes up feeling emotionally hollow. At breakfast, Malakai shows off a knife from Eyllwe, Nehemia’s homeland, and the sight shatters her. She turns on the others, says things she can’t take back, and walks out.
Rowan finds Emrys alone in the kitchen. The old man confronts Rowan about how he treats Celaena and reveals something unexpected. He knew Celaena’s mother personally. Evalin Ashryver had once lived among them. Emrys tells Rowan that Celaena has no hope left and urges him to help her.
Celaena wanders until she reaches a lake and breaks down. She hears what she swears is her dead mother’s voice asking why she’s crying, and she admits out loud that she’s lost. Suddenly, Rowan arrives and tells her they’re going somewhere.
Rowan leads Celaena to a cave with a frozen underground lake where Luca is chained to the ice. Rowan orders Celaena to shift into her Fae form and cross the ice to free him. He explains that she loses control of her fire magic whenever she shifts and her emotions take over.
Celaena crosses the ice and fights to keep her magic under control. She melts just enough of the anchor to free Luca’s chains. When she looks down through the ice, a giant red eye stares straight up at her.
Heir of Fire Chapter 35
When Celaena spots a creature rising beneath the ice of an underground lake, she gets Luca moving toward shore while keeping herself between him and the danger. Rowan slides a sword across the ice to Celaena. Though the creature slams its tail against the surface repeatedly, Celaena and Luca escape. Once they’re on solid ground, Rowan melts the ice and the creature retreats. It tries to follow but stops at the cave entrance, unable to bear the sunlight.
Celaena sends Luca ahead to the fortress and turns on Rowan. She attacks him for putting the boy at risk, and the fight cuts deeper than anger. She confesses that Nehemia arranged her own murder hoping it would push Celaena into action, and she admits she hates her for it. Celaena pleads with Rowan to never drag anyone else into their battles again. His response isn’t a clean agreement, but something shifts between them. Only afterward does Celaena notice she burned his wrists.
That evening, Emrys shares a story about the creature. It came from another world, cursed to live beneath the mountain by an ancient Fae warrior. What catches Celaena’s attention is the golden ring the warrior carried, because she pulled one just like it from the sword’s scabbard on the ice.
Celaena can’t sleep and goes to Rowan’s room with salve for his burns. Rowan tells her about his mate Lyria, who was killed while he was away at war, and about the years he spent lost in grief afterward. They recognize the same damage in each other and decide to try finding their way back together.