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Throne of Glass Chapters 25–34 Summary
This Sarah J. Maas Throne of Glass chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Throne of Glass Chapter 25
Celaena dreams she’s following the scent of roses through a secret underground passage until she stumbles into a hidden tomb. Inside, two stone sarcophagi lie side by side, and she realizes they belong to Gavin, the first King of Adarlan, and his wife Elena, the first Princess of Terrasen. Among the treasures in the chamber, she also spots Damaris, Gavin’s legendary sword.
Then Elena appears and warns that something evil hides within the castle walls. If Celaena doesn’t stop it, it will tear open a permanent portal between worlds. Elena tells her the first step is to win the competition and become the King’s Champion, since Erilea needs someone in that role who understands its people’s suffering. Before monsters can reach them, Elena presses a golden amulet into Celaena’s hand for protection and pushes her out of the tomb. Celaena runs and wakes in her bed.
Celaena nearly dismisses the whole thing as a nightmare until she finds the amulet in her hand. Rattled, she puts it on. Winning the competition doesn’t trouble her since she intended to win anyway, but hunting a dark force inside the castle gives her pause. She eventually resolves to return to the tomb and search for clues, driven by fear that Nehemia, Chaol, and Dorian could be hurt if she does nothing.
Throne of Glass Chapter 26
Chaol storms into Celaena’s room demanding to know where she was the night before. He tells her that Xavier, a thief from Melisande, was found dead and half-eaten. Celaena plays it cool, insists she never left her room, and turns the conversation back on him until he backs off and leaves.
Once Chaol is gone, Celaena sneaks into the secret tomb beneath the castle, hoping to find a clue about the evil Elena warned her about. She comes up empty and eventually heads back.
Later, on her way to the library, Celaena passes the crime scene. It’s far worse than Chaol described. Xavier’s organs and brain have been removed entirely, and Wyrdmarks are smeared across the nearby wall, pointing to something ritualistic rather than a brawl or rivalry killing. She runs into Grave near the scene, and they exchange a few cool words before moving on.
Meanwhile, Dorian and Chaol spar. Dorian lets slip that he visited Celaena the previous night, and Chaol admits he put extra guards on her room. After they finish, Chaol heads off to examine Xavier’s body again while Dorian retreats to his tower alone.
Throne of Glass Chapter 27
Near the clock tower, Celaena and Nehemia are confronted by Cain and Verin. Cain mocks Nehemia’s standing as a princess, then pulls Celaena aside and tells her he knows who she really is and that his own sponsor is no cleaner than hers. Celaena wants to hit him, but she knows a brawl would cost her freedom, so she and Nehemia walk away.
A few days later, Chaol brings Dorian to watch Celaena train without her knowing. Dorian notices she’s gotten stronger, and when he sees her working with Nox, Chaol recognizes the look on his face as jealousy. He worries the prince is about to make things complicated for everyone.
Meanwhile, Celaena has been trying to connect the Wyrdmarks she saw at the murder scene to the ones around the clock tower. She digs through the library looking for answers, with Chaol nearby but unaware of her true purpose. She pieces together that Wyrdmarks are an ancient alphabet linked to a force called the Wyrd, and that Wyrdgates can be opened using Wyrdmarks to let things through from other realms.
At some point, Celaena finds a strange book about the undead that she has no memory of pulling from the shelf. Strange sounds rattle her until Chaol reveals he was scraping his dagger on the floor. Shaken and annoyed, she takes a couple of books and leaves.
Throne of Glass Chapter 28
Celaena is alone in the gaming room late at night, trying to teach herself billiards and failing badly. Dorian walks in and catches her mid-meltdown, biting the cue out of pure frustration. He picks up a cue and tries to show her how to play properly, using it as an excuse to get closer to her than he really needs to. Both end up visibly flustered.
Hours slip by as Celaena and Dorian play game after game until two in the morning, working through a spread of desserts Dorian has sent up and talking freely about books, history, politics, and theater. He somehow ends up promising to take her to a play after the competition. Eventually, she falls asleep in her chair mid-conversation.
Dorian wakes Celaena and walks her back to her room. He blows out her candles and grabs a stack of books before leaving. On the walk back to his own room, he wonders whether the version of Celaena he’s been getting to know tonight is real or just a performance calculated to win her freedom.
Throne of Glass Chapter 29
The Test has each Champion spar to avoid elimination. Cain takes down Grave with ease, which rattles Celaena. When Verin makes a vulgar remark about her, she fires back, and Brullo sends them into the ring to settle it. She drops Verin in seconds without drawing her sword, kicks him out of the ring, and then tells Brullo he should be giving her real opponents. Walking straight up to Cain, she lets him know she intends to win the competition. He brushes her off, and she leaves it at that.
Back in her room, Celaena thinks about how alone she feels and wishes Sam were still with her.
At court, Kaltain sits beside Queen Georgina during a performance and steers the conversation toward Dorian. The queen mentions she’s heard he’s taken an interest in some unknown woman, which quietly frustrates Kaltain. When Georgina says Kaltain would’ve been a fine match for Dorian, Kaltain takes it as an opening and starts thinking about her next move.
Throne of Glass Chapter 30
Celaena and Chaol are pulled out of a training session when guards report a body in the servant’s passages. The victim turns out to be Verin.
At the scene, Celaena works out what happened. Someone had slashed Verin’s tendons to stop him from running, then apparently summoned some kind of creature to finish the job. She also notices two Wyrdmarks drawn near the body, and the connection hits her. The person killing off the Champions might be the same evil force Elena warned her about.
Later that night, back in her room, Celaena digs through books trying to find anything about the Wyrdmarks when Dorian shows up. Their talk turns warmer than either of them probably intended, and she admits to herself that she actually likes him.
Meanwhile, Chaol sits at dinner watching Perrington from across the room. A few times he catches something unsettling in the duke’s expression, a brief, strange darkness that passes over his eyes before disappearing. It’s nothing Chaol can act on yet, but enough to keep him watchful.
Throne of Glass Chapter 31
Celaena’s sleep is interrupted when the ghost of Elena appears in her room. Elena urges her to win the competition and leaves her with one cryptic piece of guidance before disappearing: whatever Celaena is looking for, she’ll find it to her right.
The following day, Celaena faces a Test that requires her to identify seven poisoned goblets, rank them from least to most dangerous, and drink from the safest one. She works through most of them but hits a wall with the final two.
Running low on time, Celaena glances to her right and spots Pelor, who specializes in poisons. He’s already finished and catches her eye, giving her a subtle signal about which goblet to choose. She trusts it, drinks the correct one, and Brullo declares both her and Pelor winners.
Afterward, Celaena realizes Elena’s advice had been pointing her toward Pelor the whole time. Celaena feels grateful but remains uneasy about Elena’s motives and unwilling to let the ghost steer her choices going forward.
Throne of Glass Chapter 32
Celaena and Nehemia take a break from their usual language lesson to walk through the castle. Nehemia notices she seems troubled, and the two share a moment of friendship.
During their walk, Nehemia mentions she’s been invited to watch a play with the queen and asks Celaena to come along as a translator, but she can’t go. Nehemia also reveals she’s been deliberately cultivating a relationship with the queen to improve Eyllwe’s position with Adarlan.
The two wander into the kennels and run into Dorian. Celaena notices a fifth puppy sitting alone and learns it will be killed if it can’t be placed as a pet. She refuses to accept that, and Dorian promises to find it a home.
On the walk back, Nehemia asks if Celaena has feelings for Dorian, and Celaena shuts the idea down immediately.
Walking alone near a window, Celaena briefly thinks about escaping the castle. Her thoughts break when she spots Cain’s reflection behind her. He’s behaving strangely, gasping and clutching at his throat, and when she turns to face him, he bolts down the hall. Shaken, she returns to her rooms and sends warnings to Nox and Pelor, telling them to stay inside and not open their doors to anyone.
Throne of Glass Chapter 33
Kaltain is in the middle of smoking opium when Duke Perrington shows up unannounced. She scrambles to compose herself before letting him in, spending most of their conversation fighting through a drug-induced fog. Perrington mentions that Dorian spoke highly of her, but that Lady Lillian cut their conversation short. That’s enough to get Kaltain’s mind working.
During the exchange, Kaltain nudges Perrington toward suspicion, suggesting Lillian’s origins might not be as respectable as she presents herself and that someone loyal to the crown ought to look into it. He seems convinced.
Across the palace, Celaena reads alone when Nehemia slips in, visibly devastated. She had left the play early. A letter from her father brought word that Adarlan’s army had captured five hundred Eyllwe rebels and then slaughtered all of them, children included, after some attempted to flee. Celaena holds her while she cries, at a loss for anything useful to say.
Throne of Glass Chapter 34
Celaena spends the evening curled up by her window, suffering through painful menstrual cramps that have returned after months of near-starvation left her body malnourished. Philippa brings her tea and offers a word of sympathy before leaving her alone.
Not long after, Chaol walks in, unaware of what’s wrong with her, and launches into a surprisingly vulnerable confession about the slaughtered Eyllwe rebels and his doubts about his role. Celaena tries to warn him several times that she’s about to be sick, but he keeps going until she vomits on the floor mid-sentence. She explains her cycle has returned, and he practically sprints out of the room.
Dorian arrives next, tipped off by Chaol, and tries to distract her with a card game. She’s not interested, but they fall into their usual teasing rhythm anyway. When he finds her romance novel, she manipulates him into taking it by implying Chaol had already refused it.
The tone shifts as Dorian confesses his shame over his father’s cruelty toward conquered peoples, including Celaena’s homeland of Terrasen. He admits he picked her as his Champion mostly to irritate his father, the only small freedom available to him. Celaena tells him she doesn’t hate him, and for a moment they’re genuinely honest with each other. He kisses her cheek before leaving.
Alone afterward, Celaena wonders briefly whether Chaol had been working up to inviting her to the Yulemas masked ball before everything went sideways.
Lying awake, Celaena can’t stop thinking about the hundreds of Eyllwe rebels buried in unmarked graves.