In the kingdom of Adarlan, freedom is not earned; it is brokered through blood and compliance. Celaena Sardothien, a notorious eighteen-year-old assassin, is plucked from the lethal salt mines of Endovier and offered a singular, desperate bargain: serve as the Crown Prince’s champion in a cutthroat tournament to become the King’s personal executioner. If she defeats twenty-three soldiers, thieves, and killers, she earns her liberty after four years of service. If she fails, she returns to the mines to die.

The stakes, however, extend far beyond the arena's floor. The setting is a palace of glass that functions as a monument to erasure, where magic has been outlawed for a decade and history is being systematically rewritten by a totalitarian regime. As competitors begin to surface as mutil...

In the kingdom of Adarlan, freedom is not earned; it is brokered through blood and compliance. Celaena Sardothien, a notorious eighteen-year-old assassin, is plucked from the lethal salt mines of Endovier and offered a singular, desperate bargain: serve as the Crown Prince’s champion in a cutthroat tournament to become the King’s personal executioner. If she defeats twenty-three soldiers, thieves, and killers, she earns her liberty after four years of service. If she fails, she returns to the mines to die.

The stakes, however, extend far beyond the arena's floor. The setting is a palace of glass that functions as a monument to erasure, where magic has been outlawed for a decade and history is being systematically rewritten by a totalitarian regime. As competitors begin to surface as mutil...