Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

418 pages

"A line that should never be crossed is about to be breached.

It puts this entire castle in jeopardy--and the life of your friend.

From the throne of glass rules a king with a fist of iron and a soul black as pitch. Assassin Celaena Sardothien won a brutal contest to become his Champion. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown. She hides her secret vigilantly; she knows that the man she serves is bent on evil.

Keeping up the deadly charade becomes increasingly difficult when Celaena realizes she is not the only one seeking justice. As she tries to untangle the mysteries buried deep within the glass castle, her closest relationships suffer. It seems no one is above questioning her allegiance--not the Crown Prince Dorian; not Chaol, the Captain of the Guard; not even her best friend, Nehemia, a foreign princess with a rebel heart.

Then, one terrible night, the secrets they have all been keeping lead to an unspeakable tragedy. As Celaena's world shatters, she will be forced to give up the very thing most precious to her and decide once and for all where her true loyalties lie...and whom she is ultimately willing to fight for." -Dust Jacket

Love, love LOVE this second book. There is so much that happens in this book and it takes you on an emotional rollercoaster full of highs and serious lows. Celaena goes through so much in this book and at first I was sort of annoyed with her. It's the typical boy kept a secret from her and she's mad so she punishes him when she's keeping secrets from him as well. But, like I said about the first book, she is a traumatized teenager who's asked to do some pretty messed up things and serve the man who killed her family and invaded her homeland. This complicates her feelings for Chaol and for Dorian. (I'm Team Chaol but Dorian is a close second.)

This is a great fantasy series. It's really well written and I can't wait to read it again. Unfortunately the last two books aren't out yet. There are some new elements that are introduced in this book that will be interesting to see how they develop. The biggest twist in this book was pretty predictable I thought. I have two objections: The author uses a four-letter word in this book that I don't think is necessary and she also references homosexuality which I didn't like either.

{Spoilers}

In this book, Celaena is doing the King's bidding and killing people that are apparently traitors to the crown, but she's walking a dangerous line because she's not actually killing them but helping them escape. She's trying to discover the secret to the King's power and learns that he has at least one Wyrdmark but might have more. The clock tower is one of them. He and several members of his cabinet wear black rings which somehow connects them.

Celaena and Chaol grow closer in this book and she plans an awesome birthday celebration for him. They are really cute together but their relationship is virtually destroyed when Chaol is captured and held as bait to draw Celaena out of the castle. Chaol's been keeping the secret that there was an anonymous tip that Nehemia's life was in danger. He knows that if he tells Celaena and word gets back to the king that the king will brand him a traitor. On the night that Celaena rescues Chaol, Nehemia is brutally murdered in the castle, and because Chaol knew about the threat, Celaena snaps and almost kills him. Dorian's newly-discovered magic is the only thing that saves him. Celaena can't forgive Chaol but Chaol continues to protect her. Celaena exacts revenge on the murderer and it creates this conundrum for Chaol. He loves her yet she's capable of so much darkness and violence. It's hard for him to reconcile the two sides of her.

Dorian has discovered that he has magic in his blood for some reason and this is a fact that will get him killed if his father ever finds out. He can't control it and it comes out when he's angry or scared. Celaena opens a portal to another world at the end of the book, trying to contact Nehemia, and Dorian has to help her close it. It's in this other world that Chaol sees Celaena transform into her true form--a Fae...and she can summon and breath fire. She's got fangs and everything. He doesn't know how to handle that knowledge but ultimately protects her yet again and sets a plan in motion that will send her back to the realm where the Fae still live. He convinces the king to send her to Wendlyn to kill the royal family. What he doesn't know is that the king has told Celaena that if she doesn't complete her missions he will kill Chaol and Nehemia's family. She's supposed to kill the royal family at a celebration and so she doesn't know how she's going to not kill them and keep Chaol alive. Chaol comes to see her off on the ship and Celaena whispers a date in his ear--it's the date her parents were killed and the date she snapped in Endovier. Chaol puts two and two together back and the castle, realizes that she's the rightful heir to the Terrasen throne (the pretty obvious plot twist), and that he's just sent her back to her people with dangerous information about his king that could destroy the kingdom he's fought to protect and given up his birthright for. Despite all they've been through, Celaena tells him that she'll always pick him. The interesting thing will be whether or not Aelin (Celaena's real name) will. (I seriously hope so.)

Celaena learns that Nehemia knew that she would die, even helped orchestrate it, so that Celaena would be forced down the path that she and Elena needed her to take. The assassin who was sent to kill her parents took her and trained her instead of killing her. Celaena vows to free Nehemia's homeland because she wants to prove she's not the coward Nehemia accused her of being.