Characters – confirmed
Aedion Ashryver
She knew that voice. Knew the scent—like a clear brook and new grass. Aedion.
“I missed you,” she whispered onto him, breathing in his scent—that male warrior’s scent she was just learning, remembering. “Every day, I missed you.” Her skin grew damp beneath his face. “Never again,” he promised.
Aelin
She slid onto the bed beside him, her scent caressing him. Jasmine, and lemon verbena, and crackling embers. Elegant, feminine, and utterly wild. Warm, and steadfast—unbreakable, his queen.
She huffed a laugh that might have been a sob and wrapped her arms around his waist as if trying to steal his warmth. Her sodden hair tumbled down, the scent of her—jasmine and lemon verbena and crackling embers—rising above the smell of almonds to caress his nose, his senses. Rowan stood with his queen in the rain, breathing in her scent, and let her steal his warmth for as long as she needed.
Prince Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, consort, husband, and mate of the Queen of Terrasen, knew he was dreaming. He knew it, because he could see her. There was only darkness here. And wind. And a great, yawning chasm between them. No bottom existed in that abyss, that crack in the world. But he could hear whispers snaking through it, down far below. She stood with her back to him, hair blowing in a sheet of gold. Longer than he’d seen it the last time. He tried to shift, to fly over the chasm. His body’s innate magic ignored him. Locked in his Fae body, the jump too far, he could only stare toward her, breathe in her scent—jasmine, lemon verbena, and crackling embers— as it floated to him on the wind. This wind told him no secrets, had no song to sing. It was a wind of death, of cold, of nothing. Aelin. He had no voice here, but he spoke her name. Threw it across the gulf between them. Slowly, she turned to him. It was her face—or it would be in a few years. When she Settled.
Aelin extended a hand. “You know how this goes, then. Or are you too old to remember?”
Lorcan glared and knelt, offering up the dagger at his side.
A fool. He was a fool.
And yet his hands shook slightly as he gave the queen the knife.
Aelin weighed the blade, a golden ring capped with an obscenely large emerald adorning her finger. A wedding band. Likely from the barrowwight trove she’d pilfered. He glanced to where Whitethorn stood to the side. Sure enough, a golden ring lay on the warrior’s own finger, a ruby built into the band. And peeking above the collar of Rowan’s jacket, two fresh scars lay.
A pair of them now marked the queen’s own throat.
“Done gawking?” Aelin asked Lorcan coolly.
He scowled. Even with the holy ritual they were about to partake in, the queen found a way to be irreverent. “Say it.”
Her lips curved again. “Do you, Lorcan Salvaterre, swear upon your blood and eternal soul, to be loyal to me, to my crown, and to Terrasen for the rest of your life?”
He blinked. Maeve had intoned a lengthy list of questions in the Old Language when he’d sworn her oath. But he said, “I do. I swear it.”
Aelin sliced the dagger across her forearm, and her blood shone bright as the ruby in the sword at her side. “Then drink.”
His last chance to back out from this.
But he glanced toward Elide again. And saw hope—just a glimmer of it—lighting her face.
So Lorcan took the queen’s arm in his hands and drank.
The taste of her—jasmine, lemon verbena, and crackling embers—filled his mouth. Filled his soul, as something burned and settled within him.
An ember of warmth. Like a piece of that raging magic had come to rest inside his very soul.
Swaying a bit, he let go of her arm.
“Welcome to the court,” Aelin said. “Here’s your first and only order: protect Terrasen and its people.”
The command settled in him, too, another little spark that glowed down deep.
Arobynn Hamel
It was what Arobynn wanted—for her to think of him as she rubbed the oil into every inch of her skin. For her breasts, her thighs, her neck to smell like almond—his chosen scent. His scent, because he knew that a Fae male had come to stay with her, and all signs pointed to their being close enough for scent to matter to Rowan.
Azriel
But I let Azriel scoop me up, his scent of night-chilled mist and cedar wrapping around me as he flapped his wings once, stirring the dirt of the courtyard.
Baba Yellowlegs
He leaned in close enough to set his gold on the top step beside her, keeping well away from her withered form. She smelled atrocious, like mildew and rotted blood. But he kept his face blank and bored as he pulled back. The gold vanished with a swipe of a gnarled hand.
“How do you know about that?” she asked, setting down her candle. She’d already burned her bloodied clothes. They had reeked as they burned—reeked like rotting flesh, just as Yellowlegs had.
“Oh, I can smell her on you,” Mort said. “Smell her fury and wickedness.”
Bryce Quinlan
“She’s here,” Hunt said. The scent of her still lingered on the sidewalk, lilac and nutmeg and something he couldn’t quite place—like the gleam of the first stars at nightfall.
The mirthroot wrapped soft, sweet arms around his mind and dragged him into its shimmering pool. Ruhn let himself drown in it, too mellow to do anything but let the music wash over him, his body sinking into the mattress, until he was falling through shadows and starlight. The strings of the song hovered overhead, golden threads that glittered with sound. Was he still moving his body? His eyelids were too heavy to lift to check. A scent like lilac and nutmeg filled the room. Female, Fae …
He’d detected her lilac-and-nutmeg scent on the wind the moment she’d stepped outside the back door of her building, and when he’d discovered where, precisely, she was driving on that scooter …
He trailed a hand down her hip, her thigh. His cock stirred at the softness of her, the sweet smell of lilac and nutmeg.
The feed kept going, in time to Thanatos’s moving mouth. Hunger filled the demon’s expression.
I can smell the starlight on you.
The Prince of the Ravine knew her. Somehow.
Bryce smirked and took it, pressing close to him. Hunt breathed in her scent, the jasmine of her perfume. She set her tiara on her head at a jaunty angle, the little peak of solid diamond glittering as if lit by starlight.
Cassian
And the taste of him, like snow-kissed wind and crackling embers—
She moaned, unable to help herself.
Dorian Havilliard
He was standing so near that she could see the fine thread detail on his jacket, and smelled not perfume, but horses and iron.
Yellowlegs smiled at her. “He had such interesting questions, too. He thought I didn’t recognize him, but I can smell Havilliard blood a mile off. Seven gold pieces, and I’ll answer your questions—and tell you his.”
Manon let go of all pretense of reason as the king lifted his head and claimed her mouth. And for all his wanting to taste her, as she opened for him, Manon thought the king tasted like the sea, like a winter morning, something so foreign and yet familiar it at last dragged that moan from deep in her.
Einar Danaan (Autumn King)
“There are cameras everywhere,” she said, staying seated behind her desk, hating every whiff of his ashes-and-nutmeg scent that dragged her back twelve years, to the weeping thirteen-year-old she’d been the last time she’d spoken to him.
Elain Archeron
Elain was in the private library. Nesta knew it before she’d cleared the stairs, covered in dust from the library. Her sister’s delicate scent of jasmine and honey lingered in the redstoned hall like a promise of spring, a sparkling river that she followed to the open doors of the chamber.
Elide Lochan
The girl might still be a spy, Manon told herself, turning toward the desk, where Elide’s scent was strongest. Sure enough, the sprawling map of the continent held traces of Elide’s cinnamon-and-elderberries scent in concentrated spots. Fingerprints.
Human—the cinnamon-and-elderberries scent of her was utterly human—and yet that other smell remained, that tinge of darkness fluttering about her like a hummingbird’s wings.
Ember Quinlan
Bryce wished she could reach through the camera and wrap her arms around her, breathing in her honeysuckle-and-nutmeg scent.
Feyre Archeron
I kissed her cheek, breathing in her lilac-and-pear scent. “I have some errands that need tending to.”
Helion
My father had once bought and traded a gold and lapis lazuli pendant that hailed from the ruins of an arid southeastern kingdom, where the Fae had ruled as gods amid swaying date palms and sand-swept palaces. I’d been mesmerized by the colors, the artistry, but more interested in the shipment of myrrh and figs that had come with it—a few of the latter my father had snuck to me while I loitered in his office. Even now, I could still taste their sweetness on my tongue, still smell that earthy scent, and I couldn’t quite explain why, but … I remembered that ancient necklace and those exquisite delicacies as he prowled toward us.
Feyre uses the smell and taste verbs directly, but she is recalling myrrh and figs, not sensing them herself in the room. Feyre memory is triggered by his approach. Coded as recalled, not direct.
My father had once bought and traded a gold and lapis lazuli pendant that hailed from the ruins of an arid southeastern kingdom, where the Fae had ruled as gods amid swaying date palms and sand-swept palaces. I’d been mesmerized by the colors, the artistry, but more interested in the shipment of myrrh and figs that had come with it—a few of the latter my father had snuck to me while I loitered in his office. Even now, I could still taste their sweetness on my tongue…
Figs arrived in the same shipment as the myrrh. Compare the Dawn Court, which has potted fig trees, but as flora, narrated, not tasted. Two Solar courts, same fruit, different evidence type.
Helion’s power, warm and clear, brushed against the shield, trawling through the air between us. As if testing for a tether. As if I were some parasite, leeching power from him. And he’d gladly sever it.
Hunt Athalar
A rain-kissed scent brushed her nose as Hunt fell into step beside her.
The wind off his wings stirred her hair, throwing his cedar-and-rain scent into her face as he leapt into the skies.
The sheets were warm, and smelled of him—rain-kissed cedar. She tried not to breathe it in too obviously as she took up a sitting position against the headboard.
His cedar-and-rain scent wrapped around her as she pumped the barrel, and by the time the demon had whirled back her way, jaws snapping, she’d fired.
A scuff of steps told her Flynn was giving them privacy; a cedar-scented breeze flitting past suggested that Hunt had gone airborne to wait for her.
Hunt was there in an instant, wrapping her in his arms, wings folding around them, surrounding her with that familiar, beckoning scent of rain on cedar.
Rising onto her knees, fingers digging into his soft hair, she couldn’t get enough, taste enough of him—rain and cedar and salt and pure lightning.
Bryce groaned, tasting apple and that storm-kissed cedar scent that was pure Hunt, grinding herself against his demanding hardness.
(Note: Hunt was already eating an apple in this scene, it’s not part of his scent)
The silver darts along Mordoc’s collar glinted as he stepped closer. “Rigelus has a special interest in you lot. He asked me to sniff around.” He made a show of smelling Hunt. “Maybe it’s because your scent is wrong, angel.” Athalar growled, “What the fuck does that mean?” Mordoc angled his head with mocking assessment. “Not like any other angel I’ve scented.”
Hypaxia Enador
Ruhn followed her down the hall, trying not to breathe in her eucalyptus-and-lavender scent too deeply.
A lovely, familiar female scent hit him a moment before he registered who stood there, broom in hand. Queen Hypaxia Enador smiled faintly.
Ithan refrained from reaching for the knife in his boot as the Reaper inhaled deeply. Getting a whiff of her scent? Or preparing to eat her spirit? “Your soul smells like rain clouds and mountain berries.” The creep licked his lips. “Anyone ever tell you that?” How Hypaxia kept her hands on his head, Ithan had no idea. He was half inclined to rip the shithead’s arms out of their sockets and use them to beat the guy senseless. The Reaper inhaled again. “A little bit of witch, a little bit of necromancer, huh?”
Juniper Andromeda
She said nothing. Hunt sighed, and was about to sit down to make that apology when he scented jasmine and vanilla, and—
“Excuse me, sir—oh. Um. Erm.” He found himself looking at a lovely
faun, dressed in a white tank top and skirt short enough to show off her long, striped legs and delicate hooves.
Lady of Autumn
She pointed at the bucket with a long, slender hand. “My debt is paid.” She disappeared through the door she’d opened, and I could have sworn I smelled roasting chestnuts and crackling fires in her wake.
Leighfer Bardingale
From a few feet away, she found Leighfer Bardingale observing her, the woman’s dark eyes remarkably sad. Pitying. Or was it regret for what she had hired Celaena to do? Bardingale approached, brushing against Celaena’s skirts on her way to the buffet table, but Celaena chose not to acknowledge her. Whatever Arobynn had told the woman about her, she didn’t care to know. Though she would have liked to know what perfume Bardingale was wearing; it smelled like jasmine and vanilla.
Lysandra
The silver-haired Fae royals entered just before them, Prince Endymion giving her—giving Aelin—a bow of the head. His cousin’s wife. That’s what he believed her to be. In addition to being queen. Endymion had never scented Aelin, wouldn’t know that the strange shifter’s scent was all wrong. Thank the gods for that.
She slumped onto his cot, as if her knees couldn’t hold her upright. For a heartbeat, the urge to sit beside her, to pull her to him, was so strong he nearly yielded to it. The tang of her blood filled the space, along with the wild, many-faced scent of her. It dragged a sensual finger down his skin, whetting his rage into something so deadly he might have very well killed the next male who entered this tent.
Lysandra sagged, leaning on him further. As if the weight of exhaustion was unbearable. Aedion rested his chin atop her head and closed his eyes, breathing in her ever-changing scent. Her heartbeat thundered against his own as he ran a hand down her spine. Long, soothing strokes.
Micah Domitus
Bryce lowered her head to the Governor, stepping back, her stupid heels wobbling on the carpet. “Welcome, Your Grace. Please come in.” Micah Domitus’s brown eyes devoured her. His power pressed against her skin, ripped the air from the room, her lungs. Filled the space with midnight storms, sex and death entwined.
Isaiah just gave her a nod as he trailed Micah toward the chairs before the desk. Hunt Athalar, however, lingered. Holding her gaze—before he glanced at her collarbone. As if the feather had left a mark. The tattoo of thorns across his forehead seemed to turn darker. And just like that, that scent of sex rippling off the Archangel turned to rot. The Asteri and the Archangels could have easily found another way to hobble the power of the Fallen, yet they’d enslaved them with the witch spells woven into magical tattoos stamped onto their foreheads like fucked- up crowns.
Mor (Morrigan)
“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, and I got to my feet, awkwardly jutting out my hand. She ignored it and grabbed me into a bone-crushing hug. She smelled like citrus and cinnamon.
Nehemia Ytger
She could feel the lingering oil from Nehemia’s hands and smell her friend’s lotus-blossom scent on the engraved wood. Yes, the staff would do just fine.
It took Celaena an hour to gently, carefully pack up Nehemia’s clothes and jewelry, and she tried not to dwell too long on the memories that accompanied each item. Or the lotus-blossom smell that clung to everything.
She could smell lotus blossoms and a bit of nutmeg. She made a small noise and blinked,
attempting to raise herself from the bed. What had happened? She could only recall climbing the stairs, then concealing the secret door behind the tapestry— Celaena gave a start and grabbed at her tunic, gaping as she found that it had somehow turned into a nightgown, and then marveled at her handas she lifted it into the air. It was healed—completely healed. The only remnants of the wounds was a half-moon-shaped scar between her thumb and index finger and little bite marks from the ridderak’s lower teeth. She ran a finger over each of the chalk-white scars, tracing their curve, then wiggled her fingers to ensure no nerves had been severed. How was this possible? It was magic—someone had healed her. She lifted herself and saw she was not alone. Nehemia sat in a chair nearby, staring at her. There was no smile on her lips, and Celaena shifted as she beheld the mistrust in the young woman’s eyes.
Nesryn Faliq
So they armed and cloaked themselves and made it two steps outside before he detected a female scent—like mint and some spice he couldn’t identify—approaching them. Fast. He’d caught that scent before, but couldn’t place it. Pain whipped his ribs as he reached for his dagger, but Aelin said, “It’s Nesryn. Relax.”
Calculating, cool Nesryn–she was like molten steel in his arms as he devoured her mouth, then ripped his lips away to taste her neck, taste her skin. Salt and sun and smoke–
He slid a hand up her side, then palmed her full breast. Her hand landed atop his, guiding him to squeeze harder, to roll her breast in his palm as he licked up the column of her throat.
Nesta Archeron
A moment later, another warm body nestled on my left. Nesta’s scent drifted over me, fire and steel and unbending will.
But the moment she had kissed him in the hall, he’d lost all semblance of sanity. He’d turned into something just short of an animal, licking and biting at her neck, unable to think clearly beyond the base instinct to claim. The taste of her had been like fire and steel and a winter sunrise. That had just been her mouth, her neck.
“What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?”
My blood went cold.
“What came out was not what went in.” A rasping laugh as the Carver laid the shard of bone on the ground beside him. “How lovely she is—new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen, as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter sunrise.”
Nuala & Cerridwen
One of them covered my mouth with a hand, holding me tightly to her, shadows slithering down her arm and onto mine. She smelled of jasmine—I’d never noticed that before. After all these nights, I didn’t even know their names.
Perry Ravenscroft
Perry stared at him—then opened the door to the booth. Her cinnamon-and-strawberry scent hit him a heartbeat later. This close, he could count the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The pale skin beneath them seemed to blanch further as she processed what he’d said.
While Ithan had changed, Hypaxia had handed out the antidote at the Den, to those who’d take it. Perry had been first in line, apparently. And it hadn’t been an Omega standing before Ithan when he’d checked on her as he left the Den. Ithan hadn’t stayed long enough to find out what Perry was—what powers she and the others had gained, long buried in the wolves’ bloodline. He’d given the order that this new knowledge was to be contained to the Den, and the wolves had agreed. Obeyed him.
He found Perry in the guard booth again, doodling in a notebook. He rapped on the glass, drawing her attention, and at her wide eyes, he gave her a half smile. “Hard at work or hardly working?” he teased.
But she jumped to her feet, flinging open the door. “Sorry, I was just—”
“Per, it’s me,” he said, alarmed.
She straightened, standing at attention, as Sabine had liked. For fuck’s sake. He’d deal with that later. For now … He sniffed, trying to read the subtle change in her scent. It remained that strawberries-and-cinnamon blend he’d known his whole life, but with the antidote … He couldn’t put a finger on it. It had been so strong, right in those moments after she’d taken the antidote, yet now it had dimmed.
There wasn’t time to ponder it, to wonder why an Omega once again stood before him.
Perry rose from her seat in the booth. “Good luck, Ithan. I … I really hope I see you again.”
He wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, her cinnamon-and-strawberry scent washing over him. Just as it always had—like she hadn’t taken the antidote. He set aside his curiosity about it again. “I hope I see you again, too,” he said against her hair, and pulled back.
Her eyes shone with tears. “Please be careful.”
He adjusted the straps on his backpack. “Get to the Blue Court, Perry.”
“They’re watching,” Perry breathed, stepping up to him. Still in his wolf form, Ithan started to turn toward the witnesses of his savagery, but Perry said, “Don’t look,” and dropped to her knees before him.
Tilted back her head and exposed her neck. “I yield.” She added a heartbeat later, “I yield to the Prime.”
The words struck a chord in him, one of despair and suffocation. But he couldn’t stop it—the instinct to reach forward and lightly clamp his teeth around Perry’s slender throat. To take that cinnamon-and-strawberry taste into his mouth. To accept her submission to him. Her recognition.
Petrah Blueblood
Manon was watching the tunnel entrance when she smelled the myrrh and rosemary scent of the Blueblood heir beside her.
Priestesses' of Lani
She was standing under the striped awning of a vendor from the southern continent, debating if she had enough to buy the pair of curled-toe shoes before her and the lilac perfume she’d smelled at a wagon owned by white-haired maidens. The maidens claimed they were the priestesses of Lani, the goddess of dreams—and perfume, apparently.
She wound up buying the shoes, though it was nearly impossible to pass over the lilac perfume, which smelled even more lovely the second time she approached the priestesses’ stall.
Rhysand
Darkness entered the room, guttering the candles with a snow-kissed breeze. I gripped the poker harder, pressing against the stone of the fireplace, even as that darkness settled on the bed and took a familiar form.
“As wonderful as it is to see you, Feyre, darling,” Rhysand said, sprawled on the bed, his head propped up by a hand, “do I want to know why you’re digging through my fireplace?”
Rhys’s body was hard and warm against mine, a solid force of nature crafted and honed for this. Even the smell of him reminded me of the wind—rain and salt and something citrus-y I couldn’t name. We swerved into an updraft, rising so fast it was instinct to clutch his black tunic as my stomach clenched.
I felt it, then—like a tap on my shoulder.
I pivoted, keeping one eye on the Weaver and the other on the room as I wove through the maze of tables and junk. Like a beacon, a bit of light laced with his half smile, it tugged me.
Hello, it seemed to say. Have you come to claim me at last?
Yes—yes, I wanted to say. Even as part of me wished it were otherwise.
The Weaver sang behind me,
“What did he do with her eyes so bright?
On his viol he set at first light.
What did he do with her tongue so rough?
’Twas the new till and it spoke enough.”
I followed that pulse—toward the shelf lining the wall beside the hearth. Nothing. And nothing on the second. But the third, right above my eyeline … There.
I could almost smell his salt-and-citrus scent. The Bone Carver had been correct.
I rose on my toes to examine the shelf. An old letter knife, books in leather that I did not want to touch or smell; a handful of acorns, a tarnished crown of ruby and jasper, and—
A ring.
A ring of twisted strands of gold and silver, flecked with pearl, and set with a stone of deepest, solid blue. Sapphire—but different. I’d never seen a sapphire like that, even at my father’s offices. This one … I could have sworn that in the pale light, the lines of a six-pointed star radiated across the round, opaque surface.
Rhys—this had Rhys written all over it.
He’d sent me here for a ring?
Then darkness swept in, soothing, gentle darkness—no, shade —and a sweat-slick male body halted before me. Gentle fingers lifted my chin until I looked up … at Rhysand’s face.
His wings had wrapped around us, cocooned us, the sunlight casting the membrane in gold and red. Beyond us, outside, in another world, maybe, the sounds of steel on steel—Cassian and Azriel sparring—began.
“You will feel that way every day for the rest of your life,” Rhysand said. This close, I could smell the sweat on him, the sea-and-citrus scent beneath it. His eyes were soft. I tried to look away, but he held my chin firm. “And I know this because I have felt that way every day since my mother and sister were slaughtered and I had to bury them myself, and even retribution didn’t fix it.” He wiped away the tears on one cheek, then another.
“You can either let it wreck you, let it get you killed like it nearly did with the Weaver, or you can learn to live with it.”
“Greetings, milord,” Keir said, his deep voice polished smooth.
“And greetings to your … guest.”
Rhys’s hand flattened on my thigh as he angled his head to look at me. “She is lovely, isn’t she?”
“Indeed,” Keir said, lowering his eyes. “There is little to report, milord. All has been quiet since your last visit.”
“No one for me to punish?” A cat playing with his food.
“Unless you’d like for me to select someone here, no, milord.”
Rhys clicked his tongue. “Pity.” He again surveyed me, then leaned to tug my earlobe with his teeth.
And damn me to hell, but I leaned farther back as his teeth pressed down at the same moment his thumb drifted high on the side of my thigh, sweeping across sensitive skin in a long, luxurious touch. My body went loose and tight, and my breathing … Cauldron damn me again, the scent of him, the citrus and the sea, the power roiling off him … my breathing hitched a bit.
Rhys was silent, then the mattress groaned, sinking directly behind me as his warmth poured over me. “No expectations,” he said. “Just body heat.” I scowled at the laughter in his voice.
But his broad hands slid under and over me: one flattening against my stomach and tugging me against the hard warmth of him, the other sliding under my ribs and arms to band around my
chest, pressing his front into me. He tangled his legs with mine, and then a heavier, warmer darkness settled over us, smelling of citrus and the sea.
I lifted a hand toward that darkness, and met with a soft, silky material—his wing, cocooning and warming me. I traced my finger along it, and he shuddered, his arms tightening around me.
Rhys chuckled, the sound rumbling into my bones as he took up a spot beside me, his elbows braced on the rail, wings tucked in tight. I breathed in deeply, taking the citrus-and-sea scent of him into my lungs, my blood. His mouth grazed my neck.
“It’s not just that.” I leaned down until my brow rested on his, the citrus-and-sea scent of him filling my lungs, my heart. “There are too many of them—things I want to paint. Need to. Picking one …” I took an unsteady breath and pulled back. “I’m not quite certain I’m ready to see what emerges when I paint some of them.”
Keir just watched and watched and watched. Rigid. Horrified.
Stuck here, until Rhys released him—and not thinking twice about why. Or where the spymaster had gone.
So I turned around again, meeting Rhysand’s now-blazing eyes, and then licked up the column of his throat. Wind and sea and citrus and sweat. It almost undid me.
“I don’t care,” he said roughly, and removed the glamour from himself. It was a small magic, he’d once told me, to keep the damper on who he was, what his power looked like. As the full majesty of him was unleashed, he filled the room, the world, my soul, with glittering ebony power. Stars and wind and shadows; peace and dreams and the honed edge of nightmares. Darkness rippled from him like tendrils of steam as he reached out a hand and laid it flat against the glowing skin of my stomach. That hand of night splayed, the light leaking through the wafting shadows, and I hoisted myself up on my elbows to kiss him. Smoke and mist and dew. I moaned at the taste of him, and he opened his mouth for me, letting me brush my tongue against his, scrape it against his teeth. Everything he was had been laid before me—one final question. I wanted it all. I gripped his shoulders, guiding him onto the bed.
I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect. His words were a lethal caress as he said, “Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before you?” I knew he could hear my heart as it ratcheted into a thunderous beat. I gave him a hateful little smirk, anyway, yanking my chin out of his touch and leaping off the stone. I might have aimed for his feet. And he might have shifted out of the way just enough to avoid it. “Isn’t that all you males are good for, anyway?” But the words were tight, near-breathless. His answering smile evoked silken sheets and jasmine-scented breezes at midnight.
River Queen's daughter
The door to the dry dock room whooshed open, ushering in a scent of bubbling streams and water lilies. Tharion kept his attention on the engine, the wrench clenched in his hand. “I heard you were here,” said a lilting female voice, and Tharion plastered a smile on his face as he looked over a shoulder at the River Queen’s daughter.
And then she was gone, the scent of water lilies with her. As the doors slid open to let her through, Tharion glimpsed her four mer guards waiting on the other side—the River Queen’s daughter never went anywhere alone.
Rowan Whitethorn
She wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve and got to her feet. The sun dried her tears. She smelled the pine and snow before she heard him, and when she turned, Rowan stood a few feet away, staring at the headstone behind her.
The prince whose scent was kissed with pine and snow, the scent of that kingdom she had loved with her heart of wildfire.
Silently, so smoothly that not even the white wolf awoke, she sat up, a hand clutching the cloak that smelled of pine and snow. His cloak, his scent woven through the fibers.
“There are two of them now,” one hissed. She didn’t want to know what power it wielded to allow it to speak when it had no airways. “A Fae male joined the female. I want him—he smells of storm winds and steel.” Celaena gagged as the smell shoved down her throat. “The female we’ll bring back with us— dawn’s too close. Then we can take our time peeling her apart.”
It might have been a dream. One of the endless horde that hunted her in the blackness. A burning stag, fleeing through the trees. Hours on this altar, her feet shattered beneath ancient tools. A silver-haired prince whose very scent was that of home. They blurred and bled, until even this moment, staring at the white wolf lying against the wall across from the altar, might be a fragment of an illusion.
Sam Cortland
Sam smiled, his brown eyes turning golden in the dawn. It was such a Sam look, the twinkle of mischief, the hint of exasperation, the kindness that would always, always make him a better person than she was. Before she knew what she was doing, Celaena threw her arms around him and held him close. Sam stiffened, but after a heartbeat, his arms came around her. She breathed him in—the smell of his sweat, the tang of the dust and rock, the metallic odor of his blood … Sam rested his cheek on her head.
Sartaq
So she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was tentative, and soft, and full of wonder, that kiss. He tasted like the wind, like a mountain spring. He tasted like home. Nesryn clasped his face in her hands as she pulled back. “To war, Sartaq,” she breathed, memorizing every line of his face. “And then we’ll see what comes after.”
Sigrid Fendyr
The mystic shifted slightly, and the movement sent a whisper of her scent toward him. Snow and embers and— Ithan went rigid. Whirled to her. “You’re a wolf. What are you doing here?”
Sorscha
Her eyes were red enough to suggest that she had. He took her face in his hands, pressing his brow against hers, needing that cool strength. He didn’t know how he’d kept from weeping or vomiting or killing his father on the spot. But looking at her, breathing in her rosemary-and-mint scent, he knew why.
Tamlin
“I should bring you home,” he murmured, but he didn’t move to drag me to my feet. Instead, I felt a slight thud in the earth, and the spring rain and new grass scent of him cloyed in my nose as he lay beside me.
Once we were both spent, panting and sweat-slicked, we lay in silence for a time, and I breathed in the smell of him, earthy and crisp.
I just wanted it done. I wanted that wine to carry me through this last night and bring me to my fate.
I was so intent on anticipating Rhysand’s order to serve him that I didn’t notice that someone stood beside me until the heat from his body leaked onto mine.
I went rigid when I smelled that rain and earthen scent, and didn’t dare to turn to Tamlin. We stood side by side, staring out at the crowd, as still and unnoticeable as statues.
His fingers brushed mine, and a line of fire went through me, burning me so badly that my eyes pricked with tears. I wished—wished he wasn’t touching my marred hand, that his fingers didn’t have to caress the contours of that wretched tattoo.
And I’d become High Fae.
I went rigid as I sensed Tamlin standing behind me, smelled that rain and spring meadow scent of him, richer than I’d ever noticed. I couldn’t turn around to look at him—I couldn’t … couldn’t move.
A High Fae—immortal. What had they done?
Power, smelling of lilac and cedar and the first bits of green, swirled around me. Readying us to winnow away—through the wards they had no inkling I’d smashed apart.
And with barely three steps to the edge of that cliff … A warm wind, kissed with lilac and new grass, blasted up from beneath me. A wind of—spring. Lifting me, filling my wings. My feet rose. And rose. And rose. The hound leaped after me.
Like a crack of lightning, vicious as a spring storm, he winnowed into the chamber itself.
Tamlin does not have lightning magic. But noting “spring storm” which does connect to his spring rain scent, and flagging this the weather of his own court, turned violent.
Tarquin
I shook my head and laid my hand flat on the whorl in the lead.
A jolt went through me like lightning, and I grunted, bearing down on the door.
My fingers froze to it, as if the power were leeching my essence, drinking as Amren drank, and I felt it hesitate, question—
I am Tarquin. I am summer; I am warmth; I am sea and sky and planted field.
I became every smile he’d given me, became the crystalline blue of his eyes, the brown of his skin. I felt my own skin shift, felt my bones stretch and change. Until I was him, and it was a set of male hands I now possessed, now pushed against the door. Until the essence of me became what I had tasted in that inner, mental shield of his—sea and sun and brine. I did not give myself a moment to think of what power I might have just used. Did not allow any part of me that wasn’t Tarquin to shine through.
I am your master, and you will let me pass.
Tharion Ketos
Ithan chuckled. Most Vanir could detect when a mer was in their humanoid form by that scent of water and salt—not an unpleasant one, but definitely distinct.
Tharion crossed an ankle over a knee. “How do you know I’m mer?” Solas, was Tharion riling him for the Hel of it? “Because you reek of fish,” Cormac spat, and Tharion, gods bless him, lifted an arm to sniff his armpit.
Yet Tharion … something was off about his scent. His eyes. He said nothing when Bryce asked, so she dropped it. But he seemed different. She couldn’t place it, but he was different.
Characters – ambiguous / unknown
Chaol Westfall
The crone smiled, her teeth glinting in the afternoon light as she sniffed at him. “And what would a man who smells of the Silver Lake do to an innocent old witch like me?” A chill went down Dorian’s spine, and it was Celaena’s turn to grab on to Chaol’s arm as she tried to pull him away.
Fenrys
Worry and dread gnawing at him, Rowan slipped from the room, the din of preparations greeting him the moment he entered the hall. A heartbeat later, the door opened behind him, and steps fell into sync with his own, along with a familiar, wicked scent. “They burned her.” Rowan glanced sidelong at Fenrys. “What?”
Gwyneth Berdara
Quiet settled around her, as if Gwyn had been a summer storm that blew in and evaporated within a moment. Sighing, Nesta gathered the books Gwyn had left on the cart.
It was strange to have him here, his scent filling her nose. So similar to Connor’s scent— “I could have slept on the couch,” Ithan said into the darkness. Ruhn couldn’t move from the floor as the Hind unsheathed her own slim blade. As her beckoning scent floated to him. A scent that was somehow entwined with his own. It was very faint, like a shadow, so vague that he doubted anyone else would realize the underlying scent belonged to him. And her scent had been familiar from the start because Hypaxia was her half-sister, he realized. Family ties didn’t lie. She surveyed them all for a long moment, and Tharion had the good sense to sit down before she said evenly, “I’m Agent Daybright.” “Lidia,” he murmured, in front of her at last, and she closed her eyes, the pulse in her throat fluttering. Ruhn blinked and she was in front of him, eyes bright and clear. “Hang on,” she whispered. Her slender fingers brushed his skin, and gorsian stone fell away. His magic swelled, a tide of starlight rising within him. It stopped at the end of his arm. He was missing his fucking hand— He swayed. Lidia caught him, hauling him upright with ease. But he didn’t miss the grunt of pain from whatever it did to her arm, now free of its sling. Her scent hit him, wrapping around him, holding him awake as surely as she wrapped her arm around his middle to help keep him standing.Ithan Holstrom
Lidia Cervos
“Bullshit,” Flynn spat, angling his gun at her again.
Daybright, who was high up in the Asteri’s innermost circles. Daybright, who knew of their plans before the Asteri ever acted. Daybright, the most vital link in the rebels’ information chain …
“She smells like Ruhn,” Ithan murmured. They all blinked at him. The wolf sniffed again. “Just barely. Smell her—it’s there.”
To Tharion’s shock, a bit of color stained the Hind’s cheeks. “He and I …”
Her scent shifted—like flowers unfurling under the morning sun. That scent was pure arousal. His cock tightened painfully.
Lucien Vanserra
Unknown
Maeve
There was no beginning or end or middle. Only the song, and the sea, and the iron sarcophagus that had become her bower. Until they were gone. Until blinding light flooded the slumbering, warm dark. Until the wind swept in, crisp and scented with rain. She could not feel it on her face. Not with the death-mask still chained to it. Her eyes cracked open. The light burned away all shape and color after so long in the dim depths. But a face appeared before her—above her. Peering over the lid that had been hauled aside. Dark, flowing hair. Moon-pale skin. Lips as red as blood. The ancient queen’s mouth parted in a smile. Teeth as white as bone. “You’re awake. Good.”
Manon
Manon doubted the camp was a permanent place for the Crochans. They’d be foolish to ever reveal that. Yet Cyrene had discovered it, somehow. Perhaps by tracking Manon’s scent—the parts of it that claimed kinship with the Crochans.
Ruhn Danaan
Unknown
Species
Equine shifters (horses)
open skies and green fields
A draki male clad in a suit and tie rushed past, messenger bag bobbing at his hip as he wove his way around a family of some sort of equine shifters—perhaps horses, judging by their scents full of open skies and green fields—all so busy snapping photos of everything that they remained oblivious to anyone trying to get somewhere.
Mer
Tharion crossed an ankle over a knee. “How do you know I’m mer?” Solas, was Tharion riling him for the Hel of it? “Because you reek of fish,” Cormac spat, and Tharion, gods bless him, lifted an arm to sniff his armpit. Ithan chuckled. Most Vanir could detect when a mer was in their humanoid form by that scent of water and salt—not an unpleasant one, but definitely distinct.
Necromancer
rain clouds OR mountain berries
Ithan refrained from reaching for the knife in his boot as the Reaper inhaled deeply. Getting a whiff of her scent? Or preparing to eat her spirit? “Your soul smells like rain clouds and mountain berries.” The creep licked his lips. “Anyone ever tell you that?” How Hypaxia kept her hands on his head, Ithan had no idea. He was half inclined to rip the shithead’s arms out of their sockets and use them to beat the guy senseless. The Reaper inhaled again. “A little bit of witch, a little bit of necromancer, huh?”
Reapers
no scent
Selkie
seal
Ithan inhaled. Blood and rot and water and iron and— Another sniff, taking him deeper, pulling back layers. Salt and water and seal. That was the selkie.
Shape-shifters
identifiable by scent (if you recognise what you're smelling)
Lysandra’s mouth tightened as she turned to Rowan. “How’d you know?” A shrug, even as Aelin felt his attention on her and knew he could read the emotions biting at her. “I met a few shifters, centuries ago. Your scents are the same.” Lysandra sniffed at herself, but Aedion murmured, “So that’s what it is.”
Skinwalkers
festering, worse than a corpse
She barely registered the pain—if only because the moment her Fae senses snapped into place, she had to shove a hand against her own mouth to keep from retching. Oh, gods, the festering smell of them, worse than any corpse she’d ever dealt with.
Woodland nymphs
A cluster of gorgeous females—woodland nymphs, from their cedar-and-moss scents—meandered past, champagne in hand, and Bryce lowered her voice.
Places
Antica
paprika, ginger and cumin
The part that had glimpsed the spires and minarets and domes of the god-city breaking over the horizon as they’d sailed in, the shining pillar of the Torre standing proud over it all, and had to swallow back tears. The part that had scented the smoky paprika and crisp tang of ginger and beckoning sweetness of cumin as soon as she had cleared the docks and knew, deep in her bones, that she was home. That, yes, she lived and served and would die for Adarlan, for the family still there, but this place, where her father had once lived and where even her Adarlan-born mother had felt more at ease … These were her people.
Autumn Court forest
damp, earthen scent of rotting things
Warm, buttery sunlight through the leaves, setting them glowing like rubies and citrines. The damp, earthen scent of rotting things beneath the leaves and roots she lay upon. Had been thrown and left upon.
Autumn King's villa in FiRo
“King Morven has noticed the fading as well. But he has the luxury of hiding behind Avallen’s mists.”
Bryce drummed her fingers on the smooth rolled arm of her chair. “Is it true that the Asteri can’t pierce the mists around Avallen?”
“Morven is almost certain they can’t. Though I don’t know if Rigelus has ever tried to breach the barriers.” He glanced toward the tall windows to his
left, toward the dome of the glamour shimmering above the olive trees and lavender beds. As much of a barrier as he could ever hope to hide behind.
Bryce weighed her options, and ultimately dared to go for it as she asked, “Does the term thin place mean anything to you?”
Avery river
briny
A briny breeze off the Avery flowed into the apartment, rustling the crimson velvet curtains and teasing through her hair. She’d miss that smell, too.
Banjali river palace
“Rifthold smells terrible. Too many people. At least in Banjali, the sun burns up everything. And my father’s river palace smells like lotus blossoms.”
Belhaven
reeks of fish
“Bellhaven—a city in Fenharrow. It’s a fishing port. Smells terrible.” That wasn’t a lie. Every time she’d visited Bellhaven for a mission, the reek of fish made her gag if she got too near the docks. The princess chuckled.
Court of Nightmares (Night Court)
jasmine and moonflowers
Mor led me down the avenue toward another set of stone gates, thrown open at the base of what looked to be a castle within the mountain. The official seat of the High Lord of the Night Court. Great, scaled black beasts were carved into those gates, all coiled together in a nest of claws and fangs, sleeping and fighting, some locked in an endless cycle of devouring each other.
Between them flowed vines of jasmine and moonflowers. I could have sworn the beasts seemed to writhe in the silvery glow of the bobbing faelights throughout the mountain-city. The Gates of Eternity—that’s what I’d call the painting that flickered in my mind. Mor continued through them, a flash of color and life in this strange, cold place.
Dawn Court palace
FYI the Dawn Court is not scent-attested. Feyre never smells or tastes any of the below, she only sees them. Every section here is recorded as narrated evidence with an environmental relation, and should not be treated as equivalent to a character’s signature scent.
Steps and balconies and archways and verandas and bridges linked the towers and gilded domes of the palace, periwinkle morning glories climbing the pillars and neatly cut blocks of stone to drink in the gilded mists wafting by.
Morning glories bloom only at dawn and close by afternoon. The court’s signature flower is the flower that exists only at its own hour.
A long bridge connected the other half of the tower to the palace interior, its rails drooping with dawn-pale wisteria.
More wisteria twined about the pillars flanking the space…
We ascended the spiral stairs, the drop off the too-near edge falling away into warm-colored rock peppered with clusters of pale roses and fluffy, magenta peonies. A beautiful, colorful death.
…along the tables set against the few walls, bunches of wine-colored peonies unfurled their silken layers. Between the vases, platters and baskets of food had been laid—small pastries, cured meats, and garlands of fruit beckoned before sweating pewter ewers of some refreshment.
The chamber was and was not what I expected. Deep-cushioned oak chairs had been arranged in a massive circle in the heart of the room—enough for all the High Lords and their delegates. Some, I realized, had been shaped to accommodate wings.
I tried not to wince as we stepped onto the polished marble floor, the stone warmed with the sun streaming through the open archways. The others had looked toward us, some murmuring at the sight of Rhys’s wings, but my attention went to the true gem of the chamber: the reflection pool.
Rather than a table occupying the space between that circle of chairs, a shallow, circular reflection pool was carved into the floor itself. Its dark water was laden with pink and gold water lilies, the pads broad and flat as a male’s hand, and beneath them pumpkin-and-ivory fish lazily swam about.
Cross-series echo: water lilies also attach to the River Queen’s daughter (CC). The same aquatic-floral register as lotus blossom (Nehemia Ytger; Banjali river palace, Eyllwe).
…warm-colored rock peppered with clusters of pale roses and fluffy, magenta peonies. A beautiful, colorful death.
We passed open-air chambers full of fat, silk pillows and plush carpets, passed windows whose panes were arranged in colorful medleys, passed urns overflowing with lavender and fountains gurgling clearest water under the mild rays of the sun.
Dawn is the court of healing. Lavender is the herbal/medicinal marker elsewhere in the Maasverse, i.e. Hypaxia and the Torre Cesme (healers’ tower, Antica).
I’d spied peacocks parading about the countless courtyards and gardens as we’d walked through Thesan’s home, some preening in the shade beneath potted fig trees.
Compare Helion (Day Court), whose taste is figs (but recalled, not sensed). Two Solar courts, same fruit, different evidence type.
Ones that pushed the boundaries of propriety and left Thesan choking on his elderberry wine.
Cross-series echo: Elide’s scent is cinnamon and elderberries.
It was the clouds I saw first.
Enormous clouds drifting in the cobalt sky, soft and magnanimous, still tinged by the rose remnants of sunrise, their round edges gilded with the golden light. The dewy freshness of morning lingered in the balmy air as we peered up at the mountain-palace spiraling into the heavens above.
If the palace above the Court of Nightmares had been crafted of moonstone, this was made from … sunstone. I didn’t have a word for the near-opalescent golden stone that seemed to hold the gleaming of a thousand sunrises within it.
Steps and balconies and archways and verandas and bridges linked the towers and gilded domes of the palace, periwinkle morning glories climbing the pillars and neatly cut blocks of stone to drink in the gilded mists wafting by.
Wafting by, because the mountain on which the palace stood … There was a reason I beheld the clouds first.
Sunstone, not moonstone. Feyre names the contrast herself: “If the palace above the Court of Nightmares had been crafted of moonstone, this was made from … sunstone.”
Thesan’s mother hailed from Xian, and a large majority of his court is Xian-descended (ACOWAR). Beron uses this as a loyalty smear since Xian fought for the Loyalists. Nuan, Thesan’s master tinkerer and “skilled alchemist”, is also Xian-descended.
Immortal land
“Cauldron save you,” he said, reciting the words of a prayer that was probably older than the
mortal realm. “Mother hold you. Pass through the gates, and smell that immortal land of milk and honey. Fear no evil. Feel no pain.” Tamlin’s voice wavered, but he finished. “Go, and enter eternity.”
The faerie heaved one final sigh, and his hand went limp in mine. I didn’t let go, though, and kept stroking his hair, even when Tamlin released him and took a few steps from the table.
I could feel Tamlin’s eyes on me, but I wouldn’t let go. I didn’t know how long it took for a soul to fade from the body.
I faced the second figure, still hooded. A female this time. The faerie in black extended the pillow with the clean dagger, and the guards holding her tore off her hood.
Her face was simple, and her hair was gold-brown, like mine. Tears were already rolling down her round cheeks, and her bronze eyes tracked my bloody hand as I reached for the second knife. The cleanness of the wooden blade mocked the blood on my fingers.
I wanted to fall to my knees to beg her forgiveness, to tell her that her death wouldn’t be for naught. Wanted to, but there was such a rift running through me now that I could hardly feel my hands, my shredded heart. What I’d done—
“Cauldron save me,” she began whispering, her voice lovely and even—like music. “Mother hold me,” she went on, reciting a prayer similar to one I’d heard once before, when Tamlin eased the
passing of that lesser faerie who’d died in the foyer. Another of Amarantha’s victims. “Guide me to you.” I was unable to raise my dagger, unable to take the step that would close the distance between us. “Let me pass through the gates; let me smell that immortal land of milk and honey.”
Silent tears slid down my face and neck, where they dampened the filthy collar of my tunic. As she spoke, I knew I would be forever barred from that immortal land. I knew that whatever Mother she meant would never embrace me. In saving Tamlin, I was to damn myself.
I couldn’t do this—couldn’t lift that dagger again.
“Let me fear no evil,” she breathed, staring at me—into me, into the soul that was cleaving itself apart. “Let me feel no pain.”
A sob broke from my lips. “I’m sorry,” I moaned.
“Let me enter eternity,” she breathed.
I wept as I understood. Kill me now, she was saying. Do it fast. Don’t make it hurt. Kill me now.
Her bronze eyes were steady, if not sorrowful. Infinitely, infinitely worse than the pleading of the dead faerie beside her.
I couldn’t do it.
But she held my gaze—held my gaze and nodded.
As I lifted the ash dagger, something inside me fractured so completely that there would be no hope of ever repairing it. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times I might try to paint her face.
More faeries wailed now—her kinsmen and friends. The dagger was a weight in my hand—my hand, shining and coated with the blood of that first faerie.
It would be more honorable to refuse—to die, rather than murder innocents. But … but …
“Let me enter eternity,” she repeated, lifting her chin. “Fear no evil,” she whispered—just for me.
“Feel no pain.”
I gripped her delicate, bony shoulder and drove the dagger into her heart.
She gasped, and blood spilled onto the ground like a splattering of rain. Her eyes were closed when I looked at her face again. She slumped to the floor and didn’t move.
Elain breathed, “Should we—say a prayer?”
We did not have such things in the human world, I remembered.
My sisters had no prayers to offer him. But in Prythian …
“Mother hold you,” I whispered, reciting words I had not heard since that day Under the Mountain. “May you pass through the gates; may you smell that immortal land of milk and honey.” Flame ignited at my fingertips. All I could muster. All that was left. “Fear no evil. Feel no pain.” My mouth trembled as I breathed, “May you enter eternity.”
Tears slid down Elain’s pallid cheeks as she adjusted an errant flower on our father’s chest, white-petaled and delicate, and then backed away to my side with a nod.
Nesta’s face did not shift as I sent that fire to ignite our father’s body.
He was ash on the wind in a matter of moments.
Lorin's villa in FiRo
A few orange trees by the northern wall filled the place with their sweet scent-as familiar to him as the reek of beer and mirthroot at his own house.
Ruhn entered the small yet beautiful villa through the back gate. Of course, the two Fae guards posted outside noted his presence, and definitely noted the Starsword strapped down his back, but at least they would be the only witnesses.
He didn’t mind people knowing that he visited his mother. But he liked to at least pretend he could visit her without it making the gossip rounds.
The garden at the rear of the villa was built for the arid climate, unlike most of the lush, magic-fueled estate grounds around here. White stones surrounded the olive trees; beds of swaying lavender buzzed with honeybees. A few orange trees by the northern wall filled the place with their sweet scent-as familiar to him as the reek of beer and mirthroot at his own house. He entered the villa through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors between two white pillars, stepping into the kitchen, which was sunny yet cool. He unbuckled the Starsword and its sheath, tucking it into the umbrella stand next to the garden doors. The thunk of the blade inside the ceramic holder was the only sound in the pristine space.
Lorin was indeed sitting in the breakfast room, a book open fruit-laden table before her, dressed immaculately in a lilac-colored gown. She was beautiful, as all Fae were. A gentleness to her face. A sadness to her deep blue eyes – Ruhn’s eyes.
She was always perfectly put together. Always pristine and ready for a visit.
Not a visit from him, Ruhn had learned long ago.
But her gaze brightened upon seeing him, a smile of genuine warmth gracing her face. “Ruhn,” his mother said, rising from the table.
“Hey, Mom.” Ruhn motioned for her to sit. He pressed a kiss to her silken dark hair before sliding into the chair beside her. Though she was two centuries older than him, they looked the same age. He’d always envied the fact that Bryce’s parents would remain looking like her parents-that is, years older than her.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” his mother asked, piling grapefruit and orange slices onto a plate for him.
“Just wanted to say hi,” he hedged, not ready to jump into conversation just yet. “See how you were doing. Did the handyman fix that issue with the garden sprinklers?”
“Yes,” his mother said. “Thank you for sending him.”
Nesryn's family's courtyard in Antica
In the silence, Nesryn listened to the wind sighing through the jasmine crawling up the wall to the balcony hanging above.
“I see.” Sartaq stopped, the sandy alley humming with the buzzing bees in the jasmine that climbed the walls of the bordering courtyards. The one behind them: the back, private courtyard belonging to her family.
Passages to Elena and Gavin's tomb
Celaena dreamt. She was walking down the long, secret passage again. She didn’t have a candle, nor did she have a string to lead her. She chose the portal on the right, for the other two were dank and unwelcoming, and this one seemed to be warm and pleasant. And the smell—it wasn’t the smell of mildew, but of roses. The passage twisted and wound, and Celaena found herself descending a narrow set of stairs. For some reason she couldn’t name, she avoided brushing against the stone. The staircase swooped down, winding on and on, and she followed the rose scent whenever another door or arch appeared. Just when she grew tired of so much walking, she reached the bottom of a set of stairs and stopped. She stood before an old wooden door.
“It was a dream,” said Chaol. She stared at him, then looked around the room, running a hand through her hair. Rifthold. Rifthold—that’s where she was. In the glass castle—no, in the stone castle beneath. She was sweating, and the sweat on her back felt uncomfortably like blood. She felt dizzy, nauseated, too small and too large all at once. Though her windows were shut, an odd draft from somewhere in her room kissed her face, smelling strangely of roses. “Celaena. It was a dream,” the Captain of the Guard said again. “You were screaming.” He gave her a shaky smile. “I thought you were being murdered.”
Celaena grunted as she pushed the chest to the side and folded the tapestry back from the wall. Just as it had two months ago, a cold, damp breeze leaked through the cracks, but it smelled nothing of roses. All of the murders had occurred within two days of a Test. That meant tonight, or tomorrow, something would happen.
Moonstone Palace (Night Court)
I smelled jasmine first—then saw stars. A sea of stars flickering beyond glowing pillars of moonstone that framed the sweeping view of endless snowcapped mountains. “Welcome to the Night Court,” was all Rhys said
It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. Whatever building we were in had been perched atop one of the gray-stoned mountains. The hall around us was open to the elements, no windows to be found, just towering pillars and gossamer curtains, swaying in that jasmine-scented breeze. It must be some magic, to keep the air warm in the dead of winter. Not to mention the altitude, or the snow coating the mountains, mighty winds sending veils of it drifting off the peaks like wandering mist.
Rifthold
filth, blood, spoiled milk, salty-water air different from the salt of Endovier
Trumpeters signaled their arrival as they passed through the looming alabaster walls of Rifthold. Crimson flags depicting gold wyverns flapped in the wind above the capital city, the cobblestone streets were cleared of traffic, and Celaena, unchained, dressed, painted, and seated in front of Chaol, frowned as the odor of the city met her nose. Beneath the smell of spices and horses lay a foundation of filth, blood, and spoiled milk. The air held a hint of the salty waters of the Avery—different from the salt of Endovier. This brought with it warships from every ocean in Erilea, merchant vessels crammed with goods and slaves, and fishing boats with half-rotted, scale-covered flesh that people somehow managed to eat.
Spring Court lands
Tamlin gripped my hand as we strode through the darkness. Neither of us said anything when a glimmer of sunlight appeared, staining the damp cave walls with a silvery sheen, but our steps quickened as the sunlight grew brighter and the cave warmer, and then both of us emerged onto the spring-green grass that covered the bumps and hollows of his lands. Our lands. The breeze, the scent of wildflowers hit me, and despite the hole in my chest, the stain on my soul, I couldn’t stop the smile that spread as we mounted a steep hill. My faerie legs were far stronger than my human ones, and when we reached the top of the knoll, I wasn’t nearly as winded as I might once have been. But the breath was knocked from my chest when I beheld the rose-covered manor. Home.
“Never mind,” I said, heading for my white mare, a sweet-tempered beast, if not a bit lazy and spoiled. Lucien didn’t try to convince me otherwise, and kept quiet as we rode from the estate and onto the forest road. Spring, as always, was in full bloom, the breeze laden with lilac, the brush flanking the path rustling with life. No hint of the Bogge, of the naga, of any of the creatures who had once cast such stillness over the wood.
Spring Court manor
The halls were silent and empty—strange for such a large estate. They’d mentioned others the
night before, but I saw and heard no sign of them. A balmy breeze scented with … hyacinth, I realized —if only from Elain’s small garden—floated down the halls, carrying with it the pleasant chirping of a bunting, a bird I wouldn’t hear back home for months—if I ever heard them at all.
Tamlin led me down the halls. A soft breeze laced with the scent of roses slipped in through the open windows to caress my face.
The next morning, my paint and supplies arrived from wherever Tamlin or the servants had dug them
up, but before Tamlin let me see them, he brought me down hall after hall until we were in a wing of the house I’d never been to, even in my nocturnal exploring. I knew where we were going without his having to say. The marble floors shone so brightly that they had to have been freshly mopped, and that rose-scented breeze floated in through the opened windows. All this—he’d done this for me. As if I would have cared about cobwebs or dust.
Tavan mountains
A few other ruks were aloft. Likely out for their breakfasts, Sartaq told her, his voice soft in the emerging dawn. And it was in pursuit of Kadara’s own meal that they went, sailing out of the three peaks of the Eridun’s aerie and deep into the fir-crusted mountains beyond.
It was only after Kadara had snatched half a dozen fat silver salmon from a rushing turquoise river, hurling them each in the air before swallowing them in a slicing bite, that Sartaq steered them toward a cluster of smaller peaks.
“The training run,” he said, pointing. The rocks were smoother, the drops between peaks less sharp—more like smooth, rounded gullies. “Where the novices learn to ride.”
Terrasen
She’d never be ready for this, for Endovier and the world without Sam. A breeze filled the wagon, lifting away the smells of the past two weeks. Her trembling paused for a heartbeat. She knew that breeze. She knew the chill bite beneath it, knew it carried the hint of pine and snow, knew the mountains from which it hailed. A northern breeze, a breeze of Terrasen. She must stand up. Pine and snow and lazy, golden summers—a city of light and music in the shadow of the Staghorn Mountains.
Torre Cesme
Yrene swallowed the small sound that tried to come out of her and instead looked toward the city, its pale stones resplendent in the last light of the setting sun. Through the open windows behind the Healer on High, a night breeze laced with lavender and cloves flitted in, cooling her face and ruffling Hafiza’s cloud of white hair.
Indeed, Hafiza had never so much as seen snow. With Antica’s year-round warm climate, the closest they’d gotten to winter these two years was perhaps a crust of frost sparkling over the lavender and lemon trees one morning.
Yrene thanked Silba for the restorative powers of deep, dreamless sleep as she sprinted across the complex grounds, past the lavender-lined pathways, through the just-opened gates.
The Torre was even more dominating up close. It was broad, more of a keep than anything, but still rounded. Buildings flanked its sides, connected on lower levels. All enclosed by towering white walls, the iron gates—fashioned to look like an owl spreading its wings—thrown wide to reveal lavender bushes and flower beds lining the sand-colored gravel walkways. Not flower beds. Herb beds. The smells of them opening to the morning sun filled his nose: basil and mint and sage and more of that lavender. Even their horses, hooves crunching on the walkways, seemed to sigh as they approached.
So Chaol’s own answering smile was tight, and he couldn’t stand to meet their bright eyes for more than a passing glance as he rode into the Torre courtyard, the scent of lavender wrapping around him.
She nodded absently, running her thumb over the bridle. Silence fell for a long moment, filled with the scent of swaying lavender and the potted lemon trees.
And when they passed through those white walls, as the mass of the Torre rose above them and the scent of lemon and lavender filled Yrene’s nose … some part of her eased in its presence.
And she was going home with him. It was that thought that sobered her slightly. The sense that these endless hikes up the interior of the Torre might now be limited. That she might not smell the lavender and baked bread for a long time. Not hear those giggles.
Velaris
Buttery sunlight that softened the already mild winter day, a small, manicured front lawn—its dried grass near-white—bordered with a waist-high wrought iron fence and empty flower beds, all leading toward a clean street of pale cobblestones. High Fae in various forms of dress meandered by: some in coats like mine to ward against the crisp air, some wearing mortal fashions with layers and poofy skirts and lace, some in riding leathers—all unhurried as they breathed in the salt-and-lemon-verbena breeze that even winter couldn’t chase away. Not one of them looked toward the house. As if they either didn’t know or weren’t worried that their own High Lord dwelled in one of the many marble town houses lining either side of the street, each capped with a green copper roof and pale chimneys that puffed tendrils of smoke into the brisk sky.
Before I could answer her, Lucien asked, “What is this place?” We all looked at him. “Home,” I said. “This is—my home.” I could see the details now sinking in. The lack of darkness. The lack of screaming. The scent of the sea and citrus, not blood and decay. The laughter of children that indeed continued. The greatest secret in Prythian’s history. “This is Velaris,” I explained. “The City of Starlight.”
Velaris - Feyre's town house bedroom
So I learned the other courts’ politics and histories, and learned their masters’ powers, until my waking and sleeping hours were spent with flame singeing my mouth and hoarfrost cracking between my fingers. And each night, exhausted from a day of training my body and powers, I tumbled into a heavy sleep, laced with jasmine-scented darkness. Even my nightmares were too tired to hound me.
Miscellaneous
Autumn (season)
wind smelled of crisp leaves and snow
Around dawn, Chaol usually showed up for breakfast. Afterward, they ran through the game park, where he kept pace at her side. Autumn had fully come, and the wind smelled of crisp leaves and snow. Chaol never said anything when she doubled over, hands on her knees, and vomited up her breakfast, nor did he comment on the fact that she could go farther and farther each day without stopping for breath.
Spring (season)
new grass and snow-melted rivers
Even under the cover of darkness, the warm spring breeze was full of new grass and snow-melted rivers, only disrupted by the booming of wings as Manon led the host south along the Fangs.
Magic in ACOTAR
The world had become richer, clearer. The brook was a near-invisible rainbow of water that flowed over stones as invitingly smooth as silk. The trees were clothed in a faint shimmer that radiated from their centers and danced along the edges of their leaves. There was no tangy metallic stench—no, the smell of magic had become like jasmine, like lilac, like roses. I would never be able to paint it, the richness, the feel … Maybe fractions of it, but not the whole thing. Magic—everything was magic, and it broke my heart.
Shared Scent Index
Automatically generated from the scent tags on this page. Within each scent, entries are grouped by relation — signature first, then environmental, symbolic and transferred.