Chapter 44

Feyre defeats Tamlin in the final trial by stabbing him with the ash dagger, but Amarantha refuses to honor the bargain and tortures Feyre brutally. As Feyre is dying under Amarantha's magic, she realizes the answer to the riddle and speaks it aloud: love. The curse begins to break, but the cost to Feyre is catastrophic.

Feyre successfully pierces Tamlin's chest with the ash dagger, and the crowd believes she has won the trials. However, Amarantha refuses to free the enslaved humans, claiming Feyre never specified when she had to release them. Enraged, Amarantha descends upon Feyre and unleashes devastating magic that shatters her bones and crushes her body repeatedly. Rhysand attempts to help, grabbing the ash dagger and attacking Amarantha, but she blasts him away and tortures him as well, leaving him bleeding and broken on the marble floor. Through the torture, Feyre experiences visions of her worst memories, including her first kill as a starving human. Despite Amarantha's demands that she deny loving Tamlin, Feyre clings to her love for him as her only remaining strength. She recalls moments of happiness with him—lying in meadow grass, watching sunrises—and refuses to surrender her feelings even as her body disintegrates. As she loses consciousness, Feyre suddenly understands the answer to Amarantha's riddle. Speaking through blood filling her mouth, she declares that the answer is love. The moment she speaks it, Amarantha's magic pauses, the curse begins to break, but something irreversible shatters in Feyre's spine.