Crown of Midnight is the second book in the high fantasy series Throne of Glass. The story takes place in Erilea, a fictional continent ruled by empires, torn by war, and shadowed by long-lost magic. Much of the action centres on Adarlan, a powerful expansionist empire that has outlawed magic and conquered neighbouring lands. At its heart is Rifthold, the capital city, home to the royal family and the infamous glass castle that rises above an older stone fortress.
The story unfolds largely within Rifthold’s glass castle. Adarlan is ruled by a king who maintains control through brutality, surveillance, and dark secrets. Magic is forbidden, but traces of it are beginning to surface. Celaena Sardothien is now the King’s Champion, an assassin bound to serve the crown that once imprisoned her. Beneath the castle, hidden catacombs, ancient tomes, and long-sealed tombs hold clues to the kingdom’s past and to powers thought lost.
Throne of Glass Series
Prequel: The Assassin’s Blade
Book 1: Throne of Glass
Book 2: Crown of Midnight
Book 3: Heir of Fire
Book 4: Queen of Shadows
Book 5: Empire of Storms
Book 6: Tower of Dawn
Book 7: Kingdom of Ash
Characters
Celaena Sardothien: The King of Adarlan’s Champion. A former slave and assassin.
Dorian Havilliard: Crown Prince of Adarlan.
Chaol Westfall: Captain of the Guard.
Nehemia Ytger: Princess of Eyllwe and fierce rebel against Adarlan’s empire.
Archer Finn: A celebrated courtesan and former colleague of Celaena.
King of Adarlan: Dorian’s ruthless father.
Elena Galathynius Havilliard: Ghost of the first Queen of Adarlan.
Mort: A sentient bronze door knocker in Elena’s tomb.
Baba Yellowlegs: An Ironteeth witch of the Yellowlegs clan, travelling with the carnival.
Kaltain Rompier: A court lady afflicted by strange headaches and dark influences.
Roland Havilliard: Dorian’s cousin and outwardly charming courtier.
Fleetfoot: Celaena’s loyal dog.
Recap Summary
Celaena has been faking her kills. With each target the king orders dead, she offers the same choice: die, or stage your death and flee the continent. Her next assignment is Archer Finn, a courtesan she knew in her youth. The king claims Archer is connected to a rebel movement. When Celaena meets Archer to deliver his death sentence, he tells her the movement is real, that Nehemia is helping lead it, and that they want to find Aelin and restore her to the throne. Celaena agrees to give him a month to put his affairs in order before she fakes his death.
Celaena and Chaol have grown close, their dynamic shifting from professional to personal. Meanwhile, Celaena discovers that Nehemia has been visiting the tomb beneath the castle without telling her, and she encounters something with glowing eyes outside the royal library. When she investigates, she finds a sealed iron door covered in Wyrdmarks with something behind it, and realises the eye-shaped hole in the tomb wall perfectly fits the amulet Elena gave her. In the dungeons, she finds Kaltain Rompier, imprisoned since the competition, half-mad and muttering about headaches and a dark power.
At a court assembly, Dorian takes a stand in defence of Calaculla. When he storms off in rage, he shatters a window, the glass exploding everywhere except in a ring around him. He has magic, though he has no idea how, given the king outlawed it a decade ago. He visits Baba Yellowlegs, a witch at a carnival outside Rifthold, seeking answers, and she tells him to find out how magic was eliminated in the first place.
While Chaol rationalises why he should not tell Celaena or Nehemia about the king’s suspicions of Nehemia’s activism, or the anonymous threat made against her life, he is drugged and kidnapped by the rebel group. Celaena tracks the kidnappers to a warehouse where Archer is waiting. Archer tells her it is too late: his people have already gone to confront Nehemia at the castle. Celaena races back, reaches Nehemia’s rooms, and finds her dead on her bed alongside two of her guards.
Celaena turns on Chaol, blaming him for knowing about the threat and saying nothing. In a frenzy, she attacks him. Dorian stops her with a burst of magic before a guard knocks her unconscious. Chaol carries her to the dungeons and locks her in a cell. In the aftermath, it becomes clear that the king did not order Nehemia’s death; whoever made the anonymous threat carried it out.
Days pass before Celaena learns that Nehemia’s assassin was a man called Grave, hired through Councilman Mullison. She hunts Grave through Rifthold, kills him, and brings his head to the king.
While clearing out Nehemia’s room, Celaena finds information that leads her to a riddle in the tomb about three hidden objects she will need to find. She visits Baba Yellowlegs at the carnival to ask what they are. Yellowlegs confirms they are Wyrdkeys: three slivers forged from the Wyrdgate itself that can open portals between worlds. On their own, each still holds immense power. During the conversation, Yellowlegs attacks Celaena, and Celaena kills her.
Dorian follows Celaena into the catacombs beneath the library, where they find an underground passage sealed with Wyrdmarks and a creature inside, something that was once human, twisted by dark magic. Dorian’s magic erupts involuntarily and blasts the creature back. They escape and seal the door. Celaena visits Kaltain again in the dungeons, who confirms “they” have been giving her something. Celaena realises the riddle on Elena’s sarcophagus is an anagram: the first Wyrdkey was hidden in the crown of the tomb. She opens the compartment and finds it empty. The king discovered the key years ago, when he was barely twenty, and has been using its power since to build the clock tower and the creature beneath it.
Celaena uses Wyrdmarks to open a portal in the tomb, hoping to see Nehemia one final time. Nehemia’s spirit appears, but only long enough to warn her: the portal must be closed, and she must never open it again. Before Celaena can act, Archer arrives through the passages Nehemia once showed him. The tattoo on his wrist matches the drawing Nehemia left behind; her warning was about Archer, not the royal seal. He confesses everything: he engineered Nehemia’s assassination, posed as Mullison to hire Grave, kidnapped Chaol to isolate Celaena, and planted the anonymous threat to fracture her trust in Chaol. He wanted Nehemia dead because she was a threat to his control over the movement. As he speaks, the portal tears open further and a creature comes through. Archer flees with the book containing the closing spell, and Fleetfoot is wounded.
Dorian, guided by an apparition of the ancient King Gavin, finds a hidden passageway and brings Chaol with him. They arrive to find Celaena on the floor and the creature loose. The creature grabs Fleetfoot and drags her back through the portal. Chaol follows without hesitation, and Celaena knocks Dorian unconscious as she frees herself from his grip and runs through after them. The moment she crosses, her Fae features emerge: pointed ears and elongated canines. Her magic, dormant for ten years, floods back. In the portal world, she fights the creature with fire channelled through Damaris, cracking the ground open to drive it back. Her power gives out and she shifts back to human form. Chaol drags her through the portal into Erilea, where her magic is instantly extinguished. She tells Dorian he must use his magic to close the portal, and he does.
Celaena pursues Archer into the sewers and kills him for what he did to Nehemia.
Celaena tells Chaol she is Fae, that her great-grandmother was full-blooded, and that she inherited the ability to shift. She cannot shift in Erilea because magic has been suppressed, but in the portal world she had no control and was forced into her Fae form. She tells him Archer was behind Nehemia’s murder.
Chaol, wanting above all else to get her out of Adarlan, goes to his father and proposes sending the King’s Champion to Wendlyn to assassinate its royal family. Wendlyn is the last stronghold of the Fae, the only place she will be safe. In exchange, Chaol agrees to resign his post and return to Anielle with his father. The king approves the mission. Celaena knows that if she fails the mission, Chaol will be killed.
Before the ship departs, Celaena tells Chaol everything she has uncovered: the three Wyrdkeys, the king’s possession of at least one, Kaltain’s role, and a date. Later, Chaol finds Dorian’s genealogy books in her rooms. Cross-referencing the dates, he realises that on the day her family died, the Terrasen royal family was also murdered, including the heir, Aelin Galathynius. He realises Celaena is Aelin, the lost princess of Terrasen, now the rightful queen. She is the king’s greatest threat, and Chaol has just sent her to Wendlyn to kill her own family.
Next in Series
The story continues in Heir of Fire, where Celaena journeys to Wendlyn and begins to confront her past. The shadows gathering in Adarlan grow darker, magic stirs beyond the shores, and war approaches from all directions.
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