Throne of Ice and Blood

The second book in the Flame and Thorns series picks up immediately after Empire of Flame and Thorns. In that world, the Seelie fae were conquered millennia ago by dragon shifters and confined to a single city. Each generation, a tournament called the Atonement Trials selects fae whose magic will be drained to sustain the dragon shifter rulers. Selena, a fae with emotion magic, the ability to sense and manipulate others' feelings, survived the trials only to discover they were designed to enslave the victors. The first book ended with Draven Ryat, Commander of the Dread Legion and leader of the Black Dragon Clan, collaring Selena with iron that blocks her magic and saps her strength.

Selena wakes in the Ice Palace after three days. Draven admits the collaring was performed for an audience and that he will not drain her magic. When he leaves, Selena bolts through the unlocked door but trips over a court official's dead body and is arrested for murder. Draven retrieves her from the dungeon, confirming he knows she is innocent.

In the throne room, Empress Jessina and Emperor Bane, rulers of the Iceheart Dynasty, inform Draven that three officials have been killed by a human rebel assassin known as the Red Hand. They order him to capture the Red Hand alive so they can publicly torture him to death. Selena silently resolves to escape, find the rebellion, and warn the Red Hand.

Back in his quarters, Draven removes Selena's collar entirely and gives her a black cloak to hide its absence, saying only that she does not deserve this fate. He leaves to hunt the Red Hand. Selena climbs down the palace's jagged ice wall and uses her emotion magic to bluff her way past a guard. In Frostfell, she encounters humans for the first time, noting visible signs of aging absent in fae and dragon shifters. She witnesses soldiers beating a human man and intervenes by knocking one unconscious with a flowerpot.

Fleeing, Selena is hidden by a human man who locks her in a cellar upon seeing her pointed ears. His daughter Kath, a resistance member, frees Selena and brings her to a tavern where she meets Kath's brother Kyler and other members of the human resistance. They reveal their plan: a heist to empty the Iceheart Dynasty's treasury. They need an inside spy, and Selena agrees, unwilling to abandon Isera and Alistair, two fellow fae still enslaved in the palace. Armed with special climbing gear that grips ice, she scales the wall back to Draven's rooms.

Over the following week, Selena searches the palace for the treasury while Draven is away hunting the Red Hand. She discovers that Isera and Alistair are kept in cages too small to stand in and displayed at banquets in chains beside the Icehearts' table. Draven warns that she must act broken in public or the Icehearts will break her themselves. At a clan dinner, Selena observes that Draven's soldiers resent him, and his former best friend and second-in-command, Galen, nearly challenges him before backing down.

In the kennels, Selena finds Lavendera Dawnwalker, a fae with tree magic captured after the trials, who reveals that the Icehearts sterilize fae mothers after their first child to control population. Following the resistance's instructions, Selena locates Nysara, a fae from the Unseelie Court living under a glamour (a magical disguise) in Frostfell. Nysara reveals that the Unseelie Court was never conquered, that only a small minority of fae ever used dragon steel (an ancient metal that can control dragon shifters), and that she can glamour Selena's group to help them escape.

At a banquet, the Icehearts force Selena to crawl across the floor and lick Draven's boots before the entire court. When Draven leaves the room in fury, Selena extracts key intelligence from Galen and Lyra, a member of Draven's clan: The treasury is in the northeast corner of the third floor. She later discovers a hidden door nearby leading to an emergency escape tunnel.

After Selena is nearly killed by four dragon shifters in a tavern, Draven slaughters all four and reveals that she is his fated mate, a predestined bond between their souls. The bond lets him feel her most intense fear, explaining how he has located her during three near-death experiences. Selena is devastated, fearing her feelings for Draven may be artificial products of the bond.

On the mountainside, six purple-armored dragon shifters ambush them. Selena fights alongside Draven, using her magic to amplify the attackers' confusion and fear. Bane and Jessina arrive, destroy the remaining enemies, then punish Draven by whipping his wings until the membrane is torn to shreds. Selena blocks his pain with her magic and helps him through the escape tunnel, memorizing its entrance for the resistance.

Night after night, Selena sneaks into taverns across Frostfell, using her magic to amplify humans' anger and suppress their fear, building a citywide fury. She struggles with guilt over the manipulation but pushes forward. In the kennels, Alistair reveals that his own people burned him throughout childhood for being born with fire magic, the dragon shifters' own element. Isera tells Selena to stop caring what others think, and Selena resolves to stop apologizing for who she is.

The heist is timed for a grand ball. When Selena asks Draven if he has considered leaving the Icehearts' service, he insists he cannot, which reinforces her belief that she cannot trust him with the rebellion's plans. On the evening of the ball, Selena confesses that sleeping with him during the Atonement Trials was not calculated but a reckless choice she made because she wanted him. She knows this is their last conversation before she betrays him.

At the ball, Isera whispers that the Icehearts set a trap: The entire resistance has been captured near the treasury. Selena scales the wall to the third floor and finds Lavendera commanding tree branches to bind the prisoners. Lavendera reveals she has worked for the Icehearts all along, followed Selena to Nysara's house, and learned the escape plan. Despite the betrayal, Lavendera releases Selena with a head start.

Selena races toward the treasury and finds the Red Hand finishing off the last guards. She screams at him to hide, but he removes his mask, revealing Draven's face. Draven has been secretly destabilizing the Icehearts as the Red Hand and is also a member of the fae resistance, having watched over Selena for years. He confesses he fell in love with her long before the mate bond activated. When a messenger spots Draven and raises the alarm, their cover is blown.

Draven flies Selena to his clan's barracks and orders everyone to flee but keeps saying "you" instead of "we." Selena pieces together the truth: The Icehearts used Lavendera's tree magic to implant dragon steel in Draven's forearm, forcing him to surrender, obey, and remain unable to reveal the secret. Using a knife, Selena cuts the metal from his arm while blocking his pain with her magic, freeing him for the first time in over two centuries.

The Black Dragon Clan shifts into dragon form and takes flight. Isera and Alistair ride on the backs of Galen and Lyra while Selena rides Draven. As they fly over the city, Selena uses a massive burst of magic to ignite the anger she has been building for weeks, and the human population erupts in rebellion, storming the Ice Palace and forcing half the pursuing silver dragons to turn back. Nysara glamours the fleeing group invisible. Jessina fires ice flames as a final attack, and though Isera and Alistair deflect most of it, a shard of ice strikes Selena in the spine. She loses feeling in her legs, coughs blood, and slides off Draven's back, falling through the night sky.