Crown of Midnight

Chapter 30

Celaena stared at the body.

An empty body, artfully mutilated, so cut up that the bed was almost black with blood.

People had rushed into the room behind her, and she smelled the faint tang as someone was sick nearby.

But she just stayed there, letting the others fan out around her as they rushed to assess the three cooling bodies in the room. That ancient, ageless drum—her heartbeat—pulsed through her ears, drowning out any sound.

Nehemia was gone. That vibrant, fierce, loving soul; the princess who had been called the Light of Eyllwe; the woman who had been a beacon of hope—just like that, as if she were no more than a wisp of candlelight, she was gone.

When it had mattered most, Celaena hadn’t been there.

Nehemia was gone.

Someone murmured her name, but didn’t touch her.

There was a gleam of sapphire eyes in front of her, blocking out her vision of the bed and the dismembered body atop it. Dorian. Prince Dorian. There were tears running down his face. She reached out a hand to touch them. They were oddly warm against her freezing, distant fingers. Her nails were dirty, bloody, cracked—so gruesome against the smooth white cheek of the prince.

And then that voice from behind her said her name again.

“Celaena.”

They had done this.

Her bloody fingers slid down Dorian’s face, to his neck. He just stared at her, suddenly still.

“Celaena,” that familiar voice said. A warning.

They had done this. They had betrayed her. Betrayed Nehemia. They had taken her away. Her nails brushed Dorian’s exposed throat.

“Celaena,” the voice said.

Celaena slowly turned.

Chaol stared at her, a hand on his sword. The sword she’d brought to the warehouse—the sword she’d left there. Archer had told her that Chaol had known they were going to do this.

He had known.

She shattered completely, and launched herself at him.

Chaol had only enough time to release his sword as she lunged, swiping for his face with a hand.

She slammed him into the wall, and stinging pain burst from the four lines she gouged across his cheek with her nails.

She reached for the dagger at her waist, but he grasped her wrist. Blood slid down his check, down his neck.

His guards shouted, rushing closer, but he hooked a foot behind hers, twisting as he shoved, and threw her to the ground.

“Stay back,” he ordered them, but it cost him. Pinned beneath him, she slammed a fist up beneath his jaw, so hard his teeth sang.

And then she was snarling, snarling like some kind of wild animal as she snapped for his neck. He reared back, throwing her against the marble floor again. “Stop.”

But the Celaena he knew was gone. The girl he’d imagined as his wife, the girl he’d shared a bed with for the past week, was utterly gone. Her clothes and hands were caked with the blood of the men in the warehouse. She wedged a knee up, pounding it between his legs so hard he lost his grip on her, and then she was on top of him, dagger drawn, plunging down toward his chest—

He grabbed her wrist again, crushing it in his hand as the blade hovered over his heart. Her whole body trembled with effort, trying to shove it the remaining few inches. She reached for her other dagger, but he caught that wrist, too.

“Stop.” He gasped, winded from the blow she’d landed with her knee, trying to think past that blinding pain. “Celaena, stop.”

“Captain,” one of his men ventured.

“Stay back,” he snarled again.

Celaena threw her weight into the dagger she held aloft, and gained an inch. His arms strained. She was going to kill him. She was truly going to kill him.

He made himself look into her eyes, look at the face so twisted with rage that he couldn’t find her.

“Celaena,” he said, squeezing her wrists so hard that he hoped the pain registered somewhere—wherever she had gone. But she still wouldn’t loosen her grip on the blade. “Celaena, I’m your friend.”

She stared at him, panting through gritted teeth, her breath coming quicker and quicker before she roared, the sound filling the room, his blood, his world: “You will never be my friend. You will always be my enemy.”

She bellowed the last word with such soul-deep hatred that he felt it like a punch to the gut. She surged again, and he lost his grip on the wrist that held the dagger. The blade plunged down.

And stopped. There was a sudden chill in the room, and Celaena’s hand just stopped, as though it had been frozen in midair. Her eyes left his face, but Chaol couldn’t see who it was she hissed at. For a heartbeat, it seemed as if she was thrashing against some invisible force, but then Ress was behind her, and she was too busy struggling to notice as the guard slammed the pommel of his sword into her head.

As Celaena fell atop him, a part of Chaol fell along with her.

Chapter 31

Dorian knew that Chaol had no choice, no other way out of the situation, as his friend carried Celaena out of that bloody chamber, into the servants’ stairwell, and down, down, down, until they reached the castle dungeons. He tried not to look at Kaltain’s curious, half-mad face as Chaol laid Celaena in the cell beside hers. As he locked the cell door.

“Let me give her my cloak,” Dorian said, reaching to unfasten it.

“Don’t,” Chaol said quietly. His face was still bleeding. She’d gouged four lines across his cheek with her nails. Her nails. Gods above.

“I don’t trust her with anything in there except hay.” Chaol had already taken the time to remove her remaining weapons—including six lethal-looking hairpins from her braid—and checked her boots and tunic for any hidden ones.

Kaltain was smiling faintly at Celaena. “Don’t touch her, don’t talk to her, and don’t look at her,” Chaol said, as if there wasn’t a wall of bars separating the two women. Kaltain just huffed and curled up on her side. Chaol barked orders to the guards about food and water rations, and how often the watch was to be changed, and then stalked from the dungeon.

Dorian silently followed. He didn’t know where to begin. There was grief sweeping down on him in waves as he realized again and again that Nehemia was dead; there was the sickness and terror of what he’d seen in that bedroom; and there was the horror and relief that he’d somehow used his power to stop Celaena’s hand before she stabbed Chaol, and that no one except Celaena had noticed.

And when she’d hissed at him … he’d seen something so savage in her eyes that he shuddered.

They were halfway up the winding stone stairs out of the dungeons when Chaol suddenly slumped onto a step, putting his head in his hands. “What have I done?” Chaol whispered.

And despite whatever was changing between them, he couldn’t walk away from Chaol. Not tonight. Not when he, too, needed someone to sit next to. “Tell me what happened,” Dorian said quietly, taking a seat on the stair beside him and staring into the gloom of the stairwell.

So Chaol did.

Dorian listened to his tale of kidnapping, of some rebel group trying to use him to get Celaena to trust them, of Celaena breaking into the warehouse and cutting down men like they were nothing. How the king had told Chaol of an anonymous threat to Nehemia a week ago and ordered him to keep an eye on Nehemia. How the king wanted the princess questioned and told Chaol to keep Celaena away tonight. And then Archer—the man she’d been dispatched to kill weeks ago—explaining that it had been code for Nehemia being assassinated. And then how Celaena ran from the slums all the way back here, to find that she’d been too late to save her friend.

There were things Chaol still wasn’t telling him, but Dorian understood it well enough.

His friend was trembling—which was a horror in itself, another foundation slipping out from beneath their feet. “I’ve never seen anyone move like she did,” Chaol breathed. “I’ve never seen anyone run that fast. Dorian, it was like …” Chaol shook his head. “I found a horse within seconds of her taking off, and she still outran me. Who can do that?”

Dorian might have dismissed it as a warped sense of time due to fear and grief, but he’d had magic coursing through his veins only moments ago.

“I didn’t know this would happen,” Chaol said, resting his forehead against his knees. “If your father …”

“It wasn’t my father,” Dorian said. “I dined with my parents tonight.” He’d just come from that dinner when Celaena went flying past, hell burning in her eyes. That look had been enough for him to run after her, guards in tow, until Chaol nearly collided with them in the halls. “My father said he was going to talk to Nehemia later on, after dinner. From what I saw, this happened hours before that.”

“But if your father didn’t want her dead, who did? I had extra patrols on alert for any threat; I picked those men myself. Whoever did this got through them like they were nothing. Whoever did this …”

Dorian tried not to think of the murder scene. One of Chaol’s guards had taken a look at the three bodies and vomited all over the floor. And Celaena had just stood there, staring at Nehemia, as if she’d been sucked out of herself.

“Whoever did this got some kind of sick delight out of it,” Chaol finished. The bodies flashed through Dorian’s mind again: carefully, artfully arranged.

“What does it mean, though?” It was easier to keep talking than to really consider what had happened. The way Celaena had looked at him without really seeing him, the way she’d wiped away his tears with a finger, then grazed her nails across his neck, as though she could sense the pulsing life’s blood beneath. And when she’d launched herself at Chaol …

“How long will you keep her here?” Dorian said, looking down the stairs.

She had attacked the Captain of the Guard in front of his men. Worse than attacked.

“As long as it takes,” Chaol said quietly.

“For what?”

“For her to decide not to kill us all.”

Celaena knew where she was before she awoke. And she didn’t care. She was living the same story again and again.

The night she’d been captured, she’d also snapped, and come so close to killing the person she most wanted to destroy before someone knocked her out and she awoke in a rotting dungeon. She smiled bitterly as she opened her eyes. It was always the same story, the same loss.

A plate of bread and soft cheese, along with an iron cup of water, lay on the floor on the other side of the cell. Celaena sat up, her head throbbing, and felt the bump on the side of her skull.

“I always knew you’d wind up here,” Kaltain said from the cell beside hers. “Did Their Royal Highnesses tire of you, too?”

Celaena pulled the tray closer, then leaned against the stone wall behind the pallet of hay. “I tired of them,” she said.

“Did you kill anyone particularly deserving?”

Celaena snorted, closing her eyes against the pounding in her mind. “Almost.”

She could feel the stickiness of the blood on her hands and beneath her nails. Chaol’s blood. She hoped the four scratches scarred. She hoped she would never see him again. If she did, she’d kill him. He’d known the king wanted to question Nehemia. He’d known that the king—the most brutal and murderous monster in the world—had wanted to question her friend. And he hadn’t told her. Hadn’t warned her.

It wasn’t the king, though. No—she had gathered enough in the few minutes she’d been in that bedroom to know this wasn’t his handiwork. But Chaol had still been warned about the anonymous threat, had been aware that someone wanted to hurt Nehemia. And he hadn’t told her.

He was so stupidly honorable and loyal to the king that he didn’t even think that she could have done something to prevent this.

She had nothing left to give. After she’d lost Sam and been sent to Endovier, she’d pieced herself back together in the bleakness of the mines. And when she’d come here, she’d been foolish enough to think that Chaol had put the final piece into place. Foolish enough to think, just for a moment, that she could get away with being happy.

But death was her curse and her gift, and death had been her good friend these long, long years.

“They killed Nehemia,” she whispered into the dark, needing someone, anyone, to hear that the once-bright soul had been extinguished. To know that Nehemia had been here, on this earth, and she had been all that was good and brave and wonderful.

Kaltain was silent for a long moment. Then she said quietly, as if she were trading one piece of misery for another, “Duke Perrington is going to Morath in five days, and I am to go with him. The king told me I can either marry him, or rot down here for the rest of my life.”

Celaena turned her head, opening her eyes to find Kaltain sitting against the wall, grasping her knees. She was even dirtier and more haggard than she’d been a few weeks ago. She still clutched Celaena’s cloak around her. Celaena said, “You betrayed the duke. Why would he want you for his wife?”

Kaltain laughed quietly. “Who knows what games these people play, and what ends they have in mind?” She rubbed her dirty hands on her face. “My headaches are worse,” she mumbled. “And those wings—they never stop.”

My dreams have been filled with shadows and wings, Nehemia had said; Kaltain, too.

“What has one to do with the other?” Celaena demanded, the words sharp and hollow.

Kaltain blinked, raising her brows as though she had no idea what she’d said. “How long will they keep you here?” she asked.

For trying to kill the Captain of the Guard? Forever, perhaps. She wouldn’t care. Let them execute her.

Let them put an end to her, too.

Nehemia had been the hope of a kingdom, of many kingdoms. The court Nehemia had dreamed of would never be. Eyllwe would never be free. Celaena would never get the chance to tell her that she was sorry for the things she’d said. All that would remain were the last words Nehemia had spoken to her. The last thing her friend had thought of her.

You are nothing more than a coward.

“If they let you out,” Kaltain said, both of them staring into the blackness of their prisons, “make sure that they’re punished someday. Every last one of them.”

Celaena listened to her own breathing, felt Chaol’s blood under her nails, and the blood of all those men she’d hacked down, and the coldness of Nehemia’s room, where all that gore had soaked the bed.

“They will be,” Celaena swore to the darkness.

She had nothing left to give, except that.

It would have been better if she’d stayed in Endovier. Better to have died there.

Her body didn’t feel quite like hers when she pulled the tray of food toward her, the metal scraping against the old, damp stones. She wasn’t even hungry.

“They drugged the water with a sedative,” Kaltain said as Celaena reached for the iron cup. “That’s what they do for me, too.”

“Good,” Celaena said, and drank the entire thing.

Three days passed. And every meal they brought her was drugged with that sedative.

Celaena stared into the abyss that now filled her dreams, both sleeping and awake. The forest on the other side was gone, and there was no stag; only barren terrain all around, crumbling rocks and a vicious wind that whispered the words again and again.

You are nothing more than a coward.

So Celaena drank the drugged water every time they offered it, and let it sweep her away.

“She drank the water about an hour ago,” Ress said to Chaol on the morning of the fourth day.

Chaol nodded. She was unconscious on the floor, her face gaunt. “Has she been eating?”

“A bite or two. She hasn’t tried to escape. And she hasn’t said one word to us, either.”

Chaol unlocked the cell door, and Ress and the other guards tensed.

But he couldn’t bear another moment without seeing her. Kaltain was asleep next door and didn’t stir as he strode across Celaena’s cell.

He knelt by Celaena. She reeked of old blood, and her clothes were stiff with it. His throat tightened.

In the castle above, it had been sheer pandemonium for the past several days. He had men combing the castle and city for Nehemia’s assassin. He had gone before the king multiple times already to try to explain what happened: how he’d gotten himself kidnapped, and how, even with extra men watching Nehemia, someone had slipped past them all. He was stunned the king hadn’t dismissed him—or worse.

The worst part was that the king seemed smug. He hadn’t had to dirty his hands to get rid of a problem. His main annoyance was dealing with the uproar that was sure to happen in Eyllwe. He hadn’t spared one moment to mourn Nehemia, or shown one flicker of remorse. It had taken a surprising amount of self-control for Chaol not to throttle his own sovereign.

But more than just his fate relied on his submission and good behavior. When Chaol had explained Celaena’s situation to the king, he had barely looked surprised. He’d just said to get her in line, and left it at that.

Get her in line.

Chaol gently picked up Celaena, trying not to grunt at the weight, and carried her out of the cell. He’d never forgive himself for throwing her in this rotting dungeon, even though he hadn’t had a choice. He hadn’t even let himself sleep in his own bed—the bed that still smelled like her. He’d laid down on it that first night and realized what she was lying on, and opted for his couch instead. The least he could do right now was get her back to her own rooms.

But he didn’t know how to get her in line. He didn’t know how to fix what had been broken. Both inside of her, and between them.

His men flanked him as he brought her up to her rooms.

Nehemia’s death hung around him, followed his every step. It had been days since he’d dared look in the mirror. Even if it hadn’t been the king who had ordered Nehemia dead, if Chaol had warned Celaena about the unknown threat, at least she would have been looking out. If he’d warned Nehemia, her men would have been on alert, too. Sometimes the reality of his decision hit him so hard he couldn’t breathe.

And then there was this reality, the reality he held in his arms as Ress opened the door to her rooms. Philippa was already waiting, beckoning him to the bathing chamber. He hadn’t even thought of that—that Celaena might need to be cleaned up before getting into bed.

He couldn’t meet the servant’s gaze as he walked into the bathing chamber, because he knew the truth he’d find there.

He’d realized it the moment Celaena had turned to him in Nehemia’s bedroom.

He had lost her.

And she would never, in a thousand lifetimes, let him in again.

Chapter 32

Celaena awoke in her own bed, and knew there would be no more sedatives in her water.

There would be no more breakfast conversations with Nehemia, nor would there be any more lessons on the Wyrdmarks. There would be no more friends like her.

She knew without looking that someone had scrubbed her clean. Blinking against the brightness of the sunlight in her room—her head instantly pounding after days in the darkness of the dungeon—she found Fleetfoot sleeping pressed against her. The dog lifted her head to lick Celaena’s arm a few times before going back to sleep, her nose nestled between Celaena’s elbow and torso. She wondered if Fleetfoot could sense the loss, too. She’d often wondered if Fleetfoot loved the princess more than her.

You are nothing more than a coward.

She couldn’t blame Fleetfoot. Outside of this rotten, festering court and kingdom, the rest of the world had loved Nehemia. It was hard not to. Celaena had adored Nehemia from the moment she’d laid eyes on her, like they were twin souls who had at last found each other. A soul-friend. And now she was gone.

Celaena put a hand against her chest. How absurd—how utterly absurd and useless—that her heart still beat and Nehemia’s didn’t.

The Eye of Elena was warm, as if trying to offer some comfort. Celaena let her hand drop back to her mattress.

She didn’t even try to get out of bed that day, after Philippa coaxed her into eating and let slip that she’d missed Nehemia’s funeral. She’d been too busy guzzling down sedatives and hiding from her grief in the dungeons to be present when they put her friend in the cold earth, so far from the sun-warmed soil of Eyllwe.

You are nothing more than a coward.

So Celaena didn’t get out of bed that day. And she didn’t get out of it the next.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Chapter 33

The mines in Calaculla were stifling, and the slave girl could only imagine how much worse they would become when the summer sun was overhead.

She had been in the mines for six months—longer than anyone else had ever survived, she’d been told. Her mother, her grandmother, and her little brother hadn’t lasted a month. Her father hadn’t even made it to the mines before Adarlan’s butchers had cut him down, along with the other known rebels in their village. Everyone else had been rounded up and sent here.

She’d been alone for five and a half months now; alone, yet surrounded by thousands. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the sky, or the grasslands of Eyllwe undulating in a cool breeze.

She would see them both again, though—the sky and the grasslands. She knew she would, because she’d stayed awake on nights she was supposed to have been sleeping, listening through the cracks in the floorboards as her father and his fellow rebels talked of ways to bring down Adarlan, and of Princess Nehemia, who was in the capital at that very moment, working for their freedom.

If she could just hold on, if she could just keep drawing breath, she might make it until Nehemia accomplished her goal. She would make it, and then bury her dead; and when the mourning months were over, she would find the nearest rebel group and join them. With every Adarlanian life she took, she would say the names of her dead again, so that they would hear her in the afterlife and know they were not forgotten.

She swung her pickax into the unforgiving wall of stone, her breath ragged in her parched throat. The overseer lounged against a nearby wall, sloshing water in his canteen, waiting for the moment when one of them would collapse, just so he could unfurl that whip of his.

She kept her head down, kept working, kept breathing.

She would make it.

She didn’t know how much time passed, but she felt the ripple go through the mines like a shudder in the earth. A ripple of stillness, followed by wails.

She felt it coming, swelling up toward her, closer and closer with each turned head and murmured words.

And then she heard it—the words that changed everything.

Princess Nehemia is dead. Assassinated by Adarlan.

The words were past her before she had time to swallow them.

There was a scrape of leather against rock. The overseer would tolerate the pause for only a few seconds longer before he started swinging.

Nehemia is dead.

She stared down at the pickax in her hands.

She turned, slowly, to look into the face of her overseer, the face of Adarlan. He cocked his wrist, pronged whip ready.

She felt her tears before she realized they were falling, sliding through six months’ worth of filth.

Enough. The word screamed through her, so loudly she began to shake.

Silently, she began to recite the names of her dead. And as the overseer raised his whip, she added her name to the end of that list and swung her ax into his gut.

Chapter 34

“Any changes in her behavior?”

“She got out of bed.”

“And?”

Standing in the sunlit hall of the upper levels of the glass castle, Ress’s usually jovial face was grim. “And now she’s sitting in a chair in front of the fire. It’s the same as yesterday: she got out of bed, sat in the chair all day, then got back into bed at sundown.”

“Is she still not speaking?”

Ress shook his head, keeping his voice low as a courtier passed by. “Philippa says she just sits there and stares at the fire. Won’t speak. Still barely touches her food.” Ress’s eyes grew warier as they took in the healing cuts that ran down Chaol’s cheek. Two had already scabbed and would fade, but there was a long, surprisingly deep one that was still tender. Chaol wondered whether it would scar. He’d deserve it if it did.

“I’m probably overstepping my bounds—”

“Then don’t say it,” Chaol growled. He knew exactly what Ress would say: the same thing Philippa said, and anyone who saw him and gave him that pitying glance. You should try talking to her.

He didn’t know how word had gotten out so quickly that she’d tried to kill him, but it seemed they all knew how deep the break between him and Celaena went. He’d thought the two of them had been discreet, and he knew Philippa wasn’t a gossip. But perhaps what he felt for her had been written all over him. And what she now felt for him … He resisted the urge to touch the cuts on his face.

“I still want the watch posted outside her door and windows,” he ordered Ress. He was on his way to another meeting; another shouting match about how they should deal with the fallout in Eyllwe over the princess’s death. “Don’t stop her if she leaves, but try to slow her down a bit.”

Long enough for word to get to him that she’d finally left her rooms. If anyone was going to intercept Celaena, if anyone would confront her about what happened to Nehemia, it would be him. Until then, he’d give her the space she needed, even if it killed him not to speak to her. She’d become entwined in his life—from the morning runs to the lunches to the kisses she stole from him when no one was looking—and now, without her, he felt hollow. But he still didn’t know how he’d ever look her in the eye.

You will always be my enemy.

She’d meant it.

Ress nodded. “Consider it done.”

The young guard saluted as Chaol headed for the meeting room. There would be other meetings today—lots of meetings, since the debate was still raging over how Adarlan should react to Nehemia’s death. And though he hated to admit it, he had other things to worry about than Celaena’s unending grief.

The king had summoned his southern lords and retainers to Rifthold.

Including Chaol’s father.

Dorian usually didn’t mind Chaol’s men. But he did mind being followed around, day and night, by guards who were on the lookout for any threat. Nehemia’s death had proved that the castle was not impregnable. His mother and Hollin were sequestered in her chambers, and many of the nobility had either left the city or were lying low, too.

Except Roland. Though Roland’s mother had fled back to Meah the morning after the princess was assassinated, Roland stayed, insisting that Dorian would need his support now more than ever. And he was right. At the council meetings, which grew more and more crowded as the southern lords arrived, Roland backed every point and objection that Dorian made. Together they argued against sending more troops into Eyllwe in case of revolt, and Roland seconded Dorian’s proposal that they should publicly apologize to Nehemia’s parents for her death.

His father had exploded when Dorian suggested that, but Dorian had still written her parents a message, expressing his deepest condolences. His father could go to hell for all he cared.

And that was starting to be a problem, he realized as he sat in his tower room and flipped through all the documents he had to read before tomorrow’s meeting with the southern lords. He had spent so long being careful to avoid defying his father, but what sort of man could he call himself if he blindly obeyed?

A smart man, a part of him whispered, flickering with that cold, ancient power.

At least his four guards stayed outside his rooms. His private tower was high enough that no one could reach the balcony, and only one stair led up and down. Easily defensible. But it also made for an easy cage.

Dorian stared at the glass pen on his desk. The night Nehemia had died, he hadn’t intended to stop Celaena’s wrist in midair. He’d just known that the woman he’d loved was about to kill his oldest friend over a misunderstanding. He’d been too far away to grab her as she plunged the blade down, but then … it was like a phantom arm reached out from within him and wrapped around her wrist. He could feel her blood-crusted skin, as if he himself were touching her.

But he hadn’t known what he was doing. He’d just acted on gut feeling and desperation and need.

He had to learn to control this power, whatever it was. If he could control it, then he could keep it from appearing at inopportune times. Like when he was in those damned council meetings and his temper rose, and he felt the magic stirring in response.

Dorian took a deep breath, focusing on the pen, willing it to move. He’d stopped Celaena midstrike, he’d thrown a wall of books into the air—he could move a pen.

It didn’t move.

After staring at it until his eyes nearly crossed, Dorian groaned and leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands.

Maybe he’d gone insane. Maybe he’d just imagined the whole thing.

Nehemia had once promised to be there when he needed help—when some power in him awoke. She had known.

Had her assassin, in killing Nehemia, also killed any hope he had of finding answers?

Celaena had only started sitting in the chair because Philippa had come in yesterday and complained about the dirty sheets. She might have told Philippa to go to hell, but then she considered who had last shared this bed with her, and was suddenly glad to have them replaced. Any trace of him, she wanted gone.

As the sun finished setting, she sat before the fire, staring into the glowing embers that grew brighter as the world darkened.

Time was shifting and ebbing around her. Some days had passed in an hour, others a lifetime. She had bathed once, long enough to wash her hair, and Philippa had watched the whole time to make sure she didn’t drown herself instead.

Celaena ran a thumb over the armrest of the chair. She had no intention of ending her life. Not before she did what needed to be done.

The shadows in the room grew, and the embers seemed to breathe as she watched them. Breathing with her, pulsing with each heartbeat.

In these days of silence and sleep, she’d realized one thing: the assassin had come from outside the palace.

Perhaps they had been hired by whoever had initially threatened Nehemia’s life—perhaps not. But they weren’t associated with the king.

Celaena gripped the arms of the chair, her nails digging into the polished wood. It hadn’t been one of Arobynn’s assassins, either. She knew his style, and it wasn’t this monstrous. She again went over the details of the bedroom, now branded into her mind.

She did know one killer this monstrous.

Grave.

She’d learned as much about him as she could when she’d faced him in the competition to become King’s Champion. She’d heard what he did to the bodies of his victims.

Her lips pulled back from her teeth.

Grave knew the palace; he’d trained here just as she had. And he’d known, too, just whom he was murdering and dismembering—and what it would mean to her.

A familiar, dark fire rippled in her gut, spreading through her, dragging her down into an abyss without end.

Celaena Sardothien stood from her chair.

Chapter 35

There would be no candles for these midnight deeds, no ivory horn to signal the start of this hunt. She dressed in her darkest tunic and slid a smooth black mask into her cloak pocket. All of her weapons, even the hairpins, had been removed from her rooms. She knew without checking that the doors and windows were being watched. Good. This was not the sort of hunt that began at the front door.

Celaena locked her bedroom and spared a glance at Fleetfoot, who cowered under the bed as she hauled open the secret door. The dog was still quietly whining as Celaena strode into the passage.

She didn’t need a light to make her way down to the tomb. She knew the path by memory now, each step, each turn.

Her cloak whispered against the steps. Down and down she went.

It was war upon them all. Let them tremble in fear at what they had awoken.

Moonlight spilled onto the landing, illuminating the open door of the tomb and Mort’s little bronze face.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said with surprising sorrow as she stalked toward him.

She didn’t reply. And she didn’t care how he knew. She just kept walking, through the door and between the sarcophagi, to the heap of treasure piled in the back.

Daggers, hunting knives—she took whatever she could strap onto her belt or tuck into her boots. She took a handful of gold and jewels and shoved that into a pocket, too.

“What are you doing?” Mort demanded from the hallway.

Celaena approached the stand that displayed Damaris, sword of Gavin, first King of Adarlan. The hollowed-out golden pommel glinted in the moonlight as she pulled the scabbard from the stand and strapped it across her back.

“That is a sacred sword,” Mort hissed, as though he could see inside.

Celaena smiled grimly as she stalked back to the door, flinging her hood over her head.

“Wherever you are going,” Mort went on, “whatever you plan to do, you debase that sword by taking it from here. Aren’t you afraid of angering the gods?”

Celaena just laughed quietly before she took the stairs, savoring each step, each movement that brought her closer to her prey.

She relished the burn in her arms as she hauled the sewer grate up, rotating the ancient wheel until it was fully raised, dripping with filth, and the water beneath the castle flowed freely into the small river outside. She tossed a piece of broken stone into the river beyond the archway, listening for guards.

Not a sound, not a scrape of armor or a whisper of warning.

An assassin had killed Nehemia, an assassin with a taste for the grotesque and a desire for notoriety. Finding Grave would take only a few questions.

She tied the chain around the lever, testing its strength, and checked to ensure that Damaris was tightly strapped to her back. Then, gripping the castle stones, she swung around the wall, slithering sideways. She didn’t bother to glance up at the castle as she eased around the bank of the river and dropped onto the frozen ground.

Then she vanished into the night.

Cloaked in darkness, Celaena stalked through the streets of Rifthold. She made no sound as she passed through dim alleys.

Only one place could provide the answers she wanted.

Sewage and puddles of excrement lay beneath every window of the slums, and the cobblestone streets were cracked and misshapen after many hard winters. The buildings leaned against each other, some so ramshackle that even the poorest citizens had abandoned them. On most streets, the taverns overflowed with drunks and whores and everyone else who sought temporary relief from their miserable lives.

It made no difference how many saw her. None would bother her tonight.

The cape billowed behind her, her face remaining expressionless beneath her obsidian mask as she moved through the streets. The Vaults was just a few blocks away.

Celaena’s gloved hands clenched. Once she found out where Grave was hiding, she’d turn his skin inside out. Worse than that, actually.

She stopped before a nondescript iron door in a quiet alley. Hired thugs stood watch outside; she flashed them the silver entrance fee, and they opened the door for her. In the subterranean warren below, one could find the cutthroats, the monsters, and the damned of Adarlan. The filth came here to exchange stories and make deals, and it was here that any whisper of Nehemia’s assassin would be found.

Grave had undoubtedly received a large fee for his services, and could be counted on to now be recklessly spending his blood money—a spree that would not go unnoticed. He wouldn’t have left Rifthold—oh, no. He wanted people to know he killed the princess; he wanted to hear himself named the new Adarlan’s Assassin. He wanted Celaena to know, too.

As she headed down the steps into the Vaults, the reek of ale and unwashed bodies hit her like a stone to the face. She hadn’t been in this sort of festering den for a long while.

The main chamber was strategically lit: a chandelier hung in the center of the room, but there was little light to be found along the walls for those who sought not to be seen. All laughter halted as she strode between the tables. Red-rimmed eyes followed her every step.

She didn’t know the identity of the new crime lord who ruled over this place, and didn’t care. Her business wasn’t with him, not tonight. She didn’t allow herself to look at the many fighting pits that occupied the distant end of the chamber—pits where crowds were still gathered, cheering for whoever fought with fists and feet within.

She’d been to the Vaults before, many times in those final days before her capture. Now that Ioan Jayne and Rourke Farran were dead, the place seemed to have passed into new ownership without losing any of its depravity.

Celaena walked right up to the barkeep. He didn’t recognize her, but she didn’t expect him to—not when she’d been so careful to hide her identity all those years.

The barkeep was already pale, and his sparse hair had become even sparser over the past year and a half. He tried to peer beneath her cowl as she halted at the bar, but the mask and hood kept her features hidden.

“Drink?” he asked, wiping sweat from his brow. Everyone in the bar was still watching her, either discreetly or outright.

“No,” she said, her voice contorted and deep beneath the mask.

The barkeep gripped the edge of the counter. “You—you’re back,” he said quietly, as more heads turned. “You escaped.”

So he did recognize her, then. She wondered if the new owners held a grudge against her for killing Ioan Jayne—and how many bodies she’d have to leave in her wake if they decided to start a fight right here, right now. What she planned to do tonight already broke enough rules, crossed too many lines.

She leaned on the bar, crossing one ankle over the other. The barkeep mopped his brow again and poured her a brandy. “On the house,” he said, sliding it to her. She caught it in her hand, but didn’t drink it. He wet his lips, then asked, “How—how did you escape?”

People leaned back in their chairs, straining to hear. Let them spread rumors. Let them hesitate before crossing her path. She hoped Arobynn heard, too. She hoped he heard and stayed the hell away from her.

“You’ll soon discover that,” she said. “But I have need of you.”

His brows lifted. “Me?”

“I have come to inquire after a man.” Her voice was scratchy and hollow. “A man who recently earned a large sum of gold. For the assassination of the Eyllwe princess. He goes by the name of Grave. I need to know where he is.”

“I don’t know anything.” The barkeep’s face turned even paler.

She reached into a pocket and pulled out a glittering fistful of ancient jewels and gold. All eyes watched them now.

“Allow me to repeat my question, barkeep.”

The assassin who called himself Grave ran.

He didn’t know how long she’d been hunting him. It had been well over a week since he’d killed the princess; a week, and no one had even looked his way. He thought he’d gotten away with it—and had even started wondering whether he should have been more creative with the body, if he should have left some sort of calling card behind. But all that had changed tonight.

He’d been drinking at the counter of his favorite tavern when the packed room had suddenly gone quiet. He’d turned to see her in the doorway as she called out his name, looking more wraith than human. His name hadn’t even finished echoing in the room before he burst into a sprint, escaping through the back exit and into the alley. He couldn’t hear footsteps, but he knew she was behind him, melting in and out of shadows and mist.

He took alleys and side streets, leaping over walls, zigzagging across the slums. Anything to shake her, to wear her down. He’d make his final stand in a quiet street. There, he would take out the blades strapped to his skin and make her pay for the way she’d humiliated him in the competition. The way she had sneered at him, the way she’d broken his nose and tossed her handkerchief onto his chest.

Haughty, stupid bitch.

He staggered as he rounded a corner, his breath ragged and raw. He had only three daggers hidden on him. He’d make them count, though. When she’d appeared at the tavern, he had immediately taken note of the broadsword hovering over one of her shoulders and the assortment of gleaming, wicked-looking blades strapped to her hips. But he could make her pay, even if he only had a few blades.

Grave was halfway down the cobblestone alley when he realized it was a dead end, the far wall too high to climb. Here, then. He’d soon have her begging for mercy before he cut her into little, little pieces. Drawing one of his daggers, he smiled and turned to the open street behind him.

Blue mist drifted by, and a rat scurried across the narrow passage. There was no noise, only the sounds of distant revelry. Perhaps he had lost her. Those royal fools had made the biggest mistake of their lives when they crowned her Champion. His client had said as much when he’d hired Grave.

He waited a moment, still watching the open street entrance, and then allowed himself to breathe, surprised to find that he was a little disappointed.

King’s Champion indeed. It hadn’t been hard to lose her at all. And now he would go home, and he’d receive another job offer in a matter of days. And then another. And another. His client had promised him that the offers would come. Arobynn Hamel would curse the day he had rejected Grave from the Assassins Guild for being too cruel with his prey.

Grave chuckled, flipping his dagger in his hands. Then she appeared.

She came through the fog, no more than a sliver of darkness. She didn’t run—she just walked with that insufferable swagger. Grave surveyed the buildings surrounding them. The stone was too slippery, and there were no windows.

One step at a time, she approached. He would really, really enjoy making her suffer as much as the princess had.

Smiling, Grave retreated to the end of the alley, only stopping when his back hit the stone wall. In a narrower space, he could overpower her. And in this forgotten street, he could take his own sweet time doing what he wanted.

Still she approached, and the sword at her back whined as she drew it. The moonlight glinted off the long blade. Probably a gift from her princeling lover.

Grave pulled his second dagger from his boot. This wasn’t a frilly, ridiculous competition run by nobility. Here, any rules applied.

She didn’t say anything when she neared.

And Grave didn’t say anything to her as he rushed at her, swiping for her head with both blades.

She stepped aside, dodging him with maddening ease. Grave lunged again. But faster than he could follow she ducked and slashed her sword across his shins.

He hit the wet ground before he felt the pain. The world flashed black and gray and red, and agony tore at him. A dagger still left in his hand, he scuttled backward toward the wall. But his legs wouldn’t respond, and his arms strained to pull him through the damp filth.

“Bitch,” he hissed. “Bitch.” He hit the wall, blood pouring from his legs. Bone had been sliced. He would not be able to walk. He could still find a way to make her pay, though.

She stopped a few feet away and sheathed her sword. She drew a long, jeweled dagger.

He swore at her, the filthiest word he could think of.

She chuckled, and faster than a striking asp, she had one of his arms against the wall, the dagger glinting.

Pain ripped through his right wrist, then his left as it, too, was slammed into the stone. Grave screamed—truly screamed—as he found his arms pinned to the wall by two daggers.

His blood was nearly black in the moonlight. He thrashed, cursing her again and again. He would bleed to death unless he pulled his arms from the wall.

With otherworldly silence, she crouched before him and lifted his chin with another dagger. Grave panted as she brought her face close to his. There was nothing beneath the cowl—nothing of this world. She had no face.

“Who hired you?” she asked, her voice like gravel.

“To do what?” he asked, almost sobbing. Maybe he could feign innocence. He could talk his way out, convince this arrogant whore he had nothing to do with it …

She turned the dagger, pressing it into his neck. “To kill Princess Nehemia.”

“N-n-no one. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And then, without even an intake of breath, she buried another dagger he hadn’t realized she’d been holding into his thigh. So deep he felt the reverberation as it hit the cobblestones beneath. His scream shattered out of him, and Grave writhed, his wrists rising farther on the blades.

“Who hired you?” she asked again. Calm, so calm.

“Gold,” Grave moaned. “I have gold.”

She drew yet another dagger and shoved it into his other thigh, piercing again to the stone. Grave shrieked—shrieked to gods who did not save him. “Who hired you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

After a heartbeat, she withdrew the daggers from his thighs. He almost soiled himself at the pain, at the relief.

“Thank you.” He wept, even as he thought of how he would punish her. She sat back on her heels and stared at him. “Thank you.”

But then she brought up another dagger, its edge serrated and glinting, and hovered it close to his hand.

“Pick a finger,” she said. He trembled and shook his head. “Pick a finger.”

“P-please.” A wet warmth filled the seat of his pants.

“Thumb it is.”

“N-no. I … I’ll tell you everything!” Still, she brought the blade closer, until it rested against the base of his thumb. “Don’t! I’ll tell you everything!”

Chapter 36

Dorian was just starting to feel his temper fray after hours of debate when the doors to his father’s council room were thrown open and Celaena prowled in, her dark cape billowing behind her. All twenty men at the table fell silent, including his father, whose eyes went straight to the thing dangling from Celaena’s hand. Chaol was already striding across the room from his post by the door. But he, too, stopped when he beheld the object she carried.

A head.

The man’s face was still set in a scream, and there was something vaguely familiar about the grotesque features and mousy brown hair that she gripped. It was hard to be certain as it swung from her gloved fingers.

Chaol put a hand on his sword, his face pale as death. The other guards in the room drew their blades, but didn’t move—wouldn’t move, until Chaol or the king commanded them.

“What is this?” the king demanded. The councilmen and assembled lords were gaping.

But Celaena was smiling as her eyes locked onto one of the ministers at the table, and she walked right toward him.

And no one, not even Dorian’s father, said anything as she set the severed head atop the minister’s stack of papers.

“I believe this belongs to you,” she said, releasing her grip on the hair. The head lolled to the side with a thud. Then she patted—patted—the minister’s shoulder before rounding the table and plopping into an empty chair at one end, sprawling across it.

“Explain yourself,” the king growled at her.

She crossed her arms, smiling at the minister, whose face had turned green as he stared at the head before him.

“I had a little chat with Grave about Princess Nehemia last night,” she said. Grave, the assassin from the competition—and Minister Mullison’s champion. “He sends his regards, minister. He also sends this.” She tossed something onto the long table: a small golden bracelet, engraved with lotus blossoms. Something Nehemia would have worn. “Here’s a lesson for you, Minister, from one professional to another: cover your tracks. And hire assassins without personal connections to you. And perhaps try not to do it so soon after you’ve publicly argued with your target.”

Mullison was looking at the king with pleading eyes. “I didn’t do this.” He recoiled from the severed head. “I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’d never do something like this.”

“That’s not what Grave said,” Celaena crooned. Dorian could only stare at her. This was different from the feral creature she’d become the night Nehemia had died. What she was right now, the edge on which she was balancing … Wyrd help them all.

But then Chaol was at her chair, grasping her elbow. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Celaena looked up at him and smiled sweetly. “Your job, apparently.” She shook off his grip with a thrash, then got out of her seat, stalking around the table. She pulled a piece of paper out of her tunic and tossed it in front of the king. The impertinence in that throw should have earned her a trip to the gallows, but the king said nothing.

Following her around the table, a hand still on his sword, Chaol watched her with a face like stone. Dorian began praying they wouldn’t come to blows—not here, not again. If it riled his magic and his father saw … Dorian wouldn’t even think of that power when he was in a room with so many potential enemies. He was sitting beside the person who would give the order to have him put down.

His father took the paper. From where he sat, Dorian could see that it was a list of names, at least fifteen long.

“Before the unfortunate death of the princess,” she said, “I took it upon myself to eliminate some traitors to the crown. My target,” she said, and he knew his father was aware she meant Archer, “led me right to them.”

Dorian couldn’t look at her for a moment longer. This couldn’t be the whole truth. But she hadn’t gone after them to hunt them down, she’d gone to save Chaol. So why lie now? Why pretend she’d been hunting them? What sort of game was she playing?

Dorian looked across the table. Minister Mullison was still trembling at the severed head in front of him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the minister vomited right there. He was the one who had made the anonymous threat against Nehemia’s life?

After a moment, his father looked up from the list and surveyed her. “Well done, Champion. Well done indeed.”

Then Celaena and the King of Adarlan smiled at each other, and it was the most terrifying thing Dorian had ever seen.

“Tell my exchequer to give you double last month’s payment,” the king said. Dorian felt his gorge rise—not just for the severed head and her blood-stiffened clothing, but also for the fact that he could not, for the life of him, find the girl he had loved anywhere in her face. And from Chaol’s expression, he knew his friend felt the same.

Celaena bowed dramatically to the king, flourishing a hand before her. Then, with a smile devoid of any warmth, she stared down Chaol before stalking from the room, her dark cape sweeping behind her.

Silence.

And then Dorian’s attention returned to Minister Mullison, who merely whispered, “Please,” before the king ordered Chaol to have him dragged to the dungeons.

Celaena wasn’t done—not nearly. Perhaps the bloodletting was over, but she still had another person to visit before she could return to her bedroom and wash off the stink of Grave’s blood.

Archer was resting when she arrived at his townhouse, and his butler didn’t dare stop her as she strode up the carpeted front steps, stormed down the elegant wood-paneled hallway, and flung open the double doors to what could only have been his room.

Archer jolted in bed, wincing as he put a hand to his bandaged shoulder. Then he took in her appearance, the daggers still strapped to her waist. He went very, very still.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She stood at the foot of his bed, staring down at him, at his wan face and injured shoulder. “You’re sorry, Chaol’s sorry, the whole damn world is sorry. Tell me what you and your movement want. Tell me what you know about the king’s plans.”

“I didn’t want to lie to you,” Archer said gently. “But I needed to know that I could trust you before I told you the truth. Nehemia”—she tried not to wince at the name—“said you could be trusted, but I needed to know for sure. And I needed you to trust me, too.”

“So you thought kidnapping Chaol would make me trust you?”

“We kidnapped him because we thought he and the king were planning to hurt her. I needed you to come to that warehouse and hear from Westfall’s lips that he was aware there had been threats to her safety and he didn’t tell you; to realize that he is the enemy. If I’d known you would go so berserk, I never would have done it.”

She shook her head. “That list you sent me yesterday, of the men from the warehouse—they’re truly dead?”

“You killed them, yes.”

Guilt punched through her. “For my part, I am sorry.” And she was. She’d memorized their names, tried to recall their faces. She would carry the weight of their deaths forever. Even Grave’s death, what she’d done to him in that alley; she’d never forget that, either. “I gave their names to the king. It should keep him from looking in your direction for a little while longer—five days at most.”

Archer nodded, sinking back into the pillows.

“Nehemia really worked with you?”

“It was why she came to Rifthold—to see what could be done about organizing a force in the north. To give us information directly from the castle.” As Celaena had always suspected. “Her loss …” He closed his eyes. “We can’t replace her.”

Celaena swallowed.

“But you could,” Archer said, looking at her again. “I know you came from Terrasen. So part of you has to realize that Terrasen must be free.”

You are nothing more than a coward.

She kept her face blank.

“Be our eyes and ears in the castle,” Archer whispered. “Help us. Help us, and we can find a way to save everyone—to save you. We don’t know what the king plans to do, only that he somehow found a source of power outside magic, and that he’s probably using that power to create monstrosities of his own. But to what end, we don’t know. That’s what Nehemia was trying to discover—and it’s knowledge that could save us all.”

She would digest all that later—much later. For now, she stared at Archer, then looked down at her blood-stiffened clothing. “I found the man who killed Nehemia.”

Archer’s eyes widened. “And?”

She turned to walk out of the room. “And the debt has been paid. Minister Mullison hired him to get rid of a thorn in his side—because she put him down one too many times in council meetings. The minister is now in the dungeons, awaiting his trial.”

And she would be there for every minute of that trial, and the execution afterward.

Archer loosed a sigh as she put her hand on the doorknob.

She looked over her shoulder at him, at the fear and sadness on his face. “You took an arrow for me,” she said quietly, gazing at the bandages.

“It was the least I could do after I caused that whole mess.”

She chewed on her lip and opened the door. “We have five days until the king expects you to be dead. Prepare yourself and your allies.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” she interrupted. “Consider yourself fortunate that I’m not going to rip out your throat for the stunt you pulled. Arrow or no arrow, and regardless of my relationship with Chaol, you lied to me. And kidnapped my friend. If it hadn’t been for that—for you—I would have been at the castle that night.” She fixed him with a stare. “I’m done with you. I don’t want your information, I’m not going to give you information, and I don’t particularly care what happens to you once you leave this city, as long as I never see you again.”

She took a step into the hallway.

“Celaena?”

She looked over her shoulder.

“I am sorry. I know how much you meant to her—and she to you.”

The weight she’d been avoiding since she’d gone to hunt Grave suddenly fell on her, and her shoulders drooped. She was so tired. Now that Grave was dead, now that Minister Mullison was in the dungeon, now that she had no one left to maim and punish—she was so, so tired.

“Five days; I’ll be back in five days. If you aren’t prepared to leave Rifthold, then I won’t bother faking your death. I’ll kill you before you know I’m in the room.”

Chaol kept his face blank and his shoulders thrown back as his father surveyed him. The small breakfast room in his father’s suite was sunny and silent; pleasant, even, but Chaol remained in the doorway as he looked at his father for the first time in ten years.

The Lord of Anielle looked mostly the same, his hair a bit grayer, but his face still ruggedly handsome, far too similar to Chaol’s for his own liking.

“The breakfast is growing cold,” his father said, waving a broad hand to the table and the empty chair across from him. His first words.

Chaol clenched his jaw so hard it hurt as he walked across the bright room and slid into the chair. His father poured himself a glass of juice and said without looking at him, “At least you fill out your uniform. Thanks to your mother’s blood, your brother is all gangly limbs and awkward angles.”

Chaol bristled at the way his father spat “your mother’s blood,” but made himself pour a cup of tea, then butter a slice of bread.

“Are you just going to keep quiet, or are you going to say something?”

“What could I possibly have to say to you?”

His father gave him a thin smile. “A polite son would inquire after the state of his family.”

“I haven’t been your son for ten years. I don’t see why I should start acting like one now.”

His father’s eyes flicked to the sword at Chaol’s side, examining, judging, weighing. Chaol reined in the urge to walk out. It had been a mistake to accept his father’s invitation. He should have burned the note he received last night. But after he’d ensured that Minister Mullison was locked up, the king’s lecture about Celaena making a fool out of him and his guards had somehow worn through his better judgment.

And Celaena … He had no idea how she’d gotten out of her rooms. None. The guards had been alert and had reported no noise. The windows hadn’t been opened, and neither had her front door. And when he asked Philippa, she only said that the bedroom door had been locked all night.

Celaena was keeping secrets again. She’d lied to the king about the men she’d killed in the warehouse to rescue him. And there were other mysteries lurking around her, mysteries that he’d better start figuring out if he was to stand a chance of surviving her wrath. What his men had reported about the body that had been found in that alley …

“Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“What do you wish to know?” Chaol said flatly, not touching his food or drink.

His father leaned back in his seat—a movement that had once made Chaol start sweating. It usually meant that his father was about to focus all of his attention on him, that he would judge and consider and dole out punishment for any weakness, any missteps. But Chaol was a grown man now, and he answered only to his king.

“Are you enjoying the position you sacrificed your lineage to attain?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose I have you to thank for being dragged to Rifthold. And if Eyllwe rises up, then I suppose we can all thank you as well.”

It took every ounce of will he had, but Chaol just took a bite from his bread and stared at his father.

Something like approval flickered in the man’s eyes, and he took a bite of his own bread before he said, “Do you have a woman, at least?”

The effort it took to keep his face blank was considerable. “No.”

His father smiled slowly. “You were always a horrible liar.”

Chaol looked toward the window, toward the cloudless day that was revealing the first hint of spring.

“For your sake, I hope she’s at least of noble blood.”

“For my sake?”

“You might have spat on your lineage, but you are still a Westfall—and we do not marry scullery maids.”

Chaol snorted, shaking his head. “I’ll marry whomever I please, whether she’s a scullery maid or a princess or a slave. And it’ll be none of your damn business.”

His father folded his hands in front of him. After a long silence, he said quietly, “Your mother misses you. She wants you home.”

The breath was knocked out of him. But he kept his face blank, his tone steady, as he said, “And do you, Father?”

His father stared right at him—through him. “If Eyllwe rises up in retaliation, if we find ourselves facing a war, then Anielle will need a strong heir.”

“If you’ve groomed Terrin to be your heir, then I’m sure he’ll do just fine.”

“Terrin is a scholar, not a warrior. He was born that way. If Eyllwe rebels, there is a good chance that the wild men in the Fangs will rise up, too. Anielle will be the first place they sack. They’ve been dreaming of revenge for too long.”

Chaol wondered just how much this was grating on his father’s pride, and part of him truly wanted to make him suffer for it.

But he’d had enough of suffering, and enough of hatred. And he hardly had any fight left in him now that Celaena had made it clear she’d sooner eat hot coals than look at him with affection in her eyes. Now that Celeana was—gone. So he just said, “My position is here. My life is here.”

“Your people need you. They will need you. Would you be so selfish as to turn your back on them?”

“The way my father turned his back on me?”

His father smiled again, a cruel, cold thing. “You disgraced your family when you gave up your title. You disgraced me. But you have made yourself useful these years—made the Crown Prince rely upon you. And when Dorian is king, he’ll reward you for it, won’t he? He could make Anielle a duchy and bless you with lands large enough to rival Perrington’s territory around Morath.”

“What is it that you really want, Father? To protect your people, or to use my friendship with Dorian to your gain?”

“Would you throw me in the dungeons if I said both? I hear you like to do that to the people who dare provoke you these days.” And then there was that gleam in his eyes that told Chaol just how much his father already knew. “Perhaps if you do, your woman and I can exchange notes about the conditions.”

“If you want me back in Anielle, you’re not doing a very good job of convincing me.”

“Do I need to convince you? You failed to protect the princess, and that has created the possibility of war. The assassin who was warming your bed now wants nothing more than to spill your innards on the ground. What’s left for you here, except more shame?”

Chaol slammed his hands on the table, rattling the dishes. “Enough.”

He didn’t want his father knowing anything about Celaena, or about the remaining fragments of his heart. He wouldn’t let his servants change the sheets on his bed because they still smelled like her, because he went to sleep dreaming that she was still lying beside him.

“I have worked for ten years to be in this position, and it’ll take far more than a few taunts from you to get me back to Anielle. And if you think Terrin is weak, then send him to me for training. Maybe here he’ll learn how real men act.”

Chaol shoved his chair away from the table, rattling the dishes again, and stormed to the door. Five minutes. He’d lasted less than five minutes.

He paused in the doorway and looked back at his father. The man was smiling faintly at him, still taking him in, still assessing how useful he would be. “You talk to her—you so much as look in her direction,” Chaol warned, “and, father or not, I’ll make you wish you’d never set foot in this castle.”

And though he didn’t wait to hear what his father had to say, Chaol left with the sinking feeling that he’d somehow just stepped right into his father’s snare.

Chapter 37

There was no one else to carry out this task, not with Eyllwe soldiers and ambassadors still on their way to retrieve Nehemia’s body from where it lay interred in the royal plot. As Celaena opened the door to the room that had smelled of blood and pain, she saw that someone had cleaned away all traces of gore. The mattress was gone, and Celaena paused in the doorway as she surveyed the skeleton of the bed frame. Perhaps it would be best to leave Nehemia’s belongings to the people who came to bring her back to Eyllwe.

But would they be friends of hers? The thought of strangers touching Nehemia’s belongings, packing them away like any other objects, made her wild with grief and rage.

Almost as wild as she’d been earlier today, when she’d walked into her own dressing room and ripped every gown off its hanger, pulled out every pair of shoes, every tunic, every ribbon and cloak and thrown them into the hallway.

She’d burned the dresses that reminded her most of Nehemia, the dresses she’d worn at their lessons, at their meals, and on their walks around the castle. It was only when Philippa came in to scold her about the smoke that Celaena had relented, allowing her to take whatever clothing survived and donate it. But it had been too late to stop Celaena from burning the dress she’d worn the night of Chaol’s birthday. That gown had burned first.

And when her dressing room was empty, she shoved a bag of gold into Philippa’s hands and told her to go buy some new clothes. Philippa had only given her a sad look—another thing that made Celaena sick—and left.

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.

When she had sealed all the trunks, she went to Nehemia’s desk, which was still littered with papers and books as if the princess had only stepped outside for a moment. As she reached for the first paper, her eyes fell upon the arc of scars around her right hand—the teeth marks of the ridderak.

The papers were covered with scribblings in Eyllwe and—and Wyrdmarks.

Countless Wyrdmarks, some in long lines, some forming symbols like the ones Nehemia had traced underneath Celaena’s bed all those months ago. How had the king’s spies not taken these? Or had he not even bothered to have her rooms searched? She started stacking them into a pile. Perhaps she could still learn some things about the marks, even if Nehemia were—

Dead, she made herself think. Nehemia is dead.

Celaena looked at the scars on her hand again and was about to turn from the desk when she spotted a familiar-looking book half tucked beneath some papers.

It was the book from Davis’s office.

This copy was older, more damaged, but it was the same book. And written on the inside cover was a sentence in Wyrdmarks—such basic marks that even Celaena could understand them.

Do not trust—

The final symbol, though, was a mystery. It looked like a wyvern—the Royal Seal. Of course she shouldn’t trust the King of Adarlan.

She flipped through the book, scanning it for any information. Nothing.

And then she turned to the back cover. And there, Nehemia had written—

It is only with the eye that one can see rightly.

It was scribbled in the common tongue, then in Eyllwe, then in some other languages that Celaena didn’t recognize. Different translations—as if Nehemia had wondered whether the riddle held any meaning in another tongue. The same book, the same riddle, the same writing in the back.

An idle lord’s nonsense, Nehemia had said.

But Nehemia … Nehemia and Archer led the group to which Davis had belonged. Nehemia had known Davis; known him and lied about it, lied about the riddle, and—

Nehemia had promised. Promised that there would be no more secrets between them.

Promised and lied. Promised and deceived her.

She fought down a scream as she tore through every other piece of paper on the desk, in the room. Nothing.

What else had Nehemia lied about?

It is only with the eye …

Celaena touched her necklace. Nehemia had known about the tomb. If she had been feeding information to this group, and had encouraged Celaena to look into the eye carved into the wall … then Nehemia had been looking, too. But after the duel, she’d returned the Eye of Elena to Celaena; if Nehemia had needed it, she would have kept it. And Archer hadn’t mentioned knowing anything about this.

Unless this wasn’t the eye the riddle referenced.

Because …

“By the Wyrd,” Celaena breathed, and rushed out of the room.

Mort hissed when she appeared at the door to the tomb. “Plan on desecrating any other sacred objects tonight?”

Carrying a satchel full of papers and books that she’d grabbed from her rooms, Celaena merely patted his head as she walked by. His bronze teeth clanked against each other as he sought to bite her.

The tomb was filled with moonlight bright enough to see by. And there, directly across the tomb from the eye in the wall, was another eye, golden and gleaming.

Damaris. It was Damaris, the Sword of Truth. Gavin could see nothing but what was right—

It is only with the eye that one can see rightly.

“Am I so blind?” Celaena dumped her leather satchel on the floor, the books and papers spilling across the stones.

“It appears so!” Mort sang. The eye-shaped pommel was the exact size …

Celaena lifted the sword from its stand and unsheathed it. The Wyrdmarks on the blade seemed to ripple. She rushed back to the wall.

“In case you didn’t realize,” called Mort, “you’re supposed to hold the eye against the hole in the wall and look through it.”

“I know that,” snapped Celaena.

And so, not daring to breathe the entire time, Celaena lifted the pommel to the hole until both eyes were evenly aligned. She stood on her toes and peered in—and groaned.

It was a poem.

A lengthy poem.

Celaena fished out the parchment and charcoal she’d stashed in her pocket and copied down the words, darting to and from the wall as she read, memorized, double-checked, and then recorded. It was only when she had finished the last stanza that she read it aloud.

By the Valg, three were made

,

Of the Gate-Stone of the Wyrd:

Obsidian the gods forbade

And stone they greatly feared

.

In grief, he hid one in the crown

Of her he loved so well

,

To keep with her where she lay down

Inside the starry cell

.

The second one was hidden

In a mountain made of fire

,

Where all men were forbidden

Despite their great desires

.

Where the third lies

Will never be told

By voice or tongue

Or sum of gold

.

Celaena shook her head. More nonsense. And the rhyme with “Wyrd” and “feared” was off. Not to mention the break in the rhyme scheme in the final lines.

“Since you clearly knew that the sword could be used to read the riddle,” she said to Mort, “then why don’t you save me some trouble and tell me what the hell this one’s about?”

Mort sniffed. “It sounds to me like it’s a riddle giving the location of three very powerful items.”

She read through the poem again. “But three what? Sounds like the second thing is hidden in—in a volcano? And the first and third ones …” She gritted her teeth. “‘Gate-Stone of the Wyrd’ … What is this a riddle for? And why is it here?”

“Isn’t that the question of the millennia!” Mort crowed as Celaena walked back to the papers and books she’d scattered at the other end of the tomb. “You’d better clean up the mess you brought down here, or I’ll ask the gods to send some wicked beastie after you.”

“Already happened; Cain beat you to it months ago.” She replaced Damaris in its stand. “Too bad the ridderak didn’t take you off the door when he burst through.” A thought hit her, and she stared at the wall in front of her—where she’d once fallen to avoid being ripped apart. “Who was it that moved the carcass of the ridderak?”

“Princess Nehemia, of course.”

Celaena twisted to look toward the doorway. “Nehemia?”

Mort made a choking sound and cursed his loose tongue.

“Nehemia was—Nehemia was here? But I only brought her to the tomb …” Mort’s bronze face gleamed in the light of the candle she’d set before the door. “You’re telling me that Nehemia came here after the ridderak attacked? That she knew about this place all along? And you’re only telling me now?”

Mort closed his eyes. “Not my business.”

Another deceit. Another mystery.

“I suppose if Cain could get down here, then there are other entrances,” she said.

“Don’t ask me where they are,” Mort said, reading her mind. “I’ve never left this door.” She had a feeling it was another lie; he always seemed to know about the layout of the tomb and when she was touching things she shouldn’t be.

“Then what use are you? Brannon just made you to piss everyone off?”

“He did have a sense of humor like that.”

The thought of Mort actually having known the ancient Fae king made her quake inside. “I thought you had powers. You can’t just speak some nonsense words and have the meaning of the riddle be revealed to me?”

“Of course not. And isn’t the journey more important than the end?”

“No,” she spat. Spewing a concoction of curses that could have curdled milk, Celaena tucked the paper into her pocket. She would need to study this riddle at length.

If these items were things that Nehemia was looking for, things that she’d lied about to keep secret … Celaena might be able to accept that Archer and his friends were capable of good, but she certainly didn’t trust them to hold an object with the power that the riddle mentioned. If they were already looking, then perhaps it was in her best interest to find the items before anyone else. Nehemia hadn’t figured out that the eye riddle referred to Damaris, but had she known what the three objects were? Maybe she’d pursued the eye riddle because she was trying to find the objects before the king did.

The king’s plans—had they been to find these things?

She picked up her candle and strode from the room.

“Has the questing spirit seized you at last?”

“Not yet,” she said as she walked by. Once she found out what the three items were, then maybe she’d consider finding a way to go after them. Even if the only volcanoes she knew about were in the Desert Peninsula, and there was no way in hell the king would let her go off on her own for such a long trip.

“It’s a pity that I’m attached to this door,” sighed Mort. “Imagine all the trouble you’ll get into while trying to solve the riddle!”

He was right; and as Celaena walked up the winding stair, she found herself wishing that he actually could move about. Then she’d at least have one person to discuss this with. If she did have to go hunt these things down, whatever they were, then she’d have no one to go with her. There was no one who knew the truth.

The truth.

She snorted. What truth was there now? That she had no one left to talk to? That Nehemia had lied through her teeth about so many things? That the king might be searching for an earth-shattering source of power? That he might already have something like this? Archer had mentioned a source of power outside of magic; was that what these things were? Nehemia had to have known…

Celaena slowed, the candle guttering in a damp breeze through the stairwell, and slumped onto a step, bracing her arms on her knees.

“What else were you hiding, Nehemia?” she whispered into the darkness.

Celaena didn’t need to turn to know who sat behind her when something silver and glimmering shone in the corner of her eye.

“I thought you were too exhausted to come here,” she said to the first Queen of Adarlan.

“I can only stay for a few moments,” Elena said, her dress rustling as she took a seat a few steps up from Celaena. It seemed a distinctly un-queenlike thing to do.

Together, they stared into the gloom of the stairwell, Celaena’s breathing the only sound. She supposed Elena didn’t need to breathe—didn’t make any sounds unless she wanted to.

Celaena gripped her knees. “What was it like?” she asked quietly.

“Painless,” Elena said with equal quiet. “Painless, and easy.”

“Were you frightened?”

“I was a very old woman, surrounded by my children, and their children, and their children’s children. I had nothing to be afraid of when the time came.”

“Where did you go?”

A soft laugh. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

Celaena’s lips wobbled. “She didn’t die an old woman in her bed.”

“No, she didn’t. But when her spirit left her body, there was no more pain—no more fear. She is safe now.”

Celaena nodded. Elena’s dress rustled again, and then she was on the step beside her, an arm around her shoulders. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until she found herself leaning into Elena’s warmth.

The queen didn’t say anything as Celaena buried her face in her hands and wept at last.

There was one last thing she had to do. Perhaps the hardest and the worst of all the things she had done since Nehemia had died.

The moon was overhead, casting the world in silver. Even though they didn’t recognize her in her current attire, the night watch at the royal mausoleum hadn’t stopped her as she passed through the iron gates at the back of one of the castle gardens. Nehemia wouldn’t be entombed inside the white marble building, though; inside was for the royal family.

Celaena walked around the domed building, feeling as if the wyverns carved into the side stared at her as she passed.

The few people still active at this hour had quickly looked away as she made her way here. She didn’t blame them. A black dress and a sheer, flowing black veil spoke enough about her grief, and kept everyone at a long, long distance. As though her sorrow were a plague.

But she didn’t give a damn what the others thought; the mourning clothes weren’t for them. She rounded the back of the mausoleum and beheld the rows of graves in the gravel garden behind it, the pale and worn stones illuminated by the moon. Statues depicting everything from mourning gods to dancing maidens marked the resting places of distinguished nobility, some so lifelike they seemed to be people frozen in stone.

It had not snowed since before Nehemia’s murder, so it was easy enough to spot the grave by the upturned earth before it.

There were no flowers, not even a headstone. Just fresh soil and a sword thrust into the earth—one of the curved swords of Nehemia’s fallen guards. Apparently, no one had bothered to give her anything more, not when she would be retrieved and brought back to Eyllwe.

Celaena stared at the dark, tilled earth, a chill wind rustling her veil.

Her chest ached, but this was the one last thing she had to do, the one last honor she could give her friend.

Celaena tilted her head to the sky, closed her eyes, and began to sing.

Chaol had told himself that he was only following Celaena to make sure she didn’t hurt herself or anyone else, but as she’d neared the royal mausoleum, he followed for other reasons.

The night provided good cover, but the moon was bright enough to keep him back, far enough away so she wouldn’t see or hear his approach. But then he saw where she had stopped, and realized he had no right to be here for this. He’d been about to turn away when she lifted her face to the moon and sang.

It was not in any language that he knew. Not in the common tongue, or in Eyllwe, or in the languages of Fenharrow or Melisande or anywhere else on the continent.

This language was ancient, each word full of power and rage and agony.

She did not have a beautiful voice. And many of the words sounded like half sobs, the vowels stretched by the pangs of sorrow, the consonants hardened by anger. She beat her breast in time, so full of savage grace, so at odds with the black gown and veil she wore. The hair on the back of his neck stood as the lament poured from her mouth, unearthly and foreign, a song of grief so old that it predated the stone castle itself.

And then the song finished, its end as brutal and sudden as Nehemia’s death had been.

She stood there for a few moments, silent and unmoving.

He was about to walk away when she half turned to him.

Her thin silver circlet shimmered in the moonlight, weighing down a veil so concealing that only he had recognized her.

A breeze whipped past them, making the branches of the trees moan and creak, setting her veil and skirts billowing to one side.

“Celaena,” he pleaded. She didn’t move, her stillness the only sign that she’d heard him. And that she had no interest in talking.

What could he ever say to repair the rift between them, anyway? He’d kept information from her. Even if he hadn’t been directly responsible for Nehemia’s death, if either girl had been more alert, they might have had their own defenses prepared. The loss she felt, the stillness with which she watched him—it was all his fault.

If the punishment for that was losing her, then he’d endure it.

So Chaol walked away, her lament still echoing through the night around him, carried on the wind like the pealing of distant bells.

Chapter 38

The dawn was chill and gray as Celaena stood in the familiar field of the game park, a large stick dangling between her gloved fingers. Fleetfoot sat before her, her tail slashing through the long, dried grass that poked up through the remaining layer of snow. But the hound didn’t whine or bark for the stick to be thrown.

No, Fleetfoot just kept sitting there, watching the palace far behind them. Waiting for someone who was never going to arrive.

Celaena stared across the barren field, listening to the sighing grasses. No one had tried to stop her from leaving her rooms last night—or this morning. Yet even though the guards were gone, whenever she left her room, Ress had an uncanny habit of accidentally running into her.

She didn’t care if he reported her movements to Chaol. She didn’t even care that Chaol had been spying on her at Nehemia’s grave last night. Let him think what he would about the song.

With a sharp intake of breath, she hurled the stick as hard as she could, so far it blended in with the cloudy morning sky. She didn’t hear it land.

Fleetfoot turned to look up at Celaena, her golden eyes full of question. Celaena reached down to stroke the warm head, the long ears, the slender muzzle. But the question remained.

Celaena said, “She’s never coming back.”

The dog kept waiting.

Dorian had spent half the night in the library, searching in forgotten crevices, scouring every dark corner, every hidden nook, for any books on magic. There were none. It wasn’t surprising, but given how many books were in the library, and how many twisting passageways there were, he was a little disappointed that nothing of worth could be found.

He didn’t even know what he would do with a book like that once he found it. He couldn’t bring it back to his rooms, since his servants were likely to find it there. He would probably have to put it back in its hiding place and return to it whenever he could.

He was scanning a bookshelf built into a stone alcove when he heard footsteps. Immediately, just as he’d rehearsed, he took out the book he’d tucked into his jacket and leaned against the wall, opening to a random page.

“It’s a little dark for reading,” a female voice said. She sounded so normal, so like herself that Dorian nearly dropped the book.

Celaena was standing a few feet away, arms crossed. Pitter-pattering feet echoed against the floors, and a moment later Dorian braced himself against the wall as Fleetfoot flung herself at him, all wagging tail and bountiful kisses. “Gods, you’re huge,” he told the dog. She licked his cheek one last time and sprinted off down the hall. Dorian watched her go, brows raised. “I’m fairly certain that whatever she’s about to do, it won’t make the librarians happy.”

“She knows to stick to the poetry and mathematics books.”

Celaena’s face was grave and pale, but her eyes shone with faint amusement. She wore a dark blue tunic he’d never seen before, with golden embroidery that glinted in the dim light. In fact, her whole outfit looked new.

The silence that settled between them made him shift on his feet. What could he possibly say to her? The last time they’d been this close, she’d grazed her nails across his neck. He’d had nightmares about that moment.

“Can I help you find anything?” he asked her. Keep it normal, keep it simple.

“Crown Prince and royal librarian?”

“Unofficial royal librarian,” he said. “A title hard-won after many years of hiding here to avoid stuffy meetings, my mother, and … well, everything else.”

“And here I was, thinking you just hid in your little tower.”

Dorian laughed softly, but the sound somehow killed the amusement in her eyes. As if the sound of merriment was too raw against the wound of Nehemia’s death. Keep it simple, he reminded himself. “So? Is there a book I can help you find? If that’s a list of titles in your hand, then I could look them up in the catalog.”

“No,” she said, folding the papers in half. “No, there’s no book. I just wanted a walk.”

And he’d just come to a dark corner of the library to read.

But he didn’t push it, if only because she could easily start asking him questions, too. If she remembered what had happened when she attacked Chaol, that is. He hoped she didn’t.

There was a muffled shriek from somewhere in the library, followed by a string of howled curses and the familiar pitter-patter of paws on stone. Then Fleetfoot came sprinting down the row, a scroll of paper in her jaws.

“Wicked beast!” a man was shouting. “Come back here at once!”

Fleetfoot just zoomed on by, a blur of gold.

A moment later, when the little librarian came waddling into view and asked if they’d seen a dog, Celaena only shook her head and said that she had heard something—from the opposite direction. And then she told him to keep his voice down, because this was a library.

His eyes shooting daggers at her, the man huffed and scuttled away, his shouting a bit softer.

When he was gone, Dorian turned to her, brows high on his head. “That scroll could have been invaluable.”

She shrugged. “He looked like he could use the exercise.”

And then she was smiling. Hesitantly at first, then she shook her head, and the smile bloomed wide enough to show her teeth.

It was only when she looked at him again that he realized he’d been staring, trying to sort out the difference between this smile and the smile she’d given his father the day she’d put Grave’s head on the council table.

As if she could read his thoughts, she said, “I apologize for my behavior lately. I haven’t … been myself.”

Or she’d just been a part of herself that she usually kept on a tight, tight leash, he thought. But he said, “I understand.”

And from the way her eyes softened, he knew that was all he’d ever needed to say.

Chaol wasn’t hiding from his father. He wasn’t hiding from Celaena. And he wasn’t hiding from his men, who now felt some ridiculous urge to look after him.

But the library did offer a good amount of refuge and privacy.

Maybe answers, too.

The head librarian wasn’t in the little office tucked into one of walls of the library. So Chaol had asked an apprentice. The gawking youth pointed, gave some vague directions, and told him good luck.

Chaol followed the boy’s directions up a sweeping flight of black marble stairs and along the mezzanine rail. He was about to turn down an aisle of books when he heard them speaking.

Actually, he heard Fleetfoot’s prancing first, and looked over the marble rail in time to see Celaena and Dorian walking toward the towering main doors. They were a comfortable, casual distance apart, but … but she was talking. Her shoulders were relaxed, her gait smooth. So different from the woman of shadow and darkness that he’d seen yesterday.

What were the two of them doing here—together?

It wasn’t his business. Frankly, he was grateful that she was talking to anyone, and not burning her clothes or butchering rogue assassins. Still, something twanged in his heart that Dorian was the one beside her.

But she was talking.

So Chaol quickly turned from the balcony rail and walked deeper into the library, trying to shove the image from his mind. He found Harlan Sensel, the head librarian, huffing and puffing down one of the main paths through the library, shaking a fistful of paper shreds at the air around him.

Sensel was so busy cursing that he hardly noticed when Chaol stepped in his path. The librarian had to tilt his head back to see Chaol, and then frowned at him.

“Good, you’re here,” Sensel said, and resumed walking. “Higgins must have sent word.”

Chaol had no idea what Sensel was talking about. “Is there some issue that you need assistance with?”

“Issue!” Sensel waved the shredded papers. “There are feral beasts running amok in my library! Who let that—that creature in here? I demand that they pay!”

Chaol had had a feeling that Celaena had something to do with this. He just hoped she and Fleetfoot were out of the library before Sensel reached the office.

“What sort of scroll was damaged? I’ll see to it that they replace it.”

“Replace it!” Sensel sputtered. “Replace this?”

“What, exactly, is it?”

“A letter! A letter from a very close friend of mine!”

He bit back his annoyance. “If it’s just a letter, then I don’t think the creature’s owner can offer a payment. Though perhaps they’d be happy to donate a few books in—”

“Throw them in the dungeons! My library has become little more than a circus! Did you know that there’s a cloaked person skulking about the stacks at all hours of the night? They probably unleashed that horrible beast in the library! So track them down and—”

“The dungeons are full,” Chaol lied. “But I’ll look into it.” While Sensel finished his rant about the truly exhausting hunt he’d gone on to retrieve the letter, Chaol debated whether he should just leave.

But he had questions, and once they reached the mezzanine and he was certain that Celaena, Fleetfoot, and Dorian were long gone, he said, “I have a question for you, sir.”

Sensel preened at the honorific, and Chaol tried his best to look uninterested.

“If I wanted to look up funeral dirges—laments—from other kingdoms, where would be the best place to start?”

Sensel gave him a confused look, then said, “What a dreadful subject.”

Chaol shrugged and took a shot in the dark. “One of my men is from Terrasen, and his mother recently died, so I’d like to honor him by learning one of their songs.”

“Is that what the king pays you to do—learn sad songs with which to serenade your men?”

He almost snorted at the idea of serenading his men, but shrugged again. “Are there any books where those songs might be?”

Even a day later, he couldn’t get the song out of his head, couldn’t stop the chill that went up his neck when its words echoed through his mind. And then there were those other words, the words that had changed everything: You will always be my enemy.

She was hiding something—a secret she kept locked up so tight that only the horror and shattering loss of that night could have made her slip in such a way. So the more he could discover about her, the better chance he stood of being prepared when the secret came to light.

“Hmm,” the little librarian said, walking down the main steps. “Well, most of the songs were never written down. And why would they be?”

“Surely the scholars in Terrasen recorded some of them. Orynth had the greatest library in Erilea at one time,” Chaol countered.

“That they did,” Sensel said, a twinge of sorrow in his words. “But I don’t think anyone ever bothered to write down their dirges. At least, not in a way that would have made it here.”

“What about in other languages? My guard from Terrasen mentioned something about a dirge he once heard sung in another tongue—though he never learned what it was.”

The librarian stroked his silver beard. “Another language? Everyone in Terrasen speaks the common tongue. No one’s spoken a different language there for a thousand years.”

They were close to the office, and he knew that once they arrived, the little bastard would probably shut him out until he’d brought Fleetfoot to justice. Chaol pressed a bit harder. “So there are no dirges in Terrasen that are sung in a different language?”

“No,” he said, drawing out the word as he pondered. “But I once heard that in the high court of Terrasen, when the nobility died, they sang their laments in the language of the Fae.”

Chaol’s blood froze and he almost tripped, but he managed to keep walking and say, “Would these songs have been known by everyone—not just the nobility?”

“Oh, no,” Sensel said, only half-listening as he recited whatever history was in his head. “Those songs were sacred to the court. Only those of noble blood ever learned or sang them. They were taught and sung in secret, their dead buried by the light of the moon, when no other ears could hear them. At least, that’s what rumor claimed. I’ll admit to my own morbid curiosity in that I’d hoped to hear them ten years ago, but by the time the slaughter had ended, there was no one left in those noble houses to sing them.”

No one, except …

You will always be my enemy.

“Thank you,” Chaol got out, then quickly turned away, walking toward the exit. Sensel called after him, demanding his oath that he’d find the dog and punish it, but Chaol didn’t bother to reply.

Which house did she belong to? Her parents hadn’t just been murdered—they were part of the nobility who had been executed by the king.

Slaughtered.

She’d been found in their bed—after they’d been killed. And then she must have run until she found the place where a Terrasen nobleman’s daughter could hide: the Assassins’ Keep. She’d learned the only skills that could keep her safe. To escape death, she’d become death.

Regardless of what territory her parents had lorded over, if Celaena ever took up the mantle she’d lost, and if Terrasen ever got to its feet …

Then Celaena could become a powerhouse—potentially capable of standing against Adarlan. And that made Celaena more than just his enemy.

It made her the greatest threat he’d ever encountered.

Chapter 39

Crouched in the shadow of a chimney atop a pretty little townhouse, Celaena watched the home next door. For the last thirty minutes, people had been slipping inside, all cloaked and hooded—looking like nothing more than cold patrons eager to get out of the freezing night.

She’d meant it when she told Archer she wanted nothing to do with him or his movement. And honestly, there was a part of her that wondered whether she should just kill them all and toss their heads at the king’s feet. But Nehemia had been a part of this group. And even if Nehemia had pretended she didn’t know anything about these people … they were still her people. She hadn’t lied to Archer when she told him that she’d bought him a few extra days; after turning over Councilor Mullison, the king didn’t hesitate to grant her a bit more time to kill the courtesan.

A snow flurry gusted up, veiling her view of the front of Archer’s townhouse. To anyone else, the gathering would seem like a dinne party for his clients. She knew only few of the faces—and bodies—that hurried up the steps, people who hadn’t fled the kingdom or been killed by her the night everything went to hell.

There were many more, however, whose names she didn’t know. She recognized the guard who had stood between her and Chaol at the warehouse—the man who had been so eager for a fight. Not by his face, which had been masked that night, but by the way he moved, and by the twin swords strapped to his back. He still wore a hood, but she could see shoulder-length dark hair gleaming beneath it, and what looked like the tan skin of a young man.

He paused at the bottom step, turning to quietly utter commands to the two hooded men flanking him. With a nod, they vanished into the night.

She contemplated trailing one of them. But she’d come here only to check on Archer, to see what he was up to. She planned to keep checking on him until the moment he got on that boat and sailed away. And once he was gone, once she’d given the king his fake corpse … She didn’t know what she’d do then.

Celaena slipped farther behind the brick chimney as one of the guards scanned the rooftops for any signs of trouble before continuing on his way—to watch one end of the street, if she guessed correctly.

She stayed in the shadows for a few hours, moving to the rooftop across the street to better watch the front of the house, until the guests started leaving, one by one, looking for all the world like drunken revelers. She counted them, and marked what directions they went in and who walked with them, but the young man with the twin swords didn’t emerge.

She might have convinced herself that he was another client of Archer’s, even his lover, had the stranger’s two guards not returned and slipped inside.

As the front door opened, she caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered young man arguing with Archer in the foyer. His back was to the door, but his hood was off—confirming that he did indeed have night-black shoulder-length hair and was armed to the teeth. She could see nothing else. His guards immediately flanked him, keeping her from getting a closer look before the door shut again.

Not very careful—not very inconspicuous.

A moment later, the young man stormed out, hooded once more, his two men at his side. Archer stood in the open doorway, his face visibly pale, arms crossed. The young man paused at the bottom of the steps, turning to give Archer a particularly vulgar gesture.

Even from this distance, Celaena could see the smile that Archer gave the man in return. There was nothing kind in it.

She wished she’d been close enough to hear what they’d said, to understand what this was all about.

Before, she would have trailed the young stranger to seek out the answers.

But that was before. Now … now, she didn’t particularly care.

It was hard to care, she realized as she started the trek back to the castle. Incredibly hard to care, when you didn’t have anyone left to care about.

Celaena didn’t know what she was doing at this door. Even though the guards at the foot of the tower had let her pass after checking her thoroughly for weapons, she didn’t doubt for one moment that word would go right to Chaol.

She wondered if he’d dare stop her. If he’d ever dare to utter another word to her. Last night, even from the distance at the moonlit graveyard, she’d seen the still-healing cuts on his cheek. She didn’t know whether they filled her with satisfaction or guilt.

Every little bit of interaction was draining, somehow. How exhausted would she be after tonight?

Celaena sighed and knocked on the wooden door. She was five minutes late—minutes she’d spent debating whether she truly wanted to accept Dorian’s offer to dine with him in his rooms. She’d almost eaten dinner in Rifthold instead.

There was no answer to her knock at first, so she turned away, trying to avoid looking at the guards posted on the landing. It was stupid to come here, anyway.

She had just taken a step down the spiral staircase when the door opened.

“You know, I think this is the first time you’ve been to my little tower,” Dorian said.

Foot still in the air, Celaena collected herself before looking over her shoulder at the Crown Prince.

“I was expecting more doom and gloom,” she said, walking back to the door. “It’s quite cozy.”

He held the door open and nodded to his guards. “No need to worry,” he told them as Celaena walked into the prince’s chambers.

She’d expected grandeur and elegance, but Dorian’s tower was—well, “cozy” was a good way to describe it. A bit shabby, too. There was a faded tapestry, a soot-stained fireplace, a moderate-size four-poster bed, a desk heaped with papers by the window, and books. Stacks and mountains and towers and columns of books. They covered every surface, every bit of space along the walls.

“I think you need your own personal librarian,” she muttered, and Dorian laughed.

She hadn’t realized how much she missed that sound. Not just his laugh, but her own, too; any laugh, really. Even if it felt wrong to laugh these days, she missed it.

“If my servants had their way, these would all go to the library. They make dusting rather hard.” He stooped to pick up some clothes he’d left on the floor.

“From the mess, I’m surprised to hear you even have servants.”

Another laugh as he carried the pile of clothes toward a door. It opened just wide enough to reveal a dressing room nearly as big as her own, but she saw no more than that before he chucked the clothes inside and shut the door. Across the room, another door had to lead to a bathing chamber. “I have a habit of telling them to go away,” he said.

“Why?” She walked to the worn red couch before the fireplace and pushed off the books that were piled there.

“Because I know where everything in this room is. All the books, the papers—and the moment they start cleaning, those things get hopelessly organized and tucked away, and I can never find them again.” He was straightening the red cloth of his bedspread, which looked rumpled enough to suggest he’d been sprawled across it until she’d knocked.

“Don’t you have people who dress you? I would have thought that Roland would be your devoted servant, at least.”

Dorian snorted, plumping his pillows. “Roland’s tried. Thankfully, he’s been suffering from awful headaches lately and has backed off.” That was good to hear—sort of. The last she’d bothered to check, the Lord of Meah had indeed become close to Dorian—a friend, even. “And,” Dorian went on, “aside from my refusal to find a bride, my mother’s greatest annoyance is my refusal to be dressed by lords eager to win my favor.”

That was unexpected. Dorian was always so well dressed that she assumed he had people doing it for him.

He went to the door to tell the guards to have their dinner brought up. “Wine?” he asked from the window, where a bottle and a few glasses were kept.

She shook her head, wondering where they would even eat their food. The desk wasn’t an option, and the table before the fireplace was a miniature library on its own. As if in answer, Dorian began clearing the table. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I meant to clear a space to eat before you got here, but I got wrapped up in reading.”

She nodded, and silence fell between them, interrupted only by the thud and hiss of him moving books.

“So,” Dorian said quietly, “can I ask why you decided to join me for dinner? You’ve made it pretty clear that you didn’t want to spend any time with me—and I thought you had work to do tonight.”

Actually, she’d been downright awful to him. But he kept his back to her, as though the question didn’t matter.

And she didn’t quite know why the words came out, but she spoke the truth anyway. “Because I have nowhere else to go.”

Sitting in her rooms in silence made the pain worse, going to the tomb only frustrated her, and the thought of Chaol still hurt so badly she couldn’t breathe. Every morning, she walked Fleetfoot by herself, then ran alone in the game park. Even the girls who had once lined the garden pathways, waiting for Chaol, had stopped showing up.

Dorian nodded, looking at her with kindness she couldn’t stand. “Then you will always have a place here.”

While their dinner was quiet, it wasn’t lachrymose. But Dorian could still see the change in her—the hesitation and consideration behind her words, the moments when she thought he wasn’t looking and an endless sorrow filled her eyes. She kept talking to him, though, and answered all his questions.

Because I have nowhere else to go.

It wasn’t an insult, not the way she’d said it. And now that she was dozing on his couch, the clock having recently chimed two, he wondered what was keeping her from going back to her own rooms. Clearly, she didn’t want to be alone—and maybe she needed to be in a place that didn’t remind her of Nehemia.

Her body was a patchwork of scars; he’d seen it with his own eyes. But these new scars might go deeper: the pain of losing Nehemia, and the different, but perhaps just as agonizing, loss of Chaol.

An awful part of him was glad she’d cut out Chaol. He hated himself for it.

“There has to be something more here,” Celaena said to Mort as she combed through the tomb the following afternoon.

Yesterday, she’d read the riddle until her eyes ached. Still it offered no hint about what the objects might be, where precisely they were concealed, or why the riddle had been hidden so elaborately in the tomb. “Some sort of clue. Something that connects the riddle to the rebel movement and Nehemia and Elena and all the rest.” She paused between the two sarcophagi. Sunlight spilled in, setting the dust motes shimmering. “It’s staring me in the face, I know it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t be of service,” Mort sniffed. “If you want an instant answer, you should find yourself a seer or an oracle.”

Celaena slowed her pacing. “You think if I read this to someone with the gift of clairvoyance, they might be able to … see some different meaning that I’m missing?”

“Perhaps. Though as far as I know, when magic vanished, those with the gift of Sight lost it, too.”

“Yes, but you’re still here.”

“So?”

Celaena looked at the stone ceiling as if she could see through it, all the way to the ground above. “So perhaps other ancient beings might retain some of their gifts, too.”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, I guarantee it’s a bad idea.”

Celaena gave him a grim smile. “I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

Chapter 40

Celaena stood before the caravans, watching as the tents were taken apart. Fortunate timing.

She ran a hand through her unbound hair and straightened her brown tunic. Finery would have attracted too much attention. And even if it was just for an hour, she couldn’t help but savor the feeling of anonymity, of blending in with the carnival workers, these people who had the dust of a hundred kingdoms on their clothes. To have that sort of freedom, to see the world bit by bit, to travel each and every road … Her chest tightened.

People streamed by, hardly glancing at her as she made her way to the black wagon. This could easily be folly, but what harm was there in asking? If Yellowlegs truly was a witch, then perhaps she had the gift of Sight. Perhaps she could make sense of the riddle in the tomb.

When Celaena reached the wagon, it was mercifully devoid of patrons. Baba Yellowlegs sat on the top stair, smoking a long bone pipe whose bowl was shaped like a screaming mouth. Pleasant.

“Come to look into the mirrors?” she said, smoke spilling from her withered lips. “Done running from fate at last?”

“I have some questions for you.”

The witch sniffed her, and Celaena fought the urge to step back. “You do indeed stink of questions—and the Staghorn Mountains. From Terrasen, are you? What’s your name?”

Celaena stuck her hands deep in her pockets. “Lillian Gordaina.”

The witch spat on the ground. “What’s your real name, Lillian?” Celaena stiffened. Yellowlegs crowed with laughter. “Come,” she cawed, “want to have your fortune told? I can tell you who you’ll marry, how many children you’ll have, when you’ll die …”

“If you’re indeed as good as you claim, you know I’m not interested in those things. I’d like to talk to you instead,” Celaena said, flashing the three gold coins in her palm.

“Cheap goat,” Yellowlegs said, taking another long drag from the pipe. “That’s all my gifts are worth to you?”

Perhaps this would be a waste of time. And money. And pride.

Celaena turned away with a scowl, shoving her hands into the pockets of her dark cloak.

“Wait,” Yellowlegs said.

Celaena kept walking.

“The prince gave me four coins.”

She paused and looked over her shoulder at the crone. A cold, clawed hand gripped her heart.

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.”

She’d sell Dorian’s questions to her—to anyone? That familiar calm went through her. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

Yellowlegs’s iron teeth glinted in the light of the torches. “It would be bad for business if I were branded a liar. Would it make you more comfortable if I swore on one of your soft-hearted gods? Or perhaps on one of mine?”

Celaena studied the black wagon, swiftly braiding her hair back. One door, no back exit, no sign of trick panels. No way out, and plenty of warning in case someone came in. She checked her weapons—two long daggers, a knife in her boot, and three of Philippa’s deadly hairpins. More than enough.

“Make it six coins,” Celaena said softly, “and I won’t report you to the guard for trying to sell the prince’s secrets.”

“Who says the guard won’t be interested in them, too? You’d be surprised how many people want to know what truly interests the prince of the realm.”

Celaena slammed six gold coins onto the step beside the tiny crone. “Three pieces for my questions,” she said, bringing her face as close to Yellowlegs’s as she dared. The reek from the woman’s mouth was like carrion and stale smoke. “And three for your silence about the prince.”

Yellowlegs’s eyes gleamed, her iron nails clinking together as she stretched out a hand to grab the coins. “Get in the caravan.” The door behind her swung open soundlessly. A dark interior lay beyond, speckled with patches of glimmering light. Yellowlegs snuffed out her bone pipe.

She’d been hoping for this—to get inside the caravan, and thus avoid having anyone see her with Yellowlegs.

The old woman groaned as she stood, a hand braced on her knee. “Care to tell me your name now?”

A chill wind blew from within the caravan, sliding along Celaena’s neck. Carnival trick. “I’ll ask the questions,” Celaena said, and stalked up the steps into the caravan.

Inside, there were a few measly candles, whose light flickered along row after row, stack after stack, of mirrors. They were every shape, every size, some leaning against the walls, some propped against each other like old friends, some little more than shards clinging to their frames.

And everywhere else, wherever there was a bit of space, were papers and scrolls, jars full of herbs or liquids, brooms … junk.

In the gloom, the caravan stretched on much wider and longer than should have been possible. A winding path had been made between the mirrors, leading into the dark—a path that Yellowlegs was now treading, as if there were anywhere to go inside this strange place.

This can’t be real—it must be an illusion of the mirrors.

Celaena glanced back toward the wagon door in time to see it snick shut. Her dagger was out before the sound had finished echoing through the wagon. Ahead, Yellowlegs chuckled, lifting the candle in her hand. Its holder seemed to be shaped like a skull mounted on some sort of longer bone.

Tacky, cheap carnival tricks, Celaena told herself again and again, her breath clouding in the chill air inside the wagon. None of it was real. But Yellowlegs—and the knowledge she offered—truly was.

“Come along, girl. Come sit with me where we might talk.”

Celaena carefully stepped over a fallen mirror, keeping an eye on the bobbing skull-lantern—and on the door, any possible exits (none as far as she could see, but perhaps there was a trapdoor in the floor), and how the woman moved.

Surprisingly fast, she realized, and hurried to catch up to Yellowlegs. As she strode through the forest of mirrors, her reflection shifted everywhere. In one she appeared short and fat, in another tall and impossibly thin. In another she stood upside down, and in yet another she walked sideways. It was enough to give her a headache.

“Done gawking?” Yellowlegs said. Celaena ignored her, but sheathed her dagger as she followed the woman into a small sitting area before a dim, grated oven. No reason to have her weapon out—not when she still needed Yellowlegs to cooperate.

The sitting area lay in a rough circle cleared of junk and stacks of mirrors, with little more than a rug and a few chairs to make it hospitable. Yellowlegs hobbled over to the raised hearthstone, yanking a few logs from a tiny stack perched on the rim. Celaena remained on the edge of the worn red rug, watching as Yellowlegs threw open the iron grate of the oven, tossed in the wood, and slammed the grate shut again. Within seconds, light flared, made brighter still by the surrounding mirrors.

“The stones of this oven,” Yellowlegs said, patting the curved wall of dark bricks like an old pet, “came from the ruins of the Crochan capital city. The wood of this wagon was hewn from the walls of their sacred schools. That’s why my wagon is … unusual inside.”

Celaena said nothing. It would have been easy to dismiss it as a bit of carnival dramatics, except she was seeing it for herself.

“So,” Yellowlegs said, remaining standing as well, despite the aged wooden furniture scattered around them. “Questions.”

Even though the air in the wagon was chill, the burning oven somehow made it instantly warm—warm enough for Celaena’s layers of clothing to be uncomfortable. She’d been told a story once, on a hot summer night in the Red Desert; a story about what one of the long-lost Ironteeth witches had done to a young girl. What had been left of her.

Gleaming white bones. Nothing more.

Celaena glanced at the oven again and angled herself closer to the door. Across the small sitting area, more mirrors waited in the gloom—as if even the light of the fire couldn’t reach them.

Yellowlegs leaned closer to the grate, rubbing her gnarled fingers in front of it. The firelight danced along her iron nails. “Ask away, girl.”

What had Dorian wanted to know so badly? Had he come inside this strange, smothering place? At least he’d survived. If only because Yellowlegs wanted to use whatever information she’d gleaned from him. Foolish, foolish man.

Was she any different, though?

This might be her only chance to learn what she needed to know, despite the risk, despite how messy and complicated the aftermath might be.

“I found a riddle, and my friends have been debating its answer for weeks. We even have a bet going about it,” she said as vaguely as she could. “Answer it, if you’re so clever and all-knowing. I’ll toss in an extra gold coin if you get it right.”

“Impudent children. Wasting my time with this nonsense.” Yellowlegs watched the mirrors now, as if she could see something Celaena couldn’t.

Or as if she’s already bored.

Some of the tightness in her chest loosening, Celaena pulled the riddle from her pocket and read it aloud.

When she was done, Yellowlegs slowly turned her head to Celaena, her voice low and rough. “Where did you find that?”

Celaena shrugged. “Give me the answer and I might tell you. What sort of objects does this riddle describe?”

“Wyrdkeys,” Yellowlegs breathed, eyes glowing. “It describes the three Wyrdkeys to open the Wyrdgate.”

Cold slithered down Celaena’s spine, but she said, with more bravado than she felt, “Tell me what they are—the Wyrdkeys, the Wyrdgate. For all I know, you might be lying about the answer. I’d rather not be made a fool of.”

“This information is not for the idle games of mortals,” Yellowlegs snapped.

Gold gleamed in Celaena’s palm. “Name your price.”

The woman studied her from head to toe, sniffing once. “Nameless is my price,” Yellowlegs said. “But gold will do for now.”

Celaena set five extra gold coins down on the hearthstone, the heat from the flame singeing her face. Such a small fire, but she was already slick with sweat.

“Once you know this, there is no unknowing it,” the witch warned. And from the gleam in Yellowlegs’s eyes, Celaena knew that the old woman hadn’t bought her lie about the bet for one heartbeat.

Celaena took a step closer. “Tell me.”

Yellowlegs looked toward another mirror. “The Wyrd governs and forms the foundation of this world. Not just Erilea, but all life. There are worlds that exist beyond your knowledge, worlds that lie on top of each other and don’t know it. Right now, you could be standing on the bottom of someone else’s ocean. The Wyrd keeps these realms apart.”

Yellowlegs began to hobble around the sitting area, lost in her own words.

“There are gates—black areas in the Wyrd that allow for life to pass between the worlds. There are Wyrdgates that lead to Erilea. All sorts of beings have come through them over the eons. Benign things, but also the dead and foul things that creep in when the gods are looking elsewhere.”

Yellowlegs disappeared behind a mirror, her uneven steps echoing along. “But long ago, before humans overran this miserable world, a different sort of evil broke through the gates: the Valg. Demons from another realm, bent on the conquest of Erilea, and with the force of an endless army behind them. In Wendlyn, they fought against the Fae. Try as the immortal children might, they could not defeat them.

“Then the Fae learned that the Valg had done something unforgivable. They had taken a piece of a Wyrdgate with their dark magic, and split it into three slivers—three keys. One key for each of their kings. Using all three at once, the Valg Kings were able to open that Wyrdgate at will, to manipulate its power to strengthen their forces, to allow an endless line of soldiers to pour into the world. The Fae knew that they must stop it.”

Celaena stared at the fire, at the mirrors, at the darkness of the wagon around her. The heat was smothering now.

“And so a small band of Fae set out to steal them from the Valg Kings,” Yellowlegs said, her voice coming nearer again. “It was an impossible task; most of those fools didn’t return.

“But the Wyrdkeys were indeed retrieved, and the Fae Queen Maeve banished the Valg to their realm. Yet for all her wisdom, Maeve couldn’t discover how to put the keys back in the gate—and no forge, no steel, no weight could destroy them. So Maeve, believing that no one should have their power, sent them across the sea with Brannon Galathynius, first King of Terrasen, to hide on this continent. And thus the Wyrdgate remained protected, its power unused.”

Silence fell. Even Yellowlegs’s hobbling steps had slowed.

“So the riddle is a … a map to where the keys are hidden?” Celaena asked, trembling now as she realized just what kind of power Nehemia and the others had been after. Worse, what the king might be after.

“Yes.”

Celaena licked her lips. “What might one do with the Wyrdkeys?”

“The person who holds all three Wyrdkeys would have control over the broken Wyrdgate—and all Erilea. They would be able to open and close the gate at will. They could conquer new worlds or let in all sorts of life to bend to their cause. But even one key could make someone immensely dangerous. Not enough power to open the gate, but enough to be a threat. You see, the keys themselves are pure power—power to be shaped as the wielder wills it. Tempting, isn’t it?”

The words echoed through her, blending with Elena’s command to find and destroy the source of evil. Evil. Evil that had arisen ten years ago, when a whole continent had suddenly found itself at mercy of one man—a man who had somehow become unstoppable.

A source of power that existed outside of magic. “It can’t be.”

Yellowlegs only let out a confirming chuckle.

Celaena kept shaking her head, her heart beating so violently she could hardly breathe. “The king has some of the Wyrdkeys? That’s how he was able to conquer the continent so easily?” But if he’d already done that—then what further plans did he have?

“Perhaps,” Yellowlegs said. “If I were to wager my hard-earned gold, I’d say he has at least one.”

Celaena scanned the dark, the mirrors, but saw only versions of herself looking back. She heard nothing but the crackling of the fire in the oven and her own uneven breathing.

Yellowlegs had stopped moving.

“Is there anything else?” Celaena demanded.

No response from the old woman.

“So you’re going to take my money and run?” Celaena eased toward the winding path through the mirrors, and the door that now seemed impossibly far away. “What if I still have questions?” Her own movements in the mirrors sent her nerves jumping, but she kept alert and focused—reminded herself what she had to do. She drew both her daggers.

“You think steel can hurt me?” came a voice that slithered across each mirror until its origin was everywhere and nowhere.

“Here I was, thinking we were having a grand time,” Celaena said, taking another step.

“Bah. Who can have a grand time when your guest is planning to kill you?”

Celaena smiled.

“Isn’t that why you’re moving toward the door?” Yellowlegs went on. “Not to escape, but to make sure I don’t get past your clever, wicked daggers?”

“Tell me who else you’ve sold the prince’s questions to and I’ll let you go.” Earlier, she’d been about to walk away—about to leave—when Yellowlegs’s mention of Dorian had stopped her cold. Now she had no choice about what she had to do. What she would do to protect Dorian. It was what she’d realized last night: she did have someone left—one friend. And there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep him safe.

“And if I say that I’ve told no one?”

“I wouldn’t believe you.” Celaena spied the door at last. No sign of the witch. She paused, roughly in the center of the wagon. It would be easier to catch the woman here—easier to make it quick and clean.

“Pity,” Yellowlegs said, and Celaena angled herself toward the disembodied voice. There had to be some hidden exit—but where? If Yellowlegs got out, if she told anyone what Dorian had asked (whatever it might be), if she told anyone what Celaena had asked …

All around Celaena, her reflection shifted and glimmered. Quick, clean, then she’d be gone.

“What happens,” Yellowlegs hissed, “when the hunter becomes the hunted?”

From the corner of her eye, Celaena glimpsed the hunched form, chains sagging between the gnarled hands. She whirled toward the crone, dagger already flying—to disable, to get her down so she could—

The mirror shattered where Yellowlegs had been standing.

Behind her, there was a heavy clink, and a satisfied caw of laughter.

For all her training, Celaena wasn’t fast enough to duck before the heavy chain whipped across the side of her head, and she slammed face-first into the floor.

Chapter 41

Chaol and Dorian stood on a balcony and watched the carnival be dismantled bit by bit. It would leave tomorrow morning, and then Chaol could finally have his men back to doing useful things. Like making sure no other assassins got into the castle.

But Chaol’s most pressing problem was Celaena. Late last night, after the royal librarian had gone to bed, Chaol had returned to the library and found the genealogy records. Someone had gotten them all out of order, so it had taken him a while to locate the right one, but he at last found himself staring at the list of Terrasen’s noble houses.

None of them bore the name of Sardothien, though that was little surprise. Part of him had always known that wasn’t Celaena’s true name. So he’d made a list—a list that now sat in his pocket, burning a hole through it—of all the noble houses she might have come from, houses with children at the time of Terrasen’s conquest. There were at least six families that had survived … but what if she hailed from one that had been entirely slaughtered? When he had finished writing down the names, he was no closer to figuring out who she really was than he’d been at the start.

“So, are you going to ask me whatever it is you dragged me out here to ask, or am I just going to enjoy freezing my ass off for the rest of the night?” Dorian said.

Chaol raised a brow, and Dorian gave him a slight smile.

“How is she?” Chaol asked. He’d heard that they’d had dinner—and that she hadn’t left his rooms until the middle of the night. Had it been a deliberate move on her part? Something to throw in his face, make him ache just a bit more?

“Coping,” Dorian said. “Coping as best she can. And since I know you’re too proud to ask it, I’ll just tell you that no, she hasn’t mentioned you. Nor do I think she will.”

Chaol took a long breath. How could he convince Dorian to stay away from her? Not because he was jealous, but because Celaena might be more of a threat than Dorian could ever imagine. Only the truth would work, but …

“Your father is curious about you,” Dorian said. “After the council meetings, he always asks me about you. I think he wants you back in Anielle.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to go with him?”

“Do you want me to?”

“It’s not for me to decide.”

Chaol clamped his teeth. He certainly wasn’t going anywhere, not while Celaena was here. And not just because of who she actually was. “I have no interest in being Lord of Anielle.”

“Men would kill for the kind of power that Anielle wields.”

“I’ve never wanted it.”

“No.” Dorian braced his hands on the balcony rail. “No, you’ve never wanted anything for yourself, save for the position you have now, and Celaena.”

Chaol opened his mouth, excuses already forming on his tongue.

“You think I’m blind?” Dorian asked, his gaze a frozen, ice blue. “Do you know why I approached her at the Yulemas ball? Not because I wanted to ask her to dance, but because I saw the way you two were looking at each other. Even then, I knew how you felt.”

“You knew, and yet you asked her to dance.” His hands clenched into fists.

“She’s capable of making up her own mind. And she did.” Dorian gave him a bitter smile. “About both of us.”

Chaol took a steadying breath, calming his rising anger. “If you feel the way you do, then why let her stay shackled to your father? Why not find a way to get her out of her contract? Or are you just afraid that if you set her free, she’ll never come back to you?”

“I’d be careful what you say,” Dorian said softly.

But it was true. Even though he couldn’t imagine a world without Celaena, Chaol knew he had to get her out of this castle. Yet he couldn’t tell if it was for Adarlan’s sake or her own.

“My father is temperamental enough to punish me—and her—if I try to broach that subject. I agree with you, I truly do: it’s not right to keep her here. But you should still mind what you say.” The Crown Prince of Adarlan stared him down. “And consider where your true loyalties lie.”

Once, Chaol might have argued. Once, he might have protested that his loyalty to the crown was his greatest asset. But that blind loyalty and obedience had started this descent.

And it had destroyed everything.

Celaena knew she’d only been out for a few seconds, but it was long enough for Yellowlegs to yank her arms behind her back and get the chain around her wrists. Her head was pounding, and blood slid down the side of her neck, trickling into her tunic. Nothing too bad—she’d had worse wounds. Her weapons were gone, though, discarded somewhere in the wagon. Even the ones in her hair and clothes. And boots. Clever woman.

So she didn’t give the witch a chance, not even a heartbeat, to realize she was conscious. With no warning, she surged her shoulders up, throwing back her head as hard as she could.

Bone cracked, and Yellowlegs howled, but Celaena had already twisted, getting her legs beneath her. Yellowlegs scrambled for the other end of the chain, fast as a viper. Celaena stomped on the length of chain between them, her other foot lashing out to meet Yellowlegs’s face.

The woman went flying, as though she were made of nothing but dust and wind, tumbling into the shadows between mirrors.

Swearing under her breath, Celaena’s wrists ached against the cold iron. But she’d been taught to free herself from worse. Arobynn had bound her up from head to toe and made her learn how to get loose, even if it meant spending two days prostrate on the ground in her own filth, or dislocating her shoulder to get out. So, not all that surprisingly, she had the chains off in a matter of seconds.

She yanked a handkerchief from her pocket and used it to snatch up a long mirror shard. Angling the glass, Celaena peered into the shadows where Yellowlegs had gone flying. Nothing. Just a smear of dark blood.

“Do you know how many young women I’ve trapped in this wagon in the past five hundred years?” Yellowlegs’s voice was everywhere and nowhere. “How many Crochan witches I destroyed? They were warriors, too—such talented, beautiful warriors. They tasted like summer grass and cool water.”

Confirming that Yellowlegs was a blue-blooded Ironteeth witch changed nothing, Celaena told herself. Nothing, except that she’d have to find a bigger weapon.

Celaena scanned the wagon—for the witch, for her lost daggers, for anything to use against the crone. Her gaze lifted to the shelves on the nearby wall. Books, crystal balls, paper, dead things in jars …

Celaena would have missed it if she’d blinked. It was coated in dirt, but still gleamed faintly in the light of the distant oven. Mounted on the wall above a woodpile was a long, single-bladed ax.

She smiled faintly as she yanked it off the wall. All around, Yellowlegs’s image danced in the mirrors, a thousand possibilities for where she could be standing, watching, waiting.

Celaena swung the ax at the nearest one. Then the next. And the next.

The only way to kill a witch is to cut off her head. A friend had told her that once.

Celaena wove between the mirrors, smashing them as she went, the reflections of the crone vanishing until the real witch stood along the narrow pathway between Celaena and the hearth, the chain back in her hands.

Celaena hefted the ax over a shoulder. “One more chance,” she breathed. “You agree to never say one word about me and Dorian, and I’ll walk out of here.”

“I can taste your lies,” Yellowlegs said. Faster than should be possible, she came for Celaena, scuttling like a spider, the chain swinging from her fingers.

Celaena dodged the first whip of the chain. She heard the second before she saw it, and though it missed her, it struck a mirror and glass exploded everywhere. Celaena had no choice but to shield her eyes, to look away for one heartbeat.

It was enough.

The chain wrapped around her ankle, stinging and bruising, and then yanked.

The world tilted as Yellowlegs pulled her feet out from under her, and Celaena went crashing to the floor. Yellowlegs rushed for her, but Celaena rolled across the shards, chain tangling around her, clinging to the ax with one hand, until her face brushed against the coarse fibers of the ancient rug before the oven.

There was a firm yank on the chain, and then another whipping sound. Metal slammed into Celaena’s forearm, so hard that she lost her grip on the ax. She flipped onto her back, still tangled in the infernal chain, only to find the iron teeth of Baba Yellowlegs looming above her. In a flash, the witch slammed Celaena back down into the carpet.

The iron nails dug into her skin, drawing blood as the witch pinned her by the shoulder. “Hold still, you foolish girl,” Yellowlegs hissed, grabbing for the length of the chain lying nearly.

The rug scratched against Celaena’s fingers as she stretched for the fallen ax, just inches out of reach. Her arm throbbed mercilessly, her ankle, too. If she could just get the ax … Yellowlegs lunged for Celaena’s neck, her teeth snapping.

Celaena threw herself to the side, narrowly dodging those iron teeth, and grabbed the ax at last. She hauled it up so hard that its blunt end slammed into the side of the old woman’s face.

Yellowlegs was knocked away, collapsing in a heap of billowing brown robes. Celaena scrambled back and raised the weapon between them.

Pushing to her hands and knees, Yellowlegs spat dark blood—blue blood—onto the aged rug, her eyes blazing. “I am going to make you wish you’d never been born. Both you and your prince.” And then Yellowlegs shot forward so fast Celaena could have sworn she was flying.

But she only got as far as Celaena’s feet.

Celaena brought the ax down, throwing every bit of strength into her arms. Blue blood sprayed everywhere.

There was a smile on Baba Yellowlegs’s decapitated head as it thudded to a stop.

Quiet fell. Even the fire, still burning so hot that she was sweating again, seemed to have gone silent. Celaena swallowed. Once. Twice.

Dorian couldn’t know. Even though she wanted to scold him to high hell for asking questions that Yellowlegs had deemed valuable enough to sell to others, he couldn’t know what had happened here. No one could.

When she at last found the strength to disentangle herself, her pants and boots were stained blue-black. Another outfit to be burned. She studied the body and the stained, soaking carpet. It hadn’t been quick, but it could still be clean. A missing person was better than a decapitated corpse.

Celaena raised her eyes to the large oven grate.

Chapter 42

Mort chuckled when she staggered through the tomb door. “Witch Slayer, are you? Another lovely title to add to your repertoire.”

“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. Fleetfoot had growled at the fireplace and tried to herd Celaena away by pressing her body against her legs.

“Oh, I can smell her on you,” Mort said. “Smell her fury and wickedness.”

Celaena peeled back the collar of her tunic to show the little cuts where Yellowlegs’s nails had pierced the skin right above her collarbone. She’d cleaned them out, but had a feeling they would leave marks, a necklace of scars. “What do you make of those?”

Mort winced. “Those make me grateful I’m made of bronze.”

“Will they harm me?”

“You killed a witch—and you’re now marked by a witch. It will not be the usual sort of wound.” Mort’s eyes narrowed. “You understand that you may have just landed yourself in a heap of trouble.”

Celaena groaned.

“Baba Yellowlegs was a leader—a queen to her clan,” Mort went on. “When they destroyed the Crochan family, they joined with the Blackbeaks and the Bluebloods in the Ironteeth Alliance. They still honor those oaths.”

“But I thought all the witches were gone—scattered to the winds.”

“Gone? The Crochans and those who followed them have been in hiding for generations. But the clans in the Ironteeth Alliance still travel about, as Baba did. Though many more of them live in the ruined and dark places of the world, content in their wickedness. But I suspect that when the Yellowlegs learn of their matron’s death, they will muster the Blackbeaks and the Bluebloods and demand answers from the king. And you will be fortunate if they do not come on their brooms and drag you into it.”

She grimaced. “I hope you’re wrong.”

Mort’s brows lowered slightly. “So do I.”

Celaena spent an hour in the tomb, reading through the riddle on the wall, puzzling over Yellowlegs’s words. Wyrdkeys, Wyrdgates … it was all so strange, so incomprehensible and terrifying. And if the king had them—if he even had one …

Celaena shuddered.

When staring at the riddle gave her no further answers, Celaena trudged back to her rooms for a much-needed nap.

At least she’d finally discovered a possible source of the king’s power. But she still needed to learn more. And then the real question: what was the king planning to do with the keys that he had not done already?

She had a feeling she didn’t want to know.

But the library catacombs might contain the answer to that most horrible of questions. There was a book she could use to gain access to that answer—a book that might have the unlocking spell she was looking for. And she knew that The Walking Dead would find her the moment she began looking for it.

Halfway up to her rooms, all plans for a nap vanished as Celaena turned back around and went to retrieve Damaris, and every other ancient blade she could carry.

He shouldn’t be here. He was only asking for trouble—another fight that might wind up tearing the castle in two. And if Celaena attacked him again, Chaol knew with absolute certainty that he’d let her kill him, if she really wanted.

He didn’t even know what he’d say to her. But he had to say something, if only to end the silence and the tension that kept him awake night after night and prevented him from focusing on his duties.

She wasn’t in her rooms, but he went in anyway, wandering over to her desk. It was as messy as Dorian’s, and covered in papers and books. He might have turned away had he not seen the strange symbols written on everything, symbols that reminded him of the mark he’d seen burn on her forehead at the duel. He’d somehow forgotten about it in the months that had gone by. Was it … was it something connected to her past?

Glancing over his shoulder, listening for any sign of Philippa or Celaena, he rifled through the documents. Just scribblings—drawings of the symbols and random underlined words. Perhaps they were no more than doodles, he tried to tell himself.

He was about to turn away when he caught sight of a document peeking out from a stack of books. It was written in careful calligraphy and signed by multiple people.

Easing it out from under the books, Chaol picked up the thick paper and read.

The world dropped out from beneath his feet.

It was Celaena’s will. Signed two days before Nehemia’s death.

And she’d given everything—every last copper—to him.

His throat tightened as he stared at the sum and the list of assets, including an apartment in a warehouse in the slums and all the wealth inside.

And she had signed it all to him, with only one request: that he consider giving some of it to Philippa.

“I’m not going to change it.”

He whirled, finding her leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed. Though the position was so familiar, her face was cold, blank. He let the document slip from his fingers.

The list of noble houses in his pocket became leaden. What if he’d been jumping to conclusions? Perhaps the song wasn’t actually a dirge of Terrasen. Maybe it had been another language he’d never heard of.

She watched him like a cat. “It would be too much trouble to bother changing it,” she went on. She wore a beautiful, ancient-looking blade at her side, along with a few daggers he’d never seen before. Where had she gotten them?

There were so many words trying to work their way out of him that he couldn’t speak at all. All of that money—she’d left everything to him. Left it to him because of what she’d felt for him … even Dorian had seen it from the start.

“At least now,” she said, pushing off the doorframe and turning away, “when the king sacks you for being so damn lousy at your job, you’ll have something to fall back on.”

He couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t just done it out of generosity. But rather because she knew that if he ever lost his position, he’d have to consider going back to Anielle, to his father’s money. And that it’d kill part of him to do that.

But she’d have to be dead for him to see that money. Verifiably dead, and not a traitor to the crown, either—if she died a traitor, then all her assets had to go to the king.

And the only way she’d die a traitor would be for her to do what he feared: ally with this secret organization, find Aelin Galathynius, and return to Terrasen. This was a hint that she had no intention of doing that. She had no plans to reclaim her lost title, and posed no threat to Adarlan or Dorian. He’d been wrong. Yet again, he’d been wrong.

“Get out of my chambers,” she said from the foyer, before striding into the gaming room and slamming the door behind her.

He hadn’t wept when Nehemia died, or when he’d thrown Celaena in the dungeons, or even when she’d returned with Grave’s head, utterly different from the woman he had grown to love so fiercely.

But when Chaol walked out, leaving that damning will behind him, he didn’t even make it to his own room. He barely made it into an empty broom closet before the sobs hit.

Chapter 43

Celaena stood in the gaming room, staring at the pianoforte as she heard Chaol quickly leave. She hadn’t played in weeks.

Originally, it had been just because she didn’t have time. Because Archer and the tomb and Chaol had occupied every moment of her day. Then Nehemia had died—and she hadn’t gone into this room once, hadn’t wanted to look at the instrument, hadn’t wanted to hear or make music ever again.

Shoving the encounter with Chaol out of her mind, Celaena slowly folded back the lid of the pianoforte and stroked the ivory keys.

But she couldn’t push down, couldn’t bring herself to make a sound. Nehemia should have been here—to help with Yellowlegs and the riddle, to tell her what to do with Chaol, to smile as Celaena played something particularly clever for her.

Nehemia was gone. And the world … it was moving on without her.

When Sam had died, she had tucked him into her heart, tucked him in alongside her other beloved dead, whose names she kept so secret she sometimes forgot them. But Nehemia—Nehemia wouldn’t fit. It was as if her heart was too full of the dead, too full of those lives that had ended well before their time.

She couldn’t seal Nehemia away like that, not when that bloodstained bed and those ugly words still haunted her every step, every breath.

So Celaena just hovered at the pianoforte, tracing her fingers over the keys again and again, and let the silence devour her.

An hour later, Celaena stood before the strange, second staircase at the end of the forgotten hall of ancient records, a clock chiming somewhere far in the library above. The images of Fae and flora danced along the fire-lit stairwell, spiraling out of sight, down and down into unknown depths. She’d found The Walking Dead almost immediately—discarded on a lonely table between some stacks. As though it had been waiting for her. And it had been the work of a few minutes to find a spell inside that claimed to unlock any door. She’d quickly memorized it, practicing a few times on a locked closet.

It had taken all of her self-control not to scream when she’d heard the lock snap free the first time. Or the second.

It was no wonder Nehemia and her family kept such power a secret. And no wonder the King of Adarlan had sought it out for himself.

Staring down into the stairwell, Celaena touched Damaris, then looked at the two jeweled daggers hanging from her belt. She was fine. No reason to be nervous. What sort of evil did she expect to find in a library, of all places?

Surely the king had better places to hide his dark dealings. At best, she’d find more hints as to whether he had any Wyrdkeys and where he kept them. At worst … she would run into the cloaked person she’d seen outside the library that night. But the glowing eyes she’d glimpsed on the other side of that door belonged to a rodent of some sort—nothing more. And if she was wrong … Well, whatever it was, after taking down the ridderak, this shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Right. Celaena stepped forward, pausing on the landing.

Nothing. No feelings of terror, no otherworldly warnings. Not a thing.

She took another step, then another, holding her breath as she wound around the staircase until she could no longer see the top. She could have sworn that the etchings on the wall moved all around her, that the beautiful, feral faces of the Fae turned to look as she passed.

The only noises were her footsteps and the whispering of the torch flame. A chill ran down her spine, and Celaena stopped as the dark void of the hallway came into view.

She was at the sealed iron door a moment later. She didn’t give herself the luxury of reconsidering her plan as she took out her piece of chalk and traced two Wyrdmarks onto the door, whispering the accompanying words at the same time. They burned on her tongue, but as she finished speaking, she heard a faint, dull thud as something in the door slid open.

She swore under her breath. The spell truly worked. She didn’t want to think about all that implied, about how it was able to work on iron, the one element supposedly immune to magic. And not when there were so many awful spells contained in The Walking Dead—spells to summon demons, to raise the dead, to torture others until they begged for death …

With a firm tug, she yanked the door open, wincing as it whined across the gray stone floor. A stale, cold breeze ruffled her hair. She drew Damaris.

After checking and double-checking that she could not be locked inside, she crossed the threshold.

Her torch revealed a small staircase of about ten steps, which led down to another long, narrow passageway. Cobwebs and dust filled every inch of it, but it wasn’t the neglected look of the place that made her pause.

Rather it was the doors, the dozens of iron doors that lined both sides of the hallway. All as nondescript as the door behind her, all revealing nothing of what might be behind them. At the opposite end of the hall, another iron door gleamed dully in the torchlight.

What was this place?

She descended the stairs. It was so silent. As if the very air held its breath.

She held her torch high, Damaris in her other hand, and approached the first iron door. It had no handle, the surface marked only by a single line. The door across from it had two marks. Numbers one and two. Odd numbers on the left, even on the right. She kept moving, igniting torch after torch, brushing away the curtains of cobwebs. As she walked farther down the hall, the numbers on the doors rose.

Is this some sort of dungeon?

But the floor held no traces of blood, no remnants of bones or weapons. It didn’t even smell that bad—just dusty. Dry. She tried opening one of the doors, but it was firmly locked. All of the doors were locked. And some instinct told her to keep them that way.

Her head throbbed slightly with the beginnings of a headache.

The hallway went on and on, until she reached the door at the far end, the cells on either side numbered ninety-eight and ninety-nine.

Beyond them was a final, unmarked door. She set her torch in a bracket beside the last door and grabbed the ring on the door to pull it open. This one was significantly lighter than the first, but also locked. And unlike the doors lining the hall, this one seemed to ask her to unlock it—as though it needed to be opened. So Celaena sketched the unlocking spell again, the chalk bone-white against the ancient metal. The door yielded without a sound.

Perhaps these were Gavin’s dungeons. From the time of Brannon. That would explain the Fae depictions on the staircase above. Perhaps he’d used these iron-gated cells to imprison the demon-soldiers of Erawan’s army. Or the wicked things Gavin and his war band hunted down …

Her mouth went dry as she passed through the second door and ignited the torches along the way. Again, the light revealed a small set of stairs leading down into a hallway. Yet this one veered to the right, and was significantly shorter. There was nothing in the shadows—just more and more locked iron doors on either side. It was so, so quiet …

She walked until she reached the door on the other end of the hall. Sixty-six cells this time, all sealed shut. She unlocked the end door with the Wyrdmarks.

She entered the third passageway, which also made a sharp right turn, and found it to be even shorter. Thirty-three cells.

The fourth hallway veered right again, and she counted twenty-two cells. The slight throbbing in her head turned into a full-on pounding, but it was so far to her rooms, and she was here already …

Celaena paused before the fourth end door.

It’s a spiral. A labyrinth. Bringing you deeper and deeper inside, farther belowground …

She bit her lip but unlocked the door. Eleven cells. She increased her pace, and swiftly reached the fifth door. Nine cells.

She approached the sixth door and halted.

A different sort of chill went through her as she stared at the sixth portal.

The center of the spiral?

As the chalk met the iron door to form the Wyrdmarks, a voice in the back of her mind told her to run. And though she wanted to listen, she opened the door anyway.

Her torch revealed a hallway in ruin. Parts of the walls had caved in, and the wooden beams were left in splinters. Cobwebs stretched between the broken shafts of wood, and tattered scraps of cloth, impaled upon rock and beam, swayed in the slight breeze.

Death had been here. And not too long ago. If this place were as ancient as Gavin and Brannon, most of the cloth would be dust.

She looked at the three cells that lined the short hallway. There was one more door at the end, which hung crookedly on its one remaining hinge. Darkness filled the void beyond.

But it was the third cell that held her interest.

The iron door to the third cell had been smashed, its surface dented and folded in upon itself. But not from the outside.

Celaena raised Damaris before her as she faced the open cell.

Whoever had been within had broken loose.

A quick sweep of her torch across the threshold revealed nothing save for bones—piles of bones, most of them splintered beyond recognition.

She snapped her attention back to the hallway. Nothing moved.

Gingerly, she stepped into the cell.

Iron chains dangled from the walls, broken off where manacles would have been. The dark stone was covered in white marks; dozens and dozens of long, deep gouges in groups of four.

Fingernails.

She turned around to face the broken cell door. There were countless marks on it.

How could someone make such lines in iron? In stone?

She shuddered and quickly stepped out of the cell.

She glanced back the way she had come, which glowed with the torches she’d lit, and then at the dark, open space that led onward.

You’re near the center of the spiral. Just see what it is—see if it yields any answers. Elena said to look for clues …

She swung Damaris in her hand a few times—only to loosen her wrist, of course. Rolling her neck, she entered the gloom.

There were no torch brackets here. The seventh portal revealed only a short passageway and one open door. An eighth gate.

The walls on either side of the eighth door were damaged and claw-marked. Her head gave a violent throb, then quieted as she stepped nearer.

Beyond the portal lay a spiral staircase that led upward, so high that she couldn’t see the top. A straight ascent into darkness.

But to where?

The stairwell stank, and she held Damaris before her as she ascended the steps, taking care to avoid the fallen stones that littered the ground.

Up and up and up she climbed, grateful for all her training. Her headache only grew worse, but when she reached the top, she forgot about fatigue, forgot about pain.

She raised the torch. Shimmering obsidian walls surrounded her, reaching high, high, high—so high that she couldn’t see the ceiling. She was inside some sort of chamber at the bottom of a tower.

Twining through the strange stone walls, greenish veins glittered in the torchlight. She had seen this material before. Seen it—

The king’s ring. The ring on Perrington’s finger. And Cain’s …

She touched the stone, and a shock went through her, her head pounding so badly she gagged. The Eye of Elena gave a pulse of blue light but quickly died, as if the light itself had been sucked toward the stone and devoured.

She staggered back toward the stairs.

Gods above. What is this?

As if in response, a boom shuddered through the tower, so loud that she jumped back. It echoed and echoed, turning metallic.

She raised her gaze to the darkness above.

“I know where I am,” she whispered as the sound subsided.

The clock tower.

Chapter 44

Dorian stared at the odd spiral staircase. Celaena had found the legendary catacombs beneath the library. Of course she had. If there were anyone in Erilea who could find something like that, it would be Celaena.

He’d been just about to go to lunch when he’d seen Celaena strut into the library, a sword strapped across her back. Perhaps he would have let her go about her own business were it not for her braided hair. Celaena never tied back her hair unless she was fighting. And when she was about to get messy.

It wasn’t spying. And it wasn’t sneaking. Dorian was merely curious. He followed her through long-forgotten hallways and rooms, always staying far behind, keeping his steps silent as Chaol and Brullo had taught him years ago. He’d followed until Celaena had disappeared down that staircase with a suspicious glance over her shoulder.

Yes, Celaena was up to something. And so Dorian had waited. One minute. Five minutes. Ten minutes before following after her. To make it seem like an accident if their paths crossed.

And now what did he see? Nothing but junk. Old parchment and books tossed around. Beyond was a second spiral staircase, lit in the same manner as the previous one.

A chill went through him. He didn’t like any of this. What was Celaena doing here?

As if in answer, his magic screamed at him to run in the opposite direction—to find help. But the main library was a long way off, and by the time he could get there and back, something might happen. Something might already have happened …

Dorian quickly descended the staircase and found a dimly lit hallway with a single door left ajar, two marks written on it in chalk. When he saw the cell-lined hallway beyond, he froze. The iron reeked, somehow—and made his stomach turn.

“Celaena?” he called down the hallway. No response. “Celaena?” Nothing.

He had to tell her to get out. Whatever this place was, neither of them should be here. Even if the power in his blood wasn’t screaming it, he would have known. He had to get her out.

Dorian descended the staircase.

Celaena half ran, half jumped down the stairs, getting away from the interior of the clock tower as fast as she could. Though it had been months since she had encountered the dead during the duel with Cain, the memory of being slammed into the dark wall of the tower was still too near. She could see the dead grinning at her, and recalled Elena’s words on Samhuinn about the eight guardians in the clock tower and how she should stay far from them.

Her head ached so badly that she could barely focus on the steps beneath her feet.

What had been in there? This had nothing to do with Gavin, or Brannon. Maybe the dungeon had been built then, but this—all of this—had to be connected to the king. Because he had built the clock tower; built it out of—

Obsidian the gods forbade

And stone they greatly feared

.

But—but the keys were supposed to be small. Not mammoth, like the clock tower. Not—

Celaena hit the bottom of the clock stairs and froze as she beheld the passage that contained the destroyed cell.

The torches had been extinguished. She looked behind her, toward the clock tower. The darkness seemed to expand, reaching for her. She wasn’t alone.

Clutching her own torch, keeping her breathing steady, she crept along the ruined passage. Nothing—no sounds, no hint of another person in the passage. But …

Halfway down, she stopped again and set down the torch. She’d marked all the turns, counted her steps as she came here. She knew the way in the dark, could find her way back blindfolded. And if she wasn’t alone down here, then her torch was a beacon. And she was in no mood to be a target. She put out the torch with a grind of her heel.

Complete darkness.

She lifted Damaris higher, adjusting to the dark. Only it wasn’t wholly black. A faint glow issued from her amulet—a glow that allowed her to see only dim shapes, as if the darkness were too strong for the Eye. The hair on the back of her neck rose. The only other time she’d seen the amulet glow like that … Feeling along the wall with her other hand, not daring to turn around, she eased back toward the library.

There was a scrape of nail against stone, and then the sound of breathing.

It was not her own.

It peered out from the shadows of the cell, clutching at its cloak with taloned hands. Food. For the first time in months. She was so warm, so teeming with life. It skittered out of the cell past her as she continued her blind retreat.

Since they had locked it down here to rot, since they had gotten tired of playing with it, it had forgotten so many things. It had forgotten its own name, forgotten what it used to be. But it now knew more useful things—better things. How to hunt, how to feed, how to use those marks to open and close doors. It had paid attention during the long years; it had watched them make the marks.

And once they had left, it had waited until it knew they weren’t coming back. Until he was looking elsewhere and had taken all his other things with him. And then it had begun opening the doors, one after another. Some shred of it remained mortal enough to always seal those doors shut, to come back here and form the marks that again locked the doors, to keep it contained.

But she had come here. She had learned the marks. Which meant she had to know—to know what had been done to it. She had to have been a part of it, the breaking and shattering and then the brutal rebuilding. And since she had come here …

It ducked into another shadow and waited for her to walk into its claws.

Celaena stopped her retreat as the breathing halted. Silence.

The blue light around her grew brighter.

Celaena put a hand to her chest.

The amulet flared.

It had been stalking the little men who lived above for weeks now, contemplating how they would taste. But there was always that cursed light near them, light that burned its sensitive eyes. There was always something that sent it skittering back here to the comfort of the stone.

Rats and crawling things had been its only food for too long, their blood and bones thin and tasteless. But this female … it had seen her twice before. First with that same faint, blue light at her throat—then a second time, when it hadn’t seen her as much as smelled her from the other side of that iron door.

Upstairs, the blue light had been enough to keep it away—the blue light that had tasted of power. But down here, down in the shadow of the black, breathing stone, that light was diminished. Down here, now that it had put out the torches she’d ignited, there was nothing to stop it, and no one to hear her.

It had not forgotten, even in the twisted pathways of its memory, what had been done to it on that stone table.

With a dripping maw, it smiled.

The Eye of Elena burned bright as a flame, and there was a hiss in her ear.

Celaena whirled, striking before she could get a good look at the cloaked figure behind her. She glimpsed only a flash of withered skin and jagged, stumpy teeth before she sliced Damaris across its chest.

It screamed—screamed like nothing she had ever heard as the ragged cloth ripped, revealing a bony, misshapen chest peppered with scars. It slammed a clawed hand into her face as it fell, its eyes gleaming from the light of the amulet. An animal’s eyes, capable of seeing in the dark.

The person—creature—from the hallway. From the other side of the door. She didn’t even see where she had wounded it as she hit the ground. Blood rushed from her nose and filled her mouth. She staggered into a sprint back toward the library.

She leapt over fallen beams and chunks of stone, letting the Eye light her way, barely keeping her footing as she slipped on bones. The creature barreled after her, tearing through the obstacles as if they were no more than gossamer curtains. It stood like a man, but it wasn’t a man—no, that face was something out of a nightmare. And its strength, to be able to shove aside those fallen beams as though they were stalks of wheat …

The iron doors had been there to keep this thing in.

And she had unlocked all of them.

She dashed up the short stairs and through the first doorway. As she veered left, it caught her by the back of her tunic. The cloth tore. Celaena slammed into the opposite wall, ducking as it lunged for her.

Damaris sang, and the creature roared, falling back. Black blood squirted from the wound across its abdomen. But she hadn’t cut deep enough.

Surging to her feet, blood running down her back from where its claws had punctured, Celaena drew a dagger with her other hand.

The hood had fallen off the creature, revealing what looked like a man’s face—looked like, but no longer was. His hair was sparse, hanging off his gleaming skull in clumpy strings, and his lips … there was such scarring around his mouth, as though someone had ripped it open and sewed it shut, then ripped it open again.

The creature pushed a gnarled hand against its abdomen, panting through those brown, broken teeth as it looked at her—looked at her with such hatred that she couldn’t move. It was such a human expression …

“What are you?” She gasped, swinging Damaris as she took another step back.

But it suddenly began clawing at itself, tearing at the dark robes, pulling out its hair, pushing against its skull, as if it would reach in and rip something out. And the shrieks it made, the rage and despair—

The creature had been in the castle hallway.

Which meant …

This thing, this person—it knew how to use the Wyrdmarks, too. And with its unnatural strength, no mortal barrier would keep it contained.

The creature tipped its head back, and its animal eyes settled on her again. Fixating. A predator anticipating the taste of its prey.

Celaena turned and ran like hell.

Dorian had just passed through the third door when he heard the scream of something not human. A series of crashing noises filled the passage, and the bellowing was cut short with each slam.

“Celaena?” Dorian yelled in the direction of the commotion.

Another slam.

“Celaena!”

Then—“Dorian, run!”

The highpitched shriek that followed Celaena’s command shook the walls. The torches sputtered.

Dorian drew his rapier as Celaena came flying up the stairs, blood leaking from her face, and slammed the iron door shut behind her. She raced toward him, a sword in one hand, a dagger in the other. The amulet on her neck glowed blue, like the hottest fire.

Celaena was upon him in a second. The iron door burst open behind them, and—

The thing that came out was not of this earth—it couldn’t be. It looked like something that used to be a man, but was twisted and dried and broken, with hunger and madness written on every protruding bone in its body. Gods. Oh, gods. What had she awoken?

They sprinted down the hall, and Dorian swore as he beheld the steps up to the next door. The time it would take for them to climb the stairs …

But Celaena was fast. And months of training had made her strong. To his eternal humiliation, as they hit the bottom of the stairs, she grasped him by the collar of his tunic, half-hauling him up the steps. She hurled him into the hallway beyond the threshold.

Behind them, the thing shrieked. Dorian turned in time to see its broken teeth glistening as it leapt up the stairs. Lightning swift, Celaena slammed the iron door shut in the creature’s face.

Only one more door—he could picture the landing that led back to the first hallway, then that spiral staircase, then the second staircase, and—

What then, when they reached the main library? What could they do against this thing?

As Dorian saw the naked terror on Celaena’s face, he knew she wondered the same.

Celaena threw Dorian into the hallway and then hurled herself backward, slamming into the last iron door that separated the thing’s lair from the rest of the library. She put her weight into it and saw stars as the creature barreled into the other side. Gods, it was strong—strong and wild and unyielding …

For a moment, she stumbled away, and it tried to fling open the door. But Celaena lunged, throwing her back against it.

Its hand caught in the door and the creature bellowed, latching its claws into Celaena’s shoulder as she pushed and pushed. Blood ran from her nose, mingling with the blood running down her shoulders. The claws dug in farther.

Dorian rushed to the door, bracing his back against it. He panted, gaping at her.

They had to seal the door. Even if this thing was intelligent enough to know the Wyrdmarks, they had to buy some time for themselves. She had to give Dorian enough time to get away. They would run out of strength soon, and the thing would break through and kill them and whoever else got in its path.

There had to be a lock somewhere, some way to shut it in, to slow it down just for a moment …

“Push,” she breathed to Dorian. The creature gained an inch, but Celaena shoved hard, drawing on the strength of her legs. It roared again, so loudly that she thought blood would pour from her ears. Dorian swore viciously.

She glanced at him, not even feeling the pain of the talons embedded in her skin. Sweat ran down Dorian’s brow as—as—

The metal began to heat along the edge of the door, glowing red, then fizzing—

Magic was here; magic was working right now, trying to seal the door against the creature. But it wasn’t coming from her.

Dorian’s eyes were scrunched in concentration, his face deathly pale.

She’d been right. Dorian did have magic. This was the information Yellowlegs had wanted to sell to the highest bidder, sell to the king himself. It was knowledge that could change everything. It could change the world.

Dorian had magic.

And if he didn’t stop, he was going to burn himself out on the iron door.

The door suffocated Dorian. He was in a coffin, a coffin with no air. His magic couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.

Celaena swore as the creature gained ground. Dorian didn’t even know what he was doing, only that he needed to seal this door. His magic had chosen the method. He pushed with his legs, pushed with his back, pushed his magic to the breaking point as he sought to weld the door. Spinning, heat, strangling …

The magic slipped from him.

The creature pushed hard, sending Dorian staggering forward. But Celaena threw herself harder against the door as he regained his balance.

Celaena’s blade lay a few feet away, but what good was a sword?

They had no hope of escaping with their lives.

Celaena’s eyes met with his, the question all too visible on her bloodied face:

What have I done?

Still gripped by the creature’s talons, Celaena couldn’t even move as Dorian made a sudden lunge for Damaris. The creature tried again to break free, and the prince swung, making direct contact with its wrist. Its shriek penetrated her bones, but the door slammed shut completely. Celaena stumbled, the beast’s dismembered hand protruding from her shoulder, but she shoved back against the door as the creature again launched itself at it.

“What the hell is it?” Dorian barked, throwing his weight back against the iron.

“I don’t know,” Celaena breathed. Not having the luxury of a healer, she ripped the filthy hand from her shoulder, biting down on her scream. “It was down there,” she panted. Another thud from behind the door. “You can’t seal that door with magic. We need to—need to seal this another way.” And find something that would outsmart whatever unlocking spells this creature knew—some way to keep it from getting out. She choked on the blood running from her nose into her mouth, and spat it onto the floor. “There is a book—The Walking Dead. It’ll have the answer.”

Their eyes met and held. A line stretched taut between them—a moment of trust, and a promise of answers from both of them.

“Where’s the book?” Dorian asked.

“In the library. It’ll find you. I can hold this for a few moments.”

Not needing it to make sense, Dorian bolted upstairs. He ran through stack after stack, his fingers reading the titles, faster and faster, knowing each second drained her strength. He was about to bellow his frustration when he ran past a table and beheld a large black volume resting upon its surface.

The Walking Dead.

She had been right. Why was she always right, in her own odd way? He grabbed the book and hurtled to the secret chamber. She had shut her eyes, and her teeth were red with her own blood as she gritted them.

“Here,” Dorian said. Without needing her to ask, he shoved himself into the door as she dropped to the floor and grabbed the book to her. Her hands trembled as she flipped a page, then another, and another. Her blood splattered onto the text.

“‘To bind or to contain,’” she read aloud. Dorian peered down at the dozens of symbols on the page.

“This will work?” he asked.

“I hope so,” she wheezed, already moving, clutching the open book in one hand. “Once the spell is cast, just passing over that threshold will hold it in place long enough to kill it.” She dipped her fingers into the wounds on her chest, and he could only gape as she made the first mark, and then the second, turning her battered body into an inkwell as she drew mark after mark around the door.

“But for it to pass over the threshold,” Dorian panted, “we’d have to—”

“Open the door,” she finished for him, nodding.

He shifted so she could reach to draw above his head, their breath mingling.

Celaena let out a long breath as she made the last mark, and suddenly, they glowed a faint blue. He held himself against the door, even as he felt the iron go rigid.

“You can let go,” she breathed, angling the sword. “Let go, and get the hell behind me.”

At least she didn’t insult him by telling him to flee.

With a final breath, he leapt away.

The creature slammed into the door, flinging it open.

And, just like she had said, it froze on the threshold, its animalistic eyes wild as its head jutted out into the hall. There was a pause then, a pause during which Dorian could have sworn that Celaena and the creature looked at each other—and its wildness calmed, just for a moment. Just for a moment, and then Celaena moved.

The sword flashed in the torchlight, and there was the squish of flesh and crunch of bone. The neck was too thick to sever in one blow, so before Dorian could draw another breath, she struck again.

The head hit the ground with a thud, black blood spraying from the severed neck—from the body that still stood paralyzed in the doorway.

“Shit,” Dorian breathed. “Shit.”

Celaena moved again, slamming her sword down onto the head, skewering it, as if she thought it could still bite.

Dorian was still spewing a steady stream of curses as Celaena reached out to the bloody marks around the door and swiped a finger through one of them.

The creature’s headless body collapsed, the holding spell broken.

It had barely finished falling before Celaena made four strikes: three to sever the emaciated torso in two, and a fourth to stab through where its heart would be. His bile rose up again as she angled her blade a fifth time, prying open the chest cavity of the creature.

Whatever she saw made her face go even paler. Dorian didn’t want to look.

With grim efficiency, she kicked the too-human head through the threshold, sending it knocking into the withered corpse of the creature. Then she shut the iron door and traced a few more marks over the threshold that glowed and then faded.

Celaena faced him, but Dorian looked at the door again, now sealed.

“How long does that—that spell hold?” He almost choked on the word.

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Until I remove the marks, I think.”

“I don’t think we can let anyone else know about this,” he said carefully.

She laughed, a bit wildly. Telling others, even Chaol, would mean answering difficult questions—questions that could earn them both a trip to the butchering block.

“So,” Celaena said, spitting blood onto the stones, “do you want to explain yourself first, or should I?”

Celaena went first, because Dorian desperately needed to change his filthy tunic, and talking seemed like a good idea while he stripped naked in his dressing room. She sat on his bed, not looking much better herself—which was why they’d taken the dark servants’ passages back to his tower.

“Beneath the library stretches an ancient dungeon, I think,” Celaena said, trying to keep her voice as soft as possible. She caught a gleam of golden skin through the half-open door to his dressing room, and looked away. “I think … I think someone kept the creature in there until it broke out of its cell. It’s been living under the library ever since.”

No need to tell him that she was starting to believe the king had created it. The clock tower had been built by the king himself—so he had to know what it connected to. She knew that the creature had been made, because in its chest had been a human heart. Celaena was willing to bet that the king had used at least one Wyrdkey to make both tower and monster.

“What I don’t understand,” Dorian said from the dressing room, “is why this thing can now break through the iron doors when it couldn’t before.”

“Because I was an idiot and broke the spells on them when I walked through.”

A lie—sort of. But she didn’t want to explain, couldn’t explain, why the creature had been able to break out before and had never hurt anyone until now. Why it had been in the hallway that night and disappeared, why the librarians were all alive and unhurt.

But perhaps the man that the creature had once been … Perhaps he hadn’t been entirely lost. There were so many questions now, so many things left unanswered.

“And that last spell you did—on the door. It’ll keep forever?” Dorian appeared in a new tunic and pants, still barefoot. The sight of his feet felt strangely intimate.

She shrugged, fighting the urge to wipe her bloody, filthy face. He’d offered her his private bath, but she’d refused. That felt too intimate, too.

“The book says it’s a permanent binding spell, so I don’t think anyone but us will be capable of getting through.”

Unless the king wants to get in and uses one of the Wyrdkeys.

Dorian ran a hand through his hair, sitting down beside her on the bed. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. The king’s ring flashed in her memory. That couldn’t be the Wyrdkey, though; Yellowlegs had said they were slivers of black rock, not—not forged into shapes. But he could have made the ring using the key. She understood now why Archer and his society both coveted and sought to destroy it. If the king could use it to make creatures …

If he had made more …

There had been so many doors. Well over two hundred, all locked. And both Kaltain and Nehemia had mentioned wings—wings in their dreams, wings flapping through the Ferian Gap. What was the king brewing there?

“Tell me,” Dorian pressed.

“I don’t know,” she lied again, hating herself for it. How could she make him understand a truth that might shatter everything he loved?

“That book,” Dorian said. “How did you know it would help?”

“I found it one day in the library. It seemed to … trail me. Showed up in my rooms when I hadn’t brought it there, reappeared in the library; it was full of those kinds of spells.”

“But it’s not magic,” Dorian said, paling.

“Not the magic that you have. This is different. I didn’t even know if that spell would work. Speaking of which,” she said, meeting his eyes, “you have … magic.”

He scanned her face, and she quelled the urge to fidget.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me how you have magic,” she breathed. “Tell me how you have it and the rest of the world doesn’t. Tell me how you discovered it, and what manner of magic it is. Tell me everything.” He started to shake his head, but she leaned forward. “You just saw me break at least a dozen of your father’s laws. You think I’m going to turn you over to him when you could just as easily destroy me?”

Dorian sighed. After a moment, he said, “A few weeks ago, I … erupted. I got so mad at a council meeting that I stormed out and punched a wall. And somehow, the stone cracked, and then the window nearby shattered, too. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out where it comes from, what kind of power it is, exactly. And how to control it. But it just … happens. Like—”

“Like when you used it to stop me from killing Chaol.”

His neck bobbed as he swallowed hard.

She couldn’t meet his stare as she said, “Thank you for that. If you hadn’t stopped me, I …” No matter what had happened between her and Chaol, no matter what she now felt for him, if she had killed him that night, there would have been no coming back from it, no recovering. In some ways … in some ways, it might have made her into just another version of that thing in the library. It made her sick to even think about it. “No matter what your magic might be, it saved more lives than his that night.”

Dorian shifted. “I still need to learn to control it—or else it might happen anywhere. In front of anyone. I’ve gotten lucky so far, but I don’t think that luck will last.”

“Does anyone else know? Chaol? Roland?”

“No. Chaol doesn’t know, and Roland just left with Duke Perrington. They’re going to Morath for a few months to … to oversee the situation in Eyllwe.”

It all had to be tied together: the king, the magic, Dorian’s power, the Wyrdmarks, even the creature. The prince went to his bed and hoisted up the mattress, pulling out a concealed book. Not the best hiding place, but a valiant effort. “I’ve been looking through the genealogy charts for Adarlan’s noble families. We’ve hardly had any magic-users in the past few generations.”

There were so many things she could tell him, but if she did, it would just result in too many questions. So Celaena merely studied the pages he displayed for her, flipping through one after another.

“Wait,” she said. The puncture wounds in her shoulder gave a burst of pain when she lifted her hand to the book. She scanned the page he’d stopped on, her heart pounding as another clue about the king and his plans slipped into place. She let him continue on.

“See?” Dorian said, closing the book. “I’m not quite sure where it comes from.”

He was still watching her, warily. She met his gaze and said quietly, “Ten years ago, many of the people I … people I loved were executed for having magic.” Pain and guilt flickered in his eyes, but she went on. “So you’ll understand when I say that I have no desire to see anyone else die for it, even the son of the man who ordered those deaths.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “So, what do we do now?”

“Eat a giant meal, see a healer, take a bath. In that order.”

He snorted and playfully nudged her with a knee.

She leaned forward, clasping her hands between her legs. “We wait. We keep an eye on that door to make sure no one tries to go in, and … just take it day by day.”

He took one of her hands in his own, staring toward the window. “Day by day.”

Chapter 45

Celaena didn’t get a meal, or take a bath, or see a healer for her shoulder.

Instead, she hurried to the dungeon, not even looking at the guards that she passed. Exhaustion ripped at her, but fear kept her moving, almost sprinting down the stairs.

They want to use me. They tricked me, Kaltain had said. And in Dorian’s book of Adarlan’s noble lineages, the Rompier family had been listed as one with a strong magical line, supposedly vanished two generations ago.

Sometimes I think they brought me here, Kaltain had said. Not to marry Perrington, but for another purpose.

Brought Kaltain here, the way Cain had been brought here. Cain, of the White Fang Mountains, where powerful shamans had long ruled the tribes.

Her mouth went dry as she strode down the dungeon hallway to Kaltain’s cell. She stopped in front, staring through the bars.

It was empty.

All that was left inside was Celaena’s cloak, discarded in the kicked-up hay. As if Kaltain had struggled against whoever had come to take her.

Celaena was at the guards’ station a moment later, pointing down the hall. “Where is Kaltain?” Even as she said it, a memory began to clear, a memory hazed by days spent sedated in the dungeons.

The guards looked at each other, then at her torn and bloody clothes, before one said, “The duke took her—to Morath. To be his wife.”

She stalked out of the dungeon, heading for her rooms.

Something is coming, Kaltain had whispered. And I am to greet it.

My headaches are worse every day, and full of all those flapping wings.

Celaena nearly stumbled on a step. Roland has been suffering from awful headaches lately, Dorian told her a few days ago. And now Roland, who shared Dorian’s Havilliard blood, had gone to Morath, too.

Gone, or been taken?

Celaena touched her shoulder and felt the open, bloody wounds beneath. The creature had been clawing at its head, as though it were in pain. And when it had shoved through the door, for those last few seconds it had been frozen in place, she had seen something human in its warped eyes—something that looked so relieved, so grateful for the death she gave him.

“Who were you?” she whispered, recalling the human heart and manlike body of the creature under the library. “And what did he do to you?”

But Celaena had a feeling she already knew the answer.

Because that was the other thing the Wyrdkeys could do, the other power that the Wyrdmarks controlled: life.

They hear wings in the Ferian Gap, Nehemia had said. Our scouts do not come back.

The king was twisting far worse things than mortal men. Far, far worse things. But what did he plan to do with them—with the creatures, with the people like Roland and Kaltain?

She needed to learn how many of the Wyrdkeys he had found.

And where the others might be.

The next night, Celaena examined the door to the library catacombs, her ears straining for any hint of sound on the other side.

Nothing.

The bloody Wyrdmarks had turned flaky, but beneath the crust, as if welded onto the metal, was the dark outline of each mark.

From high, high above, the muffled bellow of the clock tower sounded. It was two in the morning. How did no one know that the tower sat atop an ancient dungeon that served as the king’s own secret chamber?

Celaena glowered at the door in front of her. Because who would even think about that as a possibility?

She knew she should go to bed, but she’d been unable to sleep for weeks now and saw no point in even trying anymore. It was why she’d come down here: to do something while sorting through her jumbled thoughts.

She flipped the dagger in her right hand, angling it, and gave a light, tentative tug on the door.

It held. She paused, listening again for any signs of life, and yanked harder.

It didn’t budge.

Celaena pulled a few more times, going so far as to brace a foot against the wall, but the door remained sealed. When she was at last convinced that nothing was getting through the door—in either direction—she loosed a long breath.

No one would believe her about this place—just like no one would believe her wild, highly unlikely story about the Wyrdkeys.

To find the Wyrdkeys, she’d first have to solve the riddle. And then convince the king to let her go for a few months. Years. It would take careful manipulation, especially since it seemed likely that he already had a key. But which one?

They hear wings …

Yellowlegs said that only combined could the three open the actual Wyrdgate, but alone each still wielded immense power. What other sorts of terrors could he create? If he ever got all three Wyrdkeys, what might he bring into Erilea to serve him? Things were already stirring on the continent; unrest was brewing. She had a feeling that he wouldn’t tolerate it for long. No, it would only be a matter of time before he unleashed whatever he’d been creating upon them all, and crush all resistance forever.

Celaena looked at the sealed door, her stomach turning. A half-dried pool of blood lay at the base of the door, so dark it looked like oil. She crouched, swiping a finger through the puddle. She sniffed at it, almost gagged at the reek, and then rubbed her finger against the pad of her thumb. It felt as oily as it looked.

She got to her feet and reached into her pocket, looking for something to wipe off her fingers. She drew out a handful of papers. Scraps was more like it—bits of things that she’d carried around to study whenever she had a spare moment. Frowning, she shifted through them to sort out which one she could spare to use as a makeshift handkerchief.

One was just a receipt for a pair of shoes, which she must have accidentally tucked into her pocket that morning. And another … Celaena lifted that one closer. Ah! Time’s Rift! had been written there. She’d scribbled it down when she’d been trying to solve the eye riddle. When everything in the tomb had felt like a great secret, one giant clue.

Some help that had been. Just another dead end. Cursing under her breath, she used it to wipe the grime off her fingers. The tomb still didn’t make sense, though. What did the trees on the ceiling and the stars on the floor have to do with the riddle? The stars had led to the secret hole, but they could just as easily have been on the ceiling to do that. Why make everything backward?

Would Brannon have been so foolish as to put all the answers in one place?

She uncrumpled the scrap of paper, now stained with the creature’s oily blood. Ah! Time’s Rift!

There was no inscription at Gavin’s feet—only Elena’s. And the words made little sense.

… But what if they weren’t meant to make sense? What if they were only just logical enough to imply one thing, but really mean another?

Everything in the tomb was backward, rearranged, the natural order in reverse. To hint that things were jumbled, misarranged. So the thing that should have been concealed was right in the open. But, like everything else, its meaning was warped.

And there was one person—one being—who could possibly tell her whether she was right.

Chapter 46

“It’s an anagram,” she panted as she reached the tomb.

Mort opened an eye. “Clever, wasn’t it? To hide it right where everyone could see?”

Celaena eased open the door just wide enough to slip inside. The moonlight was strong, and her breath caught in her throat as she saw precisely where it fell. Trembling, she stopped at the foot of the sarcophagus and traced her fingers over the stone letters. “Tell me what it means.”

He paused, long enough for her to take a breath to start yelling at him, but he then said, “I Am the First.”

And that was all the confirmation she needed.

The first Wyrdkey of the three. Celaena moved around the stone body, her eyes on Elena’s sleeping face. As she looked upon those fine features, she whispered the words.

In grief, he hid one in the crown

Of her he loved so well

,

To keep with her where she lay down

Inside the starry cell

.

She lifted shaking fingers to the blue jewel in the center of the crown. If this was indeed the Wyrdkey … what would she do with it? Would she be forced to destroy it? Where could she hide it so no one else would discover it? The questions swirled, threatening with all the difficulty they offered to send her running back to her rooms, but she steeled herself. She’d consider everything later. I will not be afraid, she told herself.

The gem in the crown glowed in the moonlight, and she gingerly pushed against one side of the jewel. It didn’t move.

She pushed again, staying closer to the side, digging her nail into the slight crease between the gem and the stone rim. It shifted—and turned over to reveal a small compartment beneath. It was no larger than a coin, and no deeper than a knuckle’s length.

Celaena peered in. The moonlight revealed only gray stone. She stuck a finger inside, scraping every surface.

There was nothing there. Not even a shard.

A shot of cold ran down her spine. “So he truly has it,” she whispered. “He found the key before me. And he’s been using its power for his own agenda.”

“He was barely twenty when he found it,” Mort said softly. “Strange, bellicose youth! Always poking about in forgotten places where he wasn’t wanted, reading books no one his age—or any age—should read! Though,” Mort added, “that does sound awfully like someone I know.”

“And you somehow forgot to tell me until now?”

“I didn’t know what it was then; I thought he merely took something. It wasn’t until you read the riddle that I suspected.”

It was a good thing he was made of bronze. Otherwise she’d have smashed his face in. “Do you have any suspicions about what he might have done with it?” She turned the gem back over as she fought her rising terror.

“How should I know? He never said anything to me, though I’ll admit I didn’t condescend to speak with him. He came back here once he was king, but he only poked around for a few minutes and then left. I suspect he was looking for the other two keys.”

“How did he discover it was here?” she asked, stepping away from the marble figure.

“The same way you did, though far faster. I suppose that makes him cleverer than you.”

“Do you think he has the other two?” she said, eyeing the treasure along the far wall, the stand where Damaris was displayed. Why hadn’t he taken Damaris, one of the greatest heirlooms of his house?

“If he had the others, don’t you think that our doom would have come upon us already?”

“You think he doesn’t have all of the keys?” she asked, beginning to sweat despite the cold.

“Well, Brannon once told me that if you have all three keys, then you have control over the Wyrdgate. I think it’s fair to assume the current king would have tried his hand at conquering another realm, or enslaved creatures to conquer the rest of ours, if he had all three.”

“Wyrd save us if that happens.”

“Wyrd?” Mort laughed. “You’re pleading with the wrong force. If he controls the Wyrd, you’re going to have to find another means of saving yourself. And don’t you think it’s too much of a coincidence that magic stopped as soon as he began his conquest?”

How magic stopped … “He used the Wyrdkeys to stifle magic. All magic,” she added, “but his own.”

And by extension, Dorian’s.

She swore, then asked, “So you think he might also have the second Wyrdkey?”

“I don’t think a person could eliminate magic with only one—though I might be wrong. No one really knows what they’re capable of.”

Celaena pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. “Oh, gods. This was what Elena wanted me to learn. And now what am I supposed to do? Go hunt the third one down? Steal the other two from him?”

Nehemia—Nehemia, you had to have known. You must have had a plan. But what were you going to do?

The now-familiar abyss inside of her stretched wider. There was no end to it, that hollow ache. No end at all. If the gods had bothered to listen, she would have traded her life for Nehemia’s. It would have been such an easy choice to make. Because the world didn’t need an assassin with a coward’s heart. It needed someone like Nehemia.

But there were no gods left to bargain with; no one to offer her soul to in exchange for another moment with Nehemia, just one more chance to talk to her, to hear her voice.

Yet … Maybe she didn’t need the gods to talk to Nehemia.

Cain had summoned the ridderak, and he certainly hadn’t possessed a Wyrdkey. No, Nehemia had said that there were spells to open a temporary portal, just long enough for something to slip through. If Cain could do that, and if Celaena could use the marks to freeze the catacombs creature in place and permanently seal a door, then couldn’t marks open a portal to yet another realm?

Her chest tightened. If there were other realms—realms where the dead dwelled, in torment or in peace—who was to say that she couldn’t speak to Nehemia? She could do it. No matter the cost, it would only be for a moment—just long enough to ask Nehemia where the king was keeping the keys, or how to find the third, and to find out what else Nehemia might have known.

She could do it.

There were other things she needed to tell Nehemia, too. Words she needed to say, truths she needed to confess. And that good-bye—that final good-bye that she hadn’t been allowed to make.

Celaena took Damaris off its stand again. “Mort, how long do you think a portal can stay open?”

“Whatever you are thinking, whatever you are going to do right now, stop it.”

But Celaena was already walking out of the tomb. He didn’t understand—couldn’t understand. She had lost and lost and lost, been denied countless good-byes. But not this time—not when she could change all of that, even for a few minutes. This time, it would be different.

She’d need The Walking Dead, another dagger or two, some candles, and space—more space than the tomb could offer. The drawings that Cain had made had taken up a fair amount of room. There was a large passage one level up in the secret tunnels, a long hallway and a set of doors she’d never dared open. The hallway was wide, its ceiling high: enough room to cast the spell.

For her to open a portal into an Otherworld.

Dorian knew he was dreaming. He was standing in an ancient stone chamber he’d never seen before, facing a tall, crowned warrior. The crown was familiar, somehow, but it was the man’s eyes that stunned him into inaction. They were his own eyes—sapphire, blazing. The similarities ended there; the man had shoulder-length dark brown hair, an angular, almost cruel face, and was at least a hand taller than Dorian himself. And he carried himself like … a king.

“Prince,” the man said, his golden crown gleaming. There was something feral in his eyes—as if the king was more accustomed to roaming the wilderness than walking these marble halls. “You must awaken.”

“Why?” Dorian asked, not sounding very princely at all. Strange green symbols were glowing on the gray stones, similar to the symbols Celaena had made in the library. What was this place?

“Because 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.” His voice wasn’t harsh, but Dorian had a sense it could turn that way, if provoked. Which, judging by that ancient wildness, the arrogance and challenge in the king’s eyes, seemed like a fairly easy to thing to do.

Dorian said, “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“Don’t waste time with pointless questions.” Yes, this king wasn’t one to mince words at all. “You must go to her rooms. There is a door hidden behind a tapestry. Take the third passage on the right. Go now, Prince, or lose her forever.”

And somehow, Dorian didn’t think twice about the fact that Gavin, first King of Adarlan, had spoken to him as he awoke, yanked on his clothes, grabbed his sword belt, and sprinted from his tower.

Chapter 47

The cut on her arm throbbed, but Celaena kept her hand steady as she dipped her finger again into her blood and traced the Wyrdmark on the wall, copying the symbols in the book with perfect precision. They formed an archway—a door—and her blood gleamed in the light of the candles she had brought.

It had to be perfect—each symbol had to be flawless, or else it wouldn’t work. She kept pressing on the wound to keep it from clotting. Not everyone could harness the marks; no, The Walking Dead said there had to be power in the blood to do it. Cain had clearly had some trace of power. That must be why the king had rounded up Kaltain and Roland, too. He’d used the Wyrdkeys to suppress magic, but he must have some way of harnessing the innate power in someone’s blood—and the Wyrdmarks must be able to access that power, too.

She drew another symbol, nearly finished with the archway.

Their power could warp things. It had warped Cain. But it had also allowed him to summon the ridderak and gain even more power for himself.

Thank the Wyrd Cain was dead.

There was one mark left to draw, the one that would bring her the person she so desperately needed to see, if only for a moment. It was complex, a weave of loops and angles. She took out her chalk and practiced on the floor until she got it right, then etched it in blood on the wall. Nehemia’s name in Wyrdmark form.

She examined the door she’d drawn and got to her feet, the book held in her clean hand.

She cleared her throat and began to read the words on the page.

She didn’t know the language. Her throat burned and contracted, as if fighting the sounds, but she panted through it, the words making her teeth ache like she’d just come in from the cold and was drinking something hot.

And then the final words were out, her eyes watering.

No wonder this kind of power fell out of favor.

The symbols written in her blood began to glow green, one after another, until the whole archway was a line of light. The stones within its borders darkened, darkened, darkened, then disappeared.

The blackness within the green archway seemed to reach out for her.

It had worked. Holy gods, it had worked.

Was that what waited for her when she died? Nehemia had gone here?

“Nehemia?” she whispered, her throat raw from the spell.

There was nothing. Nothing there—just a void.

Celaena looked at the book, then to the wall and the symbols she’d drawn. She’d written it correctly. The spell was right. “Nehemia?” she whispered toward that endless dark.

There was no response.

Perhaps it needed time. The book hadn’t specified how long it would take; maybe Nehemia had to travel through whatever this realm was.

So Celaena waited.

The longer she stared into that endless void, the more it seemed to stare back. It was just like that dream, the one where she was standing on the edge of that ravine.

You are nothing more than a coward.

“Please,” Celaena whispered into the dark.

There was a sudden yelp from far, far above, and Celaena whirled toward the stairs at the end of the hall. Moments later, faster than should be possible, Fleetfoot bounded down the steps, racing for her.

Not for her, Celaena realized as she beheld the wagging tail, the panting, the yip of what could only be joy. Not for her, because—

Celaena looked toward the portal at the same moment Fleetfoot skidded to a halt.

And then everything stopped as she beheld the shimmering figure standing just on the other side of the portal.

Fleetfoot lay on the ground, tail still wagging, whining softly. The edges of Nehemia’s body rippled and blurred, fracturing with some sort of inner light. But her face was clear—her face was … it was her face. Celaena sank to her knees.

She felt the warmth of her tears before she realized she was crying. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say. “I’m so sorry.”

But Nehemia remained on the other side of the portal. Fleetfoot whined again. “I may not cross this line,” Nehemia said gently to the dog. “And neither may you.” Her tone shifted, and Celaena knew Nehemia was now staring at her. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

Celaena looked up. The light radiating off the princess didn’t reach through the glowing portal, as if there truly were some sort of line—some final boundary.

“I’m sorry,” Celaena whispered again. “I just wanted—”

“There is no time for you to tell me what you long to say. I came here because you need to be warned. Do not open this portal again. The next time you do, I will not be the one who answers your call. And you will not survive the encounter. No one has the right to open the door to this realm, no matter how fierce their grief.”

She hadn’t known, hadn’t meant …

Fleetfoot pawed at the floor. “Good-bye, my dear friend,” Nehemia said to the dog, and began walking into the blackness.

Celaena just stood there, unable to move or think. Her throat burned with those pent-up words, the words that now choked the life out of her.

“Elentiya.” Nehemia paused to look back at her. The void seemed to be swirling, swallowing her up bit by bit. “You will not understand yet, but … I knew what my fate was to be, and I embraced it. I ran toward it. Because it was the only way for things to begin changing, for events to be set in motion. But no matter what I did, Elentiya, I want you to know that in the darkness of the past ten years, you were one of the bright lights for me. Do not let that light go out.”

And before Celaena could reply, the princess was gone.

There was nothing in the dark. As though Nehemia had never been. As though she’d made it all up.

“Come back,” she whispered. “Please—come back.” But the darkness remained the same. And Nehemia was gone.

There was a scrape of footsteps—but not from the portal. Rather, it came from her left.

From Archer, who stood there gaping. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered.

Chapter 48

Celaena had Damaris drawn and leveled at Archer in a heartbeat. Fleetfoot growled at him, but kept back, a step behind Celaena.

“What are you doing here?” It was inconceivable that he’d be here. How had he gotten in?

“I’ve been tracking you for weeks,” Archer said, eyeing the dog. “Nehemia told me about the passages, showed me the way in. I’ve been down here almost every night since she died.”

Celaena glanced at the portal. If Nehemia had warned her not to open the portal, then she was certain her friend didn’t want Archer seeing it, either. She moved to the wall, keeping well away from the blackness as she ran her hand over the glowing green marks, making to wipe them away.

“What are you doing?” Archer demanded.

Celaena pointed Damaris at him, furiously wiping at the marks. They didn’t budge. Whatever this spell was, it was far more complex than the one that had sealed the library door—merely swiping away the marks wouldn’t undo it. But Archer now stood between her and the book where she had the closing spell flagged. Celaena rubbed harder. It was all terribly wrong.

“Stop!” Archer lunged, getting past her guard with unnatural ease as he grasped her wrist. Fleetfoot barked a ferocious warning, but a sharp whistle from Celaena had the dog staying well away.

She whirled to Archer, already making to dislocate the arm that held her, but the green light of the portal illuminated the plane of his wrist, where the sleeve of his tunic had fallen back.

A black tattoo of some snakelike creature appeared there.

She’d seen that before. Seen it …

Celaena raised her eyes to his face.

Do not trust …

She had thought Nehemia’s drawing had been of the Royal Seal—a slightly warped version of the wyvern. But it had actually been of this tattoo. Of Archer’s tattoo.

Do not trust Archer, she’d been trying to tell her.

Celaena shoved back from him, drawing a dagger. She pointed both Damaris and the knife at him. How much had Nehemia hidden from Archer and his contacts? If she didn’t trust them, then why had she told them all that she did?

“Tell me how you learned this,” Archer whispered, his eyes going back to the portal and the darkness beyond. “Please. Did you find the Wyrdkeys? Is that how you did it?”

“What do you know of the Wyrdkeys?” she got out.

“Where are they? Where did you find them?”

“I don’t have the keys.”

“You found the riddle, though,” Archer panted. “I let you find that riddle I hid in Davis’s office. It took us five years to find that riddle—and you must have solved it. I knew you’d be the one to solve it. Nehemia knew, too.”

Celaena was shaking her head. He didn’t know that there had been a second riddle—a riddle with a map to the keys. “The king has at least one key. But where the other two are, I don’t know.”

Archer’s eyes darkened. “We suspected as much. That was why she came here in the first place. To learn whether he’d actually stolen them, and if so, how many.”

That was why Nehemia couldn’t leave, she realized. Why she’d opted to stay here instead of returning to Eyllwe. To fight for the one thing that was more important than the fate of her country: the fate of the world. Of other worlds, too.

“I don’t have to get on a ship tomorrow. We’ll tell everyone,” Archer breathed. “We’ll tell everyone he has them, and—”

“No. If we reveal the truth, then the king will use the keys to do more damage than you can possibly imagine. We’ll lose any chance of stealth we have to find the others.”

He took a step closer to her. Fleetfoot let out another warning growl, but kept her distance. “Then we’ll find where he’s keeping the key. And the others. And then we’ll use them to overthrow him. Then we’ll create a world of our own making.”

His voice was building into a frenzy, each word harsher than the next.

She shook her head. “I would sooner destroy them than use their power.”

Archer chuckled. “She said the same thing. She said they should be destroyed—put back in the gate, if we could discover a way. But what is the point of finding them if we don’t use them against him? Make him suffer?”

Her stomach turned. There was more he wasn’t saying, more that he knew. So she sighed and shook her head, beginning to pace. Archer was silent as she walked—silent until she halted, as if suddenly understanding. She raised her voice. “He should suffer for as long as possible. And so should the people who destroyed us—who made us into what we are: Arobynn, Clarisse …” She chewed on her lip. “Nehemia could never understand that. She never tried to. You—you’re right. They should be used.”

He studied her warily enough that she came closer and tilted her head to the side—contemplating his words, contemplating him.

And Archer bought it. “That was why she left the movement. She left a week before she died. We knew it was a matter of time before she went to the king to expose us all—to use what she’d learned to grant clemency to Eyllwe, and to annihilate us with the same stroke. She said she’d rather have one all-powerful tyrant than a dozen of them.”

Celaena said with deadly calm, “She would have ruined everything for you. She almost ruined everything for me, too. She told me to stay away from the Wyrdkeys. She tried to keep me from solving the riddle.”

“Because she wanted to keep the knowledge to herself, for her own gain.”

She smiled even as she felt the world shifting beneath her. And she couldn’t explain why, or how she began to wonder, but if it was true, she had to get him to admit it. She found herself saying, “You and I worked for everything we have—we … we had everything taken away and used against us, too. Other people can’t even begin to fathom the things we were forced to do. I think—I think that’s why I was so infatuated with you when I was a girl. I knew, even then, that you understood. That you knew what it was like to be raised by people like Arobynn and Clarisse and then … sold. You understood me then.” She willed her eyes to gleam, her mouth to tighten as if she were keeping it from wobbling. Blinking furiously, she murmured, “But I think I finally understand you now, too.”

She reached out a hand as if to grab his, but lowered it—making her face tender and soft and bittersweet. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? We could have been working toward this for weeks. We could have tried to solve the riddle together. If I’d known what Nehemia was going to do, how she could lie to me again and again … She betrayed me. In every possible way, Archer. She lied to my face, made me believe …” Her shoulders slumped. After a long moment, she took a step toward him. “Nehemia was no better than Arobynn or Clarisse in the end. Archer, you should have told me. About everything. I knew it wasn’t Mullison—he wasn’t smart enough. If you’d told me, I could have taken care of it.” A risk—a leap of faith. “For you … For us, I would have taken care of it.”

But Archer gave her a hesitant smile. “She spent so much time complaining about Councilman Mullison that I knew he’d be the easiest one to blame. And thanks to that competition, he already had a connection to Grave.”

“Grave didn’t recognize that you weren’t Mullison?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“You’d be surprised how easily men see what they want to see. A cloak, a mask, and some fine clothes, and he didn’t think twice.”

Oh, gods. Gods.

“So the night at the warehouse,” she went on, raising an eyebrow—an intrigued coconspirator. “Why did you really kidnap Chaol?”

“I had to get you away from Nehemia. And when I took that arrow for you, I knew you’d trust me, if only for that night. I apologize if my methods were … harsh. Trick of the trade, I’m afraid.”

Trust him, lose Nehemia, and lose Chaol. He had isolated her from her friends—the same thing she’d suspected Roland had wanted to do with Dorian.

“And that threat the king received before Nehemia’s death—the threat on her life,” Celaena said, her lips curling upward. “You planted that threat, didn’t you? To show me who my real friends are—who I can really trust.”

“It was a gamble. Just as I’m gambling now. I didn’t know whether or not the captain would warn you. Seems I was right.”

“Why me? I’m flattered, of course, but—you’re clever. Why couldn’t you have figured the riddle out on your own?”

Archer bowed his head. “Because I know what you are, Celaena. Arobynn told me one night, after you went to Endovier.” She shoved the twinge of genuine pain and betrayal down until it couldn’t distract her. “And for our cause to succeed, we need you. I need you. Some members of the movement are already starting to fight me, to question my leadership. They think my methods are too rough.” That explained the fight she’d seen with that young man. He took a step toward her. “But you … Gods, from the moment I saw you outside the Willows, I’ve known how good we’d be together. The things we’ll accomplish …”

“I know,” she said, looking into those green eyes, so bright in the matching lights of the portal. “Archer, I know.”

He didn’t see the dagger coming until she’d shoved it into him.

But he was fast—too fast—and turned just in time to have it pierce his shoulder instead of his heart.

He staggered back with dazzling speed, wrenching her dagger so swiftly that she lost her grip on the blade and had to brace a hand on the arch of the portal to keep from stumbling. Her bloodied palm slapped against the stones, and a greenish light flared beneath her fingers. A Wyrdmark burned, then faded.

Not giving herself time to look at what she’d done, she leapt for him with a roar, dropping Damaris to grab two more daggers. He had his own blade up in a moment, dancing away lightly as she sliced for him.

“I’m going to tear you apart piece by piece,” she hissed, circling him.

But then a shudder ran through the floor, and something in the void made a sound. A guttural growl.

Fleetfoot let out a low warning whine. She rushed toward Celaena, pushing against her shins, herding her toward the stairs.

The void shifted, mist now swirling inside, parting long enough to reveal rocky, ashen ground. And then a figure emerged through the mist.

“Nehemia?” she whispered. She’d come back—come back to help, to explain everything.

But it was not Nehemia who stepped through the portal.

Chaol couldn’t sleep. He stared up at the canopy of his bed, the will he’d seen on Celaena’s desk glaring in his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. He’d just let her kick him out of her rooms without telling her what the will meant to him. And maybe he deserved her hate, but—but she had to know that he didn’t want her money.

He had to see her. Just long enough to explain.

He ran a finger along the scab down his cheek.

Rushing footsteps sounded down the hall, and Chaol was already out of bed and half-dressed by the time someone began pounding on his door. The person on the other side got all of one knock in before Chaol flung open the door, a dagger concealed behind his back.

He lowered the blade the second he beheld Dorian’s face, shining with sweat, but he didn’t sheath it. Not when he saw the raw panic in Dorian’s eyes, the sword belt and scabbard dangling from the prince’s clenched fingers.

Chaol believed in trusting his instinct. He didn’t think humans had survived for so long without developing some ability to tell when things were wrong. It wasn’t magic—it was just … gut feeling.

And it was Chaol’s instinct that told him who this was about before Dorian opened his mouth.

“Where?” was all Chaol asked.

“Her bedroom,” Dorian said.

“Tell me everything,” Chaol ordered, hurrying back into his room.

“I don’t know, I—I think she’s in trouble.”

Chaol was already shrugging on a shirt and tunic; then he stomped his feet into his boots before grabbing his sword. “What kind of trouble?”

“The kind that had me coming to get you, instead of the other guards.”

That could mean anything; but Chaol knew Dorian was too smart, too aware of how easily words could be overheard in this castle. He sensed the tightening in Dorian’s body a heartbeat before the prince launched into a run, and grabbed him by the back of his tunic. “Running,” Chaol said under his breath, “will attract attention.”

“I already wasted too much time coming to get you,” Dorian retorted, but he matched Chaol’s brisk but calm pace. It would take five minutes to get to her rooms if they kept this speed. If there were no distractions.

“Is anyone hurt?” Chaol said quietly, trying to keep his breathing even, keep his focus.

“I don’t know,” Dorian said.

“You have to give me more than that,” Chaol snapped. The leash on his temper strained with each step.

“I had a dream,” Dorian said, so soft only he could hear. “I was warned that she was in danger—that she was a danger to herself.”

Chaol almost stopped, but Dorian had said it with such conviction.

“You think I wanted to come get you?” Dorian said, not looking at him.

Chaol didn’t reply but hurried his steps as much as he could without attracting undue attention from the servants and guards still on duty. He could feel his heart hammering through every inch of his body by the time they got to her suite doors. Chaol didn’t bother knocking and nearly took the front door off its hinges as he burst through, Dorian on his heels.

He was at her bedroom door in an instant, and didn’t bother knocking on it, either. But the handle didn’t move. The door was locked. He shoved into it again.

“Celaena?” Her name was more of a growl that rippled out of him. No answer. He fought his rising panic, even as he drew a dagger, even as he listened for any signs of trouble. “Celaena.”

Nothing.

Chaol waited all of a second before he slammed his shoulder into the door. Once. Twice. The lock snapped. The door burst open, revealing her empty bedroom.

“Holy gods,” Dorian whispered.

The tapestry on the wall had been folded back to reveal an open door—a secret, stone door that opened into a dark passage.

It was how she’d gotten out to kill Grave.

Dorian drew his sword from the scabbard. “In my dream, I was told I would find this door.”

The prince stepped forward, but Chaol stopped him with an arm. He’d think about Dorian and his clairvoyant dreams later—much later. “You’re not going down there.”

Dorian’s eyes flashed. “Like hell I’m not.”

As if in answer, a guttural, bone-grinding growl sounded from within. And then a scream—a human scream, followed by a highpitched bark.

Chaol was running for the passage before he could think.

It was pitch-black, and Chaol almost tumbled down the stairs, but Dorian, close behind, grabbed a candle.

“Stay upstairs!” Chaol ordered, still charging down. If he’d had time, he would have locked Dorian in the closet rather than risk bringing the Crown Prince into danger, but … What the hell had that growl been? The bark he knew—the bark was Fleetfoot. And if Fleetfoot was down there …

Dorian kept following him. “I was sent here,” he said. Chaol took the stairs by twos and threes, hardly hearing the prince’s words. Had that scream been hers? It had sounded male. But who else could be down here with her?

Blue light flashed from the bottom of the stairs. What was that?

A roar shook the ancient stones. That was not human, nor was it Fleetfoot. But what—

They had never found the creature that had been killing the champions. The murders had just stopped. But the damage he’d seen to those corpses … No, Celaena had to be alive.

Please, he begged any gods who would listen.

Chaol leapt onto the landing and found three doorways. The blue light had flashed from the right. They ran.

How had such a massive cavern of chambers been forgotten? And how long had she known about them?

He flew down a spiral staircase. And then a new, greenish light began shining steadily, and he turned onto a landing to see—

He didn’t know where to look first—at the long hallway, where one wall glowed with an arch of green symbols, or at the … the world that showed through the arch, depicting a land of mist and rock.

At Archer, cowering against the opposite wall, chanting strange words from a book held in his hands.

At Celaena, prostrate on the floor.

Or at the monster: a tall, sinewy thing, but definitely not human. Not with those unnaturally long fingers tipped with claws, white skin that looked like crumpled paper, a distended jaw that revealed fishlike teeth, and those eyes—milky and tinged with blue.

And there was Fleetfoot, hackles raised and fangs bared, refusing to let the demon anywhere near Celaena, even as the half-grown pup limped, even as the blood pooled from the wound in her right hind leg.

Chaol had all of two heartbeats to size up the monster, to take in every detail, to mark his surroundings. “Go,” he snarled at Dorian before launching himself at the creature.

Chapter 49

She didn’t remember anything after the first two swings of her sword, only that she’d suddenly seen Fleetfoot come flying at the creature. The sight had distracted her enough for the demon to get past her guard, its long, white fingers grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head into the wall.

Then darkness.

She wondered whether she’d died and awoken in hell as she opened her eyes to a pulsing headache—and the sight of Chaol, circling the pale demon, blood dripping from both of them. And then there were cool hands on her head, on her neck, and Dorian crouching in front of her as he said, “Celaena.”

She struggled to her feet, her head aching even more. She had to help Chaol. Had to—

She heard a rip of clothing and a yelp of pain, and she looked at Chaol in time to see him grasp the cut on his shoulder, inflicted by those filthy, jagged nails. The creature roared, its overlong jaw gleaming with saliva, and it lunged again for the captain.

Celaena tried to move, but she wasn’t fast enough.

But Dorian was.

Something invisible slammed into the creature, sending it flying into the wall with a crunch. Gods. Dorian didn’t just have magic—he had raw magic. The rarest, and deadliest, kind. Sheer undiluted power, capable of being shaped into whatever form the wielder desired.

The creature crumpled but instantly got up, whirling toward her and Dorian. The prince just stood there, hand outstretched.

The milky-blue eyes were ravenous now.

Through the portal Celaena heard the rocky earth crunching beneath more pairs of bare, pale feet. Archer’s chanting grew louder.

Chaol attacked the thing again. It surged toward him just before his sword struck, swiping with those long fingers, forcing the captain to dart back.

She grabbed Dorian. “We have to close it. The portal should close on its own eventually, but—but the longer it’s open, the greater the threat of more coming through before it does.”

“How?”

“I—I don’t know, I …” Her head spun so badly her knees wobbled. But she turned to Archer, who stood across the hall, separated from them by the pacing creature. “Give me the book.”

Chaol wounded the demon across its abdomen with a sure, deft stroke, but it didn’t slow down. Even from a few feet away, the tang of the dark blood reached her nose.

Celaena watched Archer take it all in, his eyes wide, panicked beyond reason. And then he sprinted down the hall, taking with him the book—and any hope of shutting the portal.

Dorian couldn’t move fast enough to stop the handsome man from fleeing with the book in his hands, and didn’t dare, with that demon between them. Celaena, her forehead bleeding, made a lunge for him, but the man was too fast. Her eyes kept darting to Chaol, who was keeping the thing distracted. Dorian knew without being told that she didn’t want to leave the captain.

“I’ll go—” Dorian began.

“No. He’s dangerous, and these tunnels are a labyrinth,” she panted. Chaol and the creature circled each other, the thing slowly backing toward the portal entrance. “I can’t close it without that book,” she moaned. “There are more books upstairs, but I—”

“Then we flee,” Dorian breathed, grabbing her by the elbow. “We flee and try to get to those books.”

He dragged her with him, not daring to take his eyes off Chaol or the creature. She swayed in his grasp. The wound to her head must be as bad as it looked. Something was glowing at her throat: the amulet she’d told him was just a “cheap replica,” shining like a tiny blue star.

“Go,” Chaol told them, staring down the thing in front of him. “Now.”

She stumbled, tugging toward Chaol, but Dorian pulled her back.

“No,” she got out, but the wound to her head made her sag in Dorian’s grip. As if realizing that she’d be a hindrance to Chaol, she stopped fighting Dorian as he hauled her toward the stairs.

Chaol knew he couldn’t win this fight. His best option was to flee with them, to guard the way until they could get to that stone door far, far above and lock the creature down here. But he wasn’t sure he’d even make it to the stairs. The creature thwarted his attacks so easily it seemed to have an uncanny intelligence.

At least Celaena and Dorian had reached the stairs. He could accept his end if it meant they could escape. He could embrace the darkness when it came.

The creature paused just long enough for Chaol to gain a few more feet of distance. He backed toward the bottom step.

But then she started shouting—the same word again and again as Dorian tried to keep dragging her up the stairs.

Fleetfoot.

Chaol looked. In a dark shadow by the wall, Fleetfoot had been left behind, her leg too injured to run.

The creature looked, too.

And there was nothing he could do, absolutely nothing, as the creature whirled, grabbed Fleetfoot by her injured hind leg, and dragged her through the portal with it.

There was nothing he could do, he realized, except run.

Celaena’s scream was still echoing through the passageway as Chaol leapt off the stairs and hurtled through the misty portal after Fleetfoot.

If she had thought she’d known fear and pain before, it was nothing compared to what went through her when Chaol ran through the portal after Fleetfoot.

Dorian didn’t see her coming as she whirled, slamming his head into the stone wall hard enough that he crumpled to the steps, freeing her from his grip.

But she didn’t care about Dorian, didn’t care about anything except Fleetfoot and Chaol as she sprinted down those few stairs and across the hall. She had to get them out, get them back before the portal shut forever.

She was through in a heartbeat.

And when she saw Chaol shielding Fleetfoot with nothing but his bare hands, his discarded sword snapped in two by the demon who hovered over them, she didn’t think twice before she unleashed the monster inside herself.

From the corner of his eye, Chaol saw her coming, the ancient sword in her hands and her face set with feral rage.

The moment she burst through the portal, something changed. It was like a fog vanished from her face, her features sharpening, her steps becoming longer and more graceful. And then her ears—her ears shifted into delicate points.

The creature, sensing it was about to lose its prey, made a final lunge for Chaol.

It was blasted away by a wall of blue flame.

The fire vanished to reveal the creature slamming into the ground, flipping again and again. It was on its feet before it finished rolling, whirling toward Celaena in the same move.

She was between them now, sword raised. She roared, revealing elongated canines, and the sound was unlike anything he’d ever heard. There was nothing human in it.

Because she wasn’t human, Chaol realized, gaping up at her from where he still crouched over Fleetfoot.

No—she wasn’t human at all.

Celaena was Fae.

Chapter 50

She knew the shift had happened, because it hurt like hell. A flash of blinding pain as her features ripped free of the hold that hid them. The demon lunged, and she plummeted into the well of power that was suddenly overflowing inside of her.

Magic, savage and unforgiving, erupted out of her, punching into the creature and sending it flying. Flame—years ago, her power had always manifested as some form of fire.

She could smell everything, see everything. Her heightened senses pulled her attention every which way, telling her that this world was wrong, and she needed to get out now.

But she wouldn’t get out, not until Chaol and Fleetfoot made it to safety.

The creature stopped rolling, on its feet in an instant, and Celaena put herself between it and Chaol. The demon sniffed at her, sinking onto its haunches.

She lifted Damaris and bellowed her challenge.

From far off in the mist, roars answered. One of them came from the thing in front of her.

She looked at Chaol, still crouched over Fleetfoot, and bared her teeth, canines glistening in the gray light.

Chaol was staring up at her. She could smell his terror and his awe. Smell his blood, so human and ordinary. The magic welled up more and more and more, uncontrollable and ancient and burning.

“Run,” she snarled, more a plea than a command, because the magic was a living thing, and it wanted out, and she was just as likely to hurt him as she was to hurt the creature. Because that portal might close at any moment and seal them here forever.

She didn’t wait to see what Chaol did. The creature rushed for her, a blur of withered white flesh. She ran toward it, flinging her immortal power like a phantom punch. It shot out in a blue burst of wildfire, but the creature dodged it, and the next blow and the next.

Celaena swung Damaris, and the creature ducked before jumping back a few paces. The roars in the distance were getting closer.

Crunching rock sounded behind her, and she knew Chaol was making for the portal.

The demon began pacing. Then the crunching stopped. That meant Chaol was in the passageway again; he must have carried Fleetfoot with him. He was safe. Safe.

This thing was too smart, too fast—and too strong, despite its gangly limbs.

And if others were coming—if more got through the portal before it closed …

Her magic was building again, the spring deeper now. Celaena gauged the distance between them as she backed toward the portal.

She had little control over the power, but she did have a sword—a sacred sword made by the Fae, capable of withstanding magic. A conduit.

Not giving herself time to think it through, she threw all her raw power into the golden sword. Its blade glowed red-hot, its edges crackling with lightning.

The creature tensed, as if sensing what she was about to do as she lifted the sword over her head. With a battle cry that shattered through the mists, Celaena plunged Damaris into the earth.

The ground cracked toward the demon, a burning web of lines and fissures.

And then the ground between them began to collapse, foot by foot, until the creature was sprinting away. Soon there was just a small lip of land surrounding Celaena, backed by the open portal, and an evergrowing chasm before her.

She wrenched Damaris from the broken earth. She knew she had to get out—now. But before she could move, before she could get to the portal, the magic rippled, so violently that she sagged to her knees. Pain flashed, and she shifted back into her clumsy, frail mortal body.

And then there were strong hands under her shoulders, hands she knew so well, dragging her back through the portal and into Erilea, where her magic was snuffed out like a candle.

Dorian came to just in time to see Chaol hauling Celaena back through the portal. She was conscious, but was a dead weight in the captain’s arms as he dragged her across the ground. Once they were over the border, he dropped her as though she were made of flame, and Celaena lay panting on the stones.

What had happened? There had been a land of rock beyond the portal, and now … now there was nothing but a small ledge and a massive crater. The pale creature was gone.

Celaena pushed herself up onto her elbows, her limbs wobbling. Dorian’s head ached, but he managed to walk to them. He’d been dragging her one moment, and then—then she’d knocked him out. Why?

“Close it,” Chaol was saying to her, his face so white that the blood splattered on it stood out even more starkly. “Close it.”

“I can’t,” Celaena breathed. Dorian gripped the wall to keep himself from falling to his knees from the ache in his head. He made it to where they were positioned in front of the portal, Fleetfoot nuzzling Celaena.

“They’re going to keep coming through,” Chaol panted. Something was wrong, Dorian realized—something was wrong between them. Chaol wasn’t touching her, wasn’t helping her up.

Beyond the crater inside the portal, the roaring was growing louder. No doubt those things would find some way to get through.

“I’m drained; I don’t have anything left to close this gate …” Celaena winced, then lifted her eyes to Dorian’s. “But you do.”

From the corner of her eye, Celaena saw Chaol whirl to face Dorian. She staggered to her feet. Fleetfoot had again put herself between Celaena and the portal, snarling softly. “Help me,” she whispered to the prince, some semblance of energy returning.

Dorian didn’t look at Chaol. He stepped forward. “What must I do?”

“I need your blood. The rest I can do. At least, I hope I can.” Chaol started to object, and Celaena gave him a faint, bitter smile. “Don’t worry. Only a cut on the arm.”

Sheathing his sword, Dorian rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and drew a dagger. Blood welled from the cut, quick and bright.

Chaol growled, “How did you learn to open a portal?”

“I found a book,” she said. It was the truth. “I wanted to speak to Nehemia.”

Silence fell—pitying, horrifying silence.

But then she added, “I—I think I accidentally changed a symbol.” She pointed to the Wyrdmark she’d smeared, the one that had rearranged itself. “It went to the wrong place. But this might close the door—if we’re lucky.”

What she didn’t tell them was that there was a good chance it wouldn’t work. But because there were no other books in her rooms, and because Archer had taken The Walking Dead with him, all she had left was that sealing spell she’d used on the door in the library. And there was no way—no way in hell—she was going to abandon this open portal, or leave one of them to guard it. The portal would eventually close on its own, but she didn’t know when. More of those things could creep through at any time. So she’d try this, because it was her only option. She’d figure out something else if it didn’t work.

It will work, she told herself.

Dorian put a warm, reassuring hand on her back as she dipped her fingers into his blood. She hadn’t realized how freezing her hands were until the heat of his blood warmed her fingertips. One by one, she drew the sealing marks over the green-glowing symbols. Dorian never let go of her—only stepped even closer when she swayed. Chaol said nothing.

Her knees buckled, but she finished covering the symbols with Dorian’s blood. A lingering roar echoed through the damned world as the final symbol flared, the mists and rock and ravine fading into black, then into familiar stone.

Celaena kept her breathing steady, throwing all her focus into that. If she could keep breathing, she wouldn’t fall apart.

Dorian lowered his arm and loosed a sigh, finally letting go of her.

“Let’s go,” Chaol ordered, scooping up Fleetfoot, who whined in pain and gave him a warning growl.

“I think we all need a drink,” Dorian said quietly. “And an explanation.”

But Celaena looked down the hall, to the stairwell where Archer had fled. Had it only been minutes ago? It had felt like a lifetime.

But if it had only been minutes … Her breathing stumbled. She had discovered only one way out of the castle, and she was certain that was where Archer had gone. After what he’d done to Nehemia, after taking the book and abandoning them to that creature … Exhaustion was replaced by familiar anger—anger that burned through everything, just as Archer had destroyed what she loved.

Chaol stepped into her path. “Don’t you even think—”

Panting, she sheathed Damaris. “He’s mine.”

Before Chaol could grab her, she hurtled down the stairs.

Chapter 51

Though Celaena’s Fae senses were extinguished, she could swear she still smelled Archer’s cologne as she moved toward the sewer tunnel, still smelled the blood on him.

He had destroyed everything. He’d had Nehemia assassinated, had manipulated them both, had used Nehemia’s death to drive a wedge between her and Chaol, all in the name of power and revenge …

She would take him apart. Slowly.

I know what you are, he’d said. She didn’t know what Arobynn had told him about her heritage, but Archer had no idea what sort of darkness lurked inside her, or what sort of monster she was willing to become in order to make things right.

Ahead of her, she could hear muffled curses and banging against metal. By the time she reached the sewer tunnel, she knew what had happened. The grate had slid shut, and none of Archer’s attempts to open it had worked. Perhaps the gods did listen sometimes. Celaena smiled, drawing both of her daggers.

She walked through the archway, but the passage was empty on either side of the small river. She stepped farther onto the walkway, peering into the water, wondering if he’d tried to swim deep enough to go under the grate.

She sensed him a heartbeat before he attacked from behind.

She met his sword with both her daggers raised over her head, darting back to give herself enough time to assess. Archer had trained with the assassins—and from the way he wielded his blade, coming after her again and again, she knew he’d kept up those lessons.

She was exhausted. Archer was at full strength, and his blows made her arms quake.

He swiped for her throat, but she ducked, slicing for his side. Swift as lightning, he leapt to avoid her gutting him.

“I killed her for our sake,” Archer panted as she scanned for any weakness, any opening. “She would have ruined us. And now that you can open portals without the keys, think of what we could do. Think, Celaena. Her death was a worthy sacrifice to keep her from destroying the cause. We must rise up against the king.”

She lunged, feinting left, but he caught the attack. She growled, “I would rather live in his shadow than in a world where men like you rule. And when I’m done with you, I’m going to find all your friends and return the favor.”

“They don’t know anything. They don’t know what I know,” he said, dancing past all her attacks with maddening ease. “Nehemia was hiding something else about you. She didn’t want you involved, and I thought it was just because she didn’t want to share you with us. But now I wonder why, exactly. What more did she know?”

Celaena laughed softly. “You’re a fool if you think I’ll help you.”

“Oh, once my men start working on you, you’ll soon change your mind. Rourke Farran was a client of mine—before he was killed, that is. You remember Farran, don’t you? He had a special love for pain. He told me that torturing Sam Cortland was the most fun he ever had.”

She could hardly see through the bloodlust that seized her in that moment, hardly remember her own name.

Archer feinted toward the river to get her to return to the wall—where she would impale herself on his blade. But Celaena knew that move, too—knew it because she herself had taught it to him all those years ago. So as he struck, she ducked past his guard and rammed the pommel of her dagger up into his jaw.

He dropped like a stone, sword clattering, and she was upon him before he’d finished falling, her dagger at his throat.

“Please,” he whispered hoarsely.

She pushed the edge of the blade into his skin, wondering how she could make this last without killing him too quickly.

“Please,” he begged, chest heaving. “I’m doing it for our freedom. Our freedom. We’re on the same side in the end.”

One flick of the wrist, and she could slit his throat. Or she could disable him the way she’d disabled Grave. She could give him the injuries Grave had given Nehemia. She smiled.

“You’re not a murderer,” he whispered.

“Oh, I am,” she purred, torchlight dancing on the dagger as she considered what to do with him.

“Nehemia wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want you to do this.”

And though she knew she shouldn’t listen, the words struck home.

Don’t let that light go out.

The darkness that thrived in her soul had no light left. No light—save for a kernel, a faint flicker that grew smaller by the day. Wherever she was now, Nehemia knew how small the flame had become.

Don’t let that light go out.

Celaena felt the tension go out of her body, but she kept her dagger on Archer’s throat until she was on her feet.

“You’re leaving Rifthold tonight,” she told him. “You and all of your friends.”

“Thank you,” Archer breathed, standing.

“If I find out you’re still in the city at dawn,” she said, putting her back to him as she stalked toward the tunnel stairs, “I’ll kill you.” Enough. It was enough.

“Thank you,” Archer said again.

She kept walking, listening for any sign of him moving to attack her back.

“I knew you were a good woman,” he said.

Celaena halted. Turned.

There was a hint of triumph in his eyes. He thought he’d won. Manipulated her again. One foot after another, she walked back toward him with predatory calmness.

She stopped, close enough to kiss him. He gave her a wary smile.

“No, I’m not,” she said. Then she moved, too fast for him to stand a chance.

Archer’s eyes went wide as she slid the dagger home, jamming it up into his heart.

He sagged in her arms. She brought her mouth to his ear, holding him upright with one hand and twisting the dagger with the other as she whispered, “But Nehemia was.”

Chapter 52

Chaol watched blood bubble out of Archer’s lips as Celaena let him slump to the stone floor. She stared down at the body, her final words to him hovering in the air, running claws over Chaol’s already chilled skin. She closed her eyes, tilting her head back as she took a long breath—as if she were embracing the death before her, and the stain it left as payment for her vengeance.

He had arrived in time to hear Archer beg for his life—and utter the words that had been his last mistake. Chaol shifted his boot against the step to warn her that he was there. How much of her Fae senses did she retain when she looked like a human?

Archer’s blood spread across the dark stones, and Celaena opened her eyes as she slowly turned to Chaol. The blood had soaked the ends of her hair, turning them a brilliant red. And her eyes … There was nothing there, as though she’d been hollowed out. For a heartbeat, he wondered if she would kill him, too—just for being there, for seeing the dark truth of her.

She blinked, and the killing calm in her eyes vanished, replaced only by bone-deep weariness and sorrow. An invisible burden that he couldn’t begin to imagine made her shoulders slump. She picked up the black book that Archer had dropped on the damp stones, but let it dangle from her fingers as if it were a piece of dirty clothing.

“I owe you an explanation,” was all she said.

Celaena refused to let the healer look at her until Fleetfoot’s leg had been fixed. It was only a long scratch, but it was deep. Celaena had held Fleetfoot’s head in her arms as the thrashing dog was forced to swallow water laced with a sedative. Dorian helped as best he could while the healer worked on the dog lying unconscious on Celaena’s dining-room table. Chaol leaned against the wall of the room, arms crossed over his chest. He’d said nothing to Dorian since they’d gone down into the passageway.

The young, brown-haired healer didn’t ask any questions, either. Once Fleetfoot was patched up and moved to Celaena’s bed, Dorian insisted Celaena get her head looked at. But Celaena waved him off and told the healer that if she didn’t inspect the Crown Prince first, she’d report her to the king. Scowling, Dorian let the young woman clean the small wound on his temple, received when Celaena had knocked him out cold. Considering how bloody Celaena and Chaol were, he felt utterly ridiculous, even if his head still pounded.

The healer finished with him, giving him a timid, slightly concerned smile. And when it was time to decide who should be looked at next, the glaring contest between Chaol and Celaena was one for the ages.

At last, Chaol just shook his head and slumped into the seat that Dorian had recently vacated. He had blood everywhere, and ended up peeling off his tunic and shirt so the healer could cleanse his minor wounds. Despite the scratches and cuts, the abrasions on his hands and knees, the healer still asked no questions, her pretty face an unreadable, professional mask.

Celaena turned to Dorian, her voice quiet. “I’ll come to your rooms when I’m done here.”

From the corner of his eye, he sensed Chaol stiffening, and Dorian bit down on his surge of jealousy as he realized he was being dismissed. The captain was making a good show of not looking at them. What had happened during the time he’d blacked out? And what had happened when she’d gone to kill Archer?

“Fine,” Dorian said, and thanked the healer for her help.

At least he had time now to piece himself together, to sort through all that had happened in the last few hours. And to plan how to explain his magic to Chaol.

But even as he walked out of the dining room, part of him realized that his magic—that he—was the least of their concerns. Because even from that first day in Endovier, this had always been about them.

Celaena didn’t need a healer to look at her head. When the magic had taken her over, it had somehow healed everything. All that was left of her wounds now were bloodstains and torn clothing. And exhaustion—utter exhaustion.

“I’m taking a bath,” she told Chaol, who still sat shirtless under the healer’s ministrations.

She needed to wash Archer’s blood off her.

She shucked off her clothing and bathed, scrubbing herself until her skin hurt, washing her hair twice. When she emerged, she slipped into a clean tunic and pants, and just as she finished combing out her dripping hair, Chaol walked into her bedroom and sat at the chair before her desk. The healer gone, he’d put his shirt back on, and she could see the white bandages peeking through the rips in the dark cloth.

Celaena checked on Fleetfoot, who was still unconscious on the bed, and then walked to the balcony doors. She studied the night sky for a long moment, seeking out a familiar constellation—the Stag, the Lord of the North. She took a long breath.

“My great-grandmother was Fae,” she said. “And even though my mother couldn’t switch into an animal form the way the Fae can, I somehow inherited the ability to shift. Between my Fae form and my human form.”

“And you can’t shift anymore?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “When magic stopped ten years ago, I lost my ability. It’s what saved my life, I think. As a child, when I was scared or upset or had tantrums, I couldn’t control the shift. I was learning to master it, but I would have given myself away at some point.”

“But in that—that other world, you could …”

She turned to face him, seeing the haunted gleam in his eyes. “Yes. In that world, magic, or something like it, still exists. And it is just as awful and overwhelming as I remembered.” She eased onto the edge of her bed, the distance between them feeling like leagues. “I had no control over it—over the shift, or the magic, or myself. I was as likely to hurt you as I was to hurt that creature.” She closed her eyes, her hands shaking a bit.

“So you did open a portal to another world. How?”

“All those books I’ve been reading on the Wyrdmarks—they had spells to open temporary portals.” And then she explained about finding the passage on Samhuinn, and the tomb and Elena’s command to become the Champion, and what Cain had been doing and how she had killed him, and how tonight she had wanted to open a portal to see Nehemia. She left out the Wyrdkeys, the king, and what she suspected he might be doing with Kaltain and Roland.

When she finished, Chaol said, “I would say you’re insane, except I have the blood of that creature on me, and went into that world myself.”

“If anyone knew—not just about the spells to open portals, but about what I am,” she said wearily, “you understand that I would be executed.”

His eyes flashed. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I swear it.”

She bit her lip, nodding, and walked back to the window. “Archer told me that he was the one who had Nehemia assassinated, because she was a threat to his control over the group. He posed as Councilman Mullison and hired Grave. He kidnapped you to lure me away. He planted that anonymous threat against her life, too. Because he wanted me to blame you for her death.”

Chaol swore, but she kept gazing out the window, kept looking at that constellation.

“But even though I know you’re not responsible,” she said softly, “I still …” She found his face full of anguish.

“You still can’t trust me,” he finished.

She nodded. In this, she knew Archer had won, and hated him for it. “When I look at you,” she whispered, “all I want to do is touch you. But what happened that night … I don’t know if I can ever forget it.” The deepest cut on his cheek had scabbed, and she knew it would scar. “For my part, I am sorry for what I did to you.”

He stood, wincing at his wounds, and walked over to her. “We both made mistakes,” he said in that voice that made her heart stumble.

She found the nerve to turn to him, gazing up into his face. “How can you still look at me like that when you know what I truly am?”

His fingers grazed her cheeks, warming her chilled skin. “Fae, assassin—no matter what you are, I—”

“Don’t.” She stepped back. “Don’t say it.”

She couldn’t give him everything again—not now. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Even if she ever learned to forgive him for picking the king over Nehemia, her journey to find the Wyrdkeys would require her to go far away, to a place where she would never ask him to follow.

“I need to prepare Archer’s body to present to the king,” she got out. Before he could say anything else, she picked up Damaris from where she’d dropped it by the door and vanished into the passage.

She waited until she was deep inside before she let the tears start flowing.

Chaol stared at where she had gone and wondered if he should follow her into that ancient darkness. But he thought of all that she’d told him, all the secrets she’d revealed, and knew he needed time to comprehend it all.

He could tell that she had left out information. She’d told him only the vaguest details; and then there was the matter of her Fae heritage. He’d never heard of anyone inheriting their powers in such a throwback way, but then again, no one spoke of the Fae nowadays. It explained how she knew the ancient dirges.

With a gentle pat on Fleetfoot’s head, he left the room. The halls were empty and silent.

And Dorian—she had acted like Dorian had some power, too. There had been the moment when the creature was blasted away by an invisible wall … But it was impossible for Dorian to have power. How could he, when Celaena’s own—own magic had disappeared as soon as she returned to this world?

Celaena was Fae, and heir to a power she couldn’t control. Even if she couldn’t shift, if anyone ever discovered what she was…

It explained why she was so terrified of the king, why she never said anything about where she’d come from, or what she’d been through. And living here … this was the most dangerous place for her—or any Fae—to be.

If someone found out what she was, they could use that information against her, or have her killed. And there would be nothing he could do to save her. No lie he could tell, no strings he could pull. How long before someone else went digging into her past? How long before someone decided to go right to Arobynn Hamel and torture him for the truth?

Chaol’s feet knew where he was going long before he’d made the choice, formed the plan. Minutes later, he found himself knocking on a wooden door.

His father’s eyes were bleary with sleep, and they narrowed as they saw him. “Do you know what time it is?”

He didn’t, and he didn’t care. Chaol shouldered his way into the room and shut the door, scanning the dimness for any other people. “I have a favor to ask you, but before I do, promise you won’t ask any questions.”

His father gave him a slightly bemused look, then crossed his arms. “No questions. Make your request.”

Beyond the window, the sky was beginning to lighten into a softer shade of black. “I think that we should send the King’s Champion to Wendlyn to dispatch the royal family.”

His father’s brows rose. Chaol went on. “We’ve been at war with them for two years, and have yet to break past their naval defenses. But if the king and his son are eliminated, we might stand a chance of getting through in the ensuing chaos. Especially if the King’s Champion also gets her hands on their naval defense plans.” He took a breath, keeping his voice disinterested. “I want to present the idea to the king this morning. And I want you to support me.”

Because Dorian would never agree to it, not without knowing what Celaena was. And Chaol would never tell anyone, Dorian included. But with an idea this drastic, he’d need as much political muscle as he could get.

“An ambitious, ruthless plan.” His father smiled. “And if I support this idea and convince my allies on the council to support it, too, then what can I expect in return?” From the way his eyes gleamed, his father already knew the answer.

“Then I will go back to Anielle with you,” Chaol said. “I will leave my position as Captain and … return home.”

It wasn’t his home, not anymore, but if it meant getting Celaena out of the country … Wendlyn was the last stronghold of the Fae, and the one place in Erilea where she’d be truly safe.

Whatever shred of hope he’d had for a future with her was gone. She still felt something for him, she’d admitted, but she would never trust him. She would always hate him for what he’d done.

But he could do this for her. Even if he never saw her again, even if she abandoned her duties as King’s Champion and stayed with the Fae in Wendlyn forever—as long as he knew that she was safe, that no one could hurt her … He’d sell his soul again and again for that.

His father’s eyes gleamed with triumph. “Consider it done.”

Chapter 53

When Celaena finished telling Dorian the story she’d told Chaol—albeit a much more limited version—he let out a long sigh and fell back onto his bed. “It sounds like something out of a book,” he said, staring at the ceiling. She sat down on the other side of the bed.

“Believe me, I thought I was going mad for a while.”

“So you actually opened a portal to another world? Using these Wyrdmarks?”

She nodded. “You also knocked that creature aside like it was a leaf caught in a wind.” Oh, she hadn’t forgotten about that. Not for one moment had she forgotten what it meant for him to have such raw power.

“That was dumb luck.” She watched him, this kind, clever prince of hers. “I still can’t control it.”

“In the tomb,” she said, “there is someone who might … offer you some advice on how to control it. Who might have some information about the kind of power you’ve inherited.” Right then, though, she didn’t exactly know how to explain Mort to him, so she just said, “Someday soon, you and I could go down there and meet him.”

“Is he—”

“You’ll see when we get there. If he deigns to speak to you. It might take a while for him to decide he likes you.”

After a moment, Dorian reached over and took her hand, bringing it to his lips for a swift kiss. Nothing romantic—a gesture of thanks. “Even though things are different between us now, I meant what I said after the duel with Cain. I will always be grateful that you came into my life.”

Her throat tightened, and she squeezed his hand.

Nehemia had dreamed of a court that could change the world, a court where loyalty and honor were more valued than blind obedience and power. The day Nehemia had died, Celaena had thought the dream of that court forever vanished.

But looking at Dorian as he smiled at her, this prince who was smart and thoughtful and kind, who inspired good men like Chaol to serve him …

Celaena wondered if Nehemia’s impossible, desperate dream of that court might yet come to pass.

The real question now was whether his father knew what a threat his son posed.

The King of Adarlan had to give the captain credit; the plan was ruthless and bold, and would send a message not just to Wendlyn, but to all their enemies. With the embargo between their countries, Wendlyn refused to let Adarlanian men into their borders. But women and children seeking refuge could still enter. It made sending anyone else impossible, but his Champion …

The king looked down his council table, where the captain was waiting for his decision. Westfall’s father and four others had immediately supported the idea. Another bit of unexpected cunning from the captain. He’d brought allies to this meeting.

Dorian, however, was watching the captain with barely concealed surprise. Clearly, Westfall hadn’t thought Dorian would support his decision. If only Westfall had been his heir instead; his warrior’s mind was sharp, and he didn’t balk from doing what needed to be done. The prince had yet to learn that kind of ruthlessness.

Getting the assassin away from his son would be an unexpected benefit. He trusted the girl to do his dirty work—but he didn’t want her around Dorian.

She’d brought Archer Finn’s head to him this morning, not a day later than she’d promised him, and explained what she’d discovered: that Archer had been responsible for Nehemia’s assassination due to their mutual involvement in that traitorous society. He wasn’t surprised that Nehemia was involved.

But what would the assassin have to say about this journey?

“Summon my Champion,” he said. In the ensuing silence, the council members murmured to each other, and his son tried to catch Westfall’s eye. But the captain avoided looking at the prince.

The king smiled slightly, twisting the black ring on his finger. A pity Perrington wasn’t here to see this. He was off dealing with the slave uprising in Calaculla—news of which had been kept so secret that even the messengers had forfeited their lives. The duke would have been greatly amused by today’s turn of events. But he wished Perrington here for more important reasons, too—to help him find out who had opened a portal last night.

He’d sensed it in his sleep—a sudden shift in the world. It was open for only a few minutes before someone closed it again. Cain was gone; who else in this castle possessed that kind of knowledge, or that power in the blood? Was it the same person who had killed Baba Yellowlegs?

He put a hand on Nothung, his sword.

There had been no body—but he didn’t think for one moment that Yellowlegs had just disappeared. The morning after she’d vanished, he’d gone to the carnival himself to look at the ruined wagon. He’d seen the flecks of dark blood staining the wooden floor.

Yellowlegs had been a queen among her people, one of the three brutal factions that had destroyed the Crochan family five hundred years ago. They’d relished erasing much of the wisdom of the Crochan women who had ruled justly for a thousand years. He’d invited the carnival here to meet with her—to purchase a few of her mirrors, and learn what remained of the Ironteeth Alliance that had once been strong enough to rip apart the Witch Kingdom.

But before she had yielded any decent information, she had died. And it frustrated him not to know why. Her blood had been spilled at his castle; others might come to demand answers and retribution. If they came, he would be ready.

Because in the shadows of the Ferian Gap, he’d been breeding new mounts for his gathering armies. And his wyverns still needed riders.

The doors to the council room opened. The assassin walked in, shoulders thrown back in that insufferable way of hers. She coolly took in the details of the room before stopping a few feet away from the table and bowing low. “Your Majesty summoned me?”

She kept her eyes averted, as she usually did. Except for that delightful day when she’d come in and practically flayed Mullison alive. Part of him wished he didn’t now have to free the sniveling councilman from the dungeons.

“Your companion, Captain Westfall, has come up with a rather … unusual idea,” the king said, and waved a hand at Chaol. “Why don’t you explain, Captain?”

The Captain twisted in his chair, then rose to his feet to face her. “I have suggested that we send you to Wendlyn to dispatch the king and his heir. While you are there, you will also seize their naval and military defense plans—so that once the country is in chaos, we will be able to navigate their impenetrable barrier reefs and take the country for ourselves.”

The assassin looked at him for a long moment, and the king noticed that his son had gone very, very still. Then she smiled, a cruel, twisted thing. “It would be an honor to serve the crown in such a way.”

He had never learned anything about the mark that had glowed on her head during the duel. The Wyrdmark was impossible to decipher. It either meant “nameless” or “unnamed,” or something akin to “anonymous.” But gods-blessed or not, from the wicked grin on her face, the king knew she’d enjoy this task.

“Perhaps we’ll have some fun with it,” the king mused. “Wendlyn is having their Solstice ball in a few months. What a message it would send if the king and his son were to meet their end right under the noses of their own court, on their day of triumph.”

Though the captain shifted on his feet at the sudden change of plans, the assassin smiled at him again, dark glee written all over her. What hellhole had she come from, to find delight in such things? “A brilliant idea, Your Majesty.”

“It’s done, then,” the king said, and they all looked at him. “You’ll leave tomorrow.”

“But,” his son interrupted, “surely she needs some time to study Wendlyn, to learn its ways and—”

“It’s a two-week journey by sea,” he said. “And then she’ll need time to infiltrate the castle in time for the ball. She can take whatever materials she needs and study them onboard.”

Her brows had lifted slightly, but she just bowed her head. The captain was still standing, stiffer than usual. And his son was glaring—glaring at him and at the captain, so angry that he wondered whether he’d snap.

But the king wasn’t particularly interested in their petty dramas, not when this brilliant plan had arisen. He’d have to send riders immediately to the Ferian Gap and the Dead Islands, and have General Narrok ready his legion. He didn’t mean to make mistakes with this one chance in Wendlyn.

And it would be the perfect opportunity to test a few of the weapons he’d been forging in secret all these years.

Tomorrow.

She was leaving tomorrow.

And Chaol had come up with the idea? But why? She wanted to demand answers, wanted to know what he was thinking when he’d come up with this plan. She’d never told him the truth about the king’s threats—that he would execute Chaol if she didn’t return from a mission, if she failed. And she could fake the deaths of petty lords and merchants, but not the King and Crown Prince of Wendlyn. Not in a thousand lifetimes could she find a way out of it.

She paced and paced, knowing Chaol wouldn’t be back in his rooms yet, and wound up going down to the tomb, if only to give herself something to do.

She expected Mort to lecture her about the portal—which he did, thoroughly—but she didn’t expect to find Elena waiting for her inside the tomb. “You have enough power to appear to me now, but you couldn’t help close the portal last night?”

She took one look at the queen’s frown and began pacing again.

“I could not,” Elena said. “Even now, this visit is draining me faster than it should.”

Celaena scowled at her. “I can’t go to Wendlyn. I—I can’t go. Chaol knows what I’m doing for you—so why would he make me go there?”

“Take a breath,” Elena said softly.

Celaena glared at her. “This ruins your plans, too. If I’m in Wendlyn, then I can’t deal with the Wyrdkeys and the king. And even if I pretended to go and instead went questing across this continent, it wouldn’t take long for the king to realize I’m not where I’m supposed to be.”

Elena crossed her arms. “If you are in Wendlyn, then you will be near Doranelle. I think that’s why the captain wants you to go.”

Celaena barked a laugh. Oh, what a tangled mess he’d gotten her into! “He wants me to go hide with the Fae and never come back to Adarlan? That’s not going to happen. Not only will he be killed, but the Wyrdkeys—”

“You will sail to Wendlyn tomorrow.” Elena’s eyes glowed bright. “Leave the Wyrdkeys and the king for now. Go to Wendlyn, and do what needs to be done.”

“Did you plant this idea in his head somehow?”

“No. The captain is trying to save you the only way he knows how.”

Celaena shook her head, looking at the sunlight pouring into the tomb from the shaft above. “Will you ever stop giving me commands?”

Elena let out a soft laugh. “When you stop running from your past, I will.”

Celaena rolled her eyes, then let her shoulders droop. A shard of memory sliced through her. “When I spoke to Nehemia, she mentioned … mentioned that she knew her own fate. That she had embraced it. That it would set things in motion. Do you think she somehow manipulated Archer into …” But she couldn’t finish saying it, couldn’t let herself voice what the horrible truth might be: that Nehemia had engineered her own death, knowing that she might change the world—change Celaena—more through dying than living.

A cold, slender hand grasped hers. “Cast that thought into the far reaches of your mind. Knowing the truth, whatever it may be, will not change what you must do tomorrow—where you must go.”

And even though Celaena knew the truth in that moment, knew it just from Elena’s refusal to answer at all, she did as the queen commanded. There would be other moments, other times to take out that truth to examine every dark and unforgiving facet. But right now—right now …

Celaena studied the light pouring into the tomb. Such a little light, holding the darkness at bay. “Wendlyn, then.”

Elena smiled grimly and squeezed her hand. “Wendlyn, then.”

Chapter 54

When the council meeting was over, Chaol did his best not to look at his father, who had been watching him so carefully while he’d announced his plans to the king, or at Dorian, whose sense of betrayal rippled off of him as the meeting went on. He tried to hurry back to the barracks, but he wasn’t all that surprised when a hand clapped on his shoulder and turned him around.

“Wendlyn?” Dorian snarled.

Chaol kept his face blank. “If she’s capable of opening a portal like she did last night, then I think she needs to get out of the castle for a while. For all of our sakes.” Dorian couldn’t know the truth.

“She’ll never forgive you for having her shipped off like that, to take down a whole country. And in such a public way—making a spectacle out of it. Are you mad?”

“I don’t need her forgiveness. And I don’t want to worry about her letting in a horde of otherwordly creatures just because she’s missing her friend.”

He hated each lie that came out of his mouth, but Dorian drank them up, his eyes seeming to glow with rage. This was the other sacrifice he’d have to make; because if Dorian didn’t hate him, if he didn’t want Chaol gone, then leaving for Anielle would be that much more difficult.

“If anything happens to her in Wendlyn,” Dorian growled, refusing to back down, “I’ll make you regret the day you were born.”

If anything happened to her, Chaol was fairly certain he’d forever regret that day, too.

But he just said, “One of us has to start leading, Dorian,” and stalked off.

Dorian didn’t follow him.

Dawn was just breaking as Celaena arrived at Nehemia’s grave. The last of the winter snows had melted, leaving the world barren and brown, waiting for spring.

In a few hours, she’d set sail across the ocean.

Celaena dropped to her knees on the damp ground and bowed her head before the grave.

Then she said the words she’d wanted to say to Nehemia last night. The words that she should have said from the beginning. Words that wouldn’t change, no matter what she learned about Nehemia’s death.

“I want you to know,” she whispered to the wind, to the earth, to the body far beneath her, “that you were right. You were right. I am a coward. And I have been running for so long that I’ve forgotten what it is to stand and fight.”

She bowed deeper, putting her forehead against the dirt.

“But I promise,” she breathed into the soil, “I promise that I will stop him. I promise that I will never forgive, never forget what they did to you. I promise that I will free Eyllwe. I promise that I will see your father’s crown restored to his head.”

She raised herself, drawing a dagger from her pocket, and sliced a line across her left palm. Blood welled, ruby-bright against the golden dawn, sliding down the side of her hand before she pressed her palm to the earth.

“I promise,” she whispered again. “On my name, on my life, even if it takes until my last breath, I promise I will see Eyllwe freed.”

She let her blood soak into the ground, willing it to carry the words of her oath to the Otherworld where Nehemia was safe at last. From now on, there would be no other oaths but this, no other contracts, no other obligations. Never forgive, never forget.

And she didn’t know how she would do it, or how long it would take, but she would see it through. Because Nehemia couldn’t.

Because it was time.

Chapter 55

The shattered lock on Celaena’s bedroom door still wasn’t fixed by the time Dorian appeared after breakfast, a stack of books in his arms. She stood before her bed, stuffing clothing into a large leather satchel. Fleetfoot was the first to acknowledge him, though he had no doubt Celaena heard him coming from the hallway.

The dog limped to him, tail wagging, and Dorian set the books on the desk before kneeling on the plush rug. He ran his hands over Fleetfoot’s head, letting her lick him a few times.

“The healer said her leg is going to be fine,” Celaena said, still focused on her satchel. Her left hand was bandaged—a wound he hadn’t noticed last night. “She just left a few minutes ago.”

“Good,” Dorian said, rising to his feet. She was wearing a heavy tunic and pants and a thick cloak. Her brown boots were sturdy and sensible, far more subdued than her usual attire. Traveling clothes. “Were you going to leave without saying good-bye?”

“I thought it would be easier this way,” she said. In two hours, she would sail to Wendlyn, that land of myths and monsters, a kingdom of dreams and nightmares made flesh.

Dorian approached her. “This plan is madness. You don’t have to go. We can convince my father to do something else. If they catch you in Wendlyn—”

“They won’t catch me.”

“There will be no help for you,” Dorian said, putting a hand on the satchel. “If you are captured, if you are hurt, you are beyond our reach. You will be entirely on your own.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“But I won’t be. Every day that you’re there, I will wonder what has become of you. I won’t … I won’t forget you. Not for one hour.”

Her throat bobbed, the only sign of emotion she allowed to show, and she looked toward her dog, watching them from the rug. “Will you …” He watched her swallow again before meeting his gaze. The gold in her eyes glowed in the morning sun. “Will you look after her while I’m gone?”

He took her hand, squeezing. “As if she’s one of my own. I’ll even let her sleep in the bed.”

She gave him a small smile, and he had a feeling that any greater sign of emotion would shatter her self-control. He waved a hand to the books he’d brought. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need a place to store these, and your rooms might be … safer than mine.”

She glanced at the desk but, to his relief, didn’t go to it. The books he’d brought would only lead to more questions. Geneaologies, royal chronicles, anything on how and why he might have magic. “Of course,” was all she said. “I think The Walking Dead is still floating around in here, anyway. Maybe it’ll be glad to have company.”

He might have smiled had it not been eerily true. “I’ll leave you to your packing. I have a council meeting at the same time your ship departs,” he said, fighting the ache in his chest. It was a lie—and a bad one. But he didn’t want to be at the docks, not when he knew someone else would be there to see her off. “So … I suppose this is good-bye.” He didn’t know whether he was allowed to embrace her anymore, so he stuffed his hands into his pockets and gave her a smile. “Take care of yourself.”

A faint nod.

They were friends now, and he knew that the physical boundaries between them had been altered, but … He turned away rather than let her see the disappointment he knew was all too clear on his face.

He took all of two steps toward the door before she spoke, the words soft and strained. “Thank you for all that you have done for me, Dorian. Thank you for being my friend. For not being like the others.”

He paused, turning to face her. She kept her chin high, but her eyes were gleaming.

“I’ll come back,” she said quietly. “I’ll come back for you.” And he knew that there was more that she wasn’t saying, some bigger meaning behind those words.

But Dorian still believed her.

The docks were crowded with sailors and slaves and workers loading and unloading cargo. The day was warm and breezy, the first hint of spring in the air, and the sky was cloudless. A good day for sailing.

Celaena stood before the ship that would carry her through the first leg of the journey. It would sail to a prearranged location where a ship from Wendlyn would meet it to take aboard refugees fleeing the shadow of Adarlan’s empire. Most of the women traveling on her ship were already belowdecks. She shifted the fingers of her bandaged left hand, wincing at the dull pain radiating outward from her palm.

She had hardly slept that night, holding Fleetfoot close to her instead. Saying good-bye an hour ago had been like ripping out a piece of her heart, but the dog’s leg was still too injured for her to risk the journey to Wendlyn.

She hadn’t wanted to see Chaol, hadn’t bothered saying good-bye, because she had so many questions for him that it was easier not to ask at all. Hadn’t he known what an impossible trap he was setting for her now?

The ship captain bellowed a five-minute departure warning. The sailors started scrambling, doubling their efforts to prepare to leave the harbor and set out down the Avery, and then into the Great Ocean itself.

To Wendlyn.

She swallowed hard. Do what needs to be done, Elena had told her. Did that mean actually killing the royal family of Wendlyn, or something else?

A salty breeze ruffled her hair, and she stepped forward.

But someone emerged from the shadows of the buildings lining the docks.

“Wait,” Chaol said.

Celaena froze as he walked to her, and didn’t move even when she found herself looking up into his face.

“Do you understand why I did this?” he asked softly.

She nodded, but said, “I have to return here.”

“No,” he said, his eyes flashing. “You—”

“Listen.”

She had five minutes. She couldn’t explain it to him now—couldn’t explain that the king would kill him if she didn’t return. That knowledge could be fatal to him. And even if he ran away, the king had threatened Nehemia’s family, too.

But she knew that Chaol was trying to protect her. And she couldn’t leave him wholly ignorant. Because if she did die in Wendlyn, if something happened to her …

“Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you.”

His brows rose. But she didn’t give herself a moment to reconsider, to second-guess her decision.

As succinctly as she could, she told him about the Wyrdkeys. She told him about the Wyrdgates, and about Baba Yellowlegs. She told him about the papers she’d stashed down in the tomb—the riddle with the locations of the three Wyrdkeys. And then she told him that she knew the king had at least one. And that there was a dead creature sealed beneath the library. And that he should never open the door to the catacombs—never. And that Roland and Kaltain might be part of some bigger, deadlier plan.

And when that horrible truth had been revealed, she unfastened the Eye of Elena from her neck and folded it into his palm. “Never take it off. It will protect you from harm.”

He was shaking his head, his face deathly pale. “Celaena, I can’t—”

“I don’t care if you go looking for the keys, but someone has to know about them. Someone other than me. All the proof is in the tomb.”

Chaol grabbed her hand with his free one. “Celaena—”

“Listen,” she repeated. “If you hadn’t convinced the king to send me away, we could have … figured them out together. But now …”

Two minutes, the sea captain shouted. Chaol was just staring at her, such grief and fear in his eyes that speech failed her.

And then she did the most reckless thing she’d ever done in her life. She stood on her toes and whispered the words into his ear.

The words that would make him understand, understand why it was so important to her, and what it meant when she said she would return. And he would hate her forever for it, once he understood.

“What does that mean?” he demanded.

She smiled sadly. “You’ll figure it out. And when you do …” She shook her head, knowing she shouldn’t say it, but doing it anyway. “When you do, I want you to remember that it wouldn’t have made any difference to me. It’s never made any difference to me when it came to you. I’d still pick you. I’ll always pick you.”

“Please—please, just tell me what that means.”

But there was no time, so she shook her head and stepped back.

Chaol took one step toward her, though. One step, then he said, “I love you.”

She strangled the sob that built in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said, hoping he would remember those words later—later, when he knew everything.

Her legs found the strength to move. She took a breath. And with a final look at Chaol, she strode up the gangplank. Taking no notice of those onboard, she set down her sack and took up a place by the railing. She looked down at the dock to find Chaol still standing by the walkway as it was lifted.

The ship’s captain called for them to cast off. Sailors scurried, ropes were untied, tossed, and tied again, and the ship lurched. Her hands clasped the railing so hard they hurt.

The ship began moving. And Chaol—the man she hated and loved so much that she could hardly think around him—just stood there, watching her go.

The current grabbed the ship, and the city began to diminish. The ocean breeze soon caressed her neck, but she never stopped staring at Chaol. She stared toward him until the glass castle was a sparkling speck in the distance. She stared toward him until there was only gleaming ocean around her. She stared toward him until the sun dropped beyond the horizon and a smattering of stars hung overhead.

It was only when her eyelids drooped and she swayed on her feet that Celaena stopped staring toward Chaol.

The smell of salt filled her nostrils, so different from the salt of Endovier, and a spirited wind whipped through her hair.

With a hiss through her teeth, Celaena Sardothien turned her back on Adarlan and sailed toward Wendlyn.

Chapter 56

Chaol didn’t understand what she’d told him, the words she’d whispered in his ear. It was a date. Not even a year attached to it. A month and a day—a date that had passed weeks and weeks ago. It was the day that Celaena had left the city. The day she had snapped at Endovier a year before. The day her parents had died.

He stayed on the docks long after the ship was out of the harbor, watching its sails become smaller and smaller as he mulled over the date again and again. Why had she told him everything about those—those Wyrdkeys, but made this hint so obscure? What could possibly be more important than the horrible truth about the king he served?

The Wyrdkeys, while they terrified him, made sense. They explained so much. The king’s great power, his journeys that ended with the whole party mysteriously dying, how Cain had become so strong. Even that time Chaol had looked at Perrington and seen his eyes darken so strangely. But when she’d told him, had she known what kind of choice she’d left him? And what could he possibly do about it from Anielle?

Unless he could find a way out of the vow he’d made. He’d never said when he would go to Anielle. He could think about that tomorrow. For now …

When Chaol returned to the castle, he went to her rooms, sorting through the contents of her desk. But there was nothing about that date. He checked the will she’d written, but that had been signed several days after. The silence and emptiness of her chambers threatened to swallow him whole, and he was about to leave when he spotted the stack of books half hidden in the shadows of her desk.

Geneaologies and countless royal chronicles. When had she brought these books here? He hadn’t seen them the other night. Was it somehow another clue? Standing before the desk, he pulled out the royal chronicles—all from the the past eighteen years—and started back, one by one. Nothing.

Then came the chronicle from ten years ago. It was thicker than all the rest—as it should be, given the events that had happened that year. But when he saw what was written about the date she had given, everything froze.

This morning, King Orlon Galathynius, his nephew and heir, Rhoe Galathynius, and Rhoe’s wife, Evalin, were found assassinated. Orlon was murdered in his bed at the royal palace in Orynth, and Rhoe and Evalin were found dead in their beds at their country estate along the River Florine. There is no word yet about the fate of Rhoe and Evalin’s daughter, Aelin

.

Chaol grabbed for the first geneaology book, the one on the bloodlines of the royal houses of Adarlan and Terrasen. Was Celaena trying to tell him she knew the truth about what had happened that night—that she might know where the lost princess Aelin was hiding? That she had been there when this all happened?

He flipped through the pages, scanning the genealogies he had already read. But then he remembered something about the name Evalin Ashryver. Ashryver.

Evalin had come from Wendlyn, had been a princess of the king’s court. Hands shaking, he yanked out a book containing Wendlyn’s royal family tree.

On the last page, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius’s name was written at the bottom, and above it, her mother, Evalin’s. But the family tree traced only the female line. The female, not the male, because—

Two spots above Evalin’s name was written Mab. Aelin’s great-grandmother. She was one of the three Fae Sister-Queens: Maeve, Mora, and Mab. Mab, the youngest, the fairest, who, when she died, had been made into a goddess, known to them now as Deanna, Lady of the Hunt.

The memory hit him like a brick to the face. That Yulemas morning, when Celaena had looked so uncomfortable to be receiving the golden arrow of Deanna—the arrow of Mab.

And Chaol counted down the family tree, one after one, until—

My great-grandmother was Fae.

Chaol had to brace a hand against the desk. No, it couldn’t be. He turned back to the chronicle still lying open, and turned to the next day.

Aelin Galathynius, heir to the throne of Terrasen, died today, or sometime in the night. Before help could reach her deceased parents’ estate, the assassin who had missed her the night before returned. Her body has still not been found, though some believe it was thrown into the river behind her parents’ house

.

She’d once said that Arobynn had … had found her. Found her half-dead and frozen. On a riverbank.

He was just jumping to conclusions. Maybe she merely wanted him to know that she still cared about Terrasen, or—

There was a poem scribbled at the top of the Ashryver family tree, as though some student had dashed it down it as a reminder while studying.

Ashryver Eyes

The fairest eyes, from legends old

Of brightest blue, ringed with gold.

Bright blue eyes, ringed with gold. A strangled cry came out of him. How many times had he looked into those eyes? How many times had he seen her avert her gaze, that one bit of proof she couldn’t hide, from the king?

Celaena Sardothien wasn’t in league with Aelin Ashryver Galathynius.

Celaena Sardothien was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne and rightful Queen of Terrasen.

Celaena was Aelin Galathynius, the greatest living threat to Adarlan, the one person who could raise an army capable of standing against the king. Now, she was also the one person who knew the secret source of the king’s power—and who sought a way to destroy it.

And he had just sent her into the arms of her strongest potential allies: to the homeland of her mother, the kingdom of her cousin, and the domain of her aunt, Queen Maeve of the Fae.

Celaena was the lost Queen of Terrasen.

Chaol sank to his knees.

Acknowledgements

More than anyone, this novel belongs to Susan Dennard. For being the kind of friend that usually exists only in books. For being a friend worth waiting for. For being my anam cara. Thank you for the (mis)adventures, for laughing until our stomachs hurt, and for all the joy you’ve brought into my world. Love you.

Endless gratitude to my A Team: my incredible agent, Tamar Rydzinski; my stellar editor, Margaret Miller; and the incomparable Michelle Nagler. I’m tremendously blessed to have you in my corner. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.

To my good friend and critique partner, Alex Bracken, who never fails to offer sage advice and brilliant ideas, and who has talked me off many, many ledges. Thank you for being one of the bright lights on this journey. To Erin “Ders” Bowman, for the Friday chats, shenanigans in “Wilderness,” and being a fellow survivor of the brutal 2012 crawfish attack in Lake Glenville, North Carolina. I’m so glad I e-mailed you.

Thanks are also due to Amie Kaufman, Kat Zhang, and Jane Zhao, who have been everything from sounding boards to critique partners to cheerleaders, but always wonderful friends. To the ridiculously clever Biljana Likic, for helping with the riddle all those years ago. To Dan “DKroks” Krokos, for being a true friend and partner in crime. To the legendary Robin Hobb, for taking two debut authors to dinner in Decatur, Georgia—thank you for the wisdom and kindness you showed me and Susan.

There are so many people who work so tirelessly to make my books a reality and get them into readers’ hands. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Erica Barmash, Emma Bradshaw, Susannah Curran, Beth Eller, Alona Fryman, Shannon Godwin, Natalie Hamilton, Bridget Hartzler, Katy Hershberger, Melissa Kavonic, Linette Kim, Ian Lamb, Cindy Loh, Donna Mark, Patricia McHugh, Rebecca McNally, Regina Roff Flath, Rachel Stark, and Brett Wright. And a huge thank-you to the entire worldwide team at Bloomsbury—it’s an honor to work with you all.

A giant hug for my parents, family, and friends—thank you for the unwavering support. And to my amazing husband, Josh: there aren’t enough words in any language to describe how much I love you.

Thank you to Janet Cadsawan, who makes the world of Throne of Glass come alive with her stunning jewelry. And thank you to Kelly de Groot for the map, the enthusiasm, and just for being awesome.

To my readers: thank you for making this journey such a fairy tale; thank you for the letters and art and for coming to my events; thank you for spreading the word about this series; thank you for letting Celaena into your hearts. You make the long hours and hard work absolutely worth it.

And lastly, I’d like to thank my FictionPress readers, who have been with me for so many years, and to whom I owe a debt I can never repay. No matter where this road takes me, I’ll be forever grateful that it brought you into my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Books by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass

Crown of Midnight

Throne of Glass novellas

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord

The Assassin and the Desert

The Assassin and the Underworld

The Assassin and the Empire

Text copyright © 2013 by Sarah J. Maas

Map copyright © 2012 by Kelly de Groot

All rights reserved

You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

First published in the United States of America in August 2013

by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

www.bloomsbury.com

This electronic edition published in 2013

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maas, Sarah J.

Crown of midnight / by Sarah J. Maas.

pages cm

Sequel to: Throne of glass.

Summary: As the royal assassin to an evil king, eighteen-year-old Celaena Sardothien

must decide what she will fight for: survival, love, or the future of a kingdom.

[1. Fantasy. 2. Assassins—Fiction. 3. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction.

4. Courts and courtiers—Fiction. 5. Love—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M111575Cr 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2013009063

eISBN: 978-1-6196-3063-5

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