Authors: Sarah J. Maas
Consequences be damned. He’d find a way to make it work; he’d find a way to be with her. He had to.
He had leapt from the cliff. He could only wait for the net.
•
In the garden, the Captain of the Guard stared up at the young woman’s balcony, watching as she waltzed alone, lost in her dreams. But he knew that her thoughts weren’t of him.
She stopped and stared upward. Even from a distance, he could see the blush upon her cheeks. She seemed young—no, new. It made his chest ache.
Still, he watched, watched until she sighed and went inside. She never bothered to look below.
Celaena groaned as something cold and wet brushed her cheek and moved to lick her face. She opened an eye and found the puppy looking down at her, its tail wagging. Adjusting herself in the bed, she winced at the sunlight. She hadn’t meant to sleep in. They had a Test in two days, and she needed to train. It was their last Test before the final duel—the Test that decided who the four finalists would be.
Celaena rubbed an eye and then scratched the dog behind the ears. “Have you peed somewhere and wish to tell me about it?”
“Oh no,” said someone as the bedroom door swung open—Dorian. “I took her out at dawn with the other dogs.”
She smiled weakly as he approached. “Isn’t it rather early for a visit?”
“Early?” He laughed, sitting on the bed. She inched away. “It’s almost one in the afternoon! Philippa told me you’ve been sleeping like the dead all morning.”
One! She’d slept that long? What about lessons with Chaol? She scratched her nose and pulled the puppy onto her lap. At least nothing had happened last night; if there had been another attack, she would have heard about it already. She almost sighed with relief, though the guilt of what she’d done—how little faith she’d had in Nehemia—still made her a tad miserable.
“Have you named her yet?” he asked—casual, calm, collected. Was he acting that way for show, or was their kiss just not that important to him?
“No,” she said, keeping her face neutral, even though she wanted to scream from the awkwardness. “I can’t think of anything appropriate.”
“What about,” he said, tapping his chin, “Gold . . . ie?”
“That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”
“Can you think of something better?”
She picked up one of the dog’s legs and examined the soft paws. She squished the padded foot beneath her thumb. “Fleetfoot.” It was a perfect name. In fact, it felt as if the name had existed all along, and she’d finally been clairvoyant enough to stumble across it. “Yes, Fleetfoot it is.”
“Does it mean anything?” he asked, and the dog raised her head to look at him.
“It’ll mean something when she outruns all of your
purebreds
.” Celaena scooped the dog into her arms and kissed her head. She bounced her arms up and down, and Fleetfoot stared up into her eyes with a wrinkled brow. She was absurdly soft and cuddly.
Dorian chuckled. “We’ll see.” Celaena set the dog down on the bed. Fleetfoot promptly crawled under the blankets and disappeared.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“Yes. Though it seems you didn’t, if you were up so early.”
“Listen,” he began, and Celaena wanted to throw herself from the balcony. “Last night . . . I’m sorry if I was too forward with you.” He paused. “Celaena, you’re grimacing.”
Had she been making a face? “Er—sorry.”
“It
did
upset you, then!”
“What did?”
“The kiss!”
Phlegm caught in her throat, and the assassin coughed. “Oh, it was nothing,” she said, thumping her chest as she cleared her throat. “I didn’t mind it. But I didn’t hate it, if that’s what you’re thinking!” She immediately regretted saying it.
“So, you
liked
it?” He grinned lazily.
“No! Oh, go away!” She flung herself onto her pillows, pulling the blankets above her head. She was going to die from embarrassment.
Fleetfoot licked her face as she hid in the darkness of the sheets. “Come now,” he said. “From your reaction, one would think you’d never been kissed.”
She threw back the blankets, and Fleetfoot burrowed farther beneath. “Of course I’ve been kissed,” she snapped, trying not to think about Sam and what she’d shared with him. “But it wasn’t by some stuffed shirt, pompous, arrogant princeling!”
He looked down at his chest. “Stuffed shirt?”
“Oh, hush up,” she said, hitting him with a pillow. She moved to the other side of the bed, got up, and walked to the balcony.
She felt him watching her, staring at her back and the three scars she knew her low-cut nightgown did nothing to hide. “Are you going to remain here while I change?”
She faced him. He wasn’t looking at her the way he had the night before. There was something wary in his gaze—and something unspeakably sad. Her blood thrummed in her veins. “Well?”
“Your scars are awful,” he said, almost whispering.
She put a hand on a hip and walked to the dressing room door. “We all bear scars, Dorian. Mine just happen to be more visible than most. Sit there if you like, but I’m going to get dressed.” She strode from the room.
•
Kaltain walked beside Duke Perrington through the endless tables of the palace greenhouse. The giant glass building was full of shadows and light, and she fanned herself as the steamy heat smothered her face. The man picked the most absurd places to walk. She had about as much interest in the plants and flowers as she did in a mud puddle on the side of a street.
He picked a lily—snow white—and handed it to her with a bow of his head. “For you.” She tried not to cringe at the sight of his pocked, ruddy skin and orange mustache. The thought of being stuck with
him
made her want to rip all the plants out by their roots and throw them into the snow.
“Thank you,” she said huskily.
But Perrington studied her closely. “You seem out of spirits today, Lady Kaltain.”
“Do I?” She cocked her head in her coyest expression. “Perhaps today pales in comparison to the fun I had at the ball last night.”
The duke’s black eyes bored into her, though, and he frowned as he put a hand on her elbow and steered her on. “You needn’t pretend with me. I noticed you watching the Crown Prince.”
Kaltain gave away nothing as she raised her manicured brows and looked sidelong at him. “Was I?”
Perrington ran a meaty finger down the spine of a fern. The black ring on his finger pulsed, and her head gave a throb of pain in response. “I noticed him, too. The girl, specifically. She’s troublesome, isn’t she?”
“Lady Lillian?” Kaltain blinked this time, unsure whether she could sag with relief just yet. He hadn’t noticed her
wanting
the prince, but rather that she’d noticed how Lillian and Dorian clung to each other all night.
“So she calls herself,” Perrington murmured.
“That’s not her name?” Kaltain asked before she could think.
The duke turned to her, his eyes as black as his ring. “You don’t honestly believe that girl is a purebred lady?”
Kaltain’s heart stopped. “She’s truly not?” And then Perrington smiled, and finally told her everything.
When Perrington finished, Kaltain could only stare at him. An assassin. Lillian Gordaina was Celaena Sardothien, the world’s most notorious assassin. And she had her claws in Dorian’s heart. If Kaltain wanted Dorian’s hand, then she’d need to be far, far cleverer. Simply revealing who Lillian truly was might be enough. But it might not. Kaltain couldn’t afford to take risks. The greenhouse was silent, as if it held its breath.
“How can we let this go on? How can we allow the prince to endanger himself like that?” Perrington’s face shifted for a moment, toward something pained and ugly—but it was so fast she barely noticed it above the pounding rising in her head. She needed her pipe—needed to calm down before she had a fit.
“We can’t,” Perrington said.
“But how can we stop them? Tell the king?”
Perrington shook his head, putting a hand on his broadsword as he thought for a moment. She examined a rosebush and traced a long nail along the curve of a thorn. “She’s to face the remaining Champions in a duel,” he said slowly. “And in the duel, she’ll drink a toast in honor of the Goddess and gods.” It wasn’t just her too-tight corset that stole the breath from Kaltain as the duke went on. She lowered her hand from the thorn. “I was going to ask you to preside over the toast—as a representation of the Goddess. Perhaps you could slip something into her drink.”
“Kill her myself?” Hiring someone was one thing, but to do it herself . . .
The duke raised his hands. “No, no. But the king has agreed that drastic measures should be taken, in a way that will make Dorian believe things were . . . an accident. If we were merely to give her a dose of bloodbane, not lethal, but just enough to cause her to lose control, it would give Cain the advantage he needs.”
“Cain can’t kill her on his own? Accidents happen all the time in duels.” Her head gave a sharp, intense throb that echoed through her body. Maybe drugging her might be easier . . .
“Cain thinks he can, but I don’t like taking risks.” Perrington grasped her hands. His ring was ice-cold against her skin, and she fought the urge to rip her hands from his grip. “Don’t you want to help Dorian? Once he’s free of her . . .”
Then he’ll be mine. He’ll be mine, as he should be.
But to kill for it . . .
He’ll be mine.
“Then we’ll be able to get him on the right path, won’t we?” Perrington finished with a broad smile that made her instincts tell her to run and run and never look back.
But all her mind could see was a crown and throne, and the prince who would sit by her side. “Tell me what I need to do,” she said.
The clock chimed ten, and Celaena, seated at the small desk in her bedroom, looked up from her book. She should be sleeping, or at least trying to. Fleetfoot, dozing in her lap, yawned widely. Celaena scratched her behind the ears and ran a hand along the page of the book. Wyrdmarks stared up at her, their intricate curves and angles speaking a language she couldn’t yet begin to decipher. How long had it taken Nehemia to learn them? And, she wondered darkly, how could their power possibly still work when magic itself was gone?
She hadn’t seen Nehemia since the ball last night, hadn’t dared to approach her, or tell Chaol what she’d learned. Nehemia had been deceitful about her language skills, and how much she knew about the Wyrdmarks, but she could have any number of reasons for that. Celaena had been wrong to go to the ball last night, wrong to believe Nehemia was capable of such bad things. Nehemia was one of the good ones. She wouldn’t target Celaena, not when they’d been friends. They
had
been friends. Celaena swallowed the tightness in her throat and turned the page. Her heart stopped.
There, looking up at her, were the symbols she’d seen near the bodies. And in the margin, written by someone centuries ago, was the explanation:
For sacrifices to the ridderak: using the victim’s blood, mark the area around it accordingly. Once the creature has been summoned, these marks guide the exchange: for the flesh of the sacrifice, the beast will grant you the victim’s strength.
Celaena fought to keep her hands from trembling as she flipped through the pages, searching for anything about the marks under her bed. When the book yielded nothing, she returned to the summoning spell. A ridderak—that was the name of the beast? What was it? Where had it been summoned from, if it wasn’t—
The Wyrdgates. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. Someone was actually using the Wyrdmarks to open a portal to summon this creature. It was impossible, because magic was gone, but the texts said Wyrdmarks existed
outside
of magic. What if their power still worked? But . . . but Nehemia? How could her friend do such a thing? Why did she need the Champions’ strength? And how could she keep everything hidden so well?
Yet Nehemia could easily be a cunning actress. And maybe Celaena had
wanted
a friend—wanted someone as different and outsiderly as she was. Maybe she’d been too willing, too desperate, to see anything but what she wanted to see. Celaena took a steadying breath. Nehemia loved Eyllwe—that was certainly true—and Celaena knew there was nothing Nehemia wouldn’t do to keep her country safe. Unless . . .
Ice moved through Celaena’s veins. Unless Nehemia was here to start something bigger—unless she didn’t want to make sure the king spared Eyllwe at all. Unless she wanted what few dared whisper:
rebellion
. And not rebellion as it was now, with rebel groups hiding out in the wilderness, but rather rebellion in the sense of entire kingdoms rising up against Adarlan—as it should have been from the start.
But why kill the Champions? Why not target royals? The ball would have been perfect for that. Why use Wyrdmarks? She’d seen Nehemia’s rooms; there were no signs of a demon beast lurking about, and nowhere in the castle where she could—
Celaena’s eyes rose from the book. Blocked by the giant chest of drawers, the tapestry still rippled in a phantom breeze. There was nowhere in the castle to summon or hide a creature like that, except for the endless, forgotten chambers and tunnels running beneath it.