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Chapter Text

Celaena had sworn Nox to secrecy the night before in the corridor but his eyes bored into her back as they sat down at the council table. She refused to look at him. An uneasy silence, full of secrets, lay between them.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is dead, she’d said. And she’d meant it.

That girl had died in the ravine ten years ago.

After everything that had happened the night before, she hadn’t been able to sleep, her thoughts too loud for the silence of her room. So she’d snuck out through the secret passageways, testing the forgotten escape route deep beneath the castle for the first time, and gone hunting.

The thrill of the chase after so many months of humiliating, backbreaking labour was wonderful. She hadn’t quite known where she was going, but a rage simmered deep in her blood, her heartbeat thrumming with the cadence of all the scores that still needed to be settled.

On a whim, she’d gone down to the Vaults, looking perhaps for someone to fight and let out all the restless energy, but she’d gotten lucky. There, seated at the bar and nursing a mug of questionable contents, was Tern.

She’d enjoyed chasing him through the streets and leaving his body in a back alley near the Keep. Hopefully, Arobynn saw her message and knew his days were numbered. As for the rest of them, she’d get them soon enough, pick them off one by one. 

Let them realize the horror of the monster they’d unleashed when they’d killed Sam.

She’d taken her time, made sure to draw it out, made sure that Tern understood exactly what she and Sam had gone through with his betrayal. And when she was finally done with him, when his cries had tapered out and she’d granted him the oblivion of a slit throat, she’d rolled his body over and carved a message into his skin, right between his shoulder blades.

Right where a dagger would strike to stab someone in the back.

A single letter.

S

She didn’t remember much of how she’d gotten back to her rooms, only vaguely aware of stripping off her bloodied tunics and scrubbing at her skin with a damp washcloth before collapsing into bed, finally exhausted mentally and physically, and slipped into nightmares.

In the morning, she’d been treated to a lecture by Philippa, who, upon helping her dress for the day’s activities, had noticed the blood crusted beneath her fingernails that she hadn’t managed to clean off in the washbasin the night before. Philippa’s eyes had widened momentarily before they’d narrowed again, and then Celaena was subjected to a twenty-minute scolding about her safety and appropriate nighttime activities.

(“Honestly, poppet, at least wear gloves next time. You’ll ruin the paint on your nails.”)

She hadn’t asked where the blood had come from, hadn’t even asked if Celaena had merely punched someone or if she’d done far worse. She hadn’t even asked how she’d gotten out of rooms that should, by all means, be securely locked and guarded.

She hadn’t asked, and Celaena hadn’t offered an explanation.

It seemed, judging by the lack of chains around her wrists and the fact that she wasn’t currently being dragged to the dungeons, that Philippa hadn’t told Chaol or Dorian, either.

Seated in what was becoming her seat between Nehemia and Rowan, Celaena crossed her arms and scowled. The others filed around into the room in fragile silence, taking their seats. Most of the guards standing at attention at the exits pretended they weren’t looking at her, though she could sense their eyes on her, and the other Champions were watching her with varying degrees of pity and wariness. 

She hated the pity. Hated it. But the wariness was nice. It was about time they started treating her like the threat she was. Having to pretend to be a useless jewel thief these past months had rankled her pride and it’d be nice to not have to hold back in training anymore. 

Dorian had cancelled that morning’s training and Chaol hadn’t come to wake her for their run, either. She figured he’d been too preoccupied with everything the books had revealed, on top of whatever was stalking the Champions, to even remember their schedule. As for Dorian, Celaena was certain he was far too excited to be included in the books beyond a mere mention at a clandestine party.

That was, if this book even included the events of the Competition. She eyed the stack of books warily. For all she knew, she’d be subjected to days of reliving every horrible detail of Endovier before they’d even get to her release. 

She prayed to gods that had forgotten her that it wouldn’t play out like that.

Dorian cleared his throat, drawing their attention to the dais. Chaol stood beside him, ever the vigilant, scowling Captain, but Dorian flashed a bright smile. “Welcome back. I won’t waste your time, you all know why you’re here, so I’ll begin.” He waved a hand at a servant, who brought a leather-bound book over to him. Dorian took it and flipped the first page, clearing his throat. “Throne of Glass. Chapter one.”

After a year of slavery in the Salt Mines of Endovier,

Celaena let out an almost imperceptible breath of air, sounding vaguely like she’d been punched. Perhaps the gods had heard her plea after all.

It was still bound to be horrible and humiliating, but at least it didn’t seem like this book would begin immediately where the last one had ended.

Celaena Sardothien was accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point.

Chaol scowled. Catching his eye, Celaena gave a wicked grin.

… What she did not usually expect, however, was a hooded man in black at her side—as there was now. 

Chaol’s scowl deepened as Celaena’s grin widened.

Telmor raised an eyebrow, looking between the two of them.

He gripped her arm as he led her through the shining building in which most of Endovier’s officials and overseers were housed. 

All at once, Celaena’s grin disappeared, the corners of her mouth pulling back in a snarl. 

Rowan leaned over. “They’ll get their due. You ensure it.”

Celaena eyed him. “Do I?”

He nodded, ignoring the painful thumping of his heart in his chest as he remembered what Aedion and Lysandra had told him had happened with the overseer in Brannon’s temple at Ilium.

They strode down corridors, up flights of stairs, and around and around until she hadn’t the slightest chance of finding her way out again. 

At least, that was her escort’s intention… 

Chaol scowled even harder as Nehemia suppressed a smile and Celaena’s lips twitched upwards once again.

“Something tells me you will not endear yourself to the Captain over the next few chapters,” the princess said in Eyllwe.

“Something tells me the same thing,” Celaena agreed, eyes twinkling with mischief. “I think I spend a good deal of the ride to Rifthold plotting how best to kill them.”

Nehemia laughed softly.

She might have been insulted if he wasn’t trying so hard. 

Rested and looking much better than he had the day before, Pelor coughed a laugh into his fist. Telmor shot him a warning look. 

… His head shifted in her direction, and Celaena flashed him a grin. He looked forward again, his iron grip tightening.

Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose, though he too was struggling to suppress a grin. “Why do you insist on antagonizing the people who want to kill you, Celaena?”

Celaena shrugged. “I suppose it’s just one of my many talents.”

It was flattering, she supposed…

Telmor sighed. “Only you could find that flattering.”

“I worked hard for my reputation,” Celaena said, leaning back in her chair. “It’s nice to have people respect it.”

Telmor muttered something under his breath. Celaena had a feeling he was quietly scolding her.

even if she didn’t know what was happening, or why he’d been waiting for her outside the mine shaft. After a day of cleaving rock salt from the innards of the mountain, finding him standing there with six guards hadn’t improved her mood.

Some of the humour vanished from the room. It wasn’t as though they’d forgotten about her imprisonment, but rather it was a thing easily ignored with everything else that was going on.

Celaena’s arms ached, the muscles protesting from the memories of swinging the pickaxe into solid rock, feeling the reverberations ricochet up her brittle bones with every strike.

But her ears had pricked when he’d introduced himself to her overseer as Chaol Westfall, Captain of the Royal Guard, and suddenly, the sky loomed, the mountains pushed from behind, and even the earth swelled toward her knees. 

“Freedom?” Pelor asked quietly.

Celaena shrugged. “Freedom or death. Some days, I’m not so sure they’re two different things.”

Rowan swallowed heavily, fighting the urge to hold her hand. She’d let him the other day, when she was under stress and emotionally exhausted, but again, this was Celaena, not Aelin, beside him. Celaena was just as likely to stab him for taking liberties as she was to let him hold her hand.

She hadn’t tasted fear in a while—hadn’t let herself taste fear. 

“To admit to fear is to give them a hold over you,” Celaena said. “And then it’s only a matter of time before they break you completely.”

Telmor frowned. “Fear is natural, Celaena.”

“Not for me,” Celaena said, shaking her head. “I'm the thing other people fear.” 

Rowan smiled ruefully. Aelin certainly was afraid of many things and her nightmares had only gotten worse since they’d rescued her from Maeve. He was afraid constantly — mostly that she’d be taken away from him, her life the price to end the war. 

But he didn’t say anything.

When she awoke every morning, she repeated the same words: I will not be afraid.  

Celaena fought down the whimper that threatened to rise in her throat.

For a year, those words had meant the difference between breaking and bending; they had kept her from shattering in the darkness of the mines. Not that she’d let the captain know any of that. 

She scowled, crossing her arms and slouching in her chair. Of course, he knew now.

She dared a look at Chaol but was surprised to find his own gaze fixed on her, his brows pinched together in a frown.

Quickly, she looked away.

Celaena examined the gloved hand holding her arm. The dark leather almost matched the dirt on her skin. 

… She was frightfully pale beneath the dirt. It was true that she had been attractive once, beautiful even, but— well, it didn’t matter now, did it?

“Hey, you’re plenty pretty, Celaena!” Pelor said. “Even when you’re scowling.”

Renault coughed into his fist, hiding his grin as Telmor sighed heavily.

Celaena grinned and tilted her head. “I already know that, Pelor, but thank you.”  

Nehemia laughed quietly, her hand arched delicately over her mouth in an attempt to hide her smile. Dorian winked at her and Chaol scowl deepened even further, if possible.

But all that fell away when Rowan leaned over slightly and said, just loud enough for her to hear, “You’re lovely, Fireheart. Not even Mala compares to you.”

She felt her face heat, a blush beginning at the tips of her ears and continuing down her neck as Rowan sat back in his seat, still watching her with an expression of purely male satisfaction. 

Nehemia glanced between the two of them and hid another knowing smile.

… “You’re a long way from Rifthold, Captain,” she said, clearing her throat. “Did you come with the army I heard thumping around earlier?” 

Celaena willed the pink flush to leave her face. “The tunnels echoed terribly. When we first heard the horses, we wondered if it was thundering outside.”

She peered into the darkness beneath his hood but saw nothing. 

Chaol sighed. “The whole purpose was so you couldn’t see anything.”

Celaena shrugged. “It was worth a try — and besides, I was bored. Not much to do in the mines but at least cleaving salt kept your body busy and mind too tired to think. You dragged me all over Endovier for ever and there was nothing to do but torment you. What did you expect?”

“A mature assassin,” Chaol grumbled.

Rowan chuckled. “Unfortunately, Captain, she doesn’t get much better.”

Celaena squawked in outrage and smacked Rowan’s arm teasingly.

Still, she felt his eyes upon her face, judging, weighing, testing. She stared right back. The Captain of the Royal Guard would be an interesting opponent. Maybe even worthy of some effort on her part.

“I still beat you in training,” Chaol said.

Celaena just raised an eyebrow. “You beat me when I was two weeks out of Endovier. Trust me, Chaol, I’ll retrain my body and then I’ll whoop your ass.”

Chaol thought about all the times he’d walked into her room to find her dangling from the doorframe or balancing on the billiard balls. “You won’t,” he said, but it lacked conviction. 

Everyone in the room now knew who the better fighter was out of the two. The books had been true about everything else, after all. Even against the Captain of the Royal Guard, Adarlan’s Assassin would no doubt emerge victorious.

… “What do you care for the armies of Adarlan?” he replied. How lovely it was to hear a voice like her own—cool and articulate—even if he was a nasty brute!

Dorian suppressed a laugh and leaned close to Chaol, marking his page with a finger and keeping his voice low so they wouldn’t be overheard. “How will you ever get past such a first impression to romance Sardothien?”

Chaol scowled at him. “I don’t like her, Dorian,” he said but kept his voice low as well. “And besides,” he gave a nod in the direction of where Rowan and Celaena were sitting, “I don’t think either of us would have a chance.”

Dorian’s teasing grin disappeared as he watched Rowan say something he couldn’t make out to Celaena, who rolled her eyes but laughed. 

No, neither of them had a chance. Not anymore.

“Nothing,” she said, shrugging. He let out a low growl of annoyance.

“You can’t seriously expect me to feel anything except hatred for the armies of Adarlan,” Celaena said.

Chaol scowled but didn’t reply.

Oh, it’d be nice to see his blood spill across the marble. 

“Celaena,” Chaol warned, hand drifting down to the hilt of his sword.

Around the room, the guards copied him.

Celaena rolled her eyes. “Better get used to it, Captain. I don’t think this is the last time I debate killing you.”

His hand tightened around his sword.

She’d lost her temper once before—once, when her first overseer chose the wrong day to push her too hard. 

“What made that day so special?” Pelor asked quietly, eyes darting between Celaena and the scowling Captain of the Guard.

Celaena sighed and stared at her hands. The manacle scars around her wrists burned like new wounds. “It was the ninth anniversary of my parents’ deaths.”

It felt like the entire room had taken a collective breath. Dorian lowered the book. “Celaena—”

“Just continue reading,” she snapped, but it had no heat behind it. She stared out the window as he found his place again and watched the icy sleet spill down the coloured panes. 

She still remembered the feeling of embedding the pickax into his gut, and the stickiness of his blood on her hands and face. 

Celaena hummed quietly, flexing her fingers absentmindedly, as though she was remembering the impact reverberations through the wooden handle.

She could disarm two of these guards in a heartbeat. Would the captain fare better than her late overseer? 

Chaol’s scowl deepened further. “Celaena.”

“Captain,” she teased back.

Contemplating the potential outcomes, she grinned at him again. 

As she did now, wiggling her fingers at him in a mockery of a wave.

“Careful,” Rowan murmured beside her. “You’ll make him go grey before twenty-five.” When her grin broadened into a smirk, he sighed, but there was an amused edge to his voice as he said, “I’m sure you’d just see that as a personal achievement, but I doubt his wife would be very impressed.”

“His what?!” Celaena said, delighted. Her exclamation caught the attention of the others around the table, who’d been quietly listening to Dorian and ignoring the assassin and Fae prince muttering amongst themselves. “Who?”

Dorian shot Celaena a strange look, but she didn’t care. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. Oh, Rowan had no idea that kind of information he’d just handed over. She grinned at the Captain, imagining him with some simpering court lady on his arm and looking absolutely miserable. It would serve him right for making her life hell the past few months.

Rowan chuckled, taking in the look on her face. “You already know her.”

Celaena’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Please tell me it’s not Lysandra.”

Rowan’s lips twitched like he found that funny, like it was the punchline to some sort of secret joke the two of them shared in the future. “No, it’s not Lysandra.”

“Then who?” She mentally ran through her list of Rifthold high society, trying to match up a name with someone Chaol might know. It occurred to her then that Rowan had just said she knew her, not that Chaol did. That thought brought a whole level of absurdity into the situation.

“... It’s not Ansel, is it?” Celaena asked, dreading to hear the answer. “No, wait — you said she was with Ilias. So…”

Rowan shook his head but before he could say more, Dorian cleared his throat. His sapphire eyes sparkled with curiosity at their secret conversation, but he knew better than to pry now, in front of everyone.

Dorian found his place in the book and began reading once again.

… The only thing all the intended disorientation had accomplished was to familiarize her with the building. Idiots. 

Chaol’s left eye twitched. 

… The halls echoed too loudly for her to attack him without alerting the whole building. She hadn’t seen where he’d put the key to her irons, and the six guards who trailed them would be nuisances.

Nehemia raised an eyebrow. “Only nuisances?” she teased.

Celaena rolled her eyes good-naturedly, but she was grinning. “As I said before, they’re all idiots.”

“Men often are.”

Not to mention the shackles. 

Celaena winced, rubbing the scars around her wrists absentmindedly.

… From the courtyard, she could hear the other slaves shuffling toward the wooden building where they slept. The moans of agony amongst the clank of chains made a chorus as familiar as the dreary work songs they sang all day. 

Nehemia’s face betrayed nothing of what she was feeling, but her lips tightened momentarily. Her dark eyes bored holes into the book in Dorian’s hands and he shifted uneasily, feeling the intensity of her gaze directed at him.

The occasional solo of the whip

Celaena barely suppressed her flinch.

added to the symphony of brutality Adarlan had created for its greatest criminals, poorest citizens, and latest conquests.

A quiet moment of solidarity passed between Nehemia, Celaena, and Nox. They all understood the plight of those conquered peoples far too well.

Nox still couldn’t look at Celaena. Her words from the previous night echoed in his ears.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is dead.

He swallowed heavily and dropped his eyes to the table.

While some of the prisoners were people accused of attempting to practice magic—not that they could, given that magic had vanished from the kingdom—

Good riddance, was all Celaena could think. Her mouth went dry at the memory of her powers and their destructive nature. They’d probably have killed her by now, if magic had still existed. Then again, she thought, looking at her scar-flecked hands, at least she could have taken the king out in a blaze of glory with her.

As though reading her thoughts, Rowan glanced at her and frowned.

these days, more and more rebels arrived at Endovier. Most were from Eyllwe, one of the last countries still fighting Adarlan’s rule. 

Nehemia’s expression was unreadable. She sat there, one leg crossed delicately over the other and her hands clasped neatly in her lap as she listened in polite silence. Even her eyes, which had previously simmered with dark anger, had become a docile mask.

The perfect picture of a foreign princess grateful for the opportunity given to her by her overlords. Someone who was no threat at all.

Celaena was pretty sure most everyone in the room knew that was a lie.

But when she pestered them for news, many just stared at her with empty eyes. Already broken.

Hidden by the table, Nehemia’s hands clenched the fabric of her dress tightly.

She shuddered to consider what they’d endured at the hands of Adarlan’s forces. Some days, she wondered if they would have been better off dying on the butchering blocks instead. 

Nox shifted in his seat. That sentence took on a whole other meaning, now. If he’d known who she was from the start, if the world knew that the heir of Terrasen still lived, would anything have changed?

Could they have changed anything? The further into these books they read, the more he became convinced that they were all playing some long-forgotten game with incalculable stakes that no one understood, all for the amusement of the gods.

He swallowed heavily and tried not to think about everything Prince Rowan had told them over the past few days. To think about Celaena—Aelin— his queen —being tortured, flayed alive because she was trying desperately to keep together a world that was being torn apart by war…

And if she might have been better off dying that night she’d been betrayed and captured, too. 

“And now?” Telmor asked quietly. “Do you still think that?”

Celaena didn’t immediately respond, as though weighing the merits of answering truthfully. At last she said, “I don’t know. I would have liked to join my family and Sam in the afterworld — if I even managed to escape hell, that is — but if I had, I wouldn’t be here.” She took Nehemia’s hand and smiled softly. “There are bright spots in this world too, and I’m glad I got to experience more of them.”

Nehemia returned her smile with one of her own. “I am glad to know you as well, Elentyia.”

But she had other things to think about as they continued their walk. Was she finally to be hanged?

Dorian grimaced. It had been necessary to keep everything quiet, especially when they hadn’t known the state of her sanity after a year in the mines, and especially because they couldn’t trust her as far as they could throw her — not at that time, anyway. 

But now, it just made shame curl in his chest.

Sickness coiled in her stomach. She was important enough to warrant an execution from the Captain of the Royal Guard himself. …

“I always hated the idea of hanging,” Celaena said in the tense silence. “Asphyxiation is such an unpleasant way to die. Dorian, if you have to kill me—” He winced at that. “Make it quick.”

The temperature in the room plummeted at the reminder of her foolish taunt to the king.

Celaena kicked Rowan’s shin until he released his hold on his magic and returned the room to normal.

At last, they stopped before a set of red-and-gold glass doors so thick that she couldn’t see through them. 

Gods, the thought of the overseers and stupid councilmen profiting off her blood and sweat and using it to build opulent buildings in the middle of a death camp… It was like a giant smack in the face by cruel gods.

The killing calm had abated after she’d hunted Tern down, but now small flickers of it sparked to life in her blood, chanting a list of all of Adarlan’s crimes in the back of her mind until it became a deafening war march.

She clenched her hands on the armrests of her chair and forced that lethal cold back down. Now was not the time to open doors she’d spent a decade keeping under lock and chain.

… The captain’s grip tightened until it hurt. 

Chaol shifted on his feet. He remembered how fragile her arm had seemed under his hands, how it had felt like the slightest pressure could snap her brittle bones in half. And he’d contributed to that pain…

He yanked Celaena closer, but her feet seemed made of lead and she pulled against him. “You’d rather stay in the mines?” he asked, sounding faintly amused.

Rowan snarled quietly, turning to glare at the Captain. His pine green eyes shone with animal brightness and predatory intent.

Celaena kicked him again. “Quit it,” she hissed. “He’s not the first to hurt me, Buzzard, and he won’t be the last, so you’d better get used to it.”

“It shouldn’t have even happened,” he growled, still eyeing the Captain and prince like they might be his next meal.

“Well, we can’t change the past,” Celaena said, rolling her eyes, “so don’t get all worked up about it.”

A charged silence fell over the room, then. Rowan’s presence was proof that they could change the past. That the future he’d come from was so horrible it warranted the gods sending him back in time to give them all a better chance.

The rest of her argument died on her tongue.

“Perhaps if I were told what this was all about, I wouldn’t feel so inclined to resist.” 

“You’ll find out soon enough.” 

“Why can’t anyone ever give me a straight answer for once?” Celaena grumbled, crossing her arms.

A spark of humour cut through the anger in Rowan’s eyes. “Oh, so you’re complaining no one tells you anything?”

“What?” she asked.

“We usually find out your plans in the worst way possible,” Rowan said dryly. “Usually because you’ve sprung some sort of trap and gotten us all stuck in the middle of it without any idea what’s going on.”

Celaena huffed and crossed her arms, slouching in her seat slightly, but it was Renault who spoke. “‘Us?’ Who’s ‘us?’ You’ve mentioned companions a few times.”

Rowan paused, and Celaena could see the thoughts whirling through his mind. At last he said, “Prince Dorian and Captain Westfall. Lysandra, as well, and a few of Celaena’s childhood friends she thought had died in the fall of Terrasen, plus a handful of stray immortals.”

Everyone gave him confused and incredulous looks, but Celaena sat up ramrod straight. “Childhood friends? I had no friends as a child.”

Telmor sent her a pitying glance, which she promptly ignored. Rowan leaned over and whispered in her ear, so quietly only she could hear, “Aedion and Elide Lochan.”

She recoiled, staring at him wide-eyed. “But she’s dead and he— he’s—”

“No, they’re not,” Rowan said. His eyes were gentle when they locked onto hers and conveyed all the truths he couldn’t say here, in public.

She closed her eyes, pushing away the flashes of painful memories, and licked her lips. “... Please tell me everyone’s pretty, at least.”

Rowan barked out a laugh. “Prettiest group of wandering vagabonds you’ll ever see.”

“Good,” she smirked. “I’d hate to outshine everyone.”

You already do, Fireheart. And we both know you’d love that.

She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Um… can we go back to the part about immortals?” Pelor asked nervously.

Rowan gestured to his ears. “My bloodsworn companions, currently serving Maeve but in the future serving Celaena.” He ignored the horrible truths of why and how they’d gotten into that situation. “And Dorian decided to adopt a witch that was venomously against being adopted.”

Dorian choked. “A— A witch?”

Rowan shrugged. “I think Celaena’s habit of collecting strays rubbed off on you.”

Dorian stared at him for another long moment, then seemed to shake off his shock and found his place in the book again. This was too much. He could freak out about befriending a witch later. Preferably when he was alone in his tower and had plenty of pillows to scream into.

Her palms became sweaty. Yes, she was going to die. It had come at last. 

Celaena grimaced. “Not yet, it would seem.” 

“You do give the impression of being very difficult to kill,” Nehemia agreed, a teasing smile lilting at the corners of her mouth. “Like a cockroach.”

Celaena spluttered. “That was uncalled for!”

“Why? What did she say?” Pelor asked, looking between the two women in confusion. 

Celaena pouted as Nehemia laughed softly. “She’s being a mean friend.”

The doors groaned open to reveal a throne room. … Compared to the bleakness outside those windows, the opulence felt like a slap to the face. A reminder of how much they profited from her labor. 

The laughter disappeared. Both Celaena and Nehemia’s faces smoothed over into blank masks with such uncanny synchronization that it made several of the guards in the room shift uneasily.

“In here,” the Captain of the Guard growled, and shoved her with his free hand, finally releasing her. Celaena stumbled, her calloused feet slipping on the smooth floor as she straightened herself.

Rowan snarled, baring his teeth at the Captain. Chaol, at least, had the decency to look abashed.

She looked back to see another six guards appear. 

Fourteen guards, plus the captain. 

“Could you have taken them?” Pelor asked, morbid curiosity wrestling within him.

Celaena tilted her head, eyes unexpectedly dull even as the answer that came out of her mouth was calculated. “Maybe. If they were normal guards, definitely, but even I’d be hard-pressed to take on fifteen members of the royal guard after a year of hard labour in a death camp.”

“Could you do it now?” The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it and he shrunk back from the irritated looks many of the guards shot him.

Celaena smirked, a bit of her old self remerging from the bleakness. “Without a doubt.”

She flashed a grin, the sort that was a reminder of why baring teeth was a sign of aggression in most species. 

Several guards found their hands drifting down to the hilts of their swords.

The gold royal emblem embroidered on the breast of black uniforms. 

Rowan scowled. Not black on black, nothing that reeked of Valg and corruption.

Not yet.

He studied Cain out of the corner of his eye and wondered when it would be best to dispose of him. It wouldn’t do to have a Valg soldier wandering about the castle, even if Aelin said Cain was still fighting the thing inside him at this point. No, it would be best for everyone if Cain’s body suddenly ended up in a roadside ditch, but he had to play his cards carefully. He couldn’t give Erawan and the king the opportunity to start changing their plans.  

For now, he’d keep his hand close to his chest and watch each move the dealer made carefully. The right time would come, he knew it.

These were members of the Royal Family’s personal guard: ruthless, lightning-swift soldiers trained from birth to protect and kill. 

“Not quite from birth,” Dorian said, forcing a court-practiced smile on his face. “That would be absurd. They only start their training when they’re young boys, around the age of six or seven.”

The thought hit him then. Celaena had started her training only a few years later. She too was a weapon honed from childhood to kill and terrify.

He found his mouth to be suddenly dry as he contemplated that. 

How were they any better than Arobynn Hamel?

… Lightheaded and immensely heavy all at once, Celaena faced the room. On an ornate redwood throne sat a handsome young man. 

“I’m flattered you think so, my dearest champion,” Dorian grinned, pushing past all the terrible realizations to be dealt with at another time. 

Celaena rolled her eyes even as a slight flush rose to her cheeks. “Objectively speaking, I suppose,” she said with a bored sigh. “If someone can get past your personality, that is.”

Dorian’s grin widened and he winked at her.

Her heart stopped as everyone bowed. 

She was standing in front of the Crown Prince of Adarlan.

“A shame our lovely introduction doesn’t happen until the next chapter,” Dorian sighed, marking his place in the book. He handed it to Chaol. “I suppose that means you should read it, Chaol.”

With a long-suffering look, the Captain took the book from his friend’s hands and removed the bookmark. “Try to contain your treasonous thoughts, Celaena,” he said under his breath.

She shrugged. “No promises — though if memory serves, I mostly debate different ways to kill you two, if that’s any better.”

Judging by the look on Chaol’s face, it wasn’t.

Chapter Text

“Chapter two,” Chaol said.

“Your Highness,” said the Captain of the Guard ... The hood had definitely been meant to intimidate her into submission during their walk. 

Pelor laughed quietly. “Well, it clearly didn’t work.”

… Despite her irritation, she blinked at the sight of his face. He was so young!

“One might say the same about you,” Telmor said.

Celaena shifted uncomfortably. “Honestly? I’ve lived far longer than I ever expected. It’s all just borrowed time, as I said before. I should have died when I was eight; making it to eighteen was something I never thought would happen.”

Rowan clenched his jaw, flexing his fingers on the armrest so as not to immediately reach for her hand.

Captain Westfall was not excessively handsome, 

Chaol lowered the book enough to give Celaena an unimpressed stare. 

Celaena shrugged. 

but she couldn’t help finding the ruggedness of his face and the clarity of his golden-brown eyes rather appealing. 

“Again, from an objective standpoint,” Celaena said, a slight pink blush dusting her cheeks.

“I’m sure,” Dorian said, grinning at her. His sapphire eyes sparkled with mischief and humour. And maybe just the slightest flicker of jealousy that was quickly hidden. 

She scowled at him.

She cocked her head, now keenly aware of her wretched dirtiness. 

Rowan glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and swallowed thickly. Aelin—Celaena—whatever she called herself—was beautiful. Even wearing nothing but filthy rags, she would be beautiful.

It was what had driven him mad at Mistward. The beauty that had blossomed as she’d begun healing and her eyes had once again come alight with fire, her scent of crackling embers and lemon verbena, the arrogant, hypnotizing sway of her hips as she walked — It had nearly snapped his self-control those nights when she slept soundly beside him in his bed, covered in his scent, claiming him…

Rowan had to quickly push those thoughts aside. 

“This is she?” 

“This is she?” Celaena mocked, rolling her eyes. “Honestly Dorian, could you have said that any more dramatically?”

“For you, my dearest champion?” Dorian grinned at her. “Always.”

… Both of them stared at her, waiting for her to bow. 

“Celaena…” Telmor warned. “He’s your prince. You should show the proper respect.”

She scowled at him. “After everything that’s happened, after everything you’ve already learned about me, do you really think I’d bow to him?”

“It’s treason,” Telmor said, eyes shining with disapproval.

Celaena shrugged. She’d done worse — and besides, he’d understand eventually. She was sure of it. Nothing about her life was private or sacred and she looked at the other books on the table, dreading what was to come. 

When she remained upright, Chaol shifted on his feet, and the prince glanced at his captain before lifting his chin a bit higher.

Celaena raised an eyebrow at Dorian and pointedly crossed her arms.

Dorian sighed and shook his head, but his lips twitched like he was suppressing a smile.

Bow to him indeed! If she were bound for the gallows, she would most certainly not spend the last moments of her life in groveling submission.

“I never beg,” Celaena said firmly. “I would never give anyone the satisfaction.”

Rowan’s fingers clenched tighter on the armrests of his chair.

Thundering steps issued from behind her, and someone grabbed her by the neck. 

Celaena’s face flushed slightly and she muttered several curses under her breath. 

“Who?” Rowan asked, eyes glinting with animal brightness.

“Perrington,” she said, watching Cain in disgust. She honestly hadn’t decided who was worse: Champion or sponsor.

Rowan’s snarl surprised her. She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow, asking a silent question. He just shook his head and silently promised to tell her later.

She huffed and returned her attention to Chaol.

Celaena only glimpsed crimson cheeks and a sandy mustache before being thrown to the icy marble floor. 

Nehemia stiffened, her hand shooting out to grab Celaena’s. “How dare he!” she seethed. 

“He’s a man from Adarlan,” Celaena explained in Eyllwe, so their conversation wouldn’t be overheard. “A man used to wielding brute strength and wealth to get what he wants. He believes he can do what he wishes because he is a nobleman.” She then gave a wicked grin. “They’re the men I enjoy tearing down the most.”

It cracked through the icy rage she could see simmering in Nehemia’s eyes. They laughed quietly together while Rowan looked on in fond exasperation.

On the dais, Dorian shook his head and muttered, “I don’t even want to know.”

“I told you,” Chaol grumbled to his friend. “They’re a formidable pair when they get going.”

Pain slammed through her face, light splintering her vision. 

Nehemia stopped laughing. Her eyes glinted again with rage, this time directed at Dorian for allowing it to happen.

Celaena winced, seeing the look on Nehemia’s face.

Her arms ached as her bound hands kept her joints from properly aligning. 

She grimaced, discreetly rolling her left shoulder. She’d dislocated it a few months into her sentence and though she’d gotten it back in its socket, hard impacts directly on it from just the right angle caused the joint to flex unnaturally around the damaged ligaments. 

Joint injuries were particularly annoying, as there was no real way of healing them back to the way they’d been before. The best she could hope for was not injuring it further and letting the muscles build up to compensate for the weakness. 

When she looked up, Rowan was frowning at her, concern mingling with anger in his eyes as he looked her over for any visible damage.

“I’m fine, buzzard,” she hissed, shoving at his shoulder without any real force. “Stop fussing.”

For some reason, that seemed to amuse him. His mouth twitched in a smile and fondness filled his eyes, replacing the anger, though the concern remained. 

Celaena just rolled her eyes.

… “That is the proper way to greet your future king,” a red-faced man snapped at Celaena.

Fury burned hot through Nox’s blood. This was his queen. His queen, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne of Terrasen and the greatest gift of magic the continent had seen in generations, was being forced to kneel before another.

He scowled and Aelin Celaena shot him a look, warning him to drop it. He had to remember the difference, remember what Celaena had told him the night before.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius is dead.

Nox swallowed hard. The daughter of Crown Prince Rhoe Galathynius and his wife, Princess Evalin Ashryver, might be sitting only one chair away, but whoever she was, it wasn’t Aelin. 

It hit him then, like a sledgehammer to the ribs. She’d spent longer as Celaena Sardothien than she ever had as Aelin Ashryver Galathynius. 

That idea— that thought—

Nox covered his face with a hand and allowed himself a brief moment, in a room with the Crown Prince of Adarlan, to mourn what his country had become.

When he looked up again, all emotion had been wiped from his face.

The assassin hissed, baring her teeth as she twisted her head to look at the kneeling bastard. 

“Like a feral cat,” Renault chuckled.

Celaena scowled in annoyance.

… His obsidian eyes glittered as his grip tightened on her neck. 

Rowan bit back the snarl that rose in his throat. Those eyes — how had they not realized it sooner? 

If she could move her right arm just a few inches, she could throw him off balance and grab his sword . . . 

“Celaena,” Chaol warned, eyeing her over the top of the book. 

She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like I actually did anything.”

The shackles dug into her stomach, and fizzing, boiling rage turned her face scarlet. 

The humiliation, the cruel amusement they found in her pain…

Celaena’s brows pinched together as she scowled at the table. 

After a too-long moment, the Crown Prince spoke. “I don’t quite comprehend why you’d force someone to bow when the purpose of the gesture is to display allegiance and respect.” 

Dorian shifted in his seat and rested his chin on a fist in thought. 

It had only been a few months, yet the man he’d been then, the Prince who’d freed Celaena from the mines and toed the line of treason with his actions, seemed so distant, like he’d been forged into someone completely different in the weeks since. 

Whether it was a good difference or not remained to be seen. 

… “It’s clear that you respect me, Duke Perrington, 

Rowan had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. 

but it’s a bit unnecessary to put such effort into forcing Celaena Sardothien to have the same opinion. You and I know very well she has no love for my family. 

Celaena’s fists clenched in the leather of her pants, hidden from view beneath the table. 

No, she had no love for the Havillards and her sentencing to Endovier was only the latest on a long list of reasons why. 

A few seats over, she caught Nox’s gaze. There was hurt and anger in his cool grey eyes. She wasn’t sure who it was directed to.

Celaena quickly looked away. 

So perhaps your intent is to humiliate her.” He paused, and she could have sworn his eyes fell on her face. “But I think she’s had enough of that.” 

Celaena felt her cheeks grow warm as everyone looked at her, consciously or not. 

Her wrists felt heavy with the phantom weight of her chains. 

… “ Don’t you have a meeting with Endovier’s treasurer? I wouldn’t want you to be late, especially when you came all this way to meet with him.” 

Dorian huffed. It was aggravating that his father didn’t trust him enough to send him without a chaperone. 

… Celaena peeled her cheek from the marble but lay on the floor until he stood and left. If she managed to escape, perhaps she’d hunt down this Duke Perrington fellow and return the warmth of his greeting. 

Cain chuckled lowly. His battered face looked even worse than it had the previous day. 

Celaena felt no small amount of satisfaction at the sight of his swollen eye and split lip. 

“He’s still an important member of my father’s court,” Dorian sighed, looking like he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose to stave off a burgeoning headache. Rowan knew that it wouldn’t be the last time Celaena caused him and the Captain trouble. “And he deserves that respect.”

Celaena scoffed quietly and rolled her eyes. 

As she rose, she frowned at the imprint of grit she left behind on the otherwise spotless floor, and at the clank of her shackles echoing through the silent room. 

She resisted the urge to rub at the manacle scars around her wrists.

But she’d been trained to be an assassin since the age of eight, since the day the King of the Assassins found her half-dead on the banks of a frozen river and brought her to his keep. 

Nox made a quiet noise of despair in the back of his throat.

Celaena shot him another warning look. No one else suspected anything yet, but if Nox kept acting the way he was, he’d reveal the secrets she’d spent the better part of ten years carefully crafting.

And if Dorian or Chaol found out and told the king…

A quick execution would be the best she could hope for in that situation.

… Gathering her pride, she tossed her long braid behind a shoulder and lifted her head. 

Pain flickered across Rowan’s face as he remembered Aelin’s too-long hair after they’d rescued her from Maeve, the way she’d been forced to pull together the remnants of her pride and arrogance into a convincing personality to fool the world.

The armrests creaked under the force of his fingers digging into the wood. 

Her eyes met those of the prince. 

Familiar bitter rage swelled inside her. She quickly snapped iron chains around it, unwilling to let even a hint of that deadly power out. 

… He was achingly handsome, and couldn’t have been older than twenty.

Dorian winked at her. 

She gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes, but she was grinning as well. This game of theirs, this flirting, was harmless fun.

After all the memories the past few days had dragged up, she wasn’t sure she was ready or even willing to pursue a relationship with him, not like they’d been dancing around only a week ago. But this? This easy, playful friendship where they weren’t Prince and Assassin but merely Dorian and Celaena?

She wanted that. Wanted it more than she understood, really. There was something inside her that was drawn to him, but it had been so long since she’d had friends — especially male friends — that something inside her still baulked at the thought.

And, of course, there was that well of endless, unyielding pain that festered within her, something that bayed for blood every time she heard his name..

Princes are not supposed to be handsome! They’re sniveling, stupid, repulsive creatures! This one . . . this . . . How unfair of him to be royal and beautiful.

Rowan raised an eyebrow at her. You do remember I’m included in your collection of pretty immortals, right?

She scoffed at him, ignoring the flush that tipped her ears.

She shifted on her feet as he frowned, surveying her in turn. “I thought I asked you to clean her …”

A muscle in Nehemia’s jaw jumped with tension as she clamped her lips so tightly together her teeth ached. 

Clean her! Like Celaena was some sort of animal who’d been rolling in mud!

As though sensing her thoughts, Celaena slipped her hand into Nehemia’s and squeezed it.

… She looked at her rags and stained skin, and she couldn’t suppress the twinge of shame. What a miserable state for a girl of former beauty!

Rowan swallowed hard, deliberately not looking at Celaena next to him. Aelin was always beautiful, no matter what name she called herself or the state of her skin or clothes, and it took all his concentration not to pull her to him and make her regret every thought that just passed through her mind.

At a passing glance, one might think her eyes blue or gray, perhaps even green … Up close, though, these warring hues were offset by the brilliant ring of gold around her pupils. 

Celaena stiffened imperceptibly.

Nox inwardly winced. Ashryver eyes. How had he not noticed earlier?

How had she managed to fool everyone when the proof of her heritage was plain as day, the one part of herself she couldn’t disguise or hide? Granted, no one was looking for someone they’d all assumed was dead for the better part of a decade, but even still…

But it was her golden hair that caught the attention of most, hair that still maintained a glimmer of its glory. 

The hair that she shared with her cousin, Aedion Ashryver. The Wolf of the North.

Nox had been privileged enough to meet the prince on a handful of occasions when running messages between various rebel groups, and as he looked at Celaena now, he wondered at how he hadn’t put it together sooner. 

Aedion and Celaena were almost identical, two sides of the same golden coin. In fact, they looked so similar they could almost pass for twins. 

He just prayed that the General wouldn’t show up to the castle anytime soon, because the moment the two of them were in the same room together, the charade would be up. There would be no mistaking their shared heritage then.

In short, Celaena Sardothien was blessed with a handful of attractive features that compensated for the majority of average ones;

Rowan shifted in his seat.

Nehemia just sent him an amused look.

Celaena, thankfully, seemed oblivious to it all.

and, by early adolescence, she’d discovered that with the help of cosmetics, these average features could easily match the extraordinary assets. 

Telmor frowned, remembering what she’d said when she’d been shown at Doneval’s party in the previous book. 

If you have the assets, it’s in the mission’s best interest to use them. It makes everything easier.

He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

… “I don’t believe that we’ve ever had the pleasure of an introduction. But, as you probably know, I’m Dorian Havilliard, Crown Prince of Adarlan, perhaps now Crown Prince of most of Erilea.” 

She ignored the surge and crash of bitter emotions that awoke with the name. 

She ground her teeth, staring resolutely at the table.

Dorian rubbed his signet ring uneasily, now very aware of the three children of kingdoms his father had destroyed now seated at the table before him.

“And you’re Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s greatest assassin. Perhaps the greatest assassin in all of Erilea.” 

“There is no perhaps about it,” Celaena said, flipping her braid over her shoulder in a show of calculated arrogance. 

Grave sneered at her, his crooked, rotting teeth on full display.

He studied her tensed body before he raised his dark, well-groomed brows. “You seem a little young.” 

Telmor swallowed thickly and closed his eyes. Too young, she was far too young.

He rested his elbows on his thighs. “I’ve heard some rather fascinating stories about you. How do you find Endovier after living in such excess in Rifthold?”

Nehemia’s head snapped to Dorian’s and she shot him an icy glare.

A low snarl built in the back of Rowan’s throat as his magic strained against the leash he's wrapped around it.

… “I couldn’t be happier,” she crooned as her jagged nails cut into her palms.

Celaena gripped Rowan’s hand with her free one and squeezed both Rowan and Nehemia’s hands tightly.

It was a warning as much as it was meant to be a comfort.

“After a year, you seem to be more or less alive. I wonder how that’s possible when the average life expectancy in these mines is a month.”

“I’m just special like that,” she drawled. 

Dorian’s lips didn’t so much as twitch in a smile. He was staring intently at the book in Chaol’s hand, dark emotion flickering in his eyes.

“Quite a mystery, I’m sure.” She batted her eyelashes and readjusted her shackles as if they were lace gloves. 

Despite himself, something eased in Rowan’s chest at her insufferable swagger. 

… “Your Highness,” Chaol Westfall snapped at her. 

“What?” Celaena asked. 

“You will address him as ‘Your Highness.’ ” 

“Very well, Your Magnanimous Holiness,” Celaena said, giving the best exaggerated bow she could while seated. “I will address you as ‘Your Highness’ if it pleases you.”

Dorian chuckled.

Celaena gave him a mocking smile, and then returned her attention to the prince. 

Dorian Havilliard, to her surprise, laughed. “You do know that you’re now a slave, don’t you? 

Celaena rolled her eyes. “It’s kind of hard to forget, Dorian.”

Dorian’s smile slipped from his face.

Has your sentence taught you nothing?” 

Celaena rolled her eyes. “As I said before, it taught me many things, chief among them how to gut someone with a pickaxe.”

… “And you never tried to escape?”

Celaena swallowed heavily and dropped her gaze to the table, the humour vanishing from her face. She didn’t want anyone hearing this.

A slow, wicked smile spread across her lips. “Once.” 

Renault shifted to face her and raised an eyebrow in silent question.

“Was that the day of your parents’ death?” Pelor asked quietly.

“Yes,” Celaena said with equal softness. “It was.”

… Chaol glared at her before speaking. “There’s no hope of escaping from Endovier. Your father made sure that each of Endovier’s sentries could shoot a squirrel from two hundred paces away. 

“But you’re better,” Renault surmised. 

Celaena looked up, allowing the corners of her mouth to twitch up in the ghost of a smile. “Of course.”

To attempt to flee is suicide.” 

Nox gripped the table tightly, as though he might fall out of his chair without the support. 

“But you’re alive,” the prince said to her. 

Celaena’s smile faded as the memory struck her. “Yes.”

“They wanted to make sure I lived,” Celaena said bitterly. “Orders from the king.”

Dorian shifted uneasily.

“What happened?” Dorian asked. 

Her eyes turned cold and hard. “I snapped.”

Chaol eyed her warily, wondering if that was what had happened when she beat Cain bloody into the floor, or if some feral monster was buried even deeper within her.

What might trigger its release? If she ‘snapped’ again, as she put it, he’d give the order to put her down, personal feelings be damned. The lives of Dorian and the rest of the royal family were too important to leave in jeopardy.

“That’s all you have to offer as an explanation for what you did?” Captain Westfall demanded. “She killed her overseer and twenty-three sentries before they caught her. 

Pelor swallowed heavily, looking a little green as he stared at the guards around the room, counting their numbers and assessing them in comparison to the words of the book.

To his horror, there were less guards there than it said she’d killed after months of slavery, with only a pickaxe as a weapon. Now they’d given her access to an armoury, good food and training, and gotten her back up to strength…

He wasn't the only one looking a little ill at the thought.

She was a finger’s tip from the wall before the guards knocked her unconscious.” 

“My god,” Telmor breathed.

“So?” Dorian said.

Celaena snorted under her breath, crossing her arms. “They deserved it,” she muttered.

…“So? Do you know how far the wall is from the mines?” He gave her a blank look. She closed her eyes and sighed dramatically. “From my shaft, it was three hundred sixty-three feet. I had someone measure.”

“How did you swing that?” Renault asked with a raised brow.

Celaena gave him a wicked grin. “A woman has her ways.” When that only seemed to make everyone around the table even more tense, she rolled her eyes. “I got one of the slaves working the refining sheds to count his paces when he returned to my shaft.”

“So?” Dorian repeated. 

“Honestly, is that the only word you know?” Celaena muttered. “You’d think a prince would be more eloquent.”

Dorian just sighed and elected not to respond.

“Captain Westfall, how far do slaves make it from the mines when they try to escape?” 

… “Endovier sentries usually shoot a man down before he’s moved three feet.”

Armour clanked as some of the guards shifted uneasily.

“The odds were completely stacked against you,” Nehemia murmured, squeezing Celaena’s hand. “And yet you succeeded.”

“If you can call surviving only to participate in this fool of a competition a success,” Celaena said.

The Crown Prince’s silence was not her desired effect. “You knew it was suicide,” he said at last, the amusement gone.

Nox gripped the table tighter, swallowing several times as though he had something lodged in his throat.

Perhaps it had been a bad idea for her to bring up the wall. “Yes,” she said. 

“I refused to bow to them any longer,” Celaena snapped, wrenching her hands from Rowan’s and Nehemia’s grasps to cross them definitely across her chest. 

Across from her, Cain sneered, dark blood dribbling from his lip. His eye had blackened completely and was nearly swollen shut, but that didn’t stop the taunts she could see in his gaze, as though he knew the truth.

As though he knew every truth.

“But they didn’t kill you.”

Celaena snorted, face contorting in familiar rage and bitterness.

“Your father ordered that I was to be kept alive for as long as possible—to endure the misery that Endovier gives in abundance. … I never intended to escape.” 

Rowan’s fingers twitched, wanting — needing to pull Celaena into his arms. He still had nightmares about her running through the barrier at Mistward, straight into the darkness of the Valg.

“Elentyia,” Nehemia breathed. Words seemed to fail her and she only pulled Celaena into a hug, resting her head on her shoulder. A silent shudder went through Celaena before she brought her own arms up to embrace the princess in turn.

She couldn’t bear to see the pity in everyone’s eyes.

… “Do you bear many scars?” asked the prince. She shrugged and he smiled, forcing the mood to lift as he stepped from the dais. 

… Chaol—and all the guards—watched them with hands on their swords. 

As the guards in the room were doing now.

As they should. In less than a second, she could get her arms over the prince’s head and have her shackles crushing his windpipe. 

Chaol sighed, tearing his gaze away from the book. “Celaena,” he warned.

Looking up from where she was curled in Nehemia’s embrace, Celaena scowled at him. “I did warn you, Captain.”

It might be worth it just to see the expression on Chaol’s face. 

Chaol’s right eye twitched, face slowly turning redder.

“I wouldn’t actually do it,” Celaena said, rolling her eyes. She extricated herself from Nehemia’s grip and righted herself on her chair, smoothing out the wrinkles in her clothes. “Despite what the incident with the wall might suggest, I’m not that eager for death.”

His fingers clenched around the book, but he said nothing more as he continued.

But the prince went on, oblivious to how dangerously close he stood to her. Perhaps she should be insulted. 

She huffed, blowing a stray piece of hair from her eyes.

“I’ve seen you fail miserably at billiards,” Dorian said with a chuckle. “I don’t think anyone who bites their cue stick in rage can be considered dangerous.”

Celaena spluttered in protest as several people chuckled.

“From what I can see,” he said, “there are three large scars—and perhaps some smaller ones. 

She shifted in her chair, the soft fabric of her tunic rubbing uncomfortably against the scars on her back. She could almost feel them burning, almost hear the crack of the whip as it tore his skin to strips.

… Dorian grinned. “What remarkable eyes you have!

Both Celaena and Nox stiffened slightly.

And how angry you are!”

Yes, she was. There was almost that simmering level of rage, that cold anger that flickered behind her eyes sometimes.

But where was the insanity, the bloodlust and cruelty he’d expected to see when they’d dragged her from the mines?

Chaol didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one bit.  

Coming within strangling distance of the Crown Prince of Adarlan, son of the man who sentenced her to a slow, miserable death, her self-control balanced on a fragile edge—dancing along a cliff. 

Dorian almost asked her if she still felt like that — almost.

But he stopped himself.

There’s this… rage…

If what she’d said earlier was true, he didn’t think he’d want to hear her answer.

“I demand to know,” she began, but the Captain of the Guard pulled her back from the prince with spine-snapping force. “I wasn’t going to kill him, you buffoon.”

“Yeah, Chaol,” Celaena drawled, the tone of her voice making it clear she still considered him a buffoon, “I’m not so stupid I’d kill him there, in front of everyone.”

The leather binding of the book creaked as Chaol’s grip tightened, but Dorian only pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Please, Celaena. Don’t make me throw you in the dungeons.”

“Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it,” she muttered, but didn’t push the matter further.

“Watch your mouth before I throw you back in the mines,” the brown-eyed captain said. 

Rowan snarled at the captain, eyes alight with protective anger.

Celaena wondered why he looked at Chaol like that — and more importantly, why she felt he was protecting her.

“Oh, I don’t think you’d do that.” 

“Celaena,” Telmor groaned. His eye twitched and he looked like he might go grey from stress.

“And why is that?” Chaol replied. 

“You gave away too much,” Celaena said, shrugging. “You gave me too much to bargain with and didn’t leave much for yourselves.”

Telmor rubbed his temples. “Only you would bargain with His Highness and the Captain of the Guard while still a slave and come out with the upper hand.”

She grinned at him. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment,” he muttered.

… “Because there’s something you want from me, something you want badly enough to come here yourselves. 

She raised an eyebrow like, see?

… You’ve been testing me all this time to see if I am physically and mentally sound. Well, I know that I’m still sane …

Grave cackled. “Debatable!” 

Renault elbowed him in the ribs, looking perfectly innocent when Grave whirled around and cursed at him.

… So I demand to be told why you’re here, and what services you wish of me, if I’m not destined for the gallows.”

“You’re really in no position to be making demands,” Pelor said nervously.

Celaena gave him a wolfish smile. “Yes, I am. If they needed me so desperately they’d risk pulling me from the mines, it meant I had a good deal of the power in these negotiations.”

A vein in Telmor’s forehead pulsed. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Celaena said, an innocent lilt to her voice that was belied by the mischief in her eyes.

Telmor sighed so heavily through his nose that he sounded like he was deflating.

… “I have a proposition for you.” 

Her chest tightened. Never, not in her most fanciful dreams, had she imagined that the opportunity to speak with Dorian Havilliard would arise. 

“Why do I have the feeling you have nefarious intentions with that?” Dorian muttered.

She could kill him so easily, tear that grin from his face . . . She could destroy the king as he had destroyed her . . . 

“That’s why,” he said with a sigh, answering his own question.

But perhaps his proposition could lead to escape. 

“Celaena,” Chaol warned again.

Celaena tried to hide her laughter. She could practically see his hair going grey.

If she got beyond the wall, she could make it. 

Chaol’s hand drifted down to the hilt of his sword. Several of his guards echoed the action.

Celaena just rolled her eyes. “If I really wanted to escape, I would’ve done it already.”

Run and run and disappear into the mountains and live in solitude in the dark green of the wild, with a pine-needle carpet and a blanket of stars overhead. 

Nox swallowed hard, trying not to think about how long it had been since Celaena had seen Terrasen, since she’d last set her eyes on the rolling hills and sun-dappled glens far to the north.

She could do it. She just needed to clear the wall. She had come so close before . . . 

Nehemia laughed softly, hiding her smile behind a hand. “The Captain looks as though he wishes he weren’t under orders to guard you.”

Celaena followed her gaze and chuckled quietly. “I’m certainly not his favourite person right now, that’s for sure.”

“I’m listening,” was all she said.

Dorian groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Celaena, please. Give us some sense of plausible deniability.”

She just shrugged and held a hand out for the book. “No promises,” she told them again. 

The shit-eating grin on her face told them she had no regrets whatsoever.

Chapter Text

Celaena took the book from a servant and cleared her throat, opening it to the correct page. “Chapter three.”

The prince’s eyes shone with amusement at her brashness but lingered a bit too long on her body.

Both Nehemia’s and Rowan’s gazes snapped to the prince, who struggled to not wilt under their combined looks of irritation and rage.

Celaena could have raked her nails down his face for staring at her like that, yet the fact that he’d even bother to look when she was in such a filthy state . . . 

Rowan shifted in his seat. Aelin could turn heads no matter what she wore, what she looked like, and he wanted nothing more than to pull her to him and kiss every thought out of her head.

As they stood now, however, he’d more likely be stabbed if he attempted anything.

A slow smile spread across her face.

Telmor sighed heavily. He seemed to be competing with Chaol to see which of them could get a stress ulcer first.

… “Leave us,” he ordered the guards. “Chaol, stay where you are.” 

Celaena stepped closer as the guards shuffled out, shutting the door. …

Celaena grinned, the expression all teeth. “That was foolish, Dorian,” she chided mockingly. “You couldn’t seriously have thought that Chaol would be enough to stop me.”

Chaol scowled, but Dorian just raised an eyebrow. “You knew just as well as I that any hope for your freedom depended on my continued survival. Any attempt on my life would have ended with your immediate death.”

She shrugged slightly. “It would have been preferable to returning to the mines, anyway.”

Dorian’s retort died on his lips. Yes, he had no trouble believing that Celaena would have lashed out and gotten herself killed rather than return to slavery.

… She straightened her spine. What were they planning that would make them so irresponsible? 

Something that was increasingly looking like the foundations of a coup.

Dorian swallowed down his nerves. 

The prince chuckled. “Don’t you think it’s risky to be so bold with me when your freedom is on the line?” 

Of all the things he could have said, that was what she had least expected. 

“I’d almost forgotten what the word sounded like,” Celaena confessed quietly. “I’ve never really been free in my life, except for those brief weeks before…”

She didn’t have to finish. Everyone now knew what she meant.

“My freedom?” At the sound of the word, she saw a land of pine and snow, of sun-bleached cliffs and white-capped seas, a land where light was swallowed in the velvety green of bumps and hollows—a land that she had forgotten. 

A tangle of bitter emotions surged in Nox’s chest. 

Terrasen hadn’t forgotten Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, but she’d clearly forgotten them.

As though knowing what Nox was thinking, Rowan shot him a sharp look.

“ … I’m not going to pretend that my father’s empire was built on trust and understanding. But you already know that.” 

Ass. Arrogant, foolish ass. 

Under the table, Celaena’s fingers curled into fists.

… His eyes met hers, probing, intent. “My father has gotten it into his head that he needs a Champion.”

They all looked around the table, studying each other. Seven. There were seven of them left from the original twenty-four. 

And not all of them had been eliminated fairly.

Celaena’s fingers itched to grab the hilts of her daggers. How many more would be murdered in the coming days?

… Celaena tipped back her head and laughed. “Your father wants me to be his Champion?

Renault made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and crossed his arms. “We’re still here, you know.”

Celaena allowed a grin to tug at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t be offended by the truth.”

He glared at her.

What—don’t tell me that he’s managed to eliminate every noble soul out there! Surely there’s one chivalrous knight, one lord of steadfast heart and courage.”

“My gods, Celaena…” Telmor muttered, rubbing his temples in exasperation. “Do you have any sense of self-preservation?”

Rowan’s face twisted in a poorly-hidden grimace. “Unfortunately, no, she does not.”

Celaena huffed and swatted at Rowan’s arm. “I do so!”

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her. “I’ll believe you when you can go more than a few weeks without getting attacked or kidnapped.”  

She winced at the sharp edge his tone had taken. They didn’t need anymore reminders of the future that awaited her if they couldn’t manage to fix things.

… Dorian leaned back in his throne. “My father needs someone to aid the empire —someone to help him maneuver around difficult people.” 

“You mean he needs a lackey for his dirty work.”

“Celaena,” Telmor groaned.

“If you want to put it that bluntly, then, yes,” the prince said. “His Champion would keep his opponents quiet.” 

“As quiet as the grave,” Celaena quoted without looking at the page. 

… A smile tugged on Dorian’s lips, but he kept his face straight. “Yes.” 

“Glad you find amusement in that, Dorian,” Celaena said.

His mouth opened and closed several times as he floundered for what to say. Finally, he settled with closing it with a resounding clack and slumped in his throne, apparently at a loss for a retort.

To work for the King of Adarlan as his loyal servant. She raised her chin. To kill for him—to be a fang in the mouth of the beast that had already consumed half of Erilea . . .

Nox made a quiet noise of despair, hidden behind tightly-pressed lips.

“And if I accept?” 

“Then, after six years, he’ll grant you your freedom.” 

“Six years!” But the word “freedom” echoed through her once more.

Celaena couldn’t help the little sigh that escaped her at the word.

What would it be like to be free again? She savoured the way it sounded in her mouth, the way the syllables curled around her tongue. 

Freedom.

Freedom.

Freedom.

Gods, she wanted to be free…

“If you decline,” Dorian said, anticipating her next question, “you’ll remain in Endovier.” 

“I wouldn’t have lasted another year in there, even with the king’s orders,” Celaena murmured. “Another winter would have killed me; I barely survived the first one as it was.”

Rowan’s hand shot out and clamped around her knee. His long, calloused fingers dug into the leather of her pants, as though he needed to hold onto her, to have a physical connection to remind him that she was there.

Her brows furrowed at the oddity of the gesture, but she shrugged it off and kept reading, trying to ignore the warmth that spread through her body at the connection between them.

… Six years as the king’s crooked dagger …

“Only if you win, Sardothien,” Grave sneered.

She just raised an eyebrow. “When,” she corrected. “When I win.”

… “The position isn’t being offered to you. Yet. My father thought to have a bit of fun. 

“I really hate his idea of fun,” Celaena muttered under her breath.

He’s hosting a competition. He invited twenty-three members of his council to each sponsor a would-be Champion to train in the glass castle and ultimately compete in a duel. 

The Champions looked around the table, reminded again that they were the only ones left.

Seven out of twenty-four. Seventeen of them had been eliminated or killed in the weeks since the Competition started.

A few months was such a short amount of time, and yet sometimes to Celaena it felt like a lifetime.

Were you to win,” he said with a half smile, “you’d officially be Adarlan’s Assassin.”

“I’m already Adarlan’s Assassin,” Celaena corrected. “I’d just be your father’s assassin.”

Telmor buried his face in his hands and groaned.

Dorian winced. “Yes, you would be.” And he was hating that idea more and more with each passing day.

She didn’t return his smile. “Who, exactly, are my competitors?”

“No one noteworthy,” Celaena said with an absent wave of her hand.

The other Champions bristled but none dared to contradict her, 

Seeing her expression, the prince’s grin faded. … “If you win, and prove yourself both skilled and trustworthy, my father has sworn to grant you your freedom.

Skilled, yes. Chaol wouldn’t deny that. But trustworthy?

Absolutely not.

And, while you’re his Champion, you’ll receive a considerable salary.”

Celaena sighed happily. “I could buy so many books with that.”

“You have access to the Royal Library,” Chaol said, expression unmoving. “Which you sought out without permission.”

She rolled her eyes. “I just wrote Dorian a letter; he could have ignored it if he didn’t want to respond. And besides, it’s completely different when you own the book.”

Dorian was nodding along with her in agreement and Chaol, seeing the movement, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

… A competition! Against some nobody men from the-gods-knew-where!

Cain, Grave, and Renault shot her irritated looks. Telmor just seemed resigned to his fate and Pelor shrunk back in his seat with embarrassment.

Nox still refused to look at her.

And assassins! “What other assassins?” she demanded. 

“None that I’ve heard of. None as famous as you.  

Celaena couldn’t help the smirk that spread across her face at Grave’s anger and Pelor’s obvious discomfort. 

“I wish some of the assassins from the Guild had been here,” she sighed. “I would’ve loved to see Tern, Mullin, or Harding’s faces when they saw me again.”

She brought the book up a little to hide the flash of wicked amusement in her eyes. Tern certainly had been surprised…

And that reminds me—you won’t be competing as Celaena Sardothien.”

Celaena scowled and would have crossed her arms had she not been holding the book. “Honestly Dorian, with all the books you read, a jewel thief was the best you could come up with?!”

Telmor raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you’re objecting to here?”

“It’s insulting!”

Beside her, Rowan let out a quiet chuckle.

“What?” 

… “No one knows that Celaena Sardothien is just a young woman—they all thought you were far older.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Telmor murmured. “You were seventeen.”

“I’m eighteen now,” Celaena offered, “if that makes it any better.”

“No,” he snapped. “No, it does not.”

She just shrugged. “I don’t see what the big fuss is about.”

“You were a child!” Telmor’s dark eyes were full of sorrow. “You should never have been put in that position.”

Celaena lowered the book and met his eyes. Her own blue-gold gaze flashed with steel. “That doesn’t change what happened, Telmor,” she said quietly. “You’re ten years too late. I don’t need your pity or your concern and frankly, I don’t give fuck about whatever morality crisis you’re having right now, because it won’t change a damn thing. I’m what circumstances forced me to become, and that’s all you need to know or care about.”

The old soldier was silent but his mouth was turned down in a frown, that damn pity all too clear in his eyes.

She was about to snap back another withering retort when the hand on her knee tightened minutely, making her anger falter momentarily. She settled for scowling and picking up where she’d left off.

“What?” she asked again, her face flushing. “How is that possible?” 

“I’m just that good,” she grumbled, a sharp edge to her voice.

… “You kept your identity a secret all the years you were running around killing everyone. 

Nehemia grimaced slightly. “Well, that’s one way to put it.”

“Is he wrong, though?” Celaena asked.

Her friend was quiet for a long time. “No. I suppose he’s not.”

Something like cold calculation and shame flickered behind her friend’s eyes, but it was gone before Celaena could figure out what it meant.

After your trial, my father thought it would be . . . wise not to inform Erilea who you are. He wants to keep it that way. What would our enemies say if they knew we’d all been petrified of a girl?”

“If they were wise, they’d be afraid of me, too,” Celaena said.

“So I’m slaving in this miserable place for a name and title that don’t even belong to me? 

Renault raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “That’s what’s bothering you about this situation?”

Celaena just shrugged.

Who does everyone think Adarlan’s Assassin really is?”

“I hadn’t expected you,” Pelor admitted in a quiet voice. “I’d thought she was a monster, a wraith who killed without mercy or conscience.”

Something in Celaena’s gut twisted. “And isn’t that exactly what I am?”

“No.” Pelor shook his head firmly. “You’re so… normal.”

She paused, taken aback for a moment, then snorted under her breath. “I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever called me that.”

“... I do know that you were the best

“What do you mean ‘ were?’” Celaena scoffed. “I still am the best, thank you very much.”

… and that people still whisper when they mention your name.” 

“As they should.” She sniffed haughtily.

Rowan chuckled quietly. “I can assure you, people are mostly yelling your name in the future.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Good yelling or bad?”

He smirked and leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “One of our… companion’s favourite name for you is ‘Fire-Breathing Bitch Queen.’”

She pulled away. “I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or not.”

“You’re quite proud of it.”

“Should I assume that carries the sentiment of most of our companions?”

“Or exasperation,” he said, settling back in his chair with mischief dancing in his green eyes. “Usually exasperation.”

She rolled her eyes and returned to the book.

… I’ll see to it that my father frees you after five years.” 

“See?” Celaena said. “I had all the power in this bargain.”

Though he tried to conceal it, she could see the tension in his body. He wanted her to say yes. 

She raised an eyebrow, as if to accentuate her point.

… “What do you mean, ‘were the best’?”

  Celaena gave an exaggerated sigh. “We’ve been over this, Dorian. I still am the best.”

“So you’ve said.” He chuckled, resting his chin on a fist.  

“You’ve been in Endovier for a year. Who knows what you’re still capable of?” 

“Far too much, clearly,” Chaol grumbled. He scowled in her direction.

She just wiggled her fingers in a mocking wave.

A muscle in his jaw tensed as he looked away, hand still on the hilt of his sword.

… “That remains to be seen,” Dorian said. 

“Have you been convinced yet?” Celaena asked, flashing a wicked grin in Dorian’s direction.

A hint of fear and exhilaration twisted in his gut. He could still remember the heap Cain had collapsed in after she’d attacked him, could still hear the crunch of bone and the wet sounds of bloodied flesh hitting the floor. “I believe you’ve made your point,” he said.

… She put a hand on her hip, and her chains rattled loudly through the room. 

A snarl built in the back of Rowan’s throat.

One of Celaena’s hands snapped down to grip his wrist where he was still holding her knee. “Shut up,” she growled. “Act like a civilized prince or I’ll throw you around the training salles again.”

He raised an eyebrow. Oh, it was you doing the throwing, was it? Could’ve fooled me with all the times I pinned you.

I was just going easy on you.

I’m sure. He raised his eyebrow higher. It’s not like you liked me pinning you to the floor.

She spluttered and yanked her hand back. Her face was nearly as red as the ruby in Goldryn’s hilt.

“I— You— Shut up!” She whacked his shoulder with the book and then hid her flaming face behind its pages.

He chuckled, a smirk spreading across his face as the others looked on in confusion.

“Well, I think being Adarlan’s Assassin exceeds any sort of proof you might need.”

Nox swallowed hard. Adarlan’s Assassin. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius was Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s Assassin, who had just spent a year in Endovier for her crimes, who was currently doing… something with the prince beside her. 

If Nox didn’t know any better, if the circumstances were different and he could decipher the silent conversations they were having with each other, he might almost say they were… flirting.

He wondered, yet again, what the future held in store for the Queen of Terrasen.

“Yes,” Chaol said, his bronze eyes flashing. “It proves that you’re a criminal, and that we shouldn’t immediately trust you with the king’s private business.”

Chaol resisted the urge to rub away the headache that was beginning to pound at his temples. He was more convinced than ever that his early assessment of her was true.

“I give my solemn oa—” 

“I doubt that the king would take the word of Adarlan’s Assassin as bond.”

Celaena huffed. “My word is all I have right now. Well,” she amended, “that and my fists.”  

She grinned at Cain, who spat out a filthy curse that had both Nehemia and Rowan bristling on her behalf.

“Yes, but I don’t see why I have to go through the training and the competition. 

“It would have been nice to have been freed a bit earlier,” Celaena grumbled. “Do you know how hard it is to recover and put my body back through abuse training for this stupid tournament at the same time?”

Dorian winced. He hadn’t really considered it, to be honest. It had never occurred to him that she’d be as skeletal as she’d been, then have to put back enough weight on to not be a walking corpse at the same time as she was pushing herself to the breaking point to build back the muscles that had been eaten away by starvation in the mines.

I mean, I’m bound to be a bit . . . out of shape …

Dorian wanted to shrink back in his seat. Out of shape was a mild way of describing what she’d looked like in the weeks after they’d left Endovier.

but . . . what else do you expect when I have to make do with rocks and pickaxes in this place?” She gave Chaol a spiteful glance. 

As she was doing now, pausing in her reading to shoot a withering glare in the direction of the dais. Some things she could forgive, some things she could push past in favour of friendship, but Endovier and her treatment at the hands of Adarlan were not one of those things.

Dorian frowned. “So, you won’t take the offer?” 

“Honestly, Dorian,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You’re as much of a buffoon as Chaol if you think I’d pass up this opportunity.”

He frowned. “You do realize you’re calling the Crown Prince of Adarlan a buffoon, right?”

“And I’d do it again,” she said firmly. “Besides, I don’t think princes who give puppies to deadly assassins as presents get any room to talk.”

The tips of his ears turned pink. 

… “I’ll be your absurd Champion if you agree to free me in three years, not five.” 

“Oh my gods, Celaena.” Telmor looked about ready to bury his head in his hands and weep.

“Four.” 

“Fine,” she said. 

Renault whistled. “You really bargained with the Crown Prince of Adarlan. I knew you were arrogant and foolhardy, but this is a new level of shit, Sardothien.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“It’s a bargain. I might be trading one form of slavery for another, but I’m not a fool.”

Her mouth tasted bitter. Always a slave, always chained to one throne or another.

She wondered what it would be like to be free.

… She felt the cold air of the wideopen world, the breeze that swept from the mountains and carried her away. She could live far from Rifthold, the capital that had once been her realm. 

“Would you return to Terrasen?” Pelor asked with honest curiosity, as though he didn’t realize that question hurt more than if someone stabbed her.

A pang of guilt and longing as his words reached her ears, but she buried them swiftly. “I don’t know,” she said quietly.

Two chairs down, Nox’s gaze dropped to the table.

… “And what if I lose?” 

The gleam vanished from his eyes as he said: “You’ll be sent back here, to serve out the remainder of your sentence.”

She made up her mind right then. If for some absurd reason, she lost the competition, she’d drive her own dagger into her chest before they could ship her back to Endovier. She would not be made into an object of humiliation. Not again.

As though he could read her thoughts, Rowan’s gaze snapped to her’s. His hand tightened around her knee.

… “Then I might as well leap from the window. A year in this place has worn me through— imagine what will happen if I return. I’d be dead by my second year.” 

“I barely survived that first winter,” Celaena said, her voice almost a whisper. “I wouldn’t last another. Not after all this.”

She waved a hand vaguely around the room, but it encompassed her meaning well enough.

… “Take her to her rooms and clean her up.” He fixed her with a stare. “We depart for Rifthold in the morning. Don’t disappoint me, Sardothien.” 

“I would never dare,” she said, putting an exaggerated hand to her chest in shock.

Dorian could only muster a weak smile.

It was nonsense, of course. How difficult could it be to outshine, outsmart, and then obliterate her competitors? 

She grinned and waved at the other champions around the table. When her gaze landed on Cain’s bruised face and Grave’s tight scowl, her grin widened.

She didn’t smile, for she knew that if she did, it would open her to a realm of hope that had long been closed. 

Her grin faded. When was the last time she’d had hope — true hope?

This meeting, clearly described in the pages, but before that… those brief few days of freedom when she’d thought she and Sam would get to grow old together, in peace.

Her chest burned with the memories of all the dreams left shattered at her feet.

… She tried to think of music, tried to think of a celebratory tune, but could only recall a solitary line from the mournful bellowing of the Eyllwe work songs, deep and slow like honey poured from a jar: “And go home at last . . .” 

Nehemia closed her eyes and swallowed hard. 

Celaena nudged her foot. “We’ll free them,” she promised.

Nehemia smiled softly, but her eyes, when she opened them, were troubled.

… Yes, she would go—to Rifthold, to anywhere, even through the Gates of the Wyrd

Rowan made a wheezing sound, like he’d been punched.

“Rowan?” Celaena knit her eyebrows, growing at the sudden pallor of his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he croaked, trying not to think of the Wyrdmarks he’d painstakingly tattooed on Aelin’s unblemished back, how he’d left her alone when she needed him most.

“It’s nothing,” he repeated. “Just… memories. Things that will hopefully never come to pass.”

and into Hell itself, if it meant freedom. 

He drew in a sharp breath, willing his magic to stay leashed. 

He was going to kill the gods for putting Aelin through this.

After all, you aren’t Adarlan’s Assassin for nothing.

“That’s it for this chapter,” Celaena said, slipping the bookmark in. She held up the book. “Who wants to read next?”

Chapter Text

Telmor cleared his throat. “I can, if that’s alright.”

She shrugged and slid the book across the table to him. He grabbed it and opened it to the page she’d marked off. “Chapter four.”

… After being roughly bathed by brutish servants, the wounds on her back throbbed …

Celaena grimaced. “I swear they took off what skin remained on my back with their scrubbing.”

… Before she’d gotten into the bath, Chaol had removed her shackles. 

She studied her hands, the scars disappearing beneath the cuffs of her tunic. Sometimes, she swore she could still feel them resting on her wrists. She wondered if that feeling would ever go away.

Beside her, Rowan stiffened. “Did he watch you bathe?” he asked quietly, voice as cold and hard as steel.

She blinked. “No,” she said, eyeing Chaol, who shifted nervously on the dais under the Fae prince’s glower. “He stayed in the room, obviously, because they wouldn’t be that foolish, but he turned his back and let the servants take care of it. I had as much privacy as a newly-freed slave who just happened to be the deadliest woman in Erelia could have.”

A muscle in Rowan’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth together.

She’d felt everything—the reverberations of the key turning in the lock of her irons, then again as they loosened and fell to the floor. 

Rowan held in a snarl at the reminder how Aelin had acted after her escape from Maeve’s clutches.

Get it off! Get it off!

Gods, her broken screams would haunt his dreams forever, he just knew it.

… But it was too strange to lie on a mattress, to have silk caress her skin and a pillow cradle her cheek. … Now it was utterly foreign.

A lump formed in Celaena’s throat. Oh, how far she’d fallen. What would her parents say if they could see her now?  

She quickly shoved that thought aside. She could not afford to be compromised like that — not here, not now. Not ever.

Though her dinner hadn’t been that wonderful. 

“It was still food,” she muttered. “At least it had that going for it.”

Not only was the roast chicken unimpressive, but after a few forkfuls, she’d dashed into the bathroom to deposit the contents of her stomach. 

She felt her cheeks flush as all eyes turned to her. She crossed her arms and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “What did you expect after a year of starvation? Stuff like that has consequences, you know.”

Dorian swallowed heavily. “I… didn’t know. You could have asked for something different, we would have—”

“Would you?” She interrupted him. “Would you really have cared?”

His rebuttal died on his tongue. No… he probably wouldn’t have. Not then. 

… She’d wasted away to nothing. Beneath her nightgown, her ribs reached out from inside of her, showing bones where flesh and meat should have been. 

Rowan snarled, lip curling over his teeth, and Celaena didn’t even have the mind to scold him for it.

“You should have been put on a starvation diet,” Nehemia hissed beside her, the normally melodic sounds of Eyllwe turning sharp in her anger. “Broth, soft bread. Not roast meat! How foolish can they possibly be?!”

“Very,” Celaena answered dryly. “As long as I was still breathing, I don’t think they particularly cared if I suffered while I recovered.”

Nehemia cursed under her breath.

… Her face hadn’t been much better when she glimpsed it in the washroom mirror. It was haggard: her cheekbones were sharp, her jaw pronounced, and her eyes slightly, but ever so disturbingly, sunken in. 

She’d looked like... well, like a starvation victim. Dorian felt a little sick as he thought about how callously he’d dismissed her during those early days, the taunts and verbal blows that, however unintentional some of them might have been, must have stung like acid.

She took steadying breaths, savoring the hope. … She could be healthy again. 

Rowan growled softly under his breath. He eyed the Captain and the prince, who were both looking a little uncomfortable on the dais.

Good.  

Imagining outrageous feasts and regaining her former glory, she finally fell asleep.

Celaena sighed quietly, studying her hands and the lean muscles tensing beneath her clothes. Yes, she was determined to regain that glory and then surpass it.

She shot a questioning look at Rowan, who nodded swiftly in confirmation. Well, at least she knew that was one good thing coming in the future.

When Chaol came to fetch her the next morning, he found her sleeping on the floor …

Her ears burned with shame. What did it say to her that the floor had felt more comfortable and familiar than the plush bed?

Beside her, Nehemia reached over and squeezed her hand.

“Sardothien,” he said. She made a mumbling noise, burying her face farther into the pillow. 

Despite himself, Rowan cracked a smile. “She’s really not a morning person. If she doesn’t have to, she won’t get up before noon.”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not that bad.”

“You really are. Especially if you’ve stayed up all night reading.”

“Hey!”

As Rowan chuckled next to the spluttering assassin, Nox raised an eyebrow. How did the Fae prince know what Celaena was like in the morning? 

“Why are you sleeping on the ground?” 

The smile faded slightly from Celaena’s face. “The bed was uncomfortable,” she said. The flatness in her voice betrayed everything she left unsaid.

… She … quickly forgot the captain as she beheld the sunlight. 

Rowan’s throat bobbed. How long had it been since she had seen sunlight?

His Fireheart, locked in the dark. Again.

… Sunlight that she could bask in day after day if she got her freedom, sunlight to drown out the endless dark of the mines. 

All the humour vanished from Celaena’s expression. She’d never forget the darkness of the pits they threw her in for punishment, the ones that had very nearly broken her sanity, that had stripped away everything she was until she could only remember Sam’s mantra. 

I will not be afraid.

Some days, that had been the only thing keeping her from shattering completely.

… Gingerly, Celaena stretched out a hand. 

Her hand was pale, almost skeletal, but there was something about it, something beyond the bruises and cuts and scars, that seemed beautiful and new in the morning light. 

Rowan thought his mate had never looked more beautiful than when she basked in Mala’s light.

He looked at Celaena out of the corner of his eye, trying not to think about how similar these words were to what she had been like when she finally escaped Maeve’s camp.

… I will not be afraid. For the first time in a while, the words felt true.

Celaena swallowed down the tide of emotions. Sam…

She missed him more than ever. He would have known what to do, he was always the best of them. And she’d still gotten him killed.

Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry. Not now, not again.

… She was cheerful—jubilant, really …

“I’m glad you were happy,” Nehemia said with a soft smile, squeezing Celaena’s hand.

“Me too,” Celaena agreed. “Even if only for a little while.”

Nehemia squeezed her hand again, a wordless gesture of encouragement and hope, and glanced at the male seated on Celaena’s other side. “You will find a happiness that lasts,” she promised. “Even if it’s not what you thought it might be.”

Celaena’s mouth quirked in a smile. If she understood the meaning behind Nehemia’s words, she didn’t let on. 

She laughed when Chaol, irked at how Celaena stood in front of the mirror for five minutes, admiring herself, half-dragged her out of the room. 

Celaena prepared for Rowan to snarl at the Captain again, but instead he just huffed a laugh. 

“Vain to the bitter end?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. The amusement in his voice made it sound like this was a joke they’d shared before.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

… However, she faltered as she beheld the mounds of bone-colored rock at the far end of the compound …

Celaena’s amusement evaporated. Her free hand clenched in the soft leather of her pants.

Nehemia squeezed her hand tighter in silent fury and protest. 

Work had already begun for the day, work that would continue without her when she left them all to this miserable fate. 

The scars on her back burned like new wounds. “I left them,” she whispered, voice breaking on the last word. “I just… left them.”

Nehemia swallowed thickly. “We will free them,” she swore. “They will be free, all of them. There will never be another slave in Erelia.”

Celaena nodded firmly, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “We will,” she agreed. “I will.”  

Her stomach clenching, Celaena averted her eyes from the prisoners, keeping up with the captain as they headed to a caravan of horses near the towering wall.

Shame curled cold and heavy in her gut. 

Yapping filled the air, and three black dogs sprinted from the center of the caravan to greet them.

A tiny kernel of joy blossomed in her chest. She wished Fleetfoot were here, but she was currently hiding under Celaena’s bed and probably making a mess of her carpet.

Besides, she wasn’t sure Chaol would be impressed if Fleetfoot kept interrupting the reading by barking and demanding to be let out onto the balcony for no reason other than to stare into the wind, then demand to be let back in as soon as they’d settled back down.

A tiny grin passed over her face. Maybe she should bring Fleetfoot next time.

They were each sleek as arrows—undoubtedly from the Crown Prince’s kennels. 

Nehemia sighed quietly, a faint smile passing over her face.

“Fleetfoot’s cuter,” Celaena said, nudging her shoulder with a soft laugh.

Nehemia laughed as well. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

She knelt on one knee, her bound wounds protesting 

Rowan clenched his jaw so tightly, Celaena almost feared he’d break a tooth.

… They licked her fingers and face, their tails slashing the ground like whips. 

Pelor laughed nervously. “So you like dogs, then?”

Celaena smiled, the first one that seemed truly easy and unencumbered since they’d begun the chapter. “I do.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall you threatening to turn Fleetfoot into a pair of slippers if she ruined your room.”

“And I did it with the utmost affection,” Celaena promised, putting a hand to her chest.

He chuckled, echoed by a few others around the room.

… the captain stepped behind her, so close that his knees grazed the folds of her forest-green velvet cape. It would take all of two movements to disarm him. 

“Celaena,” Chaol said in warning.

She rolled her eyes. “We made it all of a few pages without me considering how best to kill you two. You should really take that as the victory it is.”

Leather groaned as he tightened his gloved grip on the hilt of his sword.

“Are you fond of dogs?” asked the prince. 

Celaena waved a hand vaguely in the air. “We just established this.”

… “Am I going to be blessed with the pleasure of hearing your voice, or have you resolved to be silent for the duration of our journey?” 

“I’m afraid your questions didn’t merit a verbal response.” 

Telmor paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Celaena,” he sighed, but seemed at a loss for words. After a moment, he said, “Someone’s going to kill you for that tongue of yours someday.”

She just shrugged. “Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Not for a lack of trying,” Rowan grumbled.

Dorian bowed low. “Then I apologize, my lady! How terrible it must be to condescend to answer! Next time, I’ll try to think of something more stimulating to say.” 

A few peals of laughter rang out in the council room as Celaena’s ears heated. 

Dorian bit back the urge to mention a few other stimulating things he could do with his tongue, if only because of the male sitting next to her who looked like he’d gut him if he said what was clearly on his mind.

… She scowled as she stood. Her frown deepened when she discovered the Captain of the Guard smirking …

Celaena made a face at Chaol, whose own scowl was becoming such a constant expression she wondered if he’d get premature lines on his forehead from pinching his brows together so tightly.

However, the unbearable urge to splatter someone across a wall lessened when they brought her a piebald mare to ride. 

Dorian sighed and looked up at the ceiling, as though praying for patience and strength from the gods. “Celaena, please. Don’t make me arrest you for plotting to murder me or Chaol.”

“It said lessened!” she pointed out. “And you’re still alive. That means I didn’t do it!”

“That’s not the—” He cut himself off with a sigh and simply waved for Telmor to continue.

… She was truly leaving Endovier. 

Celaena’s good humour vanished instantly. 

All those hopeless months, those freezing nights . . . gone now. 

She let out a shaky breath, trying not to think about those cells deep in the bowels of the mines where no light penetrated the endless darkness.

My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid.

… She knew—she just knew— that if she tried hard enough, she could fly from her saddle. That is, until she felt iron clamp around her arms. 

Rowan’s snarl was sharp and audible in the room as he whirled to glare at the two men on the dais. His eyes glowed animal bright in the torchlight, causing many of the guards to reach for their weapons.

Without thinking, Celaena quickly reached down and threaded their fingers together, his tattoos melding perfectly against her scars, their callouses fitting together like they were made for each other. 

His snarl faltered as he looked down at where their hands were joined, something more like a purr rumbling through his chest instead. Celaena elected to ignore all the confused and curious gazes watching them — and if she saw knowing looks in many of those eyes and caught the glint of money exchanging hands out of the corners of her eyes, well, she ignored that too.

It was Chaol, fastening her bandaged wrists into shackles. 

Before Rowan could bare his fangs at the Captain and the Prince, Celaena squeezed his hand tightly.

For reasons she didn’t understand, that seemed to calm something in him. If the only way to stop Rowan from eviscerating Chaol and Dorian throughout the early parts of this book was to hold his hand, she’d do it. 

There were worse people to hold hands with, she mused. At least he was pretty.

On her other side, Nehemia sighed quietly. Oh, when would Elentyia see what was in front of her…

… He mounted his black stallion, and she considered leaping from her horse and using the chain to hang him from the nearest tree. 

Chaol made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, but elected not to voice his annoyance. Celaena had saved them from Rowan’s wrath — for now — and he had no desire to find out how fast the Fae prince could draw one of the many blades strapped to his body.

… The wall suddenly loomed, and her blood throbbed in her veins. The last time she’d been this close to the wall . . . 

So damn close. She’d been so damn close.

Freedom or death. As she’d told Pelor, sometimes she didn’t see the difference anymore.

The crack of the whip sounded, followed by a scream. 

Despite herself, Celaena flinched.

… None of these slaves would ever leave here—even when they died. Each week, they dug new mass graves behind the refining sheds. And each week, those graves filled up.

Pelor whimpered quietly, curling his knees to his chest.

She became all too aware of the three long scars down her back. 

Rowan resisted the urge to reach over and trace them, to mark out the patterns he had tattooed onto her skin — on skin that no longer held either tattoos or scars.

Even if she won her freedom … those scars would always remind her of what she’d endured. 

And now it was her lack of scars that spoke to the horrors she’d witnessed. 

All the words in the Old Language Rowan had lovingly inked onto her skin, all the marks that told of a life lived to the fullest — all of that was gone.

… She shifted her hands in their shackles, watching the chains sway and clank between her and the Captain of the Guard. 

Chaol breathed heavily through his nose. He knew where this was going…

It was attached to his saddle, which was cinched around his horse, which, when they stopped, could be subtly unbridled, just enough so that with a fierce tug from her end, the chain would rip the saddle off the beast, he’d tumble to the ground, and she would—

“Celaena.”

“Captain.”

… By midmorning they were within Oakwald Forest …

Celaena’s heart leapt into her throat as she remembered the gift from the Little Folks, the ones who watched her wherever she went…

Oh gods, please don’t let that be in here. 

She had no idea how she’d explain it otherwise.

… Legends were still told of  … the cruel and bloodthirsty descendents of the fallen Witch Kingdom. 

Pelor shuddered slightly.

Celaena had once met a young woman from that cursed land, and though she’d turned out to be both cruel and bloodthirsty, she was still just a human. And had still bled like one. 

Renault raised an eyebrow. “So dramatic, Sardothien. You barely drew blood.”

“It’s a metaphor, obviously,” Celaena said, not bothering to resist the urge to roll her eyes

… “Do you intend to ignore me forever?” 

Captain Westfall’s brows rose. “I didn’t know I was ignoring you.” 

“I was bored,” Celaena scoffed. “The least you could’ve done was talk with me as we rode.”

“It would have been unbecoming,” Chaol said.

“And yet you ended up speaking with me anyways.” Celaena looked smug.

She pursed her lips, checking her irritation. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. 

Rowan chuckled. “Sometimes, I think you run on nothing but spite and chocolate.”

Celaena narrowed her eyes. “Is that a compliment or an insult? I honestly can’t tell.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Rowan said. “You need to sleep. I’m honestly surprised you never collapsed from sheer exhaustion in all the time I’ve known you.”

“I’m not that bad!”

He raised an eyebrow. “You really are.”

“How old are you?” 

“Twenty-two.” 

Telmor stumbled slightly as he read. So young… they were all so young…

…“And how old are you?” 

“Eighteen.” But he said nothing. “I know,” she continued. “It is impressive that I accomplished so much at such an early age.”

“As I told you before,” Chaol said, “crime isn’t an accomplishment.”

“And as I told you,” Celaena countered, “becoming the world’s most famous assassin is.”  

“That’s not — it shouldn’t be something to be proud of.”

She shrugged. “Well, it is and I did it, so I’m going to flaunt the hell out of it.”

… A few minutes passed. “Are you and the Crown Prince close friends?”

Dorian chuckled. “Trying to wheedle information out of my Captain won’t work.”

“I was bored,” Celaena said again. “There were no books to read, nothing to do but talk with my guards. So yes, I was trying to get information from Chaol because I had no idea what I was walking into and boredom is the vice that dulls even the sharpest minds. Figured I’d kill two birds with one stone,” she added with a shrug.

“My personal life is none of your concern.”

“So charming,” Celaena rolled her eyes. “It’s a wonder you don’t have more women throwing themselves at your feet.”

Chaol’s ears turned pink.

She clicked her tongue. “How wellborn are you?” 

… “Lord?” He didn’t reply, and she smiled slowly. “Lord Chaol Westfall.” 

Celaena grimaced slightly. She hadn’t known she was bringing up bad memories with her questioning. 

Then again, even if she had known, she probably wouldn’t have cared.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not given the title of lord,” he said quietly.

Chaol’s grip tightened on his sword, his leather gloves groaning as they flexed.

Dorian shot him a concerned look. He knew how sensitive a subject his family was to his friend, no matter how much he tried to keep it hidden. Even Celaena glanced over, a silent apology written on her face.

… “A scandal? A deprived birthright? In what sort of messy intrigue are you involved?”

Celaena winced and mouthed ‘sorry’ at Chaol. He clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead, not looking at any of them.

… “Shall I gag you, or are you capable of being silent without my assistance?” 

“Celaena’s silver tongue and impulsivity often gets her in trouble,” Rowan said, drawing attention to him away from the Captain.

“It does not!”

“I told you about the receipts Rolfe uses as target practice, didn’t I? And when we first met, there were several times I was tempted to rip your tongue out,” he chuckled. “We definitely weren’t friends back then. And don’t even get me started on Doranelle.”

“Wait,” Celaena sat up straight. “Why the hell was I doing in Doranelle?”

“Mission from the king,” Rowan said. It was only half a lie. “You went toe to toe with Maeve in a verbal spar.” 

“Bloody hell,” Renault said. “She went up against the Fae queen? How the fuck did she survive?” He looked to Celaena like there might be a secret she was hiding.

“Extenuating circumstances,” Rowan said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “She had something Maeve wanted and bargained for my freedom from the Blood Oath and her own safe passage out of Wendlyn.” Another lie, but only a small one.

“Still, why did the king send me to Doranelle?” Celaena didn’t look convinced. Fear flickered in her blue-gold eyes.

Rowan pursed his lips. How much could he say without revealing Aelin’s identity? “State secrets,” he said at last. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about them here.”

“Fair enough.” Celaena crossed her arms and huffed. “But I still want to know how this all involves you.”

He chuckled, fangs flashing in the torchlight. “That’s another very long story and one best shared in private.”

“Well, that certainly alleviates my curiosity,” Dorian muttered.

He stared ahead at the Crown Prince, his face blank again. 

She tried not to laugh when he grimaced as she began speaking again. 

“Another common reaction,” Rowan said with a smirk. 

Celaena rolled her eyes and playfully whacked his arm.

“Are you married?” 

“No.”

“Not yet,” Celaena muttered under her breath, then huffed a laugh. “Chaol’s going to be taken completely by surprise, isn’t he?”

Rowan’s lips twitched up in another smirk. “Definitely,” he said with equal quiet, so only Celaena, seated right next to him, could hear. “From what I understand, he met her, fell in love, and married her within a few months. Quite a whirlwind romance, if I do say so. One of the few times I’ve known the Captain to make an impulsive decision.”

Celaena cracked up, throwing her head back with a laugh that drew confused looks from some of the other Champions.

She picked at her nails. “I’m not married, either.” 

Rowan twisted the golden ring on his finger, the ruby inlaid in the band a perfect reflection of Aelin’s fire. 

Nehemia saw the movement and raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging on the corners of her lips, but she didn’t say anything.

His nostrils flared. “How old were you when you became Captain of the Guard?” 

He gripped the reins of his horse. “Twenty.” 

Dorian laughed. “Were you trying to annoy Chaol?”

“Of course.” Celaena flipped her braid over her shoulder and gave him a simpering smile. “It was the most fun I’d had in ages. His face turns delightful shades of red.”

As Chaol was now demonstrating on the dais, a frustrated flush crawling up his neck.

The party halted in a clearing and the soldiers dismounted. …

Chaol unhooked the chain from his saddle and gave it a firm yank, motioning for her to dismount. “Lunch,” he said.

“Food,” Celaena sighed happily. “It’s a shame there wasn’t any chocolate.”

Chaol raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “They’re military travel rations, not tea cakes from a fancy parlor.”

“Still! There should always be chocolate!”

Before Celaena could aggravate the Captain further, Telmor marked the page and held up the book. “Who’d like to read next?”

Chapter Text

A moment of silence passed. Finally, Nox said quietly, “I’ll read.” Telmor passed the book down to him and he opened it to the correct page. “Chapter five.”

Rowan watched the thief, marked the way his hands trembled on the leather cover of the book, the way he was still pale and wouldn’t meet Celaena’s eyes.

They’d need to have a conversation, sooner rather than later.

… If she wanted to break free, she’d have to go through Chaol first. 

“I wouldn’t have let you,” Chaol said tersely. “You wouldn’t have gotten three feet.”

Celaena eyed him, unimpressed. “Keep telling yourself that.”

He scowled at her.

Had they been alone, she might have attempted it, though the chains would make it difficult …

“Not impossible?” Pelor asked.

Celaena shook her head. “There was less security here than in the mines. Here, I was only chained to Chaol, not to a procession of innocent slaves. He could use the chains to yank me around, but they also presented his greatest weakness. He needed at least one hand to hold the chains — usually the dominant hand, since it’s the strongest — which meant an extra few seconds to grab his sword. Seconds in which I could have the chain around his neck and strangle him or go for the sword myself.”

At that frankly matter-of-fact assessment of the situation and the potential ways she could have murdered his Captain of the Guard, Dorian shifted uneasily in his seat. He tried to ignore the scowl Chaol was now aiming at him.  

He let his eyes rove the room and noticed the Fae prince watching Celaena with something like pride glittering in his eyes.

… The Crown Prince’s dogs … approached the assassin with wagging tails and lay at her feet. 

“You spoiled them with pets and belly rubs,” Dorian said dryly. “Of course they wanted to sit by you.”

Celaena’s face turned red and she stuck her tongue out at him.

… After giving her a long warning look, he unlocked her chains and clamped them onto her ankles. 

“Yes, Chaol,” Celaena said. “That would totally be a deterrent for running.”

She didn’t even bother to keep the sarcasm out of her voice as she said it, making clear that her comment about him being a buffoon a few chapters ago still applied.

She only rolled her eyes as she raised a small portion of meat to her lips. 

Beside her, Nehemia silently seethed. 

She chewed slowly. The last thing she needed was to be sick in front of them. 

Celaena grimaced. Why did the book have to focus so much on how ruined her body had become? 

… While Dorian had been all arrogance and amusement the previous night, his features were grave as he spoke to the duke. 

Dorian sighed and rested his chin on a fist. Of course Celaena would notice that.

... Whatever their relationship was, it wasn’t cordial. 

“He’s a Duke of the realm,” he said. “And he deserves that respect from you.”

Celaena raised an eyebrow. “But only that?”

Dorian tilted his head, weighing his words. The Duke was gone with his father for a few weeks, thank the gods, otherwise he’d have worried about these meetings getting back to him. Even still, with his Champion in the room and hundreds of prying eyes around the castle who would willingly report his every word back to his father and Perrington, he carefully said, “You should show him the respect he deserves.”

Celaena smirked. That was the most politely worded Fuck him she’d ever heard.

Midbite, Celaena tore her focus from the prince to study the trees. The forest had gone silent. 

“Shit,” she muttered, slumping down in her seat. She’d really hoped this part wouldn’t be mentioned.

Evidently, luck was not on her side. That, or the gods really hated her.

Then again, that had always been obvious.

The ebony hounds’ ears were erect, though they didn’t seem to be bothered by the stillness. 

Dorian frowned. “I never noticed.”

“Be glad,” Chaol said gruffly. “It was very strange, and more than a little disquieting.”

… Her heart skipped a beat. The forest was different here. 

Celaena ran through every curse she knew under her breath, inventing several new ones in the process.

… Despite the ravages of conquest, this part of Oakwald Forest remained untouched. It still echoed with the remnants of the power that had once given these trees such unnatural beauty.

Pelor cocked his head. “I’ve never been. Is it really like that?”

Telmor nodded. “I knew men from my regiment who refused to walk through it, during the conquest. They were dishonourably discharged for deserting their posts, but they all agreed that it was better than walking through faerie territory. Others swore they knew of men who’d gone mad in there, or soldiers who just disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace. Whatever power remains in Oakwald Forest, it is not necessarily friendly or benevolent.”

Pelor paled drastically.

“It’s not that bad,” Celaena found herself saying without thinking. “There’s power in Oakwald, yes, but if anything, the forest has seemed almost… sad since the conquest.”

Telmor frowned. “Maybe to you, a daughter of Terrasen, but for the soldiers who marched through it to conquer your country, it’s been nothing but hostile.”

Celaena quieted. There was nothing more she could say to that.

She’d been only eight when Arobynn Hamel, her mentor and the King of the Assassins, found her half-submerged on the banks of a frozen river …

Celaena swallowed heavily, not wanting to think of those final days before Terrasen surrendered and the world she’d known collapsed around her.

While training her to be his finest and most loyal assassin, Arobynn had never allowed her to return home to Terrasen. 

Renault frowned. “Why not?”

“Because he was afraid it would compromise my loyalty to him, I think,” Celaena said, her mouth dry. “He was afraid that I might run if I was allowed to return. He — he doesn’t like things he can’t control.”

… Now there was nothing left for her there, nor would there ever be. 

Rowan leaned over and whispered in her ear. “You have your cousin. He’s up north with his Bane, resisting the king’s rule in secret. You have Elide, who’s still in Perranth, sequestered away by her uncle but just waiting for the chance to escape and join your court. You have Lords Ren and Murtaugh, who have remained on the run for the past decade but will become two of the most steadfast members of a growing rebellion.” He paused, as though debating his words, then said, “And you have me, always and forever.”

He pulled back and Celaena blinked quickly before anyone could notice the tears that had formed in her eyes. Her heart thundered in her chest and she wasn’t sure if it was because of his words or the warmth of his breath on her neck.

Arobynn had never said it aloud, but if she’d refused his offer to train her, he would have handed her to those who would have killed her. Or worse. 

“Or worse?” Pelor asked nervously. “There’s a worse in that situation?”

“Yes,” Celaena said, closing her eyes. “There are some things far worse than death.”

“But why would they have gone after you?” Telmor frowned. “You were just a girl.”

“I—” Celaena licked her dry lips. “I used to be someone different, then. Celaena Sardothien was born from the ice of the river; the girl I’d been before died in the collapse of Terrasen.”

She’d been newly orphaned, and even at eight, she knew that a life with Arobynn, with a new name that no one would recognize but someday everyone would fear, was a chance to start over. 

Telmor leaned back in his seat. “Why would anyone know your name?”

Cain grinned wickedly across the table. Celaena’s heart pounded so furiously, she was sure everyone in the room could hear it. “My parents had gotten on the wrong side of the king. Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, face softening. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

Celaena swallowed, throat bobbing. “The memories of who I was before are painful; I don’t like thinking about them. It was another girl’s life, not mine.”

She ducked her head to avoid the curious and pitying gazes of everyone in the room.

To escape the fate that led her to leap into the icy river that night ten years ago. 

Rowan let out a long breath. Manon had told him everything that they’d seen in the witch mirror, about the dark rider and Marion and Aelin’s fall into the Florrine. 

For all his anger at the situation Elena had landed them in, he’d forever be grateful for the sacrifice she’d made that night so Aelin could live.

“Damned forest,” said an olive-skinned soldier in their circle. A soldier beside him chuckled. “The sooner it’s burned, the better, I say.” 

Celaena chuckled without humour. “The irony of Brannon’s forest being burned.”

Nehemia grimaced, but the others around the table didn’t seem to know what to make of her bitter words.

… “It’s full of hate,” said another. 

“Did you expect anything else?” she interrupted. 

“I suppose not,” Telmor said quietly.

... “This isn’t just any forest.” She beckoned with her fork to the woods. “It’s Brannon’s forest.”

Dorian frowned. “Brannon? Like, Brannon Galathynius? The first king of Terrasen?”

Celaena nodded cautiously. “Did your parents never tell you the stories…” her voice faltered. No, of course the king of Adarlan would never have told his son the stories of his non-human, magic-wielding ancestor.  

“My father used to tell me stories about it being full of faeries,” a soldier said. “They’re all gone now.” 

No, not gone. Just hiding. Celaena swallowed and prayed to the gods that the Little Folk wouldn’t make an appearance. She had no idea how she’d explain it if they did.

One took a bite from an apple, and said: “Along with those damned wretched Fae.” 

Rowan’s hands clenched around the armrests of his chair. 

No one would meet his eyes, but he sensed them watching him, taking in his fangs, his pointed ears, the tattoo that ran down the left side of his face and torso.

Another said: “We got rid of them, didn’t we?” 

Celaena suppressed a shudder. She couldn’t imagine what would have happened if her terror had triggered a shift that night, if she’d been stuck in her Fae form when magic disappeared.

Well, she could imagine, she just didn’t want to. It wasn’t pretty.

… “Fae are immortal,” she said. 

She peered at Rowan. “How old are you, again?”

“Over three hundred and fifty,” he said. “But I’m still considered young by the standards of my kind. Barring any… unfortunate incidents, I might live to be a thousand, or maybe longer, before I finally fade into the void.”

Renault whistled. “Damn,” he said, which seemed to be echoed by everyone in the room.

… “What do you know about this forest?” Chaol quietly asked her. 

Once again, Celaena cursed her bold tongue. She hadn’t told Chaol much, but his question had certainly prompted enough thoughts to get her hanged for treason — or worse.

… “Before Adarlan began its conquest, this forest was cloaked in magic,” she said softly, but not meekly.  … “And that’s all I know,” she said, meeting his gaze. 

Dorian eyed her curiously, as if trying to figure out what she wasn’t saying.

She quickly broke eye contact and focused on the table in front of her.

… She had lied, and Chaol knew it. 

“Shit,” she muttered.

She knew plenty about this forest, knew that the denizens of this place had once been faeries: gnomes, sprites, nymphs, goblins, more names than anyone could count or remember. 

“Shit,” she said again, hands drifting down to the knives at her sides. If it came down to it, could she fight her way out of here?  

… The King of Adarlan had outlawed it all—magic, Fae, faeries—and removed any trace so thoroughly that 

Nox faltered, shooting Celaena a worried look.

even those who had magic in their blood almost believed it had never really existed, Celaena herself being one of them. 

“Fuck.” Celaena sprung out of her seat and flipped over the back, landing on her feet behind the table and facing all the guards who’d drawn their swords at the words Nox read.

“Nobody move!” Dorian yelled. He was on his feet in a second, hands outstretched in a pleading gesture. “Sheath your weapons.”

Nobody did move, but the guards also refused to lower their swords. Celaena had her knives drawn and angled in front of her, ready for a fight she wasn’t sure she’d survive. 

“Now!” Dorian barked. “Weapons down! That’s an order!”

Slowly, the guards lowered their blades. A few sheathed them but most kept them in hand, hanging at their sides.

Dorian turned to Celaena. “You as well. I won’t kill you for the circumstances of your birth, I promise.”

“I don’t—” Celaena’s voice faltered. “My mother was a water wielder, but she didn’t — she never—”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Dorian repeated, stepping down from the dais and approaching her. Her fingers flexed on the hilts of her daggers and many of the guards began to raise their weapons but stopped when Dorian shot them a look.

Dorian grabbed her hands and slowly lowered them, mindful of the blades between them. “It’s alright,” he said softly. “I’m not my father. I don’t believe in—” He cleared his throat. “That is to say, you were a child then, and magic is gone now. There’s nothing for you to fear here, and nothing we have to fear from you.”

She swallowed. “Aside from being an assassin, you mean.”

He chuckled. “Yes, aside from that.”

It was a weak and pitiful attempt at humour, but the tension in the room eased. It wasn’t gone, not by a long shot, but the horrible chill that had filled the air evaporated. Celaena shot Rowan a look over Dorian’s shoulder and found the Fae prince watching her with rapt attention, one hand lingering over the hatchet at his side.

Strangely, he seemed more concerned for her than of her. 

She filed that thought away for further consideration as she and Dorian returned to their seats. Everyone stared at her, a mixture of distrust, terror, and fury on their faces, but Dorian just sat down and crossed an ankle over his knee with a sigh. “Please, continue,” he said to Nox, waving a casual hand.

Nox hesitated only a moment, glancing at Celaena for guidance. She gave him a sharp look and he quickly averted his gaze, returning to the book in front of him.

… She could still smell the fires that had raged throughout her eighth and ninth years

She hid an almost-imperceptible wince. It was hard not to think of herself on one of those pyres.

… the screams of gifted seers and healers as they’d been consumed by the flames …

Dorian grimaced, thinking of the story of the young healer they’d read only days before. Her mother had been burned at the stake while she watched.

How many children in his empire were orphaned during that purge? How many children had his father’s laws murdered?

Celaena had been lucky to escape the butchering blocks, but now, parsing through all the comments she’d dropped over the course of the readings, he wondered if the other members of her family hadn’t been so lucky. 

Had she been made an orphan on his father’s orders? Had she been forced into a life of deceit and depravity because of his family?

He wondered how she could even stand to be near him.

It had been a while since she’d contemplated the gifts she’d lost

Celaena stiffened, but Dorian raised his hands again in a placating gesture. “I already promised you, Celaena. You won’t face consequences for this.”

Chaol, however, scowled. “You had magic? You said it was just your mother.”

“I didn’t say that.” Celaena’s mouth was dry and she could barely resist the urge to draw her knives. “I said my mother was a water wielder. I inherited a drop of her magic, but it wasn’t enough — I was never trained in it. I couldn’t even draw on it, most days.”

Another half-truth. Not a lie, not exactly, but certainly not the truth that would damn her no matter what Dorian said.

Nox eyed her, a mixture of relief and betrayal flickering across his face before it was quickly hidden.

though the memory of her abilities haunted her dreams. 

“I was never good at controlling it when I could access it,” she said bitterly in advance of anyone’s questions.

She just hoped it was enough to stave off any further curiosity. If anyone went digging deeper into her claims of her childhood… Well, these books had certainly provided enough clues to make life very difficult for her.

Despite the carnage, perhaps it was good that magic had vanished. It was far too dangerous for any sane person to wield; her gifts might have destroyed her by this point.

Rowan huffed quietly. It was this attitude that had nearly killed her several times at Mistward. 

When they released magic in this time, he’d make sure she was better prepared to face the bottomless well that plunged deep inside her. 

“So you didn’t want magic?” Telmor asked, watching her with creased brows.

A bead of sweat trickled down her back. “It’s not something anybody should want. It’s far too dangerous, too unpredictable.”

“Only when not properly trained,” Rowan rumbled beside her. “But magic is a tool, just like any other.”

Dorian sat up straight, something finally clicking. “That’s why she was in Doranelle! It wasn’t a mission from my father at all.”

Celaena’s head snapped to the Fae prince at her right, but Rowan considered the statement, mulling over his words. “She was on a mission for your father,” he said truthfully. “But… circumstances changed and it was decided it was best for her to get out of the castle for a while. She ended up at Mistward, one of Doranelle’s outposts and yes, there I trained her how to gain better control of her magic.”

“But I only have a drop of water, how—” Celaena’s words died as Rowan gave her a meaningful look. “No. No, absolutely not. I refuse.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t get much of a choice. As you said, they would have destroyed you otherwise.”

Celaena swore and buried her face in her hands, then swore again. 

Dorian glanced between them. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Agreed,” Chaol said, frowning down at them, his hand on the eagle-shaped pommel of his sword. It had rested there ever since the truth about her magic had slipped out.

“It’s not something that should be shared here,” Rowan said firmly, green eyes flashing with predatory intent. “And it’s Celaena’s choice what she shares in the end.”

Chaol took a step forward. “If it’s about magic, if she’s breaking the law—”

Rowan’s hand shifted casually down to the hatchet at his belt. 

“Stop,” Dorian said, holding an arm out to keep his friend in place. “I promise Celaena immunity for her past. I refuse to be the kind of man who goes back on his word. But Celaena,” he said, addressing the assassin who still had her head in her hands. “I would appreciate it if you explained this all to me. Not now, of course, but later.”

Celaena didn’t respond, too busy running through her repertoire of cuss words into her palms.

… She’d never forget the stories about Oakwald Forest … But they were now only stories and nothing more. To speak of them was to invite trouble. 

“Which is, of course, why they’re in this book,” Celaena said, voice muffled by her hands. She sighed and raised her head. “Later,” she promised Dorian, looking him in the eyes. “I’ll tell you but… later.”

“Very well.” Dorian nodded and wished he could send her a supportive smile, could do something to reassure her, but he couldn’t. He was toeing the line already as it was. To do more would only be to invite trouble.

… Celaena’s legs had become so stiff that Chaol was forced to help her onto her horse. 

Despite the chill of fear that hadn’t yet left her body, Celaena felt her cheeks warm at the humiliation of it all.

… Her body ached by the time they stopped for the night. 

Celaena grimaced. Sometimes, she thought she’d never again know what it was to not be in pain every moment. 

She didn’t bother to speak at dinner, nor to care when her small tent was erected, guards posted outside, and she was allowed to sleep, still shackled to one of them. 

“Like I’d be able to run away in the middle of a heavily-guarded military camp,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, Chaol…”

He said nothing, but his frown deepened when he looked at her.

She didn’t dream, but when she awoke, she couldn’t believe her eyes. 

“Ah, fuck,” Celaena dropped her head back into her hands. She’d really hoped this part wouldn’t be revealed. 

As hard as it was to explain away her magic in a way that wouldn’t get her killed, this would be impossible.

Small white flowers lay at the foot of her cot, and many infant-sized footprints led in and out of the tent. 

“What the…” Pelor sat up straight. “What are those?”

“Faeries,” Telmor said grimly. “They’ve got to be.”

All eyes turned to Celaena, who grimaced and averted her gaze. “I don’t know, but… probably.”

“Why?” That was Renault this time, watching her with suspicion.

“I don’t know,” Celaena said honestly. “I thought they were all gone.”

“But why leave you flowers?” he pressed. “There has to be a reason, right?”

Celaena swallowed. “I don’t know,” she repeated softly. “Maybe they knew I used to have traces of magic? That’s all I can think of.”

Dorian frowned. Except he had magic, and sure, he’d only known for a week, ever since Rowan crashed into his room holding a stack of glowing books, but what Celaena was proposing… it made no sense. Why would they go to her, who hadn’t had access to magic in a decade and hadn’t even had much at that, and not to him, who seemed to be cursed with what appeared to be raw power?

It made no sense, but he didn’t push the issue. Now was not the time.

Before someone could enter and notice, Celaena swept a foot over the tracks, destroying any trace, and stuffed the flowers into a nearby satchel. 

“I’d wondered where those came from,” Chaol said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

… She spent a good portion of the following day with sweaty palms and a racing heartbeat, and kept one eye fixed on the passing woods.

Celaena sighed with relief as Nox closed the book. It would only be a momentary reprieve before the next person decided to read, but at least it was that. 

Dorian watched the room with consideration, then gestured for a servant to pick up the book from Nox. “I’ll read next, I think.”

Chapter Text

He flipped the book to the correct page and cleared his throat. “Chapter six.”

For the next two weeks, … Celaena was so miserably cold that she contemplated throwing herself into a ravine, hopefully dragging Chaol with her. 

Chaol scowled at her. “Really, Celaena?”

She shrugged. “I was bored. And cold.”

… But, as it was autumn weather, the rain suddenly disappeared, and cloudless, brilliant skies once more stretched over them. 

Nehemia wrinkled her nose. “The weather here is quite strange.”

“What is autumn like in Eyllwe?” Celaena asked, curiosity piqued.

“Hot,” Nehemia said dryly. “With very little rain.”

Celaena chuckled.

Celaena was half-asleep on her horse when the Crown Prince pulled out of line and came trotting toward them … 

“Come see the view,” Dorian clarified. “Bring that one, I suppose.” 

A low growl built in Rowan’s throat. “What did he call you?”

“It’s fine,” Celaena said, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure he knows better now, don’t you, Dorian?”

At her pointed remark, he glanced up from the book, then returned his attention to the pages, mouth suddenly dry.

… Chaol moved them out of line, giving her chain a fierce tug. 

Rowan’s eye twitched.

Celaena had a feeling she’d have to talk him down from murder often throughout these readings.

… Celaena tried not to wince as she slid backward in the saddle. If she fell, she’d die of humiliation.

“Not to mention wrench your arms out of the sockets with the drag from the chains, and possibly be crushed under the horse,” Telmor said. His tone made it clear he was unimpressed with her priorities. “But yes, by all means, worry about your ego.”

Celaena stuck her tongue out at him.

… Atop the hill, Celaena stared at the crowning achievement of Adarlan. The glass castle of Rifthold. 

Rowan tilted his head. It was odd to think of the castle as intact, to remember that just a few stories above him, the building was made entirely of glass.

Aelin might have given him a heart attack the day she’d fallen from the crumbling glass bridge, but he couldn’t deny the impact destroying the symbol of Adarlan’s power had on the kingdoms of the continent.

Not enough, unfortunately. He scowled thinking of Darrow and that damn list of signatures that exiled his mate and forced her to the front lines in an effort to prove her fidelity to Terrasen.

“Rowan?” Celaena said softly beside him. “What’s wrong?”

He quickly smoothed the frown from his face. “Nothing,” he murmured back. “Just… remembering.”

Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t say anything more.

… It had been built above the original stone castle, and cost a kingdom’s wealth to construct. 

Sour bile flooded her mouth. Her kingdom’s wealth.

Nox stared resolutely at the table, a muscle in his jaw feathering.

She thought of the first time she’d seen it, eight years ago, cold and still, frozen like the earth beneath her fat pony. 

Telmor frowned. “If you’re seventeen, wouldn’t that mean you would’ve been nine? I thought you trained at the Keep here, in Rifthold?”

“I did,” Celaena said. “But when Arobynn first found me he…” she hesitated. “Those first few months are a blur, but I remember he kept me at his home in Terrasen for a while, then after about a year purchased a home here, in the capital, and moved the Guild there.”

“Why?” Renault asked. “Why not just stay in Terrasen?”

Celaena pursed her lips, looking away. “I’m not sure. Maybe because of the occupation that was slowly ruining the country, or maybe because he wanted to be closer to the centre of the new empire’s power? I honestly have no idea.”

She had her suspicions, of course, but nothing that could be voiced here.

Even then, she found the castle tasteless …

“Glad to know I’m not the only one,” Dorian muttered under his breath.

… She remembered …  how she kept on thinking about that man—the man she’d killed three days earlier. 

“What made him so important?” Renault asked.

“Nothing,” Celaena said with a shrug. “He was utterly unremarkable. But in this case, he was the first man I killed in a proper assassination.”

Telmor inhaled sharply. “I thought you said you’d been killing since you were eight.”

Something flickered in Celaena’s eyes. “I have. As I said earlier, it’s easier to learn your blades on an immobile target. Before he even sent me out on my first mission, Arobynn made sure I knew how to take a man apart piece by piece, keep him alive while doing it, and then finally kill him once he’d outlived his usefulness.” 

Pelor looked a little green. 

“You tortured them,” Chaol said flatly. 

She shrugged again. “It was me or them, and I’ve always been a selfish woman.”

No one spoke for a while after that, until finally Dorian cleared his throat and picked the book up again. 

“I wonder what your father will think of her,” Chaol said. 

Celaena bit back a comment about how she didn’t care what the king thought of her. 

To voice that would be worse than treason. 

These books were incriminating enough; she would not give them further reason to reconsider their decision to let her live. 

“Oh, he’ll be fine—until she opens her mouth. Then the bellowing and the blustering will begin …

Despite himself, Rowan chuckled softly. “That is also a common response to meeting Celaena.”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t refute it. 

Pelor tilted his head. “Was that what happened when you met her at Doornail?”

“Doranelle,” Rowan corrected. “And no — or rather, yes, but much worse. We…” he grimaced. “Neither of us were in a good place at the time, and we were complete asses to each other, to put it mildly.”

Celaena leaned forward. “Why? What happened?”

Rowan shook his head. “I won’t say. If I can change anything about this world, I will make sure that those events never happen here.”

Even still, he couldn’t help but glance at Nehemia out of the corner of his eye. 

and I’ll regret wasting the past two months tracking her down. 

Celaena crossed her arms. “I’m sure my court records show where I was imprisoned. Why did it take you two months to find me?”

Dorian cleared his throat. “It took a while to convince my father to sign your release papers. And we spent some time in the towns along the way.”

“You took a vacation,” Celaena summed up flatly.

He shrugged, a bit sheepishly, but didn’t dispute it.

… Celaena couldn’t keep her eyes from the castle. She felt so small, even from far away. She’d forgotten how dwarfing the building was. 

She hated the sight of that castle, the endless reminder of all the ways she’d failed in her miserable life.

… “You look as if you’re facing the gallows, not your freedom,” the captain said beside her. 

Celaena scowled. “Can you really blame me?”

The captain studied her. After a long moment, he said, “No, I suppose not.”

… “It’s odd to see it. … I still don’t entirely know how it happened.” 

“How you were captured?” 

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed down the rising tide of emotions.

She knew now, of course. Arobynn’s days were numbered.

She wondered if he’d found the present she’d left for him near the Keep the previous night. Hopefully he understood the message for what it was and was shitting his pants with fear.

It was nothing less than the bastard deserved.

She nodded. “Despite your visions of a perfect world under an empire, your rulers and politicians are quick to destroy each other. 

   Nox made a quiet sound that would have gone unnoticed except for the stifled silence in the room.

Celaena fought to keep any expression off her face. She couldn’t look at Dorian or Chaol right now, not without risking letting slip the careful facade she’d spent most of her life crafting.

So are assassins, I suppose.” 

“You believe one of your kind betrayed you?”

She laughed, low and bitter. “It never was a surprise, not really. Arobynn… I hadn’t expected him to do it like that,” she admitted, “though I knew Sam’s dreams of running away were foolish. As for Tern, Mullin, and Harding, and possibly the others, well—” She quickly bit off the choice words she’d been about to speak. “It wasn’t exactly unexpected. Part of me had always known it was only a matter of time.”

Nehemia squeezed her hand. “I am so sorry, Elentyia,” she said haltingly in the common tongue.

Her skin prickled uncomfortably with the weight of the pitying gazes directed at her. 

… “Were I gone, a vacancy would arise from which they could profit. It might have been one; it might have been many.” 

“I still don’t know how many of the others were in on it.” She glanced hopefully at Rowan, but he shook his head.

“You didn’t share your plans with us at the best of times,” he said, a hint of teasing disapproval in his voice. “Lysandra killed Arobynn and you conned the assassins out of their inheritances in Arobynn will, but I don’t know how much of that was intentional and how much was merely collateral for your revenge on Tern, Mullin, and Harding.”

Celaena hummed thoughtfully. Well, Tern wouldn’t be a problem any longer. That just left her with the issue of how to deal with the rest of them.

“You shouldn’t expect to find honor amongst such company.” 

“I never said I did,” Celaena snapped. 

…  She had her suspicions, of course. And the one that seemed most likely was a truth she wasn’t yet ready to face—not now, not ever.

It was still hard to face, even after a year in a death camp and the proof written into the book they’d just read. 

Rage and sorrow flickered in her gut, mingling with shame for not seeing it earlier, for not saving Sam.

As though sensing her thoughts, Rowan’s hand drifted down to cover hers. He squeeze it once, then laced their fingers together, hidden from everyone’s sight by the table.

“Endovier must have been terrible,” Chaol said. 

Celaena closed her eyes and silently cursed herself. Why did she have to say those things to him, now exposed to everyone in the room?

Nothing malicious or mocking lay beneath his words. Did she dare call it sympathy?

“I…” Chaol trailed off, swallowed hard, and began again. “I’m sorry, Celaena. I shouldn’t have asked you.”

She shrugged and hoped her voice came off as nonchalant and not bitter. “You couldn’t have known it would end up like this.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “It was.” He gave her a look that asked for more. Well, what did she care if she told him? 

Celaena wished she could bury her head in her hands, but seeing as they were both occupied by the princess and prince on either side, she could only huff out a quiet breath and stare resolutely at the table.

“When I arrived, they cut my hair, gave me rags, and put a pickax in my hand as if I knew what to do with it. They chained me to the others, and I endured my whippings with the rest of them. 

She fought down a flinch as the phantom sound of a whip cracked in the air.

But the overseers had been instructed to treat me with extra care, and took the liberty of rubbing salt into my wounds … 

“That can’t be humane,” Telmor said quietly. He sounded as though his voice had failed him.

Her laugh was brittle. “They don’t care. That’s the whole point.”

and whipped me often enough so that some of the gashes never really closed. 

Rowan resisted the urge to run a hand soothingly over the scars on her back. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be welcomed.

It was through the kindness of a few prisoners from Eyllwe that my wounds didn’t become infected. Every night, one of them stayed up the hours it took to clean my back.”

“I owe everything to your people,” Celaena told Nehemia in Eyllwe. She didn’t want anyone else to overhear this confession. “I would not be alive without them. I am in your debt.”

Nehemia’s dark eyes glittered. “You freed my people in Skull’s Bay. There is no debt.”

The corners of Celaena’s mouth twitched up in a small smile.

Chaol didn’t reply, and only glanced at her before dismounting. Had she been a fool to tell him something so personal?

“Yes,” Celaena grumbled.

He didn’t speak to her again that day, except to bark commands.

“Honestly, Chaol, you’re going to make her think you hate her,” Dorian said.

Chaol shot him an irritated look.

Celaena awoke with a gasp … She’d had the nightmare before—that she was lying in one of those mass graves in Endovier. 

Celaena grimaced, ears burning.

And when she tried to pull herself from the tangle of rotting limbs, she’d been dragged down into a pile twenty bodies deep. And then no one noticed that she was still screaming when they buried her alive. 

Pelor whimpered softly. Telmor patted his knee.

…  She pulled her cloak around her. She would win. She’d win, and serve the king, and then vanish into nothing, and think no more of castles or kings or assassins. 

Nox scowled at the table.

“Would you really disappear?” Renault asked. “After everything, knowing that dozens of people have now seen your face and could identify you?”

Celaena gave him a wry smile. “Well, until a few days ago, you all believed I was a jewel thief named Lillian, so I think that lie fooled most people. As for disappearing…” she shrugged. “I did it once, didn’t I? I can do it again.”

She didn’t wish to reign over this city again. 

“I just want—” she cut herself off before she could damn herself, startled by the words that had nearly slipped out.

I just want to go home.

She wondered how many in the room heard it anyway.

Magic was dead, the Fae were banished or executed and she would never again have anything to do with the rise and fall of kingdoms.

Telmor furrowed his brow, but said nothing.

She wasn’t fated for anything. Not anymore. 

Rowan grimaced, but said nothing. 

Celaena caught the slight shift in his expression. Her face slackened in despair, mouth drawing down in a frown. “Please, no.”

“I’m afraid so,” Rowan sighed. 

She swore so violently that Telmor looked about ready to slap his hands over Pelor’s ears. An uneasy silence fell over the room.

Eventually, Dorian cleared his throat and studied the page again. “It switches to my perspective here.”

A hand upon his sword, Dorian Havilliard watched the assassin from his spot on the other side of the sleeping company. There was something sad about her …

Celaena sniffed haughtily. “I think I’m entitled to a bad night every now and again.”

Dorian smiled weakly at her.

… He found her beautiful, if a bit strange and sour. 

“In a purely objective way,” he teased.

Celaena stuck her tongue out at him.

… He couldn’t understand it.

Rowan chuckled. “Celaena is not someone you understand; she’s someone you’d be lucky to survive.”

“Rolfe learned that the hard way,” Celaena agreed.

For some reason, that made a flicker of amusement dance in Rowan’s eyes.

… Through a clearing in the swirling mass, a cluster of stars could be seen. He couldn’t help thinking that they gazed down at her.

She huffed. “They’re stars, Dorian.”

He waved a hand, vaguely trying to convey what he meant. “It’s a metaphor, Celaena. Honestly…”

No, he had to remember she was an assassin with the blessing of a pretty face and sharp wits. 

She gave as much of a mock bow as she could while seated with both hands occupied. “Thank you.”

She washed her hands with blood, and was just as likely to slit his throat as offer him a kind word.

“You? No. Certain other people in this room, definitely, but I wouldn’t risk execution for assassinating the Crown Prince.”

“Your loyalty is awe-inspiring,” Dorian said dryly. “That doesn’t reassure me in the slightest.”

And she was his Champion. She was here to fight for him—and for her freedom. And nothing more.

“I mean, the money is good too.”

Chaol rolled his eyes.

… Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.

Dorian closed the book. He handed it off to a servant and relaxed back on his throne. “Well? Who’d like to read next?”

Chapter Text

When no one else spoke up, Renault sighed and reached a hand out. “I can, I suppose.”

Dorian had a servant bring him the book, and the mercenary flipped it open to the correct page. “Chapter seven.”

Trumpeters signaled their arrival as they passed through the looming alabaster walls of Rifthold. 

… They followed the Crown Prince, who … wore a golden crown upon his neat hair, and she had to concede that he looked rather regal. 

Dorian winked playfully at Celaena, who just rolled her eyes.

Young women flocked to them, waving. … Celaena couldn’t help but notice the sharp stares from the same women when they beheld her in the prince’s retinue. 

Celaena smirked slightly. It was as good a compliment as any, being considered pretty enough to stir jealousy in others, even as thin and pale as she’d been.

She knew how she appeared … 

Pelor cocked his head. “Why? What do you look like?”

A few others in the room muffled their laughter. Dorian’s ears tinged pink, but he grinned at her, utterly unrepentant.

Telmor put Pelor out of his misery and leaned down to whisper something in the young assassin’s ear. Pelor’s face immediately turned bright red, which had Celaena smothering a laugh behind her hand.

So Celaena only smiled at them, tossed her hair, and batted her eyelashes at the prince’s back.

Rowan chuckled quietly. “Vain to the bitter end?” He said it like it was some sort of inside joke.

“So you’ve said before,” Celaena agreed with a sigh as she leaned back in her chair and swept her braid over one shoulder.

The laughter lines around Rowan’s eyes crinkled as the ghost of a smile flickered across his face.

Her arm stung. “What?” she hissed at the Captain of the Guard as he pinched her. 

Immediately, the smile vanished, replaced by a glower.

“Oh, stop it,” Celaena said, swatting his arm gently. “It’d be a shame to marr that pretty face with frown lines and wrinkles.”

His expression eased slightly as his lips twitched in amusement. “You think I’m pretty?”

She just rolled her eyes and focused on Renault instead, ignoring the pink flush that dusted her cheeks.

… “Be quiet and act normally.” …

Rowan chuckled lightly. “That is normal for Celaena, captain.”

“So I’ve learned,” Chaol said through gritted teeth.

“I should jump from the horse and run,” she said … “I’d vanish in an instant.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Dorian said. “In the middle of the capital? My guards are too well trained for that.”

“Would you like to put a wager on that, prince?” Celaena asked with a raised brow.

He sighed. “That wasn’t an invitation for you to prove it, Celaena. Stay with your guards at all times, or there won’t be much I can do to save you from winding back up in Endovier.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Yes,” he said, “you’d vanish with three arrows buried in your spine.” 

Chaol pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily.

… At the sound of a whip, her head snapped to the side. 

Celaena barely suppressed the flinch that ripped through her. She gritted her teeth and glared at the book in Renault’s hands.

Slaves staggered down the gangplank of a merchant ship. 

  Dorian grimaced and looked away from his irate Champion. 

A mix of conquered nations bound together, each of them had the hollow, raging face she’d seen so many times before. 

Nehemia gripped her hand tightly, silently seething beside her.

Most of the slaves were prisoners of war—rebels who survived the butchering blocks and endless lines of Adarlan’s armies. 

Celaena had said her parents were killed for getting on his father’s bad side. Were they among the many rebels his father’s troops had murdered for merely resisting complete subjugation? 

Dorian’s stomach twisted itself into knots..

Some were probably people who had been caught or accused of trying to practice magic. 

And that could have been Celaena, had she not been so afraid of the tiny amount of magic she held that she’d been glad when it had disappeared.

Bile clawed up his throat. Dorian swallowed it down.

But others were just ordinary folk, in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

What of Nox? He couldn’t have been much older than thirteen when Terrasen fell. How many times had he nearly been captured and enslaved by soldiers?

The pit growing in Dorian’s stomach yawned wider. 

Now that she noticed, there were countless chained slaves working the docks…

He’d never really noticed them. They’d just been part of the scenery, figures that bowed in respect and quickly faded into the background, no more interesting than gnats. 

He wanted to sink back into his throne and disappear.

She wanted to leap from her horse and run to them, or to simply scream that … she was not like these monsters that destroyed everything. 

Dorian flinched and Chaol hid a barely-perceptible grimace. 

Monsters, Dorian thought. We’ve become the monsters of our own stories.

He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

That she had done something, nearly two years ago, when she had freed almost two hundred slaves from the Pirate Lord. Even that, though, wasn’t enough. 

“But for them, for those you freed, it meant everything,” Nehemia whispered in Eyllwe, squeezing her hand.

“It was only two hundred. That’s nothing compared to Endovier or Callaculla—”

“And you’ll free them too,” Nehemia said firmly. “I know you will. Our people will know freedom once again, Elentyia.”

“Someday,” Celaena agreed, squeezing her friend’s hand back.

… Sooner than she would have liked, the iron and glass gate of the castle appeared … Chaol pulled her to his side, keeping a firm grip on her cloak as the Crown Prince approached. 

Celaena smirked. “As though that would do anything.”

Chaol glared at her.

“Six hundred rooms, military and servant’s quarters, three gardens, a game park, and stables on either side,” said Dorian, staring at his home. “Who could ever need so much space?”

“Was that your idea of flirting?” Celaena asked. “Because it was pitiful.”

Dorian just winked, and she rolled her eyes, the tension in the room easing somewhat at their playfulness.

… “Well,” said Dorian. “You’ve fattened up a bit …”

Some of Celaena’s good humour vanished. “I’m not a pig to be slaughtered, Dorian!” she snapped, and ignored the way the prince next to her stiffened and bared his teeth.

“That’s not what I—” Dorian floundered, cheeks pink. “It’s just — you were barely skin and bones when we found you, and you looked healthier after two weeks of travel.”

Celaena rolled her eyes again. “Honestly, Dorian, that’s not what you say to a lady.”

“You’re nothing more than a damned hellion,” Chaol groused, and Dorian tensed, as did the Fae prince next to Celaena, but she only laughed.

“How else would I keep you all on your toes?” she said, a broad grin erasing all previous hostility from her features.

… “The competition begins tomorrow. …”

“It would have been helpful if you freed me sooner,” Celaena grumbled, only half-joking. 

Dorian grimaced, but said nothing. He’d already apologized; if he continued to do so, it wouldn’t seem genuine. 

She rolled her shoulders and searched for any sign of her competitors. No one else seemed to be arriving, though.

“How long were you guys here before the competition started?” Celaena asked, turning to the other champions.

Nox glanced uneasily around the table, eyes flicking to her and then dropping back to the table. “Two weeks,” he said quietly.

“Hmm, I was here…” Telmor thought about it. “A week, I think.”

“Nine days,” Pelor piped up. “But I didn’t leave my rooms until the competition actually started.”

Neither Cain nor Grave deigned to answer, and she didn’t bother with prompting them. Instead, she faced Dorian again and raised a pointed eyebrow at him, to which he winced slightly.

… Dorian nodded to Chaol. “I’ll see you later tonight.” Without saying a word to Celaena, he strode up the steps to the palace, his red cape blowing in the wind. 

“Rude,” Celaena huffed.

Renault cleared his throat and hurriedly said, “Time skip,” before they could begin bickering again.

… Between her murmurs of appreciation during Chaol’s brief tour of her rooms, she’d counted the windows—twelve—the exits—one— and the guards posted outside her door, windows, and balcony—nine. 

Dorian rubbed his temples. “Celaena, please.”

She just shrugged. “What did you expect?”

Dorian’s shoulders slumped and he let out a long sigh.

They were each armed with a sword, knife, and crossbow, and though they’d been alert while their captain passed by, she knew a crossbow wasn’t exactly a light weight to bear for hours on end. 

Chaol’s left eye twitched.

… It would waste precious seconds to grab the weapon and load it—seconds when she could take their swords, cut their throats, and vanish into the gardens. 

“Celaena.” Dorian’s tone was almost pleading. 

… Celaena … grabbed the few bone hairpins left in the back of a dresser drawer, and some string she found in a mending basket in her giant dressing room. … 

“Celaena!” Chaol growled. 

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “You’ll let me have these,” she said, patting the blades at her belt, “but not a hairpin shiv?”

“It’s the principle of the matter,” Dorian sighed. “You’ll give it to Philippa when we’re done here, and any other improvised weapons you have stashed in your room, and you won’t be dragged to the dungeons for having them.”

Celaena huffed and slumped in her seat, crossing her arms, but agreed to his terms.

Well, it wasn’t a knife, but … it would certainly hurt if she jammed it into a guard’s neck. And disable him long enough for her to grab his weapons. 

Pelor stared at her, wide-eyed. “Would you really?”

She just gave him a wicked grin and didn’t answer.

… When she was certain no one was in her chambers, she entered the foyer and strode through it to the gaming room. She beheld the billiards cues along the far wall, and the heavy colored balls stacked on the green felt table, and grinned. 

A vein pulsed in Chaol’s forehead. 

… Ultimately, she left the billiards equipment, if only because it would arouse suspicion if it all disappeared, but it would be easy enough to get a stick if she needed to escape, or to use the dense balls to knock the guards unconscious. 

Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “Celaena…” 

He seemed unable to articulate the rest of his complaint.

“I’m Adarlan’s Assassin and you left me alone in the castle of the man who sentenced me to a death camp!” Celaena defended. “What the hell did you think I’d do?!”

“Not plan to murder me in my sleep,” Dorian shot back.

“Don’t be foolish,” Celaena waved the comment off. “I wouldn’t do it while you were sleeping. And besides, I never said I’d kill the guards; I just said I’d knock them unconscious.”

“That’s not comforting, Celaena!”

She just shrugged.

Beside her, Rowan flashed his teeth at the prince and captain in a sharp grin.

… She slept for an hour, until a servant announced the arrival of the tailor, to outfit her with proper court attire. … She considered jabbing one of the tailor’s pearl-headed pins through his eye. 

Dorian massaged his temples. “I know Nygell is annoying, but please, don’t kill the royal tailor. It would be a pain to replace him.”

“Fine,” Celaena grumbled.

… Celaena grinned at the mirror in the dressing room. 

… But her smile faltered as she remembered why, exactly, she was here. 

The King’s Champion indeed. She looked more like the King’s Lapdog. 

“Woof,” Cain sneered at her, his depthless eyes flashing. The blood that stained his teeth from where his split lip had opened looked unnaturally dark. 

Rowan growled lowly beside her, but she just placed a hand on his arm to calm him and smirked at Cain. “Apparently this lapdog has claws,” she said sweetly. “How’s the nose doing, Cain? Still broken?”

He spat out a curse at her, which caused Rowan’s muscles to bunch under her hand as he tensed, but she only rolled her eyes. “You’re going to have to be more creative than that.”

“Beautiful,” said an older, female voice… 

… She bowed. “Philippa Spindlehead,” said the woman, rising. “Your personal servant. You must be—” 

“Celaena Sardothien,” she said flatly.

Telmor chuckled, a forced attempt to break the tension that had fallen over the room. The Fae male was still staring daggers at Duke Perrington’s champion, and he didn’t want to be in the room when they finally snapped.

“It’s a wonder you managed to keep your identity secret after all these years,” he said, “if you tell the first person you meet.”

Celaena’s lips twitched in a smile. “Trust me, Philippa is no threat I couldn’t handle easily. There’s no need to keep your identity from someone if they won’t live long enough to tell others.”

Up on the dais, Dorian looked skyward, as though praying for strength.

Philippa’s eyes widened. “Keep that to yourself, miss,” she whispered. “I’m the only one who knows. And the guards, I suppose.”

“I wonder how many of them were surprised to find out I was Celaena Sardothien,” she mused. “I suppose it’s what they get for doubting my identity.

… Philippa put a hand on her hip. “Oh, don’t scowl—you ruin your face when you look like that!” She reached to pinch Celaena’s cheek, and Celaena pulled away.

Celaena scowled amidst the quiet laughter of the others in the room.

… Celaena blinked, then slowly said: “You’re awfully bold. I hope you don’t act like this around court ladies.” 

“There was a reason I assigned her to you,” Dorian said with a smirk.

Celaena rolled her eyes. “So Philippa told me.”

… “You understand what my occupation entails, don’t you?”

“Somehow,” Dorian said, his smirk turning into a full grin, “I doubt she particularly cares.”

In a dramatic show of maturity, Celaena stuck her tongue out at him.

“No disrespect, but this sort of finery is worth far more than seeing my head roll on the ground.”

Celaena tilted her head in reluctant acquiescence. “She’s got that right, at least.”

Celaena’s upper lip pulled back from her teeth as the servant turned from the room. “Don’t make such a face,” Philippa called over her shoulder. “It squishes that little nose of yours.”

Telmor coughed into his hand to hide his laughter. Most of the other Champions weren’t so subtle. 

Celaena could only gape as the servant woman shuffled away. 

“Time skip,” Renault said, smothering his grin as best he could. Then he scanned a few lines into the chapter, and his expression sobered. His eyes flicked up to the prince. “It’s from your perspective, Your Highness.”

Dorian grimaced, already suspecting what it would entail. “Continue as you were.”

Hesitating only a moment longer, Renault found his place again and began to read.

The Crown Prince of Adarlan stared at his father unblinkingly, waiting for him to speak. … Dorian, tall, toned, and elegant, bore no resemblance to him. 

Dorian shifted uneasily. It was that exact fact that led to the rumours of scandal and illicit affairs that had plagued him for much of his childhood. 

If it wasn’t for his mother’s obsession with keeping the Havillard line pure and unbroken, he might have even believed them.

And then there was the matter of Dorian’s sapphire eyes—not even his mother had his eyes. No one knew where they came from.

“Gavin,” Rowan rumbled. “You have Gavin Havillard’s eyes.”

Dorian just stared at him. “What?”

“It’s hereditary, I suppose,” Rowan said with a shrug. “You share his bloodline; the genes were bound to reappear at some point.”

“But how do you know?” Dorian asked. “You’re not old enough to have known Gavin.”

Rowan’s mouth twisted bitterly. “No, but you have — or his ghost, at least. I don’t know most of the details,” he added to forestall any further questions, “but I have a feeling it will be explained sooner rather than later. All I know is that you being here right now, with those eyes, is no coincidence. Nothing about this is a coincidence.”

Beside Celaena, Nehemia murmured under her breath. “All the players in the unfinished game.”

Celaena shot her a quizzical look, but said nothing.

Dorian was pale. His throat bobbed like he was having trouble swallowing that declaration. “... Does this have anything to do with…” He nodded surreptitiously in the direction of the books, which still glowed with a faint pulse of light only visible to him and Rowan. 

Rowan nodded. “I’ll explain it later. In private.”

“That… that’s probably best.”

As the room fell into an uneasy silence, Renault glanced between the two princes several times before finally deeming it safe to continue.

“She has arrived?” …

“She shouldn’t pose any threat or problem while she’s here,” …

“You’d better not,” Chaol growled.

“Trouble finds me.” At his unimpressed look, Celaena just rolled her eyes. “Trust me, I have enough of it in my life that I don’t plan to go causing any at the moment.”

Picking Sardothien had been a gamble—a bet against his father’s tolerance. He was about to see if it was worth it. 

Celaena’s eyes dropped to the table. A muscle in her jaw jumped as she clenched it hard enough to make her teeth groan. 

Was she nothing more than a plaything to these noble men? Worth little more than what she could provide as entertainment value?

She mentally scoffed. Of course she was.

… “She owes allegiance to none but herself, and won’t balk at putting a knife through your heart.” 

“If you do that, my dearest Champion, it must be suitably dramatic,” Dorian said, forcing humour into his voice. “You stab me and I bleed out in your arms and finally confess everything to you, only to die before finishing—”

“Dorian!” Celaena’s face felt like it was on fire. If she’d had anything aside from her knives easily at hand, she would have thrown something at him just to get him to shut up.

“No one’s killing anyone else,” Chaol said gruffly, glaring at her.

… Dorian steeled his nerve, remembering the words he’d been brooding over for the entire journey from Endovier. “I guarantee she’ll be able to fulfill her duties; we truly don’t need to train her. I’ve told you already: it’s foolish to have this competition at all.”

“I admit, the training has been… useful,” Celaena said, willing the flush in her cheeks to calm. “Endovier hadn’t exactly been kind to my body.”

Guilt flashed in Dorian’s eyes.

“If you do not mind your tongue, I’ll have her use you for practice.” 

“And then what? Have Hollin take the throne?”

“Dorian,” Chaol said quietly, just loud enough for the man on the dais beside him to hear. “Are you sure we should be reading this?”

Dorian shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s Mala’s will. Who knows what will happen if it’s not read in its entirety.”

Chaol nodded several times as he mulled over that thought. At last he said, “You shouldn’t have challenged your father. One of these days, he’s going to go through with his threats.”

Dorian tried to grin reassuringly at his friend, but he was afraid it came out as more of a grimace.

… “You might think this . . . girl can win, but you forget that Duke Perrington is sponsoring Cain. You would have been better off picking a Champion like him—forged in blood and iron on the battlefield. A true Champion.”

Cain smirked at the praise, and Celaena just scoffed loudly and crossed her arms. 

Dorian stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Don’t you find the title a little ridiculous, given that our ‘Champions’ are no more than criminals?”

“I resent that remark!” Celaena squawked.

“And what would you have me call you instead?” Dorian asked.

She thought for a moment. “An independent contractor.”

He chuckled. “I think we’ll stick with Champion, for now.”

… “I am the conqueror of this continent, and soon to be ruler of all Erilea. You will not question me.” 

Celaena’s good humour vanished immediately. 

Dorian winced slightly as the tension in the room skyrocketed.

Dorian, realizing how close he was to crossing a boundary between impertinence and rebellion—a boundary that he’d been very, very careful to maintain—mumbled his apologies.

Dorian shifted uneasily and focused his attention on the book in Renault’s hands rather than the curious, pitying looks some of the other occupants of the room were giving him.

“We’re at war with Wendlyn,” his father went on. “I have enemies all around. Who better to do my work than someone utterly grateful for being granted not only a second chance, but also wealth and the power of my name?” 

Celaena muttered a few choice words under her breath.

… “ … When you are king, you will understand consequences.” 

“When I’m king, I won’t declare control over Terrasen through thin claims of inheritance.” 

Both Nox’s and Celaena’s eyes snapped to the prince, who shifted uneasily.

“Truely?” Celaena asked, the word barely more than a whisper of breath.

Dorian tried to appear nonchalant. “I’ve never seen the point in empires. It’d just be more work for me when I’m king.”

“Who…” Nox croaked, his throat dry. “Who would you put on the throne?” It was a dangerous question, one bordering on sedition. His gaze flickered momentarily to Celaena before returning to the prince’s.

“The Galathynius’ are gone,” Dorian said, trying to ignore the twinge of sadness as the memory of a young princess he’d met only once flashed in his mind. “We’d have to find an alternative.”

He left it at that, not quite understanding the charged silence that filled the room but unwilling to explore the topic further. 

Not here, not now. 

Chaol had warned him to watch his mouth when speaking to his father, but when he spoke to him like that, as if he were a pampered idiot . . . 

Normally, Celaena would have made a quip about that, but her tongue felt clumsy in her mouth, her mind too in shock to fully process what Renault was reading.

Free… Terrasen? Dorian planned to… free Terrasen?

A firestorm of emotions roared through her, too jumbled and tangled for her to discern what she truly felt, but one thought slipped through.

What does that mean for me?

… They watched each other in silence before Dorian spoke again. 

“Perhaps you should consider our difficulty in getting past Wendlyn’s naval defenses to be a sign that you should stop playing at being a god.”

Chaol sighed heavily. “Dorian,” he said under his breath. “You have to stop provoking him like that.”

Dorian stared at his hands, at the signet ring glinting in the torchlight. “I know,” he said quietly.

… “I am not playing. And this is not a game.” 

Nehemia hummed softly, glancing between Celaena and Cain as though she could see something the rest of them could not.

Dorian’s shoulders stiffened. “Though she may look pleasant, she’s still a witch. You are to keep your distance, understood?” 

“Except for the fact that I’m what — engaged? — to a literal witch.” Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“To be fair,” Rowan said, lips twitching in amusement. “Your… arrangement… was never finalized.”

Dorian just groaned quietly.

“Who? The assassin?” 

“She’s dangerous, boy, even if you’re sponsoring her. She wants one thing and one thing only—don’t think she won’t use you to get it. 

Celaena shifted uneasily. She couldn’t say that the book was lying, not exactly. Part of her was so desperate to be free that she’d do anything, even if it meant betraying the man she’d come to consider a friend and signing her life away in service to his father.

On  the dais, Dorian saw the movement, and his chest tightened as disappointment and heartbreak flooded his veins. 

… “And if I condescend to associate with her, what would you do, father? Throw me in the mines as well?” 

“Dorian…” Chaol quietly groaned, already knowing what was coming.

His father was upon him before Dorian could brace himself. The back of the king’s hand connected with Dorian’s cheek, and the prince staggered, but regained his countenance. 

The tips of Dorian’s ears heated and he dropped his gaze to his hands, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

… Knowing he’d only cause more trouble for himself if he stayed, the Crown Prince of Adarlan bowed silently and left his father, eyes gleaming with barely controlled anger.

Renault closed the book amidst tension so thick, Celaena could have cut it with her knives.

Chapter Text

The air in the room was so charged, it was difficult to breathe, but Renault feigned nonchalance and handed the book unceremoniously to Pelor. “You haven’t read in a while, kid. It’s your turn.”

Pelor spluttered a protest, but under the expectant gazes of everyone in the room, could only open the book and find his place on the page. “Chapter eight,” he grumbled.

… “Is there anything interesting down this hall?” 

“What else would you care to see? 

“You made Chaol give you a tour?” Dorian asked with forced amusement, raising an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

Celaena shrugged. “Curiosity, I suppose.”

“She was actually looking for escape routes,” Pelor said, reading further down the page.

Celaena shot him a sour look as Chaol’s face flushed red with fury.

… She’d managed to convince him to give her a tour under the pretense of extreme boredom—when, in fact, she’d used every moment to plot a dozen escape routes from her room.

“Celaena,” Chaol growled, gloved hand flexing around the grip of his sword.

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, what did you expect I’d do? Did you really think I actually wanted a tour of the dusty old hallways?”

A vein pulsed in his forehead as his scowl deepened.

The castle was old, and most of its halls and stairwells went nowhere; escaping would require some thought. 

“Something tells me that’s not a deterrent,” Dorian muttered, rubbing his temples.

“It’s not,” Celaena told him cheerfully.

His sigh was pained.

But with the competition beginning tomorrow, what else did she have to do? 

“Get some sleep,” Rowan said gruffly. “I know you; when you’re plotting something or preoccupied, you hardly sleep at all.”

“I’m not that bad,” she protested.

“I honestly have no idea how you’re still standing,” he grumbled. “The amount of times you woke me up sneaking out of your bedroom window at night? You barely slept more than a couple of hours a night — tops. I’m honestly surprised you’ve never keeled over from exhaustion.”

Celaena’s cheeks flushed pink with the implications of his words. 

Nox also picked up on what Rowan had implied, and raised an eyebrow in surprise. Aelin Celaena had woken Rowan up on more than one occasion when sneaking out of her bedroom? How close was the prince sleeping to her that it woke him up?

He eyed the Fae male on his queen’s right side, and quietly found himself reassessing what he’d previously thought about their relationship. 

Was it possible that he was not only seated with his queen, but also her consort? The idea seemed unlikely; Rowan was so old and Celaena so young, and it seemed as though she would never admit to her heritage or reclaim her throne. What business would a Fae prince of Doranelle have with an exiled princess who refused to claim her birthright? It made no sense.

And yet Nox saw the way they gravitated towards each other, that magnetic, almost instinctual pull between them, and wondered…

And what better way to prepare for a potential disaster? 

Telmor’s eyes were sad. “Do you always believe the worst will happen?”

“Seriously?” Celaena scowled. “You really have to ask?”

She couldn’t stand the way he was watching her. She looked away.

… The sounds of lilting speech reached them, along with the gentle strumming of a harp. “What’s in there?” 

“The queen’s court.” 

Chaol’s face reddened. He’d thought it was an innocent question. Now, he was suspecting otherwise.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her down the hall. 

“Queen Georgina?” 

“Don’t get any ideas,” he growled, glaring at Celaena.

She gave him an innocent look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He just shook his head, but didn’t look convinced.

Didn’t he have any idea what information he was giving away? 

Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Celaena, please. Don’t threaten the royal family.”

“As I said before,” she said sweetly, “I wouldn’t kill you in your sleep, and that goes for your family. Chaol and his guards would have plenty of time to try to stop me. If they’re as good as they claim, maybe they will.”

Leather creaked as all the guards in the room tightened their grips on their swords.

“You can’t say stuff like that,” Dorian groaned. “Celaena, please. Don’t make me arrest you for suspected regicide.”

“Fine,” Celaena huffed, and crossed her arms.

… “Is the young prince at home?” 

“Hollin? He’s at school.” 

“Thank god for that,” Dorian muttered.

Chaol shot him a look that said I agree with you, but you can’t say that here.

“And is he as handsome as his older brother?” …

“Objectively!” Celaena cried when Dorian gave her an exaggerated wink and a smug smile.

Rowan’s grip on the armrests tightened as a low growl built in the back of his throat. 

Celaena kicked his shins. “Stop that!” she hissed. “Behave!”

… “Hollin will grow into his lineage,” Chaol grumbled. 

Rowan was still seething, but a huffed a humourless laugh. “The wrong sort of lineage,” he mumbled under his breath.

Celaena shot him a confused look, but he was quiet enough that only she heard.

… From the garden sprouted a tower made of inky black stone. Two gargoyles, wings spread for flight, perched on each of the four clock faces, soundlessly roaring at those beneath. 

The Wyrdhounds. Rowan hated those fucking things. Gods, Lorcan was such a bastard some times.

No — he mentally corrected himself. Lorcan was always a bastard. What Elide saw in the male, he’d never know.

“What a horrible thing,” she whispered. … “You’d see something like this before the Gates of Wyrd …

Rowan made a wheezing sound like he’d been punched.

“Rowan?” Celaena gripped his arm. “What’s wrong?”

Everyone was staring at him, just like they had been before when the Wyrd was mentioned several chapters before. He wondered how long it would be before someone put it together.

“Stay away from the clocktower,” he told Celaena quietly, hoping no one could overhear them.

“What do you mean—”

“Just stay away from it,” he said firmly. “Until I can explain it all to you, until I can figure out what to do — just keep your distance, please.”

“... Alright.” Celaena eyed him strangely. “I will.”

 How old is it?” 

“The king had it built around Dorian’s birth.” 

“This king?” Chaol nodded. “Why would he build such a wretched thing?”

Dorian shrugged. “It’s a monument celebrating the birth of the heir to the throne.”

Rowan knew better, but it wasn’t the place or time to correct those assumptions.

… “What is this mark on the path here?”

Nehemia froze. To anyone who didn’t know her, the change in her body language would have been imperceptible, but Celaena knew her well enough to notice it.

When she’d asked, Nehemia had said they were things best left forgotten, something that shouldn’t be messed with, but those marks — at least, ones similar to them — had been painted around all the bodies in blood. That couldn’t be a coincidence. 

She thought about The Walking Dead, the book that kept following her around the library, and the pictures that haunted her within, and a shiver ran down her spine.

… Celaena examined the gargoyle again. “He’s pointing at it. What does the symbol mean?” 

Nehemia’s hand shot out and gripped Celaena’s own. “Don’t go looking into it,” she warned. “It is not something to be trifled with.”

“I won’t,” Celaena lied. She’d been researching it for months, albeit with little success. 

“It means you’re wasting my time,” he said. 

Celaena huffed. “You’re so rude, Chaol.”

“It’s not my job to be nice to you,” he said. “It’s my job to protect people from you.”

She leaned back in her seat, hurt flickering momentarily through her eyes before it was quickly hidden beneath a mask of casual contempt. 

“It’s probably some sort of decorative sundial.”

“No, it isn’t.” Rowan’s voice was a low rumble, but everyone heard him.

“It isn’t?” Dorian leaned forward. He’d been walking through that garden since he could toddle, and he’d noticed those marks but never thought anything of them. Now, he found his interest renewed.

Rowan’s expression was grim. “No, but it’s not something that should be shared here.”

“Why not?” Renault asked. 

“Because there are things greater than this Competition at stake here,” Rowan said. His tattoo flashed in the torchlight. “There are things going on that are greater than all of us, greater than this country or this empire — Greater even than our world. And these are things that are not to be spoken of in public.”

“So you won’t tell us?” Pelor asked, peeking up from the book.

“No,” Rowan said flatly. His tone made it clear that the conversation was over.

… She allowed herself to be dragged from the garden … Once beyond, they entered a long hallway … Celaena suddenly halted. “What,” she breathed, “is that?”  

Nehemia gave her a quizzical look, her lips twitching in amusement. “What has caught your attention now, Elentiya?”

“The library,” Celaena said breathlessly.

“Of course,” Nehemia said in the common tongue, her accent still thick and unwieldy. She laughed. “I should have expected.”

Celaena just rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

… “The library.” The two words were like a shot of lightning. 

Telmor’s expression softened. “You really enjoy reading, don’t you?”

Celaena huffed and tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Who doesn’t?”

“I don’t,” Renault grumbled.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said, lips curling in disgust.

… She’d entered a city made entirely of leather and paper. Celaena put a hand against her heart. Escape routes be damned. 

“So to keep you in place,” Dorian said dryly, “all I need to do is put you in a library?”

Her cheeks flushed slightly, but she lifted her chin. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do the same.”

“I’ve never seen—how many volumes are there?” 

Chaol shrugged. “The last time anyone bothered to count, it was a million. …”

Nox whistled lowly. “That’s a lot of books,” he said, but his eyes were sad.

His gaze caught Celaena’s and a moment of understanding flickered between them. 

… “Over a million? A million books?” Her heart leapt and danced, and she cracked a smile. “I’d die before I even got through half of that!”

“I don’t know,” Rowan rumbled. “I’ve seen the way you devour books.”

Before she could protest, Dorian chuckled. “And I’ve seen the volumes piled up around your chambers, my dearest Champion. I think you’d do nothing but read all day if you could.”

Celaena flushed and crossed her arms. “So would you!” 

… “I didn’t know assassins liked to read,” Chaol called. 

“I don’t spend all my time killing people,” she snapped. 

“I know that, I – I’m sorry,” Chaol admitted. “That was too far.”

The ire in her eyes lessened somewhat. “Thank you.”

… “You said you were from Terrasen; did you ever visit the Great Library of Orynth? 

“Once,” she admitted quietly. “It was… it was beautiful.”

Nox swallowed. “I wish I could have seen it.”

Me too, Dorian wanted to say, but couldn’t.

They say it’s twice the size of this—and that it used to hold all the knowledge of the world.”