Crown of Midnight
He bit back his annoyance. “If it’s just a letter, then I don’t think the creature’s owner can offer a payment. Though perhaps they’d be happy to donate a few books in—”
“Throw them in the dungeons! My library has become little more than a circus! Did you know that there’s a cloaked person skulking about the stacks at all hours of the night? They probably unleashed that horrible beast in the library! So track them down and—”
“The dungeons are full,” Chaol lied. “But I’ll look into it.” While Sensel finished his rant about the truly exhausting hunt he’d gone on to retrieve the letter, Chaol debated whether he should just leave.
But he had questions, and once they reached the mezzanine and he was certain that Celaena, Fleetfoot, and Dorian were long gone, he said, “I have a question for you, sir.”
Sensel preened at the honorific, and Chaol tried his best to look uninterested.
“If I wanted to look up funeral dirges—laments—from other kingdoms, where would be the best place to start?”
Sensel gave him a confused look, then said, “What a dreadful subject.”
Chaol shrugged and took a shot in the dark. “One of my men is from Terrasen, and his mother recently died, so I’d like to honor him by learning one of their songs.”
“Is that what the king pays you to do—learn sad songs with which to serenade your men?”
He almost snorted at the idea of serenading his men, but shrugged again. “Are there any books where those songs might be?”
Even a day later, he couldn’t get the song out of his head, couldn’t stop the chill that went up his neck when its words echoed through his mind. And then there were those other words, the words that had changed everything: You will always be my enemy.
She was hiding something—a secret she kept locked up so tight that only the horror and shattering loss of that night could have made her slip in such a way. So the more he could discover about her, the better chance he stood of being prepared when the secret came to light.
“Hmm,” the little librarian said, walking down the main steps. “Well, most of the songs were never written down. And why would they be?”
“Surely the scholars in Terrasen recorded some of them. Orynth had the greatest library in Erilea at one time,” Chaol countered.
“That they did,” Sensel said, a twinge of sorrow in his words. “But I don’t think anyone ever bothered to write down their dirges. At least, not in a way that would have made it here.”
“What about in other languages? My guard from Terrasen mentioned something about a dirge he once heard sung in another tongue—though he never learned what it was.”
The librarian stroked his silver beard. “Another language? Everyone in Terrasen speaks the common tongue. No one’s spoken a different language there for a thousand years.”
They were close to the office, and he knew that once they arrived, the little bastard would probably shut him out until he’d brought Fleetfoot to justice. Chaol pressed a bit harder. “So there are no dirges in Terrasen that are sung in a different language?”
“No,” he said, drawing out the word as he pondered. “But I once heard that in the high court of Terrasen, when the nobility died, they sang their laments in the language of the Fae.”
Chaol’s blood froze and he almost tripped, but he managed to keep walking and say, “Would these songs have been known by everyone—not just the nobility?”
“Oh, no,” Sensel said, only half-listening as he recited whatever history was in his head. “Those songs were sacred to the court. Only those of noble blood ever learned or sang them. They were taught and sung in secret, their dead buried by the light of the moon, when no other ears could hear them. At least, that’s what rumor claimed. I’ll admit to my own morbid curiosity in that I’d hoped to hear them ten years ago, but by the time the slaughter had ended, there was no one left in those noble houses to sing them.”
No one, except …
You will always be my enemy.
“Thank you,” Chaol got out, then quickly turned away, walking toward the exit. Sensel called after him, demanding his oath that he’d find the dog and punish it, but Chaol didn’t bother to reply.
Which house did she belong to? Her parents hadn’t just been murdered—they were part of the nobility who had been executed by the king.
Slaughtered.
She’d been found in their bed—after they’d been killed. And then she must have run until she found the place where a Terrasen nobleman’s daughter could hide: the Assassins’ Keep. She’d learned the only skills that could keep her safe. To escape death, she’d become death.
Regardless of what territory her parents had lorded over, if Celaena ever took up the mantle she’d lost, and if Terrasen ever got to its feet …
Then Celaena could become a powerhouse—potentially capable of standing against Adarlan. And that made Celaena more than just his enemy.
It made her the greatest threat he’d ever encountered.
Chapter 39
Crouched in the shadow of a chimney atop a pretty little townhouse, Celaena watched the home next door. For the last thirty minutes, people had been slipping inside, all cloaked and hooded—looking like nothing more than cold patrons eager to get out of the freezing night.
She’d meant it when she told Archer she wanted nothing to do with him or his movement. And honestly, there was a part of her that wondered whether she should just kill them all and toss their heads at the king’s feet. But Nehemia had been a part of this group. And even if Nehemia had pretended she didn’t know anything about these people … they were still her people. She hadn’t lied to Archer when she told him that she’d bought him a few extra days; after turning over Councilor Mullison, the king didn’t hesitate to grant her a bit more time to kill the courtesan.
There were many more, however, whose names she didn’t know. She recognized the guard who had stood between her and Chaol at the warehouse—the man who had been so eager for a fight. Not by his face, which had been masked that night, but by the way he moved, and by the twin swords strapped to his back. He still wore a hood, but she could see shoulder-length dark hair gleaming beneath it, and what looked like the tan skin of a young man.
He paused at the bottom step, turning to quietly utter commands to the two hooded men flanking him. With a nod, they vanished into the night.
She contemplated trailing one of them. But she’d come here only to check on Archer, to see what he was up to. She planned to keep checking on him until the moment he got on that boat and sailed away. And once he was gone, once she’d given the king his fake corpse … She didn’t know what she’d do then.
Celaena slipped farther behind the brick chimney as one of the guards scanned the rooftops for any signs of trouble before continuing on his way—to watch one end of the street, if she guessed correctly.
She stayed in the shadows for a few hours, moving to the rooftop across the street to better watch the front of the house, until the guests started leaving, one by one, looking for all the world like drunken revelers. She counted them, and marked what directions they went in and who walked with them, but the young man with the twin swords didn’t emerge.
She might have convinced herself that he was another client of Archer’s, even his lover, had the stranger’s two guards not returned and slipped inside.
As the front door opened, she caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered young man arguing with Archer in the foyer. His back was to the door, but his hood was off—confirming that he did indeed have night-black shoulder-length hair and was armed to the teeth. She could see nothing else. His guards immediately flanked him, keeping her from getting a closer look before the door shut again.
Not very careful—not very inconspicuous.
A moment later, the young man stormed out, hooded once more, his two men at his side. Archer stood in the open doorway, his face visibly pale, arms crossed. The young man paused at the bottom of the steps, turning to give Archer a particularly vulgar gesture.
Even from this distance, Celaena could see the smile that Archer gave the man in return. There was nothing kind in it.
She wished she’d been close enough to hear what they’d said, to understand what this was all about.
Before, she would have trailed the young stranger to seek out the answers.
But that was before. Now … now, she didn’t particularly care.
It was hard to care, she realized as she started the trek back to the castle. Incredibly hard to care, when you didn’t have anyone left to care about.
Celaena didn’t know what she was doing at this door. Even though the guards at the foot of the tower had let her pass after checking her thoroughly for weapons, she didn’t doubt for one moment that word would go right to Chaol.
She wondered if he’d dare stop her. If he’d ever dare to utter another word to her. Last night, even from the distance at the moonlit graveyard, she’d seen the still-healing cuts on his cheek. She didn’t know whether they filled her with satisfaction or guilt.
Every little bit of interaction was draining, somehow. How exhausted would she be after tonight?
Celaena sighed and knocked on the wooden door. She was five minutes late—minutes she’d spent debating whether she truly wanted to accept Dorian’s offer to dine with him in his rooms. She’d almost eaten dinner in Rifthold instead.
There was no answer to her knock at first, so she turned away, trying to avoid looking at the guards posted on the landing. It was stupid to come here, anyway.
She had just taken a step down the spiral staircase when the door opened.
“You know, I think this is the first time you’ve been to my little tower,” Dorian said.
Foot still in the air, Celaena collected herself before looking over her shoulder at the Crown Prince.
“I was expecting more doom and gloom,” she said, walking back to the door. “It’s quite cozy.”
He held the door open and nodded to his guards. “No need to worry,” he told them as Celaena walked into the prince’s chambers.
She’d expected grandeur and elegance, but Dorian’s tower was—well, “cozy” was a good way to describe it. A bit shabby, too. There was a faded tapestry, a soot-stained fireplace, a moderate-size four-poster bed, a desk heaped with papers by the window, and books. Stacks and mountains and towers and columns of books. They covered every surface, every bit of space along the walls.
“I think you need your own personal librarian,” she muttered, and Dorian laughed.
She hadn’t realized how much she missed that sound. Not just his laugh, but her own, too; any laugh, really. Even if it felt wrong to laugh these days, she missed it.
“If my servants had their way, these would all go to the library. They make dusting rather hard.” He stooped to pick up some clothes he’d left on the floor.
“From the mess, I’m surprised to hear you even have servants.”
Another laugh as he carried the pile of clothes toward a door. It opened just wide enough to reveal a dressing room nearly as big as her own, but she saw no more than that before he chucked the clothes inside and shut the door. Across the room, another door had to lead to a bathing chamber. “I have a habit of telling them to go away,” he said.
“Why?” She walked to the worn red couch before the fireplace and pushed off the books that were piled there.
“Because I know where everything in this room is. All the books, the papers—and the moment they start cleaning, those things get hopelessly organized and tucked away, and I can never find them again.” He was straightening the red cloth of his bedspread, which looked rumpled enough to suggest he’d been sprawled across it until she’d knocked.