Crown of Midnight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It didn’t move.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She did know one killer this monstrous.

Grave.

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

Her lips pulled back from her teeth.

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

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

Celaena Sardothien stood from her chair.

Chapter 35

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then she vanished into the night.

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

Only one place could provide the answers she wanted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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