Crown of Midnight
Page 67

No response from the old woman.
“So you’re going to take my money and run?” Celaena eased toward the winding path through the mirrors, and the door that now seemed impossibly far away. “What if I still have questions?” Her own movements in the mirrors sent her nerves jumping, but she kept alert and focused—reminded herself what she had to do. She drew both her daggers.
“You think steel can hurt me?” came a voice that slithered across each mirror until its origin was everywhere and nowhere.
“Here I was, thinking we were having a grand time,” Celaena said, taking another step.
“Bah. Who can have a grand time when your guest is planning to kill you?”
Celaena smiled.
“Isn’t that why you’re moving toward the door?” Yellowlegs went on. “Not to escape, but to make sure I don’t get past your clever, wicked daggers?”
“Tell me who else you’ve sold the prince’s questions to and I’ll let you go.” Earlier, she’d been about to walk away—about to leave—when Yellowlegs’s mention of Dorian had stopped her cold. Now she had no choice about what she had to do. What she would do to protect Dorian. It was what she’d realized last night: she did have someone left—one friend. And there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep him safe.
“And if I say that I’ve told no one?”
“I wouldn’t believe you.” Celaena spied the door at last. No sign of the witch. She paused, roughly in the center of the wagon. It would be easier to catch the woman here—easier to make it quick and clean.
“Pity,” Yellowlegs said, and Celaena angled herself toward the disembodied voice. There had to be some hidden exit—but where? If Yellowlegs got out, if she told anyone what Dorian had asked (whatever it might be), if she told anyone what Celaena had asked …
All around Celaena, her reflection shifted and glimmered. Quick, clean, then she’d be gone.
“What happens,” Yellowlegs hissed, “when the hunter becomes the hunted?”
From the corner of her eye, Celaena glimpsed the hunched form, chains sagging between the gnarled hands. She whirled toward the crone, dagger already flying—to disable, to get her down so she could—
The mirror shattered where Yellowlegs had been standing.
Behind her, there was a heavy clink, and a satisfied caw of laughter.
For all her training, Celaena wasn’t fast enough to duck before the heavy chain whipped across the side of her head, and she slammed face-first into the floor.
 
 
Chapter 41

Chaol and Dorian stood on a balcony and watched the carnival be dismantled bit by bit. It would leave tomorrow morning, and then Chaol could finally have his men back to doing useful things. Like making sure no other assassins got into the castle. But Chaol’s most pressing problem was Celaena. Late last night, after the royal librarian had gone to bed, Chaol had returned to the library and found the genealogy records. Someone had gotten them all out of order, so it had taken him a while to locate the right one, but he at last found himself staring at the list of Terrasen’s noble houses.
None of them bore the name of Sardothien, though that was little surprise. Part of him had always known that wasn’t Celaena’s true name. So he’d made a list—a list that now sat in his pocket, burning a hole through it—of all the noble houses she might have come from, houses with children at the time of Terrasen’s conquest. There were at least six families that had survived … but what if she hailed from one that had been entirely slaughtered? When he had finished writing down the names, he was no closer to figuring out who she really was than he’d been at the start.
“So, are you going to ask me whatever it is you dragged me out here to ask, or am I just going to enjoy freezing my ass off for the rest of the night?” Dorian said.
Chaol raised a brow, and Dorian gave him a slight smile.
“How is she?” Chaol asked. He’d heard that they’d had dinner—and that she hadn’t left his rooms until the middle of the night. Had it been a deliberate move on her part? Something to throw in his face, make him ache just a bit more?
“Coping,” Dorian said. “Coping as best she can. And since I know you’re too proud to ask it, I’ll just tell you that no, she hasn’t mentioned you. Nor do I think she will.”
Chaol took a long breath. How could he convince Dorian to stay away from her? Not because he was jealous, but because Celaena might be more of a threat than Dorian could ever imagine. Only the truth would work, but …
“Your father is curious about you,” Dorian said. “After the council meetings, he always asks me about you. I think he wants you back in Anielle.”
“I know.”
“Are you going to go with him?”
“Do you want me to?”
“It’s not for me to decide.”
Chaol clamped his teeth. He certainly wasn’t going anywhere, not while Celaena was here. And not just because of who she actually was. “I have no interest in being Lord of Anielle.”
“Men would kill for the kind of power that Anielle wields.”
“I’ve never wanted it.”
“No.” Dorian braced his hands on the balcony rail. “No, you’ve never wanted anything for yourself, save for the position you have now, and Celaena.”
Chaol opened his mouth, excuses already forming on his tongue.
“You think I’m blind?” Dorian asked, his gaze a frozen, ice blue. “Do you know why I approached her at the Yulemas ball? Not because I wanted to ask her to dance, but because I saw the way you two were looking at each other. Even then, I knew how you felt.”
“You knew, and yet you asked her to dance.” His hands clenched into fists.
“She’s capable of making up her own mind. And she did.” Dorian gave him a bitter smile. “About both of us.”
Chaol took a steadying breath, calming his rising anger. “If you feel the way you do, then why let her stay shackled to your father? Why not find a way to get her out of her contract? Or are you just afraid that if you set her free, she’ll never come back to you?”
“I’d be careful what you say,” Dorian said softly.
But it was true. Even though he couldn’t imagine a world without Celaena, Chaol knew he had to get her out of this castle. Yet he couldn’t tell if it was for Adarlan’s sake or her own.
“My father is temperamental enough to punish me—and her—if I try to broach that subject. I agree with you, I truly do: it’s not right to keep her here. But you should still mind what you say.” The Crown Prince of Adarlan stared him down. “And consider where your true loyalties lie.”
Once, Chaol might have argued. Once, he might have protested that his loyalty to the crown was his greatest asset. But that blind loyalty and obedience had started this descent.
And it had destroyed everything.
 
Celaena knew she’d only been out for a few seconds, but it was long enough for Yellowlegs to yank her arms behind her back and get the chain around her wrists. Her head was pounding, and blood slid down the side of her neck, trickling into her tunic. Nothing too bad—she’d had worse wounds. Her weapons were gone, though, discarded somewhere in the wagon. Even the ones in her hair and clothes. And boots. Clever woman.