Celaena’s right leg could barely support her, but she gritted her teeth and rose. She squared her shoulders as Cain halted.
The wind caressed her face and swept her hair behind her in a billowing sheet of gold. I will not be afraid. A mark burned on her forehead in blinding blue light.
“What’s that on your face?” Cain asked. The king rose, his brows narrowed, and nearby, Nehemia gasped.
With her aching, almost useless arm, she wiped the blood from her mouth.
Cain growled as he swung his sword, making to behead her.
Celaena shot forward, as fast as an arrow of Deanna.
Cain’s eyes went wide as she buried the jagged end of the staff in his right side, exactly where Chaol had said he would be unguarded.
Blood poured onto her hands as she yanked it out, and Cain staggered back, clutching his ribs.
She forgot pain, forgot fear, forgot the tyrant who stared at the burning mark on her head with dark eyes. She leapt back a step and sliced open Cain’s arm with the broken end of the staff, ripping through muscle and sinew. He swatted at her with his other arm, but she moved aside, cutting the limb as well.
He lunged, but she dashed away. Cain sprawled upon the ground. She slammed her foot into his back, and as he lifted his head, he found the knife- sharp remnant of the staff pressed against his neck.
“Move, and I’ll spill your throat on the ground,” she said, her jaw aching.
Cain went still, and for a moment, she could have sworn his eyes glowed like coals. For a heartbeat, she considered killing him right there, so he couldn’t tell anyone what he knew—about her, about her parents, about the Wyrdmarks and their power. If the king knew any of that . . . Her hand trembled with the effort to keep from driving the spearhead into his neck, but Celaena lifted her bruised face to the king.
The councilmen began nervously clapping. None of them had seen the spectacle; none of them had seen the shadows in the gusting wind. The king looked her over, and Celaena willed herself to remain upright, to stand tall as he judged. She felt each second of silence like a blow to her gut. Was he considering whether there was a way out? After what seemed to be a lifetime, the king spoke.
“My son’s Champion is the victor,” the king growled. The world spun beneath her feet.
She’d won. She’d won. She was free—or as close to it as she could come. She would become the King’s Champion, and then she would be free . . .
It came crashing down upon her, and Celaena dropped the bloody remnant of the staff on the ground as she removed her foot from Cain’s back. She limped away, her breathing hard and ragged. She’d been saved. Elena had saved her. And she had . . . she had won.
Nehemia was exactly where she’d been standing before, smiling faintly, only
—
The princess collapsed, and her bodyguards rushed to her side. Celaena made
a move to her friend, but her legs gave out, and she fell to the tiles. Dorian, as if released from a spell, dashed to her, throwing himself to his knees beside her, murmuring her name again and again.
But she barely heard him. Huddled on the ground, hot tears slid down Celaena’s face. She’d won. Through the pain, Celaena began laughing.
•
As the assassin laughed quietly to herself, head bowed to the ground, Dorian surveyed her body. The cut along her thigh wouldn’t stop bleeding, her arm hung limp, and her face and arms were a patchwork of cuts and rapidly forming bruises. Cain, his features set with fury, stood not too far behind, blood seeping through his fingers as he clutched his side. Let him suffer.
“She needs a healer,” he said to his father. The king said nothing. “You, boy,” Dorian snapped to a page. “Fetch a healer—as fast as you can!” Dorian found it difficult to breathe. He should have stopped it when Cain first hit her. He should have done something other than watch when she had so clearly been drugged. She would have helped him; she wouldn’t have hesitated. Chaol, even, had helped her—he’d knelt down beside the edge of the ring. And who had drugged her?
Carefully putting his arms around Celaena, Dorian glanced toward Kaltain and Perrington. In doing so, he missed the look exchanged between Cain and his father. The soldier pulled out his dagger.
But Chaol saw. Cain raised his dagger to strike the girl in the back.
Without thinking, without understanding, Chaol leapt between them and plunged his sword through Cain’s heart.
Blood erupted everywhere, showering Chaol’s arms, his head, his clothes. The blood reeked, somehow, of death and decay. Cain fell, hitting the ground hard.
The world became silent. Chaol watched the last breath issue from Cain’s mouth, watched him die. When it was over and Cain’s eyes stopped seeing him,
Chaol’s sword clattered to the ground. He dropped to his knees beside Cain, but didn’t touch him. What had he done?
Chaol couldn’t stop staring at his blood-soaked hands. He’d killed him. “Chaol,” Dorian breathed. In his arms, Celaena had gone utterly still.
“What have I done?” Chaol asked him. Celaena made a small noise and began shaking.
Two guards helped lift him up, but Chaol could only stare at his bloody hands as they helped him away.
Dorian watched his friend disappear into the castle, and then returned to the assassin. His father was already yelling about something.
She trembled so badly that her wounds leaked further. “He shouldn’t have killed him . . . Now he—he . . .” She let out a gasping breath. “She saved me,” she said, burying her face in his chest. “Dorian, she took the poison out of me. She—she . . . Oh, gods, I don’t even know what happened.” Dorian had no idea what she was speaking about, but he held her tighter.
Dorian felt the eyes of the council upon them, weighing and considering every word out of her mouth, every move or reaction of his. Damning the council to hell, Dorian kissed her hair. The mark on her brow had faded. What had that meant? What had any of it meant? Cain had touched a nerve in her today—when he had mentioned her parents, she’d lost control entirely. He’d never seen her that wild, that frantic.
He hated himself for not acting, for standing like a damned coward. He would make it up to her—he would see to it that she was freed, and after that . . . After that . . .
She didn’t fight him when he carried her to her rooms, instructing the physician to follow.
He was done with politics and intrigue. He loved her, and no empire, no king, and no earthly fear would keep him from her. No, if they tried to take her from him, he’d rip the world apart with his bare hands. And for some reason, that didn’t terrify him.
•
Kaltain watched in despair and bewilderment as Dorian carried the weeping assassin in his arms. How had she beaten Cain, when she’d been drugged? Why was she not dead?
Seated beside the glowering king, Perrington fumed. The councilmen scribbled on paper. Kaltain drew the empty vial from her pocket. Hadn’t the duke given her enough bloodbane to seriously impair the assassin? Why wasn’t
Dorian crying over her corpse? Why wasn’t she holding Dorian, comforting him? The pain in her head erupted, so violent that her vision went obsidian, and she stopped thinking clearly.
Kaltain approached the duke and hissed in his ear. “I thought you said this would work.” She fought to keep her voice in a whisper. “I thought you said this damned drug would work!”
The king and the duke stared at her, and the councilmen exchanged glances as Kaltain straightened. Then, slowly, the duke rose from his seat. “What is that in your hand?” the duke asked a bit too loudly.
“You know what it is!” she seethed, still trying to keep her voice down, even as the pain in her head turned into a thunderous roar. She could scarcely think straight; she could only answer to the fury inside of her. “The damned poison I gave her,” she murmured so only Perrington could hear.
“Poison?” Perrington asked, so loud Kaltain’s eyes grew wide. “You poisoned her? Why would you do that?” He motioned to three guards.
Why did the king not speak? Why did he not come to her aid? Perrington had given her the poison based on the king’s command, hadn’t he? The council members looked at her accusingly, whispering among themselves.
“You gave it to me!” she said to the duke.
Perrington’s orange brows furrowed. “What are you talking about?” Kaltain started forward. “You scheming son of a harlot!”
“Restrain her, please,” the duke said, blandly, calmly—as if she were no more than a hysterical servant. As if she were nobody.
“I told you,” the duke said into the king’s ear, “that she’d do anything to get the Cro—” The words were lost as she was dragged away. There was nothing— no emotion at all—in the duke’s face. He had played her for a fool.
Kaltain struggled against the guards. “Your Majesty, please! His Grace told me that you—”
The duke merely looked away.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed at Perrington. She turned to the king, beseechingly, but he, too, looked away, his face crumpled with distaste. He wouldn’t listen to anything she said, no matter what the truth was. Perrington had been planning this for too long. And she’d played right into his hands. He’d acted the besotted fool only to plunge a dagger into her back.
Kaltain kicked and thrashed against the guards’ grip, but the king’s table became smaller and smaller. As she reached the doors to the castle, the duke grinned at her, and her dreams shattered.
