She cleared her throat and began to read the words on the page.
She didn’t know the language. Her throat burned and contracted, as if fighting the sounds, but she panted through it, the words making her teeth ache like she’d just come in from the cold and was drinking something hot.
And then the final words were out, her eyes watering.
No wonder this kind of power fell out of favor.
The symbols written in her blood began to glow green, one after another, until the whole archway was a line of light. The stones within its borders darkened, darkened, darkened, then disappeared.
The blackness within the green archway seemed to reach out for her.
It had worked. Holy gods, it had worked.
Was that what waited for her when she died? Nehemia had gone here?
“Nehemia?” she whispered, her throat raw from the spell.
There was nothing. Nothing there—just a void.
Celaena looked at the book, then to the wall and the symbols she’d drawn. She’d written it correctly. The spell was right. “Nehemia?” she whispered toward that endless dark.
There was no response.
Perhaps it needed time. The book hadn’t specified how long it would take; maybe Nehemia had to travel through whatever this realm was.
So Celaena waited.
The longer she stared into that endless void, the more it seemed to stare back. It was just like that dream, the one where she was standing on the edge of that ravine.
You are nothing more than a coward.
“Please,” Celaena whispered into the dark.
There was a sudden yelp from far, far above, and Celaena whirled toward the stairs at the end of the hall. Moments later, faster than should be possible, Fleetfoot bounded down the steps, racing for her.
Not for her, Celaena realized as she beheld the wagging tail, the panting, the yip of what could only be joy. Not for her, because—
Celaena looked toward the portal at the same moment Fleetfoot skidded to a halt.
And then everything stopped as she beheld the shimmering figure standing just on the other side of the portal.
Fleetfoot lay on the ground, tail still wagging, whining softly. The edges of Nehemia’s body rippled and blurred, fracturing with some sort of inner light. But her face was clear—her face was … it was her face. Celaena sank to her knees.
She felt the warmth of her tears before she realized she was crying. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say. “I’m so sorry.”
But Nehemia remained on the other side of the portal. Fleetfoot whined again. “I may not cross this line,” Nehemia said gently to the dog. “And neither may you.” Her tone shifted, and Celaena knew Nehemia was now staring at her. “I thought you were smarter than this.”
Celaena looked up. The light radiating off the princess didn’t reach through the glowing portal, as if there truly were some sort of line—some final boundary.
“I’m sorry,” Celaena whispered again. “I just wanted—”
“There is no time for you to tell me what you long to say. I came here because you need to be warned. Do not open this portal again. The next time you do, I will not be the one who answers your call. And you will not survive the encounter. No one has the right to open the door to this realm, no matter how fierce their grief.”
She hadn’t known, hadn’t meant …
Fleetfoot pawed at the floor. “Good-bye, my dear friend,” Nehemia said to the dog, and began walking into the blackness.
Celaena just stood there, unable to move or think. Her throat burned with those pent-up words, the words that now choked the life out of her.
“Elentiya.” Nehemia paused to look back at her. The void seemed to be swirling, swallowing her up bit by bit. “You will not understand yet, but … I knew what my fate was to be, and I embraced it. I ran toward it. Because it was the only way for things to begin changing, for events to be set in motion. But no matter what I did, Elentiya, I want you to know that in the darkness of the past ten years, you were one of the bright lights for me. Do not let that light go out.”
And before Celaena could reply, the princess was gone.
There was nothing in the dark. As though Nehemia had never been. As though she’d made it all up.
“Come back,” she whispered. “Please—come back.” But the darkness remained the same. And Nehemia was gone.
There was a scrape of footsteps—but not from the portal. Rather, it came from her left.
From Archer, who stood there gaping. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered.
Chapter 48
Celaena had Damaris drawn and leveled at Archer in a heartbeat. Fleetfoot growled at him, but kept back, a step behind Celaena.
“What are you doing here?” It was inconceivable that he’d be here. How had he gotten in?
“I’ve been tracking you for weeks,” Archer said, eyeing the dog. “Nehemia told me about the passages, showed me the way in. I’ve been down here almost every night since she died.”
Celaena glanced at the portal. If Nehemia had warned her not to open the portal, then she was certain her friend didn’t want Archer seeing it, either. She moved to the wall, keeping well away from the blackness as she ran her hand over the glowing green marks, making to wipe them away.
“What are you doing?” Archer demanded.
Celaena pointed Damaris at him, furiously wiping at the marks. They didn’t budge. Whatever this spell was, it was far more complex than the one that had sealed the library door—merely swiping away the marks wouldn’t undo it. But Archer now stood between her and the book where she had the closing spell flagged. Celaena rubbed harder. It was all terribly wrong.
“Stop!” Archer lunged, getting past her guard with unnatural ease as he grasped her wrist. Fleetfoot barked a ferocious warning, but a sharp whistle from Celaena had the dog staying well away.
She whirled to Archer, already making to dislocate the arm that held her, but the green light of the portal illuminated the plane of his wrist, where the sleeve of his tunic had fallen back.
A black tattoo of some snakelike creature appeared there.
She’d seen that before. Seen it …
Celaena raised her eyes to his face.
Do not trust …
She had thought Nehemia’s drawing had been of the Royal Seal—a slightly warped version of the wyvern. But it had actually been of this tattoo. Of Archer’s tattoo.
Do not trust Archer, she’d been trying to tell her.
Celaena shoved back from him, drawing a dagger. She pointed both Damaris and the knife at him. How much had Nehemia hidden from Archer and his contacts? If she didn’t trust them, then why had she told them all that she did?
“Tell me how you learned this,” Archer whispered, his eyes going back to the portal and the darkness beyond. “Please. Did you find the Wyrdkeys? Is that how you did it?”
“What do you know of the Wyrdkeys?” she got out.
“Where are they? Where did you find them?”
“I don’t have the keys.”
“You found the riddle, though,” Archer panted. “I let you find that riddle I hid in Davis’s office. It took us five years to find that riddle—and you must have solved it. I knew you’d be the one to solve it. Nehemia knew, too.”
Celaena was shaking her head. He didn’t know that there had been a second riddle—a riddle with a map to the keys. “The king has at least one key. But where the other two are, I don’t know.”
Archer’s eyes darkened. “We suspected as much. That was why she came here in the first place. To learn whether he’d actually stolen them, and if so, how many.”
That was why Nehemia couldn’t leave, she realized. Why she’d opted to stay here instead of returning to Eyllwe. To fight for the one thing that was more important than the fate of her country: the fate of the world. Of other worlds, too.
“I don’t have to get on a ship tomorrow. We’ll tell everyone,” Archer breathed. “We’ll tell everyone he has them, and—”
“No. If we reveal the truth, then the king will use the keys to do more damage than you can possibly imagine. We’ll lose any chance of stealth we have to find the others.”
He took a step closer to her. Fleetfoot let out another warning growl, but kept her distance. “Then we’ll find where he’s keeping the key. And the others. And then we’ll use them to overthrow him. Then we’ll create a world of our own making.”
His voice was building into a frenzy, each word harsher than the next.
She shook her head. “I would sooner destroy them than use their power.”
Archer chuckled. “She said the same thing. She said they should be destroyed—put back in the gate, if we could discover a way. But what is the point of finding them if we don’t use them against him? Make him suffer?”
Her stomach turned. There was more he wasn’t saying, more that he knew. So she sighed and shook her head, beginning to pace. Archer was silent as she walked—silent until she halted, as if suddenly understanding. She raised her voice. “He should suffer for as long as possible. And so should the people who destroyed us—who made us into what we are: Arobynn, Clarisse …” She chewed on her lip. “Nehemia could never understand that. She never tried to. You—you’re right. They should be used.”
He studied her warily enough that she came closer and tilted her head to the side—contemplating his words, contemplating him.
And Archer bought it. “That was why she left the movement. She left a week before she died. We knew it was a matter of time before she went to the king to expose us all—to use what she’d learned to grant clemency to Eyllwe, and to annihilate us with the same stroke. She said she’d rather have one all-powerful tyrant than a dozen of them.”
Celaena said with deadly calm, “She would have ruined everything for you. She almost ruined everything for me, too. She told me to stay away from the Wyrdkeys. She tried to keep me from solving the riddle.”
“Because she wanted to keep the knowledge to herself, for her own gain.”
She smiled even as she felt the world shifting beneath her. And she couldn’t explain why, or how she began to wonder, but if it was true, she had to get him to admit it. She found herself saying, “You and I worked for everything we have—we … we had everything taken away and used against us, too. Other people can’t even begin to fathom the things we were forced to do. I think—I think that’s why I was so infatuated with you when I was a girl. I knew, even then, that you understood. That you knew what it was like to be raised by people like Arobynn and Clarisse and then … sold. You understood me then.” She willed her eyes to gleam, her mouth to tighten as if she were keeping it from wobbling. Blinking furiously, she murmured, “But I think I finally understand you now, too.”
She reached out a hand as if to grab his, but lowered it—making her face tender and soft and bittersweet. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? We could have been working toward this for weeks. We could have tried to solve the riddle together. If I’d known what Nehemia was going to do, how she could lie to me again and again … She betrayed me. In every possible way, Archer. She lied to my face, made me believe …” Her shoulders slumped. After a long moment, she took a step toward him. “Nehemia was no better than Arobynn or Clarisse in the end. Archer, you should have told me. About everything. I knew it wasn’t Mullison—he wasn’t smart enough. If you’d told me, I could have taken care of it.” A risk—a leap of faith. “For you … For us, I would have taken care of it.”
But Archer gave her a hesitant smile. “She spent so much time complaining about Councilman Mullison that I knew he’d be the easiest one to blame. And thanks to that competition, he already had a connection to Grave.”
