Crown of Midnight

Her eyes were burning, and she looked to the window, where the night sky was bathed in moonlight. “It was an act of revenge.” She could still see Sam’s twisted corpse, lying on that table in the room beneath the Assassins’ Keep; still see Farran crouched in front of her, his hands roaming over her paralyzed body. She swallowed down the tightness in her throat. “Farran captured, tortured, and then murdered one of … one of my … companions. And then the next night, I went out to repay the favor. It didn’t end so well for me.”

A log shifted in the fire, breaking open and filling the room with a flash of light.

“That was the night you were captured?” Chaol asked. “But I thought you didn’t know who had betrayed you.”

“I still don’t. Someone hired me and my companion to kill Farran, but it was all just a trap, and Farran was the bait.”

Silence; then—“What was his name?”

She pushed her lips together, shoving away the memory of how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him, broken on that table. “Sam,” she got out. “His name was Sam.” She took an uneven breath. “I don’t even know where they buried him. I don’t even know who I would ask about it.”

Chaol didn’t reply, and she didn’t know why she bothered talking, but the words just tumbled out. “I failed him,” she said. “In every way that counted, I failed him.”

Another long silence, then a sigh. “Not in one way,” Chaol said. “I bet he would have wanted you to survive—to live. So you didn’t fail him, not in that regard.”

She had to look away in order to force her eyes to stop burning as she nodded.

After a moment, Chaol spoke again. “Her name was Lithaen. Three years ago, she worked for one of the ladies of the court. And Roland somehow found out and thought it would be amusing for me to discover him in bed with her. I know it’s nothing like what you went through …”

She’d never known that he’d ever been interested in anyone, but … “Why did she do it?”

He shrugged, though his face was still bleak with the memory. “Because Roland is a Havilliard, and I’m just the Captain of the Guard. He even convinced her to go back to Meah with him—though I never learned what became of her.”

“You loved her.”

“I thought I did. And I thought she loved me.” He shook his head, as if silently chiding himself. “Did Sam love you?”

Yes. More than anyone had ever loved her. He’d loved her enough to risk everything—to give up everything. He’d loved her so much that she still felt the echoes of it, even now. “Very much,” she breathed.

The clock chimed eleven thirty, and Chaol shook his head, the tension falling from him. “I’m exhausted.”

She stood, somehow having no clue how they’d wound up talking about the people who had meant so much to them. “Then I should go.”

He got to his feet, his eyes so bright. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

She lifted her chin. “I thought I didn’t need to be escorted everywhere now.”

“You don’t,” he said, walking to the door. “But it is something that friends tend to do.”

“Would you walk Dorian back to his room?” She batted her eyelashes at him, striding through the door as he opened it for her. “Or is this a privilege that only your lady-friends receive?”

“If I had any lady-friends, I’d certainly extend the offer. I’m not sure you qualify as a lady, though.”

“So chivalrous. No wonder those girls find excuses to be in the gardens every morning.”

He snorted, and they fell silent as they walked through the quiet, dim halls of the castle, making their way back to her rooms on the other side. It was a trek, and often a cold one, since many of the halls were lined with windows that didn’t keep out the winter chill.

When they reached the door to her rooms, he bid her a quick good night and began to walk away. Her fingers were around the brass door handle when she turned to him.

“For what it’s worth, Chaol,” she said. He faced her, his hands in his pockets. She gave him a slight smile. “If she picked Roland over you, that makes her the greatest fool who ever lived.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he quietly said, “Thank you,” and walked back to his room.

Celaena watched him go, watched those powerful muscles shifting in his back, visible even through his dark tunic, suddenly grateful that this Lithaen had long ago left the castle.

The midnight hour chimed through the castle, the off-kilter ringing of the wretched clock tower in the garden echoing through the dark, silent halls. Though Chaol had escorted her to her door, five minutes of pacing in her bedroom had sent her wandering again, heading for the library. She had mountains of unread books sitting in her rooms but didn’t feel like reading any of them. She needed something to do. Something to take her mind off her discussion with Chaol and the memories she’d dragged into the open tonight.

Celaena wrapped her cloak tightly around her, glaring at the fierce winds whipping the snow outside the drafty windows. Hopefully there would be a few hearths lit in the library. If not, she’d grab a book that did interest her, run back to her room, and curl up with Fleetfoot in her toasty bed.

Celaena turned a corner, entering the dark, window-lined hallway that ran past the towering doors of the library, and froze.

With the chill tonight, it was no surprise to see someone completely concealed by a black cloak, hood drawn far over the face. But something about the figure standing between the open library doors made some ancient, primal part of her send a warning pulse so strong that she didn’t take another step.

The person swiveled its head toward her, pausing as well.

Outside the hall windows, snow swirled, pressing against the glass.

It was just a person, she told herself as the figure now turned to face her fully. A person wearing a cloak darker than night, a hood so heavy it concealed every feature of the face inside.

It sniffed at her, a huffing, animal sound.

She didn’t dare move.

It sniffed again, and took a step toward her. The way it moved, like smoke and shadow …

A faint warmth bloomed against her chest, then a pulsing blue light—

The Eye of Elena was glowing.

The thing halted, and Celaena stopped breathing.

It hissed, and then slithered a step back into the shadows beyond the library doors. The tiny blue gem in the center of her amulet glowed brighter, and Celaena blinked against the light.

When she opened her eyes, the amulet was dark, and the hooded creature was gone.

Not a trace, not even a sound of footsteps.

Celaena didn’t go into the library. Oh, no. She just walked quickly back to her rooms with as much dignity as she could muster. Though she kept telling herself that she’d imagined it all, that it was some hallucination from too many hours awake, Celaena couldn’t stop hearing that cursed word again and again.

Plans.

Chapter 6

The person outside the library probably had nothing to do with the king, Celaena told herself as she walked—still not sprinting—down the hall to her room. There were plenty of strange people in a castle this large, and even though she rarely saw another soul in the library, perhaps some people just … wished to go to the library alone. And unidentified. In a court where reading was so out of fashion, perhaps it was merely some courtier trying to hide a passionate love of books from his or her sneering friends.

Some animalistic, eerie courtier. Who had caused her amulet to glow.

Celaena entered her bedroom just as the lunar eclipse was beginning, and groaned. “Of course there’s an eclipse,” she grumbled, turning from the balcony doors and approaching the tapestry along the wall.

And even though she didn’t want to, even though she’d hoped to never see Elena again … she needed answers.

Maybe the dead queen would laugh at her and tell her it was nothing. Gods above, she hoped Elena would say that. Because if she didn’t …

Celaena shook her head and glanced at Fleetfoot. “Care to join me?” The dog, as if sensing what she was about to do, made a good show of turning circles on the bed and curling up with a huff. “I thought so.”

In a matter of moments, Celaena shoved the large chest of drawers from its spot in front of the tapestry that hid the secret door, grabbed a candle, and began walking down, down, down the forgotten stairs to the landing far below.

The three stone archways greeted her. The one on the far left led to a passage that allowed for spying on the Great Hall. The one in the center led to the sewers and the concealed exit that might someday save her life. And the one on the right … that one led down to the ancient queen’s forgotten tomb.

As she walked to the tomb, she didn’t dare look at the landing where she’d discovered Cain summoning the ridderak from another world, even though the debris of the door the creature had shattered still littered the stairs. There were gouges in the stone wall where the ridderak had come crashing through, chasing her down to the tomb, until she’d just barely reached Damaris, sword of the long-dead King Gavin, in time to slay the monster.

Celaena glanced at her hand, where a ring of white scars punctured her palm and encircled her thumb. If Nehemia hadn’t found her that night, the poison from the ridderak’s bite would have killed her.

At last, she reached the door at the bottom of the spiral staircase and found herself staring at the skull-shaped bronze knocker in its center.

Perhaps this hadn’t been a good idea. Perhaps the answers weren’t worth it.

She should go back upstairs. Come to think of it, this could only be bad.

Elena had seemed satisfied that Celaena had obeyed her command to become the King’s Champion, but if she showed up, then it would seem like she was willing to do another one of Elena’s tasks. And the Wyrd knew that she had enough on her hands right now.

Even if that—that thing in the hall just now hadn’t seemed friendly.

The skull knocker seemed to smile at her, its hollow eyes boring into hers.

Gods above, she should just leave.

But her fingers were somehow reaching for the door handle, as if an invisible hand were guiding her—

“Aren’t you going to knock?”

Celaena leapt back, a dagger already in her hand and angled to spill blood as she pressed herself into the wall. It was impossible—she had to have imagined it.

The skill knocker had spoken. Its mouth had moved up and down.

Yes, this was certainly, absolutely, undeniably impossible. Far more unlikely and incomprehensible than anything Elena had ever said or done.

Staring at her with gleaming metal eyes, the bronze skull clicked its tongue. It had a tongue.

Maybe she’d slipped on the stairs and smacked her head into the stones. That would make more sense than this. An endless, filthy stream of curses began flowing through her head, each more vulgar than the next, as she gaped at the knocker.

“Oh, don’t be so pathetic,” the skull huffed, its eyes narrowing. “I’m attached to this door. I cannot harm you.”

“But you’re”—she swallowed hard—“magic.”

It was impossible—it should be impossible. Magic was gone, vanished from the land ten years ago, before it had even been outlawed by the king.

“Everything in this world is magic. Thank you ever so kindly for stating the obvious.”

She calmed her reeling mind long enough to say, “But magic doesn’t work anymore.”

“New magic doesn’t. But the king cannot erase old spells made with older powers—like the Wyrdmarks. Those ancient spells still hold; especially ones that imbue life.”

“You’re … alive?”

The knocker chuckled. “Alive? I’m made of bronze. I do not breathe, nor do I eat or drink. So, no, I am not alive. Nor am I dead, for that matter. I simply exist.”