The Assassin and the Empire (10 page)

Her mouth was parched, her tongue leaden in her mouth. What she wouldn’t give for a mouthful of water to wash away the lingering taste of blood. Her stomach was painfully empty, too, and the throbbing in her head sent splinters of light through her skull.

She had been betrayed—betrayed by Harding or someone like him, someone who would benefit from her being
permanently
gone, with no hope of ever coming back. And Arobynn still hadn’t rescued her.

He’d find her, though. He
had
to.

She tested the chains on her wrists and ankles, examining where they were anchored into the stone floor and walls, looking over every link, studying the locks. They were solid. She felt all the stones around her, tapping for loose bits or possibly a whole block that she could use as a weapon. There was nothing. All the pins had been pulled out of her hair, robbing her of a chance to even try to pick the lock. The buttons on her black tunic were too small and delicate to be useful.

Perhaps if a guard came in, she could get him close enough to use the chains against him— strangle him or knock him unconscious, or hold him hostage long enough for someone to free her and let her out.

Perhaps—

The door groaned open, and a man filled the threshold, three others behind him.

His tunic was dark, and embroidered with golden thread. If he was surprised to see her awake, he didn’t reveal it.

Royal guards.

This was the royal dungeon, then.

The guard in the doorway placed the food he was carrying on the floor and slid the tray toward her. Water, bread, a hunk of cheese. “Dinner,” he said, not stepping one foot in the room.

He and his companions knew the threat of getting too close.

Celaena glanced at the tray. Dinner. How long had she been down here? Had it been nearly a whole day—and Arobynn
still
hadn’t come for her? He had to have found Wesley by the stables—and Wesley would have told him what she’d gone to do. He
had
to know she was here.

The guard was watching her, and she looked up at him.

“This dungeon is impenetrable,” he said. “And those chains are made with Adarlanian steel.”

She stared at him. He was middle-aged, perhaps forty. He wore no weapons—another precaution. Usually, the royal guards joined young and stayed until they were too old to carry a sword. That meant this man had years of extensive training. It was too dark to see the three guards behind him, but she knew they wouldn’t trust just anyone to watch her.

And even if he’d said the words to intimidate her into behaving, he was probably telling the truth. No one got out of the royal dungeons, and no one got in.

If it had been a whole day and Arobynn hadn’t yet found her, she wasn’t getting out either. If her betrayer had been able to fool her, and Sam, and Arobynn, then they’d find a way to keep the King of the Assassins from knowing she was in here, too.

Now that Sam was dead, there wasn’t anything left outside of the dungeons worth fighting for, anyway. Not when Adarlan’s Assassin was crumbling apart, and her world with her. The girl who’d taken on a Pirate Lord and his entire island, the girl who’d stolen Asterion horses and raced along the beach in the Red Desert, the girl who’d sat on her own rooftop, watching the sun rise over the Avery, the girl who’d felt alive with possibility … that girl was gone.

There wasn’t anything left. And Arobynn wasn’t coming.

She’d failed.

And worse, she’d failed Sam. She hadn’t even killed the man who’d ended his life so viciously.

The guard shifted on his feet, and she realized she’d been staring at him. “The food is clean,” was all the guard said before he backed out of the room and shut the door.

She drank the water and ate as much of the bread and cheese as she could stomach. She couldn’t tell if the food itself was bland, or if her tongue had just lost all sense of taste. Every bite tasted like ash.

She kicked the tray toward the door when she was finished. She didn’t care that she could have used it as a weapon, or a lure to get one of the guards closer.

Because she wasn’t getting out, and Sam was dead.

Celaena leaned her head against the freezing, damp wall. She’d never be able to make sure he was safely buried in the earth. She’d failed him even in that.

When the roaring silence came to claim her again, Celaena walked into it with open arms.

The guards liked to talk. About sporting events, about women, about the movement of Adarlan’s armies. About her, most of all.

Sometimes, flickers of their conversations broke through the wall of silence, holding her attention for a moment before she let the quiet sweep her back out to its endless sea.

“The captain’s going to be furious he wasn’t here for the trial.”

“Serves him right for gallivanting with the prince along the Sorian coast.”

Sniggers.

“I heard the captain’s racing back to Rifthold, though.”

“What’s the point? Her trial is tomorrow. He won’t even make it in time to see her executed.”

“You think she’s really Celaena Sardothien?”

“She looks my daughter’s age.”

“Better not tell anyone—the king said he’d flay us all alive if we breathe one word.”

“Hard to imagine that it’s her—did you see the list of victims? It just went on and on.”

“You think she’s wrong in the head? She just
looks
at you without really
looking
at you, you know?”

“I bet they needed someone to pay for Jayne’s death. They probably grabbed a simple girl to pretend it was her.”

Snorts. “Won’t matter to the king, will it? And if she won’t talk, then it’s her own damn fault if she’s innocent.”

“I don’t think she’s really Celaena Sardothien.”

“I heard it’ll be a closed trial and execution because the king doesn’t want anyone seeing who she really is.”

“Trust the king to deny everyone else the chance to watch.”

“I wonder if they’ll hang or behead her.”

The world flashed. Dungeons, rotten hay, cold stones against her cheek, guards talking, bread and cheese and water. Then guards entered, crossbows aimed at her, hands on their swords. Two days had passed, somehow. A rag and a bucket of water were thrown at her. Clean herself up for her trial, they said. She obeyed. And she didn’t struggle when they gave her new shackles on her wrists and ankles—shackles she could walk in. They took her down a dark, cold hallway that echoed with distant groans, then up the stairs. Sunlight shone through a barred window—harsh, blinding—as they went up more stairs, and eventually into a room of stone and polished wood.

The wooden chair was smooth beneath her. Her head still ached, and the places where Farran’s men had struck her were still sore.

The room was large, but sparsely appointed. She’d been shoved into a chair set in the center of the room, a safe distance from the massive table on the far end—the table at which twelve men sat facing her.

She didn’t care who they were, or what their role was. She could feel their eyes on her, though. Everyone in the room—the men at the table and the dozens of guards—was watching her.

A hanging or a beheading. Her throat closed up.

There was no point in fighting, not now.

She deserved this. For more reasons than she could count. She should never have allowed Sam convince her to let him dispatch Farran on his own. It was her fault, all of it, all set in motion the day she’d arrived in Skull’s Bay and decided to make a stand for something.

A small door at the back of the room opened, and all the men at the table got to their feet.

Heavy boots stomping across the floor, the guards straightening and saluting …

The King of Adarlan entered the room.

She wouldn’t look at him. Let him do what he wanted to her. If she looked into his eyes, what semblance of calm she had would be shredded. So it was better to feel nothing than to cower before him—the butcher who had destroyed so much of Erilea. Better to go to her grave numb and dazed than begging.

A chair at the center of the table was pulled back. The men around the king didn’t sit until he sat.

Then silence.

The wooden floor of the room was so polished that she could see the reflection of the iron chandelier hanging far above her.

A low chuckle, like bone against rock. Even without looking at him, she could sense his sheer mass—the darkness swirling around him.

“I didn’t believe the rumors until now,” the king said, “but it seems the guards were not lying about your age.”

A faint urge to cover her ears, to shut out that wretched voice, flickered in the back of her mind.

“How old are you?”

She didn’t reply. Sam was gone. Nothing she could do—even if she fought, even if she raged—could change that.

“Did Rourke Farran get his claws on you, or are you just being willful?”

Farran’s face, leering at her, smiling so viciously as she was helpless before him.

“Very well, then,” the king said. Papers being shuffled, the only sound in the deathly silent room. “Do you deny that you are Celaena Sardothien? If you do not speak, then I will take your silence for acquiescence, girl.”

She kept her mouth shut.

“Then read the charges, Councilor Rensel.”

A male throat was cleared. “You, Celaena Sardothien, are charged with the deaths of the following people …” And then he began a long recitation of all those lives she’d taken. The brutal story of a girl who was now gone. Arobynn had always seen to it that the world knew of her handiwork. He always got word out through secret channels when another victim had fallen to Celaena Sardothien. And now, the very thing that had earned her the right to call herself Adarlan’s Assassin would be what sealed her doom. When it was over, the man said, “Do you deny any of the charges?”

Her breathing was so slow.

“Girl,” the councilman said a bit shrilly, “we will take your lack of response to mean you do not deny them. Do you understand that?”

She didn’t bother to nod. It was all over, anyway.

“Then I will decide your sentence,” the king growled.

Then there was murmuring, more rustling papers, and a cough. The light on the floor flickered. The guards in the room remained focused on her, weapons at the ready.

Footsteps suddenly thudded toward her from the table, and she heard the sound of weapons being angled. She recognized the footsteps before the king even reached her chair.

“Look at me.”

She kept her gaze on his boots.

“Look at me.”

It made no difference now, did it? He’d already destroyed so much of Erilea—destroyed parts of her without even knowing it.

“
Look at me
.”

Celaena raised her head and looked at the King of Adarlan.

The blood drained from her face. Those black eyes were poised to devour the world; the features were harsh and weathered. He wore a sword at his side—the sword whose name everyone knew—and a fine tunic and fur cloak. No crown rested on his head.

She had to get away. Had to get out of this room, get away from him.

Get away.

“Do you have any last requests before I announce your sentence?” he asked, those eyes still searing through every defense she’d ever learned. She could still smell the smoke that had suffocated every inch of Terrasen nine years ago, still smell the sizzling flesh and hear the futile screams as the king and his armies wiped out every last trace of resistance, every last trace of magic. No matter what Arobynn had trained her to do, the memories of those last weeks as Terrasen fell were imprinted upon her blood. So she just stared at him.

When she didn’t reply, he turned on his heel and walked back to the table.

She had to get away. Forever. Brash, foolish fire flared up, and turned her—just for a moment—into that girl again.

“I do,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse.

The king paused and looked over his shoulder at her.

She smiled, a wicked, wild thing. “
Make it quick
.”

It was a challenge, not a plea. The king’s council and the guards shifted, some of them murmuring.

The king’s eyes narrowed slightly, and when he smiled at her, it was the most horrific thing she’d ever seen.

“Oh?” he said, turning to face her fully.

That foolish fire went out.

“If it is an easy death you desire, Celaena Sardothien, I will certainly not give it to you. Not until you have adequately suffered.”

The world balanced on the edge of a knife, slipping, slipping, slipping.

“You, Celaena Sardothien, are sentenced to nine lives’ worth of labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier.”

Her blood turned to ice. The councilmen all glanced at each other. Obviously, this option hadn’t been discussed beforehand.

“You will be sent with orders to keep you alive for as long as possible—so you will have the chance to enjoy Endovier’s special kind of agony.”

Endovier.

Then the king turned away.

Endovier.

There was a flurry of motion, and the king barked an order to have her on the first wagon out of the city. Then there were hands on her arms, and crossbows pointed at her as she was half-dragged out of the room.

Endovier.

She was thrown in her dungeon cell for minutes, or hours, or a day. Then more guards came to fetch her, leading her up the stairs, into the still-blinding sun.

Endovier.

New shackles, hammered shut. The dark interior of a prison wagon. The turn of multiple locks, the jostle of horses starting into a walk, and many other horses surrounding the wagon.

Through the small window high in the door wall, she could see the capital, the streets she knew so well, the people milling about and glancing at the prison wagon and the mounted guards, but not thinking about who might be inside. The golden dome of the Royal Theater in the distance, the briny scent of a breeze off the Avery, the emerald-tiled roofs and white stones of every building.

All passing by, all so quickly.

They passed the Assassin’s Keep where she had trained and bled and lost so much, the place where Sam’s body lay, waiting for her to bury him.