Gods, it was boiling in this useless excuse for a kingdom.
Or maybe it felt that way because Celaena Sardothien had been lounging on the lip of
the terra-cotta roof since midmorning, an arm flung over her eyes, slowly baking in the
sun like the loaves of flat-bread the city's poorest citizens left on their windowsills
because they couldn't afford brick ovens.
And gods, she was sick of flatbread—teggya, they called it. Sick of the crunchy, oniony
taste of it that even mouthfuls of water couldn't wash away. If she never ate another bite of
teggya again, it would be too soon.
Mostly because it was all she'd been able to afford when she landed in Wendlyn two
weeks ago and made her way to the capital city, Varese, just as she'd been ordered by his
Grand Imperial Majesty and Master of the Earth, the King of Adarlan.
She'd resorted to swiping teggya and wine off vendors' carts since her money ran out,
not long after she'd taken one look at the heavily fortified limestone castle, at the elite
guards, at the cobalt banners flapping so proudly in the dry, hot wind and decided not to
kill her assigned targets.
So it had been stolen teggya … and wine. The sour red wine from the vineyards lining
the rolling hills around the walled capital—a taste she'd initially spat out but now very,
very much enjoyed. Especially since the day when she decided that she didn't particularly
care about anything at all.
She reached for the terra-cotta tiles sloping behind her, groping for the clay jug of wine
she'd hauled onto the roof that morning. Patting, feeling for it, and then—
She swore. Where in hell was the wine?
The world tilted and went blindingly bright as she hoisted herself onto her elbows.
Birds circled above, keeping well away from the white-tailed hawk that had been perched
atop a nearby chimney all morning, waiting to snatch up its next meal. Below, the market
street was a brilliant loom of color and sound, full of braying donkeys, merchants waving
their wares, clothes both foreign and familiar, and the clacking of wheels against pale
cobblestones. But where in hell was the—
Ah. There. Tucked beneath one of the heavy red tiles to keep cool. Just where she'd
stashed it hours before, when she'd climbed onto the roof of the massive indoor market to
survey the perimeter of the castle walls two blocks away. Or whatever she'd thought
sounded official and useful before she'd realized that she'd rather sprawl in the shadows.
Shadows that had long since been burned away by that relentless Wendlyn sun.
Celaena swigged from the jug of wine—or tried to. It was empty, which she supposed
was a blessing, because gods her head was spinning. She needed water, and more teggya.
And perhaps something for the gloriously painful split lip and scraped cheekbone she'd earned last night in one of the city's tabernas.
Groaning, Celaena rolled onto her belly and surveyed the street forty feet below. She
knew the guards patrolling it by now—had marked their faces and weapons, just as she
had with the guards atop the high castle walls. She'd memorized their rotations, and how
they opened the three massive gates that led into the castle. It seemed that the Ashryvers
and their ancestors took safety very, very seriously.
It had been ten days since she'd arrived in Varese itself, after hauling ass from the
coast. Not because she was particularly eager to kill her targets, but because the city was
so damn large that it seemed her best chance of dodging the immigration officials, whom
she'd given the slip instead of registering with their oh-so-benevolent work program.
Hurrying to the capital had also provided welcome activity after weeks at sea, where she
hadn't really felt like doing anything other than lying on the narrow bed in her cramped
cabin or sharpening her weapons with a near-religious zeal.
You're nothing but a coward, Nehemia had said to her.
Every slice of the whetting stone had echoed it. Coward, coward, coward. The word
had trailed her each league across the ocean.
She had made a vow—a vow to free Eyllwe. So in between moments of despair and
rage and grief, in between thoughts of Chaol and the Wyrdkeys and all she'd left behind
and lost, Celaena had decided on one plan to follow when she reached these shores. One
plan, however insane and unlikely, to free the enslaved kingdom: find and obliterate the
Wyrdkeys the King of Adarlan had used to build his terrible empire. She'd gladly destroy
herself to carry it out.
Just her, just him. Just as it should be; no loss of life beyond their own, no soul stained
but hers. It would take a monster to destroy a monster.
If she had to be here thanks to Chaol's misplaced good intentions, then at least she'd
receive the answers she needed. There was one person in Erilea who had been present
when the Wyrdkeys were wielded by a conquering demon race that had warped them into
three tools of such mighty power that they'd been hidden for thousands of years and
nearly wiped from memory. Queen Maeve of the Fae. Maeve knew everything—as was
expected when you were older than dirt.
So the first step of her stupid, foolish plan had been simple: seek out Maeve, get
answers about how to destroy the Wyrdkeys, and then return to Adarlan.
It was the least she could do. For Nehemia—for … a lot of other people. There was
nothing left in her, not really. Only ash and an abyss and the unbreakable vow she'd
carved into her flesh, to the friend who had seen her for what she truly was.
When they had docked at the largest port city in Wendlyn, she couldn't help but admire
the caution the ship took while coming to shore—waiting until a moonless night, then
stuffing Celaena and the other refugee women from Adarlan in the galley while navigating
the secret channels through the barrier reef. It was understandable: the reef was the main
defense keeping Adarlan's legions from these shores. It was also part of her mission here
as the King's Champion.
That was the other task lingering in the back of her mind: to find a way to keep the king
from executing Chaol or Nehemia's family. He'd promised to do it should she fail in hermission to retrieve Wendlyn's naval defense plans and assassinate its king and prince at
their annual midsummer ball. But she'd shoved all those thoughts aside when they'd
docked and the refugee women had been herded ashore for processing by the port's
officials.
Many of the women were scarred inside and out, their eyes gleaming with echoes of
whatever horrors had befallen them in Adarlan. So even after she'd vanished from the ship
during the chaos of docking, she'd lingered on a nearby rooftop while the women were
escorted into a building—to find homes and employment. Yet Wendlyn's officials could
later bring them to a quiet part of the city and do whatever they wanted. Sell them. Hurt
them. They were refugees: unwanted and without any rights. Without any voice.
But she hadn't lingered merely from paranoia. No—Nehemia would have remained to
ensure they were safe. Realizing that, Celaena had wound up on the road to the capital as
soon as she was certain the women were all right. Learning how to infiltrate the castle was
merely something to occupy her time while she decided how to execute the first steps of
her plan. While she tried to stop thinking about Nehemia.
It had all been fine—fine and easy. Hiding in the little woods and barns along the way,
she passed like a shadow through the countryside.
Wendlyn. A land of myths and monsters—of legends and nightmares made flesh.
The kingdom itself was a spread of warm, rocky sand and thick forest, growing ever
greener as hills rolled inland and sharpened into towering peaks. The coast and the land
around the capital were dry, as if the sun had baked all but the hardiest vegetation. Vastly
different from the soggy, frozen empire she'd left behind.
A land of plenty, of opportunity, where men didn't just take what they wanted, where
no doors were locked and people smiled at you in the streets. But she didn't particularly
care if someone did or didn't smile at her—no, as the days wore on, she found it suddenly
very difficult to bring herself to care about anything at all. Whatever determination,
whatever rage, whatever anything she'd felt upon leaving Adarlan had ebbed away,
devoured by the nothingness that now gnawed at her.
It was four days before Celaena spotted the massive capital city built across the
foothills. Varese, the city where her mother had been born; the vibrant heart of the
kingdom.
While Varese was cleaner than Rifthold and had plenty of wealth spread between the
upper and lower classes, it was a capital city all the same, with slums and back alleys,
whores and gamblers—and it hadn't taken too long to find its underbelly.
On the street below, three of the market guards paused to chat, and Celaena rested her
chin on her hands. Like every guard in this kingdom, each was clad in light armor and
bore a good number of weapons. Rumor claimed the Wendlynite soldiers were trained by
the Fae to be ruthless and cunning and swift. And she didn't want to know if that was true,
for about a dozen different reasons. They certainly seemed a good deal more observant
than the average Rifthold sentry—even if they hadn't yet noticed the assassin in their
midst. But these days, Celaena knew the only threat she posed was to herself.
Even baking in the sun each day, even washing up whenever she could in one of the city's many fountain-squares, she could still feel Archer Finn's blood soaking her skin,
into her hair. Even with the constant noise and rhythm of Varese, she could still hear
Archer's groan as she gutted him in that tunnel beneath the castle. And even with the wine
and heat, she could still see Chaol, horror contorting his face at what he'd learned about
her Fae heritage and the monstrous power that could easily destroy her, about how hollow
and dark she was inside.
She often wondered whether he'd figured out the riddle she'd told him on the docks of
Rifthold. And if he had discovered the truth … Celaena never let herself get that far. Now
wasn't the time for thinking about Chaol, or the truth, or any of the things that had left her
soul so limp and weary.
Celaena tenderly prodded her split lip and frowned at the market guards, the movement
making her mouth hurt even more. She'd deserved that particular blow in the brawl she'd
provoked in last night's taberna—she'd kicked a man's balls into his throat, and when he'd
caught his breath, he'd been enraged, to say the least. Lowering her hand from her mouth,
she observed the guards for a few moments. They didn't take bribes from the merchants,
or bully or threaten with fines like the guards and officials in Rifthold. Every official and
soldier she'd seen so far had been similarly … good.
The same way Galan Ashryver, Crown Prince of Wendlyn, was good.
Dredging up some semblance of annoyance, Celaena stuck out her tongue. At the
guards, at the market, at the hawk on the nearby chimney, at the castle and the prince who
lived inside it. She wished that she had not run out of wine so early in the day.
It had been a week since she'd figured out how to infiltrate the castle, three days after
arriving in Varese itself. A week since that horrible day when all her plans crumbled
around her.
A cooling breeze pushed past, bringing with it the spices from the vendors lining the
nearby street—nutmeg, thyme, cumin, lemon verbena. She inhaled deeply, letting the
scents clear her sun-and-wine-addled head. The pealing of bells floated down from one of
the neighboring mountain towns, and in some square of the city, a minstrel band struck up
a merry midday tune. Nehemia would have loved this place.
That fast, the world slipped, swallowed up by the abyss that now lived within her.
Nehemia would never see Wendlyn. Never wander through the spice market or hear the
mountain bells. A dead weight pressed on Celaena's chest.
It had seemed like such a perfect plan when she'd arrived in Varese. In the hours she'd
spent figuring out the royal castle's defenses, she'd debated how she'd find Maeve to learn
about the keys. It had all been going smoothly, flawlessly, until …
Until that gods-damned day when she'd noted how the guards left a hole in their
defense in the southern wall every afternoon at two o'clock, and grasped how the gate
mechanism operated. Until Galan Ashryver had come riding out through those gates, in
full view of where she'd been perched on the roof of a nobleman's house.
It hadn't been the sight of him, with his olive skin and dark hair, that had stopped her
dead. It hadn't been the fact that, even from a distance, she could see his turquoise eyes—her eyes, the reason she usually wore a hood in the streets.