The Assassin and the Empire

There was one word on her lips, but she couldn’t get it out, no matter how much she tried.



Who?



Who had betrayed her so foully? She could understand hating her, but Sam … Everyone had adored Sam, even Wesley …



Wesley. He had tried to tell her: It’s all just a— And his face hadn’t been set with irritation, but with grief—grief and rage, directed not at her, but at someone else. Had Arobynn sent Wesley to warn her? Harding, the assassin who had been talking about the window, had always had an eye on her position as Arobynn’s heir. And he’d practically spoon-fed her the details about where to break in, how to break in … It had to be him. Maybe Wesley had figured it out just as she was breaking out of the Keep. Because the alternative … No, she couldn’t even think of the alternative.



Farran pulled back, loosening his grip on her throat. “I do wish I’d been allowed to play with you for a bit, but I swore not to harm you.” He cocked his head to the side, taking in the injuries she’d already suffered. “I think a few bruised ribs and a split lip are excusable.” He pulled out a pocket watch. “Alas, it’s eleven, and you and I both have places to be.” Eleven. An hour before Arobynn would even leave the Keep. And if Harding had actually been the one to betray her, then he’d probably do his best to delay them even further. Once she was brought to the royal dungeons, what odds did Arobynn have of successfully breaking her out? When the gloriella wore off, what odds did she have of breaking out?



Farran’s eyes were still on hers, glittering with delight. And then, without warning, his arm slashed through the air.



She heard the sound of a hand against flesh before she felt the stinging throb in her cheek and mouth. The pain was faint. She was thankful the numbness was still clinging to her, especially as the coppery tang of blood filled her mouth.



Farran gracefully rose from his crouch. “That was for getting blood on the carpet.”



Despite the sideways angle of her head, she managed to glare up at him, even as her blood slid down her throat. Farran straightened his gray tunic, then leaned down to turn her head forward. His smile returned.



“You would have been delightful to break,” he told her, and strode from the room, motioning to three tall, well-dressed men as he passed. Not petty guards. She’d seen those three men before. Somewhere—at some point that she couldn’t quite recall …



One of the men approached, smiling, despite the gore pooled around her. Celaena glimpsed the rounded pommel of his sword before it connected with her head and everything went black.



Chapter Eleven



Celaena awoke with a pulsing headache.



She kept her eyes shut, letting her senses take in her surroundings before she announced to the world that she was awake. Wherever she was, it was quiet, and damp, and cold, and reeked of mildew and refuse.



She knew three things before she even opened her eyes.



The first was that at least six hours had passed, because she could wriggle her toes and her fingers, and those movements were enough to tell her that all of her weapons had been removed.



The second was that because at least six hours had passed and Arobynn and the others clearly had not found her, she was either in the royal dungeons across the city or in some cell beneath Jayne’s house, awaiting transport.



The third was that Sam was still dead, and even her rage had been a pawn in some betrayal so twisted and brutal she couldn’t begin to wrap her aching head around it.



Sam was still dead. And she was in some sort of dungeon.



She opened her eyes, finding herself indeed in a dungeon, dumped onto a rotten pallet of hay and chained to the wall. Her feet had also been shackled to the floor, and both sets of chains had just enough slack that she could make it to the filthy bucket in the corner to relieve herself.



That was the first indignity she allowed herself to suffer.



Once she’d taken care of her bladder, she looked about the cell. No windows, and not enough space between the iron door and the threshold for anything more than light to squeeze through. She couldn’t hear anything—not through the walls, nor coming from outside. She could be anywhere—still beneath Jayne’s house, or in the royal dungeons, or in some other city prison …



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.”



Chapter Twelve



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.