The Assassin and the Empire

And then she would remember how it had felt to be loved, when the world had held nothing but possibility.

She preferred the silence. In the silence she couldn’t hear the worst question of all: had she brought this upon herself?

She took one look down at the teeming crowd around the main fighting pit and knew exactly who was causing them to cheer.

She would tuck Sam into her heart, a bright light for her to take out whenever things were darkest. And then she would remember how it had felt to be loved, when the world had held nothing but possibility. No matter what they did to her, they could never take that away.

She would not break.

And someday … someday, even if it took her until her last breath, she’d find out who had done this to her. To Sam. Celaena wiped away her tears as the wagon entered the shade of the tunnel through the wall. Whips and screams and the clank of chains. She tensed, already taking in every detail she could.

But she squared her shoulders. Straightened her spine.

“My name is Celaena Sardothien,” she whispered, “and I will not be afraid.”

The wagon cleared the wall and stopped.

Celaena raised her head.

The wagon door was unlocked and thrown open, flooding the space with gray light. Guards reached for her, mere shadows against the brightness. She let them grab her, let them pull her from the wagon.

I will not be afraid.

Celaena Sardothien lifted her chin and walked into the Salt Mines of Endovier.

Farran studied his new ally, his gaze glittering. “You have no idea.” After another moment of quiet, he asked, “Why did you do it?”

Arobynn’s attention drifted back to the wagon, already a small dot in the rolling foothills above Rifthold. “Because I don’t like sharing my belongings,” was his only response.

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.

The game had been played, and she had lost.

“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.

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

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.

And then the smoke started, and the door shut, and as she gutted another guard, she glanced at Farran in time to see him slide on a mask.

She knew this smoke—knew this smell. It had been on Sam’s corpse. That musky, strange—

Someone sealed the window, shutting out the air. Smoke everywhere, fogging everything.

Her eyes stung, but she dropped a sword to reach for that last dagger, the one that would find its home in Farran’s skull.

The world jolted to the side.

No.