“What does it say?”
“‘Death, Eternity, Rulers,’” Nehemia recited. “Standard tomb posturing.” She continued moving through the room. As Nehemia strode about, Celaena leaned against a wall and slumped to the ground. Sighing, she rubbed her heel against one of the raised stars on the floor, examining the curve that they made across the room.
Do they make a constellation?
Celaena rose to her feet and stared down. Nine of the stars made up a familiar pattern—the Dragonfly. Her brows rose. She’d never realized it before. A few feet away another constellation lay on the floor—the Wyvern. It sat at the head of Gavin’s sarcophagus.
A symbol of Adarlan’s house, as well as the second constellation in the sky.
Celaena followed the line that the shapes made, weaving through the tomb. The night sky passed beneath her feet, and by the time she reached the final constellation, she would have collided with the wall had Nehemia not grabbed her by the arm.
“What is it?”
Celaena was staring down at the last constellation—the Stag, Lord of the North. The symbol of Terrasen, Elena’s home country. The constellation faced the wall, and its head seemed to be pointed upward, as though it were looking at something …
Celaena followed the stag’s stare, up through the dozens of Wyrdmarks that covered the wall, until—
“By the Wyrd. Look at this,” she said, pointing.
An eye, no larger than her palm, was etched into the wall. A hole was bored in its center, a perfectly crafted puncture that had been carefully concealed within the eye. The Wyrdmark itself made a face, and while the other eye was filled in and smooth, this one held a hollowed-out iris.
It is only with the eye that one can see rightly. There was no way she was that lucky—it was surely no more than coincidence. Calming her growing excitement, she lifted onto her toes to see into the eye.
How had she not noticed this before? She took a step back, and the Wyrdmark faded into the wall. She stepped back onto the constellation, and it appeared again.
“You can only see the face when you stand on the stag,” Nehemia whispered.
Celaena ran her hands over the face, feeling for any cracks or slight breezes that might suggest a door into another room. Nothing. With a deep breath, she rose onto her toes and faced the eye, her dagger held aloft in case anything leapt out at her. Nehemia chuckled softly. And Celaena conceded a smile as she put her eye against the stone and peered into the gloom.
There was nothing. Just a distant wall, illuminated by a small shaft of moonlight.
“It’s just—just a blank wall. Does that make any sort of sense?” She’d been jumping to conclusions—trying to see things and make connections that weren’t there. Celaena stepped away so Nehemia could see for herself. “Mort!” she hollered while the princess looked. “What the hell is that wall? Does it make any sense to you why it would be here?”
“No,” Mort said dully.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Lie to you? To you? Oh, I couldn’t lie to you. You asked me whether it makes sense, and I said no. You must learn to ask the right questions before you can receive the right answers.”
Celaena growled. “What sort of question might I ask to receive the right answer?”
Mort clicked his tongue. “I’ll have none of that. Come back when you have some proper questions.”
“You promise you’ll tell me then?”
“I’m a door knocker; it’s not in my nature to make promises.”
Nehemia stepped away from the wall and rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to his teasing. I can’t see anything, either. Perhaps it is just a prank. Old castles are full of nonsense intended only to confuse and bother later generations. But—all these Wyrdmarks …”
Celaena took a too-short breath, and then made the request that she’d been contemplating for some time now. “Could you—could you teach me how to read them?”
“Oho!” cackled Mort from the hall. “Are you sure you’re not too dim to understand?”
Celaena ignored him. She hadn’t told Nehemia about Elena’s latest demand to uncover the king’s source of power, because she knew what Nehemia’s response would be: listen to the dead queen. But the Wyrdmarks seemed so connected to everything, somehow—even to that eye riddle and this stupid trick wall. And perhaps if she learned how to use them, then she could unlock the iron door in the library and find some answers beyond it. “Maybe … maybe just the basics?”
Nehemia smiled. “The basics are the hardest part.”
Usefulness aside, it was a forgotten secret language, a system for accessing a strange power. Who wouldn’t want to learn about it? “Morning lessons instead of our walk, then?”
Nehemia beamed, and Celaena felt a twinge of guilt for not telling her about the catacombs as the princess said, “Of course.”
When they left, Nehemia spent a few minutes studying Mort—mostly asking him questions about his creation spell, which he claimed to have forgotten, then claimed was too private, then claimed she had no business hearing.
After Nehemia’s near-infinite patience wore thin, they cursed Mort soundly and stormed back upstairs, where Fleetfoot was anxiously waiting in the bedroom. The dog refused to set foot in the secret passage—probably because of some foul stench left over from Cain and his creature. Even Nehemia hadn’t been able to coax her downstairs with them.
Once the door was closed and hidden, Celaena leaned against her desk. The eye in the tomb hadn’t been the solution to the riddle. Now she wondered if Nehemia might have a better sense of what it was about.
“I found a book on Wyrdmarks in Davis’s office,” she told Nehemia. “I can’t tell if it’s a riddle or a proverb, but someone wrote this on the inside back cover: It is only with the eye that one can see rightly.”
Nehemia frowned. “Sounds like an idle lord’s nonsense to me.”
“But do you think it’s just coincidence that he was a part of this movement against the king and had a book on Wyrdmarks? What if this is some sort of riddle about them?”
Nehemia snorted. “What if Davis wasn’t even in this group? Perhaps Archer had his information wrong. I bet that book had been there for years—and I bet Davis didn’t even know it existed. Or maybe he saw it in a bookshop and bought it to look daring.”
But maybe he didn’t—and maybe Archer was on to something. She would question him when she saw him next. Celaena fiddled with the chain of her amulet—then went rod-straight. The Eye. “Do you think it could be this Eye?”
“No,” Nehemia said. “It wouldn’t be that easy.”
“But—” Celaena pushed off the desk.
“Trust me,” Nehemia said. “It’s a coincidence—just like that eye in the wall. ‘The eye’ could refer to anything—anything at all. Having eyes plastered all over things used to be quite popular centuries ago as a ward against evil. You’ll drive yourself mad, Elentiya. I can do some research on the subject, but it might take a while before I find anything.”
Celaena’s face warmed. Fine; maybe she was wrong. She didn’t want to believe Nehemia, didn’t want to think that the riddle could be that impossible to solve, but … the princess knew far more about ancient lore than she did. So Celaena sat down at her breakfast table again. Her porridge had gone cold, but she ate it anyway. “Thank you,” she said in between mouthfuls as Nehemia sat down again, too. “For not exploding on me.”