The blood rushed from Celaena’s head. She forced herself to take a breath. And another. Then she said in a too-quiet voice, “Aelin Galathynius is dead.” Just speaking her name aloud—the damned name she had dreaded and hated and tried to forget . . .
Maeve smiled, revealing sharp little canines. “Let us not bother with lies.”
It wasn’t a lie. That girl, that princess had died in a river a decade ago. Celaena was no more Aelin Galathynius than she was any other person.
The room was too hot—too small, Rowan a brooding force of nature behind her.
She was not to have time to gather herself, to make up excuses and half truths, as she should have been doing these past few days instead of free-falling into silence and the misty cold. She was to face the Queen of the Fae as Maeve wanted to be faced. And in some fortress that seemed far, far beneath the raven-haired beauty watching her with black, depthless eyes.
Gods. Gods.
Maeve was fearsome in her perfection, utterly still, eternal and calm and radiating ancient grace. The dark sister to the fair-haired Mab.
Celaena had been fooling herself into thinking this would be easy. She was still pressed against Rowan as though he were a wall. An impenetrable wall, as old as the ward-stones surrounding the fortress. Rowan stepped away from her with his powerful, predatory ease and leaned against the door. She wasn’t getting out until Maeve allowed her.
The Queen of the Fae remained silent, her long fingers moon-white and folded in the lap of her violet gown, a white barn owl perched on the back of her chair. She didn’t bother with a crown, and Celaena supposed she didn’t need one. Every creature on earth would know who she was—what she was—even if they were blind and deaf. Maeve, the face of a thousand legends . . . and nightmares. Epics and poems and songs had been written about her, so many that some even believed she was just a myth. But here was the dream—the nightmare—made flesh.
This could work to your advantage. You can get the answers you need right here, right now. Go back to Adarlan in a matter of days. Just—breathe.
Breathing, as it turned out, was rather hard when the queen who had been known to drive men to madness for amusement was observing every flicker of her throat. That owl perched on Maeve’s chair—Fae or true beast?—was watching her, too. Its talons were curled around the back of the chair, digging into the wood.
It was somewhat absurd, though—Maeve holding court in this half-rotted office, at a desk stained with the Wyrd knew what. Gods, the fact that Maeve was seated at a desk. She should be in some ethereal glen, surrounded by bobbing will-o’-the-wisps and maidens dancing to lutes and harps, reading the wheeling stars like they were poetry. Not here.
Celaena bowed low. She supposed she should have gotten on her knees, but—she already smelled awful, and her face was likely still torn and bruised from her brawling in Varese. As Celaena rose, Maeve remained smiling faintly. A spider with a fly in its web.
“I suppose that with a proper bath, you’ll look a good deal like your mother.”
No exchanging pleasantries, then. Maeve was going right for the throat. She could handle it. She could ignore the pain and terror to get what she wanted. So Celaena smiled just as faintly and said, “Had I known who I would be meeting, I might have begged my escort for time to freshen up.”
She didn’t feel bad for one heartbeat about throwing Rowan to the lions.
Maeve’s obsidian eyes flicked to Rowan, who still leaned against the door. She could have sworn there was approval in the Fae Queen’s smile. As if the grueling travel were a part of this plan, too. But why? Why get her off-kilter?
“I’m afraid I must bear the blame for the pressing pace,” Maeve said. “Though I suppose he could have bothered to at least find you a pool to bathe in along the way.” The Queen of Faedom lifted an elegant hand, gesturing to the warrior. “Prince Rowan—”
Prince. She swallowed the urge to turn to him.
“—is from my sister Mora’s bloodline. He is my nephew of sorts, and a member of my household. An extremely distant relation of yours; there is some ancient ancestry linking you.”
Another move to get her on uneven footing. “You don’t say.”
Perhaps that wasn’t the best reply. She should probably be on the floor, groveling for answers. And she had a feeling she’d likely get to that point very, very soon. But . . .
“You must be wondering why it is I asked Prince Rowan to bring you here,” Maeve mused.
For Nehemia, she’d play this game. Celaena bit her tongue hard enough to keep her gods-damned smart-ass mouth shut.
Maeve placed her white hands on the desk. “I have been waiting a long, long while to meet you. And as I do not leave these lands, I could not see you. Not with my eyes, at least.” The queen’s long nails gleamed in the light.
There were legends whispered over fires about the other skin Maeve wore. No one had lived to tell anything beyond shadows and claws and a darkness to devour your soul.
“They broke my laws, you know. Your parents disobeyed my commands when they eloped. The bloodlines were too volatile to be mixed, but your mother promised to let me see you after you were born.” Maeve cocked her head, eerily similar to the owl behind her. “It would seem that in the eight years after your birth, she was always too busy to uphold her vow.”
If her mother had broken a promise . . . if her mother had kept her from Maeve, it had been for a damn good reason. A reason that tickled at the edges of Celaena’s mind, a blur of memory.
“But now you are here,” Maeve said, seeming to come closer without moving. “And a grown woman. My eyes across the sea have brought me such strange, horrible stories of you. From your scars and steel, I wonder whether they are indeed true. Like the tale I heard over a year ago, that an assassin with Ashryver eyes was spotted by the horned Lord of the North in a wagon bound for—”
“Enough.” Celaena glanced at Rowan, who was listening intently, as if this was the first he was hearing of it. She didn’t want him knowing about Endovier—didn’t want that pity. “I know my own history.” She flashed Rowan a glare that told him to mind his own business. He merely looked away, bored again. Typical immortal arrogance. Celaena faced Maeve, tucking her hands into her pockets. “I’m an assassin, yes.”
A snort from behind, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Maeve.
“And your other talents?” Maeve’s nostrils flared—scenting. “What has become of them?”
“Like everyone else on my continent, I haven’t been able to access them.”
Maeve’s eyes twinkled, and Celaena knew—knew that Maeve could smell the half truth. “You are not on your continent anymore,” Maeve purred.
Run. Every instinct roared with the word. She had a feeling that the Eye of Elena would have been no use, but she wished she had it anyway. Wished the dead queen were here, for that matter. Rowan was still at the door—but if she was fast, if she outsmarted him . . .
A flash of memory blinded her, bright and uncontrollable, unleashed by the instinct begging her to flee. Her mother had rarely let Fae into their home, even with her heritage. A few trusted ones were allowed to live with them, but any Fae visitors had been closely monitored, and for the duration of their stay, Celaena had been sequestered in the family’s private chambers. She’d always thought it was overprotective, but now . . . “Show me,” Maeve whispered with a spider’s smile. Run. Run.