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 Surian 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 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
12
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 to convince her to dispatch Farran on his own. It was her fault, all of it, 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 the men at the table got to their feet.
Heavy boots stomping across the floor, the guards straightening and saluting …
The King of Adarlan entered the room.
She wouldn’t look at him. Let him do what he wanted to her. If she looked into his eyes, what semblance of calm she had would be shredded. So it was better to feel nothing than to cower before him—the butcher who had destroyed so much of Erilea. Better to go to her grave numb and dazed than begging.
A chair at the center of the table was pulled back. The men around the king didn’t sit until he did.
Then silence.
The wooden floor of the room was so polished that she could see the reflection of the iron chandelier hanging far above her.
A low chuckle, like bone against rock. Even without looking at him, she could sense his sheer mass—the darkness swirling around him.
“I didn’t believe the rumors until now,” the king said, “but it seems the guards were not lying about your age.”
A faint urge to cover her ears, to shut out that wretched voice, flickered in the back of her mind.
“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.
“Did Rourke Farran get his claws on you, or are you just being willful?”
Farran’s face, leering at her, smiling so viciously as she was helpless before him.
“Very well, then,” the king said. Papers being shuffled, the only sound in the deathly silent room. “Do you deny that you are Celaena Sardothien? If you do not speak, then I will take your silence for acquiescence, girl.”
She kept her mouth shut.
“Then read the charges, Councilor Rensel.”
A male throat was cleared. “You, Celaena Sardothien, are charged with the deaths of the following people …” And then he began a long recitation of all those lives she’d taken. The brutal story of a girl who was now gone. Arobynn had always seen to it that the world knew of her handiwork. He always got word out through secret channels when another victim had fallen to Celaena Sardothien. And now, the very thing that had earned her the right to call herself Adarlan’s Assassin would be what sealed her doom. When it was over, the man said, “Do you deny any of the charges?”
Her breathing was so slow.
“Girl,” the councilman said a bit shrilly, “we will take your lack of response to mean you do not deny them. Do you understand that?”
She didn’t bother to nod. It was all over, anyway.
“Then I will decide your sentence,” the king growled.
Then there was murmuring, more rustling papers, and a cough. The light on the floor flickered. The guards in the room remained focused on her, weapons at the ready.
Footsteps suddenly thudded toward her from the table, and she heard the sound of weapons being angled. She recognized the footsteps before the king even reached her chair.
“Look at me.”
She kept her gaze on his boots.
“Look at me.”
It made no difference now, did it? He’d already destroyed so much of Erilea—destroyed parts of her without even knowing it.
“Look at me.”
Celaena raised her head and looked at the King of Adarlan.
The blood drained from her face. Those black eyes were poised to devour the world; the features were harsh and weathered. He wore a sword at his side—the sword whose name everyone knew—and a fine tunic and fur cloak. No crown rested on his head.