“Do me a favor, Celaena,” Nox said. The sound of her name startled her. He brought his mouth close to her ear. “Rip Cain’s head off,” he whispered with a wicked grin. Celaena only smiled back at him and nodded.
Nox left early that night, slipping out of the castle without a word to anyone.
?
The clock chimed five, and Kaltain fought the urge to rub her eyes as the opium oozed through every pore of her body. In the light of the setting sun, the castle hallways were awash with red and orange and gold, the colors bleeding together. Perrington had asked her to join his dinner table in the Great Hall, and she normally wouldn’t have dared to smoke before a public meal, but the headache that had plagued her all afternoon hadn’t gotten any better.
The hall seemed to stretch on forever. She ignored the passing courtiers and servants, focusing instead on the fading day. Someone approached from the other end, a smear of black against the gold and orange light. Shadows seemed to leak from him, flowing onto the stones and the windows and the walls like spilled ink.
She tried to swallow as she neared him, but found her tongue to be leaden and paper-dry.
Each step brought him closer—made him bigger and taller—and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Perhaps the opium had gone bad—perhaps she’d smoked too much this time. Amid the pounding in her ears and her head, the whisper of wings filled the air.
In the space between blinks, she could have sworn she saw things swooping past him in swift, vicious circles, hovering above him, waiting, waiting, waiting . . .
“Milady,” Cain said, bowing his head as he strode by.
Kaltain said nothing. She clenched her sweaty palms and continued toward the Great Hall. It took a while for the sound of flapping wings to fade, but by the time she reached the duke’s table, she’d forgotten all about it.
?
After dinner that night, Celaena sat across the chessboard from Dorian. The kiss following the ball two days ago hadn’t been so bad. Nice, actually, if she was being honest. Of course, he’d returned tonight, and so far there had been no mention of the fresh scars on her hand, or the kiss. And she’d never, not in a million years, tell him about the ridderak. She might feel something for him, but if he told his father about the power of the Wyrdmarks and Wyrdgates . . . Her blood chilled at the thought.
But looking at him, with his face illuminated by firelight, she couldn’t see any resemblance to his father. No, she could only see his kindness, and intelligence, and maybe he was a tad arrogant, but . . . Celaena’s toes scratched Fleetfoot’s ears. She’d expected him to stay away, to move on to another woman now that he’d tasted her.
Well, did he even want to taste you in the first place?
He moved his High Priestess, and Celaena laughed. “Do you really wish to do that?” she asked. His face contorted with confusion, and she picked up her pawn, moving it diagonally, and easily knocked over the piece.
“Damn!” he cried, and she cackled.
“Here.” She handed him the piece. “Take it and try another move.”
“No. I’ll play like a man and accept my losses!”
They laughed, but silence soon crept over them. A smile still played about her lips, and he reached for her hand. She wanted to pull it away, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. He held her hand over the board and smoothly flattened their palms against each other, interlocking his fingers with hers. His hand was calloused but sturdy. Their entwined hands rested on the side of the table.
“One needs both hands to play chess,” she said, wondering if it were possible for her heart to explode. Fleetfoot huffed and trotted away, probably to disappear under the bed.
“I think you only need one.” He moved a piece all over the board. “See?”
She chewed her lip. Still, she didn’t pull her hand from his. “Are you going to kiss me again?”
“I’d like to.” She couldn’t move as he leaned toward her, closer and closer, the table groaning beneath him, until he stopped, his lips just a hair’s breadth from hers.
“I ran into your father in the hall today,” she blurted.
Dorian slowly sat back in his chair. “And?”
“And it was fine,” she lied. His eyes narrowed.
He lifted her chin with a finger. “You didn’t say that to avoid the inevitable, did you?” No, she’d said that just to keep talking, to keep him here as long as he would be willing to stay, so she didn’t have to face a night alone with the threat of Cain hovering over her. Who better to keep at her side in the dark hours of the night than the son of the king? Cain wouldn’t dare harm him.
But all of this . . . everything that had happened with the ridderak meant all the books she’d read were true. What if Cain could summon anything to him—like the dead? There were many people who lost their fortunes when magic vanished. Even the king himself might be intrigued by this sort of power.