Her heart pounded in her ears, and the sound of wood against steel became almost unbearable. Why were things slowing down?
She attacked—faster and faster, stronger and stronger. Cain laughed, and she almost screamed in anger. Each time she moved a foot to trip him, each time they came too close, she either became clumsy or he stepped away, as if he knew what she planned all along. She had the infuriating feeling that he was toying with her, that there was some joke she didn’t understand.
Celaena whipped the staff through the air, hoping to catch him upon his unprotected neck. But he deflected, and though she spun and tried to knock him in his stomach, he blocked her again.
“Not feeling well?” he said, showing his white, gleaming teeth. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have been holding back all those—”
WHAM!
She grinned as the shaft of her staff slammed into his side. He bent over, and her leg lashed out and swept him off his feet, sending him crashing to the ground. She raised her staff, but a sick feeling rushed through her so powerful that her muscles slackened. She had no strength.
He knocked aside her blow as if it was nothing, and she retreated while he rose. And that’s when she heard the laugh—soft, feminine, and vicious. Kaltain. Celaena’s feet stumbled, but she stayed upright as she dared a glance at the lady, and the goblets on the table before her. And that’s when she knew that it hadn’t been wine in that glass, but bloodbane, the very drug she’d missed in the Test. At best, it caused hallucinations and disorientation. At worst . . .
She had difficulty holding the staff. Cain came at her, and she had no choice but to meet his blows, barely having the strength to raise the weapon each time. How much bloodbane had they given her? The staff cracked, splintered, and groaned. If it were a lethal dose, she’d be dead by now. They must have given her enough to disorient her, but not enough that it would be easy to prove. She couldn’t focus, and her body became hot and cold. Cain was so large—he was a mountain, and his blows . . . they made Chaol seem like a child . . .
“Tired already?” he asked. “It’s a pity all of that yapping didn’t amount to much.”
He knew. He knew they’d drugged her. She snarled and lunged. He stepped aside, and her eyes went wide as she hit nothing but air, air, air, until—
He slammed his fist into her spine, and she only saw the blur of the slate tiles before they collided with her face.
“Pathetic,” he said, his shadow falling over her as she flipped onto her back, scrambling away before he could get closer. She could taste the blood in her mouth. This couldn’t be happening—they couldn’t have betrayed her like this. “If I were Grave, I’d be insulted that you’d beaten me.”
Her breath came fast and hard, and her knees ached as she stumbled upright, charging at him. Too fast for her to block, he grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and hurled her back. She kept upright as she tripped, and stopped a few feet from him.
Cain circled her, swinging his sword idly. His eyes were dark—dark like that portal to that other world. He was drawing out the inevitable, a predator playing with his meal before eating it. He wanted to enjoy every moment.
She had to end this now, before the hallucinations started. She knew they’d be powerful: seers had once used bloodbane as a drug to view spirits from other worlds. Celaena shot forward with a sweep of the staff. Wood slammed into steel.
The staff snapped in two.
The iron-tipped head soared to the other side of the veranda, leaving Celaena with a piece of useless wood. Cain’s black eyes met with hers for a moment before his other arm lashed out and connected with her shoulder.
She heard the crack before she felt the pain, and Celaena screamed, dropping to her knees as her shoulder dislocated. His foot met with the shoulder, and she went flying backward, falling so hard that her shoulder relocated with a sickening crunch. The agony blinded her; the world went in and out of focus. Things were so slow . . .
Cain grabbed the collar of her jacket to pull her to her feet. She staggered back out of his grasp, the ground rushing beneath her, and then fell—hard.
She raised the shaft of broken wood with her left hand. Cain, panting and grinning, approached.
?
Dorian clenched his teeth. Something was terribly wrong. He’d known it from the moment the duel started, and began sweating when she had the opportunity to bestow a winning blow and failed to deliver it. But now . . .
He couldn’t watch as Cain kicked her shoulder, and felt as if he’d vomit when the brute picked her up and she fell to the ground. She kept wiping her eyes, and sweat shone on her forehead. What was wrong?