No one said anything to her when she stalked away from the line and tossed her bow back onto the cart. Chaol only scowled at her—obviously, she hadn’t been that inconspicuous—but Dorian smiled. She sighed and joined the competitors waiting for the competition to finish, keeping well away from all of them.
When their marks were compared by Brullo himself, one of the army soldiers, not young Pelor, wound up being eliminated. But though she hadn’t lost by any means, Celaena couldn’t stand—absolutely could not stand—the feeling that she hadn’t really won anything at all.
Chapter 16
Despite her attempt to keep her breathing steady, Celaena gasped for air as she ran beside Chaol in the game park. If he was winded, he didn’t show it, other than the gleam of sweat on his face and the dampness of his white shirt.
They ran toward a hill, its top still shrouded in morning mist. Her legs buckled at the sight of the incline, and her stomach rose in her throat. Celaena let out a loud gasp to get Chaol’s attention before she slowed to a stop, and braced her hands against a tree trunk.
She took a shuddering breath, holding on tightly to the tree as she vomited. She hated the warmth of the tears that leaked from her eyes, but couldn’t wipe them away as she heaved again, gagging. Chaol stood nearby, just watching. She leaned her brow into her upper arm, calming her breathing, willing her body to ease. It had been three days since the first Test, ten since her arrival in Rifthold, and she was still horribly out of shape. The next elimination was in four days, and though training had resumed as usual, she had started waking up a little earlier than normal. She would not lose to Cain, or Renault, or any of them.
“Done?” Chaol asked. She lifted her head to give him a withering glare, but everything spun, dragging her down with it, and she retched again. “I told you not to eat before we left.”
“Are you done being smug?”
“Are you done vomiting your guts up?”
“For the time being,” she snapped. “Perhaps I won’t be so courteous next time, and I’ll just vomit all over you instead.”
“If you can catch me,” he said with a half smile.
She wanted to punch the smirk off his face, but as she took a step, her knees shook, and she put her hands against the tree again, waiting for the retching to renew. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him looking at her back, most of which was exposed by her damp, white undershirt. She stood. “Are you enjoying looking at my scars?”
He sucked on his lower lip for a moment. “When did you get those?” She knew he meant the three enormous lines that ran down her back.
“When do you think?” she said. He didn’t reply, and she looked up at the canopy of leaves above them. A morning breeze sent them all shuddering, ripping a few from where they clung to the skeletal branches. “Those three, I received my first day in Endovier.”
“What did you do to deserve it?”
“Deserve it?” She laughed sharply. “No one deserves to be whipped like an animal.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “I arrived in Endovier, and they dragged me into the center of the camp, and tied me between the whipping posts. Twenty-one lashes.” She stared at him without entirely seeing him as the ash-gray sky turned into the bleakness of Endovier, and the hiss of the wind became the sighing of slaves. “That was before I had befriended any of the other slaves—and I spent that first night wondering if I would make it until morning, if my back would become infected, or if I would bleed out and die before I knew what was happening.”
“No one helped you?”
“Only in the morning. A young woman slipped me a tin of salve while we were waiting in line for breakfast. I never got to thank her. Later that day, four overseers raped and killed her.” She clenched her hands into fists as her eyes stung. “The day I snapped, I stopped by their section of the mines to repay them for what they did to her.” Something frozen rushed through her veins. “They died too quickly.”
“But you were a woman in Endovier,” Chaol said, his voice rough and quiet. “No one ever . . .” He trailed off, unable to form the word.
She gave him a slow, bitter smile. “They were afraid of me to begin with. And after the day I almost touched the wall, none of them dared to come too close to me. But if one guard tried to get too friendly . . . Well, he’d become the example that reminded the others I could easily snap again, if I felt like it.” The wind stirred around them, ripping strands of hair from her braid. She didn’t need to voice her other suspicion—that perhaps somehow Arobynn had bribed the guards in Endovier for her safety. “We each survive in our own way.”
Celaena didn’t quite understand the softness in the look he gave her as he nodded. She only stared at him for a moment longer before she burst into a run, up toward the hill—where the first rays of sunshine began to peek through.