CHAPTER
3
Two attendants greeted them at Arobynn’s private box, taking their sodden cloaks and exchanging them for glasses of sparkling wine. Immediately, one of Arobynn’s acquaintances popped in from the hall to say hello, and Arobynn, Sam, and Lysandra remained in the velvet-lined antechamber as they chatted. Celaena, who had no interest in seeing Lysandra test out her flirting with Arobynn’s friend, strode through the crimson curtain to take her usual seat closest to the stage.
Arobynn’s box was on the side of the cavernous hall, near enough to the center so that she had a mostly unobstructed view of the stage and the orchestra pit, but still angled enough to make her look longingly at the empty Royal Boxes. All of them occupied the coveted center position, and all of them were vacant. What a waste.
She observed the floor seats and the other boxes, taking in the glittering jewels, the silk dresses, the golden glow of sparkling wine in fluted glasses, the rumbling murmur of the mingling crowd. If there was one place where she felt the most at home, a place where she felt happiest, it was here, in this theater, with the red velvet cushions and the glass chandeliers and the gilded domed ceiling high, high above them. Had it been coincidence or planning that had led to the theater being constructed in the very heart of the city, a mere twenty-minute walk from the Assassins’ Keep? She knew it would be hard for her to adjust to her new apartment, which was nearly double the distance from the theater. A sacrifice she was willing to make—if she ever found the right moment to tell Arobynn she was paying her debt and moving out. Which she would. Soon.
She felt Arobynn’s easy, self-assured gait strutting across the carpet, and straightened as he leaned over her shoulder. “Doneval is straight ahead,” Arobynn whispered, his breath hot on her skin. “Third box in from the stage, second row of seats.”
She immediately found the man she’d been assigned to kill. He was tall and middle-aged, with pale blond hair and tan skin. Not particularly handsome, but not an eyesore, either. Not heavy, but not toned. Aside from his periwinkle tunic—which, even from this distance, looked expensive—there was nothing remarkable about him.
There were a few others in the box. A tall, elegant woman in her late twenties stood near the partition curtain, a cluster of men around her. She held herself like a noble, though no diadem glittered in her lustrous, dark hair.
“Leighfer Bardingale,” Arobynn murmured, following her gaze. Doneval’s former wife—and the one who’d hired her. “It was an arranged marriage. She wanted his wealth, and he wanted her youth. But when they failed to have children and some of his less … desirable behavior was revealed, she managed to get out of the marriage, still young, but far richer.”
It was smart of Bardingale, really. If she planned to have him assassinated, then pretending to be his friend would help keep fingers from pointing her way. Though Bardingale might have looked the part of a polite, elegant lady, Celaena knew there had to be some ice-cold steel running through her veins. And an unyielding sense of dedication to her friends and allies—not to mention to the common rights of every human being. It was hard not to immediately admire her.
“And the people around them?” Celaena asked. Through a small gap in the curtains behind Doneval, she could glimpse three towering men, all clad in dark gray—all looking like bodyguards.
“Their friends and investors. Bardingale and Doneval still have some joint businesses together. The three men in the back are his guards.”
Celaena nodded, and might have asked him some other questions had Sam and Lysandra not filed into the box behind them, bidding farewell to Arobynn’s friend. There were three seats along the balcony rail, and three seats behind them. Lysandra, to Celaena’s dismay, sat next to her as Arobynn and Sam took the rear seats.
“Oh, look at how many people are here,” Lysandra said. Her low-cut ice-blue dress did little to hide her cleavage as she craned her neck over the rail. Celaena blocked out Lysandra’s prattling as the courtesan began tossing out important names.
Celaena could sense Sam behind her, feel his gaze focused solely on the gold velvet curtains concealing the stage. She should say something to him—apologize or thank him or just … say something kind. She felt him tensing, as if he, too, wanted to say something. Somewhere in the theater, a gong began signaling the audience to take their seats.
It was now or never. She didn’t know why her heart thundered the way it did, but she didn’t give herself a chance to second-guess as she twisted to look at him. She glanced once at his clothes and then said, “You look handsome.”
His brows rose, and she swiftly turned back around in her seat, focusing hard on the curtain. He looked better than handsome, but … Well, at least she’d said one nice thing. She’d tried to be nice. Somehow, it didn’t make her feel that much better.
Celaena folded her hands in the lap of her bloodred gown. It wasn’t cut nearly as low as Lysandra’s, but with the slender sleeves and bare shoulders, she felt particularly exposed to Sam. She’d curled and swept her hair over one shoulder, certainly not to hide the scar on her neck.
Doneval lounged in his seat, eyes on the stage. How could a man who looked so bored and useless be responsible for not just the fate of several lives, but of his entire country? How could he sit in this theater and not hang his head in shame for what he was about to do to his fellow countrymen, and to whatever slaves would be caught up in it? The men around Bardingale kissed her cheeks and departed for their own boxes. Doneval’s three thugs watched the men very, very closely as they left. Not lazy, bored guards, then. Celaena frowned.
But then the chandeliers were hauled upward into the dome and dimmed, and the crowd quieted to hear the opening notes as the orchestra began playing. In the dark, it was nearly impossible to see Doneval.
Sam’s hand brushed her shoulder, and she almost jumped out of her skin as he brought his mouth close to her ear and murmured, “You look beautiful. Though I bet you already know that.” She most certainly did.
She gave him a sidelong glare and found him grinning as he leaned back into his seat.
Suppressing her urge to smile, Celaena turned toward the stage as the music established the setting for them. A world of shadows and mist. A world where creatures and myths dwelled in the dark moments before dawn.
Celaena went still as the gold curtain drew back, and everything she knew and everything she was faded away to nothing.
The music annihilated her.
The dancing was breathtaking, yes, and the story it told was certainly lovely—a legend of a prince seeking to rescue his bride, and the cunning bird he captured to help him to do it—but the music.
Had there ever been anything more beautiful, more exquisitely painful? She clenched the arms of the seat, her fingers digging into the velvet as the music hurtled toward its finale, sweeping her away in a flood.
With each beat of the drum, each trill of the flute and blare of the horn, she felt all of it along her skin, along her bones. The music broke her apart and put her back together, only to rend her asunder again and again.
And then the climax, the compilation of all the sounds she had loved best, amplified until they echoed into eternity. As the final note swelled, a gasp broke from her, setting the tears in her eyes spilling down her face. She didn’t care who saw.
Then, silence.
The silence was the worst thing she’d ever heard. The silence brought back everything around her. Applause erupted, and she was on her feet, crying still as she clapped until her hands ached.
“Celaena, I didn’t know you had a shred of human emotion in you,” Lysandra leaned in to whisper. “And I didn’t think the performance was that good.”
Sam gripped the back of Lysandra’s chair. “Shut up, Lysandra.”
Arobynn clicked his tongue in warning, but Celaena remained clapping, even as Sam’s defense sent a faint trickle of pleasure through her. The ovation continued for a while, with the dancers emerging from the curtain again and again to bow and be showered with flowers. Celaena clapped through it all, even as her tears dried, even as the crowd began shuffling out.
When she remembered to glance at Doneval, his box was empty.
Arobynn, Sam, and Lysandra left their box, too, long before she was ready to end her applause. But after she finished clapping, Celaena remained, staring toward the curtained stage, watching the orchestra begin to pack up their instruments.
She was the last person to leave the theater.
There was another party at the Keep that night—a party for Lysandra and her madam and whatever artists and philosophers and writers Arobynn favored at that moment. Mercifully, it was confined to one of the drawing rooms, but laughter and music still filled the entirety of the second floor. On the carriage ride home, Arobynn had asked Celaena to join them, but the last thing she wanted to see was Lysandra being fawned over by Arobynn, Sam, and everyone else. So she told him that she was tired and needed to sleep.
She wasn’t tired in the least, though. Emotionally drained, perhaps, but it was only ten thirty, and the thought of taking off her gown and climbing into bed made her feel rather pathetic. She was Adarlan’s Assassin; she’d freed slaves and stolen Asterion horses and won the respect of the Mute Master. Surely she could do something better than go to bed early.
So she slipped into one of the music rooms, where it was quiet enough that she could only hear a burst of laughter every now and then. The other assassins were either at the party or off on some mission or other. Her rustling dress was the only sound as she folded back the cover of the pianoforte. She’d learned to play when she was ten—under Arobynn’s orders that she find at least one refined skill other than ending lives—and had fallen in love immediately. Though she no longer took lessons, she played whenever she could spare a few minutes.
The music from the theater still echoed in her mind. Again and again, the same cluster of notes and harmonies. She could feel them humming under the surface of her skin, beating in time with her heart. What she wouldn’t give to hear the music once more!
She played a few notes with one hand, frowned, adjusted her fingers, and tried again, clinging to the music in her mind. Slowly, the familiar melody began to sound right.
But it was only a few notes, and it was the pianoforte, not an orchestra; she pounded the keys harder, working out the riffs. It was almost there, but not quite right. She couldn’t remember the notes as perfectly as they sounded in her head. She didn’t feel them the way she’d felt them only an hour ago.
She tried again for a few minutes, but eventually slammed the lid shut and stalked from the room. She found Sam lounging against a wall in the hallway. Had he been listening to her fumble with the pianoforte this whole time?
“Close, but not quite the same, is it?” he said. She gave him a withering look and started toward her bedroom, even though she had no desire to spend the rest of the night sitting in there by herself. “It must drive you mad, not being able to get it exactly the way you remember it.” He kept pace beside her. His midnight-blue tunic brought out the golden hues in his skin.
“I was just fooling around,” she said. “I can’t be the best at everything, you know. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of you, would it?” Down the hall, someone had started a merry tune on the instruments in the gaming room.
Sam chewed on his lip. “Why didn’t you trail Doneval after the theater? Don’t you have only four days left?” She wasn’t surprised he knew; her missions weren’t usually that secret.
She paused, still itching to hear the music once more. “Some things are more important than death.”
Sam’s eyes flickered. “I know.”
She tried not to squirm as he refused to drop her stare. “Why are you helping Lysandra?” She didn’t know why she asked it.
Sam frowned. “She’s not all that bad, you know. When she’s away from other people, she’s … better. Don’t bite off my head for saying it, but even though you taunt her about it, she didn’t choose this path for herself—like us.” He shook his head. “She just wants your attention—and acknowledgment of her existence.”
She clenched her jaw. Of course he’d spent plenty of time alone with Lysandra. And of course he’d find her sympathetic. “I don’t particularly care what she wants. You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you helping her?”
He shrugged. “Because Arobynn told me to. And since I have no desire to have my face beaten to a pulp again, I’m not going to question him.”
“He—he hurt you that badly, too?”
Sam let out a low laugh, but didn’t reply until after a servant bustled past, carrying a tray full of wine bottles. They were probably better off talking in a room where they’d be less likely to be overheard, but the idea of being utterly alone with him made her pulse pound.
“I was unconscious for a day, and dozed on and off for three more after that,” Sam said.
Celaena hissed a violent curse.
“He sent you to the Red Desert,” Sam went on, his words soft and low. “But my punishment was having to watch him beat you that night.”
“Why?” Another question she didn’t mean to ask.
He closed the distance between them, standing near enough now that she could see the fine gold-thread detailing on his tunic. “After what we went through in Skull’s Bay, you should know the answer.”
She didn’t want to know the answer, now that she thought about it. “Are you going to make a Bid for Lysandra?”
Sam burst out laughing. “Bid? Celaena, I don’t have any money. And the money that I do have is going toward paying back Arobynn. Even if I wanted to—”
“Do you want to?”
He gave her a lazy grin. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m curious whether Arobynn’s beating damaged your brain, that’s why.”
“Afraid she and I had a summer romance?” That insufferable grin was still there.
She could have raked her nails down his face. Instead, she picked another weapon. “I hope you did. I certainly enjoyed myself this summer.”
The smile faded at that. “What do you mean?”
She brushed an invisible fleck of dust off her red gown. “Let’s just say that the son of the Mute Master was far more welcoming than the other Silent Assassins.” It wasn’t quite a lie. Ilias had tried to kiss her, and she had basked in his attention, but she hadn’t wanted to start anything between them.
Sam’s face paled. Her words had struck home, but it wasn’t as satisfying as she thought it would be. Instead, the mere fact that it had affected him made her feel … feel … Oh, why had she even said anything about Ilias?
Well, she knew precisely why. Sam began to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. “Help me with Doneval,” she blurted. Not that she needed it, but this was the best she could offer him in exchange for what he’d done for her. “I’ll—I’ll give you half of the money.”
He snorted. “Keep your money. I don’t need it. Ruining yet another slave-trade agreement will be enough for me.” He studied her for a moment, his mouth quirking to the side. “You’re sure you want my help?”
“Yes,” she said. It came out a bit strangled. He searched her eyes for any sign of mockery. She hated herself for making him distrust her that much.
But he nodded at last. “Then we’ll start tomorrow. We’ll scope out his house. Unless you’ve already done that?” She shook her head. “I’ll come by your room after breakfast.”
She nodded. There was more she wanted to say to him, and she didn’t want him to go, but her throat had closed up, too full of all those unspoken words. She made to turn away.
“Celaena.” She looked back at him, her red gown sweeping around her. His eyes shone as he flashed her a crooked grin. “I missed you this summer.”
She met his stare unflinchingly, returning the smile as she said, “I hate to admit it, Sam Cortland, but I missed your sorry ass, too.”
He merely chuckled before he strode toward the party, his hands in his pockets.