As the chalk met the iron door to form the Wyrdmarks, a voice in the back of her mind told her to run. And though she wanted to listen, she opened the door anyway.
Her torch revealed a hallway in ruin. Parts of the walls had caved in, and the wooden beams were left in splinters. Cobwebs stretched between the broken shafts of wood, and tattered scraps of cloth, impaled upon rock and beam, swayed in the slight breeze.
Death had been here. And not too long ago. If this place were as ancient as Gavin and Brannon, most of the cloth would be dust.
She looked at the three cells that lined the short hallway. There was one more door at the end, which hung crookedly on its one remaining hinge. Darkness filled the void beyond.
But it was the third cell that held her interest.
The iron door to the third cell had been smashed, its surface dented and folded in upon itself. But not from the outside.
Celaena raised Damaris before her as she faced the open cell.
Whoever had been within had broken loose.
A quick sweep of her torch across the threshold revealed nothing save for bones—piles of bones, most of them splintered beyond recognition.
She snapped her attention back to the hallway. Nothing moved.
Gingerly, she stepped into the cell.
Iron chains dangled from the walls, broken off where manacles would have been. The dark stone was covered in white marks; dozens and dozens of long, deep gouges in groups of four.
Fingernails.
She turned around to face the broken cell door. There were countless marks on it.
How could someone make such lines in iron? In stone?
She shuddered and quickly stepped out of the cell.
She glanced back the way she had come, which glowed with the torches she’d lit, and then at the dark, open space that led onward.
You’re near the center of the spiral. Just see what it is—see if it yields any answers. Elena said to look for clues …
She swung Damaris in her hand a few times—only to loosen her wrist, of course. Rolling her neck, she entered the gloom.
There were no torch brackets here. The seventh portal revealed only a short passageway and one open door. An eighth gate.
The walls on either side of the eighth door were damaged and claw-marked. Her head gave a violent throb, then quieted as she stepped nearer.
Beyond the portal lay a spiral staircase that led upward, so high that she couldn’t see the top. A straight ascent into darkness.
But to where?
The stairwell stank, and she held Damaris before her as she ascended the steps, taking care to avoid the fallen stones that littered the ground.
Up and up and up she climbed, grateful for all her training. Her headache only grew worse, but when she reached the top, she forgot about fatigue, forgot about pain.
She raised the torch. Shimmering obsidian walls surrounded her, reaching high, high, high—so high that she couldn’t see the ceiling. She was inside some sort of chamber at the bottom of a tower.
Twining through the strange stone walls, greenish veins glittered in the torchlight. She had seen this material before. Seen it—
The king’s ring. The ring on Perrington’s finger. And Cain’s …
She touched the stone, and a shock went through her, her head pounding so badly she gagged. The Eye of Elena gave a pulse of blue light but quickly died, as if the light itself had been sucked toward the stone and devoured.
She staggered back toward the stairs.
Gods above. What is this?
As if in response, a boom shuddered through the tower, so loud that she jumped back. It echoed and echoed, turning metallic.
She raised her gaze to the darkness above.
“I know where I am,” she whispered as the sound subsided.
The clock tower.