Chaol waited all of a second before he slammed his shoulder into the door. Once. Twice. The lock snapped. The door burst open, revealing her empty bedroom.
“Holy gods,” Dorian whispered.
The tapestry on the wall had been folded back to reveal an open door—a secret, stone door that opened into a dark passage.
It was how she’d gotten out to kill Grave.
Dorian drew his sword from the scabbard. “In my dream, I was told I would find this door.”
The prince stepped forward, but Chaol stopped him with an arm. He’d think about Dorian and his clairvoyant dreams later—much later. “You’re not going down there.”
Dorian’s eyes flashed. “Like hell I’m not.”
As if in answer, a guttural, bone-grinding growl sounded from within. And then a scream—a human scream, followed by a highpitched bark.
Chaol was running for the passage before he could think.
It was pitch-black, and Chaol almost tumbled down the stairs, but Dorian, close behind, grabbed a candle.
“Stay upstairs!” Chaol ordered, still charging down. If he’d had time, he would have locked Dorian in the closet rather than risk bringing the Crown Prince into danger, but … What the hell had that growl been? The bark he knew—the bark was Fleetfoot. And if Fleetfoot was down there …
Dorian kept following him. “I was sent here,” he said. Chaol took the stairs by twos and threes, hardly hearing the prince’s words. Had that scream been hers? It had sounded male. But who else could be down here with her?
Blue light flashed from the bottom of the stairs. What was that?
A roar shook the ancient stones. That was not human, nor was it Fleetfoot. But what—
They had never found the creature that had been killing the champions. The murders had just stopped. But the damage he’d seen to those corpses … No, Celaena had to be alive.
Please, he begged any gods who would listen.
Chaol leapt onto the landing and found three doorways. The blue light had flashed from the right. They ran.
How had such a massive cavern of chambers been forgotten? And how long had she known about them?
He flew down a spiral staircase. And then a new, greenish light began shining steadily, and he turned onto a landing to see—
He didn’t know where to look first—at the long hallway, where one wall glowed with an arch of green symbols, or at the … the world that showed through the arch, depicting a land of mist and rock.
At Archer, cowering against the opposite wall, chanting strange words from a book held in his hands.
At Celaena, prostrate on the floor.
Or at the monster: a tall, sinewy thing, but definitely not human. Not with those unnaturally long fingers tipped with claws, white skin that looked like crumpled paper, a distended jaw that revealed fishlike teeth, and those eyes—milky and tinged with blue.
And there was Fleetfoot, hackles raised and fangs bared, refusing to let the demon anywhere near Celaena, even as the half-grown pup limped, even as the blood pooled from the wound in her right hind leg.
Chaol had all of two heartbeats to size up the monster, to take in every detail, to mark his surroundings. “Go,” he snarled at Dorian before launching himself at the creature.
Chapter 49
She didn’t remember anything after the first two swings of her sword, only that she’d suddenly seen Fleetfoot come flying at the creature. The sight had distracted her enough for the demon to get past her guard, its long, white fingers grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head into the wall.
Then darkness.
She wondered whether she’d died and awoken in hell as she opened her eyes to a pulsing headache—and the sight of Chaol, circling the pale demon, blood dripping from both of them. And then there were cool hands on her head, on her neck, and Dorian crouching in front of her as he said, “Celaena.”
She struggled to her feet, her head aching even more. She had to help Chaol. Had to—
She heard a rip of clothing and a yelp of pain, and she looked at Chaol in time to see him grasp the cut on his shoulder, inflicted by those filthy, jagged nails. The creature roared, its overlong jaw gleaming with saliva, and it lunged again for the captain.
Celaena tried to move, but she wasn’t fast enough.
But Dorian was.
Something invisible slammed into the creature, sending it flying into the wall with a crunch. Gods. Dorian didn’t just have magic—he had raw magic. The rarest, and deadliest, kind. Sheer undiluted power, capable of being shaped into whatever form the wielder desired.
The creature crumpled but instantly got up, whirling toward her and Dorian. The prince just stood there, hand outstretched.
The milky-blue eyes were ravenous now.
Through the portal Celaena heard the rocky earth crunching beneath more pairs of bare, pale feet. Archer’s chanting grew louder.
Chaol attacked the thing again. It surged toward him just before his sword struck, swiping with those long fingers, forcing the captain to dart back.
She grabbed Dorian. “We have to close it. The portal should close on its own eventually, but—but the longer it’s open, the greater the threat of more coming through before it does.”
“How?”
“I—I don’t know, I …” Her head spun so badly her knees wobbled. But she turned to Archer, who stood across the hall, separated from them by the pacing creature. “Give me the book.”
Chaol wounded the demon across its abdomen with a sure, deft stroke, but it didn’t slow down. Even from a few feet away, the tang of the dark blood reached her nose.
Celaena watched Archer take it all in, his eyes wide, panicked beyond reason. And then he sprinted down the hall, taking with him the book—and any hope of shutting the portal.