Chapter Eleven
Like a shooting star across a red sky, Kasida flew over the dunes, and made the jump across the Cleaver as if she were leaping over a brook. They paused only long enough for the horse to rest and fill up on water, and though Celaena apologized to the mare for pushing her so hard, Kasida never faltered. She, too, seemed to sense the urgency.
They rode through the night, until the crimson dawn broke over the dunes and smoke stained the sky, and the fortress spread before them.
Fires burned here and there, and shouts rang out, along with the clashing of weapons. The assassins hadn’t yielded yet, though their walls had been breached. A few bodies littered the sand leading up to the gates, but the gates themselves showed no sign of a forced entry—as if someone had left them unlocked.
Celaena dismounted Kasida before the final dune, leaving the horse to either follow or find her own way, and crept the rest of the way into the fortress. She paused long enough to swipe a sword from a dead soldier and tuck it into her belt. It was cheaply made and unbalanced, but the point was sharp enough to do the job. From the muffled clopping of hooves behind her, she knew Kasida had followed. Still, Celaena didn’t dare take her eyes away from the scene before her as she drew her two long daggers.
Inside the walls, bodies were everywhere—assassin and soldier alike. Otherwise, the main courtyard was empty, its little rivers now flowing red. She tried her best not to look too closely at the faces of the fallen.
Fires smoldered, most of them just smoking piles of ash. Charred remnants of arrows revealed that they’d probably been ablaze when they hit. Every step into the courtyard felt like a lifetime. The shouts and clanging weapons came from other parts of the fortress. Who was winning? If all the soldiers had gotten in with so few dead on the sand, then someone had to have let them in—probably in the dead of night. How long had it taken before the night watch spotted the soldiers creeping inside? . . . Unless the night watch had been dispatched before they could sound the alarm.
But, as Celaena took step after step, she realized that the question she should be asking was far worse. Where is the Master?
That was what Lord Berick had wanted—the Master’s head.
And Ansel . . .
Celaena didn’t want to finish that thought. Ansel hadn’t sent her away because of this. Ansel couldn’t be behind this. But . . .
Celaena started sprinting for the Master’s greeting room, heedless of the noise. Blood and destruction were everywhere. She passed courtyards full of soldiers and assassins, locked in deadly battle.
She was halfway up the stairs to the Master’s room when a soldier came rushing down them, his blade drawn. She ducked the blow for her head and struck low and deep, her long dagger burying itself into his gut. With the heat, the soldiers had forgone metal armor—and their leather armor couldn’t turn a blade made with Adarlanian steel.
She jumped aside as he groaned and tumbled down the steps. She didn’t bother sparing him a final look as she continued her ascent. The upper level was completely silent.
Her breath sharp in her throat, she careened toward the open doors of the greeting room. The two hundred soldiers were meant to destroy the fortress—and provide a distraction. The Master could have been unguarded with everyone focused on the attack. But he was still the Master. How could Ansel expect to best him?
Unless she used that drug on him as well. How else would she be able to disarm him and catch him unawares?
Celaena hurled herself through the open wooden doors and nearly tripped on the body prostrate between them.
Mikhail lay on his back, his throat slit, eyes staring up at the tiled ceiling. Dead. Beside him was Ilias, struggling to rise as he clutched his bleeding belly. Celaena bit back her cry, and Ilias raised his head, blood dripping from his lips. She made to kneel beside him, but he grunted, pointing to the room ahead.
To his father.
The Master lay on his side atop the dais, his eyes open and his robes still unstained by blood. But he had the stillness of one drugged—paralyzed by whatever Ansel had given him.
The girl stood over him, her back to Celaena as she talked, swift and quiet. Babbling. She clenched her father’s sword in one hand, the bloodied blade drooping toward the floor. The Master’s eyes shifted to Celaena’s face, then to his son. They were filled with pain. Not for himself, but for Ilias—for his bleeding boy. He looked back to Celaena’s face, his sea-green eyes now pleading. Save my son.
Ansel took a deep breath and the sword rose in the air, making to slice off the Master’s head.
Celaena had a heartbeat to flip the knife in her hands. She cocked her wrist and let it fly.
The dagger slammed into Ansel’s forearm, exactly where Celaena had aimed. Ansel let out a cry, her fingers splaying. Her father’s sword clattered to the ground. Her face went white with shock as she whirled, clutching the bleeding wound, but the expression shifted into something dark and unyielding as she beheld Celaena. Ansel scrambled for her fallen blade.
But Celaena was already running.
Ansel grabbed her sword, dashing back to the Master and lifting it high over her head. She plunged the sword toward the Master’s neck.
Celaena managed to tackle her before the blade struck, sending them both crashing to the floor. Cloth and steel and bone, twisting and rolling. She brought her legs up high enough to kick Ansel, hard. The girls split apart, and Celaena was on her feet the moment she stopped moving.
But Ansel was already standing, her sword still in her hands, still between Celaena and the paralyzed Master. The blood from Ansel’s arm dripped to the floor.
They panted, and Celaena steadied her reeling head. “Don’t do it,” she breathed.
Ansel let out a low laugh. “I thought I told you to go home.”
Celaena drew the sword from her belt. If only she had a blade like Ansel’s, not some bit of scrap metal! It shook in her hands as she realized who, exactly, stood between her and the Master. Not some nameless soldier, not some stranger, or a person she’d been hired to kill. But Ansel.
“Why?” Celaena whispered.
Ansel cocked her head, raising her sword a bit higher. “Why?” Celaena had never seen anything more hideous than the hate that twisted Ansel’s face. “Because Lord Berick promised me a thousand men to march into the Flatlands, that’s why. Stealing those horses was exactly the public excuse he needed to attack this fortress. And all I had to do was take care of the guards and leave the gate open last night. And bring him this.” She gestured with her sword to the Master behind her. “The Master’s head.” She ran an eye up and down Celaena’s body, and Celaena hated herself for trembling further. “Put down your sword, Celaena.”
Celaena didn’t move. “Go to hell.”
Ansel chuckled. “I’ve been to hell. I spent some time there when I was twelve, remember? And when I march into the Flatlands with Berick’s troops, I’ll see to it that High King Loch sees a bit of hell, too. But first . . .”
She turned to the Master and Celaena sucked in a breath. “Don’t,” Celaena said. From this distance, Ansel would kill him before she could do anything to stop her.
“Just look the other way, Celaena.” Ansel stepped closer to the old man.
“If you touch him, I’ll put this sword through your neck,” Celaena snarled. The words shook, and she blinked away the building moisture in her eyes.
Ansel looked over her shoulder. “I don’t think you will.”
Ansel took another step closer to the Master, and Celaena’s second dagger flew. It grazed the side of Ansel’s armor, leaving a long mark before it clattered to a stop at the foot of the dais.
Ansel paused, giving Celaena a faint smile. “You missed.”
“Don’t do it.”
“Why?”