Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)(46)

Her hands suctioned onto the stone, and Celaena heaved herself upward just in time to hear a shriek, a thump, and then silence, followed by the shouting of onlookers. A competitor had fallen—and died. She looked down and beheld the body of Ned Clement, the murderer who’d called himself the Scythe and spent years in the labor camps of Calaculla for his crimes. A shudder went through her. Though the murder of the Eye Eater had made many of the Champions quiet down, the sponsors certainly didn’t seem to care that this Test might very well kill a few more of them.

She shimmied up a drainpipe, her thighs clinging to the iron. Cain hooked his long rope around a leering gargoyle’s neck and swung across an expanse of flat wall, landing on a balcony ledge fifteen feet below the flag. She fought her frustration as she worked her way up higher and higher, following the course of the drainpipe.

The other competitors shuffled along, following Cain’s path. There were a few more shouts, and she looked down long enough to see that Grave was causing a backup because he couldn’t manage to toss his rope around the gargoyle’s neck as Cain had. Verin nudged the assassin aside and moved past him, easily securing his own rope. Nox, now behind Grave, made to do the same, but Grave started cursing at him, and Nox stopped, lifting his hands in a gesture of placation. Smirking, Celaena braced her blackened feet on a stabilizing bracket holding the pipe in place. She’d soon be directly parallel to the flag. And then only thirty feet of bare stone would separate her from it.

Celaena eased farther up the pipe, her toes sticking to the metal. Fifteen feet below her pipe, a mercenary was clutching the horns of a gargoyle as he set about fastening his rope around its head. He seemed to be taking the faster route across a cluster of gargoyles. Then he’d have to swing onto a landing eighteen feet away, before making his way to the other gargoyles on which Grave and Nox now quarreled. She was in no danger of him trying to scale the drainpipe to bother her. So inch by inch, she moved up, the wind battering her hair this way and that.

It was then that she heard Nox shout, and Celaena looked in time to see Grave shove him from their perch atop the gargoyle’s back. Nox swung wide, the rope wrapped around his middle going taut as he collided with the castle wall below. Celaena froze, her breath catching as Nox scraped his hands and feet against the stone to catch hold.

But Grave wasn’t done yet. He bent under the guise of adjusting his boot, and Celaena saw a small dagger glint in the sunlight. How he’d gotten the weapon past his guards was a feat in itself. Celaena’s warning cry was carried away by the wind as Grave set about sawing Nox’s rope from its tether on the gargoyle. None of the other Champions nearby bothered to do anything, though Pelor paused for a moment before easing around Grave. If Nox died, it was one less competitor—and if they interfered, it might cost them this Test. Celaena knew she should keep moving, but something kept her rooted to the spot.

Nox couldn’t find a hold on the stone wall, and without a nearby ledge or gargoyle to grasp, he had nowhere to go but down. Once the rope broke, he’d fall.

One by one, the threads of his rope snapped beneath Grave’s dagger, and Nox, sensing the vibrations, looked up at the assassin in horror. If he fell, there was no chance of surviving. A few more slices of Grave’s blade and the rope would be severed entirely.

The rope groaned. Celaena moved.

She slid down the drainpipe, the flesh of her feet and hands tearing open as the metal cut into her skin, but she didn’t let herself think of the pain. The mercenary on the gargoyle below only had time to lean into the wall as she slammed onto the creature’s head, gripping its horns to steady herself. The mercenary had already tied one end of his climbing rope around the gargoyle’s neck; now she seized it and tied the other around her own waist. The rope was long enough—and strong enough, and the four gargoyles perched beside hers would provide enough space to run. “Touch this rope and I’ll gut you,” she warned the mercenary, and readied herself.

Nox shouted at Grave, and she dared a look to where the thief dangled. There was a sharp snap of rope breaking, and Nox’s cry of fear and rage, and Celaena took off, sprinting across the backs of the four gargoyles before she launched herself into the void.





Chapter 22

Wind tore at her, but Celaena kept her focus on Nox, falling so fast, so far from her outstretched hands.

People shouted below, and the light bouncing off the glass castle blinded her. But there he was, just a hand’s breadth from her fingers, his gray eyes wide, his arms swinging as if he could turn them into wings.

In a heartbeat, her arms were around his middle, and she slammed into him so hard that the breath was knocked from her chest. Together they plummeted like a stone, down, down, down toward the rising ground.

Nox grabbed the rope, but even that wasn’t enough to lighten the blinding impact on her torso as the rope went taut. She held on to him with every ounce of strength she had, willing her arms not to let him go. The rope sent them careening toward the wall. Celaena hardly had the sense to lean her head away from the approaching stones, and the impact burst through her side and shoulder. She held tight to him still, focusing on her arms, on her too-shallow breathing. They hung there, flat against the wall, panting as they looked at the ground thirty feet below. The rope held.

“Lillian,” Nox said, gasping for breath. He pressed his face onto her hair. “Gods above.” But cheers erupted from below and drowned out his words. Celaena’s limbs trembled so violently that she had to focus on gripping Nox, and her stomach turned over and over and over.