Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)(68)

“What kind of animal makes scratches like those?” she asked Chaol, but didn’t need to hear his reply to know that his guess was as good as hers. The claw marks were deep—a quarter of an inch at least. She crouched beside one and ran her finger along the interior edge. It was jagged, but cut clean into the stone floor. Her brows knotting, she scanned the other claw marks.

“There’s no blood in these claw marks,” she said, twisting her head to look over her shoulder at Chaol. He knelt beside her as she pointed to them. “They’re clean.”

“Which means?”

She frowned, fighting the chill that ran down her arms. “Whatever did this sharpened its nails before it gutted him.”

“And why is that important?”

She stood, looking up and down the hallway, then squatted again. “It means this thing had time to do that before it attacked him.”

“It could have done it while lying in wait.”

She shook her head. “Those torches along the wall are almost burnt to stubs. There aren’t any signs of them being extinguished before the attack—there are no traces of sooty water. If Verin died last night, then those torches were still burning when he died.”

“And?”

“And look at this hallway. The nearest doorway is fifty feet down, and the nearest corner is a bit farther than that. If those torches were burning—”

“Then Verin would have seen whatever it was long before he got to this spot.”

“So why get near it?” she asked, more to herself than anything. “What if it wasn’t an animal, but a person? And what if that person disabled Verin long enough for them to summon this creature?” She pointed to Verin’s legs. “Those are clean cuts around his ankles. His tendons were snapped by a knife, to keep him from running.” She moved next to the body, taking care not to disturb the Wyrdmarks etched into the ground as she lifted Verin’s rigid, cold hand. “Look at his fingernails.” She swallowed hard. “The tips are cracked and shattered.” She used her own nail to scrape out the dirt beneath his nails, and smeared it across her palm. “See?” She held out her hand out for Chaol to observe. “Dust and bits of stone.” She pulled aside Verin’s arm, revealing faint lines in the stone beneath. “Fingernail marks. He was desperate to get away—to drag himself by his fingertips, if necessary. He was alive the entire time that thing sharpened its claws on the stone while its master watched.”

“So what does that mean?”

She smiled grimly at him. “It means that you’re in a lot of trouble.”

And, as Chaol’s face paled, Celaena realized with a jolt that perhaps the Champions’ killer and Elena’s mysterious evil force might be one and the same.

?

Seated at the dining table, Celaena flipped through the book.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. She scanned page after page for any sign of the two Wyrdmarks that had been drawn beside Verin’s body. There had to be a connection.

She stopped as a map of Erilea appeared. Maps had always interested her; there was something bewitching in knowing one’s precise location in relation to others on the earth. She gently traced a finger along the eastern coast. She began in the south—at Banjali, the Eyllwe capital, then went up, curving and snaking, all the way to Rifthold. Her finger then traveled through Meah, then north and inland to Orynth, then back, back to the sea, to the Sorian Coast, and finally to the very tip of the continent and the North Sea beyond.

She stared at Orynth, that city of light and learning, the pearl of Erilea and capital of Terrasen. Her birthplace. Celaena slammed shut the book.

Glancing around her room, the assassin let out a long sigh. When she managed to sleep, her dreams were haunted by ancient battles, by swords with eyes, by Wyrdmarks that swirled around her head and blinded her with their bright colors. She could see the gleaming armor of Fae and mortal warriors, hear the clash of shields and the snarl of vicious beasts, and smell blood and rotting corpses all around her. Carnage trailed in her wake. Adarlan’s Assassin shuddered.

“Oh, good. I hoped you’d still be awake,” the Crown Prince said, and Celaena jumped from her seat to find Dorian approaching. He looked tired and a bit ruffled.

She opened her mouth, then shook her head. “What are you doing here? It’s almost midnight, and I’ve got a Test tomorrow.” She couldn’t deny having him here was a bit of a relief—the murderer only seemed to attack Champions when they were alone.

“Have you moved from literature to history?” He surveyed the books on the table. “A Brief History of Modern Erilea,” he read. “Symbols and Power. Eyllwe Culture and Customs.” He raised an eyebrow.

“I read what I like.”

He slid into the seat beside her, his leg brushing hers. “Is there a connection between all of these?”

“No.” It wasn’t quite a lie—though she had hoped for all of them to contain something about Wyrdmarks, or what they meant beside a corpse. “I assume you heard about Verin’s death.”

“Of course,” he said, a dark expression crossing his handsome face. She was all too aware of how close his leg was, but she couldn’t bring herself to shift away.

“And you’re not at all concerned that so many Champions have been brutally murdered at the hands of someone’s feral beast?”