Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)(72)

She shifted her face away from the table and sniffed the air, hoping to clear her nostrils. When trying perfumes, people sometimes lose their sense of smell after sniffing too many. Which was why perfumers usually kept something on site to help clear the scent from the nose. She sniffed the goblet again, and dunked her finger. It smelled like water, looked like water . . .

Perhaps it was just water. She set down the glass and picked up the final goblet. But when she sniffed it, the wine inside didn’t have any unusual smell. It seemed fine. She bit her lip and glanced at the clock. Two minutes left.

Some of the other Champions were cursing under their breath. Whoever got the order most wrong went home.

Celaena sniffed the water goblet again, racing through a list of odorless poisons. None of them could be combined with water, not without coloring it. She picked up the wine goblet, swirling the liquid. Wine could conceal any number of advanced poisons—but which one was it?

At the table to the left of her, Nox ran his hands through his dark hair. He had three goblets in front of him, the other four in line behind them. Ninety seconds left.

Poisons, poisons, poisons. Her mouth went dry. If she lost, would Elena haunt her from spite?

Celaena glanced to the right to find Pelor, the gangly young assassin, watching her. He was down to the same two goblets that she struggled with, and she watched as he put the water glass at the very end of the spectrum—the most poisonous—and the wine glass at the other.

His eyes flicked to hers, and his chin drooped in a barely detectible nod. He put his hands in his pockets. He was done. Celaena turned to her own goblets before Brullo could catch her.

Poisons. That’s what Pelor had said during their first Test. He was trained in poisons.

She glanced at him sidelong. He stood to her right.

Look to your right. You’ll find the answers there.

A chill went down her spine. Elena had been telling the truth.

Pelor stared at the clock, watching it count down the seconds until the Test was over. But why help her?

She moved the water glass to the end of the line, and put the wine glass first.

Because aside from her, Cain’s favorite Champion to torment was Pelor. And because when she’d been in Endovier, the allies she’d made hadn’t been the darlings of the overseers, but the ones the overseers had hated most. The outsiders looked out for each other. None of the other Champions had bothered to pay attention to Pelor—even Brullo, it seemed, had forgotten Pelor’s claim that first day. If he’d known, he never would have allowed them to do the Test so publicly.

“Time’s up. Make your final order,” Brullo said, and Celaena stared at her line of goblets for a moment longer. On the side of the room, Dorian and Chaol watched with crossed arms. Had they noticed Pelor’s help?

Nox cursed colorfully and shoved his remaining glasses into the line, many of the competitors doing the same. Antidotes were on hand in case mistakes were made—and as Brullo began going through the tables, telling the Champions to drink, he handed them out frequently. Most of them had assumed the wine with nothing in it was a trap and placed it toward the end of the spectrum. Even Nox wound up chugging a vial of antidote; he’d put monkshood first.

And Cain, to her delight, wound up going purple in the face after consuming belladonna. As he guzzled down the antidote, she wished Brullo had somehow run out. So far, no one had won the Test. One Champion drank the water and was on the ground before Brullo could hand him the antidote. Bloodbane—a horrible, painful poison. Even consuming just a little could cause vivid hallucinations and disorientation. Thankfully, the Weapons Master forced him to swallow the antidote, though the Champion still had to be rushed to the castle infirmary.

At last, Brullo stopped at her table to survey her line of goblets. His face revealed nothing as he said, “On with it, then.”

Celaena glanced at Pelor, whose hazel eyes shone as she lifted the glass of wine to her lips and drank a sip.

Nothing. No strange taste, no immediate sensation. Some poisons could take longer to affect you, but . . .

Brullo extended a fist to her, and her stomach clenched. Was the antidote inside?

But his fingers splayed, and he only clapped her on the back. “The right one—just wine,” he said, and the Champions murmured behind him.

He moved on to Pelor—the last Champion—and the youth drank the glass of wine. Brullo grinned at him, grasping his shoulder. “Another winner.”

Applause rippled through the sponsors and trainers, and Celaena flashed an appreciative grin in the assassin’s direction. He grinned back, going red from his neck to his copper hair.

So she’d cheated a little, but she’d won. She could handle sharing the victory with an ally. And, yes, Elena was looking out for her—but that didn’t change anything. Even if her path and Elena’s demands were now tied closely together, she wouldn’t become the King’s Champion just to serve some ghost’s agenda—an agenda that Elena had twice now failed to reveal.

Even if Elena had told her how to win the Test.





Chapter 32

After cutting short their lesson in favor of a stroll, Celaena and Nehemia walked through the spacious halls of the castle, guards trailing behind them. Whatever Nehemia thought of the flock of guards that followed Celaena everywhere, she didn’t say anything. Despite the fact that Yulemas was a month away—and the final duel five days after that—every evening, for an hour before dinner, Celaena and the princess divided their time equally between Eyllwe and the common tongue. Celaena had Nehemia read from her library books, and then forced her to copy letter after letter until they looked flawless.