Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1)(81)

It had fallen under the bed, and Celaena knelt upon the icy floor, straining to reach the book. She couldn’t feel it anywhere, so she grabbed the candle. She saw the book immediately, tucked against the back wall, but as her fingers grappled onto the cover, a glimmer of candlelight traced a white line across the floor beneath her bed.

Celaena yanked the book back to her and stood with a jolt. Her hands trembled as she pushed the bed out of position, her feet slipping on the half-frozen floor. It moved slowly, but eventually, she had shifted it enough to see what had been sketched on the floor beneath.

Everything inside of her turned to ice.

Wyrdmarks.

Dozens of Wyrdmarks had been drawn onto the floor with chalk. They formed a giant spiral, with a large mark in its center. Celaena stumbled back, slamming into her dresser.

What was this? She ran a shaking hand through her hair, staring at the center mark.

She’d seen that mark. It had been etched on one side of Verin’s body.

Her stomach rising in her throat, she rushed to her nightstand and grabbed the pitcher of water atop it. Without a thought, she tossed the water onto the marks, then raced to her bathing chamber to draw more water. When the water had finished loosening the chalk, she took a towel and scrubbed the floor until her back ached and her legs and hands were frozen.

Then, only then, did she throw on a pair of pants and a tunic and head out the door.

?

Thankfully, the guards didn’t say anything when she asked them to escort her to the library at midnight. They remained in the main room of the library as she set off through the stacks, heading toward the musty, forgotten alcove where she’d found the majority of the books on the Wyrdmarks. She couldn’t walk fast enough, and kept looking over her shoulder.

Was she next? What did any of it mean? She wrung her fingers. She rounded a corner, not ten stacks from the alcove, and came to a halt.

Nehemia, seated at a small desk, stared at her with wide eyes.

Celaena put a hand on her racing heart. “Damn,” she said. “You gave me a fright!”

Nehemia smiled, but not very well. Celaena cocked her head as she approached the table. “What are you doing here?” Nehemia demanded in Eyllwe.

“I couldn’t sleep.” She shifted her eyes to the princess’s book. That wasn’t the book they used during their lessons. No, it was a thick, aging book, crammed with dense lines of text. “What are you reading?”

Nehemia slammed the book shut and stood. “Nothing.”

Celaena observed her face; her lips were pursed, and the princess lifted her chin. “I thought you couldn’t read at that level yet.”

Nehemia tucked the book into the crook of her arm. “Then you’re like every ignorant fool in this castle, Lillian,” she said with perfect pronunciation in the common tongue. Not giving her a chance to reply, the princess strode away.

Celaena watched her go. It didn’t make sense. Nehemia couldn’t read books that advanced, not when she still stumbled through lines of text. And Nehemia never spoke with that kind of flawless accent, and—

In the shadows behind the desk, a piece of paper had fallen between the wood and the stone wall. Easing it out, Celaena unfolded the crumpled paper.

She whirled around, to the direction where Nehemia had disappeared. Her throat constricting, Celaena tucked the piece of paper into her pocket and hurried back toward the great room, the Wyrdmark drawn on the paper burning a hole in her clothing.

Celaena rushed down a staircase, then strode along a hallway lined with books.

No, Nehemia couldn’t have played her like that—Nehemia wouldn’t have lied day after day about how little she knew. Nehemia had been the one to tell her that the etchings in the garden were Wyrdmarks. She knew what they were—she’d warned her to stay away from the Wyrdmarks, again and again. Because Nehemia was her friend—because Nehemia had wept when her people had been murdered, because she’d come to her for comfort.

But Nehemia came from a conquered kingdom. And the King of Adarlan had ripped the crown off her father’s head and stripped his title from him. And the people of Eyllwe were being kidnapped in the night and sold into slavery, right along with the rebels that rumor claimed Nehemia supported so fiercely. And five hundred Eyllwe citizens had just been butchered.

Celaena’s eyes stung as she spotted the guards loitering in armchairs in the great room.

Nehemia had every reason to deceive them, to plot against them. To tear apart this stupid competition and send everyone into a tizzy. Who better to target than the criminals living here? No one would miss them, but the fear would seep into the castle.

But why would Nehemia plot against her?





Chapter 36

Days passed without seeing Nehemia, and Celaena kept her mouth shut about the incident to Chaol or Dorian or anyone who visited her chambers. She couldn’t confront Nehemia—not without more concrete proof, not without ruining everything. So she spent her spare time researching the Wyrdmarks, desperate for a way to decipher them, to find those symbols, to learn what it all meant, and how it connected to the killer and the killer’s beast. Amidst her worrying, another Test passed without incident or embarrassment—though she couldn’t say the same for the soldier who’d been sent home—and she kept up her intense training with Chaol and the other Champions. There were five of them left now. The final Test was three days away, and the duel two days after that.