Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2)(73)

Celaena gripped the arms of the chair, her nails digging into the polished wood. It hadn’t been one of Arobynn’s assassins, either. She knew his style, and it wasn’t this monstrous. She again went over the details of the bedroom, now branded into her mind.

She did know one killer this monstrous.

Grave.

She’d learned as much about him as she could when she’d faced him in the competition to become King’s Champion. She’d heard what he did to the bodies of his victims.

Her lips pulled back from her teeth.

Grave knew the palace; he’d trained here just as she had. And he’d known, too, just whom he was murdering and dismembering—and what it would mean to her.

A familiar, dark fire rippled in her gut, spreading through her, dragging her down into an abyss without end.

Celaena Sardothien stood from her chair.

Chapter 35

There would be no candles for these midnight deeds, no ivory horn to signal the start of this hunt. She dressed in her darkest tunic and slid a smooth black mask into her cloak pocket. All of her weapons, even the hairpins, had been removed from her rooms. She knew without checking that the doors and windows were being watched. Good. This was not the sort of hunt that began at the front door.

Celaena locked her bedroom and spared a glance at Fleetfoot, who cowered under the bed as she hauled open the secret door. The dog was still quietly whining as Celaena strode into the passage.

She didn’t need a light to make her way down to the tomb. She knew the path by memory now, each step, each turn.

Her cloak whispered against the steps. Down and down she went.

It was war upon them all. Let them tremble in fear at what they had awoken.

Moonlight spilled onto the landing, illuminating the open door of the tomb and Mort’s little bronze face.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said with surprising sorrow as she stalked toward him.

She didn’t reply. And she didn’t care how he knew. She just kept walking, through the door and between the sarcophagi, to the heap of treasure piled in the back.

Daggers, hunting knives—she took whatever she could strap onto her belt or tuck into her boots. She took a handful of gold and jewels and shoved that into a pocket, too.

“What are you doing?” Mort demanded from the hallway.

Celaena approached the stand that displayed Damaris, sword of Gavin, first King of Adarlan. The hollowed-out golden pommel glinted in the moonlight as she pulled the scabbard from the stand and strapped it across her back.

“That is a sacred sword,” Mort hissed, as though he could see inside.

Celaena smiled grimly as she stalked back to the door, flinging her hood over her head.

“Wherever you are going,” Mort went on, “whatever you plan to do, you debase that sword by taking it from here. Aren’t you afraid of angering the gods?”

Celaena just laughed quietly before she took the stairs, savoring each step, each movement that brought her closer to her prey.

She relished the burn in her arms as she hauled the sewer grate up, rotating the ancient wheel until it was fully raised, dripping with filth, and the water beneath the castle flowed freely into the small river outside. She tossed a piece of broken stone into the river beyond the archway, listening for guards.

Not a sound, not a scrape of armor or a whisper of warning.

An assassin had killed Nehemia, an assassin with a taste for the grotesque and a desire for notoriety. Finding Grave would take only a few questions.

She tied the chain around the lever, testing its strength, and checked to ensure that Damaris was tightly strapped to her back. Then, gripping the castle stones, she swung around the wall, slithering sideways. She didn’t bother to glance up at the castle as she eased around the bank of the river and dropped onto the frozen ground.

Then she vanished into the night.

Cloaked in darkness, Celaena stalked through the streets of Rifthold. She made no sound as she passed through dim alleys.

Only one place could provide the answers she wanted.

Sewage and puddles of excrement lay beneath every window of the slums, and the cobblestone streets were cracked and misshapen after many hard winters. The buildings leaned against each other, some so ramshackle that even the poorest citizens had abandoned them. On most streets, the taverns overflowed with drunks and whores and everyone else who sought temporary relief from their miserable lives.

It made no difference how many saw her. None would bother her tonight.

The cape billowed behind her, her face remaining expressionless beneath her obsidian mask as she moved through the streets. The Vaults was just a few blocks away.

Celaena’s gloved hands clenched. Once she found out where Grave was hiding, she’d turn his skin inside out. Worse than that, actually.

She stopped before a nondescript iron door in a quiet alley. Hired thugs stood watch outside; she flashed them the silver entrance fee, and they opened the door for her. In the subterranean warren below, one could find the cutthroats, the monsters, and the damned of Adarlan. The filth came here to exchange stories and make deals, and it was here that any whisper of Nehemia’s assassin would be found.

Grave had undoubtedly received a large fee for his services, and could be counted on to now be recklessly spending his blood money—a spree that would not go unnoticed. He wouldn’t have left Rifthold—oh, no. He wanted people to know he killed the princess; he wanted to hear himself named the new Adarlan’s Assassin. He wanted Celaena to know, too.