Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2)(75)

King’s Champion indeed. It hadn’t been hard to lose her at all. And now he would go home, and he’d receive another job offer in a matter of days. And then another. And another. His client had promised him that the offers would come. Arobynn Hamel would curse the day he had rejected Grave from the Assassins Guild for being too cruel with his prey.

Grave chuckled, flipping his dagger in his hands. Then she appeared.

She came through the fog, no more than a sliver of darkness. She didn’t run—she just walked with that insufferable swagger. Grave surveyed the buildings surrounding them. The stone was too slippery, and there were no windows.

One step at a time, she approached. He would really, really enjoy making her suffer as much as the princess had.

Smiling, Grave retreated to the end of the alley, only stopping when his back hit the stone wall. In a narrower space, he could overpower her. And in this forgotten street, he could take his own sweet time doing what he wanted.

Still she approached, and the sword at her back whined as she drew it. The moonlight glinted off the long blade. Probably a gift from her princeling lover.

Grave pulled his second dagger from his boot. This wasn’t a frilly, ridiculous competition run by nobility. Here, any rules applied.

She didn’t say anything when she neared.

And Grave didn’t say anything to her as he rushed at her, swiping for her head with both blades.

She stepped aside, dodging him with maddening ease. Grave lunged again. But faster than he could follow she ducked and slashed her sword across his shins.

He hit the wet ground before he felt the pain. The world flashed black and gray and red, and agony tore at him. A dagger still left in his hand, he scuttled backward toward the wall. But his legs wouldn’t respond, and his arms strained to pull him through the damp filth.

“Bitch,” he hissed. “Bitch.” He hit the wall, blood pouring from his legs. Bone had been sliced. He would not be able to walk. He could still find a way to make her pay, though.

She stopped a few feet away and sheathed her sword. She drew a long, jeweled dagger.

He swore at her, the filthiest word he could think of.

She chuckled, and faster than a striking asp, she had one of his arms against the wall, the dagger glinting.

Pain ripped through his right wrist, then his left as it, too, was slammed into the stone. Grave screamed—truly screamed—as he found his arms pinned to the wall by two daggers.

His blood was nearly black in the moonlight. He thrashed, cursing her again and again. He would bleed to death unless he pulled his arms from the wall.

With otherworldly silence, she crouched before him and lifted his chin with another dagger. Grave panted as she brought her face close to his. There was nothing beneath the cowl—nothing of this world. She had no face.

“Who hired you?” she asked, her voice like gravel.

“To do what?” he asked, almost sobbing. Maybe he could feign innocence. He could talk his way out, convince this arrogant whore he had nothing to do with it …

She turned the dagger, pressing it into his neck. “To kill Princess Nehemia.”

“N-n-no one. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And then, without even an intake of breath, she buried another dagger he hadn’t realized she’d been holding into his thigh. So deep he felt the reverberation as it hit the cobblestones beneath. His scream shattered out of him, and Grave writhed, his wrists rising farther on the blades.

“Who hired you?” she asked again. Calm, so calm.

“Gold,” Grave moaned. “I have gold.”

She drew yet another dagger and shoved it into his other thigh, piercing again to the stone. Grave shrieked—shrieked to gods who did not save him. “Who hired you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

After a heartbeat, she withdrew the daggers from his thighs. He almost soiled himself at the pain, at the relief.

“Thank you.” He wept, even as he thought of how he would punish her. She sat back on her heels and stared at him. “Thank you.”

But then she brought up another dagger, its edge serrated and glinting, and hovered it close to his hand.

“Pick a finger,” she said. He trembled and shook his head. “Pick a finger.”

“P-please.” A wet warmth filled the seat of his pants.

“Thumb it is.”

“N-no. I … I’ll tell you everything!” Still, she brought the blade closer, until it rested against the base of his thumb. “Don’t! I’ll tell you everything!”

Chapter 36

Dorian was just starting to feel his temper fray after hours of debate when the doors to his father’s council room were thrown open and Celaena prowled in, her dark cape billowing behind her. All twenty men at the table fell silent, including his father, whose eyes went straight to the thing dangling from Celaena’s hand. Chaol was already striding across the room from his post by the door. But he, too, stopped when he beheld the object she carried.

A head.

The man’s face was still set in a scream, and there was something vaguely familiar about the grotesque features and mousy brown hair that she gripped. It was hard to be certain as it swung from her gloved fingers.

Chaol put a hand on his sword, his face pale as death. The other guards in the room drew their blades, but didn’t move—wouldn’t move, until Chaol or the king commanded them.