The Assassin and the Empire (Throne of Glass 0.5)(18)

“Celaena,” Arobynn said again.

She stared at the ruined clock, the ruined dishes and tea set. There was no end to this silence. There would never be an end, only this beginning.

“I want to see the body.” The words came from a mouth she wasn’t sure belonged to her anymore.

“No,” Arobynn said gently.

She turned her head toward him, baring her teeth. “I want to see the body.”

Arobynn’s silver eyes were wide, and he shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

She had to start moving, had to start walking anywhere, because now that she was standing still … Once she sat down …

She walked out the door. Down the steps.

The streets were the same, the sky was clear, the briny breeze off the Avery still ruffled her hair. She had to keep walking. Perhaps … perhaps they’d sent the wrong body. Perhaps Arobynn had made a mistake. Perhaps he was lying.

She knew Arobynn followed her, staying a few feet behind as she strode across the city. She also knew that Wesley joined them at some point, always looking after Arobynn, always vigilant. The silence kept flickering in and out of her ears. Sometimes it’d stop long enough for her to hear the whinny of a passing horse, or the shout of a peddler, or the giggle of children. Sometimes none of the noises in the capital could break through.

There had been a mistake.

She didn’t look at the assassins guarding the iron gates to the Keep, or at the housekeeper who opened the giant double doors of the building for her, or at the assassins who milled about the grand entrance and who stared at her with fury and grief mingling in their eyes.

She slowed long enough for Arobynn—trailed by Wesley—to step in front of her, to lead the rest of the way.

The silence peeled back, and thoughts tumbled in. It had been a mistake. And when she figured out where they were keeping him—where they were hiding him—she’d stop at nothing to find him. And then she’d slaughter them all.

Arobynn led her down the stone stairwell at the back of the entrance hall—the stairs that led into the cellars and the dungeons and the secret council rooms below.

The scrape of boots on stone. Arobynn in front of her, Wesley trailing behind.

Down and down, then along the narrow, dark passageway. To the door across from the dungeon entrance. She knew that door. Knew the room behind it. The mortuary where they kept their members until— No, it had been a mistake.

Arobynn took out a ring of keys and unlocked the door, but paused before opening it. “Please, Celaena. It’s better if you don’t.”

She elbowed past him and into the room.

The square room was small and lit with two torches. Bright enough to illuminate …

Illuminate …

Each step brought her closer to the body on the table. She didn’t know where to look first.

At the fingers that went the wrong way, at the burns and careful, deep slices in his flesh, at the face, the face she still knew, even when so many things had been done to destroy it beyond recognition.

The world swayed beneath her feet, but she kept upright as she finished the walk to the table and looked down at the naked, mutilated body she had—

She had—

Farran had taken his time. And though that face was in ruins, it betrayed none of the pain he must have felt, none of the despair.

This was some dream, or she had gone to hell after all, because she couldn’t exist in the world where this had been done to him, where she’d paced like an idiot all night while he suffered, while Farran tortured him, while he ripped out his eyes and—

Celaena vomited on the floor.

Footsteps, then Arobynn’s hands were on her shoulder, on her waist, pulling her away.

He was dead.

Sam was dead.

She wouldn’t leave him like this, in this cold, dark room.

She yanked out of Arobynn’s grasp. Wordlessly, she unfastened her cloak and spread it over Sam, covering the damage that had been so carefully inflicted. She climbed onto the wooden table and lay out beside him, stretching an arm across his middle, holding him close.

The body still smelled faintly like Sam. And like the cheap soap she’d made him use, because she was so selfish that she couldn’t let him have her lavender soap.

Celaena buried her face in his cold, stiff shoulder. There was a strange, musky scent all over him—a smell that was so distinctly not Sam that she almost vomited again. It clung to his golden-brown hair, to his torn, bluish lips.

She wouldn’t leave him.

Footsteps heading toward the door—then the snick of it closing as Arobynn left.

Celaena closed her eyes. She wouldn’t leave him.

She wouldn’t leave him.

Chapter Nine

Celaena awoke in a bed that had once been hers, but somehow no longer felt that way. There was something missing in the world, something vital. She arose from the depths of slumber, and it took her a long moment to sort out what had changed.

She might have thought that she was awakening in her bed in the Keep, still Arobynn’s protégée, still Sam’s rival, still content to be Adarlan’s Assassin forever and ever. She might have believed it if she hadn’t noticed that so many of her beloved belongings were missing from this familiar bedroom—belongings that were now in her apartment across the city.

Sam was gone.

Reality opened wide and swallowed her whole.