The Assassin and the Empire (Throne of Glass 0.5)(26)

“You, Celaena Sardothien, are sentenced to nine lives’ worth of labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier.”

Her blood turned to ice. The councilmen all glanced at each other. Obviously, this option hadn’t been discussed beforehand.

“You will be sent with orders to keep you alive for as long as possible—so you will have the chance to enjoy Endovier’s special kind of agony.”

Endovier.

Then the king turned away.

Endovier.

There was a flurry of motion, and the king barked an order to have her on the first wagon out of the city. Then there were hands on her arms, and crossbows pointed at her as she was half-dragged out of the room.

Endovier.

She was thrown in her dungeon cell for minutes, or hours, or a day. Then more guards came to fetch her, leading her up the stairs, into the still-blinding sun.

Endovier.

New shackles, hammered shut. The dark interior of a prison wagon. The turn of multiple locks, the jostle of horses starting into a walk, and many other horses surrounding the wagon.

Through the small window high in the door wall, she could see the capital, the streets she knew so well, the people milling about and glancing at the prison wagon and the mounted guards, but not thinking about who might be inside. The golden dome of the Royal Theater in the distance, the briny scent of a breeze off the Avery, the emerald-tiled roofs and white stones of every building.

All passing by, all so quickly.

They passed the Assassin’s Keep where she had trained and bled and lost so much, the place where Sam’s body lay, waiting for her to bury him.

The game had been played, and she had lost.

Now they came to the looming alabaster walls of the city, their gates thrown wide to accommodate their large party.

As Celaena Sardothien was led out of the capital, she sank into a corner of the wagon and did not get up.

Standing atop one of the many emerald roofs of Rifthold, Rourke Farran and Arobynn Hamel watched as the prison wagon was escorted out of the city. A chill breeze swept off the Avery, ruffling their hair.

“Endovier, then,” Farran mused, his dark eyes still upon the wagon. “A surprising twist of events. I thought you had planned a grand rescue from the butchering block.”

The King of the Assassins said nothing.

“So you’re not going after the wagon?”

“Obviously not,” Arobynn said, glancing at the new Crime Lord of Rifthold. It had been on this very rooftop that Farran and the King of the Assassins had first run into each other. Farran had been going to spy on one of Jayne’s mistresses, and Arobynn … well, Farran had never learned why Arobynn had been meandering across the roofs of Rifthold in the middle of the night.

“You and your men could free her in a matter of moments,” Rourke went on. “Attacking a prison wagon is far safer than what you had originally planned. Though, I’ll admit—sending her to Endovier is far more interesting to me.”

“If I wanted your opinion, Farran, I would have asked for it.”

Farran gave him a slow smile. “You might want to consider how you speak to me now.”

“And you might want to consider who gave you your crown.”

Farran chuckled, and silence fell for a long moment. “If you wanted her to suffer, you should have left her in my care. I could have had her begging for you to save her in a matter of minutes. It would have been exquisite.”

Arobynn just shook his head. “Whatever gutter you grew up in, Farran, it must have been an unparalleled sort of hell.”

Farran studied his new ally, his gaze glittering. “You have no idea.” After another moment of quiet, he asked, “Why did you do it?”

Arobynn’s attention drifted back to the wagon, already a small dot in the rolling foothills above Rifthold. “Because I don’t like sharing my belongings,” was his only response.

After

She had been in the wagon for two days now, watching the light shift and dance on the walls. She only moved from the corner long enough to relieve herself or to pick at the food they threw in for her.

She had believed she could love Sam and not pay the price. Everything has a price, she’d once been told by a Spidersilk merchant in the Red Desert. How right he was.

Sunlight shone through the wagon again, filling it with weak light. The trek to the Salt Mines of Endovier took two weeks, and each mile led them farther and farther north—and into colder weather.

When she dozed, falling in and out of dreams and reality and sometimes not knowing the difference, she was often awoken by the shivers that racked her body. The guards offered her no protection against the chill.

Two weeks in this dark, reeking wagon, with only the shadows and light on the wall for company, and the silence hovering around her. Two weeks, and then Endovier.

She lifted her head from the wall.

The growing fear set the silence flickering.

No one survived Endovier. Most prisoners didn’t survive a month. It was a death camp.

A tremor went down her numb fingers. She drew her legs in tighter to her chest, resting her head against them.

The shadows and the light continued to play on the wall.

Excited whispers, the crunch of rushing feet on dried grass, moonlight shining through the window.

She didn’t know how she got upright, or how she made it to the tiny barred window, her legs stiff and aching and wobbly from disuse.