Heir of Fire (28 page)

An invisible hand seemed to wrap around her throat. She had not let herself consider that possibility, because the weight of a crown and a throne ­were enough to make her feel like she was in a co
ffi
n.
Th
e thought of marrying like that, of someone ­else's body on hers, someone who was
not
Chaol . . . She shoved the thought away.

Rowan was baiting her, as he always did. And she still had no plans to take up her uncle's throne. Her only plan was to do what she'd promised Nehemia. “Nice try,” she said.

His canines gleamed as he smirked. “You're learning.”

“You get baited by me every now and then, too, you know.”

He gave her a look that said,
I
let
you bait me, in case you ­haven't noticed. I'm not some mortal fool.

She wanted to ask why, but being cordial with him—­with anyone—­was already odd enough. “Where the hell are we going today? We never head west.”

Th
e smirk vanished. “You want to do something useful. So ­here's your chance.”

•

With Celaena in her human form, the bells of some nearby town ­were heralding three ­o'clock by the time they reached the pine wood.

She didn't ask what they ­were doing ­here. He'd tell her if he wanted to. Slowing to a prowl, Rowan tracked markers le
ft
on trees and stones, and she quietly trailed him, thirsty and hungry and a bit light-­headed.

Th
e terrain had shi
ft
ed: pine needles crunched beneath her boots, and gulls, not songbirds, cried overhead.
Th
e sea had to be close. Celaena groaned as a cool breeze kissed her sweaty face, scented with salt and
fi
sh and sun-­warmed rock. It ­wasn't until Rowan halted by a stream that she noticed the reek—­and the silence.

Th
e ground had been churned up across the stream, the brush broken and trampled. But Rowan's attention was
fi
xed on the stream itself, on what had been wedged between the rocks.

Celaena swore. A body. A woman, by the shape of what was le
ft
of her, and—

A husk.

As if she had been drained of life, of substance. No wounds, no lacerations or signs of harm, save for a trickle of dried blood from her nose and ears. Her skin was leached of color, withered and dried, her hollowed-­out face still stuck in an expression of horror—­and sorrow. And the smell—­not just the rotting body, but around it . . . the smell . . .

“What did this?” she asked, studying the disturbed forest beyond the stream. Rowan knelt as he examined the remains. “Why not just dump her in the sea? Leaving her in a stream seems idiotic.
Th
ey le
ft
tracks, too—­unless those are from whoever found her.”

“Malakai gave me the report this morning—­and he and his men are trained not to leave tracks. But this scent . . . I'll admit it's di
ff
erent.” Rowan walked into the water. She wanted to tell him to stop, but he kept studying the remains from above, then below, circling. His eyes
fl
ashed to hers.
Th
ey ­were furious. “So you tell me, assassin. You wanted to be useful.”

She bristled at the tone, but—­that was a woman lying there, broken like a doll.

Celaena didn't particularly want to smell
anything
on the remains, but she sni
ff
ed. And wished she hadn't. It was a smell she'd scented twice now—­once in that bloody chamber a de­cade ago, and then recently . . . “You claimed you didn't know what that thing in the barrow
fi
eld was,” she managed to say.
Th
e woman's mouth was open in a scream, her teeth brown and cracked below the dried nosebleed. Celaena touched her own nose and winced. “I think this is what it does.”

Rowan braced his hands on his hips, sni
ffi
ng again, turning in the stream. He scanned Celaena, then the body. “You came out of that darkness looking as if someone had sucked the life from you. Your skin was a shade paler, your freckles gone.”

“It forced me to go through . . . memories.
Th
e worst kind.”
Th
e woman's horri
fi
ed, sorrowful face gaped up at the canopy. “Have you ever heard of a creature that can feed on such things? When I glimpsed it, I saw a man—­a beautiful man, pale and dark-­haired, with eyes of full black. He ­wasn't human. I mean, he looked it, but his eyes—­they ­weren't human at all.”

Her parents had been assassinated. She'd seen the wounds. But the smell in their room had been so similar . . . She shook her head as if to clear it, to shake the creeping feeling moving up her spine.

“Even my queen ­doesn't know every foul creature roaming these lands. If the skinwalkers are venturing down from the mountains, perhaps other things are, too.”

“
Th
e townspeople might know something. Maybe they've seen it or heard rumors.”

Rowan seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he shook his head in disgust—­and sorrow, to her surprise. “We don't have the time; ­you wasted daylight by coming ­here in your human form.”
Th
ey hadn't brought any overnight supplies, either. “We have an hour before we head back. Make the most of it.”

•

Th
e path led absolutely nowhere. It ran into a sea cli
ff
with no way to the narrow strip of beach below, no sign of anyone living nearby. Rowan stood at the cli
ff
's edge, arms crossed as he stared out at the jade sea. “It ­doesn't make sense,” he said, more to himself than to her. “
Th
is is the fourth body in the last few weeks—­none of them reported missing.” He squatted on the sandy ground and drew a rough line in the dirt with a tattooed
fi
nger.
Th
e shape of Wendlyn's coastline. “
Th
ey've been found ­here.” Little dots, seemingly random save for being close to the water. “We're ­here,” he said, making another dot. He sat back on his heels as Celaena peered at the crude map. “And yet you and I encountered the creature lurking amongst the barrow-­wights ­here,” he added, and drew an X where she assumed the mounds ­were, deep inland. “I ­haven't seen any further signs of it remaining by the barrows, and the wights have returned to their usual habits.”

“Were the other bodies the same?”

“All ­were drained like this, with expressions of terror on their faces—­not a hint of a wound, beyond dried blood at the nose and ears.” From the way his tan skin paled beneath his tattoo, the way he gritted his teeth, she knew that it rankled his immortal pride not to know what this thing was.

“All dumped in the forest, not the sea?” A nod. “But all within walking distance of the water.” Another nod. “If it ­were a skilled, sentient killer, it would hide the bodies better. Or, again, use the sea.” She gazed to the blinding water, the sun starting its a
ft
ernoon descent. “Or maybe it ­doesn't care. Maybe it wants us to know what it's doing.
Th
ere ­were—­there ­were times when I le
ft
bodies so that they'd be found by a certain person, or to send a type of message.” Grave being the latest of them. “What do the victims have in common?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “We don't even know their names or where they came from.” He ­rose and dusted his hands o
ff
. “We need to return to the fortress.”

She grabbed his elbow. “Wait. Have you seen enough of the body?”

A slow nod. Good. So had she—­and she'd had enough of the smell, too. She'd committed it to memory, noting everything that she could. “
Th
en ­we've got to bury her.”

“
Th
e ground's too hard ­here.”

She stalked through the trees, leaving him behind. “
Th
en we'll do it the ancient way,” she called. She'd be damned if she le
ft
that woman's body decomposing in a stream, damned if she le
ft
her there for all eternity, wet and cold.

Celaena pulled the too-­light body out of the stream, laying it on the brown pine needles. Rowan didn't say anything as she gathered kindling and branches and then knelt, trying not to look at the shriveled skin or the expression of lingering horror.

Neither did he mock her for the few times it took to get the
fi
re started by hand, or make any snide comments once the pine needles
fi
nally crinkled and smoked, ancient incense for a rudimentary pyre. Instead, as she stepped from the rising
fl
ames, she felt him come to tower behind her, felt the surety and half wildness of him wrap around her like a phantom body. A warm breeze licked at her hair, her face. Air to help the
fi
re; wind that helped consume the corpse.

Th
e loathing she felt had nothing to do with her vow, or Nehemia. Celaena reached into the ageless pit inside her—­just once—­to see if she could pull up what­ever trigger it was that caused the shi
ft
, so she could help her sad little
fi
re burn more evenly, more proudly.

Yet Celaena remained stale and empty, stranded in her mortal body.

Still, Rowan didn't say anything about it, and his wind fed the
fl
ames enough to make quick work of the body, burning far faster than a mortal pyre.
Th
ey watched in silence, until there was nothing but ashes—­until even those ­were carried up and away, over the trees, and toward the open sea.

26

Chaol hadn't seen or heard from the general or the prince since that night in the tomb. According to his men, the prince was spending his time in the healers' catacombs, courting one of the young women down there. He hated himself, but some part of him was relieved to hear it; at least Dorian was talking to
someone
.

Th
e ri
ft
with Dorian was worth it. For Dorian, even if his friend never forgave him; for Celaena, even if she never came back; even if he wished she ­were still Celaena and not Aelin . . . it was worth it.

It was a week before he had time to meet with Aedion again—­to get the information that he hadn't received thanks to Dorian interrupting them. If Dorian had snuck up on them so easily, then the tomb ­wasn't the best place to meet.
Th
ere was one place, however, where they could gather with minimal risk. Celaena had le
ft
it to him in her will, along with the address.

Th
e secret apartment above the ware­house was untouched, though someone had taken the time to cover the ornate furniture. Pulling the sheets o
ff
one by one was like uncovering a bit more of who Celaena had been before Endovier—­proof that her lavish tastes ran deep. She'd bought this place, she'd once told him, to have somewhere to call her own, a place outside the Assassins' Keep where she'd been raised. She'd dropped almost every copper she had into it—­but it had been necessary, she said, for the bit of freedom it had granted her. He could have le
ft
the sheets on, probably should have, but . . . he was curious.

Th
e apartment consisted of two bedrooms with their own bathing rooms, a kitchen, and a great room in which a deep-­cushioned couch sprawled before a carved marble
fi
replace, accented by two oversized velvet armchairs.
Th
e other half of the room was occupied by an oak dining table capable of seating eight, its place settings still laid out: plates of porcelain and silver,
fl
atware that had long since gone dull. It was the only evidence that this apartment had been untouched since whoever—­Arobynn Hamel, probably—­had ordered the place sealed up.

Arobynn Hamel, the King of the Assassins. Chaol gritted his teeth as he
fi
nished stu
ffi
ng the last of the white sheets into the hallway closet. He'd been thinking a good deal about Celaena's old master in the past few days. Arobynn was smart enough to have put things together when he found a washed-­up orphan right a
ft
er the Princess of Terrasen went missing, her body vanished into the half-­frozen Florine River.

If Arobynn had known, and done those things to her . . .
Th
e scar on Celaena's wrist
fl
ashed before him. He'd made her break her own hand.
Th
ere must have been countless other brutalities that Celaena didn't even tell him about. And the worst of them, the absolute worst . . .

He'd never asked Celaena why, when she was appointed Champion, her
fi
rst priority ­wasn't hunting down her master and cutting him into pieces for what he'd done to her lover, Sam Cortland. Arobynn had ordered Sam tortured and killed, and then devised a trap for Celaena that got her hauled o
ff
to Endovier. Arobynn must have expected to retrieve her someday, if he'd le
ft
this apartment untouched. He must have wanted to let her rot in Endovier—­until he decided to free her and she crawled back to him, his eternally loyal servant.

It was her right, Chaol told himself. Her right to decide when and how to kill Arobynn. It was Aedion's right, too. Even the two lords of Terrasen had more of a claim on Arobynn's head than he did. But if Chaol ever saw him, he ­wasn't sure he would be able to restrain himself.

Th
e rickety wooden staircase beyond the front door groaned, and Chaol had his sword drawn in a heartbeat.
Th
en there was a low, two-­note whistle and he relaxed, just slightly, and whistled back. He kept his sword drawn until Aedion strode through the door, sword out.