Every slice of the whetting stone had echoed it. Coward, coward, coward. The word had trailed her each league across the ocean.
She had made a vow—a vow to free Eyllwe. So in between moments of despair and rage and grief, in between thoughts of Chaol and the Wyrdkeys and all she’d left behind and lost, Celaena had decided on one plan to follow when she reached these shores. One plan, however insane and unlikely, to free the enslaved kingdom: find and obliterate the Wyrdkeys the King of Adarlan had used to build his terrible empire. She’d gladly destroy herself to carry it out.
Just her, just him. Just as it should be; no loss of life beyond their own, no soul stained but hers. It would take a monster to destroy a monster.
If she had to be here thanks to Chaol’s misplaced good intentions, then at least she’d receive the answers she needed. There was one person in Erilea who had been present when the Wyrdkeys were wielded by a conquering demon race that had warped them into three tools of such mighty power that they’d been hidden for thousands of years and nearly wiped from memory. Queen Maeve of the Fae. Maeve knew everything—as was expected when you were older than dirt.
So the first step of her stupid, foolish plan had been simple: seek out Maeve, get answers about how to destroy the Wyrdkeys, and then return to Adarlan.
It was the least she could do. For Nehemia—for . . . a lot of other people. There was nothing left in her, not really. Only ash and an abyss and the unbreakable vow she’d carved into her flesh, to the friend who had seen her for what she truly was.
When they had docked at the largest port city in Wendlyn, she couldn’t help but admire the caution the ship took while coming to shore—waiting until a moonless night, then stuffing Celaena and the other refugee women from Adarlan in the galley while navigating the secret channels through the barrier reef. It was understandable: the reef was the main defense keeping Adarlan’s legions from these shores. It was also part of her mission here as the King’s Champion.
That was the other task lingering in the back of her mind: to find a way to keep the king from executing Chaol or Nehemia’s family. He’d promised to do it should she fail in her mission to retrieve Wendlyn’s naval defense plans and assassinate its king and prince at their annual midsummer ball. But she’d shoved all those thoughts aside when they’d docked and the refugee women had been herded ashore for processing by the port’s officials.
Many of the women were scarred inside and out, their eyes gleaming with echoes of whatever horrors had befallen them in Adarlan. So even after she’d vanished from the ship during the chaos of docking, she’d lingered on a nearby rooftop while the women were escorted into a building—to find homes and employment. Yet Wendlyn’s officials could later bring them to a quiet part of the city and do whatever they wanted. Sell them. Hurt them. They were refugees: unwanted and without any rights. Without any voice.
But she hadn’t lingered merely from paranoia. No—Nehemia would have remained to ensure they were safe. Realizing that, Celaena had wound up on the road to the capital as soon as she was certain the women were all right. Learning how to infiltrate the castle was merely something to occupy her time while she decided how to execute the first steps of her plan. While she tried to stop thinking about Nehemia.
It had all been fine—fine and easy. Hiding in the little woods and barns along the way, she passed like a shadow through the countryside.
Wendlyn. A land of myths and monsters—of legends and nightmares made flesh.
The kingdom itself was a spread of warm, rocky sand and thick forest, growing ever greener as hills rolled inland and sharpened into towering peaks. The coast and the land around the capital were dry, as if the sun had baked all but the hardiest vegetation. Vastly different from the soggy, frozen empire she’d left behind.