Heir of Fire(202)
She should help, not cower in the trees. She had learned to hold a knife and a small sword. She should help.
The man lunged for Marion, but she darted out of the way—and then leapt on him, slicing and tearing and biting.
And then something broke—something broke so fundamentally she knew there was no coming back from it, either for her or Lady Marion—as the man grabbed the woman and threw her against the edge of the table. A crack of bone, then the arc of his blade going for her stunned form—for her head. Red sprayed.
She knew enough about death to understand that once a head was severed like that, it was over. Knew that Lady Marion, who had loved her husband and daughter so much, was gone. Knew that this—this was called sacrifice.
She ran. Ran through the barren trees, the brush ripping her clothes, her hair, shredding and biting. The man didn’t bother to be quiet as he flung open the kitchen door, mounted his horse, and galloped after her. The hoofbeats were so powerful they seemed to echo through the forest—the horse had to be a monster.
She tripped over a root and slammed into the earth. In the distance, the melting river was roaring. So close, but—her ankle gave a bolt of agony. Stuck—she was stuck in the mud and roots. She yanked at the roots that held her, wood ripping her nails, and when that did nothing, she clawed at the muddy ground. Her fingers burned.
A sword whined as it was drawn from its sheath, and the ground reverberated with the pounding hooves of the horse. Closer, closer it came.
A sacrifice—it had been a sacrifice, and now it would be in vain.
More than death, that was what she hated most—the wasted sacrifice of Lady Marion. She clawed at the ground and yanked at the roots, and then—
Tiny eyes in the dark, small fingers at the roots, heaving them up, up. Her foot slipped free and she was up again, unable to thank the Little Folk who had already vanished, unable to do anything but run, limping now. The man was so close, the bracken cracking behind, but she knew the way. She had come through here so many times that the darkness was no obstacle.
She only had to make it to the bridge. His horse could not pass, and she was fast enough to outrun him. The Little Folk might help her again. She only had to make it to the bridge.
A break in the trees—and the river’s roar grew overpowering. She was so close now. She felt and heard, rather than saw, his horse break through the trees behind her, the whoosh of his sword as he lifted it, preparing to cleave her head right there.
There were the twin posts, faint on the moonless night. The bridge. She had made it, and now she had only yards, now a few feet, now—
The breath of his horse was hot on her neck as she flung herself between the two posts of the bridge, making a leap onto the wood planks.
Making a leap onto thin air.
She had not missed it—no, those were the posts and—
He had cut the bridge.
It was her only thought as she plummeted, so fast she had no time to scream before she hit the icy water and was pulled under.
•
That.
That moment Lady Marion had chosen a desperate hope for her kingdom over herself, over her husband and the daughter who would wait and wait for a return that would never come.
That was the moment that had broken everything Aelin Galathynius was and had promised to be.
Celaena was lying on the ground—on the bottom of the world, on the bottom of hell.
That was the moment she could not face—had not faced.