Emrys clicked his tongue. “You should pray the gods don’t strike you with lightning for speaking like that.” Luca groaned, rolling his eyes, but Emrys continued his lecture, gesturing at the youth with his teacup. “Those powers were gifts given to us by them long ago—gifts we needed to survive—and were passed down through the generations. Of course they’d be aligned with the elements, and of course they’d be watered down after so long.”
Celaena glanced toward those iron figurines on the mantel. She contemplated mentioning that some believed the gods had also bred with ancient humans and given them magic that way, but . . . that would involve more talking than necessary. She tilted her head to the side. “What do you know about Rowan? How old is he?” The more she learned, the better.
Emrys wrapped his wrinkled hands around his teacup. “He’s one of the few Fae we see around Mistward—he stops in every now and then to retrieve reports for Maeve, but he keeps to himself. Never stays the night. Occasionally he’ll come with the others like him—there are six of them who closely serve the Queen as war leaders or spies, you see. They never talk to us, and all we hear are rumors about where they go and what they do. But I’ve known Rowan since I first came here. Not that I really know him, mind you. Sometimes he’s gone for years, off serving Her Majesty. And I don’t think anyone knows how old he is. When I was fifteen, the oldest people living here had known him since they were younglings, so . . . I’d say he’s very old.”
“And mean as an adder,” Luca muttered.
Emrys gave him a warning look. “You’d best mind your tongue.” He glanced toward the doors, as if Rowan would be lurking there. When his gaze fell again on Celaena, it was wary. “I’ll admit that you’re probably in for a good heap of difficulty.”
“He’s a stone-cold killer and a sadist is what he means,” Luca added. “The meanest of Maeve’s personal cabal of warriors, they say.”
Well, that wasn’t a surprise, either. But there were five others like him—that was an unpleasant fact. She said quietly, “I can handle him.”
“We’re not allowed to learn the Old Language until we enter Doranelle,” Luca said, “but I heard his tattoo is a list of all the people he’s slaughtered.”
“Hush,” Emrys said.
“It’s not like he doesn’t act like it.” Luca frowned again at Celaena. “Maybe you should consider whether Doranelle is worth it, you know? It’s not so bad living here.”
She’d already had enough interacting. “I can handle him,” she repeated. Maeve couldn’t intend to keep her here for years. If that started to seem likely, Celaena would leave. And find another way to stop the king.
Luca opened his mouth but Emrys hushed him again, his gaze falling on Celaena’s scarred hands. “Let her run her own course.”
Luca started chattering about the weather, and Celaena headed to the mountain of dishes. As she washed, she fell into a rhythm, as she’d done while cleaning her weapons aboard that ship.
The kitchen sounds turned muffled as she let herself spiral down, contemplating that horrible realization again and again: she could not remember what it was like to be free.
12
The Blackbeak Clan was the last to fully assemble at the Ferian Gap.
As a result, they got the smallest and farthest rooms in the warren of halls carved into the Omega, the last of the Ruhnn Mountains and the northernmost of the sister-peaks flanking the snow-blasted pass.
Across the gap was the Northern Fang, the final peak of the White Fangs, which was currently occupied by the king’s men—massive brutes who still didn’t know quite what to make of the witches who had stalked in from every direction.